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Ricky,
Just What You
(and Your Hair)
Have Been Looking For!
706.552.1515
100 AthenstowrrBlvd.
Citysalonandspa.com
GNAT'S
LANDING
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. inms-
Saturday, September 3
UGA vs. Boise St.
Beer & Food Specials
To Hell with the ATI, stay in Athens to ring the BILL!
Sunday, September 4
Live Music with RISING SUN
Call us lor your
catering needs!
Mon 4pm-until • Tue-Sun 11:30am-Until • Plenty of Parking
1080 Baxter St. • 706-850-5858 • www.gnatslanding.net
The University of Georgia
College oUVeterinary Medicine
Community Pet Clinic
Helping to train tomorrow's veterinarians
We are a full-service small animal clinic offering:
• Routine spays/neuters lor dogs and cats
• I )ermatology and Behavior services
• Competitive pricing
• Easy relerral to the UGA Veterinary Teaching
Hospital il needed
Open Mon.-Fri., 8 a.m.-5 p.m.
By appointment: 706.542.1984
Drop-offs and walk-ins welcome
C*1ton Strut
-
vvww.vet.uga.edu/CPC
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HEIRLO®M
cafe & fresh market
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"I
YOUR NEIGHBORS
YOUR FARMERS
YOUR FOOD
BREAKFAST
LUNCH
DINNER
WEEKEND BRUNCH
BEER & WINE
706.354.7901
Corner of Chase and Boulevard
Wi heirloomathens.com FT ...
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David W. Griffeth
— ATTORNEY —
220 College Ave. Ste. 612
Athens. Georgia
(706) 353-1360
Admitted to the Bar of the United States
Supreme Court since 197(j>
And lesser courts
Auto Accidents. DUI. Drug Cases. Under-Age Possession
Personal Injury. Wrongful Death. Criminal Defense.
Credit Card Debt Relief
HI!
r
LOUNGE
Home of the
STROflG£ST Drinks!
2455 Jefferson Rd. in Homewood Hills
706.546.0840
Open 2pm M-F 12pm Sat
Karaoke £uery UJednesday 8 FirsL Friday
Blues nighF Thursday
Liue Band Friday 8 SaLurday
friendly neighborhood Bar • Pool • Free Popcorn • Jukebox
Haiti minimum wage
Hi there, young American. Would you like
to know why your generation will be the
first in this nation's history to experience
a lower standard of living than that of your
parents? And why it will continually get
worse during your lifetime? Would you like
to know what no politician dares admit, that
even if the unemployment crisis is remedied, we will
still be on a downward economic trajectory?
It's called capita 1 ^ •dobalization. The expansion of the
so-called "free market." h. re's the secret: it's not "free" at all.
Never was intended to be. It's only a myth that government
is at odds with the free market. Governments work in the ser
vice of corporations. That's the way it's always worked, really.
Washington's guiding concern during the early days of Hitler's
reign was not the increasing abuse of Jews, but Germany's
outstanding debts to American banks. The Mexican debt crisis
of 1982 (Google that shit!) was another instance of Wall Street
determining the direction of politics and further concentrating
its wealth at the expense of an entire nation. The whole thing
came home to roost in 2008 with our own economic crisis. The
Tea Party crowd couldn't be more off the mark when they moan
about the dangers of government regulation on corporations:
the problem is the corporations' regulation of governments.
The good folks at Wikileaks provide a small window into
the functioning of this system. Uncovered in a series of leaked
State Department memos, it can now be seen that the United
States government, doing the bidding of a number of massive
transnational corporations, overrode Haiti's democratically
(and unanimously) decided minimum wage increase to ensure
more profit for the corporations with factories in the Western
Hemisphere's poorest country.
We're talking Hanes, Fruit of the Loom, Levi's and others—
companies that used to employ unionized U.S. citizens at fairly
decent wages. Over the past 35 years or so, those companies
and many others strategically moved their factories to coun
tries whose citizens were desperate, poor and not protected by
unions. So-called "free trade" deals were arranged so that prod
ucts and materials (but not people) could move freely across
borders. (Google "Free enterprise zone" or "FTAA" for more.)
The great coup (so to speak) was that, while being called
"free" trade, the newly arranged circumstances were often
predicated on the power of the United States government to
ensure permanently desperate, permanently powerless and
poor workers in those countries. We Americans, then, were
forced to compete with the citizens of countries whose lead
ers kept them poor and relatively powerless, willing to work
for anything. For many years, and continuing into the present,
attempts by workers to challenge their conditions have often
been met with "death squads," some of which are U.S.-trained
in Columbus, GA, of all places. Google "killer Coke" to find
harrowing accounts of Colombian paramilitary forces gunning
down union organizers at Coca-Cola plants in that country.
Colombia's guerrilla killers are in some cases both U.S.-
funded and -trained, ostensibly to curb the cocaine trade. But
the guerrillas are now in the business of killing hundreds of
union organizers who dare challenge the orthodoxies of "free
trade." The Washington-backed coups in Venezuela in 2003
and Haiti in 2004 suggest that this decades-long story is not
over. (Google "Jacobo Arbenz" or "Salvador Allende" for a brief
introduction to some of that history.)
Controlling the economies of countries like Haiti, Honduras,
Chile and Nicaragua is ultimately a way of controlling our
own. In a global economy, workers in the United States are
ultimately competing against everyone else. By forcefully
maintaining poor conditions for citizens and workers in these
countries, corporations tamp down global wages. Manufacturers
will never repatriate factories to U.S. soil as long as
Washington is helping to maintain wage-slave environments
in places like Haiti. So, when you hear politicians talk about
their "jobs plans" in the coming months, pay attention to what
they're not saying.
Matthew Pulver
8 FLAGPOLE.COM -AUGUST 31, 2011