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 Barbwire Archives |
Political brass and unbreakable crystal balls
Expanded from the 10-24-2010 Daily Sparks Tribune
HAT TRICK: Barbwire wins third straight Nevada Press Association first-place award
STARTING THIS WEEK: The new season of Barbwire TV just in time for an election near you. The first will be about (what else?) jobs. The lack of them is well documented. How we've blown them and where they can be regenerated, that's something else. I guarantee you'll get mad enough to want to get even. Watch NevadaLabor.com for show times. Help us get the word out.
Support the project at http://resurge.tv#donate
SUING FOR SCHOOLS: Click here to view the show on your desktop
If Reform Fails: Health Care, Jobs and Unions — new power to the people on the public airwaves
The program premiers were available to every television set in the region because of a high-mileage media hybrid.
The shows appeared on both commercial and community stations. The non-corporate entity produced the events, commercial TV greatly expanded distribution.
Thus began an ongoing series of sane public interest programs which generate both entertaining heat and more than a little light.
Please spread the word and consider contributing to the cause online at ReSurge.TV.
You may also take the public option known as the U.S. Postal Service and send a check or money order to ReSurge.TV, P.O. Box 10034, Reno NV 89510.
Your contribution will help fund the distribution of the Dec. 6 and Feb. 21 programs as well as ongoing efforts at developing new media, including a regional, non-corporate community radio station.
You are present at the creation of what I hope can become a new media model where the programming accurately reflects what's happening on the ground and the media impact is powerful enough to forcefully pass the message upward.
Thanks.
Be well. Raise hell.
Andrew
Click here for on-demand re-runs
from the 2009 legislative sessionBarbwire.TV:
15-year overnight success
Daily Sparks Tribune 2-10-2008The Barbwire's Greatest Hits
Highlights from radio days
mp3 file
HAT TRICK: Barbwire wins 3rd straight Nevada Press Association First-Place Award
Occasionally I notice the obvious. The following comes from the Barbwire of 21 Jan. 2001:
Even the lowest swine can produce pork chops.
Long after he killed off his opponents, Hitler-loving fascist Generalissimo Francisco Franco was asked if another Spanish civil war would follow his death.
"No," replied Franco, "for I shall leave a large middle class."
The old S.O.B. proved pretty smart. He knew that if you spread the wealth, few people would start shooting.
War is bad for business. Spain today is a democracy with a Franco-restored figurehead monarchy.
Restorations in other countries have not gone nearly as well.
The February 2000 edition of Harper's Magazine published the year's most in-depth yet compact compendium about the shady side of Dubya. Maverick Republican historian Kevin Phillips contributed a fascinating analysis of replays gone bad.
"The essence of political restoration is neither republican nor monarchical. It depends upon the delusionary psychology of a political class willing to let its memory grow more and more clouded until it sees fit to reinstate something second-rate, after that something's replacement has become even less acceptable. This is why restorations contain an element of farce.
"Both Charles I (of England) and Louis XVI (of France), whose kingly failures began the two previous restoration cycles, were as widely disdained as the senior Bush. And the interlopers who came along to revolutionize their countries' respective governments — Oliver Cromwell and his son Richard ('Tumble-down Dick') in England in the 1650s, and Maximilien Robespierre and then Napolean in late-eighteenth- and early-nineteenth century France — also made themselves unwelcome," Phillips wrote.
"In both countries, the political elites came to prefer the return of an inexperienced heir. Charles II was called back to England in 1660; Louis XVIII to a re-established throne in 1815...Bush the Younger is classic restoration material...Not a few observers have described him as cocky, lazy and arrogant (like Charles II), and intellectually undistinguished (a perfect late Bourbon).
"These comparisons are not yet proven, of course, but for the first time in U.S. history, the qualifications of a frontrunner for the presidency are converging with those of the Prince of Wales: heredity and birth." Phillips noted.
He recounted how the new president's "own mother once made him sit at the opposite end of the table from the Queen of England, for fear of what he might say, when he was 44 years old."
Rejoicing at the U.S. royal family's return to power may prove short-lived.
"When the restored James II fell in 1688, that was the end of the Stuart kings. When the restored Bourbons followed suit in 1830, that was the end of their house. Should a Bush Restoration implode on its own whir of cocky inadequacy, that could be a similar last hurrah not simply for the family's power but for the Republican Party," Phillips stated. (See his 1999 book, The Cousins' Wars.)
It doesn't take much to predict that George II will soon risk American lives in some foolish war.
Dick and Colin are back fouling the bowels of government.
Few seem to remember that the Gulf War, which continues to kill and sicken so many both here and abroad, was fought to protect the Bush family's Persian Gulf drilling rights, perhaps the most rotten of all Dubya's dastardly deals.
On the bright side, perhaps his appointment of the racist John Ashcroft as attorney general will revive states' rights for us, if not Florida. After all, Ashcroft publicly praised the neo-Confederate magazine Southern Partisan, a Klan-fan rag which celebrates Lincoln's assassination!
In his Harper's cover article preceding Phillips' sidebar, author Joe Conason concluded "the vast agglomeration of monied influence is what has made George W. Bush both a rich man and a potential president.
"Knowing how he became what he is, it's difficult to imagine Bush cleansing the soiled hem of democracy, as his advertising promises he will do. He professes compassionate conservatism, but his true ideology, the record suggests, is crony capitalism."
Indeed, Dubya offers a single cure for all ills. At any bad moon on the rise, he howls for a huge tax cut for rich campaign contributors.
German poet and dramatist Johann Wolfgang von Goethe once said that we become that which we despise.
To anyone who criticized Bill Clinton for breaking his promise to clean up government, remember the words of the Gipper: you ain't seen nothin' yet.
More strange parallels, predictions and predilections of impending elections
Downticket Dems worried
10-17-2010Reid in '52 or Angle in '72?
10-10-2010Calvin Coolidge and prairie dog stew / 9-26-2010
Rory, Rory quite contrary
9-19-20101982 — Chickens, Chicky Baby and My Sharrona / 9-12-2010
Gov. Raggio: Meet the new boss, same as the old boss / 4-25-2010
Warnings of worldwide depression / 5-29-2005
WHAT IT MEANS IN 2010: Voters appear seized in a fit of co-dependency, the abused spouse syndrome whereby constant beatings prove to the bloodied victim that he or she is needed.
A desperate and financially ruined electorate may well vote back into power the vampires who sucked them dry.
It's the only protest vote available. The silver lining to the dark clouds forming over the coming years may be that Phillips' prediction comes true and the GOP, led by the likes of (gulp) Sen. Sharron Angle, implodes.
Continuing leanings of recent years, Democrats will then become the party of corporate business and a new Labor Party will emerge.
Nevada union members are already talking it up.
STARTING THIS WEEK: The new season of Barbwire TV just in time for an election near you.The first will be about (what else?) jobs. The lack of them is well documented. How we've blown them and where they can be regenerated, that's something else.
I guarantee you'll get mad enough to want to get even.
Watch NevadaLabor.com for show times.
Help us get the word out.
Support the project at http://resurge.tv#donate
Be well. Raise hell.
______
Andrew Barbano is a 41-year Nevadan, chair of the Nevada César Chávez Committee, producer of Nevada's annual César Chávez Day celebration, second 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. 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.
Nevada Press Assn. annual award winners announced on Sept. 18, 2010.
HAT TRICK: Barbwire takes first place for third year in a row.
Next year, we go for the sombrero.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 desktopRED flags flying low over Sparks
Expanded from the 1-10-2010 Daily Sparks TribuneThe wrath of self-righteous racism
Expanded from the 11-8-2009 Daily Sparks Tribune
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 price of a piece / 6-17-2007
Boxing Pandora /9-23-2007
The Lady in the Red Dress
10-28-2007
Barbwire Corporate Welfare Archive
Cabellyup.com
TOLJASO LONG TIME AGO
BP/ARCO: The greasy root of our evils
Barbwire / Daily Sparks Tribune 9-10-2006
The awful truth — Read it and weep, fellow suckersLabor Day 2009: Rise of the Vampire Corpobots
Expanded from the 9-6-2009 Daily Sparks TribuneAngry Americans and Freudian fraud
Using war to market cigarettes
Expanded from the 8-23-2009 Daily Sparks TribuneBARBWIRE Nevada Corporate Welfare Archive
Propaganda fuels gasoline price fixing
Barbwire 8-14-2005Donate to the cable ratepayer legal defense fund at our PayPal-enabled ReSurge.TV Consumer War Room
Phillips, Kevin; Numbers Racket: Why the economy is worse than we know
Harper's Magazine; May 2008; page 43
Phillips has authored numerous books on history and politics over the past 40 years. His most recent, Bad Money: Reckless Finance, Failed Politics and the Global Crisis of American Capitalism, was published by Viking on April 15, 2008.NAOMI WOLF: Fascist America in 10 Easy Steps
There are some things common to every state that's made the transition to fascism. Author Naomi Wolf argues that all of them are present in America today.
Alternet 5-20-2007Johnson, Chalmers; REPUBLIC OR EMPIRE? A National Intelligence Estimate on the United States; Harper's magazine; January, 2007. I love it when heavy hitters validate what I've been saying for years in the tiny Sparks Tribune.
Barlett, Donald L. and Steele, James B.; America: What Went Wrong? (1992); America: Who Really Pays the Taxes? (1994); America: Who Stole the Dream? (1996) ; Andrews & McMeel/Universal Press Syndicate.
Review of Alex Carey's Taking the Risk Out of Democracy:
Propaganda in the US and AustraliaThe Orwell Diversion by Alex Carey
Excerpted from the book available below
ORDER Taking the Risk Out of Democracy
Corporate Propaganda versus Freedom and Liberty
By Alex Carey
Edited by Andrew Lohrey
Foreword by Noam Chomsky
University of Illinois Press
SEE ALSO: Lapham, Lewis H.; Tentacles of Rage: The Republican Propaganda Mill, A Brief History; Harper's Magazine cover article; September, 2004, page 32.
By one conservative estimate, the corporate right has spent about $3 billion over the past three decades manufacturing public opinion to suit big business goals. Lapham's number covered the early 1970's to the present day. Alex Carey noted that by 1948, anti- New Deal corporate propaganda expenditures had already reached $100 million per year, not adjusted for inflation, for advertising alone. (Carey, ibid; page 79)
Adjusted for inflation, that 1948 $100 million becomes $801,659,751.04 in 2005 dollars.
Conservatives Help Wal-Mart, and Vice Versa
As Wal-Mart struggles to rebut growing criticism, it has discovered a reliable ally: conservative research groups.
New York Times 9-8-2006; Free registration may be required.BARBWIRE: Labor Day '94: People vs. corporate con job, 9-4-94
Chilling forecasts from Alex CareyBARBWIRE: The Nevada Republican Party Becomes Communist, 3-30-97
A prescient Plato on the dangers of oligarchyThe sands of time do not cloud the long memories of the sheiks of Araby
Barbwire 9-10-2006
Rinfret, Pierre A.; Peace is Bullish; Look magazine, 5-31-1966
Copyright © 1982-2010
Andrew Barbano
Andrew Barbano is a 41-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 second 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 premiered in the Daily Sparks (Nev.) Tribune on Aug. 12, 1988, and has originated in those parts ever since. Tempus fugit.
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