Huffington Magazine Issue 48 | Page 47

THE GREASE TRAP their public relations rhetoric. The National Restaurant Association, which last year spent more than $1 million on campaign contributions and $2.7 million on lobbying, deploys the phrase as a matter of course in the pro-forma statement it sends to reporters who inquire about wages: “In addition to providing more than 13 million job opportunities, the industry also gives individuals the chance to achieve the American dream, with 80 percent of owners and managers having started their careers in entry-level positions.” The twin expectations that hard work will lead to success and that each generation will do better than the last are practically enshrined in the Constitution — and they’re personified by the unlikely figure whose portraits hang on the walls of thousands of KFC “My dad struggled, my mom struggled, my grandma struggled, and now I’m struggling. It’s rigged that way. It’s rigged that way to keep you down.” HUFFINGTON 05.12.13 franchises around the world. Although “Colonel” Harland Sanders eventually turned himself into a popular symbol of prosperity by appropriating the wh