The Dream of the Proud. It’s the belief in American exceptionalism, it’s the conviction that America possesses inherent moral superiority, it’s the assurance that we are a special nation blessed by God and are thus above reproach. The Dream of the Proud has been expressed in many ways and has had many names. It’s been called Manifest Destiny, it’s been called the American Way, it’s been called the Project for the New American Century.
The Dream of the Proud is a deadly and dangerous Dream. It’s generated American aggression for more than two centuries. It triggered America’s invasion of Canada in 1813, it triggered America’s attack on Mexico in 1845, it triggered America’s genocidal conquest of Naïve Americans, it triggered our seizure of Cuba and the Philippines from Spain in 1898, it triggered murderous American alliances with tyrants whose names are synonymous with evil-Batista, Somoza, Suharto, Pinochet, Marcos, the Shah of Iran.
The Dream of the Proud has inflicted misery and suffering on the poor and the powerless from Nicaragua to Najaf, but most Americans still haven’t awakened from that depraved Dream. John McCain sure as hell hasn’t, neither have most Republicans.
The Dream of the Proud is deadlier and more dangerous than ever, it’s been incorporated and privatized, marketed and militarized, it pervades American society and culture, it’s the foundation of foreign and domestic policy in Washington, so we’re trapped in it. The Dream of the Proud has yet to end, it may never end, it’s manifested in NAFTA, in CAFTA, in SOFA. It’s pervasive in the programming of NBC, CBS, and ABC, it’s the soma of the corporate oligarchy’s Brave New World, Americans cannot escape from it, our politics is immersed in it, our politicians live and breathe it.
For decades, too many Americans have turned away from reality, they won’t listen to the pleas for justice of the Third World victims our corporations exploit, most Americans still believe we are morally superior to other nations, despite the brazen conquest of Iraq by war criminals who are still in power five years later, despite the damning evidence of Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo, despite the systematic ethnic cleansing of New Orleans, despite a nationwide orgy of crime and corruption throughout our political, economic, and defense establishments unsurpassed in depravity since the days of Nero and Caligula.