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submitted 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) by Viking_Hippie@lemmy.dbzer0.com to c/nottheonion@lemmy.world

I nominate this NYT opinion piece for shittiest take of 2024!

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[-] FuglyDuck@lemmy.world 322 points 5 days ago

0.0

if

Thompson “grew up in a working-class family in Jewell, Iowa,” a tiny farming community north of Des Moines, Amy Julia Harris and Ernesto Londoño report. “His mother was a beautician, according to family friends, and his father worked at a facility to store grain.” Thompson’s childhood was spent “going row by row through the fields to kill weeds with a knife, or working manual labor at turkey and hog farms.”

is true... then he's a class traitor; not a hero. he made his money fucking over the working class. that's not heroic.

[-] hypnicjerk@lemmy.world 97 points 5 days ago

you really think someone would do that? just go on a once-respected publication and tell lies?

[-] FuglyDuck@lemmy.world 55 points 5 days ago

"Just".... ? no. There's a certain vetting process that makes sure they tell the right lies.

[-] dcpDarkMatter@kbin.earth 47 points 5 days ago

Not sure if you didn't get it, but that's a reference to an Arthur meme. altr

[-] FuglyDuck@lemmy.world 22 points 5 days ago

I'm aware of the arthur reference, but it's really important to realize these aren't off-the-cuff lies.

This is a planned, coordinated effort that has been going on since before I was even alive; and the ~~journalists~~propagandists have been very carefully selected- and have indeed worked very hard to get the job of fucking over americans.

[-] cjoll4@lemmy.world 8 points 5 days ago
[-] Bahnd@lemmy.world 4 points 5 days ago

There are two jobs where you can go on national TV, lie and not get fired. President and weather man.

[-] spankmonkey@lemmy.world 17 points 5 days ago
[-] inv3r5ion@lemmy.dbzer0.com 10 points 5 days ago

Plot twist: the Fox News weatherman tells the truth

[-] Bronzebeard@lemm.ee 4 points 5 days ago

The one thing their audience are experts in is what's going on directly outside their window

[-] inv3r5ion@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 points 5 days ago

It’s snowing! Therefore climate change is a demoncrap hoax!

[-] FuglyDuck@lemmy.world 12 points 5 days ago

Press secretary, too.

Also, weathermen aren't necessarily lying. lying requires an intent to deceive, and most times, weathermen don't mean to deceive, they're just factually wrong. (FWIW, predicting the weather more than a few days in advance is a crap shoot.)

[-] Bahnd@lemmy.world 3 points 5 days ago

Press secretare is just a modern herald or crier, they are the voice of the king.

As for the weatherman bit, your right, but thats also the joke...

[-] hypnicjerk@lemmy.world 8 points 5 days ago

the precipitous fall of print media over the past couple decades is something that would one day be written about in the history books if they weren't also full of shit.

[-] ShareMySims@sh.itjust.works 13 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago)

But they're not lying. It's pretty reasonable to believe both that his parents were working class, and that him becoming a class traitor on such a level does make him a hero in capitalist eyes. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[-] FuglyDuck@lemmy.world 14 points 5 days ago

it is, though.

The implication is that Brian Thompson should be/is a hero to working class people.

he's not.

he's an asshole who made millions fucking over people just trying to get medical care. many of whom have died as a result of his fucking them over, and that is especially true of those who actually work for a living- which he has not in a very long time.

[-] hypnicjerk@lemmy.world 5 points 5 days ago

i don't think it's lying, necessarily. i suspect that it's embellishing, and it's inarguably providing an incomplete, intentionally flattering picture.

[-] morrowind@lemmy.ml 3 points 5 days ago

Keep in mind it's an opinion piece, not official reporting

[-] makyo@lemmy.world 32 points 5 days ago

The irony being here that a 'working class hero' to Bret is someone who is no longer working class

[-] floofloof@lemmy.ca 6 points 5 days ago

Especially if they fuck over the working class.

[-] Viking_Hippie@lemmy.dbzer0.com 22 points 5 days ago

he made his money fucking over the working class. that's not heroic

I mean, of course it isn't, but nobody told the NYT or their opinion writers who are currently tripping over each other trying to normalize Trump, Thompson, and other monsters..

[-] Duamerthrax@lemmy.world 18 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago)

They love these stories. They reinforce their delusions of libertarianism and that anyone who is truly able will be found and given their rightful position.

[-] TheOubliette@lemmy.ml 18 points 5 days ago

This is one of the problems with treating class as an inherent identity, not a person's relation to the means of production. A person that begins as a direct wage laborer is working class, but if they ascend the ladder they become closer and closer to carrying out the functions of the owner class (i.e. becoming upper management) they lose proletarian character and gain bourgeois character. So the UHC CEO may have started out working class but obviously he became a bourgeois monster.

There's a similar pitfall, which is the uncritical moralization of the working class. The working class has a world historical role to play and is the class oppressed by the bourgeoisie, but it can easily have reactionary elements that should not be embraced, esoeciskky not as "working class values". The working class exists in the society shaped by the bourgeoisie, with marginalizations baked in by the bourgeoisie that can become self-perpetuating (e.g. racism), so we must not simply accept whstever the majority opinion of the working class is, let alone some random guy that ended up facilitating death and pain for profit.

[-] NutWrench@lemmy.ml 9 points 5 days ago

Yup. If any part of that bio is true, then that's even more unforgivable. It means that unlike someone who was born into wealth and had asshole-ishness thrust upon them,, he deliberately chose to be an asshole.

[-] raynethackery@lemmy.world 13 points 5 days ago

Yeah, I'm going to need some citations for the claims of those people.

[-] FuglyDuck@lemmy.world 14 points 5 days ago

absolutely.

Like. This sounds like the kind of shit Musk used to spew everywhich way.

[-] lightnsfw@reddthat.com 10 points 5 days ago

Then he went on to get a job making it more difficult for everyone in his tiny farming community north of Des Moines to get health care.

Weird how they forgot that part.

[-] lobut@lemmy.ca 3 points 5 days ago

TIL betraying your fellow man makes you a hero. /s

[-] LovableSidekick@lemmy.world 1 points 5 days ago

Yeah, it's super smart to make a class hero out of a prep school valedictorian and Ivy League grad, grandson of a wealthy real estate developer - definitely a class traitor himself but in a Good Way - and hey, he did suffer from back pain while doing his tech job remotely from Waikiki. So his struggle was real. Power to the people!

[-] queermunist@lemmy.ml 8 points 5 days ago

Bourgeois class traitors should be celebrated.

[-] LovableSidekick@lemmy.world 1 points 5 days ago

Yeah I know, the old "It's different when WE do it" routine. Same old same old.

[-] queermunist@lemmy.ml 9 points 5 days ago

Yes, because betraying the bourgeoisie is good for workers, whereas betraying the workers is bad for workers. Duh?

[-] LovableSidekick@lemmy.world 1 points 4 days ago

Spoiled rich kid with back pain kills insurance CEO, some industry-wide practices abruptly change.

Public: "Yay, justice at last! Spoiled Rick Kid is a god!!!"

Insurance practices slowly go back to the way they were. New CEO is just as bad.

Public: "The system betrayed us again!"

Duh?

[-] queermunist@lemmy.ml 2 points 4 days ago

And now the public knows that killing a CEO had a direct impact. Regardless of the perpetrator, that has an effect on the public imagination!

[-] LovableSidekick@lemmy.world 1 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

Not sure you read my whole comment but yeah, it has an impact on Tuesday that will last until next Wednesday, or whenever the usual distractions bump this down to the bottom of people's feeds.

Remember the Panama Papers, which exposed the offshore finance links of the wealthy? Didn't think so.

Or the Paradise Papers, which also exposed the offshore finance links of the wealthy? Didn't think so.

[-] queermunist@lemmy.ml 2 points 4 days ago

Don't talk down to me. Sure, I remember, partly why I'm a communist today. But! Normal people don't care about that nerd shit. What people care about is blood on the streets, that's what grabs their attention.

this post was submitted on 12 Dec 2024
582 points (100.0% liked)

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