This article explains that the immigrants who work in our house as helpers or housekeepers today are no better off than immigrant workers hundreds of years ago. They have virtually no protection from exploitation. Whether a minority women working in a suburban home, or the immigrant working the tomato farms of Florida, laborers are bent at the will of their employer. Usually, this is not positive, as profit is usually the only goal for greedy business-people.

While Barbara Ehrenreich has a powerful quote in this article, Andy Sterns is much more so, "Well, the good news is this isn't Rwanda or Darfur or some impoverished country. This is the greatest country on earth with the greatest amount of wealth. The problem isn't about the wealth. It's about distribution. And the truth is we are seeing America's growing apart instead of growing together."

This quote epitomizes the problems that the American economy faces today. The rich keep getting richer, and the poor are getting poorer. The problem is not a lack of wealth, but rather a deeper division between social classes. The ideals of this nation have not come to pass.

Barbara Ehrenreich wants to make clear that she is not a spoilsport. "No one can call me a sourpuss," she declared. "I have a big foot in the joy camp." She is the author of "Dancing in the Streets," a history of "collective joy," she notes, and a lot of fun at parties.

Ehrenreich has been labeled as a pessimist, one who brings out the worst in the society we live in. This could be true, as she describes that she was shocked to see such cheerfulness after being diagnosed with breast cancer in "Bright Sided". Ehrenreich is not a "sourpuss" but rather a realist who tells it like it is.

Wordd

"...slamming the car into Michell and sending him to the hospital with a broken kneecap, a badly torn shoulder, and two herniated disks. Michell was so devoted to Wal-Mart that he somehow returned to work the next day, but a few weeks later... He was fired soon afterward,...to dismiss workers whose injuries run up Wal-Mart's workers' comp bills." This article shows a direct comparison to Fast Food Nation. Kenny Dobbins was also a loyal worker, and when injured on the job he was fired due to a request of compensation. Mike Mitchell caught 180 shoplifters in a two- year period, but when injured on the job, Wal-Mart did not have his back. The article shows the theme of profit over treatment of the worker. The article also has interesting facts/statistics about the middle and low class laborer of the modern day.

"Why is an author who slams the "corporate overclass" suddenly so popular with the corporate overclass? The usual masochism of the affluent accounts for some of it. The rich like to be told they're wicked, both because it confirms that they're powerful and because it makes them feel slightly less guilty." This article explains why Nickel and Dimed has popularity, even with the upper class. The rich, while they still may be wicked in some regards, have come to accept this fact rather then shy away from it. By knowing and accepting that they are the fittest in Darwin's "Survival of the Fittest" theory, which has carried over to American Capitalism, they feel "that they're powerful". The article shows interesting perspectives on which types of person read the novel and for what reasons.

This article sums up abuse and bad business ethics from The Jungle to today. The reasoning used is that the meat industry simply abuses their power because they can. Profits are once again the overall goal for the businessmen that run our meat industry.

This page is interesting because it talks about the tactics that employers used to combat unions and strikes. They used a combination of black listing, espionage, strikebreaking, and company unions. Unions were the only threat to the industrial machine, and had to be dealt with. Profits were the only goal for employers, so even mistreatment of the laborers and their unions was common.

This article, and the video attached, is truly remarkable. The workers that pick cheap produce for companies like Taco Bell are some of the worst paid in the nation. These workers banded together to rise up against Taco Bell and Yum! Brands, and won. The article talks about how they may have started a nationwide movement, as their success may be inspiring for other mistreated laborers for the giant fast food industry.

This article discusses one major consequence of Fast Food Nation, which deals with Trans Fats. Trans Fat is a type of fatty acid that is extremely unhealthy, and new legislation was passed in 2003, requiring all food labels to contain levels of trans fats. This is certainly a benefit of Schlosser's muckracking novel.

"I aimed for the public's heart," wrote Upton Sinclair, referring to his muckraking hit The Jungle, "and by accident, I hit it in the stomach."

Fast Food Nation was acclaimed a modern day version of The Jungle when first published. However, this article shows that it was more than your average muckracking novel. It explains that the power of unions fell as the "Fast Food Nation" rose. Also, Schlosser's piece explained the widening social gap of Americans, as the rich got richer and the poor got poorer.

Didn't realize that people already used this source.

Nine Food and Drug Administration scientists have written a letter to President-elect Barack Obama asking him to fix the "broken" organization.

The FDA was created when Theodore Roosevelt was sickened after reading The Jungle. The meat industry was a sickening one in the late 1800s, but conditons have not gotten much better. Scientists writing to Obama about the failures of the FDA have cited that most of the money and resources goes into drug safety, while "the food side of the agency has lurched from one crisis to the next." This article shows that while Sinclair made food safety a relevant topic in America, the fight for clean meat is still not over.

Great review of the Grapes of Wrath with specific topics brought out by the book.

The review talks about the specific angles of poverty, labor rights, unemployment, and discrimination. It also compares the plight of the "Okies" to the treatment of today's immigrants. Just as current immigrants have derogatory names, the "immigrant Okies" were hated by residents of California where they eventually resided. The fight for labor rights was a strong interest of Jim Casy, and later Tom's, who began organizing people soon after coming to California.

This selection shows Steinbecks true intentions in writing The Grapes of Wrath. He was once hailed as the "great new prophet of proletarian literature" who is said to have felt deep remorse for the masses and wanted better conditions for all. Steinbeck wanted a world where the little guy could rise up and have as much as the wealthy, or socialism.

This source gives a general description of the hard times of the 1930s, beginning with the stock market crash in 1929. The Grapes of Wrath is written about this time period, when the dust bowl was also occurring. Times were tough for millions of American, as the unemployment rate rose to 25% nationwide and many more suffered cuts in wages. The migrant Okies and others affected by the Dust Bowl were hardest hit, as they had to deal with mother nature and a near-dead economy.

This article mainly shows how Steinbeck gathered his information that he later compiled into the Grapes of Wrath. Steinbeck lived among the "Okie" families and talked to them about their struggles in California. He was hosted by the Weedpatch Camp numerous times, and Tom Collins was especially helpful in Steinbeck's work. Both men fought an battle to better Okie migrant laborer and family living conditions. Steinbeck's work was also influenced by some of Collins', who was an influential reporter himself

This article is one that describes the depressing plight of Kenny Dobbins, a worker at the Monfort/ Con-Agra Beef Plant in Greeley, Colorado. A hard working and loyal worker, Dobbins suffered injuries, saved lives, and broke strikes during his years, only to be rewarded by getting fired after suffering a heart attack and seeking compensation. A recurring theme seen in Fast Food Nation and The Jungle was that profits are the only concern for businessmen, as the worker is indespensable and replaceable.

"Mohandas Gandhi said that a nation's moral progress can be judged by the way it treats its animals."

This article brings up a very important point to the discussion of ethics, or lack of, in the meat packing industry. While many readers who read The Jungle or Fast Food Nation focus on the treatment of the worker or food safety, animal welfare is also a chief concern of these books, and even in plants today. Throughout the past century, people and groups, like PETA, have fought for better conditions for animals in the slaughterhouses. These are places where chickens don't have enough room to flap their wings, pigs cannot turn around, and sick cows are sometimes dragged to the slaughterhouse.

Working Conditions in American Slaughterhouses 2001

This article shows a direct relationship of The Jungle to current conditions in slaughterhouses around the nation. The article compares Jurgis Rudkis to a modern Mexican immigrant. Recruiting Mexican immigrants to work in the slaughterhouses has become a common practice in the industry, as the Naturalization Services estimates one quarter of the workers in Nebraska and Iowa are illegal immigrants. The article also explains the relation of injuries on the job to the cleanliness of meat we eat. The fast pace in slaughterhouses leads to contamination of meat, as accidental intestinal spillage of cattle is found in meat. Due to this contamination, fast food is not safe to eat, since the fast food industry buys most of the country's meat.