Compared to my childhood, America seems much meaner today.

Despite priding ourselves as a hospitable, kind people, too many are on edge, knives on the ready.

Instead of revering our elders, too often we run them over in the workplace and put them out to pasture. Children-on-parents, sibling-on-sibling, neighbor-on-neighbor, we have become an aggrieved, angry people, ever ready to think the worst of each other. Media is the prime culprit; FOX, CNN, CNBC and Facebook spin information 24/7 to spin us up against each other, pocketing billions from constructed-for-profit animus. Hate captures eyeballs; it sells.

The super-rich and corporations buy our politicians and policies to maintain their advantage, keeping us preoccupied at each other’s throats. Citizens unite! Our neighbors of the other political party are not the enemy. We share core values despite the fictions created by these dark forces.

The media, the rich and politicians in-on-the-scam are the enemies of what once made America great. It is past time to denounce and ignore those who spin up grievance. Denounce violence in all its forms. Work to find the common ground that absolutely exists and embrace it. Else, they win, and divided we fall.

C.A. Manthous

Niantic