- cross-posted to:
- pics@lemmy.world
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The price of MURICAN FreedomTM
Oh no the people who volunteered to be murderers aren’t getting good food :(
Every US male who turns 18 “volunteers” to be eligible to “volunteer” to die overseas for the Epstein class.
Has there been a draft yet, or what do you mean?
They may be referring to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selective_Service_System
“All male U.S. citizens and immigrant non-citizens who are between the ages of 18 and 25 are required by law to have registered within 30 days of their 18th birthdays [to The Selective Service] […] The Selective Service System is a contingency mechanism in the event conscription becomes necessary.”
Yeah, I get that. But there hasn’t been any draft yet, so everyone on that boat has voluntarily joined the military.
We’re using “volunteer” very strongly in a society where we need to work to live.
Put it this way: military recruitment is almost always inversely proportional to the economic wellbeing. I. E. When the economy sucks and people can’t find jobs, that’s when you often get the highest amount of recruits.
That’s not even going into systematic issues that can lead to that; my mom was in ROTC to pay off her college and my uncles went in when my grandpa kicked them out of the house, almost as soon as they graduated high school.
But yes, back on point: yes, at any point you can be told you are going to be drafted. Just becsuse it’s not this specific boat doesn’t mean it won’t ever happen.
Put it this way: military recruitment is almost always inversely proportional to the economic wellbeing.
At least In the US, that is very much not true. The poor are actually underrepresented in the USian military. It is the well-of quantiles in the middle that are overrepresented.
Also, no, you are not forced to join the USian military.
At least In the US, that is very much not true.
https://usafacts.org/articles/is-military-enlistment-down/
It decreases overall, but you can definitely trace spikes in applicants with economic slumps. COVID is probably the big exception, for obvious reasons.
The poor are actually underrepresented in the USian military.
That’s why I focused on applications to military. They don’t let everyone in, and it’s well that many of the lower income applicants get passed up because they can’t pass the tests.
Another family example: my cousin was passed up because he had tattoos. They have been more lenient on such policies this decade, though.
you are not forced to join the USian military.
If “respond to the draft or get arrested” is your interpretation of choice, then you are technically correct. But most societies would not call that freedom of choice.
There hasn’t been a draft in ages. Every single murderer in the US military has chosen their role.
Oh, no, the volunteer soldiers who are willingly taking orders from pedophiles and Nazis aren’t feeling COMFY and eating gourmet food???
Fuck’em. This is better than they deserve.
Pretty sure that when they enlisted, they had something else in mind.
And it’s not always about the glory of the nation or other crap.Did they willingly enlist in the US military during the last 50 or so years?
Again, fuck them. It’s not as if they had anything noble “in mind”
Yeah fuck those stupid poors who had no financial safety net nor a good enough education to pursue traditional employment, who wanted the option to secure a good mortgage or steady healthcare
Nobody shade a tear for isis fighters who joined regardless of their social and economical situation why should i shed a tear for the american terrorists?
Hey, I won’t stop you if you want to take the position that poverty turns the decision to carry water for an empire built on coercion, colonization, and violence into a virtuous one. Knock yourself out.
We all participate in unethical business, however far removed our choices may seem from it. I’m not part of the military, don’t endorse it, and am angry about how my taxes are spent on it. It’s our government and military leadership that causes these problems and should be derided though. A lot of these sailors probably joined the military fresh out of high school with nothing better out there for them and aren’t educated enough to realize they’re not doing anything good. They’re kids though, but ride your moral high ground. I’m sure you’ve never worked for a scummy corporation or consumed slave labor goods.
Cool. I guess all those ICE agents are also just fundamentally decent people, deprived of education and economic opportunity. They just don’t know any better. I guess because we all purchase goods from retail locations we’re just as bad.
People like you are the reason your country is where it is. Get yourself some real values.
We all participate in unethical business
Incorrect. Far from everyone (who lives in NATO) does actual contribution to NATO’s colonialism.
and am angry about how my taxes are spent on it.
This is a backwards view on the matter. The government literally cannot run out of money. What taxes do is remove money from circulation. There isn’t really a difference between a government having taxed a sum of money and that government not having issues that money (apart from what people actually did for that money).
A lot of these sailors probably joined the military fresh out of high school with nothing better out there for them
Other choices being worse for these people do not make this choice morally justifiable. Surely you aren’t in favour of people taking random bribe simply on the grounds of the alternatives being less self-serving?
steady healthcare
It seems like the ones who really need the steady healthcare are either not eligible for the military or are the ones being attacked by it
Why are you pretending that they are poor, or that that is somehow a good excuse?
I just think willfully ignoring the fact that there’s systemic pressure that coerces the lower class into the military and then saying they deserve to be starved and sent off to their deaths in pointless war is a fucking wildly dickish perspective. Like you assume they chose to be in the military as one of many lucrative options and not as the only prospective chance to better themselves (however false the illusion is)
Poverty draft is a myth. The USian soldiers are almost all well-off.
All of them voluntarily sign up for the most vile activity one can do.Also, poverty and especially the often pointed-out desire to get higher education are not good excuses to inflict poverty, torture and death upon non-white foreigners.
Also, do you think that the countries they invade have a moral right to defend themselves and kill these monsters, or do you side with the invaders and claim that these people should live?
I may regret responding to you but here goes…Poverty draft IS a real thing and the recruiting tactics are absolutely vile. I joined the Navy after dropping out of local community college working as a busser at a local bar/restaurant living with my grandmother and mother in the same house. The recruiters for all branches of the military are definitely predatory they get quotas to meet and signing up people for high desired or high skill positions gave them extra points. I was told that if I signed up for a 6 year enlistment I would go to college at Charleston University for 2 years, be able to have a 4 year degree after my service as well as not be deployed(ended up doing 3 back to back sea duty tours). Most of the people I served with came from a mix of stories that if played out they would not have had much to offer their families. Many people I directly worked with got in with waivers for criminal offenses and admitted that they would probably have ended up in the system and literally had no other options. The coercion that is used on vulnerable people whos literally brain is still developing is not great.
They willingly signed up for engaging in colonial subjugation of the rest of the world, including by kidnapping, torturing, and killing non-white foreigners.
What do you think they had in mind?
Free tuition, healthcare, a paid job. When you’re trying to get yourself out of misery, you don’t always have many options.
If you can sign up for kidnapping, torturing and murdering people in the Global South for the Epstein empire, you can find a different job.
Also, did they suddenly forget what their military does? And also failed to think of the people on the receiving end of what this military does? How is this in any way an excuse?
This is the exact same stuff they fed us when I was in Iraq 20 year ago. They gave the contract to the lowest bidder who bought the cheapest food possible then pocketed the “leftover” cash. This isn’t new. The difference between then and now is our families could send us care packages and we didn’t have cell phones to post about the mystery meat. I don’t want anyone to eat like this but I also don’t know why everyone is surprised by wartime food. Food SUCKS when you deploy, it’s why they give troops the big send off steak and lobster dinner. Best way to avoid giving our troops trash food is to NOT DEPLOY THEM.
Back in the day they had ice cream ships… SHIPs… For ice cream…
How the mighty have fallen
They were nicknamed the “ice cream ships” because they had refrigerated holds and freezers, but in reality they moved all kinds of food and perishable supplies, a lot more than just ice cream.
The USN was no doubt very good at logistics in the 40’s, but they didn’t have so much excess capacity they could dedicate entire ships to ice cream.
All food should suck for the soldiers of your empire.
Mildly infuriating? The coward butchers in the us military deserve every humiliation and degradation they can get.
While I get what you’re meaning, I am going to ask a question: do you treat criminals the same?
The way you see military, many of whom are from low income without many means of survival, as monsters because they join a government system that promises social services that harms so many. So a means to an end.
A criminal will steal or murder for similar reasons a person joins the military - except instead of social services, they’re taking what they need to survive. So do you think they deserve humiliation and degradation? Heck, prison food is similar.
Both are forced into making morally wrong choices that affect others outside of themselves but instead of anger at the system that creates these situations, you insult the people. It’s reactionary.
This from someone who knows multiple leftists who changed because of the military. So I see belittling them online as counterproductive to any type of coalition being made as it separates them from others who may hold similar if not the same beliefs.
do you treat criminals the same?
“Criminal” is a mich more wide group of people in the relevant sense. It includes people who are deemed such simply because of being of a “wrong race”, to people who do sabotage against the genocidal machine, to people who, indeed do some of the stuff that soldiers are very guilty of (strangely, you don’t seem to say that we should be ecstatic about people like Epstein and Maxwell).
A much better question would be “do you treat cops the same?”, but the military is still much worse.
The way you see military, many of whom are from low income without many means of survival,
Poverty draft is a myth. The USian military is mostly from well-off backgrounds.
Furthermore, if you can sign up for kidnapping and torture of foreigners for oil, you can find a different job.A criminal will steal or murder for similar reasons a person joins the military
So, you think that we shouldn’t speak ill of the likes of Epalstein and Maxwell, on the grounds that they were simply doing what the military does?
But yeah, if one intends to do kidnapping, torture, and murder for money, they can at least keep it to the Imperial Core instead of to foreigners.
So do you think they deserve humiliation and degradation?
These people that sign up to contribute to the most awful things that can be done deserve significantly worse.
Both are forced into making morally wrong choices
People who sign up for the USian military are not forced to do that.
but instead of anger at the system that creates these situations, you insult the people. It’s reactionary.
Do you think that insulting cops and ICE thugs is reactionary? Do consider that they do much less evil than the military.
So I see belittling them online as counterproductive to any type of coalition
If they are actually dependant, they understand why their former colleagues get such ire and would die with the victims and against said colleagues.
So I’m not going to argue because again, I said: I understand where the sediment comes from.
I want to address what concerns me about this type of agression. When someone does something for so long, it becomes part of their personality, their being. So insulting the military can come off as insulting the person rather than the role/entity. Especially for Americans, who do not have much outside of propaganda being fed from every angle and barely an education, many barely read anymore. If they can barely critically think, do you think they’re at fault or are they raised/trained to just believe it? This is the general population, not elite class who have better education purposely.
The middle class in American just a mean of the lower class and upper class, the stat you’re referencing is basing it around any household 50-100K - household, which means two parent income. So two parents making 50K would be low income in my opinion because each person is making 25K which is about 12 an hour. The lower percent was 85K and up I think showing that below 85K in an household leads to more enrollment in military. It’s just that the phrase “middle class” doesn’t exist like it used to as prices have rose and driven that class further down. This study even polled and it shows similar in 2025 so I’m supporting the data you read with the thought that people are surviving well on 80K and below. The main statistic that I want to point at is a majority joined for money and education.
Now to touch on that part about class, the elite class has no law to follow in the US. You’ve seen it, we’ve all seen it. So why bring up Epstein? It’s linked but not relevant to what we’re speaking about. Yes, he’s a criminal and a pedophile and deserved to be punished to death but that doesn’t relate to poverty stricken individuals who I referenced resorting to a life of crime by societal standards. This type of conversation diversion is used by right-wingers like Jordan Peterson and the rest of the grifters to avoid talking about the actual point. Again, it’s reactionary - you’re using pedophilia crime from the elite to compare to poverty related crime which is galaxies away on a morality spectrum. Killing someone from being on the brink of death for a way to survive is different than owning an island and sex trafficking humans. The reason is to get a reaction in the moral play. You can read why it’s reactionary due to the chain of you acknowledging the relation of poverty to crime and military by stating the statistic of the military being middle class so why mention a upper class criminal again?
Again, I understand your sediment. I’d just rather work towards deprogramming others who may be leaving the military or whatever relation to it with some grace in conversation (mostly in real life as this is what online banter is nowadays and probably always has and will) rather than attacking and letting the right (that can be reasoned with, I know some can’t be reason with) grow larger due to more alienation.
They deserve it for wanting to serve there. None of them are good people. They know what they sigbed up for (not talking about the food)
Ever had a meal with a group of US military guys? They’re done in like 3 minutes. It’s wild
I keep better company
I mean, when you literally sign up to be cannon fodder, I don’t know what you expect. America has always treated troops and veterans like livestock. You could simply choose a career other than oppressing the third world for oil profits.
Legitimately, I’d like to say I was just making some principled stand, but when I was 18, “the food is famously terrible” was a bigger part of me not joining the military than I’d like to admit 😂
Prison slop.
Probably fake or misleading. There aren’t enough calories pictured in these images.
My biggest complaint about the pics is the trays are different. The military probably has a standard tray that they buy, and likely wouldn’t use a compostable lidded container as shown in pic one.
I mean, 2 of the 3 pictures that show trays show the same trays. The rest are all takeout containers, which are the kind of consumable that makes sense to be just whatever Supply can requisition. And I’m more likely to believe different tray styles per class, I.e. submarines might have a more efficient (and therefore costlier) design for more cramped quarters that a carrier doesn’t necessarily need.
I can’t speak for the modern military, but when I was in almost 30 years ago there were not standard trays. The chow halls were different from base to base.
Can you give any sources? Personal experience from an anonymous account on a niche website isn’t to be taken as truth :(
Sorry, I didn’t take pictures of the trays 30 years ago. I really don’t care if you believe it or not. Just making a comment.
Idk… I feel like that kind of incompetence is almost unimaginable with an unprecedentedly well-funded organization known the world over for its logistical capabilities… But the people saying it’s fake happen to be the biggest liary lying liars there ever were, so im a bit divided.
Probably fake or misleading
fwiw the first and last images in this post both were first published in this USA today article back in April, attributed to anonymous crew members of the USS Tripoli and USS Abraham Lincoln.
There aren’t enough calories pictured in these images
Caloric intake is one of the complaints of people on the ship…the tortilla one is for sure real, that’s from when the stories first started coming out.
Almost certainly misleading, but the underlying truth is that shits fucked
Accepting such posts does mean becoming even more vulnerable to misinformation and propaganda hence I don’t.
I’ve seen these pictures attributed to USS Abraham Lincoln on some other sites.
That ship recently suffered a major supply crisis while it was on station in the middle east. The reason is that Iran was able to deny the use of all of the nearby bases with their drones and medium range missiles. Thus the US Navy resorted to resupplying Abraham Lincoln from Diego Garcia, which is thousands of miles away.
So it’s plausible to me that these are real images, and they represent a very serious problem for the navy: both in terms of total calories and in the loss of morale from low quality.
In any case, Abraham Lincoln has since been relieved, and will make a liberty port call in Thailand after 245 days at sea.
But they were without supply for half a year, sending a ship from the US takes a couple of weeks. This is just bad leadership.
I think maybe a little misleading, but probably not fake. For the boxed meal, that shit happened all the time. It’s just like going through the drive through.
For meals served on ships, most of the time you ask for what you want, they don’t just give you what they have. If you have a piece of bread on your tray, that’s because you only grabbed a piece of bread. Most of the time.
Sometimes there’s just not a lot of options because you haven’t been replenished in a while and the cooks have already done what they can to keep people from bitching at them constantly. Fresh fruits and vegetables are always the first to spoil, so eventually everything is canned, frozen, rehydrated, or reconstituted. Or baked from scratch, poorly.
aka school lunches. pretty sure theyre usin the same playbook
Ah, so the US is one of them “shithole” countries the pedophile likes to make fun of, huh?
Every accusation is a confession with them.
Now do modern prison and public school food for comparison.
This looks on par or worse than school lunch when i was in grade school. Looks like less too, somehow.
In the US, yes.
Less chance to get shot in prison
Drastically higher chance of getting shanked tho
Honestly, the pics I’ve seen of USA school food were worse. Which kinda tracks; I’m sure they value soldiers higher than children.
Above I see full grain rice and a variety of protein sources, if industrially produced. Salad is missing of course but that would be too much to ask Ig
edit: I have heard that it varies. Both the pics in this post and the posts I’ve seen are anecdotal but not isolated outliers either.
Speak for your terrible school district. Mine growing up, and my kid’s today, had magnitudes better food than this slop.
Prison food tho, you’re on the mark based on what I’ve heard from my buddy and my brother from the time they spent back there.
School food in the US is highly variable. Each individual school district sets food contracts, and there are over 13,000 districts. That said, many of them have very bad food, especially any district contracting with Sodexo is going to have awful food. But a lot of us make lunch for our kids to bring every day either way
My boys have packed for probably 2-4/5 days forever. They ALWAYS buy on Friday as apparently get a treat - ice cream bars, etc. And, cannot just buy the treat… Mostly they take leftovers. Occasionally (maybe once a week or so?) sandwiches - PBJ, or whatever delimeat we have.
As @protist@retrofed.com just mentioned, it varies greatly.
The lunch at my kids school today is:
- Crispy chicken sandwich
- Tater tots or French fries
- Assorted chilled fruits (from local farms, usually blueberries, strawberries, cranberries, peaches, and apples)
- Choice of veggies: pickles, cole slaw, or cucumber salad
- Milk (1%, fat free, fat free chocolate, soy, almond)
Each of those gets a swap option (not as much variety here given what it is) for allergies and preferences (such as vegan options).
It would be really hard to try and make me consider that worse than what I just looked at.
Edit: Full disclosure, our kids bring their lunch every day, on Fridays they can get an extra treat like cookies or something from there though). My wife makes bread fresh, we get our produce from the local farms too as well as growing a few things ourselves, etc.
Nah, my kids’ district has really good food. But we also have high property taxes that pay for it.
Is that an actual shoe sole in the second picture?
Beiged mystery meat
Prison food.
MRE’s are better than that slop
Let’s get this out onto a tray………nice!!
Nice hiss!
