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 Barbwire Archives |
All I want for Christmas is a wet, warm GOP
Expanded from the 11-28-2010 Daily Sparks Tribune
HAT TRICK: Barbwire wins third straight Nevada Press Association first-place award
COMING SOON: The new season of Barbwire TV. The first show will be about (what else?) jobs. The lack of them is well documented. How we've blown them and where they can be regenerated, that's something else. I guarantee you'll get mad enough to want to get even. Watch NevadaLabor.com for show times. Help us get the word out.
Support the project at http://resurge.tv#donate
SUING FOR SCHOOLS: Click here to view the show on your desktop
If Reform Fails: Health Care, Jobs and Unions — new power to the people on the public airwaves
The program premiers were available to every television set in the region because of a high-mileage media hybrid.
The shows appeared on both commercial and community stations. The non-corporate entity produced the events, commercial TV greatly expanded distribution.
Thus began an ongoing series of sane public interest programs which generate both entertaining heat and more than a little light.
Please spread the word and consider contributing to the cause online at ReSurge.TV.
You may also take the public option known as the U.S. Postal Service and send a check or money order to ReSurge.TV, P.O. Box 10034, Reno NV 89510.
Your contribution will help fund the distribution of the Dec. 6 and Feb. 21 programs as well as ongoing efforts at developing new media, including a regional, non-corporate community radio station.
You are present at the creation of what I hope can become a new media model where the programming accurately reflects what's happening on the ground and the media impact is powerful enough to forcefully pass the message upward.
Thanks.
Be well. Raise hell.
Andrew
Click here for on-demand re-runs
from the 2009 legislative sessionBarbwire.TV:
15-year overnight success
Daily Sparks Tribune 2-10-2008The Barbwire's Greatest Hits
Highlights from radio days
mp3 file
HAT TRICK: Barbwire wins 3rd straight Nevada Press Association First-Place Award
The Republican Party has finally proposed an economic recovery program: "With the holiday season quickly approaching, there's no better time to visit the GOP Store and find truly unique and inspiring gifts for all the commonsense conservative Republicans in your life! Celebrate our 2010 election success and ring in the New Year with great gifts."
"Republican National Committee 2010 Collectable Ornament: Add some patriotic good cheer and Republican pride to your holiday décor with a limited edition brass RNC Holiday Ornament — a fantastic keepsake for celebrating a successful 2010 election year!
"Meet 'Twinkle,' the newest member of our adorable line of collectable RNC plush elephants! 'Twinkle' is ready for merriment and makes a perfect stocking stuffer for all your little Republicans who have been so good this year.
"RNC 'American Exceptionalism' Calendar: Get ready for an exceptional new year with our 2011 commemorative RNC wall calendar! Featuring original artwork that celebrates the unique character and achievements of the American people, (it) will inspire you and yours throughout the coming year.
"You Fired Pelosi — Now Get The Gear! Let everyone know you helped send Nancy Pelosi a pink slip — and are ready to give Barack Obama a taste of the same medicine in 2012! Get t-shirts, buttons, travel mugs, bumper stickers and more today!"
Wouldn't every little kid in America love to drink from an "I Fired Pelosi, Guess Who's Next?" plastic drinking cup? Even those who don't have anything to put in it as the GOP fights to kill unemployment checks just in time for the holidays.
Are Republican kids allowed to fire their parents?
I can't witness such pathetic merchandising without offering help. Can't you party-of-business strategic thinkers come up with better products, or at least catchier sales pitches? Your advertising copy is as corporate as a corpse. Perhaps your thinking is colored by the latest in judge-made law, whereby cold corporations are considered warm-blooded critters with constitutional rights. (See below.)
Casting all (or at least some) animosity aside to help the economy that George W. Bush did nothing to ruin, herewith are suggestions for spicing up the GOP sales pitch.
"WE WASHED OUT IN WASHOE" BATH TOWELS. Local Dems seriously kicked Republican butt, producing a surprise Washoe County win for U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., something he hasn't done in recent memory. Price: $2.00.
I TOOK A BATH WITH SARAH PALIN EDITION. Same item signed by Sharron Angle, $3.00.
IF ST. SARAH ACTUALLY USED THIS TOWEL. $500.00.
WRINKLED TOWEL WITH SARAH PALIN'S SIGNATURE: Priceless. Minimum bid on E-Bay, $25,000. (Buy before Dec. 1 and get two ticket stubs from Dancing with the Stars.)
CHRISTINE O'DONNELL BEWITCHMENT KIT. The complete Harry Potter book and movie collection so that future GOP witches running for office can learn how to cast a proper spell on media and voters. Included: Proof that you can see Hogwarts from Sarah Palin's house. Price: Two evil stares from eye of Newt Gingrich. Keep Twinkle the Elephant away from anyone looking for animal parts, stuffed or otherwise.
FOR THE POLITICAL WIZARD WHO HAS EVERYTHING BUT WANTS MORE: Personal magic wands signed by Sens. John Ensign, R-Nev., David Vitter, R-La., and Larry Craig, R-Idaho. Price: Untouchable. You shouldn't touch these guys with an eleven-foot pole, even if you see them wearing brass holiday ornaments from the GOP Store.
FOR THAT TRAVELING MAN. Maps and GPS coordinates on how to navigate the Appalachian Trail all the way to Argentina. Comes with bonus DVD from your tour guide, South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford. Price: Bidding starts at parity with his political future, one plugged nickel. Comes with a free jar of Congressman John Boehner's bronzing cream.
THE SOUTHERN CRACKER EXCEPTIONALISM CALENDAR. South Carolina barnyard animals had a particularly bad year. Details are unprintable in a family newspaper, but Nevada wild horse advocates really need to start a chapter down there.
That retro state demonstrably cares little for human rights, civil rights, voting rights or animal rights. They love the confederate flag and their university mascot is the gamecock. (Anybody know the phone number of Michael Vick's lawyer?) Calendar available only to consenting adults and their pets. Price: Available by subpoena, not allowed in interstate commerce.
All airline patdowns are subject to state entertainment tax.
THE SARAH PALIN PINUP: An updated world globe highlighting countries she considers our principal allies such as North Korea. Comes with a lipstick print where Sister Sarah kissed southeast Asia goodbye. Price: One can of mushroom clouds.
THE SHARRON ANGLE VICTORY TROPHY. A bronzed, life-size replica of Harry Reid's jockstrap. She dared him to "man up" and he apparently did. Price: $97 a vote.
DANCING WITH THE SUPREMES. Now that corporations are legally people, all leftover merchandise will be forwarded to the U.S. Supreme Court to be sold to the highest bidder. Justices Roberts, Alito, Thomas, Scalia and Kennedy have officially turned our elections into auctions, so they might as well come out of the closet and get into the biz. Given his experience in the field, Justice Thomas will personally handle the S. Carolina and American Exceptionalism calendars.
Keep one hand on your wallet and your good eye on your horse, then go E-Baying at the full moon with all the GOP Store moonhowlers.
Now that's salesmanship.
COMING SOON: The new season of Barbwire TV.
The first show will be about (what else?) jobs.The lack of them is well documented.
How we've blown them and where they can be regenerated, that's something else.
I guarantee you'll get mad enough to want to get even.
Help us get the word out and watch NevadaLabor.com for show times.
You may support the project via http://resurge.tv#donate
Remember, the 2011 "Cruel and Unusual Punishment" Nevada legislative session is just around the corner.
Be well. Raise hell.
______
Andrew Barbano is a 42-year Nevadan, chair of the Nevada César Chávez Committee, producer of Nevada's annual César Chávez Day celebration, second vice-president and political action chair of the Reno-Sparks NAACP, labor/consumer/civil rights advocate, member of Communications Workers of America Local 9413/AFL-CIO and editor of NevadaLabor.com. As always, his opinions are strictly his own. Check local listings for other Nevada cable systems. E-mail barbano@frontpage.reno.nv.us. Barbwire by Barbano has originated in the Daily Sparks Tribune since 1988.
Nevada Press Assn. annual award winners announced on Sept. 18, 2010.
HAT TRICK: Barbwire takes first place for third year in a row.
Next year, we go for the sombrero.The winning entries:
Suing for Schools: The 20-year shuck
Expanded from the 2-21-2010 Daily Sparks Tribune
Click here to view the show on your desktopRED flags flying low over Sparks
Expanded from the 1-10-2010 Daily Sparks TribuneThe wrath of self-righteous racism
Expanded from the 11-8-2009 Daily Sparks Tribune
And they wonder why the newspaper business is dying?
The Dean's List
The Dean of Reno Bloggers could very well be Andrew Barbano, self-described "fighter of public demons," who started putting his "Barbwire" columns online in 1996 and now runs 10 sites.
RENO NEWS & REVIEW, 11-9-2006
The 2009 first-place Nevada Press Association award winners
Tony the Tiger & the flaky NFL
Barbwire / 11-30-2008
Deregulation is never having to say you're sorry
Barbwire / 8-3-2008
Nevada: A good place to visit, but do you want to live here?
Barbwire / 6-15-2008
The price of a piece / 6-17-2007
Boxing Pandora /9-23-2007
The Lady in the Red Dress
10-28-2007
Bill Moyers: Welcome to the Plutocracy
Money fights hard and it fights dirty
Speech delivered at Boston University on 29 Oct. 2010
Part of the Howard Zinn Lecture SeriesBarbwire Corporate Welfare Archive
Cabellyup.com
TOLJASO LONG TIME AGO
BP/ARCO: The greasy root of our evils
Barbwire / Daily Sparks Tribune 9-10-2006
The awful truth — Read it and weep, fellow suckersLabor Day 2009: Rise of the Vampire Corpobots
Expanded from the 9-6-2009 Daily Sparks TribuneAngry Americans and Freudian fraud
Using war to market cigarettes
Expanded from the 8-23-2009 Daily Sparks TribuneBARBWIRE Nevada Corporate Welfare Archive
Propaganda fuels gasoline price fixing
Barbwire 8-14-2005Donate to the cable ratepayer legal defense fund at our PayPal-enabled ReSurge.TV Consumer War Room
Phillips, Kevin; Numbers Racket: Why the economy is worse than we know
Harper's Magazine; May 2008; page 43
Phillips has authored numerous books on history and politics over the past 40 years. His most recent, Bad Money: Reckless Finance, Failed Politics and the Global Crisis of American Capitalism, was published by Viking on April 15, 2008.NAOMI WOLF: Fascist America in 10 Easy Steps
There are some things common to every state that's made the transition to fascism. Author Naomi Wolf argues that all of them are present in America today.
Alternet 5-20-2007Johnson, Chalmers; REPUBLIC OR EMPIRE? A National Intelligence Estimate on the United States; Harper's magazine; January, 2007. I love it when heavy hitters validate what I've been saying for years in the tiny Sparks Tribune.
Barlett, Donald L. and Steele, James B.; America: What Went Wrong? (1992); America: Who Really Pays the Taxes? (1994); America: Who Stole the Dream? (1996) ; Andrews & McMeel/Universal Press Syndicate.
Review of Alex Carey's Taking the Risk Out of Democracy:
Propaganda in the US and AustraliaThe Orwell Diversion by Alex Carey
Excerpted from the book available below
ORDER Taking the Risk Out of Democracy
Corporate Propaganda versus Freedom and Liberty
By Alex Carey
Edited by Andrew Lohrey
Foreword by Noam Chomsky
University of Illinois Press
SEE ALSO: Lapham, Lewis H.; Tentacles of Rage: The Republican Propaganda Mill, A Brief History; Harper's Magazine cover article; September, 2004, page 32.
By one conservative estimate, the corporate right has spent about $3 billion over the past three decades manufacturing public opinion to suit big business goals. Lapham's number covered the early 1970's to the present day. Alex Carey noted that by 1948, anti- New Deal corporate propaganda expenditures had already reached $100 million per year, not adjusted for inflation, for advertising alone. (Carey, ibid; page 79)
Adjusted for inflation, that 1948 $100 million becomes $801,659,751.04 in 2005 dollars.
Conservatives Help Wal-Mart, and Vice Versa
As Wal-Mart struggles to rebut growing criticism, it has discovered a reliable ally: conservative research groups.
New York Times 9-8-2006; Free registration may be required.BARBWIRE: Labor Day '94: People vs. corporate con job, 9-4-94
Chilling forecasts from Alex CareyBARBWIRE: The Nevada Republican Party Becomes Communist, 3-30-97
A prescient Plato on the dangers of oligarchyThe sands of time do not cloud the long memories of the sheiks of Araby
Barbwire 9-10-2006
Rinfret, Pierre A.; Peace is Bullish; Look magazine, 5-31-1966
Copyright © 1982-2010
Andrew Barbano
Andrew Barbano is a 42-year Nevadan, editor of NevadaLabor.com and JoeNeal.org; and former chair of the City of Reno's Citizens Cable Compliance Committee, He is producer of Nevada's annual César Chávez Day celebration and serves as second vice-president, political action chair and webmaster of the Reno-Sparks NAACP. As always, his opinions are strictly his own. E-mail barbano@frontpage.reno.nv.us.
Barbwire by Barbano premiered in the Daily Sparks (Nev.) Tribune on Aug. 12, 1988, and has originated in those parts ever since. Tempus fugit.
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