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“Every great building once begun as a building plan. That means, sitting in that building plan on the table is a mighty structure not yet seen.It is the same with dreams.”
― Israelmore Ayivor, Shaping the dream

“Kids . . . were hustled through basic training and speedily deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan, only to find another army already there—the shadow army of private for-profit defense contractors. Most of them were contracted to do a long list of chores that uniformed soldiers used to do for themselves when, courtesy of conscription, there were a lot more of them. To maximize their profits and minimize their work, however, the private contractors hired subcontractors who, in turn, hired subcontractors from third world countries to ship in laborers to do on the cheap the actual grunt work of hauling water and food supplies, cleaning latrines, collecting garbage, burning trash, preparing food, washing laundry, fixing electrical grids, doing construction, and staffing the fast food stands and beauty salons that sold tacos and pedicures to the troops.”
― Ann Jones, They Were Soldiers: How the Wounded Return from America's Wars: The Untold Story

“How do they know what to do?" Mary Frances said. "To just rip into a building like that and expect it to stay standing."
"For the parts you want to stay standing," Tim said.
"Exactly."
"Practice," Al said. "And of course, one of them is in charge."
Mary Frances studied the tangle of men, all dressed alike, movingly easily together. "I can't tell them apart."
"Well, it's like war, I guess," Al said. "If you knew whom to blame, it'd be too easy to shoot him.”
― Ashley Warlick, The Arrangement

“This is the problem with the gig economy, I think as I squirm around in the trunk. Everyone is so vulnerable and the rules for what constitutes civilized behavior--well, they're coming apart so quickly I've decided those rules were illusions all along. We have stopped seeing each other as people, as fellow travelers on this dying earth; we just see a gig or an economy.... The system is designed to keep us so depleted that we forget our sense of decency and become so mercenary about our own survival that we have nothing left to contribute to the common good.”
― Laura van den Berg, I Hold a Wolf by the Ears: Stories