It has become so pervasive in all we read. There is a constant scapegoating of others when anything bad happens, or when a reporter covers something about which they have a conflicting opinion. It happens so often that some big names have become shorthand for the root of all of society's evils.

This is not a Republican or Democrat thing. Not a left or right, man or woman, Christian or Muslim habit. It permeates much of our modern communication. Especially when something is newsy.

It is no longer good enough to explain, for example, how glyphosate was recently found in wine and why you should care without underlining that it is "Monsanto's Glyphosate."

All left-leaning politicos MUST be on the dole from Soros when they attack someone on the right. Conversely, ANYONE who dares to suggest that global warming science is not settled, is certain to be labelled as "Koch-funded." Donald Trump is at fault when some of his fans behave inappropriately (apparently no one can trap Donald into doing anything ridicule-worthy). All police are bad when one officer shoots an unarmed teen. This list is endless.

And it is the blame game that is killing us. Rather than look at and consider the facts of a situation, we focus instead on who is as fault, preferring to find a scapegoat than look at the underlying problem with an eye toward a solution.

It is killing us because rather than spend our passion, purpose and intelligence on creating a better world around us, we point our effort toward holding someone, anyone, accountable. We hide behind the blame game so we don't have to admit that we don't know all the answers.

It is so easy to blame a person, grouping of people, conspiracy, government, or corporation when something goes wrong -- or when someone has a valid-sounding opinion that we don't want to agree with. Yet even when there is someone at fault, the practice of focusing on blame rather than on learning from the facts presented leads us back in time rather than into the future.