Looky here, Breitbrats —
When you’re looking to The Onion for sources of fake outrage about the ongoing clusterfuck between Hamas and Israel, you’re doing it wrong.
Like, *all the way* wrong:
So now The Onion, celebrated for their zany approach to the news, has fallen under the spell of the radical left and has become one more mouthpiece for anti-Semitic propaganda. In their latest attempt at humor, The Onion posted this piece of Palestinian propaganda…
As civilian casualties continue to mount amid the escalating conflict along the Gaza Strip, 8-year-old Palestinian boy Walid Suleiman expressed both joy and astonishment Monday that he has yet to be killed in an Israeli military attack. “Boy, I thought I’d be dead by this past Saturday for sure, but amazingly enough, here I am,” said Suleiman, adding that he is “pleased, but pretty shocked” not to be among the estimated 100 Palestinians left dead by widespread Israeli airstrikes in the region over the past six days. “I’d have bet you anything that by today they’d have already dug my corpse out from underneath a giant pile of rubble and buried me alongside the rest of my family. Guess I won the lottery, eh?” At press time, incoming Israeli aircraft could be heard swiftly approaching as Suleiman limped back to his home.
That’s the ticket, Onion. Buy into the “plight” of the Palestinians and ignore the fact that Hamas started the violence, that Hamas has fired on Israeli cities, that there are strong rumors that Hamas now has chemical weapons it can launch. Ignore the fact that Hamas deliberately places its rocket sites in civilian areas in an attempt to force Israel to kill civilians for left wing media consumption. Ignore that Hamas deliberately targets civilians while Israel takes great care not to.
Dude, naw.
And to think that Breitbart’s fine journalistic institution intended to lead the news charge during the Romney administration. If that doesn’t make you want to crap your pants and die, then I don’t know what will.
What is it that goes on in the wingnut mind that makes them incapable of understanding satire? Help me out.
(h/t @DCPlod)
Rafer Janders
Oh, these aren’t your garden-variety weak rumors! These are strong rumors! The kind of grade-A, cast-iron hearsay and speculation that you can take to the bank!
Insomniac
These twerps don’t believe a word of what they’re saying. It’s another lame-ass attempt to gin up outrage among their followers. The Onion? Propaganda mouthpiece? Seriously?
Xboxershorts
Knowing that the Gaza Strip has been under such a tight blockade for years now that even medical supplies, baby formula and diapers are hard to smuggle in. In fact, it’s so damn tight people have died trying to get this stuff into Gaza
How the hell did Gaza get a shit load of new long range rockets then?
Warren Terra
Strong rumors of chemical weapons? That they mysteriously refuse to use, even though they cheerfully murder kids? Alrighty, then. I’m convinced: we need to invade Iraq.
Rafer Janders
Satire depends on a disconnect between appearance and reality. When your entire Weltanschauung is based on the vigorous insistence that appearance IS reality, well, you’re going to have some problems with satire.
Omnes Omnibus
Well, the Onion did go whole hog on the Biden promos. They are obviously in the tank for Joe16.
Monkey Business
Someone please send a hot tip to the IDF that there’s a Hamas mortar team in Breitbart HQ.
Felonius Monk
maya
S’where’s Breitbart News HQ located? Anywhere near a “civilian area”?
The Other Chuck
Assumes facts not in evidence.
Bubblegum Tate
I can think of few things that better symbolize the Breitbrats’ entire World o’ Derp than this.
Tone in DC
@The Other Chuck:
Good one.
Wingers have had their sense of humor (and their self-awareness) surgically removed. The Onion is wasted on them.
? Martin
@Rafer Janders: Well, not just that, but satire works by pushing an idea just past the line of credibility that the audience recognizes that it’s not credible. If you have spent the last 30 years being conditioned on conspiracy theories such that everything seems credible, then satire always falls within the line of seriousness.
After my run-in with my mom over her right-wing email, I suspect now that her satire gauge is somewhat busted based on all that shit that shows up in her inbox. She usually gets Colbert, but about ⅓ of the time he’s close enough to the line that she’s just not sure.
John
Just to clarify, I don’t think it’s clear that the Breitbart people are actually thinking this Onion story is a real news story (although it’s hard to say). My sense was that they’re just objecting to the idea that anyone would, whether through satire or straight news reporting, show any human sympathy for Palestinians, and deriding such human-sympathy-showing as “anti-Semitic.” Of course, it’s not completely clear that they know the Onion is satire, either.
Kirbster
They’re rage-drunk, irony-blind, and satire-impaired. In other words, they are the true heirs of Andrew Breitbart.
Chris
I have never felt this happy that Andrew Breitbart is dead.
Ugly feeling? Indubitably. Good feeling? Fuck, yes.
EconWatcher
I’m usually a fan of the Onion, but I have to say I didn’t find anything remotely funny in the Onion piece. Doing satire of a genuine tragedy requires real skill, and I don’t see it here. Antisemitic, no. But not funny either.
This is contrast to the most brilliant thing they ever did, “9-11 Hijackers Surprised to Find Themselves in Hell.” It seemed inconceivable that they could do anything funny about 9-11 only two weeks after the event, and yet, how could they do their publication without addressing 9-11?
It seemed to be a real pickle for them, but they pulled it off brilliantly.
Zifnab25
@John:
“Anti-Semitic” is the new “Anti-American” dontchaknow. If you aren’t with us, you’re with the terrorists.
? Martin
@EconWatcher: Satire isn’t always humorous. It’s not meant to be in this case – it’s meant to be social commentary.
Citizen Alan
@Chris:
Dude, whenever I feel depressed about some personal reversal or sad about the state of the world, contemplating the fact that Andrew Fucking Breitbart is dead and rotting in hell cheers me right up.
TenguPhule
Where’s the Meteor Tag? Surely this level of Rightwing insanity deserves it!
TenguPhule
The Wingnut event horizon ensures that madness enters and nothing else leaves. Perhaps this is Nature’s way of telling us there are things men were not meant to know.
Shawn in ShowMe
@EconWatcher:
Not all satire is funny. See Bierce, Ambrose.
Bokonon
So … now the radical left hates Jews AND the unborn?
Wow. Even Hitler liked babies.
So when Breitbart talks about the “radical left” here in America, we must be talking about some serious, serious, radical, hate-filled evil people. Steely eyed zealots on the march, attacking their enemies viciously, publishing satire magazines all over the place, smoking weed, eating organic foods and worrying about global warming …
Higgs Boson's Mate
“…that there are strong rumors that Hamas now has chemical weapons it can launch.”
I give them 2-3 weeks to report the strong rumor that Hamas has the WMDs that Saddam was supposed to have had.
Grumpy Code Monkey
Wingers have a sense of humor, it just tends to be very … German. And I don’t mean that in the you-know-who sense, just that German humor is somewhat fucked up by most standards. It often involves someone getting injured or abused.
Bokonon
@Higgs Boson’s Mate: Or that Iran is supplying Hamas with nuclear materials.
ABL
@The Other Chuck: touché.
quannlace
And when they attempt it themselves, their ham-handed attempts fall flat. “American Carol” anyone? Oh, Kelsey Grammer, what were you thinking?
Xboxershorts
@Xboxershorts:
I apologize. I know this is a beat up on Breitbart thread, but we can shoot into that barrel any day of the week.
This is a serious question.
How are they getting these things?
And why tweak Israel’s nose immediately after our election (in which the anointed NeoCON candidate lost badly)?
Who stands to gain from this?
Gaza risks being turned into even more rubble with hundreds more already dead and they have no territory to gain.
Israel is already pointing the finger at Iran…
Some power that is….is trying to force an escalation here.
And Screw Brightfart, there’s not a functioning brain available there.
Spaghetti Lee
celebrated for their zany approach to the news
“I laughed out loud when they made fun of Democrats, but dammit, they’ve gone too far!
Mike Lamb
@EconWatcher: Sorry, but the following are still the Onion’s greatest:
1. Special Olympics T-Ball Tee Pitches Perfect Game.
2. Irish Prepare for Reinforcing O’ the Stereotypes Day.
Calouste
@Grumpy Code Monkey:
There’s a joke I have seen at least once, and probably more than once, on British TV that the Thinnest Book in the World is the Grand Compendium of German Humor.
am
@? Martin:
The Onion’s satire has historically tried to be humorous. Unless that changed, the EconWatcher is correct.
gogol's wife
@EconWatcher:
I’m not going to read the whole thing, but you’re right, that excerpt is not funny at all.
EnfantTerrible
As Roy Edroso has noted so many times before, these wingnuts think that art is propaganda created to advance some sort of agenda.
Balconesfault
I think this can be classified as complete contempt for the intelligence of their readership.
Chyron HR
What did they do, publish an expose on how George Soros is using his filthy Jew money to destroy the Homeland?
Rafer Janders
@Grumpy Code Monkey:
Um, so does a lot of humor around the world. Nothing particularly German about that.
See, e.g. Laurel & Hardy, the Three Stooges, Abbot & Costello, Jim Carey, etc. etc. etc.
Double Nickel
The Breitbart nation gives The Onion another month of good material!
Balconesfault
@Mike Lamb: I’m still partial to this one:
http://www.theonion.com/articles/bush-our-long-national-nightmare-of-peace-and-pros,464/
cckids
@Chris:
I’ve been somewhat disconcerted to find myself feeling this way as well. I consider myself to be a fairly peaceful, “live & let live” type, but the Bush years really pushed me into a new space as far as a few personalities are concerned.
Breitbart was one of them.
The others are Cheney & Scalia. I find myself never reading or hearing about them without thinking “Die, you fucking fuck”. It is very different mental place to be in.
Bokonon
@EnfantTerrible: And then they laugh on command, as a group, at the directed object of the attack.
Ha! Ha! Ha!
But these days, when I see someone driving around listening to Limbaugh? I don’t see them laughing.
blingee
This story is so yesterday. Briebots have already moved on to 10 new shiny objects of manufactured outrage today. Short attention span and all.
cckids
@EnfantTerrible:
This. It is part of why their humor is so sucky; they cannot try to be funny without putting their agenda out there & at the same time dissing & putting someone down. And they can never, never laugh at themselves.
Scott S.
@am: The Onion always tries to be humorous?
No, not really.
Buyer beware on those links to the actual Onion articles, folks — the satire is pretty much pitch goddamn black, and as funny as the plague.
Drew
Dude this is so funny. And further proof that copies degrade with each generation. If Breitbart was a half-wit (and I’m being generous), then his original Breitards are…quarter-wits? And the ones they recruited-eighthwits? And their children? Sixteenth-wits?
sublime33
I am sure they will be silent on this one about Joe Biden, which was pretty funny in a juvenile way:
http://www.theonion.com/articles/poll-workers-overhear-biden-repeating-phrase-bange,30266/
The Other Chuck
@Xboxershorts:
As I understand it, they make them there. Materials like the propellant are smuggled in the same way that ammo and explosives are, and I suspect those carry a higher margin for smugglers than diapers, so plenty of it, uh, leaks through.
El Cid
Because they think every single Israeli Jew is either completely unaware of and unmoved by the frequent killing of Palestinian children by Israeli weapons or that Israeli Jew is anti-Semitic?
Oh, right, because the same sorts of people think that if you didn’t like Bush Jr. and you were against invading and occupying Iraq, you hated America.
SectionH
@Balconesfault:
The Best Onion headline Evar. But also Too True To Be Funny.
Opal Sky 42
AnnieLaurie – re: your question about what goes through wingnut minds – I’ll bet others have said the same — what mind?
Drew
Well, it’s one of the fundamental theorems of American media and politics. If it’s not blatantly, unambiguously, unequivocally pro-Israel, it’s anti-Semitic. Fact.
El Cid
And remember, “pro-Israel” must mean “pro-militarist-expansion-settlement-appropriation”, whether or not it seems to have been the best thing for, you know, human Israelis.
Just like “pro-American” only includes people and attitudes reflecting American right wingers, and everyone else no matter who they are and what they do and where they live are “anti-Americans”.
Drew
@El Cid: And if any libtard should use a commie word like “apartheid” close up your ears and go apoplectic, and hurl non-sequitur accusations.
LD50
@John:
We have a winner!
MikeJ
@Scott S.: I think those are hilarious. Very dark yes, but funny and horrific often go hand in hand.
Villago Delenda Est
@Kirbster:
Let us hope they all share the same fate as their mentor.
Uncle Cosmo
@Calouste:
Which itself is the sanitized descendant of the list (current when I was a tyke) of the 3 Shortest Books In The World:
A Treasury of Great Italian War Heroes
The Jewish Book of Business Ethics
Who’s Who in Poland
None of which is suitable for public consumption in this day & age. But I guess it’s OK to hammer the Huns for their humorlessness.
Bubblegum Tate
@Mike Lamb:
“Boss’s Dick not Going To Suck Itself”
fuddmain
@Bubblegum Tate:
“Jenna Bush’s Wetlands Now Open For Public Drilling”
butler
@Scott S.:
“Bring out yer dead!”
Mnemosyne
@butler:
Darker than that, even. More like Mr. Creosote. One of my friends still has not forgiven me for taking her to see that on the big screen.
1badbaba3
@Xboxershorts: UNLIMITED. CORPORATE. CASH.
You didn’t think they spent it all on crappy ads for crappy candidates, empty chairs (nooses optional), and a top off of Mitt’s coffers, didja? WOLVERINES!
Phoenician in a time of Romans
@Rafer Janders:
Satire depends on a disconnect between appearance and reality. When your entire Weltanschauung is based on the vigorous insistence that appearance IS reality, well, you’re going to have some problems with satire.
Authoritarian personalities are marked by “ambiguity intolerance” – a “tendency to perceive or interpret information marked by vague, incomplete, fragmented, multiple, probable, unstructured, uncertain, inconsistent, contrary, contradictory, or unclear meanings as actual or potential sources of psychological discomfort or threat.”
Satire is based on ambiguity – being able to keep in mind the surface message while decoding the actual message. Even if they get it, satire itself is a source of discomfort not amusement.
Consider their own attempts at “satire” such as “Mallard Fillmore” – straight out bashing at an exaggerated stereotype. It’s like they can hear melody but not harmony.
Felonius Monk
The problem is the breitbrat asshats can’t even spell onion let alone anti-Semitic, so they probably plagiarized the whole thing.
joes527
@Scott S.: the “Holy fucking shit” issue after 9/11 was quite well done, and oddly touching.
owlbear1
What is it that goes on in the wingnut mind that makes them incapable of understanding satire? Help me out.
Understanding satire requires having a sense of humility.
Reka
Yes, because as a major media outlet, the Onion is obliged to cover both sides of the story!
sherparick
@Shawn in ShowMe: Bierce could be very funny. But even when he was , but even when he was, there was always a bite.
From “The Devil’s Dictionary:” “Satire, a noun: An obsolete kind of literary composition in which the vices and follies of the author’s enemies were expounded with imperfect tenderness. In this country satire never had more than a sickly and uncertain existence, for the soul of it is wit, wherein we are dolefully deficient, the humor that we mistake for it, like all humor, being tolerant and sympathetic. Moreover, although Americans are ‘endowed by their Creator’ with abundant vice and folly, it is not generally known that these are reprehensible qualities, wherefore the satirist is popularly regarded as a soul-spirited knave, and his ever victim’s outcry for codefendants evokes a national assent.”
If you want to show the old curmudgeon so love, the Libray of America hs published a collection of the best of Ambrose Bierce:l http://www.amazon.com/Ambrose-Bierce-Dictionary-Memoirs-Library/dp/1598531026
I always look on Breitbart and his minions as kind of unconscious performance art satirizing the American Right.
J R in WV
Satire is almost always invisible to the right handed wing-nuts. They seem always to assume is it straight up like the Big-3 ome kids had a hrNetwork news casts.
The same for the fundys and fiction. They all want Harry Potter to be instructions for life, like their “wholly” book. That’s why they want to burn the Potter books, and rock-n-roll albums. It isn’t art, or fiction, it’s either God’s words or the Devil’s speech.
So they probably think StarTrek is the history of people long ago, who had wonderful gifts from God that we lost when Eve passed that apple (Job’s computers?) to Adam.
Sad, but there isn’t anything we can do to help people with defective mental powers. Back in school I noticed some kids had a hard time dealing with fiction in class. Everything was realistic to them.
owlbear1
@Xboxershorts:
Mossad is sneaking them in so the Likud party has something to be afraid of.
Howlin Wolfe
@Rafer Janders: Bingo! That’s gotta be the best summary yet of why whingers fail so bad at creating and understanding satire.
Howlin Wolfe
@owlbear1: Others have said it, so I will, too. This blog needs a “like” button.
Epicurus
Apparently they were not listening when Dean Wormer said “Fat, drunk and stupid is no way to go through life, son.” One has to have a modicum of intelligence to understand subtle humor and/or satire. This too, is lacking in the Breitbart gang.
FormerSwingVoter
While we’re comparing notes on The Onion, I like this one, from after the Dem Convention:
http://www.theonion.com/articles/obama-help-us-destroy-jesus-and-start-a-new-age-of,29478/
“Obama: Help Us Destroy Jesus And Start A New Age Of Liberal Darkness”