this post was submitted on 09 Jan 2026
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[–] queerlilhayseed@piefed.blahaj.zone 192 points 3 days ago (10 children)

21% of adults in the US are illiterate in 2024.

https://www.thenationalliteracyinstitute.com/2024-2025-literacy-statistics

Illiteracy is a huge and intentional crisis in America and is a major reason we're in the mess we're in now. American education has been steadily hollowed out since public schools were integrated and now those chickens are coming home to roost. We are in for a long, bad time of rebuilding I'm afraid.

[–] MyNameIsIgglePiggle@sh.itjust.works 60 points 3 days ago (4 children)

Gonna be one of those shithole countries trump was talking about first time around

[–] queerlilhayseed@piefed.blahaj.zone 32 points 3 days ago (1 children)

The strange thing is that is has been, for some of us, for a while now. The screws have been tightening my whole life and people don't realize how close to destitution they are until it hits them. It's like the poverty version of "If my neighbor loses their job it's a recession, if I lose my job it's a depression."

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[–] NotSteve_@piefed.ca 22 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

The US has been for most of its existence

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[–] NotMyOldRedditName@lemmy.world 44 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Yet 54% of U.S. adults read below the equivalent of a sixth-grade level

That's nuts.

[–] SlippiHUD@lemmy.world 14 points 2 days ago (7 children)

My kids school promises literacy by 4th grade and hasn't mentioned it since. They're in 8th grade now. It's brutal, I've been working on thier reading level but it's hard when the school isn't making it a priority.

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[–] captainlezbian@lemmy.world 64 points 2 days ago

The shooter is a 10+ year veteran of the agency. ICE has always been bad and filled with violent nationalists.

Also, this is far more damning of our education system. It should be difficult to find and recruit that many illiterate people.

[–] RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world 47 points 2 days ago

They offered lots of money to join ICE to the worst people. Why is this surprising? They wanted thugs, they got thugs, not Harvard grads.

[–] j_elgato@leminal.space 29 points 2 days ago

The trigger men for the killing fields of Cambodia and the Tiananmen Square Massacre were illiterate peasants from rural areas...

[–] asteriskeverything@lemmy.world 95 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (2 children)

Sorry idr if this from source article or one linked in it:

Training was slashed from 16 weeks to six, with sit-ups eliminated because recruits couldn't handle them.

These nazis are so fucking pathetic in every conceivable way lol

it would be so much funnier if they weren't destroying lives and killing people

[–] NotMyOldRedditName@lemmy.world 41 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (1 children)

But we can't have women in 'men's jobs' because they can't meet the physical requirements...

[–] dermanus@lemmy.ca 15 points 2 days ago (4 children)

In most states hairdressers need more training than that.

[–] asteriskeverything@lemmy.world 1 points 10 hours ago

And more government oversight!

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[–] SaveTheTuaHawk@lemmy.ca 26 points 2 days ago (1 children)
[–] ArmchairAce1944@discuss.online 12 points 2 days ago (2 children)

Some real Meal Team Six holding the thin crust line.

[–] GarbadgeGoober@feddit.org 5 points 2 days ago

Meal Team Six made my day. Cannot stop laughing when looking at this dude.

[–] chronicledmonocle@lemmy.world 6 points 2 days ago

Gravy Seals

[–] ToastedRavioli@midwest.social 46 points 2 days ago (1 children)

"This isn't the department of baking cookies," one source said. "This is the Department of Homeland Security, where you can be deported from the country. And we're now employing people who are not equipped to tie their own shoelaces”

And giving them firearms

[–] Lushed_Lungfish@lemmy.ca 25 points 2 days ago (2 children)

THAT is an American tradition.

For a country as obsessed with firearms as the USA the level of knowledge on how to use them safely is shockingly low.

[–] IchNichtenLichten@lemmy.wtf 10 points 2 days ago

That's what happens when gun ownership is a right. It doesn't matter how fucking stupid, irresponsible, or psychopathic you are, you still get access to firearms and there's no pressure to learn how to handle them safely.

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[–] FosterMolasses@leminal.space 33 points 2 days ago

high school grads who can "barely read or write"

'Merica.

Looks like the decades-long reputation of educational institutions is finally crumbling and Americans will at last be forced to suffer through the same "Back in my country, I was doctor. But since my degree is considered no good here, now we run a convenience store" cliche.

[–] Etterra@discuss.online 19 points 2 days ago

So they couldn't graduate from 6th grade?

[–] PrincessLeiasCat@sh.itjust.works 71 points 3 days ago (3 children)

So we fired hundreds of thousands of competent civil servants, including highly specialized scientists and doctors, and hired these stupid fucking losers?

Awesome. Glad that waste, fraud, and abuse is gone I guess.

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[–] SnarkoPolo@lemmy.world 17 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Well doesn't this all sound like 1932 all over again.

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[–] jordanlund@lemmy.world 62 points 3 days ago (3 children)

"The explosive Daily Mail report..."

Not to defend ICE or nothin', but Daily Fail isn't exactly known for accurate journalism...

[–] CaptainPedantic@lemmy.world 26 points 3 days ago (2 children)

I've always called it the Daily Heil.

They kinda liked the Nazis.

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[–] pipi1234@lemmy.world 30 points 2 days ago (3 children)

I never in my life would have imagined that Idiocracy Movie would be used as a playbook to USA politics.

[–] notwhoyouthink@lemmy.zip 13 points 2 days ago

I would still vote for Kamacho over Trump or any other conservative any day. Kamacho valued intelligence and worked for the people.

[–] Sabata11792@ani.social 14 points 2 days ago

Idiocracy on the front and cyberpunk in the back.

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[–] MedicPigBabySaver@lemmy.world 16 points 2 days ago (2 children)

The South Park episode about ICE recruiting was hilarious.

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[–] mp3@lemmy.ca 50 points 3 days ago (2 children)
[–] CaptDust@sh.itjust.works 20 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (4 children)

My thought went to "This particular individual is unscannable" cops from Idiocracy. Reality is curving towards the Judge-verse but not the fun parts.

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[–] ohlaph@lemmy.world 40 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

I mean, if you can read and write, you can probably get a real job.

Being a pedophile protector isn't a real job. It's a temporary job where you either get killed, arrested, or commit suicide.

[–] Suavevillain@lemmy.world 10 points 2 days ago

That is why that crowd and police like AI so much to offload writing and thinking for them.

[–] hardcoreufo@lemmy.world 12 points 2 days ago (5 children)

I kinda want to sign up for ICE just to record and leak everything that goes on. I don't think I'd be able to stomach a second of being around these Nazis though.

[–] Katana314@lemmy.world 10 points 2 days ago (2 children)

There must be at least some samaritans that joined with this plan in mind. I regret to think that there will never be a way of sorting them from the bastions of evil when they're brought to courts though.

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Resistance comes in many forms and I like that you're considering what actions you can take

[–] SoloCritical@lemmy.world 7 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Prob aren’t gonna be considered unless you have swastikas or SS tattooed on yourself somewhere

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[–] Suriel@lemmy.world 25 points 3 days ago (1 children)

That's hardly an argument in case of US. Afteral folks out there aren't sharpest pencils...

On average, 79% of U.S. adults nationwide are literate in 2024.

21% of adults in the US are illiterate in 2024.

54% of adults have a literacy below a 6th-grade level (20% are below 5th-grade level).

https://www.thenationalliteracyinstitute.com/2024-2025-literacy-statistics

[–] LifeInMultipleChoice@lemmy.world 16 points 3 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (3 children)

What portion of that 21% considered illiterate are actually literate, but just not in English. I'm sure there are many who grew up in other countries and moved here but never bothered properly learning English. Like that would be like saying 1 in 5 people cannot use a phone, because surely they have to be able to read to know how to sign in to websites and search things, and I find it hard to believe that many Americans can't use a cell phone

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[–] partial_accumen@lemmy.world 36 points 3 days ago

USA recreating Hitlers SA "Brownshirts"

"Hitler also relied on terror to achieve his goals. Lured by the wages, a feeling of comradeship, and the striking uniforms, tens of thousands of young jobless men put on the brown shirts and high leather boots of the Nazi Storm Troopers (Sturmabteilungen). Called the SA, these auxiliary policemen took to the streets to beat up and kill some opponents of the Nazi regime. "

source

These ICE thugs and their direct leaders should also turn a few more pages in a history book to find out what Hitler did to the SA brownshirts:

"Night of the Long Knives, in German history, purge of Nazi leaders by Adolf Hitler on June 30, 1934. Fearing that the paramilitary SA had become too powerful, Hitler ordered his elite SS guards to murder the organization’s leaders, including Ernst Röhm. Also killed that night were hundreds of other perceived opponents of Hitler."

source

[–] devolution@lemmy.world 20 points 3 days ago

So standard American cops are ICE. Tracks.

[–] CharlesDarwin@lemmy.world 28 points 3 days ago

Why is that a bombshell? Most of these recruits probably came from terrorist cells like the Proud Boys, the Oathkeepers and other Nazi groups.

[–] NuXCOM_90Percent@lemmy.zip 28 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (6 children)

I mean... a good chunk of the US (and apparently also at least Western Europe) can't read or write. That is a sadly normal problem at this point. And the rest? We actively teach kids to pattern match and "guess" what the other words are from the ones they recognize. Think about that the next time it is painfully obvious that someone replying to you didn't read what you actually said.

A friend who teaches middle school has come to accept that a good chunk of why their students (and presumably the adult populace) flock to "AI Assistants" is that it is literally giving them text to speech and putting things into a format they understand. Which... combined with the tendency towards hallucination and overly praising the user is fucking horrifying.

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[–] GuyFawkesV@lemmy.world 26 points 3 days ago (2 children)
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[–] carpelbridgesyndrome@sh.itjust.works 6 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Deport them they can't speak English. That's how it's supposed to work right?

/s

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[–] mycodesucks@lemmy.world 15 points 3 days ago

So educated people AREN'T looking for jobs that egregiously violate everything law enforcement is supposed to be? Color me surprised.

[–] BanMe@lemmy.world 6 points 2 days ago

Then why are we paying them signing bonuses that are more than many people's yearly salaries?!

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