I've been called worse, but it must be said: Czar Donaldov has finally done something right. Quite accidentally, of course, a purely unintended consequence, kinda like El Presidénte hisself who's the personification of the pre-digital wisdom that even a broken clock is right twice a day.

Trump's going to skim $2.5 billion from drug interdiction and slide it toward his border wall meme. (More on that later.)

In so doing, he has taken probably the biggest step ever in ending Richard Nixon's War on Drugs. A half-century ago, President Richard the Rotten researched the nation's burgeoning drug problem by sending a pair of lawyers onto the streets of DC to find out what works. They did: treatment.

Nixon almost moved forward, then saw that crime and punishment got more votes and the War on Drugs was on.

As with Vietnam, we lost. All you need view is the Oscar-winning film "Traffic" to see how government intervention acts as a price support system for the likes of El Chapo.

Our for-profit prisons overflow with mostly black and brown people convicted of dastardly crimes like possession of two ounces of the Demon Weed.

Without the War on Drugs to keep prices high, El Chapo's successors go out of business. No wall kept him from moving his product into this country.

CRIMINAL MINDS. A 19 year-old illegal immigrant sits today in the Washoe County Jail accused of four Nevada robbery-murders. News reports say he came from El Salvador, a central American banana republic where the Carter and Reagan administrations funded death squads in the 1980s, including the murder of Catholic Bishop (now Saint) Oscar Romero.

American nuns were raped and murdered among countless of other atrocities. (For a snapshot, see the film "Salvador" starring Gene Hackman, Nick Nolte and Joanna Cassidy.)

The United States has been dabbling in banana republic skulduggery for more than a century, most notably with President Teddy Roosevelt's gunboat diplomacy. "Banana republics" became the catch-all phrase for poor nations after those wonderful folks who still bring us Chiquita Bananas got the U.S. to invade to protect United Fruit Company plantations.

We overthrew governments, crushed democracies and funded mass murder. To this day, their oppressed people detest our government but love what America stands for. That's why they peacefully migrate north.

This country now greets immigrants with firearms instead of open arms.

I wonder about that young accused killer's mindset. He grew up in a drug cartel-infested society where, as Mao Zedong once said, "power comes from the barrel of a gun."

The kid made it to America and found an unsecured pistol which he allegedly stole. Did he see that as his pathway to prosperity, just as he was socialized growing up? If you watch enough TV, you quickly learn that all disputes in the United States are settled with guns, right?

I'd like to know if four Nevada killings had their roots in our government helping corporations exploit poor countries.

ANOTHER BRICK IN THE WALL. Trump's southern border abortion started as a gimmick from recently-busted campaign manager Roger Stone to remind a scatterbrained presidential candidate to talk about immigration. Trump saw how his cult responded to the wall demand and turned the talking point into a promised reality, an Internet meme run amok.

The current buzzword "meme" comes from the Greek "mimeme," i.e., an imitated thing, basically a cyberspace bumper sticker. Trump's meme has morphed into a monstrous movie-style McGuffin to fan the flames of American fear of "the other." Think of that huge dark domino from "2001: A Space Odyssey," or the unseen Blair Witch. Or the dark side of The Force.

NYTimes Magazine story editor Willy Staley recently noted that what began as a gimmick has become "an idea that persists not because it will benefit us but simply because it thrives in our (short attention span, Internet-based) environment." (NYTimes Magazine 13 January 2019, online 14 January)

I lament the emerging emoji/meme replacements for language as we devolve into the darkness of the post-literate society.

Hope you and your loved ones enjoyed a Happy Valentine's Day.

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, superannuated labor/consumer/civil rights advocate, member of Communications Workers of America Local 9413/AFL-CIO and editor ofNevadaLabor.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 (6th first-place) at the 29 Sept. 2018 NPA annual convention in Las Vegas. (Such ephemera and about six bucks will get you a Latte Mocha Cotsafracas Chingade at just about any Starbux worldwide, guaranteed.)

WEB XTRAS & SMOKING GUNS —>

REAL NEWS DEPT. Last month, Culinary Union Local 226 defeated an attempt by Circus Circus-Reno to decertify (terminate) the union's representation of its workers. No word on whether management plans to appeal the result to the National Labor Relations Board which was recently put out of business and may soon be again. Thank you, Czar Donaldov.

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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.) [MUCH MORE TESLACIDE]