Post AwQNsI2PCTcVOQtjqC by futurebird@sauropods.win
(DIR) More posts by futurebird@sauropods.win
(DIR) Post #AwQLAgtbDZQRq3rTyy by futurebird@sauropods.win
2025-07-23T11:44:15Z
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If I could ask powerful world leaders a question and get an honest answer the question that interests me the most is "How do you see the future of your country? Who is a part of it? How are they a part of it?"In the US Republicans are peddling a vision of a white, English-speaking, Christian America. A nation with very few or no non-citizen residents. America is currently a largely white, overwhelmingly Christian nation with a significant population of non-citizen residents. 1/
(DIR) Post #AwQMGjz8kDiJ6ztyrY by futurebird@sauropods.win
2025-07-23T11:56:35Z
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11 million people out of 326 million people, who live in the US, aren't citizens and will never be citizens (unless we change something.) They are here because US companies can pay them lower wages. A non-citizen is less likely to complain. Not because "Americans won't do those jobs."I hate when people say that. These people are essentially Americans. How can we make that argument while also saying they are somehow mysteriously able to do exhausting, work for low wages?2/
(DIR) Post #AwQMWgyzfuF8QwRKRU by futurebird@sauropods.win
2025-07-23T11:59:26Z
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From most Democrats the "vision of the future" is murky, but amounts to "just leave things as they are" far too often.I think we should be a diverse nation, as we have always been. A nation that both assimilates and is changed by the people who live here. I don't think we should have a significant portion of the population who lives here indefinitely but will never really be a part of America. It's OK to visit, but if you live here we need your help with running the government.3/
(DIR) Post #AwQN8luhn4g4jLak2y by futurebird@sauropods.win
2025-07-23T12:06:20Z
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The Republican project to eliminate undocumented Americans is either a fake out: that is, we will look around in 10 years and there will still be millions of undocumented people working in the shadows with no path to citizenship.OR it's the same kind of eliminationism that leads to some of the worse crimes in history. I want to hear someone say NO. There should be a path to citizenship. Requirements should be reasonable. Become a part of America if you want to stay.4/
(DIR) Post #AwQNTXJLHI67WS15d2 by futurebird@sauropods.win
2025-07-23T12:10:06Z
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I think a lot of people would agree with "Become a part of America if you want to stay." A friend of mine works in roofing. He's been doing the job for 20 years which is amazing because it's a very dangerous job. From time to time I've had to talk him down from supporting Republicans because he sees directly how his wages are lower, his job is less safe because most of the other people doing the same job are here illegally. It's easy to blame immigrants for "not following the law"5/
(DIR) Post #AwQNsI2PCTcVOQtjqC by futurebird@sauropods.win
2025-07-23T12:14:35Z
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Blaming immigrants for "not following the law" is also BS because the US laws have been contradictory and they way they are enforced ranges from random to incomprehensible. This is obviously because there are business owners who want to hire people for lower wages, but don't care about them beyond that. We can all see this happening.There have even been attempts to make government programs to codify this arrangement. 6/
(DIR) Post #AwQNveFN5Fa78sZ1vc by lopta@mastodon.social
2025-07-23T12:15:08Z
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@futurebird Don't know. I'm not in my country...
(DIR) Post #AwQO4dluDhZ8H54NTE by lopta@mastodon.social
2025-07-23T12:16:47Z
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@futurebird I'm resident in the U.S. and not a citizen. That has nothing to do with employment.
(DIR) Post #AwQO9tzJM7za13qgcq by futurebird@sauropods.win
2025-07-23T12:17:46Z
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Things like "guest worker" programs that let people work in the US in agriculture for two years but then they need to return to their home country for a time before they can return to do two more years. Basically an exception just so farm owners can get their field workers without those workers ever becoming a part of the country. Just keeping a thumb on people pressing them down. 7/
(DIR) Post #AwQOOl5AkSvGjwfs80 by megmuttonhead@mas.to
2025-07-23T12:20:25Z
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@futurebird 100% this. …I tried just now to compose sentences in agreement with your point, but all my attempts to put into clear, concrete language the implications are so horrifying and depressing that even thinking them makes me nauseous. I can’t write such nihilistic things before breakfast, I just can’t.Never again IS now. _Here_ and now. And it didn’t have to be this way.
(DIR) Post #AwQORccydi8LO2qrtQ by lopta@mastodon.social
2025-07-23T12:20:57Z
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@futurebird I pay taxes here. I don't get to vote (here or back home).
(DIR) Post #AwQOXRdqOkKL3H29rc by lopta@mastodon.social
2025-07-23T12:22:00Z
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@futurebird Nothing I've seen in recent years makes that an appealing prospect.
(DIR) Post #AwQOcmaPxBGDSUyaye by futurebird@sauropods.win
2025-07-23T12:22:59Z
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And that downward pressure doesn't just impact immigrant workers, it has an impact on the whole industry. Everyone acts like it's unthinkable that picking strawberries or roofing could be a job that pays a decent wage. We really need to stop doing that and acknowledge the people who have been doing this work. Show them some respect. 8/8
(DIR) Post #AwQOoZmlNAU1ETNHCy by monarchist@na.social
2025-07-23T12:25:10Z
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@futurebird "White" is meaninglessWe want a WASP nationAnd yes, that is because poly-ethnic societies are suicide.
(DIR) Post #AwQPD64iyK0YKLT5EW by GinevraCat@toot.community
2025-07-23T12:29:29Z
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@futurebird Allowing people a path to citizenship helps curb the exploitative wages paid to non-citizens. And that helps everybody! Maintaining an exploitable, undocumented underclass has no long-term societal benefits.
(DIR) Post #AwQPEjBz1MpJw6do4O by thierna@mastodon.green
2025-07-23T12:29:49Z
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@futurebird thanks for those wise words.I might use them in my next discussions with people who buy into this "we have to keep our passport guarded or anyone could get it"like. what if anyone could get it? would that really be that bad? I am all for some sort of rules, like living in a country for some time (probably years), working or studying or caring for someoneand maybe a certificate of language knowledge
(DIR) Post #AwQPHJDG4IuqEOT5Gq by futurebird@sauropods.win
2025-07-23T12:30:18Z
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@arclight It is that. I worry that in saying so some people might tune me out as saying something too radical for them to process. At the same time we need to call things what they are.
(DIR) Post #AwQPiyshFq5NHY2tSi by futurebird@sauropods.win
2025-07-23T12:35:19Z
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@thierna We can absolutely have rules. We could even be strict about new entires to the country. In fact we might need to be strict with employers who will try to bring in new people if their current labor force naturalizes. This should put an upward pressure on wages in these industries and that's why politically it's so hard to do. But, now we are seeing the danger of not addressing this issue because it can seem like only Republicans are "at least doing something" about it.
(DIR) Post #AwQQbUvOKkZuIhIlvM by CStamp@mastodon.social
2025-07-23T12:45:07Z
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@futurebird Also, people in prisons will be doing that work, and more, particularly POC, folk will be arrested to fulfill those needs.
(DIR) Post #AwQRE3nF8pkbRosWg4 by hanktank61@NerdJoy.social
2025-07-23T12:52:01Z
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@futurebird Thing is, The Netherlands is the same. Temporary workers from out of the EU-region, allowed to work their shifts on the fields, which have highest amounts of pesticides and poison.Out when season is finished. In some industry a fence runs through the complex. The temps and the fewer fixed contracts can not have contact with each other. And talk about ¨things¨.Germany, max. 2 hr drive from anywhere in NL has laws for that. Fix and temp have same wages and protection.
(DIR) Post #AwQRiCV7KamL8plwPI by futurebird@sauropods.win
2025-07-23T12:57:35Z
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The Democratic version of "doing something about immigration" can't just be the same thing Republicans have been doing but "less and more polite" --ICE rounds up people who have been in the country for years. As far as I'm concerned these people are Americans. In the past the same industries just offer more jobs and bring in new people to replace them. That's the choke point no one will talk about, from the "room rental" landlords to the field captains to the contractors.
(DIR) Post #AwQS1mmSfTzRABDvzE by futurebird@sauropods.win
2025-07-23T13:01:07Z
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There is a conservative black youTuber who is pretty obnoxious but he pulled a stunt once where he went to Home Depot here in the Bronx and tried to wait with the construction day laborers to get work. He didn't really understand the system and made a big deal about being rejected and ranted about immigration ruining everything. But his segment exposed how there are a lot of "understandings" and social infrastructure in place to supply cheap labor to these industries.
(DIR) Post #AwQSTHzAkyErlLHf0q by Kierkegaanks@beige.party
2025-07-23T13:06:04Z
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@futurebird is there some kind of natural law that conservatives have to be assholes?
(DIR) Post #AwQSV0Uil8SS5srLu4 by futurebird@sauropods.win
2025-07-23T13:06:25Z
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All of this because someone wants to pay a little less for their workers.I was horrified when I heard that ICE was going after people "at Home Depots" but I can also understand how to some people it might sound like "wow finally someone is doing something about this"Paying a human person $80 a day to lay roofing is unreasonable. That job is too dangerous and requires too much skill for such low pay.That why we can't talk about immigration without talking about wages and working conditions.
(DIR) Post #AwQSiRCmlE46hTsI64 by david_chisnall@infosec.exchange
2025-07-23T13:08:48Z
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@futurebird @sarahtaber wrote about some of this recently, with some actual numbers for how much (or, rather, how little) paying farm workers a sensible wage would impact prices.
(DIR) Post #AwQT5kBKNAUcDPJ1wO by graydon@canada.masto.host
2025-07-23T13:13:01Z
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@futurebird @arclight If they don't know, it's because they don't want to know.I'd say using the right names is a necessary but not sufficient part of articulating an alternative. The status quo cannot hold, as a matter of inevitability. (Field agriculture is failing in inescapable ways.) Embracing facts involves acknowledging that and finding a way to talk about desirable futures.
(DIR) Post #AwQTIUmWwNeiDYmtbk by f800gecko@mastodon.online
2025-07-23T13:15:18Z
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@futurebird The Dems, like the GOP, are owned by money.
(DIR) Post #AwQTVZasMRDOuGZXXM by f800gecko@mastodon.online
2025-07-23T13:17:39Z
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@futurebird Excellent thread, gets to the heart of it.
(DIR) Post #AwQTdgYSMd9aoQJD6G by tedmielczarek@mastodon.social
2025-07-23T13:19:08Z
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@futurebird and then people will turn around and complain about how houses aren't built well these days because of all the unskilled laborers, as if these day laborers are the ones causing the problems instead of the house builders trying to cut costs. I'm also constantly amazed at how well anti-union propaganda worked in the US.
(DIR) Post #AwQTpoY6T1hF55vXxA by rlcw@ecoevo.social
2025-07-23T13:21:18Z
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@futurebirdSeasonal labour is a thing. Many undocumented people would come and leave if getting into the country weren't so dangerous. Now it's even worse - when the prospect is to potentially end up in a horrifying prison, even people who want to leave are stuck. And separated from their families far longer. And really struggling to survive when normally they would have been able to get by ok if they can live cheaper when they don't have work. Non of these policies are sensible for anyone.
(DIR) Post #AwQV3LbuxMIvL2jDYu by dragonfrog@mastodon.sdf.org
2025-07-23T13:34:49Z
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@futurebird Canada has a temporary foreign worker program, and it seems like it's designed specifically to enable abuse of workers. TFW visas are tied to the particular sponsoring employer, so if a TFW stands up against abusive or unsafe conditions and is fired in retaliation, their visa is revoked and they have to leave. It's awful.
(DIR) Post #AwQW7BOEzwoikhivy4 by tltroup@digipres.club
2025-07-23T13:46:51Z
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@futurebird why does your friend consider supporting Republicans? Is he persuaded by culture war propaganda or is there a specific policy that he supports?
(DIR) Post #AwQXZr4RivTe5LhVdw by graydon@canada.masto.host
2025-07-23T14:03:16Z
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@futurebird Immigration as an issue was created to prevent "wages are too low" from being an issue.Because wages are much, much, much too low, it takes a lot of violence to keep the politics focused on immigration instead of "why aren't I being paid more?"The useful response to "make them all go home" is "why don't you get paid what you're worth?"Democrats (party of the status quo) can't do that because it destroys the status quo. (The status quo is dead; pick a future.)
(DIR) Post #AwQZg4QDCIit8eyNsm by rlstone4dems@mastodon.social
2025-07-23T14:26:46Z
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@futurebird I totally agree, myrmepropagadist. It's only in the last 2 or so years, that I've become angry at the party that i support (Democracts) for not having a spine. Most of them, with the exception of Rep. Jasmine Crockett, Rep. Ayanna Pressley, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (there are a few more), will just fight, back and forward with the other party... It'll go like that for a while... Nothing will get done...
(DIR) Post #AwQbVuoiFk3sMWiby4 by futurebird@sauropods.win
2025-07-23T14:47:24Z
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@tltroup Since he works in roofing his wages have gone down because while the team he's on might get a contract they will bring in extra undocumented workers who are paid much less to catch up the slack. Democrats talk about how wonderful immigration is in the abstract and don't say anything about what it's doing to wages to have undocumented workers who can't form a union in the market.
(DIR) Post #AwQblrsSwvi5sZ54cq by futurebird@sauropods.win
2025-07-23T14:50:15Z
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@tltroup We've talked about what I've explained here: not only is what the Republicans are doing morally wrong and just cruel they don't have any intention of addressing the downward pressure on wages, or the fact that a buildings in our neighborhood are rented rooms (rather than rented apartments) which crowds too many people into a building ... this of course being also connected to the aforementioned low wages. There is a whole ecosystem profiting off of this.
(DIR) Post #AwQbvUh602LGsBLvHs by tltroup@digipres.club
2025-07-23T14:52:00Z
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@futurebird ah, so he supports Republican immigration policy. And yes, Dems tend to shy away from practical impact conversations.
(DIR) Post #AwQefM14nMf1Bkh504 by Mikal@sfba.social
2025-07-23T15:22:41Z
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@futurebird It's useful to reframe the question as "why are employers getting away with violating labor laws and paying substandard wages?" You can sometimes get people to think differently about the "immigrants taking our jobs" argument (assuming it's made in good faith in the first place) by suggesting that employers should be fined, not for hiring undocumented people, but for paying substandard wages or for labor law violations. Without getting into questions of immigration, that makes it very clear who's at fault if Joe Sixpack can't get paid well for a roofing job.
(DIR) Post #AwQjq1gHF3Yl4jsCtU by aSweetGentleman@mstdn.social
2025-07-23T16:20:38Z
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@futurebird Thank you for this thread!
(DIR) Post #AwQlk9NjteWX89WopE by JessTheUnstill@infosec.exchange
2025-07-23T16:41:59Z
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1000% all this. The way you deal with "illegal immigrants" isn't by playing some pointless rounding them up and deporting them game that's just a huge waste of money, it's by making these "illegal immigrants" into "legal immigrants". Then we actually know who they are, they have ID, they can actually call hotlines about labor law and working conditions violations without fear of ICE. And if someone tips off about employers hiring undocumented workers, do a surprise audit of the place with a squad of social workers to help anyone undocumented fill out their work visa paperwork, and arrest the owner/manager who is violating workplace laws.@futurebird
(DIR) Post #AwQmREeQBLvfvMsM9g by paulc@mstdn.social
2025-07-23T16:49:46Z
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@futurebird @sarahtaber was just discussing that it isn't so much the wages but the lack of opportunities to move up and that it is seasonal work. Plus it is hard work and it takes time to learn how to do it well. Who wants a job that lacks opportunities. She wrote that it 50 years ago there were more opportunities for fruit and vegetable pickers to move upwards.
(DIR) Post #AwQnqYHwPKqq1Rzqlc by clew@ecoevo.social
2025-07-23T17:05:34Z
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If there weren’t any immigrants, the two ways the bosses could react would be paying all their workers more, or figuring out how to pay their workers less *anyway* — I feel like historically some industries have managed the first but we’re moving pretty hard toward the second.“Just world “ worldview can’t see the second possibility. Although who trusts the big bosses? @futurebird @tltroup
(DIR) Post #AwQvJyqRRwV4Sl76Xo by futurebird@sauropods.win
2025-07-23T18:29:19Z
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@fivetonsflax I think you are largely correct. And it upsetting that by not addressing this they have allowed the hate-filled right wing alternatives to rush into the gap they have created by their silence. Why are people in the United States working under such conditions? With such low wages? We know it's not workable. We know they could be paid more and the world would not end. (In fact, it would be so good for the economy, can you imagine? Trickle up economics unlike the other kind works)
(DIR) Post #AwQvhi1HemDPEMV2Aa by quinn@social.circl.lu
2025-07-23T15:35:05Z
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@Mikal @futurebird Some jurisdictions have tried to enforce min wage for undocumented labor, and it's worked fairly well at times. in fact, in a lot of $7 min page states undocumented workers are still making $15 or more an hour because that's what the market demands. The benefits of illegal employment (illegal on the part of the employer) is usually around benefits and firing, not pay. The main problem is that the only class with rights is the rentier, not the citizen.
(DIR) Post #AwQvhpyO5QeTthCplY by quinn@social.circl.lu
2025-07-23T15:35:30Z
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@Mikal @futurebird it's a classic divide and conquer strategy for the rentier class.
(DIR) Post #AwRC5CXnvpxVpNw0tk by volkris@qoto.org
2025-07-23T21:30:29Z
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@JessTheUnstill Keep in mind that that is a political choice, a matter of personal values, and whether I may or may not agree with it, I know that a lot of people absolutely believe that rounding them up is itself the proper role of government.You have to realize that it's a political question of personal values, that there is no one way, if you want to change policy. Just saying there is only one way gives up the fight of engaging with people who believe otherwise, and bringing them over to your point of view. Yes, rounding them up is an option. Personally, I don't think it's an option that matches my preferences, but I have to appreciate that it is an option so that I can invite people to choose the option that I would prefer.@futurebird
(DIR) Post #AwRC5DKizx5gH6p59M by futurebird@sauropods.win
2025-07-23T21:36:53Z
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@volkris @JessTheUnstill "Yes, rounding them up is an option."It is not. "an option" if you are talking about "rounding up" 11 million people many of whom have jobs, apartments full of furniture, homes, families, kids, and lives in this country. I really wish more people had some concept of how large a number a million is. In a group of a million people are a million stories. This CANNOT be done in a timeframe less than 10+ years without a lot of violence and deaths.Do you know why?
(DIR) Post #AwRDeelt4lH5SizZgm by digitante@mstdn.social
2025-07-23T21:54:44Z
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@futurebird The ideal that Republicans (and far too often, Democrats) are shooting for is to maintain a permanent underclass of people who will work for starvation wages because they cannot organize to negotiate for better wages and conditions.We've been there before. We fought a war with ourselves over it, because that was a bad situation.It's still a bad situation (nuance: it's *better*, but it's still bad).This needs to end.Immigration reform needs to meet that goal.
(DIR) Post #AwRR1XCKhNT22QbKd6 by lufthans@mastodon.social
2025-07-24T00:24:32Z
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@futurebird and you don't want a roofer doing a crap jobPay for and get skilled workers
(DIR) Post #AwRUhCidWrC2Y5Gw8O by sabik@rants.au
2025-07-24T01:05:38Z
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@futurebird It even has an impact across industries; as a software engineer, I could be programming a robot to pick strawberries, but it wouldn't be able to compete with exploited labour(Strawberry-picking robot is hypothetical, but this actually happens with pick-and-place robots for electronics assembly)
(DIR) Post #AwSLNPVhYYm201fWDI by onthemountain@mastodon.online
2025-07-24T10:55:57Z
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@futurebird another piece of the puzzle is that undocumented workers are not taking benefits like unemployment, worker's comp, and social security. That's a huge pool of money helping keep our social systems afloat. Would removing these employees break those systems?
(DIR) Post #AwZFpdWJp19PwMkjaa by lienrag@mastodon.tedomum.net
2025-07-27T18:56:49Z
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@futurebird You've read this ?https://acoup.blog/2021/07/02/collections-my-country-isnt-a-nation/The writer is a liberal, and very naive on the topics of americanism, but at least he's knowledgeable of the theory and quite thoughtful.
(DIR) Post #AzV9svg0g9OToITkGm by Urban_Hermit@mstdn.social
2025-10-23T13:07:36Z
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@futurebird military service. Period.And to accommodate such a thing, the military does not need to contract things out. No landscaping service, no cafeteria contractors.If they can train truck mechanics in case of war, they can train their own caterers. A fully self enclosed ecosystem, people paid directly by the US, rewarded with citizenship as a a mater of course.The military should keep up its fine tradition of rewarding demonstrated competence, so people are not racially pigeon holed.
(DIR) Post #AzVGy2VNPwVU7DtAyO by Yosoone@mastodon.social
2025-10-23T14:27:00Z
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@futurebird 🧐
(DIR) Post #AzWUZcFywvS8H3tdXE by Peter_Panther@mastodon.social
2025-10-24T04:34:09Z
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@futurebirdChristian, yes, predominantly protestant/evangelical. Coptic Christians, Orthodox Christians and even Catholics are secind class in a sense.