There is an awful lot of name-calling going on across the country these days. Most of it seems to be thrown from the left at the right.
It's very reminiscent of occasional recess altercations on an elementary school playground I can recall. There, juvenile cowards who were afraid of an actual physical fight resorted to verbal squabbles that deteriorated into name-calling that escalated from "You're stupid" to "Well, you're ugly." And even worse.
The poor, patient teacher who drew playground-monitor duty that day would get involved when she saw a small crowd gathered nowhere near the swings.
"Elizabeth, did you call Annie a poop-face?"
"Well, she called me ugly first!"
"Girls, Girls. It doesn't matter. I want each of you to apologize to the other right now."
The difference today is that the scene is not a playground. It's a modern society that benefits from and is often afflicted by instant communications and a media eager to find and spread apocalyptic possibilities in any conflict, even distorting it to attract more readers and viewers.
And, of course, the participants are adults, at least in terms of age. Their insults get launched into a hot, humid social atmosphere overheated by tragic events like the murder of Charlie Kirk.
And, of course, the political environment is preheated by the ongoing scourge of Trump Derangement Syndrome that seems to have sapped rational thinking from the minds of far too many people.
And we don't have public playground monitors anymore.
I've only been writing online 18 years. But much of this widespread verbal conflict smells of trolling. People are deliberately trying to provoke the other side for unclear reasons.
This raises valid suspicions that, as in the recent LA street violence and before that the campus disturbances over Israel and events abroad, these domestic provocateurs are more motivated by being paid to create trouble than by anything resembling sincere conviction.
One of the more serious names being hurled about is "Nazi."
"You're a Nazi!"
"I am not. You're a Nazi!"
If these name-hurlers and their eager media scribes had any knowledge of history about what a real Nazi is and did, they would be laughed off the TV news. Or would never get on in the first place.
That's what this week's short audio commentary is about, which you can hear right here:
O.K., I admit I was steamed writing this week's Sunday column. For more than six decades now, I have been involved in covering news, going back to Vietnam War days and violent Vietnam War protest days.
There have been so many assassinations — Kennedy, King, Kennedy. And attempted assassinations — Ford twice, Lennon, Reagan, Trump twice. And school shootings, nightclub shootings, campus shootings, sniper shootings, and more.
Every one of these incidents understandably prompts shock and anguish and angry recriminations in the aftermath. America is a violent society. Too many guns. Not enough security. And stabbings.
Most of them had some kind of advance warning, intimations, hints. Even just a wee bit of common sense could have provided a forewarning. The Charlotte man accused of wielding a knife in a deadly assault had 14 previous arrests, many for violent crimes. He told the judge someone had taken control of his body and made him do things.
Uh-huh. Yet that judge freed him without any bail. And now an innocent young woman on a rapid transit train paid the ultimate price.
All because our society stubbornly refuses to address the real cause of such deadly random violence. That's what I wanted to get at in the column, the real cause.
The most recent audio commentary applauds Tulsi Gabbard's first real step to levy some justice on former intelligence officials infected with Trump Derangement Syndrome. They were part of the conspiracy to undermine Donald Trump, a legitimately elected president.
