#clampdown — Public Fediverse posts

Protest songs at Nationals Park

It’s been less than 14 years since I last saw Bruce Springsteen play a concert at Nationals Park, but it feels like decades have passed since those innocent days of 2012. The nation and the world have changed in unpleasant and unsettling ways, those years have left their wear on me… and somehow the Boss barely seems to have aged.

Springsteen’s music, however, resonated in new ways Wednesday night against the backdrop of the second Trump administration’s cruelty, corruption and crime–and Springsteen’s up-to-the-minute denunciations of it, including commentary on this week’s abuses of power at ICE’s Delaney Hall prison outside Newark.

So “No Surrender,” released in 1984 on an album I got on tape, sounded very much of 2026’s moment in this setting. As Springsteen said towards the end of the night: “No one is coming to save us. So we have to do it ourselves.”

Likewise, the angry words in “The Promised Land” about being lied to (about what exactly is left to the listener’s imagination) hit in a way they hadn’t before when Springsteen and the E Street Band lit into that 1978 release right after “Streets of Minneapolis”–the song he wrote in January after government agents shot and killed Renée Good and Alex Pretti on those frozen streets.

That reminder of the crimes committed by Trump’s Department of Homeland Security then made “American Skin (41 Shots)” more arresting than before. People in the Twin Cities probably have some words about how in Trump 2.0’s thuggish version of the United States, you can get killed just for living in your American skin.

A cover of the Clash’s “Clampdown” on which Springsteen and Rage Against the Machine’s Tom Morello took turns on vocals itself picked up a little new relevance when heard in a neighborhood that has picked up a reputation, maybe undeserved, as a Republican hangout. As Mick Jones and Joe Strummer wrote in the late 1970s: “No man born with a living soul / can be working for the clampdown.”

Hearing “Youngstown” later in the set, I had to think the protagonist would have voted for Trump three times in a row. Would that embittered man be rethinking those choices now that Trump’s promises to renew industrial America have proved as empty as his pledges to most people besides January 6 insurrectionists? Or would he still be looking for somebody to blame?

When many other boldface names in American society keep pretending that this administration is just another presidency, Springsteen is calling out Trump’s regime with the vocabulary it deserves. That is called honesty, and it’s only one of the reasons why his work keeps speaking to me more than four decades after I started listening to it.

State by State Pending and Recently Passed #AntiProtestLaws: #Iowa

SF 342: Heightened penalties for protesters convicted of "riot," "unlawful assembly," or blocking traffic, and immunity for #drivers who injure them

Introduces felony penalties for the offense of "riot," previously an aggravated misdemeanor, such that the offense is punishable by up to 5 years in prison and $7,500. Preexisting law defines "riot" as a group of three or more people assembled "in a violent manner," at least one of whom uses any unlawful force or violence against another person or causes property damage. The law also converts "unlawful assembly" from a simple to an aggravated misdemeanor. Preexisting law defines "unlawful assembly" as a group of three or more people, any of whom are acting "in a violent manner," and who intend that any of them will commit an offense. Under the law, it is a serious (rather than simple) misdemeanor, punishable by one year in jail and a $1,875 fine, to "obstruct" a sidewalk, street, or "other public way" with the intent to hinder its use by others. If an individual obstructs a sidewalk or street while "present during an unlawful assembly," it is an aggravated misdemeanor, punishable by 2 years in jail and a $6,250 fine. If an individual obstructs a sidewalk or street while "present during a riot," it is a Class D felony, punishable by up to 5 years in prison and a $7,500 fine. Under the law, a driver who injures someone who is participating in a "protest, demonstration, riot, or unlawful assembly," engaging in "disorderly conduct," and blocking traffic, is immune from civil liability as long as the driver was exercising "due care" and the protester did not have a permit to be in the street. The law would also allow law enforcement who experience a physical or other injury while on duty to pursue civil damages from a person, group, or organization. Finally, the law creates a new felony offense for "defacing" public property, "including a monument or statue." The offense, a Class D felony, is punishable by up to 5 years in prison, a $7,500, and mandatory restitution for any property damage. This law was introduced and passed by the Senate as SF 534, but passed by the House as an amendment to SF 342.

Full text of bill:
https://www.legis.iowa.gov/legislation/BillBook?ga=89&ba=SF%20342

Status: enacted

Introduced 1 Mar 2021; Approved by Senate 10 March 2021, Approved by House 14 April 2021, Signed by Governor 16 June 2021

Issue(s): Civil Liability, Protest Supporters or Funders, Driver Immunity, Riot, Traffic Interference

HF 952: Requiring state permission for protests in the capitol and on capitol grounds

Would require organizers to have a government sponsor in order to hold protests in or near the Iowa capitol. Under the bill, organizers cannot hold “events” in capitol buildings or on capitol grounds unless they have a “recommendation” either from a statewide elected official or by both a member of Iowa’s state senate and its house of representatives. The bill would also prohibit the same person from holding more than six “events” per year in or around the capitol. Neither the bill nor the relevant provisions of Iowa law define “events,” such that they could seemingly include public protests and demonstrations. As such, the bill would effectively give elected officials authority to allow or disallow protests near the capitol.

Full text of bill:
https://www.legis.iowa.gov/legislation/BillBook?ga=91&ba=HF%20952
Status: pending

Introduced 12 Mar 2025.

HF 25: Heightened penalties for #MaskedProtesters

Would increase the penalty for any offense if committed by someone wearing a mask or other device that concealed their identity for the purpose of facilitating the offense. The bill provides #exemptions for masks worn in a number of contexts, including holiday costumes, medical masks, and “#hood[s]” or other “disguise[s]” worn by members of “a society, order, or organization while engaged in any parade, ritual” or “ceremony.” As such, for instance, members of the #KluKluxKlan would seemingly be exempt from enhanced penalties for illegally blocking traffic while parading in the street wearing hoods. The bill does not exempt masks worn during public protests, nor does it limit the enhanced penalties to violent crimes. Accordingly, a peaceful protester who committed a nonviolent offense while wearing a mask could face steeper penalties. A masked demonstrator engaged in a vigil who failed to disperse after being ordered to do so by police, for instance, could face up to a year in jail, rather than 30 days.

Full text of bill:
https://www.legis.iowa.gov/legislation/BillBook?ga=91&ba=hf25

Status: pending

Introduced 14 Jan 2025.

Issue(s): #FaceCovering

#FirstAmendment #CriminalizingDissent
#Authoritarianism #Fascism #Clampdown #CriminalizingProtest
#CharacteristicsOfFascism #USPol #AntiProtestLaws #TrafficInterference #MaskBans #HoodsAreOK #HeatherHeyer #UniteTheRight #DrivingDownProtestors #LimitingProtests #RedTape