BARBWIRE by ANDREW BARBANO Pirate Laureate of the High Desert Outback of the American Dream

Barbwire Archives

Site map
SITE NAVIGATION TIPS: When all else fails, read the instructions
Get ahead of corporate-influenced news—>Subscribe to Barbwire Confidential

Labor Day 2014: Red, white and screwed
Barbwire by Barbano / Expanded from the Sparks Tribune / 8-28-2014 / Updated 8-29 and on Labor Day, 9-1-2014 and 9-4-2014

American workers should hoist some cold ones to Burning Man.

The pagans prancing the playa have at least elevated Labor Day weekend beyond furniture shopping.

U.S. workers get fewer holidays than those in the rest of the first world, so I'm totally in favor of heavy partying, dressed or undressed.

With prospects for American families looking increasingly dim, we might as well get drunk.

Herewith, some reasons why.

AMAZONED OUT. Despite Reno City Hall's glowing pronouncements about what a great employer Amazon is, many of the 4,000 workers the online octopus will retain during the holidays will be impoverished senior citizens living in aging motor homes and wandering the country like victims of the 1930's midwestern Dust Bowl or today's farm workers.

The only difference is that they have neither found their César Chávez nor are they likely to.

Amazon terms them "workampers" who will suffer elongated shifts on hard concrete for low pay with no benefits.

As with Wal-Mart and casinos, most will qualify for food stamps and welfare. Their health plan will consist of aspirin (to ease "trigger finger" caused by endless bar code scanning) or emergency rooms.

Don't take my word for it.

Read The End of Retirement in the August edition of 164-year old Harper's Magazine.

It will sicken you. [1]

GO FRACK YOURSELF. Facebook lit up like Burning Man on Tuesday after the Reno Kazoo-Journal published a guest editorial by one Louis Finkel of the American Petroleum Institute.

The BigOil frontman announced himself as keynote speaker at the Nevada State AFL-CIO convention at Reno's Circus-Circus.

He oozed that hydraulic fracturing (aka "fracking") to squeeze oil out of rocks is safe and proven technology.

Tell that to people who've had their tap water catch fire.

Mr. Finkel spoke the day before hearings on fracking commence in Elko, including one before the industry-dominated Nevada Commission on Mineral Resources.

Coincidence?

I don't think so.

A few years back, a university study found that unions today merit automatic media coverage only in a strike or when business sets union members against environmentalists with the promise of jobs-jobs-jobs.

BENEVOLENT BIGOIL. Pesky international investigative reporter Greg Palast on Tuesday made available a free download of his TV special Big Easy to Big Empty: The Untold Story of the Drowning of New Orleans.

"In the course of the filming, Palast was charged with violation of anti-terror laws on a complaint from Exxon Corporation," his bulletin noted.

The charges were dropped.

Palast documents how BigOil destroyed Mother Nature's hurricane shield, "14,688 square miles of wetlands drowned into the Gulf of Mexico."

Even after BigOil nuked N'awlins via Hurricane Katrina and the BP Deepwater Horizon oil rig fire, most people along the carcinogenic Gulf Coast would forgive all for jobs-jobs-jobs.

Sometimes I wonder why I try.

I think I'll go burn down a sixpack.

THE OLD-FASHIONED WAY. The annual Virginia City Labor Day Parade forms Monday at 11:00 a.m. Lunch will be served afterwards at the legendary Red Dog Saloon (very close to where the parade terminates) for all those wishing to partake, courtesy of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) Reno General Membership Branch, aka The Wobblies.

The parade begins at noon and usually concludes by 12:30 p.m. or thereabouts. For more information, call (608) 358-5771 or e-mail The Reno Wobblies.

Show up at the Fourth Ward School and march, dammit.

UPDATE: César Chávez-Nevada Hall of Famer George 'Battling" Nelson of UAW Local 2162 reports that between 200 and 300 union members plus a couple dozen union-made automobiles dominated the parade. Great job! Send photos, please!

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

WEB EXTRAS...

TOAST ALERT. Teachers' union gross profits tax petition supporters and opponents would do well to review the Barbwire of Feb. 28, 2013.

Passage of the tax initiative could easily lead to a successful court challenge that would at the same time blow out not only the revenue hike, but also term limits and the state's worst anti-union laws. Something for everybody.

ANTE INTO THE GAME: Support the new season of Barbwire.TV by putting your money where my mouth is.

PayPal monthly subscription software is now operational at the website.

A thousand thanks to those who already responded and keep sending show suggestions. Current frontrunners include (pardon the pun) wild mustangs as canned goods, education and  i-Guns with César Chávez in Nevada recently surging.

Now come queries about ballot questions. The Jan. 30 column brought a surge of inquiries about the Nevada State Education Association corporate tax petition on this November's ballot.

Stay tuned.

  Please forward additional ideas or vote on the above.

  I encourage you to donate to the cause at Barbwire.TV/

The medium that shapes public opinion needs at least one refuge where it is not filtered through the distorted green eye shades of prissy corporate accountants for whom profit is the only priority; where self-censorship is the journalist's normal work environment and where all sins of omission are tacitly encouraged and forgiven with the wave of a balance sheet.

This is important.

We've got work to do.

Get ahead of corporate-influenced news—>Subscribe to Barbwire Confidential.

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

____________

Special thanks to wise man Lewis Black for "red, white and screwed."
Andrew Barbano is a 45-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 and JoeNeal.org and DoctorLawyerWatch.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 Sparks Tribune since 1988.

The Underbellyof the News—>Subscribe to Barbwire Confidential

Smoking Guns... Get ahead of corporate-influenced news—>Subscribe to Barbwire Confidential 1. Bruder, Jessica; The End of Retirement—When you can't afford to stop working; Harper's Magazine, August 2014, at 28 Like Walmart, only with supercomputers and drones: At Amazon.com "cheap" comes at a very hefty price By Jim Hightower / 8-4-2014 2. Why go union? Union decline and rising inequality in two charts by Colin Gordon Economic Policy Institute / 6-5-2012 Labor Day: State of the Unions By Mark Robison / Reno Gazette-Journal / Sunday 9-1-2013 The above graph was used in journalist Mark Robison's extensive Hard Labor: Nevada unions tout role in helping workers, firms, economy (Sunday 2 Sept. 2012 Reno Gazette-Journal, page one, Reno Rebirth section of the print edition). Union men Jim Burrell, Paul McKenzie and Guy Louis Rocha did the movement proud. WOMEN AND UNIONS — ORPHAN MAJORITIES The Barbwire Labor Day column Reno Gazette-Journal / 9-3-2012 Sexy scandals, whitewashes & black towers Media overlook federal sex/race/ethnicity investigation into Washoe County School District Meanwhile, big money is spent strictly on abstinence State panel to review militarization of police departments In Nevada visit, new Veterans Administration boss proves all jobs require training Barbwire by Barbano / Expanded from the Sparks Tribune / 8-21-2014 ...and more ammo... The hardest and fairest questions yet asked of proponents of the teachers gross profits tax initiative Dennis Myers / Reno News & Review 7-10-2014 We Don't Need No Education The continuing Barbwire series Barbwire: Nevada not really a state No, we were not Battle Born in Kenya Top 10 reasons Nevada lives in the 19th Century Barbwire by Barbano / Expanded from the 10-17-2013 Sparks Tribune Low-income penalty: Nevada socks it to the working poor BARBANO: Nevada is one big company town Dennis Myers / Reno News & Review 10-10-2013 State of Health National health care comes up against a very sick state. WHAT'S IN IT FOR US? Dennis Myers / Reno News & Review 10-10-2013 USA at crossroads: New Deal or new Confederacy? Barbwire by Barbano / Expanded from the 10-10-2013 Sparks Tribune UPDATE—>Bill Moyers: Shutdown is simply secession by other means ...and more ammo yet IMF Head Says Inequality Threatens Democracy. Here Are 7 Charts Proving She’s Right. By Erika Eichelberger / Mother Jones/BillMoyers.com 5-30-2014 “The behavior of the financial sector has not changed fundamentally…since the crisis. The industry still prizes short-term profit.” The Post-Dated Recession: Pay me now or pay me later Barbwire by Barbano / Expanded from the 9-6-2012 Daily Sparks Tribune The Post-dated Recession By Joshua H. Silavent / Daily Sparks Tribune / 5-3-2011 Nevada Press Assn. Better Newspaper Contest HAT TRICK: Barbwire takes first place three years in a row. 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 Government contacts Nev. congressional delegation Nevada Legislature State of Nevada Secretary of State Carson City Clark County City of Las Vegas Douglas County Reno City Council Sparks City Council Washoe County Commission Washoe Registrar of Voters 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 The 2008 first-place Nevada Press Association award winners The price of a piece / 6-17-2007 Boxing Pandora /9-23-2007 The Lady in the Red Dress 10-28-2007 1997 Pulitzer Prize entries The life and times of Travus T. Hipp The best who ever was   Get ahead of corporate-influenced news—>Subscribe to Barbwire Confidential

SITE NAVIGATION TIPS: When all else fails, read the instructions

NevadaLabor.com | U-News | Bulletins + Almanac Casinos Out of Politics (COP) | Sen. Joe Neal Guinn Watch | Deciding Factors | BallotBoxing.US DoctorLawyerWatch.com | Barbwire Oilogopoly Archive Barbwire Nevada Corporate Welfare Archive Annual César Chávez Celebration War Rooms: Banks, Cabbies, Cabela's/cabellyup, Cable TV, Cancer Kids/Mining, Energy, Food, Health Care, Resurge.TV/consumers, Starbucks, Wal-Mart We Don't Need No Education Search this site | In Search Of...

Barbwire Archives

Copyright © 1982-2014 Andrew Barbano

Andrew Barbano is a 45-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 moved to Nevada's Daily Sparks Tribune on Aug. 12, 1988, and has originated in them parts ever since.
Whom to blame: How a hall-of-famer's hunch birthed the Barbwire in August of 1987
Tempus fugit.

Site composed and maintained by Deciding Factors, CWA 9413 signatory

Comments and suggestions appreciated. Sign up for news and bulletins