Sneak Peek Into An Obamunist America

I got back from my visit to Italy on Tuesday night, and boy is my wallet tired. I got to see family members that I had not seen in years. I also got a sneak peak into what America will be like if The Chosen One is allowed to reshape America in his Marxist image. I left on the 17th, the day after Iggy's seeming awakening at the Tea Party rally. I'm not sure if he has continued on the road to recovery - based on what I have heard over the last two days, he has relapsed -  but perhaps these highlights of what I found will help him.

Obamacare - Just before we left, we learned that a 42 year old cousin of mine in Switzerland had died of a brain tumor that the doctors "had not caught in time". Last Wednesday, we learned that a 74 year old uncle, after waiting two and a half years, was finally scheduled for prostate surgery yesterday. Is it cancer? Well I'll guess we'll find out . . . eventually; as of Monday night, the hospital had still not called to confirm the surgery. This is after thirty-five years of decorated service as a Carabinieri, a kind of hybrid FBI/state police force at the federal level. Imagine what kind of treatment the little people get under socialized medicine - oh wait, my cousin was one of the little people.

Cap and Trade - Gas was a about 1.30 euros a liter, which with the current exchange rate works out to about $7.25 a gallon. Why so high? Because energy is taxed to hell and back to help pay for the socialist welfare state. That is really what cap and tax is about, only at the level of nations. It is intended to force the redistribution of wealth on a global scale, from the West to the hellholes of the world. In the home where we stayed for most of the time, my uncle uses about eight cords of wood a year to heat the house (a wood stove/fireplace rig that hears hot water). Why not use natural gas for heat? Because second mortgages suck. Oh, since the gas taxes are mostly used to support the welfare state, they use tolls to pay for the roads. The cost of the three-hundred mile trip (of which only about 270 were on the highway) to Florence; $58.00! That's like having to shell out sixty bucks to drive from Providence to Atlantic City - on top of paying over seven dollars for a gallon of case.

Government Workers - Government office workers work six hour days (Wait 'till the Beacon Hill hacks here about that one!), with a schedule of either a six-hour day, or three hours of work, a two-three hour lunch/siesta, followed by three more hours of "work". The local provincial director for a given department makes the determination. Of course there is also the six weeks of vacation and the cushy pensions that follow . . . oh wait, that's pretty much where we are now.

Consumer Prices - We know about energy; how about $2.09 for a 1/2 liter bottle of milk. $2.80 for a two liter bottle of coke? Plus, everyone has to buy bottled water to drink because the water from virtually every municipal water supply smells like a swimming pool.

This is all just the tip of the iceberg from a casual observer. Imagine what lies beneath the surface. I will say that all of those left-wing morons talk about how great things are in Europe, and how we need to do things more like they do are right about one thing; how Europe handles immigration. When I last saw Italy in 1987, it was a country of ethnic Italians, only twenty years removed from the last wave of emigration to America and Canada.

Today, it is a country to which people emigrate. I saw Slavs, Somalis, Eritreans and Pakistanis among others. They work as street vendors, souvenir peddlers, and happily work low-level jobs; just like my parents when they came to America. Also like my parents when they came here, they learned the native language. Not only did they speak Italian for commercial reasons, many of them better than I, they often spoke it amongst themselves. I even heard one group of Pakistanis discussing the play of various Italian soccer teams (OK, that I did have a problem with) in Italian.

It is completely unlike here, where liberals now insist that we Balkanize America rather than adhere to the policy of assimilation that worked so well for over two hundred years, Undoubtedly, that is also how it is in Spain, Germany, France et al. - hell, the French get angry at tourists who don't speak French! Just remember that the next time you see your state's driver's license exams in eighteen different languages paid for with your tax dollars.


Bob, RI

Ceterum , exsisto quietis Iggy!