Salon interviews "pro-life" blogger who thinks The Onion is real

[El Fuego]

http://salon.com/mwt/feature/2006/07/14/onion_blogger/

"I'm totally psyched about this humiliation!"
By Rebecca Traister, Salon

July 14, 2006 | It's the stuff of webby fantasy and urban legend: a reader who takes an Onion story seriously. Last week, a speedy and vicious blogosphere watched its collective wet dream made real when "Pete," proprietor of antiabortion blog March Together for Life, posted "Murder Without Conscience," a furious excoriation of a 7-year-old fake column in the Onion titled "I'm Totally Psyched About This Abortion!"

(snip)

Pete's sense of humor, at least in conversation, was surprisingly -- and unnervingly -- unrelenting. He did ask that Salon not print his last name or his hometown given the threats his family has been receiving (his full name has been revealed on other sites), but the 45-year-old Internet communications consultant chortled steadily throughout an hour-long phone interview. "I've pretty much been laughing off the whole thing," he said. "When thousands and thousands of people are coming after you, if you took it seriously, you'd have a heart attack."

(snip)

But part of what has tickled his tormentors is Pete's unwillingness to let the Onion issue go -- his multiple posts and determination to beat more life out of the mock column by the mock columnist. Why, after realizing that he was jousting with a jokester, did Pete continue his criticism of the piece? "'When you make a movie, the movie has an agenda," he said, "whether it's to promote homosexuality or religious bigotry ... You can't just write off as a comedy piece. Look at that line that says if the HMO hadn't withdrawn coverage for her oral contraceptives she wouldn't have gotten pregnant ... I don't believe in contraception itself, but it's the contraceptive mentality that's the problem."

The funniest thing about the whole ordeal, said Pete, is that "I come from Germany -- a German economy, a German culture, German friends. And Germans have no humor." When he first came to the States, he said, he worked at Wells Fargo, where he befriended "a bunch of good old boys" who used to prank him. "They'd tease me to the point where I'd say, 'Really?' and they'd say, 'No, you idiot! When are you going to get it?' So I've been struggling with this kind of thing for a long time." Satire, he said, "is an American humor. Saying something but not really meaning it and egging a person on to see if they believe it so you can say, 'Dang, you're dumb!' I'm kind of used to people laughing at me." He said his father and brother used to do this to him as well. "What I didn't know was that there was a whole country of people doing this."

(snip)

:rofl: :rofl:

Original DU thread:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=364&topic_id=1616165&mesg_id=1616165

[ComerPerro]

1. that toolbox is 45? Shit. Hes really REALLY stupid then

[slackmaster]

4. I think emotionally immature would be a better description

The way he kept changing his story after he got caught with his pants down, and hasn't even owned up to his stupid mistake.

Reminds me of a few teenagers I've known, including myself at about age 15.

[MADem]

14. When I read it, I thought it was a badly homeschooled sixteen year

old who created that tripe.

[DistressedAmerican]

2. HYSTERICAL!

I'm still over there playing with this fool and his dumbass defenders.

All comments here:
http://www.haloscan.com/comments/turnstile/115219671206889457/?a=35856

[Lady Effingbroke]

16. DA, you're a gem!

Thanks for the link to the comments - ROFL!

[El Fuego]

17. OMG, the comments are the best part!

They are hysterical! A few faves:

"I'm pro life, but sweet Jesus you're an idiot. For your next post, how about a passionate speech on the need to immediately free Prince Albert from the can?"
posted by Boo

"I laughed so hard I aborted my foetus. Thanks for nothing, babykiller."
posted by Bev


The link again:
http://www.haloscan.com/comments/turnstile/115219671206889457/?a=35856

[originalpckelly]

3. This is my official response:

What a dumb fuck!!!!
:rofl:

[Bill McBlueState]

5. Honkknob

Lol, it says in the article that one of the names people called him was "Honkknob."

I should start using that.

Honkknob.

It's almost a palindrome!

[bunkerbuster1]

6. "I don't believe in contraception itself"

"Yep, all that stuff about preventin' conception, it's just secularist hooey!"

I love that this guy thinks he's smarter than us. I hope this flare-up stays alive for weeks.

[BrotherBuzz]

7. Poor Petey still doesn't understand satire

Sad.

[Momgonepostal]

8. What is a "contraceptive mentality?"

Isn't preventing births a good thing, for those who don't want babies? Does he think we should all be like the Duggans?

[gratuitous]

11. The mentality that sex shouldn't lead to pregnancy

See, if a woman is having sex and not getting pregnant each and every time, the next thing you know, them uppity women will start thinking they're almost as good as Peter, and his tunnel-vision world view simply can't handle that. Better that women see themselves as Peter sees them: Fit only to be receptacles for his manly seed, nobly bearing his perfect offspring and cognizant always of their status beneath him.

[bryant69]

9. I hate that guy. I mean I really hate him.

It's like watching a meanspirited nasty moron fall ass-backwards into money! I've been running my blog for three and a half years now, and it's basically been a failure - I am getting more hits all the time, but currently I expect to be competative by 2009 or so. At the soonest. And who knows if we will even be around then.

Meantime this moron can probably rattle the tip jar and put up webads and make a nice pretty penny. Plus he's getting like a million hits.

Bastard.

Bryant
Check it out --> http://politicalcomment.blogspot.com

[DistressedAmerican]

10. You Do Not Want The Kind Of Hits He's Getting.

I hear what you are saying. It would be nice to get a flood like this dumbass. But, I would not willingly humiliate myself like that just for the hits.

[Solly Mack]

12. He'd rather be thought a bigger fool than to allow his pride to admit

he'd been suckered.

He states he's from a country (Germany) without a sense of humor. Which is a lie, of course.Germans have a sense of humor.(DUH, right?)

He then states his father and brother would egg him on in this manner as well.




schadenfreude

[sinkingfeeling]

13. So Pete's all concerned about 3,000 abortions a day plus all those

'babies stopped by contraception. Wonder what he's doing to eliminate the deaths of 30,000 born children who die every 24 hours, worldwide?

[Saphire]

15. What a moran!!111!!!

[Buns_of_Fire]

18. So he's from Germany, and his father and brother...

...used to do the same thing to him. Hmmm.

This tells me two things: (1) Germans DO, in fact, have a sense of humor; and (2) this would seem to imply that he's a dork on (at least) TWO continents now.

Does that make him Bidorkial? Multidorkial?

[El Fuego]

19. Thanks to the wonders of the Internet

he is now pandorkial. People are laughing at him all over the world!

[Swamp Rat]

20. He claims to be an "Internet communications consultant" but he didn't know

about The Onion? Satire is an American humor??? :wtf:

He must be the dumbest "German" on the planet. Apparently his family knows it too. :rofl:

[asthmaticeog]

21. His excuse is that he's German?

Whatever. My dad was German, as in off-the-boat, came to the US in his late '30s not knowing English honest to goodness GERMAN. And he understood satire. He was often funny as hell, in fact. And what of that German "Bush Driver" vid that's been floating around here? It's German, it's satire, and it's a scream. This guy's cultural essentialism doesn't wash. I remain convinced that he's merely dumb.

[geardaddy]

22. What an idiot

(snip)
"And Germans have no humor." When he first came to the States, he said, he worked at Wells Fargo, where he befriended "a bunch of good old boys" who used to prank him. "They'd tease me to the point where I'd say, 'Really?' and they'd say, 'No, you idiot! When are you going to get it?' So I've been struggling with this kind of thing for a long time." Satire, he said, "is an American humor. Saying something but not really meaning it and egging a person on to see if they believe it so you can say, 'Dang, you're dumb!' I'm kind of used to people laughing at me." He said his father and brother used to do this to him as well. "What I didn't know was that there was a whole country of people doing this."

(end snip)

First off, dear "Pete," satire isn't American in origin. And if your father and brother are presumably German, are they able to engage in satire? You're as dumb as a bag of wet hammers.

[tandot]

23. "Germans have no humor" is utter BS. I came to the US in 1994

from Germany and from the first time I read The Onion, I knew it was satire.

Satire is not an American thing...it is simply that conservative, right-wing, anti-choice assholes don't have humor and don't get satire

:mad:

[saracat]

24. Right up there with the Delay people who think Colbert

is a real conservative newsperson and quote him to support their agenda!

[EstimatedProphet]

25. The thing that gets me that he apparently still doesn't understand

is that there is NO ONE, NOBODY, NOT ONE PERSON, who throws after-abortion parties.

Pete's problem is that he is so full of hate he can't see that the people who don't agree with him aren't walking talking strawmen. He honestly believes he runs into women 'in the field' who think that having an abortion is an excuse to get drunk and have sex. He actually believes that there are women who get pregnant just so that they can go have an abortion, and that get pregnant regularly in order to keep up their abortion hobby! He's so convinced that the people he doesn't agree with are evil that he never sees them as people at all.

We could ridicule him on his blog all day long and he would never be able to see that he is the one with the problem, and he is the one that lives in a delusion. That's why he doesn't understand satire-satire requires the ability to see the contradictions in a point of view, and he can't admit to any contradictions. He should get counseling, but he's beyond help.