Old Fucking Punk @lwriemen@librem.one

Rep. Greenfield is asking exactly the right questions.

If the US is going to feed itself, there are farm jobs that have to be done. So how are we gonna do it?

No, really! How?

Who's going to do the work? What will their lives be like?

Will we build a farm sector that offers jobs that free people can build our lives with? Or will we keep building jobs that only seem worthwhile to desperate people with no other options?

If only immigrants take these jobs, how do they get here?

What are the circumstances they work under?

Now how's that link up to the ol' "Who will pick our crops" question?

These days I'm a small farmer. There's a saying in agriculture. "It doesn't matter what the laws are. Farmers will still get their workers one way or another."

So "Who will pick our crops?" is exactly what we should be asking.

And you know what Trump just did?

He just overturned all those updates. Back in June 2025.

Now, the system for *legal* farm immigration is back to the free-for-all that let people build a $200M slavery business in Georgia- with a license from the federal government.

https://www.dol.gov/newsroom/releases/whd/whd20250620

Widespread abuses are why Biden made updates to the H-2A guest worker program. Basic stuff: minimum wage enforcement. "If people are living on your property they need plumbing." "Don't take their passports."

To stop more slavery rings from happening!

https://www.americanimmigrationcouncil.org/blog/biden-h2a-rule-expands-protections-oversight-migrant-workers/

To come to the US legally? Farm workers are supposed to get an H-2A visa.

In theory, H-2A visas are fine. They're supposed to work like a temp agency/worker-to-workplace matching service.

But in reality? So many H-2A workers are abused, extorted, cheated, raped, & held prisoner on the job.

Here's a brief piece on how over 100 people who went through the entire proper H-2A documentation process to enter the US legally, still wound up in slavery.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iJUdONHDIbs

Love the flop-sweat smell, ICE!

She's asking the right questions. Sadly, slavery IS a staffing issue. It's quite popular on farms. And it's not caused by "hiring illegals."

The US's biggest modern slavery case was 100% workers who came legally.

I'm an American & former farm worker. Let's talk!

Loosely translated from a German podcast I just heard (from the SZ, a national newspaper): "LLMs produce language. They don't produce content." And that is a good working definition, IMHO (In My Humble Opinion).

Cartoon: Choose your chatbot https://www.dailykos.com/story/2025/8/1/2336171/-Cartoon-Choose-your-chatbot? by @mcfadden

Any technical solution that is supposed to block teenagers from anything is not going to work very well, because you are facing an opponent that:

* is smarter than you,
* is very dedicated,
* has a lot of free time,
* has an extensive network of friends,
* faces no serious consequences if caught,
* outnumbers you,
* considers you an immoral crook.

You really, *really* want to have them on your side. That means education rather than control.

The #Trump economy is here and it doesn't look good - https://boingboing.net/2025/08/01/the-trump-economy-is-here-and-it-doesnt-look-good.html "The market is tumbling as analysts learn they can not trust the Government's jobs and unemployment numbers. "

Creativity, The Fifth Freedom & Access To Knowledge - https://www.techdirt.com/2025/08/01/creativity-the-fifth-freedom-access-to-knowledge/ "In April 2007, Janez Potočnik, then European Commissioner for Science and Research, introduced the concept of the Fifth Freedom: the “freedom of knowledge.”

The `asn` is command line ASN lookup tool. It can do RPKI validity, BGP stats, ASPath, IP reputation, IP geolocation, IP fingerprinting, Network recon / lookup tool and web traceroute. It is a prefect tool to look into IP address for security reasons and recommend for IT or network professionals. https://github.com/nitefood/asn

the LLM is not a learning aid, it is an absolute barrier to learning. it is not similar in kind to copy/pasting from stackoverflow or cliffs notes. it fully supplants the entire process of learning, and the person using the LLM never improves their understanding because the LLM cognitive workflow never engages with even the shape of the problem.

@Firesphere @PetraOleum @alexs when I get CDs I usually get them as part of buying the album from #Bandcamp .. of course the digital version is also available (I grab the .flac).

This is some North Korea/Stalinesque nonsense

Don't like the numbers? Demand the director's resignation and/or ritual suicide

https://www.cnbc.com/2025/08/01/trump-erika-mcentarfer-jobs-report-fired.html

One way rich people get that way is to stiff their creditors. Trump has done it for decades. In this report, CNN shows how Musk has adopted that tactic.

https://www.cnn.com/2025/07/31/us/elon-musk-company-unpaid-liens-invs

Backstory on growing famine in Gaza:

Food aid now comes through one (1) US evangelical Christian nonprofit. It didn't even exist until March.

They have only 4 dropoff points. And people who come to pick up food get shot at.

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2025/07/gaza-famine-united-states-donald-trump/