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Lord Rupert's Rupture and President Tiger Wuss
Barbwire by Barbano / Expanded from the 7-24-2011 Daily Sparks Tribune
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Corporate Propaganda Research Archive
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 Award
In 2011, we go for the SombreroBarbwire.TV
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 as well as ongoing efforts at developing new media, including a regional, non-corporate community radio station and the return of community television to Reno-Sparks-Washoe.
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, 2010 and 2011 Barbwire TV archivesBarbwire.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
In 2011, we go for the SombreroDon't hold your breath waiting for the Fox media empire to collapse on this side of the pond.
Cruel thieves worse than Rupert Murdoch live long lives, punished for nothing.
The Fox cable network alone is poised to net a cool billion in profit this year. The Fox-GOP Axis controls more than half of American government (House of Representatives, U.S. Supreme Court, most governorships).
Murdoch personally selected at least four of the last five British prime ministers.
GOP insider David Frum was blackballed for speaking the awful truth: "Republicans originally thought that Fox worked for us. Now we're discovering that we work for Fox." [Roger Ailes and The Fox News Fear Factory by Tim Dickinson, Rolling Stone Magazine, 6-9-2011]
The only real jeopardy for the Murdoch abomination lies in its unholy DNA. Sharks must always swim forward, devouring everything. Once the predator stops progressing, it drowns.Murdoch's empire has been built on successive bet-the-whole-ranch acquisitions. The police bribery and phone hacking scandal has momentarily stopped the gruesome gluttony. But don't hold your breath. He won't.
"Never play the other guy's game" — Damon Runyon via Orland T. Outland, Barbwire by Barbano / 4-24-2011
How dumb can we get?"Thanks largely to the tea party, today, more than at any time since Reagan's arrival 30 years ago, Washington debate is conducted in conservatism's vocabulary of government retrenchment." — Nationally syndicated column of former Reagan debate advisor George Will, Reno Gazette-Journal / 7-25-2011
Suicide is Painless
— Johnny Mandel
Theme from M*A*S*HPresident Kevorkian and Harry Potter's Congress, Barbwire by Barbano / 7-17-2011
BURN THE BLACKGUARDS. "Don't pay the banksters," states distinguished reporter Greg Palast, an American who not surprisingly can't get work here but is a regular in The Guardian newspaper that first revealed the depredations of Lord Rupert.
"The sick assumption of this entire debt ceiling debate, as we hear from talking heads whether on Fox or PBS, is that this is our deficit; as if you and I got a tax break," Palast writes.
"When the bankers, the Chinese and the Saudis lent Bush three trillion dollars for his wild-ass buying party, they were betting, like any investor, on the good faith of the borrower (Bush) to pay it back...Will the bankers have heart attacks? I hope so. (Maybe if bankers are ill, the GOP will vote for universal health care.)"Will China refuse to buy more U.S. debt? Not a chance. The Chinese cannot afford a devaluation of the $2-3 trillion in U.S. Treasury notes they have in their pokey, a devaluation which would surely follow their abandoning the U.S. treasuries.
"Argentina defaulted and thrived. We can tango too...The President should say 'I have the Constitutional duty to pay the bills of the Veterans Administration, the Social Security fund and other vital services already voted and appropriated by Congress. Military pay before banker pay. Get used to it.'"
Palast has a point. Given the total domination of Washington by corporate interests, only ruthless, radical change can make any difference. We face a slow, arduous rebuilding from the deliberate destruction of The New Deal so expertly perpetrated over the past 35 years.
It comes down to our radical change for the better or theirs, for the worse.
As I stated on Sam Shad's Nevada Newsmakers last Wednesday, based on legislation he signed, Richard Milhous Nixon was quite arguably the last liberal president. I once took pains to add an asterisk that the jury was still out on Barack Obama.
Alas and alack, the recent saga of President Tiger Wuss (Palast's term, thanks) ranks him firmly with Clinton and Carter, guys albatrossed with the scarlet "D" but nonetheless deservedly ensconced in the rogues gallery of moderate Republicans because that's how they governed.I also reminded Mr. Shad of President Franklin Roosevelt's disastrous 1937 mistake when he cut federal spending and thus stopped economic recovery until WW2, a bit of history revisited by no less than Nobel economics laureate Paul Krugman in last Friday's New York Times.
TOLJASO DEPT. A few weeks ago, I related the story of the 1980 Bob Kerns vs. Patty Cafferata southwest Reno state assembly primary. A Democratic woman, erroneously given a Republican ballot, said she voted for Mrs. Cafferata who won by a single vote. Kerns went to court but Judge John Barrett refused to throw out the election, stating that he had no corroboration of the woman's testimony. (Mrs. Cafferata recently informed me that I remembered the wrong jurist. My apologies.)
I suggested that the currently disputed North Las Vegas City Council election looked like instant replay wherein an ineligible voter was allowed to cast a ballot. A judge likewise upheld the result. The single-vote victory stands, even after recounting.
REMEMBERING MARY. We need help with the memorial service for civil rights legend Mary Valencia Wilson to be conducted in Sparks at 3:00 p.m. on Sunday, August 7, at the American Legion facility next door to the Sparks post office across from city hall.
Any of Mary's many friends who would like to volunteer with food and setup should contact her sister, Joan Treptow, 775-560-0318. The family also needs financial assistance with Mary's final expenses. You may send a check, payable to Joan Treptow, to the Reno-Sparks NAACP address, P.O. Box 7757, Reno, NV 89510. You may also donate via RenoSparksNAACP.org. Please make sure you designate that the donation is for Mary.Thanks.
BARBWIRE SHORT SNAGS. Check the expanded web edition of this column at NevadaLabor.com for the latest Barbwire.TV schedule around the state. I have ordered the Employee Free Choice Act program into rotation. It's high time that President Obama and Sen. Reid honored that particular campaign promise.
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, Charter Channel 216 came back to life broadcasting live legislative hearings and floor sessions fed to Reno-Sparks-Washoe from AccessCarson. (An obscure East Reno newspaper columnist got it started.)
We have acquired new volunteers and we're going to have a working group meeting soon. Spread the word.
Go to Barbwire.TV for more information, to volunteer your time or treasure or both.
It's important.
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.
This 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
Fact-free nation: Inside the lie machine
Mother Jones Magazine May-June 2011 / Cover story and in-depth analysis
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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