"TARGETING" POLITICAL OPPONENTS

I have a good friend, Fred, who lives in Arizona. He called after the tragedy the other day, from his car on his way from his home there to L.A. (where he works as a Teamster), and mentioned as we were talking that a car just passed him with a bumper sticker that said "Guns, Guts, Glory"—a sticker he's seen many times in his home state.

He also informed me of something that I was hearing for the first time but have since read more about— though the mainstream media has mostly ignored it—that the Tea Party Republican opponent to Congresswoman Giffords, the victim of the attempted assassination, invited his supporters to "target" her on his web page and in the same ads and flyers in which he invited them to join him in an automatic weapons shooting party!

Here's an article based on his web site page (since removed) with the event ad below it as listed in the newspaper:

This is the atmosphere the tragedy took place in. No matter how you interpret the causes (I have already stated that many of the phrases used by the assassin in his confused Internet statements come directly from rightwing media sources, like his objections to our currency not being based on the gold standard etc.) you can't deny that including all this gun and targeting language (and symbols) in political ads and arguments along with contentions that your opponent is illegitimate (even though they were legally and democratically elected) creates an atmosphere where violence seems to be being promoted as a solution. 

[PS: Here's another typical statement the shooter left on the Internet "...read The United States of America's Constitution to apprehend all of the current treasonous laws." That's right out of Beck (and Rush and many Tea Partyers), as is the shooter's rants about how our currency should be based on gold etc. So it seems clear to me on the evidence that even if the assassin's philosophy comes from many sources, there is no doubt that one of those sources is the rightwing media.]