I've been spending a lot of time dealing with the Department of Homeland Security lately, securing P1-B visas for inCulto so that they can perform (and earn money) legally at their concert on November 24th at the Sabre Room. The application process is surprisingly complex, and, well, if I weren't in a rush to cut through the red tape, I'd admire some of the features of the petition that strive to prevent exploitation of foreign workers and the like.

But now, apparently, DHS is establishing a new regulatory system concerning international travel (both to and from the US) (slashdot | tristero @ digbysblog), in which being a mere bearer of a passport is no longer enough. I don't know how far this will go, but it's part and parcel of an isolationist and pathologically defensive culture of incuriousness that is infecting the US from the White House on down. Probably most readers of this site have an interest in heading to Lithuania this summer. Well, because of the reactionary policies of the politicians some of you support (if only tacitly by not working for the opposition or not voting at all), it'll be harder to get there. Or even if such a crass, personal appeal seems dumb, consider that part of identifying with a non-American ethnicity demands a certain support of the right to travel. The repugnant chauvinism of the US and its overwhelming fetishization of its borders hampers the very act of identifying oneself as "Lithuanian-American."

So this is something to consider when you, standing in the voting booth tomorrow, remember what single-party rule has wrought on the US over the past six years.