I saw this on Mastodon:
US gov asks european suppliers to guarantee they don’t do DEI.
Next: we ask US to guarantee they do fair pay, 5 weeks paid annual vacation and 1 year paid maternity leave.
No. Just no. Even if it were offered, which is pretty damned unlikely, this is a privileged persons idea of a compromise. We’ll let you have fair pay, 5 weeks paid annual vacation and 1 year paid maternity leave, if you just agree that no non-white, non-male, non-straight person will get those benefits? Solidarity matters, and I don’t think we should sell out a majority to get privileges for a minority.
OK, it’s not presented as an exchange of offers, we should just surrender to that European demand anyway. Fair enough.
I read it as an exchange of requests that aren’t going to be granted. For better and worse.
For me, that sounds like an attempt to show the unreasonableness of the U.S. demand. Anyone who’s lived in this country for any length of time knows that none of those things are going to happen, short of a revolution. Another point is that some European countries are experiencing an impending demographic crisis. They need all the young people they can get. Going after Black, brown, female and gay people is hardly a winning tactic to attract more.
In Germany the gubmint calculates that there’s a need of around 400,000 new entries from abroad every year just to keep the working population stable. Every year.
Plus, in 2024 more than a million Gemans celebrated their sixtieth birthday, which means that there’s a huge wave of retirements peaking now and in the next few years.
So, no matter how this may break the brains of the abundant racist component, it’s either this or demographic collapse served hot.
There could be an alternative to immigration, if one wanted to keep the pop lily-white: no retirement for anyone from today on, you work ´til you drop (drop dead I mean). Plus, reintroduction of Zwangsarbeit: if no darker-hued workers are available to pick vegetables and work the land, well then it’s up to you citizen. Report to the nearest potato field for a nice period of communing with nature, regardless of age or condition… and yet somehow I don’t see this realistic program of glorious racial purity being very popular.
@outis #3 – You know who are going to do the Zwangsarbeit, don’t you? Not Trump, Musk and their ilk.
As we have said numerous times, “you can’t bargain with a rattlesnake” © .
@shermanj #5: Sure you can. It just won’t prevent it from biting.
@rietpluim #4: ah but consider, say, all those beautiful potatoes in Idaho.
We don’t want furinners as pickers right? Pickers who are maybe even non-white? No DEI!
So the Prez should put his back where his fat mouth already is and get to work, as a shining example of laboriousness. After all, Mussolini did something similar so the precedent is already there.
(This said, I cannot easily visualize the Trumpoid actually bending his back and doing that kind of work. He’d implode in the first two seconds).
If you think you love freedom but you don’t care if it applies to everyone, what you actually love is privilege.
Nemo @1 hit the nail on the head.
@6,7 You knew it was a rattlesnake when you picked it up.
Or tried to bargain with it.
@3 Relax, I’m pretty sure the self-inflicted economic recession/depression will kick all those American senior citizens living in assisted living/retirement communities/nursing homes out onto the street, destitute. Have you looked at the stock market lately? The safest place to park your money currently is US Treasury bonds, which just means that your money loses value slower than it otherwise would in a savings account. Or, at the moment, in the stock market. Those minimum required distributions are murder in times of economic downturn.
Zwangsarbeit indeed. You will be forced to work, or starve, if you are relying on your retirement income. You certainly won’t stay retired for long.
As per Nemo@1 — this wasn’t meant as a serious exchange, it was purely to point out the unreasonableness of the Trump administration’s demands.
They don’t just want White Superemacy and a racist system for themselves they want to impose it on everyone.
/(Too) Cap’n Obvs(?)
@5. shermanj : “As we have said numerous times, “you can’t bargain with a rattlesnake” © .”
Unfair to Ratttlesnakes – they are more reasonable and less toxic than the MAGAts..
Rattlesnakes, of course, have a reasonable excuse too as their level of intellect isn’t their fault. Humans are capable of and really should know better../ Cap’n Obvs again but still.
I don’t know about rattlesnakes, but I’ve bargained with Australian snakes. It’s been “I won’t bother you, you don’t bother me, deal?”. Always gone fine
It really doesn’t seem fair to implicate the rattlesnakes here… they’re peaceful, social creatures that would rather warn off a potential threat than harm it. When they hurt something, they do it either to protect themselves or to eat. As opposed to ‘conservatives’ who consider hurting people weaker than themselves to be a privilege and a joy for it’s own sake.
I’m reading “quantum of nightmares’ at the moment, and there are some pretty horrific Zwangsarbeit programs for those on the dole
I wonder to what degree their concern about equality and merit in hiring is because there’s a huge amount of nepotism going on and they don’t want anyone saying “we have too many whiny trust fund brats on the staff”?
@ ^ Marcus Ranum : I somehow dounbt it very much! BTW. Whatevers happened toJared Kushner in this latest admin..
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@15 dangerousbeans : Yep. If you leave snakes alone they’ll do likewise generally. Been to a few snake talks by experts in the local bushcare group and the advice is to just let them escape which is what they’ll be trying to do when they see us since we’re predators to them and they’d rather save their venom for their prey. Most snakebiets occur wen peopel either accidentally come into contact or most often when they deliberately try tocatch or kill the snake.
@3 outis
Except you should be aiming for a dramatic decrease in population, not maintaining the absurd levels of today.
Actually, this sort of thing should be the norm worldwide.
Human rights are supposed to be for everyone. If you allow goods to be imported that were produced under conditions that would not be allowed at home, you are effectively saying that you think those conditions are not good enough for your own workers, but they are good enough for workers in other countries.
How is that not a contradiction in its own terms?
@outis:
Yes, Germany is itself in a bad state, especially with the next Chancellor and the rising xenophobia.
I just found this on German ScienceBlogs: https://scienceblogs.de/bloodnacid/2025/04/02/war-on-wokeness-von-duesteren-prognosen-und-ueberschiessenden-pendeln/#comment-424250
This guy is a professor, young, also a raging transphobe. They’re blaming Trump and the actions of the right (their actions, their right-wring extremists, even if they don’t want to hear it) on the woke mobs and are crying tears for the “intellectuals” in the US that have supposedly suffered … like Boghossian and Weinstein.
@erik333
Sorry, how does that reply make sense? Any reduction would have to be very slow since our societies currently require that (and I don’t see a real solution to that anywhere). Since these people also already exist, it makes sense to get them to live and work with us. Unfortunately, they aren’t white and German-speaking, so they’d rather have economy and society collapse.
A dramatic decrease could only be achieved by killing a lot of people in a short time. Is that what you’re advocating?
Following the Anschluss, Universal in Vienna were required to send a letter to each composer demanding reassurance that he was not of Jewish descent. Bartok and Kodaly refused to comply and lost all performing rights income.
@23 KG
Hopefully people stopping having children will be fast enough.
@22 ChrisE84
If its very slow then we’re all fucked due to global warming and over exploitation of ecosystems anyway.
@erik333
Most people aren’t responsible for much CO2. Emissions are very correlated with global wealth
Climate change is a problem caused by the wealthiest 10%
@26 dangerousbeans
The fewer people around the more farmlands can be reclaimed by nature, less pollution, less carbon emissions – ultimately allowing better living standards on average.
100 million people world wide seems a reasonable number to allow some science and a space program.
You would have to kill people for that. Any change that doesn’t collapse societies must be slow, which is also a good reason why we should have more immigrants.
@3 outis
In Germany the gubmint calculates that there’s a need of around 400,000 new entries from abroad every year just to keep the working population stable. Every year
This seems reasonable
Fertility rates are going gown almost everywhere. Germany’s is about 1.4 You need a birthrate of 2.1 to maintain a stable population. Hungary has a birthrate of about 1.6 and Japan”s is about 1.25.
Have a look at the plots at the link below. Neither Japan nor Hungary are noted for accepting a lot of immigrants.
I am pretty sure the rather drastic drop in Hungary is due to a lot other reasons such as EU membership as well but its birthrate is still far below replacement value.
https://www.mediafire.com/file/3ipvz2gpd8wk98k/dhl.pdf/file
@28 ChrisE84
All we need to do is keep going as we have been. Just don’t look up. This mass extinction event might include us too.