Surprise! It's An Empire!

The House passed a resolution last week condeming Iran's (fictitious) attempts to create nuclear weapons. Two Representatives voted against it: Dennis Kucinich and Ron Paul.

Arthur Silber takes the opportunity to remind us that the U.S. is, in fact, an Empire:

And that, as they say, is the ball game. In this manner, the Democratic House concedes, sanctifies, and gives its nearly unanimous support to the major propaganda point of the Bush-Cheney-Israel drive to war with Iran.

Thank God the Democrats took back Congress. That's all I can say. Otherwise, who knows what might have happened! Why, we might be on our way to a nuclear world war!

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Kucinich does make one serious mistake in his comments, when he says, "The United States House may unwittingly be setting the stage for a war with Iran." C'mon, Dennis. The United States has a long history of aggressive war -- the Spanish-American War and the Philippines occupation, Vietnam, numerous covert operations all over the world (including endless such operations in the Middle East ever since World War II), the Clinton interventions of the 1990s -- on top of which, every leading national politician, including Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, agitates endlessly for confrontation with Iran. There is nothing remotely "unwitting" about any of this. Endless wars and unceasing slaughter didn't just "happen" while we were minding our business elsewhere. We believe we are entitled to world hegemony. It is our destiny to rule the world. We will have our way. "Unwitting"? Please.

[...]

Of course, if the Democrats actually disagreed, there are a number of actions they could take. But they do not disagree, so they won't take those actions. In the same way, there are a number of actions leading liberal and progressive bloggers could take in an effort to get Democrats to at least try to prevent Armageddon. But they have done next to nothing, other than endlessly blather about how awful it would all be (with nary a mention of the invaluable aid to the Bush-Cheney-Israel war program now provided by the Democrats themselves), and there is no indication they ever will. So I say again that, if the worst should happen, I don't want to hear a single goddamned word from any of these people.

In case anyone ever asks you why you don't vote Democrat if you hate Bush so much, link 'em here and tell 'em why.