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 Barbwire Archives |
Trying to brighten the unenlightened
Expanded from the 5-30-2010 Daily Sparks Tribune
Barbwire wins second straight Nevada Press Association first-place award
SUING FOR SCHOOLS: Click here to view the new Barbwire show on your desktop
Currently rerunning on Boulder City cable. Go to bcnv.org and then go to the BCTV link.
If Reform Fails: Health Care, Jobs and Unions — new power to the people on the public airwavesThe 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
Barbwire column on the depredations of Charter Communications and the Reno City Council wins 2009 Nevada Press Association first-place award
Past 12 months
Use the search tool you will find at page right at the above link. It will return the 19 newest TV programs. You may also search by date — M-F for the past year save holidays.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"Hey Barbano, YOU CAN GO TO HELL, Cesar Chavez was an ILLEGAL ALIEN and a work place terrorist in the Central Valley of California. I know this because I grew up where he was active. I would NO MORE RECOGNIZE HIM AS A HERO THAN I WOULD HITLER. I would gladly tell Gibbons to totally disregard that Proposed Bill and honored that misfit and creep who started the demonstrations trying to force Illegals to be accorded all the rights and services of those that have followed the traditions and laws in gaining LEGAL IMMIGRATION STATUS through the front door...To set him up as a hero is far beyond re-writing history, and forcing people to believe that he was really a good man who ONLY WANTED what is best for America, much like your new hero Obama...go waste your time somewhere it is appreciated, I would not spend any time on trying to convince me to be a good UNION supporter or a good SOCIALIST (whoops, should I have said PROGRESSIVE??) when Unions and Labor are part and parcel of Community Organizer thugs that are ruining America and everything that is (sic) was founded upon. Unions had a time and a purpose when they were started, but they have outlived and over-grown their purpose and usefulness."
So wrote a lady named Claudia. I responded to her vitriol by noting that I was also born and raised in central California, that labor leader Chávez was born on 3-31-1927 near Yuma, Arizona, and that he was an opponent of illegal immigration.I added that Gov. Gibbons had to proclaim March 31 as César Chávez Day because he is mandated to do so under Nevada law.
"I would like to make a donation to the NAACP! WHITE SUPREMACY RULES!" So stated a misguided soul named after St. Paul.
The following reasonable question came from a reader in Sacramento: "Do you think that 'colored people' as a title for anything/anybody is inexact and perhaps a bit politically and culturally inappropriate? If not, would you mind defining who 'colored people' are exactly? And who is 'allowed' to say 'colored people' in public or in the media? 'La Raza' is a tough one to figure too - but much more offensive when translated to English - can you imagine walking around with 'The Race' on a shirt or on a business sign?"
I responded that we are talking different permutations of identity.
"La Raza" doesn't quite translate well into English. Many Latinos consider themselves members of a mythical Mexican race, hence "La Raza." It's also inextricably intertwined with Catholic guilt trips, as it's been explained to me. (The best article was a piece on the roots of machismo in either Psychology Today or Ms. magazine c. 1971-72.) La Razans (to coin a term) feel that their oppression comes as payback for their many sins. How Catholic is that? As a recovering Catholic, I can relate.
With respect to the translation and transition of the NAACP acronym, I would oppose trying to change the well-established brand. Everybody knows the National Conference of Christians and Jews, which is no more. Now it's the National Conference for Community and Justice. How bureaucratic and bloodless.
Columnist William Raspberry got a handle on the name thing two or three decades back. He noted that if the problem persists, we change the name of it every generation or so. (George Carlin, call your office!)
So, we went from colored to negro to black to African-American but the problems remain. I wonder what's next. So far, "people of color" seems the leading contender.
Carlin warned about adding long-syllabled euphemisms, from shell shock in WWI to combat fatigue in WWII to traumatic stress syndrome in 'Nam to the current "post-traumatic stress disorder." We had a perfectly descriptive term in the first place, replaced by the current bloodless compound word-cum-hyphen.
And so it goes as we wallpaper over pain with prepositions.
NO SMOKING UNLESS YOU'RE DRIVING A RACE CAR. Monday, May 31 is World No Tobacco Day. The World Health Organization has selected "gender and tobacco with an emphasis on marketing to women" as this year's theme. (See the history of corporate propaganda in the web edition of this column at NevadaLabor.com. Since this is Memorial Day weekend, please pay special attention to how corporate America got soldiers addicted in WWI.)
NAACP Reno-Sparks Branch President Lonnie Feemster says “We are in full support of this global effort and will reach out to branch members, community partners and the community-at-large to educate them about the harmful, negative lifelong impact smoking has on those who smoke and/or use other tobacco products, their loved ones and the environment. We must work to inform family, friends and others about the importance of eliminating tobacco use particularly in communities that suffer disproportionately from tobacco related diseases,” Feemster noted.
Nevada casino workers remain among those at highest risk from cancer-causing second-hand smoke.
HARDBALL ON D-DAY. The Truckee Meadows Democratic Alliance is hosting a fundraiser at the Reno Aces ballpark on Sunday afternoon, June 6. Tickets are $40 for adults and $15 for children aged three to 12. For more info, call (775) 323-VOTE and ask for Marcy Kupfersmith or e-mail renotiger@yahoo.com.
HELP WANTED. Regular readers know that I have been raising money to help Sierra Nevada Community Access Television fully benefit from a matching foundation grant of $40,000.
If you can help with a tax-deductible donation, give me a holler at (775) 882-TALK or drop me a line.
Be well. Raise hell.______
Andrew Barbano is a 41-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.
Smoking Guns...
Nevada Press Assn. annual award winners announced
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
Labor 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 41-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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