The response was stunning. There is no other way for me to describe it.
After asking why Rep. Elise Stefanik voted against more military aid for Ukraine on Monday, a reader responded, "Because most of America is tired of funding Ukraine when our own country is under invasion." She went on to write, "Her (Stefanik's) constituents don’t want Ukraine to be funded anymore."
Women and children are dying in Ukraine at the hands of Russian missiles, drones and tanks. Women and children are dying at the southern border from exposure and drowning in rivers while trying to find a new life in America. Our freedoms, our history of welcoming immigrants to our country is still the ideal around the world. The two cannot be compared.
There are too many Americans who make those false equivalents. They cannot imagine living in a world where death rains from the sky, where there is little to eat and day-to-day living is about surviving. We are a rich nation. We are a spoiled people.
Stop for a second the next time you visit the supermarket. Consider the variety of food at your disposal and even with the higher prices few of us go hungry. More often than not it is the opposite. Look around your neighborhood and consider the quiet. Consider the safe confines you enjoy, the freedoms that are guaranteed. And the reality is that very few of us could ever imagine this idyllic life will ever be threatened to the extent we see in places like Ukraine or Gaza.
So I went and saw the new movie Civil War at the mall Monday. It's the number one box office draw in the nation right now, but I was the only one there for a Monday matinee. It's a war movie. It follows a group of journalists making their way around the countryside from New York City to Washington, D.C. while trying to make sense of the violence, the atrocities and the random killing.
But here's the gimmick, here is what makes this war movie different. It's taking place in the United States. It's the second Civil War sometime in our near future. There is no back story. We are not told how it started. We are not told why the Western Forces (Texas and California) have seceded from the Union and joined by Florida. We are not sure who the good guys are and who the bad guys are. There is no talk of politics.
There is one scene where the photojournalists are pinned down by a sniper along with two soldiers. "What is going on?" one of the journalists asks. "Someone in that house... they're stuck," one of the soldiers responds. "We're stuck." "Who do you think they are?" "No idea," the soldier responds indicating he doesn't care. "Who is giving you orders," the journalists asks. "Nobody is giving us orders, man. Someone is trying to kill us and we are trying to kill them."
It's kind of the essence of all wars.
Often, they are not about anything more than one side is trying to kill the other.
The movie ends with a siege of Washington, D.C. by one of the armies. Seeing our national monuments as the backdrop for a destructive battle is sobering, yet still seemingly impossible. Then you remember the events of January 6. Then, it all becomes possible again.
Real again.
Just one side trying to kill another.
And you can't help wonder if that is indeed our future.
Stefanik mum on Ukraine
Rep. Elise Stefanik has still not addressed why she voted against Ukraine aid by Tuesday afternoon. The same day she voted against Ukraine aid, she voted for aid to Taiwan and Israel.
The Adirondack Daily Enterprise reached out to Stefanik and wrote this: "Asked why she voted against the aid to Ukraine over the weekend, Stefanik did not respond for comment by deadline Monday. Stefanik had not issued any official statement on her vote against the Ukraine aid by deadline Monday."
But her social media was filled with statements about support for Israel and college protests at Columbia, but nothing about the war in Ukraine.