Read the beginning of "The American People" from First Laugh: Essays, 2000-2009 by Margaret Randall:

"The congressman stands on the Senate steps. He adjusts this season’s fashionable pink tie and the little electronic receiver continually threatening to slip from his ear, and faces the camera head-on. Which has him facing us. The reporter makes short shrift of the usual pleasantries: “Thank you, Congressman, for being willing to talk to us tonight.” The congressman smiles and says it’s his pleasure. I know what’s coming next. Whatever the issue, whatever the question about it, and regardless of whether the spokesperson is a Democrat, a Republican, or an Independent, within the next thirty seconds he or she will use the catch-all phrase, “The American People.” I can bet my future on it.

This is supposed to mean me.

The term “American People” is presumed to be one with which I can identify. I was born here, I’m a citizen,¹ and although I prefer “U.S. American” to “American”—Mexicans, Canadians, Bolivians, and Chileans, indeed all the peoples of these continents claimed by Amerigo Vespucci, claim equal right to the name American—when I hear the reference these days I have trouble subscribing. And I do hear the reference all the time: at least thirty and counting in last night’s newscast alone.

“The American People want . . . feel . . . need . . . are upset with . . . won’t stand for . . .” One can finish these pronouncements in any number of ways but the claim still runs roughshod over our sensibilities. “It’s the American People’s money.” That’s even more ludicrous. I can’t remember anyone asking me if I wanted my tax dollars to go to the war in Iraq, used to bail out a crooked bank, or line the pockets of those who participated in one of the many pyramid schemes currently robbing this country’s workers of their homes, jobs, pension plans, and health care. When I am told that we, the American People, now own 80 percent of aig, the insurance giant deemed “too large to fail,” I would find it funny if it weren’t so infuriating. Sure, my dollars and those of millions of others are being used for these bailouts, but no one asked if I agree with the forced investment.

No one ever asked me what I think of the company’s devious schemes, “creative” accounting, ongoing theft, layoffs of thousands, and hefty rewards to a few. In the case of aig I have even heard the idea—could it really be intended as reassuring?—that since the American People now own 80 percent of the company, we should be able to get it to rectify its ways. Perhaps this is some new sort of joke. The more than half-million citizens losing their jobs each month aren’t laughing.

Neither am I."

To read a longer excerpt or to purchase First Laugh, visit http://www.nebraskapress.unl.edu/product/First-Laugh,674747.aspx.

¹ Please refer to the print edition for this note.