Liberia: Does The Boss Approve? How the Country Subsidises the Super Bowl

20 February 2009
opinion

As he laments Bruce 'The Boss' Springsteen's willingness to cuddle up to the Bridgestone tyre corporation and mega-market Wal-Mart, Gerald Caplan explores the exploitative history of Bridgestone and its Firestone subsidiary in Liberia. Alluding to many African countries' 'double jeopardy' in the shape of avaricious leaders and self-interested rich-country policies, Caplan discusses the outrageous working demands imposed upon Firestone's rubber-tappers, demands which often see workers obliged to draft in unpaid family members in order to fulfil quotas. With the company largely impervious to the campaign of elected union leaders to improve working conditions, the author highlights the struggle of the Stop Firestone Coalition for greater labour equity.

President Obama's quixotic crusade against the ugly face of capitalism has more loopholes than restrictions and will prove a mere nuisance to America's army of greedmongers. Thanks to the unprecedented generosity of government, in which they don't believe but which they are thrilled to loot, these guys have continued to make themselves rich far beyond the dreams of avarice.

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