DAYS OF OUR FASCIST LIVES

Mar 27, 2025

A FEW YEARS ago—right before Covid hit—my girlfriend Owen and I were exploring Kathmandu, marking time while we waited for our Chinese Visas so we could enter Tibet. We’d been told that we wouldn’t know if the Visas had come through until we actually had them in hand. And there was no going it alone: In Nepal, you need a travel agent to help you get the Tibetan Visa, and in Tibet, China won’t let travelers wander unsupervised about this devoted Buddhist country, which they stole from its people, so a condition of entering is to have retained the services of a “licensed tour guide through a travel agency” to accompany you on your visit. If there’s one thing China is against, it’s The People’s freedom—not to mention independence of any kind. (Just ask artist Ai Wei Wei.)

All of which sounds disturbingly like the new U.S. of A, which is the reason I’m telling this story.

But first, Kathmandu: It has a mystique all its own, having been one of the happening spots for the scores of hippie travelers following the Silk Route in the 1960’s and ‘70’s. The hippies were traveling for enlightenment and drugs, and many also discovered meditation and Buddhism, which they brought back to the West. This proved to be a movement towards spirituality and wellbeing that spread around the world. Kathmandu in all its chaotic glory was manna to me.

Ever since I’d seen His Holiness, the Dalai Lama, speak in Paris, I’d vowed that I would go to experience Tibet for myself, to be a witness to the stories that this spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhists told. In the Dalai Lama’s remarks, he’d recounted the atrocities committed by the Chinese in his beloved nation, and to its people, in order to destroy Tibetan life and culture. This had been going on for decades, since the Chinese invaded Tibet, and he was forced to flee his Norbulingka summer palace to India on March 17th, 1959. It literally has been a long and winding road for him and for the Tibetan people, who are still occupied by the Chinese. In Exile from the Land of Snows: The Definitive Account of the Dalai Lama and Tibet Since the Chinese Conquest by John Avedon tells the story in extraordinary, horrible detail. If you’re interested in Tibet, I recommend it.

When our Visas came through, Owen and I were advised to remove anything on our computers or phones that mentioned the Dalai Lama. The Chinese hate him, and if they found anything at all about him, or against China, on our devices, they might still refuse our entry. In that regard, my devices were not clean. I had written about China in relation to the auction of the Yves Saint Laurent estate in Paris, which I live-tweeted for Vogue.com—it was one of the first such events to be covered digitally like this.

Saint Laurent and his partner Pierre Bergé owned Chinese antiquities—bronze fountainheads, heads of a Rat and a Rabbit that disappeared from China’s Summer Imperial Palace in 1860. I found it ironic that the Chinese had destroyed artifacts in the Cultural Revolution but defiantly wanted these fountainheads back now. It was an international controversy. In the Cultural Revolution, Red Guards sought to destroy the Four Olds (old ideas, old culture, old customs, and old habits), which often took the form of destroying historical artifacts, cultural and religious sites.

Pierre Bergé told a reporter over a French radio interview: "All they (Chinese) have to do is to declare they are going to apply human rights, give the Tibetans back their freedom and agree to accept the Dalai Lama on their territory," "If they do that, I would be very happy to go myself and bring these two Chinese heads to put them in the Summer Palace in Beijing.”

Owen and I spent the evening before we were to leave for Tibet removing all the social media apps off our phones. I take my laptop wherever I go, but not this time. I left it in a bag at the hotel. And once we were in Tibet, we were monitored by the Chinese government every step of the way. There was a camera in the car so the government could keep eyes on what we were doing and hear what our guide might be saying to us any time they wanted to. Our excellent guide was certainly not a spy, but we weren’t sure about the driver. Unfortunately, I hadn’t thought about getting a VPN to mask my IP address. I won’t make that mistake again. Such is life in an autocratic society—and even visiting one.

THE CURRENT TRUMP regime is following in the footsteps of China, and the United States is now digitally surveilling visitors. But I’m not at all sure that they won’t also surveil Americans whom they randomly choose, or perhaps target.

On February 26th, a 28-year-old Welsh artist and backpacker—Becky Burke—was detained for 19 days in a for-profit immigration detention center in Tacoma, Washington, that already had hundreds of complaints about its conditions. Here’s the scoop:

Burke was on the trip of a lifetime, her father Paul Burke told the BBC. She started her U.S. trip on the East Coast on Jan. 9 before flying from New York to Portland, Oregon. She stayed with a host family, trading household chores in return for accommodation.
Burke then worked her way north through Seattle with the hope of visiting Vancouver, British Columbia, to stay with another family, according to the BBC.
“Unfortunately, due to an incorrect visa, she was denied entry into Canada,” Paul wrote in the Facebook post. “When she tried to return to the U.S., she was refused re-entry and classified as an ‘illegal alien.’”

After her scarring 19 days in custody, she was taken to the airport to return to Wales like this: “Parents Paul and Andrea Burke, of Portskewett, Monmouthshire, said their daughter was "traumatised" after being taken in "leg chains, waist chains and handcuffs".” For God’s sake.

You know other such stories. We’re now internationally known as American thugs. Why wouldn’t we be?

I have advised my friends in Europe—or from anywhere else in the world, for that matter—not to come here. Why would they even want to? They will not be safe, and our tourism numbers will no doubt plummet after such deplorable treatment.

One-half of a gay couple we know in Germany has not been willing to visit the U.S. since Trump was elected, but his partner was still ready to give us a shot—until just recently. “It’s too unpredictable what happens at immigration,” he says.

I agree. Anyone coming into this country is not safe. Hell, Americans are not safe in our own country from a regime that is trying to ruin or kill a lot of us. Brutally snatching legal permanent resident Mahmoud Khalil who was arrested and detained in direct retaliation for his advocacy for Palestinian rights at Columbia University—and searching for at least one other protestor who is a legal permanent resident to deport as well. For exercising their First Amendment Rights of Free Speech.

The Trump regime keeps saying they’re doing all these things to make us safe. So why is it that I feel less safe today than at any other time in my entire life? The fact that this is happening at all is mind-blowing. How many Trumpers regret their votes? How many are horrified about what’s happening? They’ve been played for suckers for so many years now. Do they ever have a reality check? Is even a hint of what this actually means to our country getting through to them? Or will it take their losing their Social Security, or some other catastrophic cut by DOGE, to wake them up?

Information on how to digitally protect yourself at the border:

1. Der Speigel has already published a piece on How to prepare your gadgets for US border controls. (In German)

2. This is advice from the Electronic Frontier Foundation… Digital Privacy at the U.S. Border: Protecting the Data On Your Devices.

3. From Wired: How to Enter the US With Your Digital Privacy Intact

4. From Attorneys and Counselors Harter Secrest & Emery LLP: Preparing for Electronic Device Searches at United States Borders

Like I said, we Americans are living in very grim and disturbing times. This will be an ongoing discussion, so stay tuned.

Please send any questions or comments our community can address and respond to.

Peace. We are one.