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César Chávez, Dr. King and the kids are alright
Barbwire by Barbano / Expanded from the 3-27-2011 Daily Sparks Tribune
Updated 3-29-2011
Everybody rolls with their fingers crossed.
Everybody knows the war is over.
Everybody knows the good guys lost.
Everybody knows the fight was fixed.
The poor stay poor, the rich get rich.
That's how it goes. Everybody knows.
HAT TRICK: Barbwire wins 3rd straight Nevada Press Association First-Place AwardCOMING 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
Updated 3-21-2011
Lawsuit gains supportIf 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
Last Monday came what historian Guy Louis Rocha called the biggest demonstration ever to hit the state capital grounds.
It was comprised largely of college students from all over Nevada. Many of the latter day freedom riders rode up from Gomorrah South on buses, texting and tweeting lawmakers all the way.
The estimated 1,500 surpassed a 2009 Tea Party rally which drew about a thousand.
I was still left wondering if all the recent demonstrations will do much good. None of the 63 state legislators has called for a tax increase on our fatcat major casinos. Closing mining tax loopholes will bring in a few million, but not enough to make a major dent in the projected budget deficit.
Alas and alack, a bill to impose a sales tax on services was introduced a few days ago. Once again, the less you make, the more you pay. That's the Nevada way.
Taking a cue from the Islamic latitudes, Americans have finally begun taking to the streets to express their righteous rage.
But no Moses has arisen to lead us out of the wilderness. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and César Chávez are long dead.
Maybe we don't need replacements. Maybe, just maybe, the kids are alright.
On Monday from 3:30 to 4:30 p.m., the UNR Latino Student Advisory Board will host a César Chávez commemoration under the rotunda in the Knowledge Center (that's a fancy name for the new library), just south of Lawlor Events Center. Fiesta Mexicana will dance and Sen. Moises Denis, D-Las Vegas, will speak.
Student leader Carla Castedo Testa, a senior psychology major, called me looking for Chávez posters and such. I put her in contact with local author Georgia Hedrick, who has an extensive stash.I have invited Ms. Castedo Testa and some her colleagues to the annual César Chávez celebration on Thursday evening at Circus Circus on the legendary labor leader's 84th birthday. Members of the Chávez family will attend, as usual.
We will present the latest round of César Chávez awards to the union organizer of the year, employer of the year and project of the year. We will also install new faces into the Nevada Labor Hall of Fame.
The legislature has a Latino Caucus for the first time and I expect the majority to attend including Sens. Denis and Ruben Kihuen, D-Las Vegas, and Assemblymembers Teresa Benitez-Thompson, D-Reno, Irene Bustamante Adams, Steven Brooks, Richard Carillo and Lucy Flores, all D-Las Vegas. Assemblymember Olivia Diaz, D-North Las Vegas, who became a new mother right after the session started last month, may also grace us with her presence, but I will understand if she may have more important things to do.I have had additional confirmations from Assemblymembers Richard "Skip" Daly, D-Sparks, Dina Neal, D-N. Las Vegas, James Ohrenschall, D-Las Vegas, and Sen. Mark Manendo, D-Las Vegas. Alas and alack, Gov. Brian Sandoval will not be with us.
We enjoyed the company of a broad bipartisan group of state and local political leaders and candidates last year and Thursday should bring even more.
Doors to the Circus Circus Mandalay Ballroom open at 5:30 p.m. with dinner at 7:00. Ticket, table and sponsorship information may be accessed at CesarChavezNevada.com.
Just as the UNR event on Monday leads to the Thursday César soirée, both serve as preface to the national unity day of April 4, the 43rd anniversary of the assassination of Dr. King. He came to Memphis, Tenn., supporting striking union garbage workers when he was shot.
"On April 4, church leaders, civil rights activists and community members of all stripes will hold events around the country to say, as Dr. King did, that 'injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere,'" stated national NAACP President Benjamin Jealous.
"In recent months, we have witnessed attempts in North Carolina to amend state policy to accelerate the resegregation of its public schools, a widespread assault on voting rights -- including an effort in Florida that would take up to 300,000 voters off the rolls, continued attacks on the rights of women and immigrants in addition to the well-publicized offensive on the rights of organized labor," Jealous added.
"This is one coordinated attack and our response must be a united one," he noted.
In these parts, the April 4 gathering is planned for the campus of Carson City's Western Nevada College at 4:30 p.m. For more information, contact last year's César Chávez union organizer of the year Liz Sorenson at Communications Workers of America Local 9413 in Sparks at (775) 322-9413.
ERASERHEADS. The Texas board of education has tried to eliminate Chávez and Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall from history books. The governor of Maine recently order Chávez's name removed from a meeting room at the state labor department.
The fight for justice goes on and on and on.
BACK FROM THE ASHES DEPT. Support the return of community radio and television. Go to Barbwire.TV for more information, to join the club and contribute via the web.
It's important.
The first step toward restoration has been taken. After going dark for six months, the public access channels now broadcast live legislative hearings and floor sessions fed to Reno-Sparks-Washoe from AccessCarson. Charter cable victims can watch on digital channel 216 or high definition 80-295.This presents a true opportunity to observe, as they simultaneously happen, your government in action and government inaction.
If you harbor a morbid interest in witnessing the assassination of the Nevada education system and most public services, this is your time.Turn on, tune in and tell a friend.
And change your party registration.
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, first 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 9-18-2010.
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 © 1982-2011
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 first 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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