Perhaps Walt Whitman sums today up best:
If I should need to name, O Western World, your powerfulest scene and show,
‘Twould not be you, Niagara – nor you, ye limitless prairies – nor your huge rifts of canyons, Colorado,
Nor you, Yosemite – nor Yellowstone, with all its spasmic geyserloops ascending to the skies, appearing and disappearing,
Nor Oregon’s white cones – nor Huron’s belt of mighty lakes – nor Mississippi’s stream:
This seething hemisphere’s humanity, as now, I’d name – the still small voice vibrating -America’s choosing day…
(Borrowed from Dailykos.)
….
When I, the People, learn to remember, when I, the People, use the lessons of yesterday and no longer forget who robbed me last year, who played me for a fool–then there will be no speaker in all the world say the name: “The People,” with any fleck of a sneer in his voice or any far-off smile of derision.
The mob–the crowd–the mass–will arrive then.
Carl Sandburg, “I am the Peolple, the Mob”
I AM the people–the mob–the crowd–the mass.
Do you know that all the great work of the world is done through me?
….
When I, the People, learn to remember, when I, the People, use the lessons of yesterday and no longer Forget who robbed me last year, who played me for a fool–then there will be no speaker in all the world say the name: “The People,” with any fleck of a sneer in his voice or any far-off smile of derision.
The mob–the crowd–the mass–will arrive then.
Carl Sandburg, “I am the People, the Mob”