Land of the Free, My Ass, part III

More on the difficulties for non-American artists attempting to tour the US. The Ministry of Information links to this entry from David Byrne's Journal (No permalinks, it's the April 16th entry)

The tightening of the borders in recent years, while it may be understandable regarding genuinely suspicious individuals, is in fact applied with almost no rhyme or reason -- although in fact it may only appear to be without reason. A friend told me over a lunch meeting that a chunk of Pina Bausch�s troupe of dancers, based in Wuppertal, Germany, were denied entry, which effectively scuttled the performances that were booked months ahead of time. A tango group in Buenos Aires told me a week or two ago that they have toured Europe 3 times recently but have been consistently denied U.S. visas, so at this point the U.S. doesn't even figure into their performance plans. Yale says that some of the new regulations make the applicants pay when they apply, without knowing if they will even get the visa. Needless to say some individual members of many bands and troupes are refused visas, usually at the last minute, which effectively cancels the tour. The promoters in the U.S. have become loath to even book or schedule foreign acts these days, as the odds are just not in their favor. The prospect of spending money on promotion, ads and radio only to have the show cancelled by the INS when the act applies for their visas is discouraging, and financially ruinous to some small promoters -- so they eventually just don�t end up taking the risk.

I had earlier suggested that this amounts to economic protectionism, but David Byrne suggests a darker agenda. He goes on to suggest this might be a deliberate ploy to keep the American public ignorant and free of foreign influence and inspiration. I personally think there's still a very large element of plain old bureaucratic stupidity, but the end result just happens to be awfully convenient for the ideological and cultural agenda of America's current rulers. Are the cancellations of Blackfield's US tour and Mostly Autumn's appearance at Rosfest collateral damage from the US right's so-called "Culture Wars"?

And in other news, from Silkenray

Habeas Corpus is denied on the grounds that while what the government has been doing is unfair, it isn't actually unconstitutional... and so we ready to move to England.