BARBWIRE by ANDREW BARBANO

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Only Great Depression2 can bring positive change to this corporate plantation of a country.

All else has failed.

The evidence is now pretty clear that the most recent liberal president of the United States was Richard Milhous Nixon.

Among other things, Richard the Rotten signed the Environmental Protection Agency and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration into law.

He came close to initiating a policy of treatment rather than criminalization of drug abuse.

Every president since has been a moderate-to-extreme pro-corporation conservative.

Two American industries are exempt from anti-trust law: baseball and insurance, the latter thanks to the McCarran-Ferguson Act, courtesy of Sen. Patrick McCarran, D-Nev.

Insurance bandidos may thus conspire to fix prices, Obamacare exchanges be damned.

As Harper's Magazine Senior Editor Luke Mitchell presciently put it in December 2009, should health care reform pass, it would be something insurance companies like.

Mitchell has proven correct: 30 million new government-mandated and often tax-subsidized insurance consumers, the proudest achievement of the hyper-conservative Heritage Foundation that thought it up. (Google Romneycare.)

Obamacare is not without its merits, but I still break out in a rash when I recall that the Donkeykongs took single payer off the table before any negotiation began.

Unilateral surrender is not good strategery. (sic intentional)

Now, the health care cure is causing disease.

Moonhowling alchemists are perverting it into a virus to crash the worldwide economy.

TRIPLE THREAT: The Sequester infected, the Shutdown further weakened and the Fiscal Cliff will finish the job.

What job?

Our plummet into the death spiral of Great Depression Part Deux.

Radical, constructive reform most recently came to this country during the 1930's, a bloody and only partially successful fight.

At the beginning of his film Sicko, Michael Moore ran President Franklin D. Roosevelt's nationally broadcast 1945 address advocating a domestic bill of rights—including the right to earn enough at a job to support a family and the right to health care.

It died with him a few months later.

Too bad that the bad guys convinced FDR to drop Henry Wallace as VP and add the Missouri Mule to the 1944 ticket.

The great and now largely forgotten VP Henry Wallace would have followed thru.

After dropping the bomb, Harry Truman did a helluva job of human service — for the far east and Europe.

Much of Roosevelt's fabled New Deal has been slowly buried next to him.

Like millions of others, I hoped Barack Obama would be the new FDR.

Alas and alack, an alpha dog he ain't.

Great Depression2 can produce one of two results: the rise of a new Roosevelt or the de facto dissolution of the formerly United States of America.

The states have a fair-to-middling track record of coming up with workable policies when the central government is paralyzed.

Breakup into regions of interest would just be a logical step.

I retain hope for a new Roosevelt rather than a new Confederacy.

The South must not rise again.

IRONY ALERT: Speaking of slavery, the estimate of people suffering under some form of involuntary servitude in the U.S currently stands somewhere between 100,000 and one million.

I could not retrieve the latest estimate because the shutdown has closed the federal website with the information.

Which brings us full circle, kinda like the current Washington firing squad.

FIGHT BACK. Support the new season of Barbwire.TV and the return of a community television channel to these parts.

If last year's elections didn't convince you of the need, the 2013 legislature certainly should have.

Join up. You may donate at ReSurge.TV or contact me.

This is important.

Thank you.

WEB EXTRAS...

HONOR YOUR DON. Keep sending comments supporting legendary Nevada photographer Don Dondero (1920-2003) for the Nevada Press Association Hall of Fame.

His life's work appeared worldwide, including the Tribune and most probably every newspaper in Nevada.

Enlist in the campaign to install Big Don.

Please send me your memories and endorsements via e-mail or to P.O. Box 10034, Reno NV 89510.

The Barbwire got the late Reno Gazette-Journal columnist Guy Richardson elected last year.

Let's go for a repeat.

Be well. Raise hell. / Esté bien. Haga infierno. (Pardon my Spanglish.)

____________

Andrew Barbano is a 45-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... Bill Moyers: Shutdown is simply secession by other means Low-income penalty: Nevada socks it to the working poor BARBANO: Nevada is one big company town Dennis Myers / Reno News & Review 10-10-2013 State of Health National health care comes up against a very sick state. WHAT'S IN IT FOR US? Dennis Myers / Reno News & Review 10-10-2013 We Don't Need No Education The continuing Barbwire series ...and more ammo... The Post-Dated Recession: Pay me now or pay me later Barbwire by Barbano / Expanded from the 9-6-2012 Daily Sparks Tribune The Post-dated Recession By Joshua H. Silavent / Daily Sparks Tribune / 5-3-2011 Union decline and rising inequality in two charts by Colin Gordon Economic Policy Institute / 6-5-2012 Used in journalist Mark Robison's extensive Hard Labor: Nevada unions tout role in helping workers, firms, economy (Sunday 2 Sept. 2012 Reno Gazette-Journal, page one, Reno Rebirth section of the print edition). Union men Jim Burrell, Paul McKenzie and Guy Louis Rocha did the movement proud. Not included in the RGJ online edition. WOMEN AND UNIONS — ORPHAN MAJORITIES The Barbwire Labor Day column Reno Gazette-Journal / 9-3-2012 Nevada Press Assn. Better Newspaper Contest 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 life and times of Travus T. Hipp The best who ever was

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Copyright © 1982-2013 Andrew Barbano

Andrew Barbano is a 45-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 moved to Nevada's Daily Sparks Tribune on Aug. 12, 1988, and has originated in them parts ever since.
Whom to blame: How a hall-of-famer's hunch birthed the Barbwire in August of 1987
Tempus fugit.

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