"At times it feels like Renegades is a primer on nontoxic masculinity. Obama and Springsteen are emotionally intelligent and self-aware; they poke fun at themselves, in a way that comes naturally to wildly successful people.... [T]hey lay claim, again and again, to a progressive patriotism... [W]e get a lot of solemn talk in which hard truths are articulated amid a blizzard of mixed metaphors. In a conversation about the rise of white nationalism under Trump, Springsteen proclaims that racist pathologies are 'not meandering veins in our extremities, but … continue to be running through the heart of the country—that’s a call to arms and lets us know, obviously, how much work we have left to do.'... The remedial nature of these history lessons, and the portentous way they are presented by Renegades’ producers—soundtracked by plaintive guitar noodling that suggests pearls of wisdom are being dispensed—is bizarre and undermining: It makes Obama and Springsteen sound more out-to-lunch than they can possibly be. Clichés pile up. Lest listeners get too bummed.... an old warhorse is dragged out. 'The arc of the moral universe bends towards justice,' Obama assures us...."
Writes Jody Rosen in "Obama and Springsteen’s Podcast Isn’t What It Pretends to Be/The show promises difficult conversations about race, but it avoids the actual difficulties" (Slate).
Rosen likens the Obama/Springsteen podcast to this excellent parody of podcasts:
Podcasts saying literally nothing for 20 minutes. pic.twitter.com/nmfka1Gjsp
— Jonathan Ogden (@jogdenUK) January 5, 2021
Posts
68 comments:
"Well, they're a great team. Always give a hundred and ten percent. They were hard to beat, just kept coming, but our boys--I'm so proud--well it was a great game and I want to give the credit first to the players and assistant coaches, the fans--it's just it's just a great feeling. Great game great game!"
Coach, congratulations again on the victory, and thanks for sharing your insights!
Narr
Money is paid for that stuff
Two empty heads talking. Who was expecting some deep discussion?
but! but! but it's O'Bama and Springsteen !
a President from like two decades ago, and some folk singer from the middle of the 20th century!
Kids will EAT THAT UP! won't they?
Oh, did i mention, that the old folk singer got out of a DUI... Because he was a Millionaire?
Ha! That video is a perfect example of why I don't listen to podcasts.
They're fronting the party of four-time rapist Bill Clinton, but are "emotionally intelligent and self-aware"?
How do they pull that off - without the writer being an ethical moron?
Hahaha. Yeah, we need to have a conservation about the type of conservation and the extent of the conversation that the country should be conversing about.
I agree, the amount of filler in some podcasts is off the charts. Some of the radio talk shows are the same. I think Sean Hannity expresses about one idea every 30 minutes. The rest is just happy talk, repetition and listing things.
And then you have the slow talkers. I was just listening to some Catholic Guy on BHTV (no longer there) and he drove me crazy. I had to speed up to 1.75, just to hear him talk at a normal speed. If talking is so painful for you, you probably should stick to writing.
I'm glad I posted first, before viewing the video, which was masterful. The reference to 20 minutes scared me away.
Narr
I'm off to see who's up now
althouse liked to jump in, to keep the conversation going and that's a good thing. Sometimes people will just drone on and on AFTER they've made the point. They need to get cut off.
"Yawn. Superfucking yawn"
~Kathleen Hanna
Here's the transcript of the first episode; it took Obummer about six sentences, at most, to tell a ludicrous lie and immediately draw an unwarranted, paranoid conclusion from the lie.
At times it feels like Renegades is a primer on nontoxic masculinity.
More like toxic class privilege or toxic hipness or toxic vacuity. Is "toxic masculinity" a dog whistle that arouses class prejudices? Liberal guys who read Esquire are quite toxic, but they express it in ways that are more acceptable to media elites, so they get away with it in ways that the less privileged can't.
In a conversation about the rise of white nationalism under Trump, Springsteen proclaims that racist pathologies are 'not meandering veins in our extremities, but … continue to be running through the heart of the country—that’s a call to arms and lets us know, obviously, how much work we have left to do.'...
Was that about white nationalism and Trump or just about the boss's circulation problems? We all have them after a certain point. If the boss came clean about his I might like him a little.
"Toxic vacuity"
Nailed it.
I’d pay money to hear a conversation between Obama and John McWhorter or Glenn Loury or Coleman Hughes.
"We're pretty - pretty vacant"
- The Sex Pistols
I could listen to Obama and Springsteen talk all day if it were not for the must-see-TV on the Weather Channel and Untold Stories of the ER.
It makes Obama and Springsteen sound more out-to-lunch than they can possibly be.
Let's not underestimate their combined out-to-lunchness.
Given the media coverage over their lifetimes, it's much, much worse than we've been led to believe.
I'm waiting for the episode where Biden shows up as a guest.
That would take the show to 11.
I never listened to a single obama speech.
Why would i listen now
To be fair, the last politicians speech I listened to was GW after 2001.
I dont think I’ve missed a thing for 20 years and wont be missing anything for the next 20 years.
I think Obama and Springsteen should take their act on the road, rounding up the audience attracted to Obama and Springsteen so the rest of us won't have to encounter the type of people attracted to Obama and Springsteen.
For real podcasts or YouTube’s that say something, check out Jordan B Peterson or Coleman Hughes or Brett Weinstein’s Dark Horse podcast, or, if you’re more adventurous, mine. The Meaning Code.
I know the Great and Powerful Obama is praised as a gifted orator. But, quickly, recall some of that inspiring rhetoric.... I'll wait.
Need help? OK how about, "If I had a son, he'd look like Travon Martin".
If you read the transcripts, Obama said nothing (helpful) for eight years.
It makes Obama and Springsteen sound more out-to-lunch than they can possibly be.
I'ver heard Obama speak for years - never heard him say anything.
Garbage. Absolute garbage!
But we all knew that. That’s why we didn’t listen.
"Got a wife and kid in Baltimore, Jack. I went out for a ride and I never looked back."
Those are values fatherless Presidents can understand.
Pretty much like the Obama Presidency. (You wouldn't have noticed if you were a fan of the Propaganda media lies.)
Empty crap emoting from official people is not new. Here, 1962, stenciled speech for all occasions
Most honored Mr. President, ministers, secretaries of state, mayors, advisors, administrators, and assistants, highly esteemed men and women of our cultural life, representatives of science, of industry, and of the self-employed middle-class, honored public of this festive gathering, ladies and gentlemen!
It is not by chance that we are gathered here today for the purpose of celebrating this day. In a time like ours, in which the true human values have more than ever to be our innermost concern, a statement is expected from us. I do not wish to present you with a patented solution, but I would merely like to bring up for discussion a series of hot potatoes which do after all face us. For we do not need ready-made opinions, which anyway do not touch us deeply, but what we need is rather the genuine dialogue which moves us in our humanity. What brought us together here is our knowledge of the power of encounter in the forming of the intra-human sphere. The things which matter are settled in this intra-human sphere. I do not need to tell you what I mean by this. You will all understand me, for in a particular and extraordinary sense you all have to do with people.
In a time such as ours - I have mentioned it already - in which the perspective of things has everywhere begun to waver, everything depends more than ever on the individual who knows of the essence of things, of things as such, of things in their authenticity. We need openhearted people who are capable of this. Who are these people? - you will ask me - and I will answer you: You are they! By being gathered here you have proven more thoroughly than by words that you are prepared to put emphasis on your concern. That is what I would like to thank you for. But I would also like to thank you for energetically opposing, by your commitment to this good cause, the flood of materialism which threatens to drown everything around us. To say it in a nutshell from the start: you have come here to be given directions; you have come to listen. From this encounter, on an intra-human level, you expect a contribution to the reestablishment of the inter-human climate. You expect a restoration of that homey warmth which seems to be lacking, in our modern industrial society, to such a terrifying degree ...
But what does this mean for our concrete situation here and now? To pronounce the the question means to pose it. But in fact it means much more than that. It means that we expose ourselves to it, that we surrender to it. That we must not forget. But in the rush and busy work of the day, modern man forgets it all too easily. But you who belong to the silent majority, you know of it. For our problems stem from a region which it is our vocation to preserve. The wholesome perplexity which comes from this situation opens perspectives which we should not simply block out by turning away in boredom. It is important to think with the heart and to tune in the human antenna to the same wave length. Today no one knows better than man that which is of importance in the end.
Christian Schutze ``Gestanzte Festansprache,'' in Stuttgarter Zeitung, Dec 2, 1962; quoted by Theodor Adorno _The Jargon of Authenticity_ p.89-91
That was always Obama’s specialty, stentorian delivery of banal platitudes. Riffing with Bruce just changes the rhythm not the tune. And da Boss never grew up. Got rich young and never had to. His understanding is at the exact shallow depth of Obama’s so they harmonize well enough. Neither one has anything near an original thought of their own to share. So unlike Born to Run.
The arc of the moral universe bends towards justice
If true, then Democrats are DOOMED!!!
"Progressive patriotism"--a patriotism for an America purged of all that troublesome liberty stuff.
You'd think someone as smart as Jody Rosen would be able to explain in a brief paragraph why two wildly successful people don't want to have a difficult conversation about race for all to hear.
renegade
[ˈrenəˌɡād]
NOUN
a person who deserts and betrays an organization, country, or set of principles.
synonyms:
traitor · defector · deserter · turncoat · betrayer · rebel · mutineer · quisling · fifth columnist · renegado · tergiversator
"For three years, I’d had to watch a presidential successor who was diametrically opposed to
everything I believed in." Surely this is a complete lie, as compared to vacuous self-congratulation. Progressives might say Rush Limbaugh established this kind of talk: the people who disagree with me are undermining the entire American way of life. Obama and Trump both believe that if a choice must be made, the interests of the U.S. come before those of other countries. Both support the Constitution without significant changes. Both like golf; of course, Trump apparently cheats at golf. Trump may have been slightly more of a law-abiding Pres; Biden is surely far less law-abiding.
wankfest
Noun
An event, publication, etc. that is narcissistically foolish or pretentious.
I've heard Obama speak for years - never heard him say anything.
+1
I'd rather watch horse milk dry.
"We're pretty - pretty vacant"
- The Sex Pistols
We always find most politicians out to lunch. There's no point in asking. You'll get no reply.
Writes Jody Rosen in "Obama and Springsteen’s Podcast Isn’t What It Pretends to Be/The show promises difficult conversations about race, but it avoids the actual difficulties" (Slate).
Why are people even still writing and flogging this podcast? If it failed, it failed, and no amount of resuscitation is going to help.
It strikes me as a two-person mutual support group. Their views and opinions are of no interest to me.
chickelit said...
Why are people even still writing and flogging this podcast? If it failed, it failed, and no amount of resuscitation is going to help.
Their holy men bring no words of comfort and the followers are disappointed and disheartened. They must commiserate in the press.
"In a conversation about the rise of white nationalism under Trump,..."
There wasn't a rise in white nationalism under Trump*. Obama and Springsteen are either BS merchants or are delusional to the point of not being able to distinguish between reality and fantasy.
*Unless they mean white people who are patriotic, but white and non-white Americans have been patriotic in great numbers since the founding of the country.
Here's a topic I'd like to hear the two oldie richies discuss. Getting a vaccination requires the same series of actions as voting: register, get a date and place, have picture ID, go to the place on the date with the ID. In the last election it was said that the black community in Wisconsin could not vote without special help and million upon millions upon millions was poured into Wisconsin to help the black community vote. But nothing similar is happening to help the black community get vaccinated which is just as hard as, and no harder, than voting. It is the exact same process, although vaccination just might be more important than electing Democrats. After all, vaccination is a matter of life and death for some communities and groups and one of those communities in the elders and the teachers of the black community in Milwaukee. And the arc of history is going to be especially hard of everyone who poured out or accepted millions of dollars during the 2020 election because the black community needs help to vote but went inside to seminars on woke supremacy when it was time to help the black community get vaccinated. Yes, the arc of history is going to bend right down and spear everyone who went inside to a seminar on white fragility or did a babblecast on 1619 after the 2020 election while doing nothing, no, worse, while not even noticing, that the black community which suffered disproportionately from covid is now, disproportionately, not getting vaccinated in 2021. (And the schools!! Not open for the black community in large Dem cities, open for the white community in the surrounding suburbs and rural areas!!! What is the name of that???? Come on, Renegades. You have the mike, you have the name. Do you have the game?)
'A tale of sound and fury, signifying nothong, told by (two) idiots.
When things get slow Althouse throws in a Springsteen/Obama douchefest post just to get us all going.
I haven't even checked to see what they are saying and I'm ticked off already.
Also: "Renegade Outsiders"? Bruce and Barack? WTF?
Obama is rich and was twice elected POTUS, but who thinks he was a successful President?
In an audiobook book (unless it's a pop book filled with padding) you get, say, twenty-five minutes of real content per thirty minutes of listening. For podcasts, talk radio, and television interview programs, that usually drops to five minutes, sometimes even one to two minutes, of real content per thirty minutes of listening.
Too much noise, not enough signal.
1. Obama is no longer POTUS. The transcript is wrong.
2. George Floyd wasn’t murdered. Murder is a legal conclusion. And this guy graduated from Harvard.
3. Obama did nothing to improve things in the Black community. He kept the division and identity politics going. A huge failure.
What could we possibly learn about either man that we don't know already?
They're both cocksucking grifters, but only Springsteen has any talent.
But God bless Obama. He's made $100M out of being a whiny, affirmative action blowhard.
Thanks, guilty white liberals!
Basically, Springsteen is trashing the people who buy his music in order to suck up to the people who don't.
He's made $100M out of being a whiny, affirmative action blowhard.
>>
Wrong.
He's made $100M out of bribing the Iranians, who then paid back via laundering through the book etc deals.
"This is guy talk?!
Now, I'll admit that I haven't listened to the podcast. I'm not a fan of podcasts - they take too long to produce too little of interest, with few exceptions (that I've found). But I would be extremely surprised to learn that these two "guys" are producing something that, say, my husband and his friends would agree is "guy talk."
I mean, I guess, maybe. As I said, I haven't listened. I like listening to guys talking - just as I like listening to kids talking; it's a window on another world - but I don't like either of these "guys" enough to give them the benefit of the doubt. Young Springsteen, whither art thou?
"I'd rather watch horse milk dry."
I can top that! I would rather watch motor oil dry.
In the Obama/Springsteen podcasts, does the former president still rely on the "some people" strawman argumentation method to castigate his opposition, using false premises about their positions? Does he conflate lawful gun owners with mass murderers, as he did so very often on the subject of 2nd Amendment rights? Does he superciliously disdain to hear any of the objections made against his favored programs, which despite coming true upon the implementaion of his ideas, were still dismissed as mere hate and racism and sexism?
God, how I don't miss the excellent propagation of the truly vile propaganda of Obama.
Obama: "This is not who we are"
Broose: "This who we've always been"
Nothing "banal" about:
"Under my plan of a cap-and-trade system, electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket, regardless of what I say about whether coal is good or bad, because I'm capping greenhouse gases," Obama said. "Coal power plants, natural gas, whatever the industry was, they would have to retrofit their operations. That will cost money. They will pass that money onto consumers."
The admission that R's should have bludgeoned him with.
Broose must have been cold driving around all that snow in an open air Jeep with coat unbuttoned.
DB asks, "Obama is rich and was twice elected POTUS, but who thinks he was a successful President?"
Obama, Bruce and other idjits.
Narr
wildswan, do you know of Harriet Washington's work?
Obama is rich and was twice elected POTUS, but who thinks he was a successful President?
He does.
"It makes Obama and Springsteen sound more out-to-lunch than they can possibly be."
Neither one of them ever came back from breakfast.
chickelit said...
~Kathleen Hanna
i miss Bikini Kill :(
@ Crack Emcee - they are both very socially aware. That's not the same thing, but lots of people on the left treat it as the same. Obama and Springsteen both made their livings by giving people what they wanted while adopting the fiction of elevating us all.
It is work that pays very well. I can't do it myself.
Obama poking fun at himself? It's nice to see he's matured since he was president.
"Narr
wildswan, do you know of Harriet Washington's work?"
I looked her up after T saw your comment and read the chapter on eugenics in Medical Apartheid: The Dark History of Medical Experimentation on Black Americans from Colonial Times to the Present. She did a pretty good job of describing the impact of eugenics on social policy in relation to the black community. She identified Sanger's policy goal of decreasing black births for eugenic reasons. I think she underestimated the social marketing coming from strategically placed eugenics society members which accompanied the development of contraceptives. In the prolife community, the IUD was identified as dangerous very early on and its use against black women and the harm to their fertility was constantly brought up in literature, in Congressional testimony and in flyers passed out in front of PPFA clinics. But PPFA then as now had the ear of the left and the prolife information efforts were disregarded. It isn't that no one cared how PPFA treated black women; it's that no Democrat listened to prolifers then; and now, in woke history which affects all historians, it's as if we never were. That won't last but that's how it is right now.
"Obama and Springsteen are emotionally intelligent and self-aware"
I guess their shtick works with prog chicks. They're easy marks: they want to be conned.
"they poke fun at themselves, in a way that comes naturally to wildly successful people"
Yeah, Obama as the master of self-deprecation.
"[T]hey lay claim, again and again, to a progressive patriotism"
Talk about "self-awareness."
"Clichés pile up."
Did they ever not with Barry?
"'The arc of the moral universe bends towards justice,' Obama assures us...."
But he's emotionally intelligent enough to know chicks will swallow it. Smooth operator: gotta give him that.
When you're a black former president, they will let you -- oh, well.
wildswan, I saw Harriet Washington a CSpan a few years ago--I guess in re the Medical Apartheid book--and then today, when I heard her discuss vaccine reluctance among African-Americans currently.
I only was able to listen for a few minutes, but her main point was that Tuskegee presents as the big reason B/blacks may be reluctant--but that's a red herring. According to her, the more aware B/blacks are of the Tuskegee Crimes (my word), the MORE likely they are to want a vaccine; the overriding reason given by most African-Americans was the 400 years of systemic, as she says, medical apartheid, not one famous case.
IIRC, at that earlier presentation, Washington told the tale of an antebellum Southern MD and slave-holder, early leader of the AMA(?), who used to conduct ground-breaking research into the anatomy and physiology of the human jaw with a slaves a his subject. Without
anesthesia, repeatedly.
Historians can't unknow these things. Von Humboldt encountered the abuse of enslaved people in Venezuela, such things as the master who forced his slaves to eat their own shit, or the one who specialized in needle-tortures.
Narr
And he did what he could about it
Obama literally said nothing noteworthy or important for 8 years as president--why would he start now?
Progressive patriotism = owned by the CCP.
Being a rich agnostic dude, whose spirituality is little more than "I feel like a sinner when I am not true to myself", is a burden far too heavy to bear for as long as those poor old fools have borne that burden.
Just saying.
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