BARBWIRE
by
ANDREW BARBANO

Barbwire
Archives


Déjà vu, dustbusters and living legacies
Barbwire by Barbano / Expanded from the 5-29-2011 Daily Sparks Tribune
Updated 5-31 and 6-11-2011

Site map
Corporate Propaganda Research Archive

Barbwire.TV —> View webstreaming video here
Since they're blaming the victims, it's high time for the victims to fight back.
LIVE 7-8:00 p.m. PDT 5-17-2011 / 02:00 ZULU-GMT 5-18
The archived show is available at the above link.
Thanks.

May 17 and May 31 Program Regional Rebroadcast Times

Barbwire banned in prime time
5-31-2011

   Everybody knows the dice are loaded.
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.
— Leonard Cohen


HAT TRICK: Barbwire wins 3rd straight Nevada Press Association First-Place Award

Barbwire.TV

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 support

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 and 2011 Nevada legislative sessions

Barbwire.TV:
15-year overnight success

Daily Sparks Tribune 2-10-2008

The Barbwire's Greatest Hits
Highlights from radio days
mp3 file


HAT TRICK: Barbwire wins 3rd straight Nevada Press Association First-Place Award

Sharron Angle's withdrawal from the congressional race will bring her the right result for the wrong reason.

Years ago, I promulgated the Barbwire Dustbuster Rule: Candidates who run again too soon after dropping a high profile race usually lose again. About four years are needed to let the dust settle. Very successful Nevada pols have all lost elections by dissing the Dustbuster: Harry Reid, Jim Bilbray and Mary Gojack, among others. They all ran for a lower office within two years of a big loss.

A rare exception was Pete Sferrazza, who was re-elected Reno mayor after losing statewide. But he was the incumbent, an advantage not shared by the others. Angle's withdrawal allows her to fight another day.

Sigh.

That's showbiz.

SPEAKING OF BIG LOSERS. Why is Sarah Palin playing footsie with running for president? Because she can make a lot of money by doing so. The template was cut by Patrick Buchanan.

The documented racist never had a realistic chance of winning the GOP nomination, but he ran for more than eight years because he had a cadre of true believers donating big bucks. One can live a very good life with a million-dollar expense account. Buchanan also hired his sister to run his campaign committee at a very inflated salary.

Palin appeals to many of the same moonhowlers who love to be taken to the cleaners by someone whom they believe reflects their twisted ideology — stupid stuff like the thoroughly discredited dogma that tax cuts for the rich stimulate the economy.

CRYSTAL BALL DEPT. It looks increasingly likely that the Nevada State AFL-CIO will circulate an initiative to do what the legislative and executive branches apparently can do no longer: fund basic government services. Its affiliated unions have more than enough members statewide to qualify initiatives without going out of house.

After years of congressional and legislative inaction, organized labor raised the state minimum wage by petition in 2006, almost entirely a benefit to non-union workers. Labor insiders call it "the nuclear option" (as noted on the May 17 edition of Barbwire.TV) but the system is unresponsive so it's time to take it to the people.

DÉJÀ VU ALL OVER AGAIN DEPT. "The blood of the 100,000+ killed in our Iraq foray provided only ghastly icing to a crimson cake. We have done such an excellent job selling weapons to the world's tribes that the holy lands of the east are holy no more. But prices have been going up. War is the single worst thing you can do to your own economy, let alone anyone else's.

"With our help, the world's tyrants still live in luxury. The Saudi royals have resumed the sport of public beheadings and OPEC is conducting business as usual. In the east where a star once rose, the old wise men of China still make the rest of world's oppressors look like amateurs.

"Will you or I one day become like the young man recently arrested here for breaking into a house to make a peanut butter sandwich? He was caught because he fell asleep. Perhaps the safety of a roof was something he had not known for awhile."

The above appeared in the Barbwire of Dec. 22, 1991, the full text (.pdf) of which will be linked to this column at NevadaLabor.com.

TUNE IN, TURN ON AND TELL A FRIEND. The next live edition of Barbwire TV is scheduled for 7:00 to 8:00 p.m. Tuesday, May 31, on Sparks-Reno-Washoe Charter channel 216 and Carson/Dayton channels 210 and 226.

As always, the live call-in line is 882-TALK (775-882-8255). Questions may be e-mailed to the address, below. The guest lineup, rebroadcast times and stations will be posted at NevadaLabor.com. The website will also have very detailed listings on where and how to get the show depending on where you live or your TV service.

Last week's prime time show has one more telecast scheduled on Reno CW Network affiliate KRNS TV-46/Cable 6 on Tuesday, May 31 at (yawn) 4:00 a.m. It will also be rerunning on Charter cable 216 in Reno-Sparks-Washoe and 210/226 in Carson/Dayton this coming week.

Reruns will be broadcast soon on Douglas County's cable system. Times will be posted at NevadaLabor.com, where you can also view the show online.

THE NEVERENDING STORY. Roy Foster's Automotive Service Center has moved to 490 Keystone. Grand opening happens Saturday, June 4. Roy Sr. has been gone for many years, but his legacy lives on. Sons Roy, Jr., and Carl run the service facility. Dave operates the Shell station at I-80 and Sierra, across the street from the old service location. Good people to deal with. Friends of mine.

As with Shelly's Hardware in Sparks' Greenbrae Shopping Center, the founder built a business with a great reputation that still sustains it decades later. Carl Shelly, former county commissioner, state legislator and onetime owner of the Sparks Tribune, was like Roy Sr. Shelly's Hardware has gone through a couple of owners and keeps going strong.

What Roy Foster, Sr., and Carl Shelly built, time has not eroded, even in the face of chain stores and cookie-cutter competition.

BACK FROM THE ASHES DEPT. Support the return of community radio and television stations. 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. (An obscure East Reno newspaper columnist got it started.)

Charter cable victims can watch on digital channel 216 or over the air on digital 80-295.

If you harbor a morbid interest in witnessing the assassination of the Nevada education system and most public services, turn on and tune in.

We have acquired new volunteers to work on returning community radio and television to Sparks-Reno-Washoe.

Go to Barbwire.TV for more information, to join the club and contribute via the web.

It's important.

Enjoy a memorable Memorial.

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.

Smoking Guns

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 desktop

RED flags flying low over Sparks
Expanded from the 1-10-2010 Daily Sparks Tribune

The wrath of self-righteous racism
Expanded from the 11-8-2009 Daily Sparks Tribune





The campaign against forcibly-paid newspaper obituaries
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


...and more ammo

Fact-free nation: Inside the lie machine
Mother Jones Magazine May-June 2011 / Cover story and in-depth analysis

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 Series

Barbwire Corporate Welfare Archive
Cabellyup.com

From clear-cut forests to dirty Gulfstream waters, this land belongs to old BP
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 suckers

Labor Day 2009: Rise of the Vampire Corpobots
Expanded from the 9-6-2009 Daily Sparks Tribune

Angry Americans and Freudian fraud
Using war to market cigarettes
Expanded
from the 8-23-2009 Daily Sparks Tribune

BARBWIRE Nevada Corporate Welfare Archive

Propaganda fuels gasoline price fixing
Barbwire 8-14-2005

Donate 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 5-20-2007

Johnson, 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 Australia

The 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 Carey

      BARBWIRE: The Nevada Republican Party Becomes Communist, 3-30-97
A prescient Plato on the dangers of oligarchy

The 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

NevadaLabor.com | U-News | Bulletins + Almanac
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Guinn Watch | Deciding Factors
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Barbwire Nevada Corporate Welfare Archive
Annual César Chávez Celebration
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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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