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 Barbwire Archives |
It ain't broke, but we'll fix it
Barbwire by Barbano / Expanded from the 3-13-2011 Daily Sparks Tribune
Everybody rolls with their fingers crossed.
Everybody knows the war is over.
Everybody knows the good guys lost.
Everybody knows the fight was fixed.
The poor stay poor, the rich get rich.
That's how it goes. Everybody knows.
HAT TRICK: Barbwire wins 3rd straight Nevada Press Association First-Place AwardCOMING SOON
The new season of Barbwire TV. The first show 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
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
America's corporate overlords no longer have a weight problem.
For the past three years, they have been laughing their asses off.
At us.The plutocracy gobbles appetizers, soup, salad, multiple meaty entrees, sumptuous desserts, brandy and cigars while the lower classes fight over who gets to lick the carpet for crumbs.
We crumbums are so desperate that on any given day, some contingent of our threadbare multitude stages a protest somewhere. I've recently gotten so many notices of meetings and demonstrations that I could easily fill a new website with nothing but.
The plutocrats and overlords can take dark pleasure knowing that they can ignore us. I wrote long ago that the American public acts like a battered spouse who only feels needed when demonstrating true love by taking a helluva beating.
How many times have I stated that we need to look up at who's sticking it to us, rather than blaming our neighbors? With enough media time, it's easy to stoke the flames of bigotry and ignorance.
"The nation is not, in fact, 'broke,'" wrote Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman in the March 11 New York Times.
If President Obama had simply made his economic policy by reading Krugman, most of the jobless would now be employed and Duke John of Orange would not now be shrieker of the house.
"The federal government is having no trouble raising money, and the price of that money — the interest rate on federal borrowing — is very low by historical standards, " Krugman added, "so there’s no need to scramble to slash spending now now now; we can and should be willing to spend now if it will produce savings in the long run...
"While the government does have a long-run fiscal problem, that problem is overwhelmingly driven by rising health care costs. The Congressional Budget Office expects Social Security outlays as a percentage of Gross Domestic Product (total national output of goods and services) to rise 30 percent over the next quarter-century, as the population ages, but it expects a near doubling of the share of GDP spent on Medicare and Medicaid.
"So if you’re serious about deficits, you shouldn’t be pinching pennies now; you should be looking for ways to rein in health spending over the long term," he concluded.
But right-wing moonhowlers are now in control of the nation and the president is triangulating like Bill Clinton, which means he's running for re-election as a moderate conservative Republican.
The only play left is a national strike.
Stay tuned.
VIVA HUELGA! César Chávez Day IX takes place on what would have been his 84th birthday, Thursday, March 31, 2011, at Circus Circus-Reno. Doors open at 5:30 p.m, dinner at 7:00.The new legislative Latino caucus has been invited. A large representation from César Chávez's immediate family is expected.
Go to CesarChavezNevada.com for news, ticket and sponsorship info.
ADIOS TO CARRUTHERS. Union man Donald Carruthers, 86, passed away in Hamilton, Mont., on Feb. 15. He was elected president and later became secretary-treasurer of Laborers' Union Local 169.
"He was plain spoken, hard working and I never knew him to run away from any fight — philosophical or physical," former Local 169 Business Manager Dan Rusnak remembers.
Carruthers served in the U.S. Marine Corps in WWII, taking part in Pacific battles on Bougainville and Okinawa. He was also stationed with occupation forces in Tsingtao, China.
"(He) was often called upon during his retirement years to offer the advice and counsel of an elder statesman to younger incoming officers," according to the 1994 book The Laborer in the West.
"Don had one eye, having lost the other in an accident," retired Local 169 Office Manager Michelle King told me.
"His nickname was 'One-Eyed SOB' and he had a dog of the same name," she added.
Local 169 is today headed by Nevada Assemblymember Richard "Skip" Daly, D-Sparks.
CORPORATE WELFARE WATCH. The Nevada State Fair is history. No wonder.The Nevada Fair and Recreation Board Act of 1955 established the hotel room tax mainly to support county fairs, parks and recreation. It has since been glommed almost entirely by the gambling industry to fund advertising and promotion best left to private, for-profit enterprises. Gomorrah South imposed a room tax in 1957. Reno-Sparks-Washoe followed in 1960.
The now-defunct Nevada State Fair got no taxpayer funding in its declining years. I don't think you'll see 4-H critters in a gambling joint anytime soon — the casino corporate welfare recipients will continue to let smoking suckers foul their carpet.
BACK FROM THE ASHES DEPT. Support the return of community radio and television. Go to Barbwire.TV for more information, to join the club and contribute via the web.
It's important.
The first step toward restoration has been taken. After going dark for six months, the public access channels now broadcast live legislative hearings and floor sessions fed to Reno-Sparks-Washoe from AccessCarson. Charter cable victims can watch on digital channel 216 or high definition 80-295.
If you are interested in witnessing the assassination of the Nevada education system and most public services, turn on, tune in and tell a friend.
But have Tums and warm milk ready.
Be well. Raise hell.
______
Andrew Barbano is a 42-year Nevadan, chair of the Nevada César Chávez Committee, producer of Nevada's annual César Chávez Day celebration, first 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 9-18-2010.
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
Bill Moyers: Welcome to the Plutocracy
Money fights hard and it fights dirty
Speech delivered at Boston University on 29 Oct. 2010
Part of the Howard Zinn Lecture SeriesBarbwire 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 © 1982-2011
Andrew Barbano
Andrew Barbano is a 42-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 first 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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