At your highest moment, be careful. That’s when the devil comes for you.
Denzel Washington
The formerly united states of America have been on a drug-induced high since 1945. We were rich, powerful and on top of the world economically, militarily and egotistically. Very addictive opiates.
We didn’t know it but we peaked by 1968, the year a dollar bought more than anytime since, adjusted for inflation.
Price hikes became rampant in the 1970s due to the humongous expenditures for the Vietnam War and the deficit spending to cover them. (Barbwire 7-25-1999) Plus the start of an endless series of tax breaks for the corporately wealthy.
Today, we are funding another, if much more justified, undeclared war. The buying power of the dollar was one of the few highlights of 1968, which saw MLK and RFK iced, the latter leading to the election of President Richard the Rotten. This month, America marked the 50th anniversary of the Watergate burglary concurrent with sensational congressional hearings on 2021’s Treasongate.
To his credit, President Nixon imposed wage and price controls to get a handle on inflation caused by the war and the 1973 OPEC oil embargo.
Today, the highest gasoline prices in the country are extracted from western U.S. customers. But what about our insurance policy?
Anybody remember why oil drilling was allowed on the once-pristine Alaskan north slope? Why, to insulate the west from oil shocks. They pumped so much that our fearless leaders allowed export to Japan.
About the only good thing that happened in 1973 was the U.S. Supreme Court’s 7-2 decision on Roe v. Wade, with five Republican appointees in the majority.
By 1984 with President Ronald the Vague coasting to re-election, the vaunted American middle class, which had enjoyed unparalleled prosperity for a quarter-century, had shrunk by fully nine percent. Three percentage points moved up to Fat City, while six points (and growing) faced a future of ramen noodles and cheap beer.
Reagan was right about one thing in his re-election campaign: “You ain’t seen nothin’ yet.”
Corporate America proved very adept at keeping the great unwashed fighting for crumbs falling from the banquet tables of our overseers.
Overturning Roe was merely the stalking horse to create corporate courts infested with judges groomed almost from birth to do the bidding of the overlords.
Today’s crooks make Nixon look like a virgin. (Apologies to Madonna.) Nixon signed into law the Clean Air, Clean Water and Endangered Species acts, plus the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). Madonna, call your office.
Warnings of the devil’s ascendance are legion. The Supremes and their amen chorus have gutted voting rights, gerrymandering restrictions, campaign money limits, immigrant mercy, environmental protections and many things we have taken for granted. Like food and drug safety.
Even treason. If the bad guys take over Congress this fall, they will do what they are so good at doing: defunding. Plodding Attorney General Merrick Garland won’t have the budget to finish the job against Czar Donaldov and his minions. The old judge will learn how federal meat inspectors feel.
Clarence the Cruel (Barbwire 9-15-1991) would never have made it to Blackrobe Valhalla had then-Senator Joe BIden not prevented Anita Hill’s corroborating witnesses from testifying about Clarence’s personal peckerdilloes. Why? Alas, our president is a victim of appease-to-please bi-partisan proclivities. Biden takes dull knives to gunfights.
After I saw the first Roe bulletin, I didn’t watch the news for awhile.
Nothing new to learn. As Steven Colbert said, the only difference between the leaked Alito opinion and last Friday’s “was the type font.”
Once again, the best columnist in the country put it in the fewest words: “This is a story of men gaining power by trading away something that means little to them compared to their own stature: the rights of women.”
Maureen Dowd’s NY Times colleague Linda Greenhouse added the sour cherry atop this spoiled sundae: “They did it because they could. It was as simple as that.”
They also declared open season on everything else that holds this devolving democracy together.
A talk radio colleague of mine once abruptly disconnected an antiabortion caller. “Only women have standing to talk about that” groused Gail the Pickle Lady. (She specialized in canning both preserves and obnoxious conversations.)
Like prohibition on booze, abortion bans don’t work well but sell well to benighted minds in constant need of having their inert emotions enthralled. Susceptible souls desire simple solutions to complex problems: yes/no, black/white, binomial bumper stickers for brains of meme mentality.
Two of three Americans know someone who’s had an abortion. Perhaps allergies are more common but not much else. I can see Czar Vladimir in his palace ordering his Internet trolls to send out some outrageous story to the great American gullibles who immediately accept it as fact.
Great diversion from running a boring war, eh wot? Maybe someday the Russians will top the one about devil-worshipping Democrat baby eaters.
Until then, our government cloaks establishment of religious dogma in the swaddling clothes of babes, another trick from Putin’s playbook.
ROOTS OF RANCOR. The Republican wave of 2010 rigged the election game in most states. Some lay the fall of Roe at the feet of that debacle. I agree with the result but not the cause. It was not the usual off year gains for the party in the White House. Nor was it Obamacare.
It was revulsion at America electing a black president in 2008. The backlash that ramped up with Reagan exploded because of our national disease: Good ole American racism.
As Frederick Douglass counseled so long ago, “agitate, agitate, agitate!” Organize! Fight back any way you can every day.
Take care of each other and be careful out there. Pray for Ukraine and 53 other currently war-torn lands.
Be well. Raise hell. / Esté bien. Haga infierno.
Andrew Quarantino Barbano, a 53-year Nevadan, is editor of ConsumerCoalitionv. org, Rentvolution.org, MississippiWestNV. org and NevadaLabor.com. He is a longtime member of the Reno-Sparks NAACP. Barbwire by Barbano has originated in the Tribune since 1988.
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