Streets of Minneapolis

This past Saturday, I returned home from services -- as a mourner I go every day now to say kaddish -- to relax, check my phone, and so forth. Lori wasn't feeling well and was sleeping, so I went to another room. The first thing I saw on my phone was a post from a friend who doesn't post very much, quoting the famous Martin Niemöller poem, along with a video appearing to show an ICE encounter. My friend is in Philadelphia. I wondered, "is something going on in Philly?" But then I saw the word "Nicollet" in the background of the video and realized he hadn't shot the video, it was from Minneapolis. As I watched a little more carefully, I realized I was watching a murder.

I turned on the TV. For the next several hours, more numb than I could have foreseen, I watched as the news came in, More videos. Totally predictable preposterous statements from DHS head Greg Bovino and later DHS head Kristy Noem defending the actions of their agents, and labeling the victim as a "domestic terrorist," as if I hadn't seen what I had been watching. A written statement from Stephen Miller labeling the victim as an "assassin." Then, the identification of the victim - a 37-year old ICU nurse at the VA Hospital in Minneapolis. That part struck a nerve; my oldest child is an RN at a large hospital. I watched, and I watched, and I watched, I don't even know why. Despite everything going on in this country recently, even including the killing of Renee Good barely two weeks prior, I wasn't really prepared for a straight-forward execution on my screens. How can this be happening?

I made the mistake of reading X, the Elon Musk platform formerly known as Twitter, that has become a cesspool of far-right real people and farther right bots. There I learned the shoot was good, and well, all sorts of fascist things.

Cut forward 4 days: It turns out that public executions are not popular with the American people, at least outside of X. Bovino has been sacked; others may follow. But the dust hasn't settled really, nowhere close.

In the meantime, we have started to see public statements of revulsion from many places. Today, Bruce Springsteen released a new song called "Streets of Minneapolis." He presented the song on his social media pages with the following written introduction: 

I wrote this song on Saturday, recorded it yesterday and released it to you today in response to the state terror being visited on the city of Minneapolis. It’s dedicated to the people of Minneapolis, our innocent immigrant neighbors and in memory of Alex Pretti and Renee Good.

 Stay free, Bruce Springsteen

The song is long, at least by pop standards. The sound is more or less boiler plate Springsteen -- familiar, but not quite enough to name all of the specific songs echoing here (the one that comes to my mind, oddly, is an obscure track from "The Ghost of Tom Joad" album called "Sinaloa Cowboys," and also the single "Dead Man Walkin'"). There are words, lots of them. The words are direct and blunt. It's a style that reminds me more of any number of Woody Guthrie songs - (e.g., the Sacco and Vanzetti suite, the songs that Guthrie wrote after seeing the movie "Grapes of Wrath," and Deportees) - than of Bruce's own previous efforts.

At just 4 days since the shooting, my feelings were too raw to hear it on the first listen, really. I didn't want Bruce to be Woody Guthrie (or Pete Seeger, for that matter), nor really to insert himself in to the unfolding story. That said, it's a compelling effort, and more importantly, it puts a marker down for those who hear it.

Guthrie's song "Two Good Men" concluded with the following chorus: "Two good men a long time gone, left me here to sing this song." There's an aspect of that here, but here Bruce sings, "We’ll remember the names of those who died on the streets of Minneapolis"

Here are the full lyrics:

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 their story goes Against smoke and rubber bullets By 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 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 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