It doesn't need encouragement to murder people. Many people are only glad to do it, a mere suggestion is all it takes. Sarah Palin, the former Governor of Alaska who quit when it looked like she might be under investigation,  and has been murdering helpless animals purposely herded in her direction and shot to death by Sarah herself on a tacky television show while she waits to run for president, will tell you that she didn't mean anything by it when she announced that politicians who disagree with her are her enemies, and ordered that gun sights be printed over their faces in her campaign literature.

One of those painted gun sights had Gabrielle Giffords' head behind it, the Congresswoman who was shot in the head yesterday. But that is only a coincidence. right? Just as it is only a coincidence that Giffords' political rival in the November election ran campaign ads where he stood in complete military dress and offered voters to come down to the firing range nearby where he would teach them to shoot an M-16 rifle.

Even the Sheriff of Pima County in Arizona where Gifford and many others were shot yesterday had this to say: "When you look at unbalanced people and how they respond to the vitriol that comes from certain mouths, that comes out about destroying the government. The anger, the hatred,the bigotry that goes on . . . and unfortunately I think Arizona has become the capital. We have become the mecca of hatred and bigotry." 

It was quite a demonstration of truth-telling and courage from Sheriff Clarance Dupnik. I am sure he will be fired for telling this truth once all the commotion dies down. Truth is an endangered species in America today, regarded on the same level as child pornography.

Part of this unbridled hate and attempt to mislead the nation is coming from the republican agenda, their attacks on illegal immigration where they would deny citizenship even to people born here. And the anti-health care attacks, where the republicans have tried to convince America that the government is an evil force trying to take over their lives. And the anti-Obama propaganda where the tanned man who speaks for the House won't even agree to tell his colleagues to stop saying Obama wasn't born in America when it is very clear that he was. It is a fact that he was. This is the anti-constitution crowd, the one that has been receiving so much attention from the news media, the Tea Party nuts. Watching the news for the last several months you would get the impression that they represent "average" Americans.

But no, average Americans are more complicated than that. Their beliefs can't be put into a neatly packaged box labeled "hate" and sold along with Viagra on the evening news. Real Americans are not typical or average. The U.S. population consists of extremely diversified groups of all colors, nationalities, beliefs, sexual orientation, etc. It is a myth to believe otherwise. These republicans represent a very small minority of Americans, most of them beyond watching the news or caring about issues, just wanting to save some taxes. Then there is the republican fringe, or as republican leaders like to refer to them their "base." And liberally sprinkled in with their base are the nuts. This is not a secret. All of us who have covered politics over the years know this.

These are republicans who really believe the world will end in 2012, or perhaps "the rapture" will begin. They believe that women should have no rights over their bodies, that somehow old men in thier 70s or 80s should make reproduction decisions for women. They believe their states should make all the laws and the federal government should be ignored, that it shouldn't even exist. Among them are the bullies you knew in school who went on to beat their wives but just want you to know how sacred is the life of an unborn fetus, and how terrible those awful gays and lesbians are. There ought to be a way to "fix" them, shouldn't there?

Then we've got the just-say-no (to everyone but the people who are giving us money) republicans for whom the suffering masses don't even exist. They don't care about people who are not wealthy and powerful enough to help them get even more money and power. You can place many democrats in this same category on this particular matter. We have the crazed "Shadow Bankers" on Wall Street who want to sell you some mortgage on a sub-prime haunted house which exists only inside their heads but has a AAA bond rating.

And casinos galore. On Wall Street, in the desert, on the pier in Atlantic City, chugging up and down the Mississippi, in New England towns run by indigenous Americans - and all of these casinos fixed in favor of the House. But we keep going back.

Some believe  America as it was known in better days is gone forever. But they are over the grief of losing it, and far enough from it to see just how unfair and immoral it was. It seems crucial that Americans make up their minds to move forward. Maybe that is the message to all of us - Keep moving forward; get on with your life. It is just too short.

Yesterday, U.S. Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords was gravely wounded, and their loved ones and the nation lost the following citizens:

Dorthy Morris

Phylis Schneck

Christina-Taylor Green 9-years old

Dorwin Stoddard, pastor

John M. Roll, Arizona's chief federal judge

Gabrial Zimmerman, director of community outreach for Gifford

More than a dozen others were injured, some seriously. 

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• « Universities using Endowment Funds to Gamble in "Shadow Banking" System
• A Child of Misfortunes - Part Five Letters Six and Seven »

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