"Cool it!"

So yesterdays 'big vid' was an iPhone one of a "mob" in a Staten Island supermarket angrily driving a non-mask wearing woman from the store. It, within mere hours of being posted, had some 6 million views.

I myself found it interesting to see the media equally (it is worth noting) on the left and right, blaming the 'other side', while, again equally, saying such anger was 'understandable.'

Is it?

If so that is not because the actual 'crime' of going unmasked is of such gravity, or that the actual danger this non-mask wearer was bringing into an otherwise "safe" environment was so.

No, what the video actually was displaying is the level of fear, anger and angst being brought into more and more communities. Fear, anger and angst strong enough to make otherwise normal, peaceful, citizens turn into a profane screaming mob. -A mob going after a hapless woman, to drive her from their midst.

Is there a lesson here? Should there be?

I think so, yes. It is for us to, in the common vernacular, "cool it."

And for no one is that message so important as for those of us who like to post about these things. -Be they informal posts here on Facebook, or tweets, or the more formal posts that some of us make in the form of webzine articles and blog entries.

Yet it seems few -- and again, this seems equally true on the political left and the political right -- liberals, progressives, conservatives, Trump haters, Trump lovers -- no one seems willing to stifle their apparent need to increase the level of fear and rile up additional anger.

It is easy to blame he politicians for this -- and yes, they certainly bare some of the blame. But from what I observe they are as much answering the call as making it themselves. (That is what politicians do -- they reflect the people's own passions and fears. -That is quite often the secret of their supposed 'success.')

So no, the blame cannot and should not be placed on politicians exclusively.

There's an old meme that says that when we point a finger at someone the other three are pointing right back at us. And here that is certainly true. For you cannot fight division by calling for yet more division. You cannot quiet anger by further raising it.

I have earlier posted in one of these personal 'my thoughts of the day' posts that my writings are no longer welcome at publications that used to gladly receive them. That at first, as the concerns I am raising here about us not being fear mongers and dividers became a theme, this caused my submissions to be subtly edited. Then such were rejected entirely on the supposed grounds that the publication just had 'too many article on this subject.' And then, finally (just last night) my being frankly told that my pieces on this subject -- my calls for mutual understanding and the importance of quelling the growing anger -- no longer matched the site's "theme and purpose."

Our nation has seen such division before. Back in the 1850s a then presidential candidate had warned the nation that "a house divided against itself cannot stand."

Interestingly those words themselves were taken by some to be an intended prophecy. The crowds hearing them saw such as a call for further division -- a call for war. And indeed that is just what history tells us happened. The most bloody war, still, in the history of our nation.

Is that where we are heading again today?

Some think so, yes. That while others firmly say "no." But so far at least few seem willing to even try to quench the growing fear, anxiety and anger. And fewer still seem willing or able to quell their own anger and divisiveness.

You and I, friends, do not individually have the power to change the course of human events. But we can choose to add to these passions -- or, if we think it wiser and better, to instead help quiet and subdue them.

I do not personally share in either this anger or in this pessimism. But *whatever* comes I have determined that I will not add to the growing angst. I will no be its multiplier. -That my words will stand for principle with firmness, but that I will at the same time, to the extent my understanding and ability allow, be a voice for concord and peace. And I here implore others to scrutinize themselves and to make that same choice and determination.

Things are hard enough already. We do not need yet more anger, fear or angst. Not in our homes, not in our lives, not in our supermarkets and no, not in our nation



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