BARBWIRE
by
ANDREW BARBANO

Barbwire
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Dirty books, holy men, false prophets and sex profits
Expanded from the 9-25-2011 Daily Sparks Tribune

Updated 9-26, 9-30 and 12-1-2011, 6-5-2014, 10-21-2014
Site map
Corporate Propaganda Research Archive

   Everybody knows the dice are loaded.
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.
— Leonard Cohen



HAT TRICK: Barbwire wins 3rd straight Nevada Press Association First-Place Award

In 2011, we go for the Sombrero

Barbwire.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 8-30-2011
Now rerunning on Carson-Dayton 226

Additional programs
on Boulder City cable. Go to bcnv.org and then
go to the BCTV link.

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 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 selected on-demand re-runs from the 2009, 2010 and 2011 Barbwire.TV archives

Barbwire.TV:
15-year overnight success

Daily Sparks Tribune 2-10-2008

The 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 Sombrero

"In Nevada, you put an 'R' behind your name and the devil himself could get elected. We've seen that in a number of cases in our state."

So said a zealot at the formative meeting of a Nevada chapter of the National Federation of Republican Assemblies as reported in the Barbwire of Jan. 25, 1998. I've written about these guys many times since and they just won't go away.

Ayatollahs are always with us
Update 10-21-2014
Update 6-5-2014

Update 1-9-2011
Update 6-13-2010
Update 10-25-2009
Update 6-29-2008
Update 10-13-2002
Update 10-25-1998

Despite the governmental-sounding name, they have nothing to do with officialdom save for the fact that they advocate theocracy to replace democracy.

Last week, madcap perennial candidate Sharron Angle was appointed to the outfit's national board of directors. As a state assembly candidate, she was present at that 1998 meeting at a local pizza parlor. Also looking for political support were State Sen. Maurice Washington, R-Sparks, and Assemblyman Don Gustavson, R-Sun Valley.

Moderator Mike Weber (husband of current Washoe County Commissioner Bonnie Weber), checked off a list of candidates particularly worthy of the group's endorsement, including Washington, Gustavson and Rep. John Ensign, R-Las Vegas, who was then running against incumbent U.S. Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev.

"They are 100% believers of everything we're doing as far as our principles are concerned," Mr. Weber noted. He went on to run unsuccessfully a couple of times. Gustavson is now a state senator. Ensign has gone on to greater glory in peaceful wedded bliss and Mrs. Angle became a national figure after running against Reid as the anointed of God hisself.

Now, she has a new national platform and Nevada media failed to report what the organization stands for in printing her press release verbatim.

Typical.

GOING POSTAL, PART DEUX.
This Tuesday, Sept. 27, from 4:00 to 5:30 p.m., area postal employees and their supporters will march on the west side of Virginia Street across from the Bruce Thompson federal building at S. Virginia and Liberty in Reno. Down in Gomorrah South, consumers will gather at the offices of Rep. Joe Heck, R-Nev., 8485 W Sunset Rd. in Las Vegas. Call 702-736-5290 for more information.

Similar events will take place nationwide in support of a bill in Congress, HR 1351. (See SaveAmericasPostalService.org.) The measure would reverse a law passed in the Bush-Cheney era which forced the postal service to pay for employee health care costs 75 years up front. That has drained the profitable non-governmental service of $21 billion since 2007 and turned black ink into red. It's also allowed the feds to understate the deficit by that amount.

The same kind of thing happened for years with the federal highway trust fund. The feds would bottle up infrastructure spending in order to understate the deficit. Likewise using the Social Security Trust Fund became so egregious that Congress finally took it off the balance sheet.

If you'd like to participate in the demonstration, contact Clancy McCarthy at 775-250-8348. I highly recommend Mark Robison's Fact Checker analysis of the issue which appeared in the Sept. 18, 2011, Reno Gazette-Journal.

UPDATE: Postal workers rally to save Reno distribution center
Reno Gazette-Journal 9-28-2011 / This story has been removed from rgj.com

Postal workers and patrons oppose closing Reno processing center
Reno Gazette-Journal 12-1-2011

UPDATE 12-1-2011 — Postal workers picket and handbill all day 11-30 and 12-1 at Reno main on Vassar Street to solicit public support to save almost 200 area jobs. Public meeting at 6:00 p.m. PST, 1 Dec. 2011 at Wooster High School on E. Plumb Lane in Reno. For info, contact Clancy McCarthy at 775-250-8348.

FED UP AT THE FEDERAL BUILDING (9-27-2011) — More than 200 postal workers and members of other unions demonstrate at the Bruce Thompson Federal Building in Reno in favor of passage of HR 1351, which would remove the funding drain now threatening the United States Postal Service. The federal courthouse may be seen in the window reflections of the auto in the foreground. (NevadaLabor.com photo)

HOLY MEN AND HIZZONER. Earlier this Tuesday, Sparks Mayor Geno Martini will preside at an interfaith reception for two new religious leaders, Abdelwahed Ali Awad, Imam of Northern Nevada Muslim Community Center in Sparks, and Evon J. Yakar, Rabbi of Temple Bat Yam in South Lake Tahoe, Calif. The 3:00 p.m. event takes place at India Kabab & Curry Restaurant, 1091 S. Virginia St. at Vassar in Reno. Attendees will be asked for the exorbitant sum of five dollars for snacks and chai tea. RSVP to Rajan Zed.

DIRTY BOOK ALERT. On Wednesday, Sept. 28, at 6:00 p.m., the lewd and lascivious will come out of the closet at the new UNR library. The place is officially monickered as the "Mathewson-IGT Knowledge Center," a bloodless non-descriptive illustration of corporate sponsorship marketing. Nobody knows what the hell a knowledge center is. Most people, save for perhaps Sharron Angle and Sarah Palin, might know what a library is.

The endangered Washoe County Library System, the ACLU and the UNR Creative Writing Club are hosting the event as part of national banned books week. You would be surprised how many books have been banned or so threatened, everything from Huckleberry Finn to Harry Potter.

Ten local community luminaries will read from their favorite selections. Angle and Palin should attend this one. I understand one guy will try to find a common link between the Bible, the Qu'ran and Playboy. Readings will happen in the library's rotunda. The building is next door to the new student union.

For info, contact Rebecca Gasca at the ACLU, 775-786-1033.

SAME TIME, SAME PLACE. The Unity Commission and Women's Federation for World Peace-Reno will host an event on human trafficking in the Wells Fargo Auditorium on the first floor of the Knowledge Center on Sept. 28 from 6:30 to 9:00 p.m.

"Human trafficking is an urgent issue in Nevada," stated local president Sarah Canak.

"In January 2007, the U.S. Department of Justice named Las Vegas as one of the 17 most likely destinations for sex trafficking victims. Assemblyman John Hambrick, R-Las Vegas, will speak about sex trafficking and efforts to pass a bill (AB 380 of the 2009 session) which increased the financial penalties for criminals who prostitute children," Canak says. For more info, call her at 775-527-7956.

Those who attend both UNR events can brag that they've gone from the den of iniquity to the holy of holies without having to drive.

U-TUBE. Check the expanded web edition of this column at NevadaLabor.com for the latest statewide Barbwire.TV schedule, viewable 24/7 online.

Support the return of community radio and television in these parts. Go to ReSurge.TV to volunteer your time or treasure or both.

It's now more important than ever — > unless you think corporate-controlled media is all you need. Stay tuned for updates.

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.

Smoking Guns

POWERFUL PUNDITORY PANJANDRUMS: Compelling guest commentary

Nevada Press Assn. annual award winners announced.
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 desktop

RED flags flying low over Sparks
Expanded from the 1-10-2010 Daily Sparks Tribune

The wrath of self-righteous racism
Expanded from the 11-8-2009 Daily Sparks Tribune





The campaign against forcibly-paid newspaper obituaries
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


...and more ammo

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 Series

Barbwire Corporate Welfare Archive
Cabellyup.com

From clear-cut forests to dirty Gulfstream waters, this land belongs to old BP
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 suckers

Labor Day 2009: Rise of the Vampire Corpobots
Expanded from the 9-6-2009 Daily Sparks Tribune

Angry Americans and Freudian fraud
Using war to market cigarettes
Expanded
from the 8-23-2009 Daily Sparks Tribune

BARBWIRE Nevada Corporate Welfare Archive

Propaganda fuels gasoline price fixing
Barbwire 8-14-2005

Donate 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 5-20-2007

Johnson, 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 Australia

The 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 Carey

      BARBWIRE: The Nevada Republican Party Becomes Communist, 3-30-97
A prescient Plato on the dangers of oligarchy

The 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

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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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