But mostly U.S.A. is the speech of the people.

But mostly U.S.A. is the speech of the people. by: slick riddles April 02, 2006 at 21:16:30 AmericaThese are the words at the end of a two-page prolouge to John Dos Passos' great trilogy U.S.A. I'm drawn to these words this evening because I've been reading through Maryscott's traitors diary and the rebuttals and the spin-offs on diaries here.
Let me say that John's not talking about the great orators here. Not the Lincolns, the Wm. Jennings Bryans, the Eugene Debs or the Martin Luther King Jrs. That ain't the speech of the people. And he's not talking about advertisers or PR speech or newscasters or spinmeisters or political consultants or any of that crowd. He's talking about the speech of the PEOPLE. That's what U.S.A. mostly is.
The speech that informs, entertains, warns, uplifts and inspires all of us all the time. It's speech that isn't afraid to call bullshit on a liar and at the same time will contribute to some outlandish tall-tale. Speech that jokes, speech that rants, speech that outrages when outrage is called for. Yes, yes the fucking speech of the people. It's goddamn music to my ears, and it's what I come to the blogs for.
But some of the blogs are no fucking good for that anymore. Not the speech of the people, they've become the speech of climbers on the rungs of power, calculated, focus-grouped, antisceptic, dried out ol' rhetoric that couldn't move a second hand around a clockface.
Then there's other blogs where you can find the most resonant speech of the people. Outraged, clear, funny, invigorating speech that rings like a motherfuckin' fire bell across these spaces. And if someone wants to call that no-account all-hat cowboy in the Whitehouse a traitor I'm with them on that. Because even if your definition of treason hasn't been met yet there's a doctrine of preemption, isn't there?
The speech of the people will not be contained. This is U.S.A. damnit! The first thing the first Congress did was pass an ammendment that said we could say whatever we needed to. U.S.A. is a lot of things (and you should read it if you haven't) but mostly it is the speech of the people