Image by Akira Hojo.
I wonder what the trumpist version of culture is. Somehow, I am reminded of the German word Kultur; maybe some Wagner in the background. Loud but not louder than the din of the off-the-wall Christian lady that the trumpists hired to fight some imagined discrimination against Christianity. who claims she makes the ground she walks on holy just by virtue of her walking on it. I don’t mean to be offensive , but her claim does make me wonder if she also thinks she’s a holy f**k I mean, that’s what I said after watching some video of her talking that nonsense. I would like to see her do that trick while she’s walking on water. Maybe then she’ll drown in some holy water.
You want to see discrimination against Christians? Look at the US immigration policy. It’s been going on since the deportations of Latino immigrants began. When was that? The 1930s? The 1950s? Or was it in the 1990s? No matter when it began, the fact is the vast majority of immigrants from Latin America consider themselves Christian. Catholic or evangelical, they believe in the same god the men and women calling for them to be deported and locked up do. Those churches ICE is talking about raiding are going to be mostly Christian ones. I guess Jesus died for that. I wonder how many migrants have.
Back when the Nazis took over the universities, locked up communists, the disabled, Roma and Jewish folks, many artists, writers, dancers and such headed for the border. Others got locked up and still others changed their art so it fit with the new program. Then again there still others who signed up to champion the Reich and its mythology. In his 2004 book, A Universal History of the Destruction of Books: From Ancient Sumer to Modern Iraq, Fernando Baez described the situation like this: “The purpose of this chamber (the ReichsKulturKammer) was to stimulate the Aryanization of German culture and to prohibit, for example, atonal Jewish music, the blues, surrealism, cubism, and Dadaism.” I’m not sure most trumpists even have a clue as to what most of these art forms are, but then again neither do most US residents. We all have an idea of the blues, though. Not just in terms of a musical form, but also in relation to its more universal meaning. Gil Scot Heron had this to say in his introduction to his anti-fascist/anti-Nixon song “H20Gate Blues:” 
… there are at least 500 shades of the blues
For example, there is the I-ain’t-got-me-no-money Blues
There is the I-ain’t-got-me-no-woman Blues
There is the I-ain’t-got-me-no-money-and-I-ain’t-got-me-no-woman
Which is the double blues
And for years, it was thought that, that black people were the only one who could get the blues, so
So the blues hadn’t come into no international type of fame (Had a corner on the market)
But, lately, we done had Frank Rizzo with the Lie Detector Blues
We done had the United States government talking ‘bout the Energy Crisis Blues
And we gonna dedicate this next poem here to, to Spearhead X
The Ex-Second in Command in terms of this country
(He got the blues)
And the poem is called “H2O-G-A-T-E Blues”
And if H2O is still water, and G-A-T-E is still gate
What we’re getting ready to deal on is the Watergate Blues….
So, yeah even trumpists can get the blues. I won’t speculate on what kind of blues they might get, but I’m hoping we can give at least a few of them the “ain’t no presidential pardons coming for me anymore” blues. I’m betting more and more are going to start singing the “hey, he promised to lower food and gas prices” blues or—for the wealthier trumpists—maybe the “I can’t get nobody to mow my lawn or clean my McMansion” blues. If and when that happens, I’m gonna’ be singing the “I hope you lose your assets to a Donald Trump scam” blues..
Anyhow, back to the Trumpist Kultur Bureau. Who will be head his department of culture? Who will be his Goebbels, who ran the Reich’s KulturKammer? Elon Musk is too busy downloading personnel information from government servers and Trump might have already extended himself by assuming the position of Kennedy Center Director. Speaking of that, I’m waiting for Lee Greenwood to headline a Kennedy Center residency of country music’s most right-wing performers. Just imagine the grand finale with a half-dozen real men singing “God Bless the USA” until the curtain closes. It’s a nightmare almost certain to be broadcast over the trumpist network that replaces PBS. You will be expected to watch. There could be hiphop versions of this concert, too. After all, certain hiphop artists are on board with Elon and his nazi obsession, while others will take money from anyone handing it out. The same can also be said about certain rock musicians. Kid Rock and the current version of Lynyrd Skynyrd come quickly to mind.
Human rights violations in South Africa? I read that Trump issued an order to expedite the immigration of white (mostly Boer) residents of South Africa. Why? Because the government there is finally instituting some land redistribution. This should have happened after the apartheid government was tossed into its deserved place in the sewage dump of history. However, for numerous reasons, it did not occur then, at least on a scale that would have enabled some amount of economic equity in that nation. As it stands now, white South Africans, who make up around eight percent of the total population, own around seventy percent of the land. Meanwhile, black South Africans own about four percent. The reason for this I obvious: the colonial invaders, the settler colonists both British and what they call Boers, took their land, mostly by force, over the years. When the popular will finally became the governing law of the land in the 1990s, the apartheid regime gave up its hold on political power, but not its economic power. In a manner similar to colonizers’ independence agreements all over the world, the descendants of the original residents of the land were convinced to accept this arrangement.
Anyhow, those who are losing the land their predecessors stole are crying foul. Their nazi-loving savior named Elon Musk wants them to move to the US. The Trump White House says the white landowners “human rights” are being violated. Talk about a misunderstanding of the concept of human rights. Of course, the history that led to this scenario is ignored or denied. I mean, apartheid screams human rights violation. Just like the US government fought against ending US apartheid, it fought equally hard trying to prevent South Africa from losing its version of the same. Sounds to me like the white folks in South Africa got a case of the “white supremacy ain’t what it used to be” blues. Let ‘em sing.
