Barbwire by Barbano/ Cider House Rules: Admonitions & Ammunition

BARBWIRE
by
ANDREW BARBANO
Pirate Laureate of the High Desert Outback of the American Dream
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Diabolical Déjà Vu: Fire is the Devil's only friend
Barbwire accurately called 2016 presidential result 9 months out & stands behind 2020 prediction made four years ago
Barbwire by Barbano / Expanded from the 9-2-2020 Sparks Tribune

History foreshadows a GOP November win
Barbwire by Barbano / Expanded from the 2-16-2016 Sparks Tribune / Updated 2-19, 3-1, 3-8, 5-19 and 11-19-2016, 12-24-2019

President Donald Trump as Andrew Jackson? So opined a plethora of prestigious, highly-paid expert pundits on election night. The Barbwire warned of exactly that last March. Twice.
And that ain't all. Read 'em and weep, pilgrims.

Nobody knows nothin'
By David Horsey, Staff Cartoonist / Los Angeles Times 11-9-2016
BARBWIRE SEZ the awesome Mr. Horsey's assertion that only the LAT/USC poll was accurate ain't necessarily so.

Those with crystal balls shouldn't throw stones
Barbwire by Barbano / Expanded from the 3-15-2016 Sparks Tribune

Remembering the first female U.S. presidents
Barbwire by Barbano / Expanded from the 3-8-2016 Sparks Tribune

"Any system of prolonged political paralysis and failed liberalism vomits up monsters. And the longer we remain in a state of political paralysis — especially as we stumble toward another financial collapse — the more certain it becomes that these monsters will take power." — Christopher Hedges at NationOfChange.org 17 Oct. 2016.

All the more reason to subscribe to Barbwire Confidential.

Cider House Rules: Admonitions & Ammunition
Barbwire by Barbáno / Expanded from the 9-9-2020 Sparks Tribune / 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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10 the Hard Way
Barbwire wins 10th 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

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Daily Sparks Tribune 2-10-2008

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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

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TOP SECRET— HushHush!

"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."

Who said that? Me. In this newspaper on May 8, 2005. Has the new FDR appeared? Not yet, but the devastation certainly has.

"The United States has struck an uneasy and imperfect balance between communism and capitalism," I noted.

"The socialist aspects of our culture, which have saved us from a second civil war for more than a century, are under vicious assault by the mindless automatons of capital" who brand anything for average folks as socialist and communist. (Most don't know what the words mean anyway.)

Nonetheless, we love our commie/community creations: Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Head Start, public education, labor unions, the U.S. Dept. of Defense, the U.S Postal Service.

"The list is endless," I said.

"Only such collectivist institutions have blunted the sharp edge of unbridled capitalism, allowing us to maintain the consensus needed to remain a nation. Alas, today's minions of capitalism have gotten greedy. They have seen how easy it is to propagandize the great unwashed into dancing to their tune," I noted.

When Obamacare was being passed by Democrats, I laughed when I saw dingbat opponents carrying signs reading "Keep government's hands out of my Medicare."

Those who fear a "government takeover of health care" mostly don't know that ship sailed in 2011, the year the hated "gov'mint" began paying the tab for more than half of all U.S. health services. (Obamacare was fully implemented in 2014.)

As Sen. Elizabeth Warren has oft-stated, "unregulated capitalism is tyranny."

Hitler's military commander Hermann Goering succinctly stated the con: "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," Goering noted.

Four years ago, it was rapists and murderers from Mexico.

This year, Czar Donaldov's killer zombies have morphed into angry black-skinned anarchists. Will we fall for the con again? History says yes. And no.

Witness this memo I got from a very prestigious and intelligent Republican political figure a few days ago: "Many in the media and many in the elite education establishment are doing their part in the destruction of our culture, capitalism and the Judeo-Christian tradition upon which we are founded. These days, many in the media are not sounding like the 4th Estate that has traditionally protected our rights, including the First Amendment, but instead are sounding like a 5th Column determined to subvert the United States, its culture and capitalism."

I hardly knew ye.

"Fifth column." Undercover traitors and subversive spies everywhere. Call J. Edgar Hoover to turn in your spouse, nosy neighbor or drunken brother-in-law.

The deep state has made a comeback.

Decades ago, author Damon Runyan warned that "one of these days in your travels, a guy is going to come up to you and show you a nice brand-new deck of cards on which the seal is not yet broken, and this guy is going to offer to bet you that he can make the Jack of Spades jump out of the deck and squirt cider in your ear. But, son, do not bet this man, for as sure as you are standing there, you are going to end up with an earful of cider."

Moral of the story: Never — ever — play the other guy's game.

Caving to the old rules means Czar Donaldov wins every time.

Imagine a TV Super Bowl with no spectators and no referees. One team plays by the rules, 12 men on the field, four downs, all the usual stuff. The other team sends out 25 Freddie Kruegers with chainsaws, clubs, whips and hatchets.

Guess who wins.

"If the president says it, it's news" fulfills a propagandist's dream. Somewhere much hotter than Nevada, Josef Goebbels and Reichsmarschall Goering are smiling.

Today's much maligned fake news media are addicted to doing the bidding of the Dissembler in Chief.

They play by the old rules, spreading Trump's lies and propaganda for him while the old-rules team gets chopped up for dog food. Just because he says it, it's gotta be automatically newsworthy, right?

It's time to black out the wannabe king. If his meanderings have relevance to public policy, all systems go. If he invents something from whole cloth from that dream world wherein all psychopaths live, don't publish it. Drink Clorox to cure COVID-19? Some poor louts actually did. And no longer exist to sip anew.

We've already paid a helluva price because we vote based on sound bytes and TV images. We either stop drinking the spiked cider or one day soon, we will wake with a killer Clorox hangover to find that our nation has ceased to exist because we played the other guy's game.

Take care of each other and be careful out there.

¡Sí se puede!

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 51-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 of NevadaLabor.com and BallotBoxing.US and SenJoeNeal.org and DoctorLawyerWatch.com and Protect Our Washoe.org and ChantalCoalition.org/ He is a withdrawn-in-good-standing member of Culinary Local 226. As always, his opinions are strictly his own. E-mail barbano@frontpage.reno.nv.us. He has lived in both northern and southern Nevada during his half-century+ in the Silver State. Barbwire by Barbano has originated in the Sparks Tribune since 1988 and received its 10th Nevada Press Association award (6 of 10 first-place) at the 21 Sept. 2019 NPA annual convention in Ely. In 1996, he was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize for a six-month investigative series. His multi-media road construction zone safety campaign for Laborers' Union Local 169 won a first-place award from the National Safety Council in a nationwide competition. (Such ephemera and about six bucks will get you a Latte Mocha Cotsafracas Chingade at just about any Starbux worldwide, guaranteed.) His work has appeared on CNN, in The New York Times, The Guardian of London/UK and more important publications.

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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!)

Barbwire 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

WEB XTRAS & Smoking Guns—>

Diabolical Déjà Vu: Fire is the Devil's only friend
Barbwire accurately called 2016 presidential result 9 months out & stands behind 2020 prediction made four years ago
Barbwire by Barbáno / Expanded from the 9-2-2020 Sparks Tribune

HOT AUGUST STRIFE 2020 Demonstrations and Good Trouble

Tribal trauma, Belarus R Us & a hero dies well
Barbwire by Andrew Barbáno / Expanded from the Wednesday 8-26-2020 Sparks Tribune

Barbwire Confidential Special Report: Hush-Hush!
Machine Guns & Racism in Nevada's Alabaster Bastion

Lemmings, ostriches & dirty-talking desert rats
Barbwire by Andrew Barbáno / Expanded from the Wednesday 8-19-2020 Sparks Tribune

Andrew Barbano: Enemy of the state
Barbwire by Andrew Barbáno / Expanded from the Wednesday 8-12-2020 Sparks Tribune

Mississippi West: honkytaunts and alabaster bastions
Barbwire by Andrew Barbáno / Expanded from the Wednesday 8-5-2020 Sparks Tribune

10 the Hard Way!
Barbwire wins 10th Nevada Press Association award
Peruse the Underbelly of the News —> Subscribe to Barbwire Confidential

$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

Triangle tragedy recalled as requiem
"The Fire in My Mouth," a new oratorio by Pulitzer honoree Julia Wolfe, premiered with the New York Philharmonic Jan. 24
By Michael Cooper / The New York Times 1-23-2019

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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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