1984: Thread

[grarpamp]

Perception Vs. Reality

http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/perception-vs-reality/

If you only get your news from the mainstream media, you would be
tempted to believe that global conditions are relatively stable right
now.

Yes, there is a war between Russia and Ukraine, but the mainstream
media is assuring us that Ukraine is winning that war.

Other than that, the mainstream media seems to think that everything
is just fine.

Of course the truth is that our planet is facing a whole host of
extremely challenging problems at the moment.  The UN has warned that
we are entering the worst global food crisis since World War II,
inflation has started to spiral out of control all over the world, the
war in Ukraine is making our supply chain nightmares even worse and an
absolutely horrifying bird flu plague is killing millions upon
millions of chickens and turkeys.

But if you flip on one of the corporate news channels tonight, they
will be focusing on other things.

And you probably won’t even hear them talk about the food riots that
have suddenly begun erupting around the world at all.

For example, a “curfew” has just been imposed on the capital of Peru
after a series of extremely passionate protests that were sparked by
rapidly rising fuel and food prices…

    Peruvian President Pedro Castillo announced a curfew for Tuesday
in the capital Lima and neighboring port city Callao, after
demonstrations across the country over fuel prices caused roadblocks
and “acts of violence”.

    Protests had erupted across Peru in recent days due to a hike in
fuel prices and tolls, during a time of rising food prices.

Is this the first time that you have heard about this?

For many of you it will be, and that is because the mainstream media
in the U.S. is largely ignoring this.

In Sri Lanka, severe shortages of “food, medicine and fuel” have
caused a full-blown economic collapse and tremendous chaos in the
streets…

    In Sri Lanka, where an economic crisis is growing, more than 40
lawmakers walked out of the ruling coalition today. That leaves the
government of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa in the minority in
Parliament. There have been new calls today for both the president and
prime minister to step down after the entire Cabinet resigned on
Sunday. Shortages of food, medicine and fuel have sparked countrywide
protests, and security forces have fired tear gas and water cannons at
protesters marching on the president’s home.

Most of you have probably not heard about that either, and that is
because our largest news outlets are being really quiet about it.

But USA Today wants to make sure that you know about a new promotion
that McDonald’s is running: “McDonald’s brings back Spicy Chicken
McNuggets to select restaurants for a limited time”.

More than ever before, our perception of the world around us is shaped
by the corporate elite.  Americans get more than 90 percent of the
“television news” that they consume from just five giant media
corporations, and so that gives those corporations an incredible
amount of influence over how our society views reality.

For example, far more Americans are talking about “the slap” at the
Academy Awards than about the fact that North Korea just threatened
South Korea with nuclear war…

    North Korea opposes war but would use nuclear weapons if South
Korea attacked, Kim Yo Jong, the powerful sister of leader Kim Jong
Un, said on Tuesday, in a warning that analysts said is probably aimed
at the South’s incoming conservative president.

    Kim Yo Jong, a senior official in the government and ruling party,
said it was a “very big mistake” for South Korea’s minister of defence
to make recent remarks discussing attacks on the North, state news
agency KCNA reported.

The war in Ukraine is not going to be the last war that erupts.  I
believe that China is very strongly considering an invasion of Taiwan
in the not too distant future, and a major war between Israel and Iran
could literally start at any time.

But instead of alarming the American people about such things, CNN
wants you to know that Coke has a brand new flavor: “Coke’s latest
flavor is here. And it’s a weird one”.

I suppose that we should be thankful to CNN, because I probably never
would have heard about that new flavor unless they ran that story.

Meanwhile, the number of poultry flocks in Minnesota that have been
hit by the new bird flu pandemic just doubled…

    The Minnesota Board of Animal Health on Tuesday reported the
latest outbreak of highly pathogenic avian influenza in the state is
now affecting a total of 15 poultry flocks — up from seven last
Friday.

Minnesota is the number one state for turkey production, and so this
is a really big deal.

Overall, the national death toll just continues to climb.  The first
case at a commercial facility in the United States was confirmed less
than two months ago, and now the death toll has risen to nearly 28
million…

    The new cases mean that across the nation, farmers have had to
kill about 22 million egg-laying chickens, 1.8 million broiler
chickens, 1.9 million pullet and other commercial chickens, and 1.9
million turkeys.

Will MSNBC lead with this story tonight?

Of course not.

But I did find the following story on MSNBC’s homepage earlier today:
“Garlic cloves up your nose? What to know about the health trends
taking TikTok by storm”.

What a bunch of nonsense.

I am so grateful for the alternative media, because they often cover
stories that the mainstream media never talks about.

For example, our friends at Zero Hedge have informed us that the price
of jet fuel in New York has risen “more than 162% since mid-March”…

    Wholesale jet fuel prices in New York have risen more than 162%
since mid-March, as buyers at some of the world’s busiest airports,
located on the US East Coast, anticipate dwindling supplies as Western
sanctions shun Russian energy exports.

    On Monday, jet fuel prices jumped 93 cents to $7.61 a gallon, a
new record high, according to Bloomberg data going back to 1988.

That is crazy.

We are seeing so much inflation all throughout the system right now.
A few hours ago, I came across a post by a supermarket employee on a
very popular Internet forum that really got my attention.  According
to this employee, workers at this particular store were given 52 pages
of price changes just this week…

    Tyson Chicken strip jumped up $3

    Eggs went up to $3.50 they were 2.25

    32 pack of water went to $5.50 originally 3.75

    There was 35 pages of price changes on the dry side and 17 pages
in freezer and cooler they are planning to have that many pages or
more next week also

A trip to the grocery store is going to become very, very painful in
the months ahead.

But just be thankful that you don’t live in one of the poorest
countries on the planet.

At this point, even Vladimir Putin is telling us that the food
shortages that we are now witnessing are going to get even worse…

    Putin said higher energy prices and fertilizer shortages would
mean Western nations would have to print more money to buy supplies,
which would cause food shortages in poorer countries.

    “They will inevitably exacerbate food shortages in the poorest
regions of the world, spur new waves of migration, and, in general,
drive food prices even higher,” Putin said in a meeting on developing
food production, Reuters reported.

A full-blown global meltdown has now begun, and it is going to go to
an entirely new level in the months ahead.

But the mainstream media will try to distract you with stories about
Will Smith, Kourtney Kardashian and other celebrities for as long as
they can.

Personally, I don’t really care that Kourtney Kardashian just married
Travis Barker in Las Vegas.  What I do care about is the fact that our
society is coming apart at the seams all around us.

The news that you get from the corporate media has been carefully
designed to promote certain narratives, and these days much of it is
wildly inaccurate.

But most of the population will continue to blindly believe whatever
they are told to believe by our “professional journalists”, and that
is extremely unfortunate.