The Bleak In Review-Transcript
Editor’s note: initially, we weren’t going to post this transcript of a podkast from nearly a week ago, in which LK lets loose on the clowns and nonsense passing as leaders and solutions. but it still seems surprisingly timely, so here you go.
Hiya. LK here, the keeper of LooseKannon.com. That’s Kannon with a K. I’m honored to have been named to the Talkers Magazine Frontier 50, a selection of outstanding talk media webcasters. Talkers Magazine, of course, is billed as “The Bible of Talk Radio and the New Talk Media”, and, in the words of Muhammad Ali, “it ain’t bragging if it’s true”.
Today, as I like to do from time to time, I want to look in on the major events screaming at us, and taunting us, from the front pages of our newspapers, our cable channels, and our favorite websites, but before dealing with these specific issues, I have to confess that lately I’ve been feeling way too much like a subject in a government sponsored sociology study, a walking, talking, tax-paying guinea pig in the laboratory of Dr. Obama and his egg-headed research assistants. These research assistants have titles like cabinet secretary, senator, and congressperson, and pull in much heftier paychecks than those of us who are being poked and prodded like lab rats by fundamental changes to the way things work around here, without much regard to how we feel about it.
Me and 300 million fellow countrymen in a red, white and blue petri dish.
Maybe I should take calls from those of you with guesses as to what the next new tax is going to be. Let me know your most absurd yet still entirely plausible new tax or tax increase. Send them to lk@loosekannon.com.
OK, let’s get going, and connect some dots that are, if looked at from the right angles, clear as day.
Let’s start with health insurance. Now my health insurance company just notified me that my premium, beginning on January 1 of 2011, will be increasing another 17% or so, making the premium increase over the past 2 years around 50%. And this is with a family deductible of 4 grand out of pocket before dollar one gets reimbursed. Sound familiar? I thought so.
It almost creates the perverse desire to come down with something non-lethal just to get something back for all those premium dollars. If this is what follows passage of a 2000 page health care overhaul bill that no one’s read, count me out. Wait a minute, it’s illegal to not participate. So I’m in a bind, because I’m not exactly rolling in dough and yet I can’t take any chances should anyone in the family need some high quality care. Maybe Michelle and her cronies can cover me, as they’re having no trouble cavorting in Spain and covering that tab. Besides, the way I see it, she owes me, as my tax dollars (and yours) are covering some of the 70 secret service agents traveling with her, as well as the plane fare, round trip no less. Cool, that’s covered. Not.
And speaking of executive extravagance, we’ve all heard by now that Chelsea’s wedding cost upward of 3 million smackers. Here again, you and I fo0ted some of the bill, as Bill, with a capital B, and Hillary, the Secretary of State, both warrant government chaperons. You’d think they’d set a better example for their daughter and for the nation by cutting back a bit, as the rest of us are being asked, or forced to do. And you’d think they’d show a little class and good taste by not throwing their wealth in the face of the rest of us.
I mean, in these times, when simply saying you’ve got a job risks ruffling the feathers or hurting the feelings of someone who’s out of work, you’d think that folks in the spotlight would know better. But they don’t.
And it’s not just ugly Americans who think like this. Anyone hear about French President Sarkozy’s new jet? His equivalent of Air Force One? Aside from the generally accepted luxuries accorded a head of state, he’s got a special room fitted with a special air filtration system that he and his broke Euro-buddies can smoke Cuban cigars in while they’re discussing how they’re gonna divvy up Greece. And the French taxpayers are footing that bill. Time to dust off the guillotine, if you ask me.
OK, we’re going to take a little break, a little musical interlude, and be back with more lucid observations. I’m going to have a drink of water, out of a glass that’s neither half empty nor half full. It’s just a glass of water. And speaking of glasses, my eyeglasses aren’t rose colored, nor are they wraparound shades. I’m just seeing things as they are.
Alright, this is LK from LooseKannon.com, and we’ll be back in no time. Stay right here, because Iraq, Afghanistan, and an incredibly dumb-ass birthday card to the President are coming up next.
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Welcome back. This is LK, the keeper of LooseKannon.com. My bumper music is going to be predominantly blues and country, because I know for a fact that you can gain the same degree of deep insight by listening to a couple of hours of Muddy Waters or Johnny Cash as you can by majoring in philosophy at an Ivy League university. I ought to know. I’ve done both, and the latter costs a whole lot more and takes way more time.
To give credit where credit’s due, that was Slo Leak at the top of the show, and Willie, Waylon, Kris, and Johnny recording as The Highwaymen just now.
Back to business. Let’s talk Afghanistan and Iraq.
Any West Point freshman who’s read a book on military strategy, whether it’s the ancient Art of War by Sun Tzu or Future War by Colonel John Alexander, knows the basic routes to victory that were completely ignored by President Bush, and now by President Obama. In fact, military textbooks aside, any veteran or, for that matter, any civilian with a whit of common sense knows the following:
First, you can’t fight an effective war against an undefined enemy. No uniforms, no national allegiance, no lust for life? It’s a no go.
Secondly, you can’t bribe a native populace to cooperate with you unless you’re prepared to put them on the payroll for life.
And you don’t declare your troop strength, unless it’s purposeful misinformation.
You also don’t declare your invasion date, nor do you declare your withdrawal date, and then reveal your cluelessness by fudging on the previously declared date every Sunday on Meet the Press .
And anyone with an IQ above room temperature knows that drug dealers make lousy allies.
And still we’re committing money we don’t have, and blood we don’t need to spill, to a war in a country that isn’t a country at all, even as far as its own inhabitants are concerned. What we call Afghanistan is tribes and warlords spread out on a land mass whose borders are figments of our imagination, not their reality.
In terms of Iraq, once we pull out, it’s maybe 2 weeks before all hell breaks loose. We’re the trestles that are holding up the bridge between the Sunnis and the Shias. So we either stay there forever and drain our ability to fund our own future, and demoralize our troops in the process, or we pull out, circle the wagons, and we attempt to regain our strength.
I can’t contribute to charity if I can’t cover my food, clothing and shelter, and we can’t go nation building when we’re in such deep debt that we’re firing teachers, cops, firemen, postal workers, and on and on and on. It couldn’t be clearer.
Finally, LooseKannon got an e-mail from BarackObama.com.
It starts out: Dear Loose. I love that. Then it continues, as if I’m 2 years old:
President Obama turns 49 next week, and OFA supporters across the country are sharing in the fun.
Volunteers on the ground are holding birthday parties — and we’ll use the occasion to recruit new folks to join this grassroots movement that has helped President Obama so much throughout his first year and a half in office.
Want to come? Here’s what we’re doing in New York:
and it gives a NYC address for the President’s birthday event.
Then it asks: Can you make it? And the options are:
No, but I’d like to sign a birthday card for the President.
No, but I want to see if there are other events near me.
Have they lost their minds? Have they not seen the latest monthly unemployment figures? Have they not seen the latest consumer confidence numbers? Are they so clueless they believe us to be that infantile? Americans don’t have time for a freaking political birthday party. We’ve gotta go job hunting, or go back to school to learn a new trade, because they shipped that work overseas, or we’ve gotta work 2 jobs, or handle the workload for what used to be 2 people at the job we’ve got and we’re desperate to keep.
And the note’s signed by some clown named Jeremy Bird, who’s the deputy director of Organizing For America, whatever the heck that is. It’s waaaaay too easy to say I should give Bird the bird, but it’s such a fat pitch I had to swing at it.
Alright, this is LK from Loosekannon.com, and that’s Kannon with a K. Next time around we’ll get to immigration, legal and illegal, we’ll get to the celebrity worship that’s killing us, and we’ll deal with how, in a time of economic stress, it’s a good idea to develop a healthy skepticism when someone, anyone, tries to sell us anything from a car to a head of lettuce.
Be well, and don’t let the spin become a death spiral. Bye bye.
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