Streets of Minneapolis: Sing it Loud!
Thank you, Bruce Springsteen. Protests need an anthem, and just in time, you recorded Streets of Minneapolis, the number one song in 19 countries this weekend. That’s powerful. Listen for yourself on YouTube.
Here are the lyrics. Singing is non-violent and unifying; Sing it LOUD. If you can’t remember all the words, memorize the chorus 😊.
Streets of Minneapolis
Through the winter’s ice and cold
Down Nicollet Avenue
A city aflame fought fire and ice
‘Neath an occupier’s boots
King Trump’s private army from the DHS
Guns belted to their coats
Came to Minneapolis to enforce the law
Or so this story goes
Against smoke and rubber bullets
In the dawn’s early light
Citizens stood for justice
Their voices ringing through the night
And there were bloody footprints
Where mercy should have stood
And two dead, left to die on snow-filled streets
Alex Pretti and Renee Good
(chorus)
Oh, our Minneapolis, I hear your voice
Singing through the bloody mist
We’ll take our stand for this land
And the stranger in our midst
Here in our home they killed and roamed
In the winter of ’26
We’ll remember the names of those who died
On the streets of Minneapolis
Trump’s federal thugs beat up on
His face and his chest
Then we heard the gunshots
And Alex Pretti lay in the snow, dead
Their claim was self defense, sir
Just don’t believe your eyes
It’s our blood and bones
And these whistles and phones
Against Miller and Noem’s dirty lies
Oh, our Minneapolis, I hear your voice
Crying through the bloody mist
We’ll remember the names of those who died
On the streets of Minneapolis
Now they say they’re here to uphold the law
But they trample on our rights
If your skin is black or brown, my friend
You can be questioned or deported on sight
In our chants of “ICE out now”
Our city’s heart and soul persists
Through broken glass and bloody tears
On the streets of Minneapolis
Oh, our Minneapolis, I hear your voice
Singing through the bloody mist
Here in our home they killed and roamed
In the winter of ’26
We’ll take our stand for this land
And the stranger in our midst
We’ll remember the names of those who died
On the streets of Minneapolis
We’ll remember the names of those who died
On the streets of Minneapolis
source: https://www.lyricsondemand.com/bruce_springsteen/streets_of_minneapolis
Thank YOU Bruce Springsteen!
Sunset on the Coldest Night of the Year
What you can’t see is the wind blowing, and the white caps on the bayou. We had to re-cover and re-clothespin the roses and plumbago, and the ice on our water tubs was an inch thick. No problems with the running water freezing – so far. We have some cold days yet to come, but this is likely to be the coldest day of the year.
We saw One Battle After Another yesterday at the theater downtown that shows art films, foreign films and award nominees. The tickets are $10, the venue is provided free and the guy that runs the show does it for the love of film. Not only do we watch the films, but there are also great discussions.
Friends told me I probably wouldn’t like the movie, but I loved it. Going to Uni on the West Coast, I felt like I knew those people, on both sides. And dark as it was, it held a mirror up to current themes. I love actors who choose challenging roles, and even roles in which they play people who make bad decisions, or aren’t the brightest bulb in the chandelier. Leonardo diCaprio had his work cut out for him in this role, and I think he nailed it. Yes, it is wacky and violent. We are living in wacky and violent times. Who would have thought we would elect a liar, cheat, and felon to be President of the United States, and that we would stand by, helpless, as he gutted our Constitution? Wacko. It’s all wacko.
Today is a Full Moon, a new month and God willing, a time to turn things around. Bruce Springsteen has the number one song in 19 countries, with The Streets of Minneapolis, a roaring anthem fit for the times, and Minneapolis has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize for their activism and self-restraing in the face of the goons of ICE.
Atlantic Monthly has a new article on how the Proud Boys aren’t coming in the counter the hundreds of demonstrators; that the Homeland Security and ICE squads are doing a fine job – and they have photos to show how an organization theoretically doing customs enforcement now looks just like the Proud Boys. When did Customs Enforcement dress like troops going into villages in Afghanistan? What legitimate law enforcement officers wear masks? Who in their right minds arrests little children?:
Proud Boys in Washington, DC
ICE agents in Minneapolis
Law Enforcement officers, in civilized countries with laws protecting the innocent (and who are innocent until the system determines them guilty), are TRAINED to operate with restraint. Trained personnel do not fire on civilian bystanders.
I’ve watched the Minneapolis tapes, especially the one filmed by officer Jonathan Ross. I listened to him as, just after the shooting, he said “F@#king B!tch” and I don’t think he was even thinking about Good; I think he was angry that Good’s wife had called him “Big Boy” and told him to go get a sandwich. Most of the guys we see in those uniforms are hefty, and slow, and clumsy. And they do not respond to mockery with self-restraint – as we have seen. They need training. And it wouldn’t hurt if they had grown-up leadership. The kinds of vague, unconstitutional and inciting instructions they have received seem designed to be incendiary.
Orwellian Insurrection Talk v. Free Elections
I am haunted by memories of our Janus-like leader telling people while running for the office of President that if we voted for him, we would never have to vote again. What could he have meant by that? Aren’t elections part of what we value as a Democracy?
I am troubled by a leader who insists that what we saw with our own eyes on January 6th, that the thugs beating policemen, breaking and entering the Congress, chasing down Mike Pence with a noose was NOT an insurrection, not at all what he was going for when he told followers to “Fight Like Hell!” or we would have no Democracy. This leader who said he would be with them, and scurried back to the white house to watch events unfold on his Presidential television. He didn’t call off these hooligans and goons until HOURS after the violence began.
He PARDONED these thugs who invaded the Congress. He now calls it a “Day of Love.” Like we can’t see with our own eyes?
Just in time for Black History Month, he continues to dismantle exhibitions exploring the relationship between the enslaved and the enslavers. If it makes white people uncomfortable, isn’t that appropriate? Is slavery something we want to return to? And who, exactly do we enslave. Like are camera bearing Democrats candidates for the new underclass?
Armed with Whistles and Phone Cameras
J.D. Vance tells us to “lower the temperature” and help the ICE forces. J.D. Vance, you are talking to Minnesotans! You are talking to the descendants of Norwegians, the very nationality our orange leader wants to come to the USA! You are talking to people who have peacefully incorporated people from many nations, welcomed them! YOU created a spurious policy, based on a poorly made video by a social influencer. Yes, there was a child care scandal, and the people charged were not Somali but US citizens! YOU are creating the rise is heated emotions, and those you are shooting are armed with whistles and phone cameras!
Who has a history of creating violent insurrections? Who has sent unwelcome storm troopers into Minnesota? Who is poking Minnesota officials? Who is creating the problem and like every school boy bully, blaming the victim – “You started it!”
Go HOME, ICE. You are not welcome, you are not needed. You are invading the homes of US CITIZENS without a warrant, and laughing! You are shouting “Boo HOO!” to witnesses when you shoot a non-violent demonstrator 10 times! 10 Times! If that isn’t excessive force, what is?
I applaud the citizens of Minneapolis who are standing against this villainy and this bullying. I applaud their self-restraint and their persistence. I applaud Portland, Oregon for utilizing the legal system to lower the temperature and resist the pressure to give the radical bullying thugs any opportunity to raise the stakes.
Self restraint and Persistence while we activate the legal system is our only hope if we want to continue to have free and safe elections, and I believe that is what this is all really about.
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