What Shall it Profit You, Starz, Hulu and Trump?

Every time I try reluctantly to accept that my Buffy-related saga's time has come and gone (that's the lost story arc, Dear Miss Landau and the Dru Quartet), something else seems to happen to make sure it stays dead and buried (a bit like a fledgling vampire, really) rather than - oh, I don't know - revitalising a faded piece of intellectual property in a new and unexpected manner, bringing jobs and employment to at least one small part of what's left of Hollywood and giving the fans what they may actually want.

This time, it's ESTA.

ESTA stands for electronic system of travel authorisation and is the means by which myself and others from forty-two countries worldwide are able to visit the States for ninety days without a visa.

The Trump administration in, I think, its latest paroxysm of racism and intolerance intends to make the amount of hoops we have to go through to get the ESTA visa waiver increasingly intricate and probably impossible completely and correctly to fulfil.

It all feels a bit like the Jim Crow laws of the Old South, deliberately designed to make Blacks unable to vote by upping the eligibility criteria to impossible levels:

"Literacy tests were also used to keep African-Americans from voting. ... These tests were not really designed to test civic knowledge or basic literacy. Some of the literacy tests were unnecessarily difficult. For example, a would-be voter might be asked to recite the entire Declaration of independence or the entire Unites States Constitution from memory."

(Jim Crow Museum)

ESTA applicants will have to "provide their social media from the last five years" (Federal Register). TrumpGov also wants to add eleven high value data fields to the existing ESTA application form when it's feasible. These include family member telephone numbers used in the last five years and email addresses used in the last ten years.

Even if everybody could drag themselves accurately and comprehensively through this lot, they might still be denied an ESTA.

According to the BBC:

"An announcement on the website for the US Embassy and Consulate in Mexico states certain visa applicants must list all social media usernames or handles of every platform they have used in the last five years.

It warns that if any social media information is not listed, it could lead to both current and future visas being denied."

Or in other words, get just one teeny tiny thing wrong and you're out.

This feels disturbingly similar to the usual outcome for hopeful Black voters in the Old South:

"Even if the applicant recited the document correctly, they might be told that they had failed the test. Please remember that during the Jim Crow period Blacks could not argue with Whites. Therefore the Black person taking the literacy test could not dispute the claims of the White person serving as the registration official."

(Jim Crow Museum)

And nowadays U.S. Customs and ICE seem to be the registration officials.

So I'll call it racism and intolerance because, by hokey, that's how it feels.

But what shall it profit you, America?

Well, there's me. I am a drop in the ocean and I know it.  However, I'm a drop with two copyrights which (theoretically anyway) could benefit the U.S. organisations Starz and Hulu.

I might have a successor to Outlander (Starz) and Hulu's ordered the Buffy sequel New Sunnydale.

Now, here's the thing. I'm not willing to sell my own grandmother into white slavery to gain Starz and Hulu's attention. Dear Miss Landau and The Legend of John Macnab have been published. I met Miss Landau on Sunset Boulevard and saw the Book of Deer. Such moments made my life one well-lived.

Of course I'd like to hear from Starz and Hulu. But guys, I just ain't gonna take any shit from you.

There's one big difference between me and some poor Black gentleman in the South. I'm in another country and I have rights.

All I'll lose is the opportunity to visit America and negotiate with Americans.

I'm willing to lose that opportunity because, boys, I just ain't gonna jump through any more of your hoops, knowing I'll probably be deported if I make the slightest error or merely at the whim of some customs officer. I made my own little contribution to our culture, I achieved my life's core ambitions, I can live with that.

And I suspect many bigger fish from other countries will feel much the same.

What shall that profit you?

How many Nobel Laureates, scientists, physicians, academics, businessmen, entrepreneurs and artists will just shrug their shoulders and go some place else which at least seems happy to see them?

Which doesn't seem to be treating them like inferiors?

How many?

Well, according to The Guardian, "the plan would throw a wrench into travel for the World Cup ... California tourism authorities are predicting a 9% decline in foreign visits to the state this year, while Hollywood Boulevard in Los Angeles reported a 50% fall in foot traffic over the summer. Las Vegas, too, has been badly hit by a decline in visits, worsened by the rise of mobile gambling apps."

Do you really think your latest load of Jim Crow-style crap will improve these figures?

But (assuming this it), I'm not going to be jumping with joy not to be going back. Not at all. This will be the sour end of a sweet and soulful thirty-five year relationship between me and the States. One in which I crossed America by Greyhound bus from sea to shining sea, stole the Enterprise in order to meet a Hollywood princess on Sunset Boulevard, saw the view from the Twin Towers, the Empire State and the Willis Tower, walked along the Grand Canyon's rim and wrote like Jack Kerouac while I was on the road.

And that was hardly the half of it.

I got to like Americans, and to love some of them. I defended you to your detractors and respected your traditions. But I can't square the noble words of your First Amendment with the grubby authoritarianism of your self-proclaimed king's current actions. I can no longer call you a shining beacon of democracy, or "a country that would be a light unto the nations" (Ronald Reagan).

But I still wanted to come back and now I can't.

As the Terminator once said, "it's in your nature to destroy yourselves."

And you're making a pretty damn good job of it.