Alas, at the moment Canberra barely has a detectable political pulse. Meanwhile, though, little Kalamazoo (population 75,000) is one of the scores of US smallish cities presently pulsating with politics. There are anti-Trump political demonstrations galore going on all over the US in more than 300 cities. In Kalamazoo hundreds have just been chanting "Say it loud and say it clear, refugees are welcome here!"

Those of us who love a good demo and who for years have been largely demo-starved in Australia (and especially in politically comatose Canberra) can only look on in envy.

At a recent anti-Trump demonstration in the city of Cedar Falls, Iowa (population 40,000) there was a counter pro-Trump demonstration by the Cedar Valley Patriots for Christ.

Deep envy! If only we had a similarly dynamic Tuggeranong Valley Patriots for Christ movement (slogan "Make Tuggeranong Great Again!"). What colour and zing! they'd bring to our city's life.

Big political demonstrations are fine things in their own right (how they can quicken a city's pulse!) but sincere participation in them can give a special joy and excitement.

Those of you who have never taken part in them (and in Australia they have been scarce since the Vietnam War era) cannot know the bliss of the camaraderie of a great big family all throbbing with the same heartfelt purpose. It is a little bit like being part of a partisan sporting crowd (being a Canberra Raiders footie fan or a CBR Brave ice-hockey fanatic cheering your boys on) but is more earnest, more altruistic, in a sense more religious than that.

After all, vitally important as victory for the CBR Brave is, in the biggest and best political demonstrations you are trying to achieve something you believe is crucial for your society, your nation and even your planet.

To be clamouring against the Vietnam War was to be opposing Evil with a capital E and to be fighting the patriotic struggle (a struggle that continues today) to have our dear little nation be something better than a lickspittle servant of the warmongering USA. To be part of those teeming demonstrations was to have a transfiguring sense of purpose one seldom enjoys in everyday bubble-wrapped Canberra.

Have we (those of us who are liberal and leftish) had a big true Canberra political demonstration since March 2003 when Canberrans (and Australians everywhere) protested against John Howard's sickening lickspittle decision to have us join Bush's invasion of Iraq?

Canberra's last biggish political demonstrations (I went to some of them as a reporter and as a social anthropologist) were the poisonous August 2011 anti-carbon tax rallies outside Parliament House. Those demos were by and for swine, werewolves and gargoyles, but it is a long time since there was a big Canberra demonstration by decent, kindly, altruistic people.

Perhaps the inevitable visit to Canberra by the USA's narcissist-in-chief will be our next chance for marching, chanting, placard-waving action. This week we have seen discerning Britons demonstrating against Trump being accorded a state visit to the UK later this year. The demonstrators' honest faces were etched with concerned camaraderie, their bold home-made placards proclaiming sentiments like "Keep Calm And Stop Fascism. No To Trump."

As I pine for some Canberra demonstrations I remember how one of my great hopes of ACT self-government was that it would usher in lots of political ferment. But alas it hasn't happened. Canberrans are too comfortable, too bubble-wrapped by embourgeoisement to feel fierce political passions about ACT issues.

For a while there it looked as if the light rail issue had hot political promise. The letters pages of The Canberra Times hinted at rage and deep divisions. One dared to dream of huge demonstrations.

I dreamed of thousands of aggrieved Tuggeranongers, bitter about light rail's fabulous $707 million cost (I imagined Tuggeranong's rage being organised by groups with names like Tuggeranong Bean Counters for Jesus), marching, chanting, ("Show your rage. Make a fuss. Light rail is going to bankrupt us!") on the Assembly.

I dreamed of on the same day pumped-up light rail enthusiasts marching on the Assembly from the north. I dreamed of the two armies clashing in Civic Square, the statue of Ethos looking down wide-eyed on the melee. In my dream she of course barracked for the light railers (for light rail is the ethical way to go) but got a bipartisan kick out of watching the police's exciting use of water cannons and tear gas to disperse the mobs.

Then I woke up and was back in snoozing, complacent, apolitical Canberra where our idea of passionate political activism is to write a letter to The Canberra Times complaining that the government is not mowing the grass in Canberra parks.

*Use the magic of YouTube to enjoy the swing classic I Got A Gal In Kalamazoo with the Glenn Miller Orchestra and with the amazing Nicholas Brothers. Why can't they write songs like that about Canberra?