Zinn's quote is ridiculous, but this is rather unfair to Sinclair. He did interview a lot of meatpacking workers and visited their facilities before writing The

Zinn's quote is ridiculous, but this is rather unfair to Sinclair. He did interview a lot of meatpacking workers and visited their facilities before writing The Jungle. It was so influential that the FDA was passed in less than a year after it was serialized in the newspaper. Keep in mind that Sinclair lived in time when information traveled slowly, so employing sensationalism to raise awareness was a good thing. However, nowadays, raising awareness is the only thing that anyone seems to be capable of doing these days in politics. The passage of the Food and Drug Act would be completely unthinkable today by our current do-nothing Congress. Both sides of the political spectrum have expressed interest doing something to regulate social media, and they've wasted multiple hearings with the CEOs of tech giants to collect juicy sound bites. I think part of it is that in history class, we learn about Sinclair, Rosa Parks, and MLK, and how they lead to all these great reforms, but meanwhile the lobbyists and Congressman busy pushing legislation through. As a result, we elect politicians that larp as activists than actually write policy.