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 Barbwire Archives |
May Day! T-Rump reduces president to peanuts
Barbwire by Barbano / Expanded from the 5-1-2011 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
SUING FOR SCHOOLS
Updated 3-21-2011
Lawsuit gains supportIf 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
One night as the fireplace burned low after a 1977 holiday dinner in Carson City, a young lawyer asked Nevada Supreme Court Justice Al Gunderson how he rated Jimmy Carter's first year as president.
"About a C-minus," replied the wise old judge who passed away last year.
Gunderson went on to lecture us kids about President Carter's mistakes, foreshadowing future errors that would make him a one-termer
Gunderson rightly viewed Carter as too much of a micro-manager. Too often, Carter personally looked into situations better handled by underlings.
"When the president devotes his time to something, he validates its importance as a serious problem because the highest level is involved," Gunderson noted.
"The media are quick to pick up on it and it gets a lot bigger than it often deserves," Gunderson noted.
Carter's penchant for getting his fingers in everything from Palestine to purchasing paper clips ultimately proved his undoing. He ordered a daring commando raid to rescue American hostages held in Tehran, Iran. But he insisted on managing the mission himself from the White House, a principal reason for its failure.
I have repeatedly stated that Barack Obama now has a choice: Become Franklin Roosevelt and lead us out of Great Depression II, or become a latter day Jimmy Carter.
Last week's birth certificate concession showed he is tending toward the once and future peanut farmer.
There was nothing wrong caving in to moonhowler demands to see the second of two Obama birth certificates on file in Honolulu. The mistake lay in the president presenting it personally. By doing so, he elevated the madcap Donald Trump's rump candidacy.
In the finest Jimmy Carter style, Obama validated the importance of the problem by becoming personally involved. There was no percentage in doing it that way. The yahoos who insist he was born on Mars will still believe so. T-Rump enhanced his credibility by proving his ability to move the most powerful man in the world.
Micromanaging a tempest in a teapot was a lose-lose for no one but the president.
And he's paying a lot of good taxpayer money to a lot of supposedly wise political advisors.
BLACKROBED COMIC STRIP. Not only was T-Rump a big winner last week, so was acerbic comedian Lewis Black. In the new edition of Mother Jones Magazine, the one bearing the killer cover caricature of House Speaker Orange Juice John as Pinocchio, writer Rick Perlstein refers to Supreme Court Justice Lewis Black. Of whom there never was. The late Hugo Black served with distinction on the court decades ago. Likewise the recently deceased Lewis Powell. But if Perlstein unconsciously started a campaign to park Lewis Black among the current blackrobes, sign me up.
EAST RENO LIVES. The Rail City just can't get no respect. Sparks City Councilcritter Mike Carrigan's ethics case was heard by the U.S. Supreme Court a few days ago.The vaunted, highly credible, neutral, objective PBS Newshour with Jim Lehrer committed a whopper, calling Carrigan a Reno city councilman. The City of Sparks and Mr. Carrigan should be insulted. There is ample evidence that Sparks elected officials are incompetent dingbats, but the boys on Prater Way are running a monastery compared to the cathouse in the black tower.
MAY DAY! The local contingent of the Industrial Workers of the World union, better known by their ancient nickname as The Wobblies, are putting together a May Day march for human rights and worker rights. The multitudes will gather Sunday between noon and 1:00 p.m. at Stewart Park on Wells Ave., just south of Ryland. They will march to the plaza (and future 7-11 gas station site) in front of Reno City Hall, followed by death-defyin' speechifyin'. Those who can still stand will march back to Stewart Park about 3:30, with barely enough time left to make it to Earth Day at Idlewild Park. For more info, call (775) 221-0738 or (775) 513-7523.
BACK FROM THE ASHES DEPT. Support the return of community radio and television stations. 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. (An obscure East Reno newspaper columnist got it started.) Charter cable victims can watch on digital channel 216 or high definition 80-295.
If you harbor a morbid interest in witnessing the assassination of the Nevada education system and most public services, turn on and tune in.
Go to Barbwire.TV for more information, to join the club and contribute via the web.
It's important.
MOONHOWLER MENTALITY DEPT. The following from a "Janet" was posted at the Reno Gazette-Journal website in praise of Gov. Sly Sandoval's veto of a school bond bill: "He needs to go further and take the second language teachers out. And inforce (sic) e-verify. Then the citizen (sic) of Nevada can get back to work and those taxes paid will help our schools, also so he need (sicX2) to English (sic) is our states (sic) language. And stop the liberal Demes (sic) from ruining Nevada like they have America."
For those who don't know, (sic) means the item is reproduced exactly and is usually used to denote gross grammatical error.
T-Rump understands all about grossness.
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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