Cogs in the Great Machine

1. Cogs in the Great Machine By: Tristan Bidwell And Gage Porter

2. Greed Assertion • Schlosser states that meat packing companies only focus on efficiency and will discard morality to improve their profits and efficiency • The author proves this by listing information such as: they specifically recruit immigrants rather than employ American citizens solely to improve their profits

3. Generates Crime Assertion • The author asserts that meat packing facilities create crime. • He proves this by stating that IBP executives used the mafia to get intimidate employees striking against his company.

4. Cruelty Towards Cattle Assertion • The author asserts that cattle are subjected to harsh treatment such as “The grain fattens the cattle quickly, added by the anabolic steroids implanted in their ear,” he later goes on to say that cattle will consume more than three thousand pounds of grain during its stay at the feedlot.

5. Our Examination of the author’s argument and his bias • Some points were well proven and had quite of merit behind them while others, such as his assertion that the meat packing industry is related to crime, are flimsy

6. Author’s Bias • The author is clearly bias against meat packing companies and his arguments are far from objective. Our proof for this stems from some of his more extreme assertions about the meat packing industry. The more absurd claims were some of the claims he made in his opening statement. These claims were “They have turned one of the nation’s best paying manufacturing jobs into one of the lowest paying, created a migrant industrial workforce of poor immigrants, tolerated high injury rates, and spawned rural gettos in the American heartland.”

7. Relevance • Due to the author’s extreme bias, his arguments must be taken with a grain of salt. This is due to the fact that he does have deceant points, however there are some that are unfounded and quite frankly ridiculous