Nice article. Thanks for posting.
posted by grubby at 11:07 PM on June 13 [1 favorite]

Didn't notice the author's name until afterwards.

Travel, riding through the mountains, camping. What a way to live that dream.
posted by rory at 12:26 AM on June 14

¡°I¡¯m just trying to figure out if this position is right for me" - if you have the time, going through the application & induction process and then calling in sick on your first day and never gong back is one way to quietly protest the system.
posted by Lanark at 1:56 AM on June 14 [6 favorites]

From the essay: "This is a disgusting country, I thought, irredeemable visually, psychically, morally, and ethically, and whatever is likable about our people¡¯s warm patter does not in any way forgive what we have done to the world."

Been thinking this a lot lately, as I get ready to leave this place forever. I see US flags, hanging from homes, from businesses, dangling precariously and tattered from cars. Symbols of our obsessions with nationalism and war. I see the homes and cars, grandiose and terrible, far too big for our land to support.

I remember, as a child, meeting a scientist who asked me what I wanted to do someday. 'Build spaceships' I told him. His answer? 'Are you okay with working for the military?'

I'm glad I'm going somewhere I can do one and not the other. For a little while, at least.
posted by Flight Hardware, do not touch at 4:34 AM on June 14 [21 favorites]

A DHS agent placed a BODYARMOR SuperDrink on the ground and the dog retrieved it by opening up its entire face to become a mechanical claw.

Yeek.
posted by mittens at 5:14 AM on June 14 [4 favorites]

.
posted by lalochezia at 5:32 AM on June 14

> This is a disgusting country, I thought, irredeemable visually, psychically, morally, and ethically, and whatever is likable about our people¡¯s warm patter does not in any way forgive what we have done to the world. Furthermore, it isn¡¯t hard to bring politeness and evil into view at the same time.

I feel this way most of the time. I'm an expat, raising my children in Switzerland because of that feeling. It is a struggle to find out how to raise them to understand what is beautiful and hopeful about their second passport. :(
posted by Jra at 7:27 AM on June 14 [3 favorites]

So. This will require some context.

We live in those Northern Virginia suburbs, and my wife seriously thought about going to this thing. She had been a project manager type for government contracting firms. Which is what you do around here. And she left her career when our daughter was born to stay home and raise her. Said daughter is now eight, and my wife has been trying to get back into the workforce for a couple years now, and getting absolutely nowhere. The career break appears to have killed her employability in her field even before DOGE blew up the whole region. She's very frustrated, exploring entirely new career paths, and is feeling kind of desperate.

So when a friend of hers called up and wanted her to accompany her to this thing, she actually kind of considered it. My wife is absolutely not someone you would hire to kick in doors in a flak vest and arrest people. For that matter neither is the friend. They are both women over 40 with masters degrees and white collar backgrounds. But they're both unemployed after taking time to raise children, and frustrated with the job market. The friend had the idea that they were hiring on the spot to interview and assess asylum applicants, and maybe they were. I don't know. I should note that the friend is an immigrant herself, from Hungary, who said she had a bad experience with the interviews when she came to America and imagined that she could be a more sympathetic and understanding face on that process. I didn't say as much, but I was pretty sure that was absolutely the last thing DHS was looking for at the moment.

My wife ended up not going because she decided (correctly I'm sure), that no, they probably were not looking for project managers but more boots on the street kind of people. She also got scared when I found a rather nicely designed propaganda poster urging people to come out and protest this thing. (The article makes no mention of that, so I'm guessing nobody much showed up beyond that one guy talking about Eichmann in Jerusalem inside.)

So she didn't go, but the friend did, and actually claims that she was hired. We're still vague on what she meant by that, but she claims to have gotten a position with TSA, but she doesn't start until November. My guess is that they found her resume acceptable for some role, and if they get funding, she is among the pool of people they might consider activating. But I don't really know. I cannot imagine this woman at Dulles scanning people's suitcases at two in the morning on third shift. But for now she thinks she's got something going on. And my wife, who is absolutely furious about what this administration is doing, nonetheless was thinking about it because you have to do whatever it takes to get a job in this country, and if they were looking for project managers, she probably would have held her nose and applied.

It's a slippery slope, obviously, and really easy to get started sliding down it. Our situation is far, far more privileged and less precarious than that of the "pimply youth from Kentucky, churning out Yahoo Finance content for twenty dollars an hour." (And note to self: don't pay any attention to Yahoo Finance.) I get why people get drawn into this stuff, even if kicking immigrants around isn't anywhere near their natures.
posted by Naberius at 12:56 PM on June 14 [16 favorites]

After reading the article: do what you love, and you will never work another day in your life
posted by scruss at 2:32 PM on June 14

My wife is absolutely not someone you would hire to kick in doors in a flak vest and arrest people. For that matter neither is the friend. They are both women over 40 with masters degrees and white collar backgrounds.

Paper pushers kill a lot more people than door kickers.
posted by justsomebodythatyouusedtoknow at 4:58 PM on June 14 [8 favorites]

"This is a disgusting country, I thought, irredeemable visually, psychically, morally, and ethically, and whatever is likable about our people¡¯s warm patter does not in any way forgive what we have done to the world."

I am reminded of Bill Hayden's confession speech in Tinker, Tailor that went something like, "I had to pick a side George. It was an aesthetic choice as much as a moral one. And the West has become so very ugly."
posted by Slackermagee at 5:15 PM on June 14 [2 favorites]

that would be the movie version confession as opposed to the TV series. that quote is a canned version of the fictional truth.
don't get, Alfredson is a great director and did a good job on the movie. but I think he directed it more towards the West in general then in America and then Britain being bills modus apparentai.

Bill: What do you want to know?

George: Oh...why? When? How?

Why? You ask that!

Because it was necessary...
that's why! Someone had to.
we were bluffed! You, me,
Control...all of us.

The Circus talent spotters
all those years ago...

they picked us when we
were golden with hope.

Told us we were on our way
to the Holy Grail, a lifetime
of glory in front of us.

Service to the great cause.
Freedom's protectors.

Oh, my God...what a question
..."Why?"

Do you know what's killing
Western democracy, George?

Greed...and constipation...
moral, political, aesthetic.

I hate America very deeply
economic repression
of the masses...institutionalized.

Even Lenin couldn't foresee
the extent of that.

Britain...oh, dear!

No viability whatever in world affairs.

I suppose that's when it began.
Turning my eyes to the east, I mean.

When I saw how trivial we'd become
as a nation...say the forties.

By 1950, I was slipping Karla
occasional gifts of intelligence,

carefully selected morsels to help
the Russian cause against America.

At that time I was scrupulous not to give
Moscow anything harmful to ourselves,

our own agents in the field
I still believe the secret services

are the only real expression
of a nation's character.

Until the mid-fifties,
I still had hopes..."

STFU. Bill tries to replicate the lighter/pen trick.
then his best friend whom he betrayed, kills him.
posted by clavdivs at 8:57 PM on June 14 [2 favorites]

Never thought I'd read a Yanis Varoufakis piece that involved wandering around in my local Walmart parking lot, but here we are.

Maybe this is a symptom of living too close to the Beltway for too long, but¡­ do people not expect this sort of banality? I mean, all the big Federal agencies (pretty much) have recruiting fairs; you can find them alongside the big contractors at any major hiring event in the DC orbit.

What's interesting to me about this job fair is that it was only DHS agencies. That seems¡­ a bit odd for the current culture of performative austerity and corporatism; surely, just arm-twisting your way into a booth at the one in Arlington next week would be easier than putting on a government-sponsored event.

Never a good day if you think Kratos and Palantir aren't going to want to be seen next to you in public.
posted by Kadin2048 at 11:02 PM on June 14 [4 favorites]

Paper pushers kill a lot more people than door kickers.

You did not bother to even read that entire comment, did you? It turns that America exists under this system called "capitalism", if you don't work you literally starve. If the non-fash adjacent employers won't hire you and nobody else is willing to help out (why would they, this is America after all and fuck you for having the audacity to ask for help) then what exactly are you supposed to do?


I'm glad I'm going somewhere I can do one and not the other. For a little while, at least.

As someone who saw the writing on the wall and has been trying to do this for nearly a decade, but has only been able to escape in the short-medium term (and by going into a line of work that some here would find objectionable), I am happy for you but also bright green with envy. The average American has absolutely no clue how difficult to impossible it always has been to emigrate, and the rest of the world is doing all they can to pull up the drawbridge.
posted by photo guy at 12:59 AM on June 15 [5 favorites]

¡°His dad had also been in ICE and had broken down the doors of a Queens family that had just sat down to dinner when he stormed in. They all happened to be wearing Obama shirts and hats and were eating off of Obama dishware.¡±

What?
posted by Selena777 at 2:07 AM on June 15 [1 favorite]

Never thought I'd read a Yanis Varoufakis piece that involved wandering around in my local Walmart parking lot,

This is written by Yanis Varoufuckice, a different guy and possibly not his real name.
posted by Grangousier at 10:53 AM on June 15 [1 favorite]