People Who Need ‘People’

I open my new Jaywalking with a little meditation on the people. I mean, “the people” as a phrase, in the mouths of politicians. I even play a little music -- the opening of Frederic Rzewski’s variations on “The People United Will Never Be Defeated!” (Rzewski is a dyed-in-the-wool leftist, but, I must tell you, he is also a good composer.) A while back, when I wrote about “the people” -- the exploitation of that phrase and concept by demagogues and power-graspers -- I heard from a philosopher friend of mine, who quoted Francis Lieber. This is the German refugee who
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