Jennifer+C’s+2016+OpEd+Article


 * From Tears to Blood to Plate **

Over a century after Upton Sinclair criticized the vile happenings in the 20th century meat-packing business, this abominable industry still thrives off the same cruel, backbreaking habits - but this time, without even the slightest objection.

At least in 1906 we had Sinclair to rile America up; at least in 1906 we had Roosevelt to push forward *slightly* more restrictive legislation. In modern day society, with the lone vegetarian or vegan being ticketed as “pretentious” and shamed into silence, a vast majority of today’s people go through their life consuming incomprehensibly large amounts of meat; meat that has been tainted with the not only the blood of mistreated animals, but also the sweat and pain of impoverished workers in both America as well as the rest of the world.

You see, when most of today’s people think of the “corruption in the meat industry” that those veggie-people always tout, they think of the abuse and agonizing slaughter that the animals suffer; and while it is true that cows/pigs/chickens are jammed into tiny pens, wade in their own excrement, and die of starvation or diseases because they are unable to move because of their crippling, anitbiotic-caused obesity (and you were worried about your genetically modified apple?) the humans disregarded by this industry are treated just as cruelly.

After the unions and national attention dissipated, all hell broke loose on the kill floor. Because of the astronomic chances of injury and even death, meatpacking is a job that no native-born Americans take. As a result, the majority of meatpackers and factory farm workers are migrant workers from Latin America that came to the U.S. illegally; why is this significant? If these mistreated workers, who spend their days covered in blood/liquified pork brain (this is a real job), decide to organize and demand for fairer wages, they risk termination and deportation. That’s right, if workers decide to report an injury, they could lose their entire life.

Yet to this day, neither the industry nor our people have shown ANY inclinations whatsoever to see through legislation responsible for increasing the rights of these workers, or for any reform at all.

This, however, isn’t __completely__ our fault.

The meat lobby is one of the most influential legislative groups in Washington; in 2014 alone, the livestock industry poured $4 million into lobbyists. To put this into context, gun lobbyists (specifically the NRA) spent less than half that amount. The meat industry has so much sway over our legislators that our government can’t even pass proper food-safety regulations. A bill written in response to an E. Coli outbreak that hospitalized 700 Americans was derailed as a result of meat lobbyists, and thus measures involving simple salmonella tests were killed.

Over a century after Roosevelt’s Pure Food and Drug Act (which banned mislabeled and poisoned food), our children are taught in public schools that meat-consumption is crucial to our health. Is this not another form mislabeling, this time conducted directly by our government? When even the World Health Organization backs the hundreds of reports (by sources including the American Cancer Society and International Agency for Research on Cancer) detailing the heavy correlation between meat, heart-disease, and cancer, shouldn’t our people have the right to know this?

For decades, the meat industry has used their power to influence government-issued dietary guidelines. Efforts by the USDA to stop touting meat as a necessary part of our diet, or atleast warn consumers of the health risks that come with what the put in their mouths, have been repeatedly thwarted and undermined. But why are these federal guidelines or warnings important? These guidelines heavily influence federal feeding programs in things like prisons and schools. Now you understand why our cafeteria has such minimal vegetarian options, and no vegan options whatsoever.

As discourse in Kindred’s room over passive resistance expands, it is important to note that while not going to school or “preferring not to” do your job can be overall inefficient and harmful to only yourself, refusing to be a contributor to this corrupt industry’s audience is not only a step away from extreme human rights violations, it is also greatly beneficial to your own body.

But passive resistance isn’t enough. It is about time politicians stopped allowing themselves to be manipulated by these corrupt corporations, and about time for us to increase dialogue about this inhumane, dishonest issue that plagues our modern world.