Obama General Discussion, vol. 3

The friendliest place on the web for anyone that follows U2.
If you have answers, please help by responding to the unanswered posts.
Status
Not open for further replies.
I don't think We Take Care Of Our Own is really any kind of pro Obama song, if he thinks it is or his advisers do. I think some of the lyrics can be interpreted as being disappointed in Obama, and as for we take care of our own..well I think the whole message of the song is that we don't and it's meant to be irony. Odd, sort of seems like an Obama Reagan Born In The USA moment.



politico.com

OFFICIAL OBAMA 2012 PLAYLIST FOR CROWD EVENTS (rallies, ropelines, etc.), to be released today: “Different People” (No Doubt) … “Got to Get You Into My Life” (Earth, Wind & Fire) … “Green Onions” (Booker T & The MG’s) … “I Got You” (Wilco) … “Keep on Pushing” (The Impressions) … “Keep Reachin' Up” (Nicole Willis & the Soul Investigators) … “Love You I Do?” (Jennifer Hudson) … “No Nostalgia” (AgesAndAges) … “Raise Up” (Ledisi) … “Stand Up” (Sugarland) … “This” (Darius Rucker) … “We Used To Wait” (Arcade Fire) … “You've Got the Love” (Florence and the Machine” … “Your Smiling Face” (James Taylor) …

... “Roll with the Change” (REO Speedwagon) … “Everyday America” (Sugarland?) … “Learn to Live” (Darius Rucker) … “Let’s Stay Together” (Al Green) … “Mr. Blue Sky” (Electric Light Orchestra) … “My Town” (Montgomery Gentry) … “The Best Thing about Me Is You” (Ricky Martin, featuring Joss Stone) … “You are the Best Thing” (Ray Lamontagne) … “Keep Marchin'” (Raphael Saadiq) … “Tonight's The Kind of Night” (Noah and the Whale) … “We Take Care of Our Own” (Bruce Springsteen) … “Keep Me In Mind” (Zac Brown Band) … “The Weight” Aretha Franklin … “Even Better Than The Real Thing” (U2) … “Home” (Dierks Bentley).
 
incisive:

Why are we still arguing about contraception in 2012? The Catholic bishops are free to make as many incendiary comments as they want, and they have, but that doesn’t mean that pundits should assume there’s a constituency beyond a bunch of celibate men and likely Republican voters that is actually going to be swayed by this. New polling on the topic shows, for example, that “a 53 percent majority of Catholic voters … favor the benefit, including fully 62 percent of Catholics who identify themselves as independents.”

It’s also been striking how much the conversation on the right and in many mainstream media forums has been dominated by men arguing about how much of a right they have to deny access to contraception, the responsibility for which, in practice, still overwhelmingly falls on women. Of course, contraception access should also matter to men (particularly if they’re men who have sex with women). But the male-dominated nature of this discussion has been different from the one we saw last week, where all over social media, male allies were visibly pushing back at the Komen foundation and speaking up for Planned Parenthood. It’s been more along the lines of Mark Halperin dutifully listening to Axelrod talk about the millions of women who would benefit from this policy and responding, in a rare moment of mildly apologetic self-awareness, ”I appreciate the substantive answer, I really do …” and asking whether the administration’s regard for public health considerations made for bad politics.

Last week, we heard so many stories, and rightfully so, about real women helped by Planned Parenthood or affected by breast cancer. This week’s discussions, driven in part by Mitt Romney trying to gain on the issue and the bishops ramping up their rhetoric, have been mostly about political gain and what a purportedly abstinent hierarchy of men think.

Instead, we should be talking about real women affected by this policy, like the unnamed Georgetown law student with polycystic ovarian syndrome featured in the Times, who lost an ovary after falling prey to the “pro-life” insurance compromises at her institution. Or why the millions of women who get their insurance through a Catholic institution and use birth control should be subject to different rules than their fellow citizens.

One Catholic bishop insisted, with no sense of irony whatsoever, that “people of faith cannot be made second-class citizens.” Apparently women are another story.

Will Obama compromise on birth control? - Contraception - Salon.com
 
I don't think We Take Care Of Our Own is really any kind of pro Obama song, if he thinks it is or his advisers do. I think some of the lyrics can be interpreted as being disappointed in Obama, and as for we take care of our own..well I think the whole message of the song is that we don't and it's meant to be irony. Odd, sort of seems like an Obama Reagan Born In The USA moment.

And while it's great to see a U2 song that isn't Beautiful Day/City of Blinding Lights... I'm guessing they didn't quite pick out the meaning of Even Better.
 
ugh. why does he do this? he just looks weak to people like me, and the people he's reaching out to already hate him because he's a marxist kenyan stalinist foreigner.
Not necessarily re: the latter; this was probably in part a play to regain the support of the Catholic Health Association (which, perhaps not coincidentally, is headed by a nun not a priest and has a predominantly female staff), which was an important ally in passing healthcare reform in the first place and was always going to be more receptive to a compromise than the Bishops Conference. The CHA indicated satisfaction with the compromise; not clear yet whether the Bishops Conference will accept it, and they're the ones who fanned this into a big story in the first place, partly by disseminating attacks on the policy to be read and distributed at the parish level.
 
Last edited:
“You are the Best Thing” (Ray Lamontagne)

:up: I love that song.

As for the contraception thing-I don't care what religious organizations have to say on this issue. I just really think people need to quit trying to tell women how to handle their sex lives.

Note to society at large: We're going to have sex. We're going to do so for reasons other than having children. We have every right to have access to contraception. We value safe sex. It's not that complicated. If you're a sane, reasonable person, you're capable of understanding and accepting that.
 
Hey guys. Speaking of U2 and EBTTRT, I just learned something about the Democratic National Convention in North Carolina later this year.

According to Wikipedia, Obama will deliver his acceptance speech at the Bank of America Stadium in Charlotte.

The closing night of the 2012 Democratic National Convention on September 6, 2012, in which President Barack Obama is expected to deliver his acceptance speech for the Democratic Party presidential nomination.
Bank of America Stadium - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I swear- What's with Obama and his giving DNC speeches in big stadiums?

Since when did politicians have such U2-sized drawing power?


Why can't Romney/Gingrich/Santorum deliver the GOP presidential nomination acceptance speech at Raymond James Stadium when the RNC hits Tampa this summer?

It's only fair.
 
i don't think the GOP believes it's nominee will fill a stadium, in the way that Obama can fill a stadium.

they don't want it to look like the embarrassing 3rd leg of the PopMart Tour.
 
they don't want it to look like the embarrassing 3rd leg of the PopMart Tour.

The only embarassing thing about the 3rd leg of the PopMart Tour was that the American fans were too culturally conservative to get it. It was the era of grunge, faded jeans and lumberjack shirts, and heavy, meaningful guitars and anything outside of that was deemed arty and pretentious. Well, screw that, I like arty and pretentious. Pop music is supposed to be arty and pretentious and escapist and even a bit, well, "gay".
 
The only embarassing thing about the 3rd leg of the PopMart Tour was that the American fans were too culturally conservative to get it. It was the era of grunge, faded jeans and lumberjack shirts, and heavy, meaningful guitars and anything outside of that was deemed arty and pretentious.

Uhhhh, late 1997 was the era of grunge? I'm not so sure about that.

Cobain had been dead for three and a half years. Pearl Jam wasn't on the radio anymore, Soundgarden had broken up, etc. Grunge was well over by the end of '97.

I'm pretty sure the Spice Girls were the most talked about thing in music in 1997 in America.
 
Uhhhh, late 1997 was the era of grunge? I'm not so sure about that.

Cobain had been dead for three and a half years. Pearl Jam wasn't on the radio anymore, Soundgarden had broken up, etc. Grunge was well over by the end of '97.

I'm pretty sure the Spice Girls were the most talked about thing in music in 1997 in America.

Well, ok, but I had the impression post-grunge was still pretty big in the US even in 1997. Spice Girls was the top selling album but there was also the likes of Bush, No Doubt, and Shania Twain. Granted none of these are precisely grunge, but still deeply conservative, rockist, MOR music.
 
Well, ok, but I had the impression post-grunge was still pretty big in the US even in 1997. Spice Girls was the top selling album but there was also the likes of Bush, No Doubt, and Shania Twain. Granted none of these are precisely grunge, but still deeply conservative, rockist, MOR music.
1997? You must be joking...American music was largely dominated by the resurgence of manufactured groups of pop stars designed to appeal to the teenie-boppers.

I think the boy band / girl group craze was firmly there in 1997, supplemented by euro dance pop singles from one-hit wonders from across the pond.

Grunge as a large movement was gone by the late 90s, left to fill the alternative radio playlists until the god-awful rap rock bands came in the early 2000s.
 
i don't think the GOP believes it's nominee will fill a stadium, in the way that Obama can fill a stadium.

What makes you say that? What does Obama have about him that the top GOP leaders don't have?

Surely, Ron Paul has enough of that "rock star aura" to fill up Raymond James Stadium.:hmm:

1997? You must be joking...American music was largely dominated by the resurgence of manufactured groups of pop stars designed to appeal to the teenie-boppers.

I think the boy band / girl group craze was firmly there in 1997, supplemented by euro dance pop singles from one-hit wonders from across the pond.

That is very true. However, those manufactured teen idols catered strictly to teenyboppers.

U2, of course, have never appealed to that type of demographic. Even when ATYCLB came out, those teens/tweens never cared for the band. (I remember watching TRL back in 2001, and the masses of 12-year-old girls didn't even react to the Walk On video.)

Even during 360, the young people of today that listen to Katy Perry don't care for U2. In terms of MTV and Fuse, the band is more irrelevant now then ever. Yet, 360 broke records.

So there were other reasons as to why PopMart wasn't so hot while 360 was a massive success across the board. To this day, I don't know what those reasons were.
 
1997? You must be joking...American music was largely dominated by the resurgence of manufactured groups of pop stars designed to appeal to the teenie-boppers.

I think the boy band / girl group craze was firmly there in 1997, supplemented by euro dance pop singles from one-hit wonders from across the pond.

Grunge as a large movement was gone by the late 90s, left to fill the alternative radio playlists until the god-awful rap rock bands came in the early 2000s.

Never mind the fucking charts, American music was dead as a doornail in 97.
 
Interesting reflection on the contraception showdown by Joan Walsh over at Salon. This echoes many of the comments I've heard from Catholics I know (practicing and 'lapsed') about their own conflicted feelings on the matter.
Catholic Tribalism and the Contraceptive Flap


The resolution to the contraception contretemps seems mainly designed to do one thing: mollify the Catholics who defied the US Conference of Bishops to support the Affordable Care Act in 2010. Church leaders are unlikely to officially back this so-called accommodation--the White House isn’t calling it a compromise--just as they continued to oppose the ACA even after President Obama did everything imaginable to insist the new law wouldn’t provide federal funding for abortion. But the new agreement makes it possible for women’s groups and some liberal Catholic leaders to maintain a truce on hot-button social issues while working together around issues of women’s health and universal access to healthcare. Planned Parenthood and NARAL Pro-Choice America are happy with the solution, and so is Sister Carol Keehan of the Catholic Health Association, who endured withering heat from the bishops and their right-wing allies over the ACA. Kristen Day of Feminists for Life likewise backs the deal.
But what just happened? Why did we spend 10 days listening to prominent Catholics, including even some liberals and Democrats, insist that the White House had overreached and trampled on “religious freedom”--in this case, the “freedom” of the Catholic hierarchy to impose rules that even most Catholics don’t live by? The great E.J. Dionne led the charge, but Catholic Democrats like Sens. John Kerry and Bob Case and Virginia’s Tim Kaine joined in, and occasionally, liberal TV hosts like MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell and Chris Matthews seemed inclined to depict the controversy as being about the church’s right not to violate its own values. Vice President Joe Biden was said to be the leading voice within the administration warning Obama away from the issue.

“This has struck a tribal nerve in Catholicism,” conservative Catholic scholar George Weigel said to Chuck Todd on “The Daily Rundown” last Monday. “The Catholic Church has been beaten up over the last 10 or 11 years and I think Catholics are tired of the government and others beating up on the church.” His liberal co-religionist on the panel, E.J. Dionne, agreed. I found that fascinating, especially because most of us consider tribalism a bad thing in a multi-ethnic democracy. Still, while I didn’t share that reaction, I recognized it. It amazes me sometimes, the extent to which Catholics still see themselves--ourselves--as outsiders. There’s a vestigial impulse to circle the wagons and protect our right to practice our persecuted religion (even if it’s no longer persecuted, and many of us don’t practice very much of it anymore).
There may be an element of remorse involved when liberal Catholics defend their faith, especially among those who defy the church (rightly, in my opinion) on its most blinkered teachings in the realm of women’s rights, gay rights and sexuality. For some it may be guilt: OK, I might not listen to the bishops, but I think we ought to demand that they’re respected in the public sphere. And for some it may be grief: We grew up with a rich tradition of social responsibility and spiritual meaning that’s unfortunately been warped by leaders who worship worldly power and have odd views about sex as well as women. While the child abuse scandal makes most Catholics sick, sometimes even I wince when non-Catholics judge the whole church by the corruption of a comparative (though very powerful) few. I have cousins and uncles and aunts who’ve joined religious orders (though, truthfully, most of them left). I don’t like seeing all of them considered perverts or pedophiles, or people who cover up for predators.

How Catholics work out their complex feelings about the church matters beyond the tribe, if only because they’re crucial to the 2012 election. One in four voters is Catholic, and Obama won a majority in 2008, while Republicans won them back in 2010.
I grew up in a huge Irish Catholic clan on Long Island, but as an adult, I put away childish things (in the words of St. Paul, though not as he intended them) and became a secular feminist liberal Democrat. The first time I remember feeling anything like tribalism was after Sept. 11. Many liberals around me criticized the overt religiosity of the public mourning for those killed that day, all that talk about God, which struck me as reflexively and needlessly anti-religion at a time when many Americans--dare I say most--found comfort in their faith. Then, after a benefit for survivors’ families turned a little rowdy, with one cop taking to the stage to say “Osama bin Laden can kiss my royal Irish ass,” the heavily Irish and Catholic cops and firefighters in attendance were roundly derided as right-wing tribalist rubes. That bothered me, too: Who did we think died trying to rescue those trapped in the World Trade Center, Susan Sarandon and Michael Moore? Members of my own family had worked in the rescue operation after the towers fell. I wasn’t down with the mockery. A lot of my belated tribalism was a class thing: I’m not working-class, but my parents and aunts and uncles were, and some of my cousins are still part of that ill-defined and disappearing demographic. There’s clearly an element of snobbery in the way the white working class is routinely run down as backward, racist, narrow-minded yahoos, and I’ve grown to resent it.

Yet in general, Catholics are doing pretty well for themselves. We’re well represented in certain segments of the American elite, especially elite punditry, it seems. It’s understandably hard for some people to imagine, in a world so striated by race and class, how Catholics could feel like oppressed outsiders. Yet it’s also true that while we’ve only elected one black president, we’ve only elected one Catholic president as well. I’m not trying to equate the struggles of black people and Catholics. In fact, it’s especially when you understand how relatively privileged Catholics have been, compared to African-Americans, that having only one Catholic president stands out, and makes you wonder: Why? It’s hard not to conclude that some residue of the religious nativism that persecuted and stigmatized Catholics in the 19th century, defeated Al Smith in 1928, and forced John F. Kennedy to promise he wouldn’t take orders from the pope in 1960 persists to this day. So even if we haven’t personally experienced anti-Catholic prejudice, and I can’t say I have, there’s an atavistic memory, something bred in the bone, that forces many of us to defend our once-persecuted church, even when we profoundly disagree with it.

But it wasn’t until I debated the Family Research Council’s Tony Perkins on “Hardball” this week that the craziness of the right-wing Catholic alliance with conservative evangelicals became particularly obvious to me. They’ve locked arms with some of the very forces that once persecuted their ancestors--some of whom still despise Catholicism to this day. On “Hardball,” Perkins posed as a defender of the Catholic bishops’ position on Obama’s contraception rules. But he’s also been an ally to virulent anti-Catholics like Rev. John Hagee, who called the church “the great whore” and a “false cult.” And Rev. Robert Jeffress, who likened the church to Satan and labeled Catholicism a “fake religion.” Like Zionist Jews who’ve made common cause with right-wing evangelicals over Israel, some Catholics are lining up, in the name of religious freedom, alongside folks who want to wipe out their religion. I’ve heard some liberals express disdain for some of the church’s teachings, but I’ve never heard anyone compare it to Satan or call it a whore.

Zealous right-wing Catholics are in the minority, even if blowhards like Bill Donohue sometimes make the most noise. In the end, I think the contraceptive flap forced a lot of Catholics to reckon with the gulf between what they practice and what their church preaches. The truth was always there, if we wanted to find it, not merely in polling data that said 98% of sexually active Catholics have used birth control, but that solid majorities of Catholic voters supported Obama’s contraception regulations applying to large Catholic institutions, like hospitals, charities and universities, that employ non-Catholics. I loved the fact that students at Catholic universities held a press conference Thursday to support the president, and that organizations like Catholic Democrats and Catholics for Choice were active and vocal in standing up to their own bishops.

There are a lot of outstanding questions about the implementation of the administration’s non-compromise. But I have to disagree with Esquire’s Charles Pierce--I’m not sure that’s ever happened before--and say I don’t consider this any kind of cave on the president’s part or victory for the bishops. I prefer the interpretation of Frances Kissling, founder of Catholics for Choice, who wrote on Friday that the “accommodation” made the bishops the “losers” and women the winners. ”When the White House cares more about what a simple Catholic sister, [Sister Carol Keehan], thinks than about what the bishops think, Catholic women can applaud. Perhaps the crack in the patriarchy is becoming a deep canyon.” I can’t go that far--especially after seeing this Think Progress report that documented what we all knew: that men dominated the debate over the controversy on cable news. It’s also a little sobering that so many of the liberal Catholic voices questioning the president were male, while most of the liberal voices backing him were female. But between this and the victory for Planned Parenthood in the Komen mess a week ago, I see evidence that we’re reaching a new place in the battle over gender. At the very least, being a woman is no longer a preexisting condition, as the Catholic Nancy Pelosi likes to say.
 
beginning to wonder if Obama didn't push the birth control issue to actually give Santorum a boost among the base and further damage Romney.

of course, it's easy to look like a chess master in retrospect. but if religious voters feel under siege, why wouldn't the gravitate towards Opus Dei rather than the Mormon guy?
 
it is pretty early to call these things

but, with a few more wrong moves, the independents could move decisively for Obama

and what was once considered a contestable election, will not be, at all.
 
It's too early to call it.
But it's not too early to prepare for the anti-climax.

There will be a period, particularly in the summer (Republican convention) where Romney will look strong, and may even pull slightly ahead in the national polls. And then the 'referendum' kicks in, where it becomes all about :up::down: on the incumbent.
 
and if Romney is the nominee

Obama wins how many electoral college votes?

a. 280 -290

b. 295 - 320

c. 325 - 350

d. 355 +



hard to say. depends on the unemployment rate. if present trends continue and nothing terrible happens, he wins by about the same as he did in 2008. he possibly flips Missouri and Indiana. maybe loses New Hampshire. Clint Eastwood just won him Michigan and thereby PA and OH.

but, hell, i'm just talking out my ass. :shrug:

in the end, i think a Romney election would be contested, a Santorum election would be a blow out.
 
My guess is with Romney
it is either a. a fairly close race or b. a decent win for Obama.

I don't think Obama will do as well as in 2008.
 
I don't think Obama will do as well as in 2008.

Same here. But only if Romney gets the nom.

I could see Obama losing the states he narrowly won back in 2008. Those include Indiana, Florida, Virginia, Nevada (?), Colorado (?), New Mexico (?), and North Carolina (which is why I think it's strange that the DNC is being held there this year).
 
he possibly flips Missouri and Indiana.

Obama won Indiana in 08.

If Romney carries the McCain states, and picks up the 6 states of Florida, Ohio, North Carolina, Virginia, Indiana and New Hampshire, he wins. I'd say in FL, NH, VA and IN he would start with a slight advantage, and probably start with a slight disadvantage in OH and NC.

If Gingrich is the nominee, it will be a McCain-style blowout. I think Santorum would actually fair slightly better, but still lose handily.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top Bottom