Barbwire by Barbano: 1929 2.0

BARBWIRE
by
ANDREW BARBANO
Pirate Laureate of the High Desert Outback of the American Dream

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SITE NAVIGATION TIPS: When all else fails, read the instructions (A favorite John Hanks aphorism I've been using for decades)

Je Suis Charlie
"Our republic and its press will rise or fall together." — Joseph Pulitzer

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"Media is the plural of mediocre."
— Jimmy Breslin (1928-2017)

Great Depression 2.0: Sure cure for what ails us
Barbwire by Andrea Luigi Barbáno / Expanded from the 10-10-2018 Sparks Tribune / Updated / Expansions in blue

Greatest Hits Dept.

WE WON: BIG NEWS FROM THE NEVADA PRESS ASSOCIATION CONFAB IN GOMORRAH SOUTH —> BARBWIRE NOMINEE GUY RICHARDSON INDUCTED INTO HALL OF FAME ON FIRST BALLOT

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The 9th Muse
Barbwire wins 9th Nevada Press Association award

GOLD 2017-18

2018 First-Place Winners
From the depths of despair to the den of iniquity & holy of holies

"Excellent work. These are some of the most moving columns I've read."
— NPA contest judge/9-29-2018

The Grasshopper and
the Dragonfly
9-6-2017

Kicked off the Ledge
4-18-2017

NATIONAL NEWS FIRST-BREAK
Back to the Future in
Mississippi West Nevada
10-18-2017

Gold 2017
Don't ask Renown Med for marijuana to help your chemo
10-4-2016
We Don't Need No Education
Toxic turf threat ignored
12-13-2016
Kate Smith & Lady Gaga
2-14-2017

Bronze 6-pack
In the Uber-Nevada legislature, words can kill
4-28-2015
On artificial turf, don't breathe unless absolutely necessary (above)
11-24-2015
Leading questions, lead-headed leaders
1-19-2016

Hopelessly trying to win an earthquake
4-18-2013
2013 Loony Tunes Legislative Lexicon
5-30-2013
The politics of media ga-ga boosterism
3-20-2014

More statewide and national award winners

We Don't Need No Education—> Neverending Barbwire Series

1997 Pulitzer Prize entries

Barbwire.TV:
15-year overnight success
Daily Sparks Tribune 2-10-2008

The Barbwire's Greatest Hits
Highlights from radio days
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Tomorrow's news today —> Subscribe to Barbwire Confidential
TOP SECRET— HushHush!

What, me worry about Mr. Justice Kavanaugh? It just means help is on the way. That bully boy's transfiguration by the moonhowlers completes the parallel between today and 1929.

The canonization of Animal House Kavanaugh, canons of ethics be damned, sealed the deal. If they make a movie of his life, it's too bad John Belushi didn't live to portray him. (Sen. Blutarski, call your office.)

The next Franklin Roosevelt is due for election in 2020 according to them what's lots smarter than me. Watching the cycles of history allowed me to accurately predict a Republican presidential win on February 16, 2016. Back then, 17 GOP candidates were in the race, Donald Trump was viewed as the most likely early-out and Jebya Bush was the favorite.

Here's an excerpt:

The cycles of history predict a Republican president's election in November. If that doesn't motivate Democrats, nothing will...

The best references are "The Cycles of American History" (1986) by liberal Kennedy historian Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., and "The Politics of Rich and Poor — Wealth and the American Electorate in the Reagan Aftermath" (1990) by conservative Republican Kevin Phillips.

"Phillips traces unbroken presidential cycles dating back to Thomas Jefferson," I wrote on 8 Nov. 1992.

"Each contains a 'minority interruption.' The 20th Century's blips on the screen were Woodrow Wilson, Dwight Eisenhower and Jimmy Carter," I noted...Both scholars accurately predicted a 1992 Democratic victory. Phillips also foreshadowed the election of Richard the Rotten in his 1968 book, "The Emerging Republican Majority." [Correction: The book was not published until 1969.]

Certainly, a lot of asterisks may be added to the above and new ones appear below. For instance, could Ross Perot have been the first non-major party candidate elected had he not gone psycho? Perhaps, as '92 was a change election.

The longest presidential cycle came with Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal, 1932-1968.

"All six of these eras began with watershed elections in which (1) the previous incumbent party was defeated and (2) a new alignment of party presidential voting — resting on a new coalition — was established, which kept its shape for at least 20 years," Phillips wrote in 1990.

"Interestingly," he added, "all three Republican hegemonies have produced a 'capitalist heyday' during the second half of the cycle."

The current cycle started with Bill Clinton in 1992, a scary 24 years ago (in 2016). That's exactly the duration of Nixon to Bush the Elder (1968-1992).

CONTRA-ARGUMENTS. (1) The "minority interruption" has not yet occurred because Bush the Lesser demonstrably lost Florida in 2000 and was installed by the Supremes. (Meaning that the current cycle has not expired.) This reinforces the case for the real GOP aberration happening this November (2016) followed by continuation of the 1992 cycle in 2020. Can you say President Elizabeth Warren?

(2) There has arguably not been a liberal in the White House since Lyndon Johnson left after 1968. Jimmy Carter and his Democratic successors would have been moderate Wall Street Republicans in previous eras.

(3) In his 1998 book "The Cousins' Wars," Phillips noted that in Britain and France, restoration of defeated dynasties led to collapse of their factions. He asserted that a Bush restoration could result in the collapse of the GOP. So far, he's right on.

(4) Donald Trump can crack the Democratic base with angry blue collar voters. Bernie Sanders appeals to the same group and can hold serve. Hillary Clinton cannot. (See what actress Frances Fisher told me about Nevada's "NRA cowboys" / Barbwire 2-23-2016.)

Back to today: FDR came to power in 1933 with the Great Depression in full Venus Flytrap flower. Lord John Maynard Keynes' economic theory had not yet caught on, the thinking that government needs to use big deficits to kick-start a recessionary economy.

So Roosevelt did it on political instinct and it worked, despite a hyper-reactionary, pro-corporate supreme court that kept ruling his fixes for the economy as unconstitutional. Roosevelt tried and failed to expand the court's membership as is now being discussed in the wake of the Kavanaughty-boy fiasco.

So the symmetry is perfect for the election of a liberal president in 2020 to combat the recession which started last July.

Missed it? I didn't. Remember, I correctly forecast the 2007-08 crash more than two years up front; not because I have a crystal ball, but because I read stuff. (Barbwire 5-29-2005 et seq. See BarbanoMedia.com/) Experts of all stripes have been waving red flags for months.

The Barbwire can win you some bar bets or my name isn't BARbano.

Be well. Raise hell.

Esté bien. Haga infierno. (Pardon my Spanglish.) / être bien, élever l'enfer (And my French.) / Stammi bene. Scatenare l'inferno. (And Italian.)
_______
Andrew Barbano is a 50-year Nevadan, executive 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 BallotBoxing.US and SenJoeNeal.org and DoctorLawyerWatch.com/ As always, his opinions are strictly his own. E-mail barbano@frontpage.reno.nv.us. Barbwire by Barbano has originated in the Sparks Tribune since 1988 and received its ninth Nevada Press Association award and 6th first-place at the 29 Sept. 2018 NPA annual convention in Las Vegas. (That trophy and about six bucks will get you a Latte Mocha Cotsafracas Chingade at just about any Starbux worldwide, guaranteed.)

WEB XTRAS & SMOKING GUNS —>

50 shades of rape: Tales of future past
Barbwire by Andrea Luigi Barbáno / Expanded from the 10-3-2018 Sparks Tribune

THE BIG 3-0. Sunday, August 12, 2018, marked 30 years since the first Barbwire appeared in the Rail City's newspaper of record since 1910. "The Chilling of Hot August Nights" brought the first of nine Nevada Press Association awards. I'll add more memories of the early days of the Barbwire as time, space and the political season allow. (See right. —>)

Whom to blame: How a hall-of-famer's hunch birthed the Barbwire in August of 1987
Tempus fugit.

Sore-oppressed Soul-Sister Cities:
Menlo Park and Reno-Sparks-Fernley share similarly sad high-tech stretch marks

"All humanity has left the area": paying for Tesla's Gigafactory
Barbano and Nevada conservatives decry corporate welfare depredations
By Rory Carroll / The Guardian 7-3-2018
Editor's Note: The Guardian publishes 180,000 newspapers daily in London and environs and generates ONE BILLION monthly web page views. (I should live so long.)

"Facebook is taking everything": rising rents drive out Silicon Valley families
Property companies advertising their proximity to Facebook’s campus are giving low-income residents a choice: pay a huge rent increase or move out
By Sam Levin / The Guardian 6-20-2018

Peruse the Underbelly of the News —> Subscribe to Barbwire Confidential

For all the news you never knew you needed to know 'til now: Tell your friends and friendly enemies to subscribe to Barbwire Confidential for warm laughter, cheap thrills, hot scoops and occasional cold logic at BallotBoxing.US/ Cheap at twice the price. (Hush Hush!)

Last year's dark foreshadowings unfortunately became reality. I thus suggest inoculation by signing onto the HushHush! list at BallotBoxing.US/ It's cheap as well as enlightening entertainment. Thank you kindly for your support.

"Media is the plural of mediocre."
— Jimmy Breslin (1928-2017)

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

Smoking Guns—> Barbwire 30th Anniversary Trilogy
Now well into a 4th decade of equal opportunity harassment of the rich, famous & powerful

Part 3: Biting the hand that feeds me
GOP '18 upsets: Déjà vu all over again
Laxalt and Heller favored to win in November
Barbwire by Andrea Luigi Barbáno / Expanded from the 9-5-2018 Sparks Tribune
Part 2: Biting the moonhowlers
Good reasons to lie to those pesky pollsters
Heller eats sheep balls to get the courage to perpetrate guilt by association
Barbwire by Andrea Luigi Barbáno / Expanded from the 8-29-2018 Sparks Tribune
Part 1: Bitten by my buds
Machine Gun Michele and her low-caliber, low-cut friends
The censored Barbwires of the 2015 legislature finally see ink and my fantasy fiancée bares all
Barbwire by Andrea Luigi Barbáno / Expanded from the 8-22-2018 Sparks Tribune

30 Years before the masthead: Barbano remembers the Barbwire's greatest hits
By Kayla Anderson / Sparks Tribune 8-22-2018

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.

$75 dead or alive: Still crazy after all these years
A mass murderer becomes famous on TV a century later
How come nobody noticed 'til now?
Barbwire by Andrew Barbáno / Expanded from the 2-21-2018 Sparks Tribune

Triangle Shirtwaist Factory owners Max Blank and Isaac Harris. Is not Mr. Harris eerily familiar to television junkies?

From the Emmy-winning opening slate of the blockbuster "Cheers" television series. Combined with its "Frasier" spinoff, it lasted 20 years.

The "shirtwaist kings" immigrated from Russia and made a fortune manufacturing "Gibson Girl"-style blouses. (Photo, "The American Experience"/PBS)

The Emmy-winning opening slate of the "Cheers" television series before the "slate" of creators is superimposed. Looks like Mr. Harris' dead ringer (at left) is having a bloody good time.

"Who ya gonna believe, me or your own eyes?" — Chico Marx disguised as Groucho Marx in "Duck Soup" (1933)
Back to the story of the 1911 Triangle Shirtwaist holocaust

Betty J. Barbano
2-7-1941 / 12-27-2005