G-d Bless you Gabrielle Giffords

By the time I was born in 1983 my grandfather had survived a congressional campaign in south Florida and held posts in both the JFK and Bobby Kennedy campaigns. In the 1960's He raised money for Freedom Rides and continued to identify as the child of socialist Russians, even when Joe McCarthy was at the height of his rampage. Today he's finally retired in Harry Reid's district; personally I thought that this was grandpas last political triumph- he would boast and love for years- and nothing could beat the health care reform in importance or prestige; but now it's more: eradication of subversive citizens!

As a child I made the rounds with Grandpa. He would take me to the Jewish Federation in Hollywood, to the Veteran’s Hospitals, to different flag raising ceremonies on many different national holidays- I was his pet. I admit it. I was chosen. SO! I could have been the 9 year-old little girl; the elected elementary school official- proudly wearing her school regalia and excited to learn about the processes of government.

Only recently have Grandpa and I discussed how much evil exists in the USA; we have always talked about ‘crazies’ like Ted Bundy (* especially before going off for my first year to FSU); Timothy McVeigh… seeing lifeless American babies being pulled from rubble at twelve years old left a huge but terrified impression on me; Osama Bin Laden has been in our dialogue since my freshman year in college- we will never forget when I was told to rip up my first Macroeconomics scantron, and to leave the auditorium in Diffenbaugh- that there was a national catastrophe.

Part of my childhood was an indoctrination of World War II and Holocaust (Shoah) images- did I expect liberal and accepting Murray to say that Sarah Palin is no better than Hitler, in 2007? Never. The use of labels to invoke the nearly wiping out of eastern European Jewry...they are very Glen Beck’ian- not Goldsteinesque. But are they? Is this not the same provoking of society with threats of violence and job loss? Is it not the same to identify an entire ethnic group as terrorists and shun the building of a religious establishment blocks from ground zero…why are these people the ones to set the standards for America? Rush Limbaugh has used Oxycontin. I would not trust him with keys to my apartment.

It’s taken me two days to put my thoughts in order, and to stop the urge to cry: I am Christina. A week ago my grandfather had no clue what I was talking about, “the first online war”: Wikileaks. To think only days ago that the world was on an international witch-hunt for Julian Assange; where are these pitchforks and why aren’t they in Alaska chasing Sarah Palin? Her obscurity. Her references are much more…they’re the Heinrich Himmler’s to WHO? I would hope that prisoner of war John McCain has renounced and disassociated, completely.

Those that give airtime or print (publishing) exposure to those that urge one group of people to attack another should be taken out of the mainstream media. Since the White House determined Fox deserved Helen Thomas’s seat in their press corps, Fox News should be under the same scrutiny that CNN is; if Anderson Cooper said any of the spin Beck spews his ratings and sponsors would pull from under him. Good thing Anderson Cooper shuns.