XPost: alt.fan.rush-limbaugh, alt.politics.republicans, talk.politics.guns
XPost: alt.survival
From: rachel-madcow@msnbc.com
In article
forging asshole wrote:
>
The New York Times treated its readership to a piece of fiction
on Tuesday when it ran a front-page, above-the-fold article by
David Streitfeld entitled “For tens of millions of Americans,
the good times are right now.”
In the article, the Times paints a fantastic picture of social
and economic conditions in the contemporary United States. The
recent period “has been a time of great financial reward for a
large number of Americans,” the Times declares.
According to the Times, America is a land where “bosses are
eager to please,” where the working class benefits from
“widespread wealth” and where everyone is enjoying the fruits of
an economic “boom.” The Times appears to be confusing
contemporary America with the Big Rock Candy Mountains, the
mythical hobo’s paradise that features a lake of stew and
whiskey too and you can paddle all around them in a big canoe.
The Times assures its readers that workers are grateful and
rightfully so: “For the 158 million who are employed, prospects
haven’t been this bright since men landed on the moon,” writes
Steitfeld.
The moon, incidentally, is where one would have to live to
believe the Times’ presentation of social and economic life. The
Times laments the fact that their fantasy version “does not get
celebrated much,” something they chalk-up to the fact that the
population’s “fascination with the schemes of the truly wealthy”
makes them think about inequality too much.
In truth, the 90 percent of the population that comprises the
working class confronts hardship on an unprecedented scale, and
that life has never been more difficult.
Consider the following headlines that appeared in the Times
within 24 hours of the publication of Streitfeld’s piece:
“Overdose deaths continue rising, with fentanyl and meth key
culprits.”
Over 108,000 people died of drug overdoses in the US in 2021, a
15 percent increase from 2020, when the figure rose by 30
percent from 2019. The rise in deaths is due at least in part to
“social isolation and economic dislocation,” the Times article
notes. “The number of drug overdose deaths has increased every
year but 2018 since the 1970s.”
“Hundreds of suicidal teens sleep in emergency rooms. Every
night.”
The brutal reality of American social and economic life has
driven a substantial portion of the country’s young people to
suicide. “Mental health disorders are surging among
adolescents,” the Times writes. “In 2019, 13 percent of
adolescents reported having a major depressive episode, a 60
percent increase from 2007. Suicide rates, stable from 2000 to
2007, leaped nearly 60 percent in 2018.” So many young Americans
want to kill themselves that the hospitals are overflowing.
“Inflation pressures remain strong; consumer prices rise
sharply.”
Wages are collapsing and the majority of American families are
finding it difficult to pay for food, let alone gas and shelter.
Inflation “is still running at about the fastest rate in four
decades,” the Times writes. The price of food rose 9.4 percent
from April 2021, and “an index for meats, poultry, fish and eggs
rose 14.3 percent from the previous year, the largest annual
increase since 1979.”
“War and weather sent food prices soaring. Now, China’s harvest
is uncertain.”
The war and US-imposed sanctions on Russia have caused a global
food crisis that is causing immense economic hardship all over
the globe. Combined with a climate catastrophe that the ruling
class is unwilling to address, “global food prices have already
climbed sharply” this year, “with wheat up nearly 80 percent
since July 2021. The World Food Program warned last Friday, ‘44
million people around the world are marching toward starvation.’”
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