XPost: alt.fan.rush-limbaugh, alt.politics.republicans, talk.politics.guns   
   XPost: alt.survival   
   From: rachel-madcow@msnbc.com   
      
   In article    
   forging asshole  wrote:   
   >   
      
   No matter what is happening in the world, one can always count   
   on the New York Times to lie about it. In this spirit, the Times   
   published an article Tuesday telling its readers that “people   
   around the world are better off than ever” and that the many   
   millions who are risking their lives protesting against   
   shortages of basic goods and the rising cost of living are   
   simply ignorant of “all the data” showing how grateful they   
   should be.   
      
   “Is the world really falling apart, or does it just feel that   
   way?” reads the headline. Dr. Pangloss from Voltaire’s Candide   
   couldn’t have posed the question any better. The Times writes:   
   if one merely “scans the headlines, it’s easy to conclude that   
   something has broken,” but “that sense of chaos can be difficult   
   to square with longer-term data showing that, on many metrics,   
   the world is generally becoming better off.”   
      
   According to the author, Max Fisher, “War is rarer today, by   
   some measures, than it has been for most of the past 50   
   years—and, when it does occur, is significantly less deadly.   
   Genocides and mass atrocities are less common all the time, too.   
   Life expectancy, literacy and standards of living are all   
   rising, on average, to historic highs. Also steadily declining:   
   hunger, child mortality, and extreme poverty, liberating   
   hundreds of millions from what are, by sheer numbers, among the   
   pre-eminent threats facing humanity.” The article contains one   
   passing reference to “the pandemic.”   
      
   In recent years, the Times has been held up as a model   
   “authentic” news source, while the World Socialist Web Site has   
   faced censorship and journalists like Julian Assange are rotting   
   in jail for telling the truth. Nevertheless, we submit the   
   following statements by the Times to basic fact-checking.   
      
   —   
      
   “War is rarer today” and “is significantly less deadly”—LIE   
      
   The United States and NATO allies are presently waging a war   
   against Russia in Ukraine, bringing the world closer to the   
   brink of nuclear catastrophe than at any point since the Cuban   
   Missile Crisis of 1962. The US government has poured tens of   
   billions of dollars into backing the Ukrainian government in a   
   war that Joe Biden said was aimed at removing Vladimir Putin   
   from power. The conflict escalates every week and threatens to   
   emerge into open world war between nuclear powers.   
      
   The US has been permanently at war for over two decades. The US   
   invasions and occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan killed over 1   
   million civilians. The US-backed Saudi invasion of Yemen had   
   killed an estimated 377,000 by the end of 2021. The US-   
   instigated war in Syria has killed an estimated 500,000 to   
   600,000 more. The number of people displaced by war has never   
   been higher in world history.   
      
   How convenient that the New York Times, which supported each of   
   these wars and helped initiate them, declares they are   
   “significantly less deadly”!   
      
   “Life expectancy is rising”—LIE   
      
   A study published in March 2022 in the journal Population and   
   Development Review reports that global life expectancy declined   
   by roughly 0.92 years in 2020 and another 0.72 years in 2021 due   
   to the pandemic and worsening social inequality. These are the   
   first declines in global life expectancy since the United   
   Nations began tracking this figure in 1950. According to a study   
   published in the Lancet, global excess deaths in the last two   
   years stood at 18.2 million by the end of 2021.   
      
   “Literacy is rising”—LIE   
      
   A series of studies in late 2021 and early 2022 note that a   
   third of children in the United States are missing benchmarks   
   for reading—a far higher rate than before the pandemic. A study   
   from the University of Virginia showed that early childhood   
   reading skills are at a 20-year low, and that 60 percent of   
   children at impoverished schools are at high risk for functional   
   illiteracy.   
      
   On a global scale, the World Literacy Foundation reported in   
   2020 that the pandemic is causing a “[c]atastrophic rise in   
   illiteracy.” The organization’s CEO said, “770 million people in   
   the globe can’t read or write a single word and a further 2   
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)