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 Barbwire Archives |
Payback time: Lie to your government
Expanded from the 4-4-2010 Daily Sparks Tribune
Barbwire wins second straight Nevada Press Association first-place award
SUING FOR SCHOOLS: Click here to view the new Barbwire show on your desktop
If Reform Fails: Health Care, Jobs and Unions —new power to the people on the public airwavesThe 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
Barbwire column on the depredations of Charter Communications and the Reno City Council wins 2009 Nevada Press Association first-place award
Past 12 months
Use the search tool you will find at page right at the above link. It will return the 19 newest TV programs. You may also search by date — M-F for the past year save holidays.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 fileYour government has been lying to you all your life but now you have a chance for a little payback: Lie on your census form. It's your patriotic duty.
For every person undercounted, our cash-strapped state will lose about $10,000 in federal tax money over the next decade. So add four people to your household and you've scored the return of $40,000.
There is always a substantial undercount anyway. Republicans for decades have blocked the use of statistical adjustment to refine the numbers because they fear it will lead to reapportioning of more Democratic-leaning congressional districts.
The statewide seat currently held by Rep. Dean Heller, R-Nev, has never been won by a Democrat since it was formed in 1981. It's unconstitutionally rigged for a Republican, but no one has ever challenged it in court.
Nevada is the most transient state in the union, worsening our undercount problems. Adding people to your form will compensate for that and increase the chance of our getting a fourth congressional seat.
This idea is even attractive to Republicans. One GOP die-hard told me that the way the economy is going, you may need to rent out rooms to those four people just to keep your head above water. After all, you never can tell when your no-account brother-in-law will knock on your door, suitcase in hand.
This idea is guaranteed to make even states' rightists and neo-Confederates enthusiastic about sticking it to the man.
It's not like the man didn't tell us to lie in the first place. The government asked us to mail the forms in March with an estimate as to the number of people who might be living in our homes on (I'm not making this up) April Fools' Day.
Even census officialdom says a little fudging is OK, so do your patriotic duty and mail in that form plus four. Stick it to the man and help the state budget.
VIVA LA CAUSA. César Chávez Day VIII was a big hit even if Gov. Jim the Dim missed the boat, as usual. He forgot to follow state law and declare March 31 as César Chávez Day until I e-mailed his office on March 30.The proclamation was uploaded to the guv's website late that same afternoon, which constitutes the first and last time Jim Gibbons will ever do something at the request of a Democrat.
Wednesday evening's highlight came with presentation of the inaugural César Chávez Silver State Public Service Awards. Skip Daly, business manager of Laborers' Union Local 169 and Democratic candidate for Sparks Assembly Dist. 31, presented the union project of the year honors.Sparks-based Q&D Construction shared accolades with the Reno-Tahoe Airport Authority for the $63 million expansion of the facility's baggage check-in area.
The employer of the year award went to Save Mart Supermarkets, a union shop not enough union members know about. That changes starting now.
Union organizer of the year went to a member of my union. The César Chávez Day Committee knew that Liz Sorenson wouldn't show up if informed up front. So we misled her until she was actually on the stage thinking she would be presenting the award to someone else.
Liz runs labor's electoral information campaigns and in her spare time organizes workers, most recently several hundred at St. Mary's Regional Medical Center.
Darlene Jespersen became the first Nevada César Chávez Hall of Fame inductee.Ten years ago, she filed the world-famous lipstick lawsuit against Harrah's. (She refused to paint her face according to company mandates and was fired after 21 years of distinguished service.)
The Barbwire of Oct. 8, 2000, has evolved into her unofficial website and has ranked among NevadaLabor.com's top 10 most-viewed pages for a decade.
Darlene has been featured in a major Hollywood documentary (Darryl Roberts' award-winning America the Beautiful) and her case is being taught in law schools all over the country.
We also held a moment of silence for two recently departed heroes, former Assemblymember Marcia deBraga, D-Fallon, and world class math teacher Jaime Escalante. Mrs. deBraga passed away in Fallon in late March. Mr. Escalante (Stand and Deliver) died in Reno last week.César Chávez Day IX will happen on March 31, 2011, also at Circus Circus.
VIVA LA CAUSA II. Regular readers know that I have been raising money to help Sierra Nevada Community Access Television fully benefit from a matching foundation grant of $40,000. If you can help, give me a holler at (775) 882-TALK or drop me a line.
VIVA LA CAUSA III. The Reno-Sparks NAACP will hold its annual Freedom Fund Banquet on May 22 at the Peppermill in Reno. For ticket and sponsorship information, go to RenoSparksNAACP.org or contact me. This is important.
CARSON CITY Charter Ch. 210
Health Care 3/22-3/27, 3/29-4/3
Suing for Schools 4/5-4/10
5:30 p.m. Mondays
7:30 p.m. Wednesdays
8:00 a.m. Thursdays
8:00 p.m. Saturdays
RELEVANT RERUNS. The two latest Barbwire TV specials are now rerunning regionally as well as down in Gomorrah South.
On Carson City Charter Channel 210, the health care show runs the week of March 29 and Suing for Schools airs the week of April 5.
The hourlong programs repeat at 5:30 p.m. Mondays, 7:30 p.m. Wednesdays, 8:00 a.m. Thursdays and 8:00 p.m. Saturdays.
SNCAT is also rerunning them on Sparks-Washoe-Reno Charter digital channels 16 and 216 and hi-def 80-295. Check SNCAT.org for times.
You may also view them anytime on your computer desktop via the links in the expanded web edition of this column at NevadaLabor.com.
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.
Smoking Guns...
Nevada Press Assn. annual award winners announced
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 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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