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BARBWIRE
by
ANDREW BARBANO
Immigration
is no problem
Expanded
from the 4-9-2006 Daily Sparks (Nev.)
Tribune
UPDATED
4-13-2006
I can't imagine why born-again, pro-family, free-market conservatives have their collective shorts in a sling over immigration.
The chaotically orchestrated mass movement of good people risking their lives to enter this country composes a symphony to laissez faire economics.
CESAR CHAVEZ DAY 2006 —Washoe County students show their home-made signs as they form to march to the Neil Road Community Center to celebrate the birthday of United Farm Workers Union founder César Chávez.
GET THE MOVIE: Now playing on premium cable channels and available on VHS or DVD, "A Day Without A Mexican," the 2004 "sci-fi mockumentary" which teaches all viewers some cold, hard and hilarious lessons.
Immigration marchers flood downtown Reno;
some streets closed; crowd remains peaceful
RGJ.COM 4-10-2006Activists say April 10 demonstration won't be the last
Reno Gazette-Journal 4-11-2006
The U.S. has a shortage of workers. The immigrants are filling the supply vacuum created by this demand.
What could be more American?
What could be more illustrative of proper conservative principles?
Who's on first?
On his HBO show last week, comedian Bill Maher rightly debunked the idea that immigrants take jobs Americans will not do."Not for five bucks an hour," Maher zinged.
He added that congress has refused to raise the minimum wage since 1987.Adjusted for inflation, it stands lower than 1968, something regular readers know I've been carping about for 20 years.
(Thanks to an initiative campaign by organized labor, this November, Nevadans can join a growing number of states in not only raising the minimum wage but also indexing it for inflation.)This country's nobility, led by the Bush royal family, long ago successfully mastered the propaganda techniques necessary to keep the lower classes fighting each other for crumbs off Marie Antoinette's cake.
ON THIS DATE IN 1914, after the Mexican government issued a written apology for a minor incident involving U.S. sailors, a U.S. ship demanded that Mexican officials also salute the U.S. flag on Mexican soil. When Mexico refused, President Woodrow Wilson launched an invasion of the country at Véra Cruz. (From Nevada reporter Dennis Myers' Poor Denny's Almanac, more of which may be found daily at the NevadaLabor.com Bulletin Board.) If you want to fix the blame for the dwindling middle class and the rest of our economic ills, look up – at corporate America which cashes its congressional chips to win subsidies for the export of American jobs. Average Mexicans have not benefited from 20 years of moving U.S. factories south of the border, many of which are now relocating to Asia.
When U.S. citizens lose their livelihoods, the right-wing PR machine redirects their righteous rage toward the Spanish-speaking brown person looking for work in front of the Sparks mental health institute.
We are so stupid as a society that we deserve all the ills our betters are foisting upon us. Speaking of stupid…
ENERGY SLUMP. Democratic gubernatorial candidates Dina Titus and Jim Gibson have been staining the carpet while gushing with energy exchanges. Alas and alack, neither is talking about gasoline pricing, the worst energy outrage of all.
Gibson distributed a generic energy policy a few days ago and followed with a potshot at Titus for some Enron contributions six years ago. Yawn.
If either is serious about energy policy, how about telling Reno not to do what Sparks just perpetrated when the city council raised hidden electricity and natural gas taxes on its citizens by using Sierra Pacific Power as collection agency?
Gibson's energy policy is so poorly researched that he endorsed ethanol, an additive made from corn and largely available because of generous federal corporate welfare to the Archer Daniels Midland Corporation. While it cuts one form of pollution, ethanol generates another. But hey, use the magic word of alternative fuels and you can get away with anything from our short attention span news media endowed with the same level of smarts as the candidates manipulating them.
Apparently Gibson can't beat Titus in a primary and Titus can't beat Duncecap Jim Gibbons in the general election. (Perhaps Titus can corner Gibbons on whether or not he thinks mining companies should continue to hold the power of eminent domain over your house and mine.)
Given the campaign ineptitude displayed by both major Democrats, Duncecap Gibbons can take a month's vacation in October and come back to celebrate his election as governor in November. All the voters will care about is that he's a square-jawed dude who likes to bomb brown people. As current Gov. Dudley Do-Right has proven, the only qualification necessary to become Nevada governor is to look like one.
So we pay the price of rape and pillage at the pump, at the prescription counter, on the TV tube and everywhere else as the country tubes itself toward third world status.
Our elections allow us to choose candidates spanning the spectrum from A all the way to B.
The country hungers for leadership and gets paper or plastic.
CANDIDATE SCHOOL. If candidates want to research the roots of our rotten monopolistic gasoline prices, they need only read the Barbwire Oilogopoly archive. Government rigged the game and government can end it, but we don't have leaders or activist groups with the guts to take on BigOil and their wholly owned local, state and federal officials.
let immigrants stay
Who'da thunk it?MARK YOUR CALENDAR. There will be dual immigration marches in Reno tomorrow. One will start at UNR, the other at Miguel Ribera Park in southeast Reno. They will converge at the federal courthouse at Liberty and S. Virginia.
CELEBRATE A CHAMPION. The southwest Reno park recently named for Ellen Steiner will host a memorial service and park dedication for the late open space advocate on Sunday, April 23, at 1:00 p.m.
She would be in the front row for Tuesday afternoon's Washoe County Commission vote on the Ballardini Ranch.
Knowing Ellen, I think she'll make it anyway.
SAM THE SHAD AND THE PHAROAHS. Tomorrow, Sam Shad's Nevada Newsmakers offers viewers are rare treat: southern Nevada superpundits Steve Sebelius and Hugh Jackson. Separately, they are excellent, together they are flat out dangerous.The show premieres at 12:30 p.m. on KRNV TV-4. Sparks-Reno-Carson-Douglas victims of Charter cable may view the first rerun at 9:30 p.m. same day on channel 12. Barbwire.info will have the complete statewide radio-TV schedule.
Turn on, tune in and tell a friend.
These guys are good!
Be well. Raise hell.
Washoe County government contact points
Reno City Council
Sparks City Council
Washoe County Commission
Copyright © 1982, 1984, 1996, 2004, 2005, 2006 Andrew Barbano
Andrew Barbano is a 37-year Nevadan, editor of NevadaLabor.com and webmaster of ProtectOurWashoe.org. Barbwire by Barbano has originated in the Daily Sparks (Nev.) Tribune since 1988.
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