Ignored Obscured Restored
The news out of Minneapolis is unavoidable — and deeply unsettling. Regardless of political leanings, it’s hard not to feel disappointment and anger at the way DHS misrepresented events and gaslit “we the people.” Even if one believes Alex Pretti was “interfering” with a legitimate ICE action, it is impossible to justify him being shot — ten times — and killed as a result.
Let’s hope ICE significantly scales back its operations in Minneapolis and other cities, or withdraws entirely. If that happens, it will be because the citizens of Minneapolis organized and stood up against what many see as lawless overreach. It would be a reminder that there is real power in peaceful protest — power exercised by people fighting for their values and the soul of their city.
Which brings me to today’s SotW: “People Have the Power” by Patti Smith.
In an interview with Lyndsanity.com, Smith recalled that her late husband, Fred “Sonic” Smith of the MC5, came up with the title and urged her to write the song. She was in her kitchen, peeling potatoes, when he walked in and said, “Tricia, people have the power… write it.”
She went on — “The idea is the song is like a dream of what could happen if the people took the power — that they could make significant change… create a massive anti-war/anti-nuclear movement, open their hearts to one another… Fred hoped it was a song that people could use all over the world for their concerns about injustice, human rights.”
She summarizes the call to action in her final verse:
The power to dream, to rule
to wrestle the world from fools
it’s decreed the people rule
it’s decreed the people rule
Listen
I believe everything we dream
can come to pass through our union
we can turn the world around
we can turn the earth’s revolution
we have the power
People have the power
That optimism has often been dismissed as naïve, something Smith herself has acknowledged. Yet she has consistently defended the song’s unapologetic hopefulness. As she once said in an interview with Rock and Roll Globe:
“I’m well aware of the overly positive aspects of ‘People Have the Power,’” Smith once commented.
“Call it naive. I don’t think being filled with hope and still having the desire and care and vision to dream is naive. The song is trying to give a little inspiration and hope in very troubled times.”
In moments like this, when public trust is eroded and violence is rationalized after the fact, “People Have the Power” doesn’t feel like a slogan so much as a reminder. Progress rarely begins with institutions correcting themselves. More often, it starts when citizens organize, speak out, and insist on something better.
Troubled times indeed — but also the very moments when that power matters most.
Enjoy… until next week.
I was a DJ at Boston College’s radio station, WZBC, when Patti Smith’s album Horses was released on November 8th, 1975. I remember seeing the record in the “new releases” bin and being immediately drawn to it. Who was the androgynous woman in the black & white photo on the cover, wearing suspenders, with her coat hanging defiantly over her shoulder? (Of course at the time I wouldn’t have recognized the name of her photographer, Robert Mapplethorpe, even if it had been pointed out to me.)
A few weeks later I was back home for Christmas break in Newburgh, NY and learned that Patti would be playing the Red Rail, a small club in Nanuet, NY. A few buddies and I made a white knuckled drive the 40 miles to Nanuet in a massive blizzard. My parents were pissed that I insisted on risking the drive through that terrible storm.