BARBWIRE by ANDREW BARBANO

Barbwire Archives

Forward to the same damned old place
Expanded from the 2-5-2012 Daily Sparks Tribune
Site map
Corporate Propaganda Research Archive

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 8-30-2011 Now rerunning on Carson-Dayton 226 Additional programs 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 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 as well as ongoing efforts at developing new media, including a regional, non-corporate community radio station and the return of community television to Reno-Sparks-Washoe. 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 selected on-demand re-runs from the 2009, 2010 and 2011 Barbwire.TV archives 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

Only economic devastation brought on by drunken war spending and promiscuous job exporting will allow a more centrist leadership to regain control of the country. But a lot of people will suffer all over the world before a new Franklin Roosevelt emerges to pick up the pieces. God save us all.
— Barbwire, 5-8-2005

Hide the children and silverware before you read the following.

Ready?

Let's take politicians (gasp) at their word. Let's assume that they actually will do what they say.

Barack Hussein Obama and Willard Mitt Romney both promise huge government spending cuts because the corporate media machine has propagandized debt and deficit into the bogeymen of the moment. With Osama gone, what else should we have expected?

"Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. This is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in every country," Nazi leader Herman Goering once said.

Achtung! I submit that mitt or mittout Willard, mitt or mittout Barack, we will end up in the same damned place.

The eternal "War on Terror" has lost its cheerleading bite and has been replaced by the War on Big Government Spending.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt listened to just such doofus advice in 1937 and sent a recovering economy back into the Great Depression with budget cuts.

The moment Obama was sworn in, right-wing moonhowlers like House Speaker John of Orange and Nevada Governor El Brúte Obtúse suddenly got fiscal religion.

Government spending, which had not mattered for eight years under Bush the Lesser, was now the only issue — largely because only government programs can restart a dead economy.

So where are we today? Almost half the U.S. population lives at or near the poverty line, children don't have enough to eat and New Englanders are having trouble heating their homes because federal assistance funds have been cut back.

And I foolishly thought that our endless middle eastern wars were supposed to make the world safe for petroleum marketing.

We're certainly sharing the pain. Children in Kabul, Afghanistan, our 52nd state (Israel was 51st), are freezing to death.

In the grand tradition of Ronald Reagan demonizing the weak, Bill Clinton "ended welfare as we know it."

As Michael Moore so heart-wrenchingly showed in his Oscar-winning film Bowling for Columbine, a six year-old black Michigan kid found a gun at his uncle's house, took it to school and killed a white classmate. The Flint, Mich., chief of police took phone calls from around the nation demanding the little boy's immediate execution.

Where were his parents? Dad was long gone and his welfare-to-work single mother labored at two full-time minimum-wage jobs but couldn't make enough to pay her rent. So she moved in with her brother. Who had the gun. That the kid took to school.

Welfare to work, worked unto death.

Prepare to hear a lot more from Woosie Willard and the Newtron Bomb about unemployment checks making people lazy. As former labor secretary Robert Reich pointed out, that's ludicrous when there is only one job for every four people who need one.

The president is taking a page out of the Bill Clinton/Dick Morris 1996 re-election playbook, running as a moderate Republican. That means taking liberals and Democrats for granted because they have nowhere else to go.

Mr. Obama himself said "don't compare me to the Almighty, compare me to the alternative."

OK, Mr. President, I'll do what you say. And give or take the usual emotional issues, I have a hard time forecasting a future much different under you than it would be under Willard.

We are close to another Asian war, huge budget cuts are in the offing, you have been humming Al Green love songs to Wall Street for over three years, people continue to lose their homes and you seem to agree that the answer to everything lies in cutting government spending.

As my old debate teacher Father Diamond ruled, when your side agrees with the other's central position, the argument is over and you've lost.

Job assassination creates an economic death spiral. Private sector terminations constitute firing your own customers. Both public and private layoffs mean firing taxpayers, thus increasing deficits and debt.

As dingbat Justice Clarence Thomas might say, this is Kafkaesque. And it gets crazier. Under such conditions, cutting military pork kills government-created jobs and just makes matters worse.

Nevadans got a preview of 2012-13 in last year's special congressional election between titular Democrat Kate Marshall and Republican Mark Amodei.

Actually, the voters were given a non-choice between two grandstanding conservatives.

Widening educational and economic opportunity cures just about all societal ills.

But that means expanded government programs.

Until I see concrete evidence to change my mind, I stand by my 2005 statement.

As matters now stand, we still do not know the name of the next FDR, whomever he or she may be.

SUPPORT THE NEVADA CITIZEN TV PROJECT, a non-corporate environment for a new channel. Go to ReSurge.TV or contact me.

If the kids can occupy Wall Street, we can occupy our small fair share of the publicly owned television spectrum.

Help give the gift of non-corporate TV to your community. We are making progress toward returning a citizens channel to these parts. Your support is both needed and appreciated. Thank you.

Be well. Raise hell.
______

Andrew Barbano is a 43-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 and JoeNeal.org. 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... Economist: This is a true depression Elliott Parker Guest Editorial / Las Vegas Sun / 11-27-2011 POWERFUL PUNDITORY PANJANDRUMS: Compelling guest commentary Nevada Press Assn. annual award winners announced. HAT TRICK: Barbwire takes first place three years in a row. 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 ...and more ammo... Economist: This is a true depression Elliott Parker Guest Editorial / Las Vegas Sun / 11-27-2011 POWERFUL PUNDITORY PANJANDRUMS: Compelling guest commentary Nevada Press Assn. annual award winners announced. HAT TRICK: Barbwire takes first place three years in a row. 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 Government contacts Nev. congressional delegation Nevada Legislature State of Nevada Secretary of State Carson City Clark County City of Las Vegas Douglas County Reno City Council Sparks City Council Washoe County Commission Washoe Registrar of Voters 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 The 2008 first-place Nevada Press Association award winners The price of a piece / 6-17-2007 Boxing Pandora /9-23-2007 The Lady in the Red Dress 10-28-2007 1997 Pulitzer Prize entries ...and more ammo yet The plight of the paper pushers The great recession made bashing public workers a national sport Dennis Myers / Reno News & Review / 11-23-2011 Bury the Bad News with Rose-colored Reporting How urgent can economic troubles be if leaders say things are getting better? Dennis Myers / Reno News & Review / 11-23-2011 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 Casinos Out of Politics (COP) | Sen. Joe Neal Guinn Watch | Deciding Factors | BallotBoxing.US DoctorLawyerWatch.com | Barbwire Oilogopoly Archive Barbwire Nevada Corporate Welfare Archive Annual César Chávez Celebration War Rooms: Banks, Cabbies, Cabela's, Cable TV, Cancer Kids/Mining, Energy, Food, Health Care, Resurge.TV/consumers, Starbucks, Wal-Mart Search this site | In Search Of...

Barbwire Archives

Copyright © 1982-2012 Andrew Barbano

Andrew Barbano is a 43-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.

Site composed and maintained by Deciding Factors, CWA 9413 signatory

Comments and suggestions appreciated. Sign up for news and bulletins