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Paul Elisha: I, the people

A strange and disturbing anomaly: How such self-anointed and selfishly directed, sectarian extortionists, like Grover Norquist and Ralph Reed can assert that they are appropriate spokespersons for the aspirations of any legitimate group of American citizens?  Any proud and proven representative of today’s news media, who still retains a shred of professional self-respect, should reject this notion.  The profit-pointed interest of these adventurers’ involvements should serve to stress their up-to-no-good intentions, to the most disinterested observers of Public Interest activity.

The poet and intrepid Abraham Lincoln biographer, Carl Sandburg, understood the psyche and the mettle of the American Public, perhaps better than most of its recognized analysts.  On February 12th, 1959, in an address to a Joint Session of the U.S. Congress, he read this, from his poetry:  “I am The People---The Mob---The Crowd---The Mass…. All the great work of the world is done through me.  When I, The People use the lessons of yesterday and no longer forget who robbed me--- and played me for a fool--- there will be no speaker in all the world say the name: ‘The People,’ with any fleck of a sneer or smile of  derision.”

So let the charlatans, the Norquists and Reeds of this world… and the still unconvinced reporters be warned.  As Carl Sandburg so eloquently put it:  “The People will live on.  The learning and blundering People will live on.  They will be tricked and sold and again sold and go back to the nourishing earth for rootholds, The People so peculiar in renewal and comeback…”

This commentator still believes in them…  believes that they will come back… if enough of those now listening also believe, enough to add their voices to the plea for their return.

The views expressed by commentators are solely those of the authors. They do not reflect the views of this station or its management.