DHS Repurposes Johnny Cash, WWII Film, And The Bible Itself To Pretend God Hates Migrants
(To all readers: the use of “God” in this post refers to the generically Christian ideal of God, and not any particular god or gods referenced/respected by other religions. The capitalization is there to make a point to the kind of people who insist on capitalizing God while cherry-picking the Bible for justifications for their hideous actions. It is not indicative of any personal fealty to this particular ideation of a higher power. I realize this won’t prevent argumentative comments, but hopefully it will head off a few before they manage to collect a full head of steam.)
It’s not enough for perhaps the least American of all regimes to drape itself in the American flag as often as possible. It must also step over the bodies of the meek and the less fortunate to elevate itself to a place where it can bask in the undeserved reflected glory of God. God certainly won’t bless this behavior, but this a post-God version of Christianity — one that allows people who want to appeal to Christians the frequently unchallenged opportunity to claim their God as the government’s God — is probably fine with everything that’s detailed below.
That’s how it’s going in the mass deportation era of America — one ushered in by a man who claimed to love both his country and God, but would never love either of those more than he loves himself. And he’s surrounded himself with people who treat him as a god walking among us or, at the very least, God’s chosen ambassador to this nation, specifically put into the position of the most powerful person in the world to carry out God’s will.
To be sure, the version of God these people acknowledge would definitely be all in on bigotry and fascism. That’s why so many people in Trump’s orbit pretend the New Testament doesn’t exist and go hard with quotes from the Old Testament, long before God expressed his love for all humanity and his capacity to forgive via the sacrifice of his son.
Whether or not you buy into this religious canon isn’t really important. What God means to most people willing to throw his name around recklessly is his utility as an excuse, justification, or a knee-jerk expression of superiority. All of those things are present in this hideous promo video released by the DHS — one that not only contains a quoted Bible verse, but subverts a cover of a Johnny Cash cover of an old folk song telling people they can’t outrun their judgment by God into an implicit blessing of bigoted policies that have resulted in the infliction of misery on hundreds of thousands of God’s children… just because they don’t have the proper paperwork.
Cash covered an old folk song about sinners being unable to outrun God’s justice. The version used in this abominable DHS promo was recorded by Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, which has always had a bit to say about God, judgment, or whether or not music goes as hard as it used to.
Once BRMC found out what the DHS had done, it issued a completely ineffective, but otherwise entertaining, cease and desist from its official Instagram account:
To quote the post directly:
It has come to our attention that the Department of Homeland Security is improperly using our recording of “God’s Gonna Cut You Down” in your latest propaganda video. It’s obvious that you don’t respect Copyright Law and Artist Rights any more than you respect Habeas Corpus and Due Process rights, not to mention the separation of Church and State per the US Constitution.
For the record, we hereby order @dhsgov to cease and desist the use of our recording and demand that you immediately pull down your video.
Oh, and go f… yourselves.
Blanket licensing means most of this C&D isn’t enforceable. But BMRC does at least point out DHS’s unwillingness to respect constitutional rights, as well as its highly questionable decision to perform religious cultural appropriation at the taxpayers’ expense. I could have used an actual “fuck” in the post, but no one’s ever accused me of wanting people to swear less.
And that’s not even the worst of it. DHS added a Bible verse — and not just any Bible verse, but one quoted by a character in the World War II film “Fury.”
“There’s a Bible verse I think about sometimes—many times,” says Shia LaBeouf’s character, a tank gunner. “It goes, ‘Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, ‘Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?’ And I said, ‘Here am I. Send me.'”
So, this is pulled from a movie where American soldiers are fighting actual evil, that being the Nazi government of Germany. With this twist from the DHS, the Bible verse is repurposed to support people who are actually, at best, ambivalent about the tenets of National Socialism as expressed by the Adolph Hitler regime.
Going beyond the baddies quoting a verse used to describe a good person’s decision to fight evil, there’s the unavoidable collision of tones that makes it clear who this administration thinks are actually the sort of evil God wants them to be fighting. And that would apparently be day laborers hanging out in Home Depot parking lots, children deliberately separated from their immigrant parents, taxpayers, upstanding members of communities, critics of Donald Trump and/or his policies, and whoever else looks brown enough to be hurled into a foreign torture prison without fear of any actionable retribution.
This administration is disgusting. And may all those faux Christians willing to treat Trump as a demigod receive all the horrific damnation they imagine will only be inflicted on others. Fuck each and every one of you. Even if you didn’t vote for this specifically, you still voted for that (gestures at the same Trump who refused to leave office peacefully after an election loss, which is perhaps the least of his many sins).