Everyone who has suggested violence, overtly or covertly, against anyone with differing political or religious views, helped contribute to the Arizona murders

 All the spin-doctors and hate mongers who stir people into a froth of misplaced rage and misinformation - inciters of talk radio, the far right, tea partiers, T.V. propagandists, and anyone who has taken advantage of American outrage and suggests, openly or covertly, violence against ANYONE - is guilty of creating this sad and sick milestone yesterday in Tucson, Arizona where innocent people died at the hands of an insane gunman.

Read about the assassination attempt of Representative Gabrielle Giffords HERE (be sure to scroll down and read it all)

A moderate third-term Democrat Congresswoman, Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, was liked and admired by her constituency.  She had just attempted to introduce a bill to cut congress and senate's pay by 5 %, and was having a meeting with her constituents to hear their concerns and wishes, as she had been doing regularly since Jan. 2007, when she took office. Because she supported the health care bill, her office was vandalized, the front door shattered; and someone showed up at a recent gathering with a weapon. She tried to be accessible to her constituency. She cared. She had been threatened repeatedly for caring about the disenfranchised and doing something about it.

Arizona's chief federal judge, Judge John Roll, is dead. He allowed a case to go go forward where illegal immigrants filed a civil rights case against a harrassing rancher. Judge Roll was respected and liked by all who knew him, and he was a champion for the people. Arizona feels his loss. He was repeatedly harassed with death threats to himself and his family, and had to go under protection after letting the case above go forward. Now his family grieves his senseless murder. Read an article about him here

The other 5 killed included Gifford's aide, an innocent 9 year old girl who was interested in government, and three senior citizens who had come to the meeting. Despicable, unforgivable, and heartbreaking. Today is a symbol for what America is in danger of becoming if we don't all check ourselves and turn away from polarization and spin: divided, violent, and deranged.

Rep. Giffords was on an interactive map on Sarah Palin's website of "targeted" senators and congresspeople to "take down," with rifle crosshair marks on each location of the people targeted, and a list of names and using slogans like "don't retreat, reload" and other such shooting and hunting terms. You can see a picture of that map here, and scroll down to watch a video from march, 2010 of Rep. Giffords talking about harrassment by right wing extremists of democrats who voted for the health care bill. She mentions Palin's map and the consequences of using imagery like crosshairs in a map targeting people.

Palin took the crosshairs off her site yesterday, but somehow I doubt her motives to remove the crosshairs were about anything other than saving her own butt from being sued, and not wanting to wreck her shot at the presidency in 2012. Scroll down this page to see Sarah in her living room with a grizzly bear couch throw, complete with roaring head, and a huge dead crab on her coffee table, here.

Hate groups have grown like noxious poison all throughout America. The Southern Poverty Law Center, dedicated to battling racial and social injustice, and domestic terrorism, reports that hate groups have grown by 54% since 2000, and that number is climbing more rapidly than ever before. Read THIS page and scroll down to learn more.

Keith Olbermann did a special "countdown," with a moving and impassioned plea, declaring that violence has no place in democracy and urging us all to take an oath to end our own parts in implying or suggesting it be used, EVER, to solve our political problems. watch HERE

The time has come for us to check ourselves and ask if, when, and how, we have incited hate and violence, and refute it now and vow to do it no more. Rumors, gossip, hearsay, and believing smear propagandists can't be trusted.  It's the responsibility of our leaders in every area of life - politics, religion, education, and media - to refute violence, and for we, the people, to hold them and ourselves, to it. Otherwise,the direction we've been slowly heading for the last 50 years is no different than the direction Nazi Germany took, and our country will go no longer be able to turn away from that same destiny.