May have been instrumental in shaping my political/social points of view.

I think it might have been when I was 14 or 15. And it was something I picked and not as an assignment.

I'm not into bodice rippers. I remember crying behind my sunglasses, feeling sickened and thinking it should be require reading at every damn high school in America.

2020 and so little has changed...

Exploitation of immigrants and the underclass. the powerlessness, poverty and desperation.

in the 1970s

January 24, 2005
Blood, Sweat, and Fear
Workers’ Rights in U.S. Meat and Poultry Plants
https://www.hrw.org/report/2005/01/24/blood-sweat-and-fear/workers-rights-us-meat-and-poultry-plants


CHICAGO, Jan. 26 (UPI) -- President Teddy Roosevelt supposedly threw his breakfast sausages out a window after reading Upton Sinclair's book "The Jungle," which exposed corruption and abuses in the meatpacking industry at the turn of the century.

One hundred years later the American Meat Institute, an industry trade group, finds itself denying a scathing report alleging "systematic human rights violations" at U.S. meat and poultry plants.

A 175-page report, "Blood, Sweat, and Fear: Workers' Rights in U.S. Meat and Poultry plants," released by Human Rights Watch Tuesday examined beef packing in Nebraska, hog slaughtering in North Carolina and chicken processing in Arkansas and reported unnecessarily hazardous work conditions and exploitation of immigrant labor.

The report by the privately funded human-rights organization accused large meat companies of using intimidation, reprisals, threats and fear of deportation to take advantage of immigrant workers -- calling working conditions a violation of basic human rights.
https://www.upi.com/Defense-News/2005/01/26/Analysis-Is-meatpacking-a-jungle/90611106776309/

Need to reread it. It’s been 40 years.

Wisconsin Supreme Court justice: Meatpackers aren't 'regular folks'

https://www.democraticunderground.com/10142489043

Conservative Justice.

That book gave me PTSD.

There's only so much pain I can absorb.

Its brutal, but worth the read.
Tragic how things really havent changed much in 100 years.