Our Somber Lives; How the Right Destroyed American Culture

Frustration, desperation, they say I need some kinda medication. Situation, no motivation. Desperation, permanent vacation - Aerosmith, "Permanent Vacation"

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The American Dream Is Now a European Vacation

LaGuardia Airport, July 13th

As I sit here waiting for my connection to Cincy, the one that was supposed to leave from JFK but..cancelled. Then supposed to slingshot me outta the other outer-borough airport by 8pm..but creeps later and later into evening with ever more delays…

Well, this all this has me wondering when I’ll get home. But also has me pondering another challenging question. One on repeat in my head—like a broken record or Trump treason. Why do I want to go home? Why did I come back?

Yeah, I know the obvious reasons. It’s where my wife and I are raising our kids. We have older family members we wish to be here for. Etc. But the more existential one, I gotta tell you, I’m having some trouble with that.

For the first time in a while, I’m seriously thinking about a not-too-distant future where I don’t call our reality-bites politics and eternally exhausting, dog-squatting-by-a-fire-hydrant culture, home.

Yes, I just flew in from 10 days in Rome and Sicily. I know, it’s always hard to leave, and leaving always leaves you longing. Especially—for me—when it’s a country on the Mediterranean, to which I’ve found myself returning again and again. (I lived in Nice, France, and have spent ~2 mos of my life in and around Italy, not to mention Spain, Athens, the Greek Isles).

But it still feels different this time.

And it’s not the pasta (ok, maybe a bit). Or the incredible wine (ok, maybe…). Or even the gorgeous Mediterranean sun and fantastically fun people I always meet.

It’s that these fantastically fun people live in a country where having a life is still a thing, and their governments—national and local—still function as they’re supposed to: to serve the people. And this is Italy under Prime Minister Georgia Meloni, who runs one of the most conservative governments the country’s had since Mussolini.

Let’s call the two items in the paragraph personal culture and political culture. They inherently interact to a great degree, as, for example, the control you exercise over your body certainly influences your ability to enjoy passions and hobbies.

But some of this is just a general, overall belief system re what government should do and work/life balance.

America is drastically failing on both counts, like Stephen Miller trying to keep his wife from pulling a “The Graduate” with Elon Musk.

Regular people in Italy just aren’t stressed, anxious and depressed like we are—especially our kids—for many reasons. Nobody worries they won’t be able to afford to treat an illness, because it’d just never happen. Like every sane democracy— meaning every single one but ours—healthcare is universal because OF COURSE IT IS.

Universal. Like knowing Trump’s in Jeffrey Epstein’s little black book. Unless you’re a MAGA birdbrain with a chronically malfunctioning sympathetic nervous system, such that fight or flight is set off by schools without Christmas trees or Superman movies.

But back to our Roman and Sicilian friends. They don’t have to start saving for their children’s college from their own first job post-puberty. It wouldn’t cross their minds they’d fall hundreds of thousands of Euros in debt to attend college.

Well, depending on family income, one can attend a great public university for €500-€4,000 per year (the latter = ~$4,665 currently), and many are far closer to the lower number. A great college for $1000 or $1700 a year??

Crazy! Except it’s pretty close to how it was for us in the 50s, 60s, 70s. Til monopolists turned colleges into six-figure job banks that like Seinfeld, are about nothing. (I saw a governor create a gig at a public university for a term-limited pal in the state senate—senior VP for..outreach! What the hell is that? Dunno, but state residents paid ~$350,000/yr for it in tuition. I’m sure this hasn’t occurred all across the country).

So while you’re busy being all relaxed in Italy about college affordability, and that your President isn’t a monumental f*kwit, you’re taking a siesta. You had a late one last night, and you really tied one on with friends (remember seeing friends regularly?).

And nobody living in Puglia or Palermo ever thought it was cool to brag “dude, I'm an I-banker, I work 90 hours a week!” Like so many of the emotionally defenestrated droogs with whom I attended college.

America: where mainstream culture says we must not be proud of having learned how to brew the perfect beer, knit the perfect pull-over or paraglide off a Swiss Alp—I actually did this one(!)…and it’s so much cooler than my income statement. I wish I could locate the pics to share—but promise I shall find them!

Our culture tells us to be proud of..how many GD hours we work. How much money we make? Those boys I went to college with? They for damn sure were proud of having memorized the Gordon Gekko speech from “Wall Street” …

The point is, ladies and gentleman, that greed -- for lack of a better word -- is good.

Greed is right.

Greed works.

Greed clarifies, cuts through, and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit.

Greed, in all of its forms -- greed for life, for money, for love, knowledge -- has marked the upward surge of mankind.

And greed -- you mark my words -- will not only save Teldar Paper, but that other malfunctioning corporation called the USA.

Back in the Mediterranean, when they’re not contemplating a work/life balance, they’re taking advantage of a political culture that’s ensured they have, at any new job: a minimum of 20 days of vacation time from the start, and up to 10 months of paid parental leave. These are on the low end.

A good friend, a powerful lawyer based in Rome who summers in Sicily, explained how she took off from work until her kids turned 12 yrs old—as is allowed by law! And at that point she was still being paid 10-20% of her salary.

It’s almost as if they have time for— and stick with me here, American friends—concepts such as “healing,” “bonding with a newborn,” “leisure time” and “rest.”

These ideas weren’t infected the American Avarice Virus on the boot of Italy, or island below it. That consumerist ethos brought to you by Reagan and reinforced by a fully-monopolized Mitch McConnell. Bought-and-paid for by creepy corporate creeps to steal as many judges—by any means necessary (how very Malcolm X)—til they made sure all crazy talk about *time off from work* would never take hold in ‘merica.

Yep, our work til ya drop creed is backed by billionaires robbing us in broad daylight, with the near militaristic support of their political wing—the Republican Party. This group of putzes who once paid a 91% top tax rate under GOPer, Eisenhower, is today not so concerned about being squeezed for every last dollar, or even most first ones.

Mrs. Jeff Bezos will have the funds for every last 3D printed body part she craves. Hell, she can go full cyborg if she wants! And while we’re talking about Italy, it’s worth mentioning that incel-it-to-you-make-it Jeff Bezos rented out the island off Venice—San Giorgio Maggiore—and spent a sickening $46-$56 million on it. This while one in six American children—over 13 million—don’t have enough food to eat each day.

If I start I won’t stop with the expletives describing how gauche, how utterly repulsive this is, so I’ll leave it at this: any society allowing Bezos to spend that on a wedding and not taxing the s*t outta him, fails. What I’d give to have watched The Italian Job crew stick-up that squirrely, self-indulgent, self-congratulating, socially-inept SOB.

The tragedy of this is ya didn’t just imagine the 60s. We once tracked countries like Italy pretty closely with our feelings on everything from work v leisure to not allowing bullet-brains access to *all the guns.* But, 30 years of RW billionaire investment changed U.S. political culture, with its media, think tanks, liars, lunatics and thieves.

A B-list actor’s smile and a lot of lies from a domestic psy-op—that on close inspection looks a lot like things America did in places like Iran, Chile, Angola—with a few other unpleasantries; some lawbreaking, Merrick-Garland-esque Democratic folding—got us here. But the key force: information warfare (or “disinformation”).

The kind that helped convince the U.S. public to allow the kindly-seeming old flibbertigibbet, Reagan, to engage in the pantsing of our welfare state, destructive deregulation and delivering a death blow to political and lifestyle views that’d been as American as apple pie—or Italian as gelato—since FDR.

In other words, we once were found and then we were lost.

And with that psy op more ruthless and effective than ever, we re-elected, Grover-Cleveland style, a traitor, convicted criminal, adjudicated rapist, lifetime conman..a guy with a jackknifed cerebral cortex and preference for Saddam Hussein chic (see below)..with the ill-fitting suits and a new extra-large dollop of dementia every day.

Gaudy AF

Building on all of that, Trump has us right in the middle of the Rubicon. We haven’t crossed it quite yet, as Julius Caesar did with troops to end the Rome’s republic. But we’re having a late-stage, Roman Empire moment, and growing ever-closer to ruin.

A palpable difference can be felt in the air if one goes to a country like Italy now.

Italians aren’t worried about a masked Gestapo kidnapping human beings off their streets and throwing them in cages, just as they’re not worried about having to work an 80-hour week (and then bragging about it). They’re happy, healthy, enjoying their lives.

Guys and gals, we’ve been sold a con so big, even Bernie Madoff has to be sitting somewhere saying, “JFC, this is some serious bulls*t.”

Italy is happy. We are not. Italy has a conservative leader who has promised to abide by the Italian Constitution, personally opposes gay civil unions (that’s what they have there) and abortion, but has promised to do nothing about any of it and is a staunch supporter of Ukraine.

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None of these things can be said about our jack-in-the-box President, which is part of the reason we’re so damn on-edge these days. Or could it be that in a recent study, kids in the United States are three times more likely to die than kids in other wealthy countries? Let me repeat the key word there—kids.

You know, the "precious lives" conservatives claim to care so much about when they’re busy forcing births and banning books. But, once they’re born? Good luck, junior. Donald Trump’s creeping around your beauty pageants. You may get gunned down in Newtown or washed away in Texas.

Hey, you're on your own, that’s what we voted for.

So, Italian happiness vs our spiraling depression as a nation isn’t a mystery. It’s a choice. It's what happens when billionaires buy off Congress like it’s a Black Friday sale. Rewire our system like Elon and his little helpers in the Treasury Department payment system. And treat working people like they’re their first wives.

We’ve gutted public education, turned college into a luxury item and confiscated people’s retirements. Then we hand ‘em a flag, a gun and a bootstrap speech and tell them to how America is the greatest country evah!

It’s not.

This isn’t a normal, or even an acceptable way to live. It’s a rigged, soul-crushing, monopoly-led con game. Americans don’t even realize how stressed they are—and if they weren’t around before St. Ronnie, they may’ve never even had the luxury of feeling inner peace and personal security.

So yes, people in Italy are much happier. They are free. And not in a fake “Don’t tread on me” gun-humping way—but free to live, to breathe, to age, to vacation, to try a hobby, go out late with friends, raise kids without wondering if their next dental cleaning or ER visit will lead to homelessness.

Yes, America still has incredible people, resilient communities and deep wells of creativity. But til we get billionaire boots off our necks and build a government that once again serves us—none of us can reach our potential. Or happiness we deserve.

We’re currently headed in the opposite direction. Led by President Numbnuts and rich Heil-Hitler guy who built the two-toasters-bonked-looking exploding trucks. Hell, if we’re honest, the entire oligarch class and their Congressional concubines.

If we don’t fix this kneecapped republic of ours soon (and as we say at Blue Amp over and over, it STARTS by creating a free, non-corporate, independent media ecosystem), I’m gonna need to keep taking European vacations to remember what dignity feels like. And think heart-attack seriously about living there again soon.

But perhaps, this time, on a permanent vacation.

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…Yo, Check This Out!

Pam Bondi & the Epstein Files

• Feb 27, 2025
  As U.S. Attorney General, Bondi announces the first phase of declassified Epstein documents—mostly previously leaked items—calling it “lifting the veil.” She claimed the department initially handed over ~200 pages but that “thousands of pages” remain

• Feb–Mar 2025
  Promises ratchet up as Bondi hints she has a “list of Epstein’s clients” sitting on her desk, and that more revelations are imminent. Conservative voices rally behind her, expecting bombshell disclosures.

• May 2025
  MAGA influencers receive bulky binders marked “Epstein Files” —but once opened, they're underwhelming: public info, redactions, nothing explosive. Both sides start rolling their eyes.

• July 7, 2025
  DOJ and the FBI release a memo stating “no client list exists”, no evidence Epstein blackmailed anyone, and that his death was suicide. Bondi’s earlier claim about the client list is effectively debunked.

• July 8–9, 2025
  House Democrats (Jamie Raskin and others) demand unredacted Epstein files mentioning Trump from Bondi, accusing her of sheltering Trump. Meanwhile MAGA hardliners begin blaming Bondi, accusing her of political grandstanding.

• July 11–12, 2025
  Heavy pressure mounts. Trump pleads: “let Pam Bondi do her job,” urges MAGA faithful to stop the infighting. Bondi becomes the target instead of Trump.

• July 13–14, 2025
  Justice Department doubles down: no further documents will be released, citing court seals and victim privacy. Conservative frustration boils over—Bondi gets blamed, not Trump, for the closure.

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🐱 KITTY PIC!

A Sleeping Beauty making the Teatro Romano in Catania, Sicily, a nice spot to crash

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