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Je Suis Charlie
"Our republic and its press will rise or fall together." — Joseph Pulitzer

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¡Viva Chávez!
César Chávez Celebration XVI / Celebración de César Chávez XVI
Saturday 31 March 2018 / Sabado 31 de Marzo 2018
Highlights from the record-breaking 2017 event at Circus Circus Reno

America's final Independence Day looms
Barbwire by Andrew Barbáno / Expanded from the 7-5-2017 Sparks Tribune / Updated 11-24-2017 / Expansions in blue.

Great Depression2 will arrive as no surprise but most PR people and politicians will say "nobody saw this coming."

As I bragged last week (boasting has gone mainstream in the Age of Tsar Donaldov), I accurately forecast a GOP November win in February of last year. (See History foreshadows a GOP November win, Barbwire 16 Feb. 2016. I did include a 2020 silver lining.)

It was not idle speculation but the result of studying the cycles of history as researched by eminent authors.

My correct 2005 prediction of what is now termed "The Great Recession" was likewise not an exercise in rocket science. I was just paying attention, though few were, more than two years ahead.

"The elements are now in place for a major economic contraction and perhaps a worldwide depression." (Barbwire, 5-29-2005 et seq.) I merely synthesized the warning signs from flaming liberal New York Times Nobel economist Paul Krugman and that other left-wing rag, The Wall Street Journal.

Writers are again running up red flags and you don't even have to buy out-of-town papers. Conservative economist Michael Barone is one of the few syndicated commentators to survive the latest penny-pinching by the Reno Gazette-Journal. (National columns can cost as much as an entire dollar apiece, fergawdsakes!)

Barone has been putting out recession vibes for a couple of months. His ETA appears to fall next summer.

"Today's hard data indicate that the Federal Reserve is tightening into a weakening economy," he wrote in June.

Mayday. It gets much worse.

The moonhowlers now in power will take advantage of the upcoming crisis as they did after 9/11/2001 and Hurricane Katrina.

For the blueprint, do yourself a favor and read Naomi Klein's killer 2007 bestseller "The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism."

She quotes chapter and verse on how political, military and natural disasters have been perverted to empower and enrich tyrants worldwide. The list is long, starting with Chile in 1973. (Barbwire 9-2-1988)

After Nixon and Kissinger had the CIA assassinate democratically elected Chilean President Salvador Allénde, their handpicked dictator hired an acolyte of University of Chicago economist Milton Friedman to impose the shock doctrine. Among other things, Hitler admirer Gen. Augusto Pinochét immediately terminated Chile's Social Security system. In 1988, I confronted the Chilean consul general at a Republican Party luncheon at the Reno Elks Club. By then, almost half of Chileans lived in poverty. He basically called me a commie. (Barbwire 9-2-1988)

Crisis management has spawned an entire sub-species of alternative fact pimps. Some spin-handlers frequently term bad situations as opportunities or (I hate this one) "teaching moments."

They know that good Christian Americans are very forgiving of repentant sinners, even those for whom the only sin is getting caught.

Dubya and Dick perverted 9/11 to impose torture, kidnaping and permanent imprisonment without due process, just like so many other dictators we've installed since 1953. They also used it to de-unionize large swaths of the federal workforce. Their incompetence at helping the people of New Orleans after Katrina has resulted in land developers taking over large areas of the city while homeless former residents were scattered to the four winds.

Today's autocrats never fail to take advantage of a good crisis. The kleptocracy under Trump's buddy Tsar Vladimir and the perversion of the dead at Tiananmen Square are just two more among the many worldwide examples of Disaster Capitalism.

I have often tried to give hope to the beleaguered by asserting that Great Depression2 is the only thing that can mitigate America's four-decade trend toward fascism. But that was then, this is now. The trainwreck looms with Tsar Donaldov and the moonhowlers in control of DC and most states.

Could FDR get elected in 2020?

Cry, the beloved country.

LAND OF GIANTS. Nevada mourns two civil rights titans. Eddie Scott was remembered last Friday at Reno's Second Baptist Church. The highlight came in remarks by veteran newsman Ed Pearce, asked by Scott himself to say a few words. Pearce's entire text will be posted at RenoSparksNAACP.org/

Bill Moon, another historic former Reno-Sparks NAACP president, will be remembered at 11:00 a.m. on Saturday, July 8, 2017, at the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, Reno North Stake, 2505 Kings Row, 89503. Elder Moon's complete obituary appears at the NAACP website.

The work goes on. The spirit abides.

Be well. Raise hell. / Esté bien. Haga infierno. (Pardon my Spanglish.)

SMOKING GUNS —>
We Don't Need No Education Part LXXVII—>
Flint Michigan, Sparks-Reno style
Barbwire by Andrew Barbáno / Expanded from the 6-28-2017 Sparks Tribune / Updated 6-29-2017
One for the books under the bus
Barbwire by Andrew Barbáno / Expanded from the 6-21-2017 Sparks Tribune / Updated 6-22-2017
Condemned at Birth
The diabetes establishment inhibits research on a very promising diabetes CURE
"Tell us how it will make ever make us money."
Barbwire by Andrew Barbáno / Expanded from the 6-14-2017 Sparks Tribune / Updated 6-14 and 6-20-2017
Nevada consumers consumed again
Barbwire by Andrew Barbáno / Expanded from the 6-6-2017 Sparks Tribune / Updated 6-8 and 6-14-2017

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ONLINE EXTRAS —>

END OF TIMES SURVIVAL KIT. Defend yourself with humorous or humorless but always-peerless predictions for 2017 by subscribing to the Barbwire Confidential News Service.

Last year's dark foreshadowings unfortunately became reality. I thus suggest inoculation by signing onto the HushHush! list at BallotBoxing.US/ It's cheap as well as enlightening entertainment.

THE GOOD DON. Nominations are afoot for the Nevada Press Association Hall of Fame. Time to ramp up for world-famous Tribune photographer Don Dondero. Here's the compelling case for his induction.