Craig Barnes
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Craig Barnes has worked as an infantry officer, a hodcarrier, a trial lawyer, a lobbyist for industry, and run for Congress in Denver. He initiated the Sunshine and Sunset concepts in Colorado legislation, was co-counsel on the Denver school integration case and the nation's first comparable worth case for women. He has been a newspaper columnist for the Rocky Mountain News and a regular commentator on public radio.

In the 1980s he negotiated nuclear issues with leaders in the Academy of Sciences in the Kremlin; in the 1990s he facilitated talks between opposing sides in the ethnic cleansing war between Armenia and Azerbaijan and thereafter led successful talks to fashion the first transboundary water agreements between the new republics of Kazakhstan, Uzbeckistan, Tajickistan, and Kyrghzstan.

His stage plays include the 16th century trilogy, Queen Elizabeth I, King’s Yellow and The Last Tudor, all of which were performed in Santa Fe. His play A Nation Deceived featured Ed Asner in the lead role as the prosecutor of Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld for lies and war crimes, is on DVD, and was performed in Santa Fe and Los Angeles.

His historical study In Search of the Lost Feminine explores archeology and patriarchal myths and was winner of the USA Best Books award in Cultural Anthropology in 2006. He received the New Mexico AP Award for best radio commentary in 2004. His childhood memoir, Growing Up True featured life in Arapahoe County in the 1940s and won the Colorado Book Award in 2001.
His upcoming book Democracy At The Crossroads is a study of the centuries-long conflict between democracy and feudalism and will be in bookstores in November, 2009.

He has four grown children, eleven grandchildren and has been married to his wife Mikaela for 51 years. For more information go to www.CraigBarnes.com

Blog Entries by Craig Barnes

Power to the Congress

Posted December 14, 2010 | 10:19:43 (EST)

The president has met with Republicans and put together a tax deal that was, he said, the best he could get from them. He argued that something was better than nothing. Since Republicans had declared that they would otherwise demand nothing, the President was being practical. He wanted to get...

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Hope in a Time of Sorrow

Posted November 8, 2010 | 22:47:39 (EST)

There seems to be a constant series of examples in history that reflect what we are living through this week: from Psistratus in Athens to Caesar in Rome to the Duke of Lancaster in 15th-century England to Napoleon to Lenin and Hitler and now to Karl Rove, a multitude of...

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Reversing History

Posted November 2, 2010 | 12:42:28 (EST)

As the flood of money flows into our political campaigns for governor, much of it from out of state, New Mexicans are caught up not just in a contest for the soul of the state but in a contest for the soul of the country. Many of those who...

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The Myth of the Free Market

Posted August 16, 2010 | 11:09:05 (EST)

Millions of Americans are today unemployed because the free market is not working for them. Millions of Americans have lost their homes because the free market did not work for them or for the banks. Before the health care bill passed last January millions could not get health care because...

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Abolish the Filibuster

Posted May 10, 2010 | 14:23:29 (EST)

It generally happens in world history that change comes to rural areas later than it comes to cities and that, no matter where you are on the planet, rural areas are more conservative politically, which is saying the same thing, really, since conservative means to want to hold on...

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The Record So Far

Posted January 27, 2010 | 16:37:57 (EST)

I received a note from a listener complaining about Obama's leadership and stating that the president has simply "wasted 365 days." Many on the liberal left agree. Major initiatives proposed in his campaign have not been realized. The senate has proved obdurate. The public option is essentially off the table....

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Good and Evil in a Troubled World

Posted December 21, 2009 | 17:02:03 (EST)

Nobody seems happy. Not the democrats who want to get out of Afghanistan; not the Republicans who want to bomb devils and wipe out evil. Not the prophets of non-violence and not the advocates of strength. Obama's autumn strategy is a collage of contradictions. On the one hand, he is...

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The Reality of PTSD

Posted December 16, 2009 | 18:50:57 (EST)

Many years ago when I served in the infantry, my closest friend was a young West Pointer named Burt. He was a first rate soldier. When we rotated out, I came home and Burt went on to Vietnam. He led troops in combat and won a Silver Star for heroism....

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The Corporate Danger: Plutonomy

Posted October 30, 2009 | 20:07:31 (EST)

All over Washington, from the Congress to the White House, the smart money is betting that this autumn the Supreme Court will give corporations the same right to spend in federal elections as has any person. Free spending, five justices will say, is the same as free speech and to...

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A Second American Revolution

Posted November 24, 2008 | 05:09:33 (EST)

Two weeks ago, I stepped outside into the smell of pinôn pines under a bright blue-sky morning. Aspen leaves lay golden across our steps and scattered out into the grasses around the house. The Gramma grass had gone black and at this time of year the long, tall Little Blue...

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Voting for Obama

Posted October 27, 2008 | 14:40:10 (EST)

In 1952, when I was 16, my father was stationed in the Air Force in London. I was dating a general's daughter. I can still remember her kisses. They were luscious and the best experience to that point of my young life. Then one night in early September, just after...

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Palin at the G8

Posted October 13, 2008 | 15:11:48 (EST)


Are the American people going to put Sarah Palin in a position from which she might have to be the one to lead a cabinet of economic and financial advisors to navigate us out of this cascading global crisis?

Chinese, Saudi Arabian and Russian interests...

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