‘Knocking Off YouTube’s Populist Halo’

Alexander Reed Kelly / Truthdig Jun 19, 2014 With the launch of its streaming music service, Google-owned YouTube is revealing itself as the kind of "troublesome, exploitative" intermediary it promised it would never be, Jacob Silverman writes at The Baffler. Dig deeper ( 2 Min. Read )

‘Friends Without Benefits’: ‘Job Creators’ Accrue More Terrifying Power

Alexander Reed Kelly / Truthdig May 31, 2014 Applying for a job you need but don't really want is bad enough. But now "Zappos, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Amazon, is going to occupy the unemployed for months with (mostly futile) attempts to become virtual 'friends' with the online shoe retailer," Noah McCormack writes at The Baffler. Dig deeper ( 2 Min. Read )

David Graeber: ‘There Has Been a War on the Human Imagination’

Alexander Reed Kelly / Truthdig Aug 13, 2013 American intellectuals have had plenty of cause for despair in these Roman decades of international and domestic imperialism against different ways of thought and life. At an April launch party in San Francisco for the 22nd volume of the countercultural magazine The Baffler, anthropologist and contributor David Graeber explained some of how this happened and praised a nationwide grass-roots effort to reverse the trend. Dig deeper ( 1 Min. Read )

Back to Blunt the Cutting Edge

Alexander Reed Kelly / Truthdig Jul 19, 2013 John Summers, editor-in-chief of the critical, satirical magazine The Baffler, appeared on Boston's WGBH News to introduce his journal to television audiences, saying that when people ask what the publication is about, he "remind[s] them that this sort of thing existed for a long time in the American cultural scene." Dig deeper ( 1 Min. Read )

Let Nicholas Kristof Damage Your Mind

Alexander Reed Kelly / Truthdig Jun 15, 2013 In a late 2012 PBS series called "Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide," the lauded New York Times columnist and professional flake "glosses" the harmful "utopian vision" of free-market globalization sold to Americans in a 1980 television broadcast by neoliberal economist Milton Friedman, Anne Elizabeth Moore writes in The Baffler.In an October PBS series, the lauded New York Times columnist and professional flake "glossed" Milton Friedman's harmful and dishonest "utopian vision" of free-market globalization. Dig deeper ( 5 Min. Read )

Modify Your Criticism, Please

Alexander Reed Kelly / Truthdig Dec 28, 2012 Left-wing generationalism is on display on the pages of this month’s Jacobin as editor Peter Frase responds to Baffler contributor Thomas Frank’s criticism of the ethos of the Occupy movement. Dig deeper ( 3 Min. Read )

How OWS Toppled Itself

Alexander Reed Kelly / Truthdig Dec 14, 2012 Postmodern confusion about how populist movements take hold and flourish caused Occupy Wall Street to “deconstruct” itself in a frenzied obsession with nonhierarchical structures, a disdain for demands, and other trappings of “lazy, reflexive libertarianism,” author and columnist Thomas Frank writes in The Baffler. Dig deeper ( 2 Min. Read )

The Working Life of a Professional Cynic

Alexander Reed Kelly / Truthdig Nov 1, 2012 Thomas Frank, master of sarcasm and chief polemicist for Harper’s Magazine, is a treasure of the anxious, aggravated left. He recently made a demonstration of happy defiance in the face of accelerating social disaster in an interview with The Financial Times. Dig deeper ( 1 Min. Read )

Dead End on Shakin’ Street

Alexander Reed Kelly / Truthdig Jul 14, 2012 As American communities crumble under the weight of corporate capitalism, leaders attempt to convince their fellow citizens that the magical quality of “vibrancy” dwelling in arts districts—not universal health care, financial regulation or public works projects—will get their towns back on their feet. Dig deeper ( 1 Min. Read )

We Told You So

By James K. Galbraith, The Baffler May 19, 2012 Two months before the collapse of Lehman Brothers in 2008, a group of experts and I warned the Obama campaign about the likelihood of a global economic crisis. Not the slightest word came back. Dig deeper ( 10 Min. Read )

My Consensus, Right or Wrong

Staff / Truthdig Mar 21, 2012 With the revival of The Baffler, former WSJ columnist and current Harper’s Magazine contributor Thomas Frank reveals that success in Washington and big business has everything to do with belonging to the right pack, especially if that pack was dead wrong about the economy. Dig deeper ( 2 Min. Read )

The Baffler Is Back

Staff / Truthdig May 20, 2011 Dissident lefties, rejoice! After a long hiatus resulting from an office fire and a host of other problems, Thomas Frank's fearless cultural journal, The Baffler, is due to return this summer online and in print in all of its caustic, critical glory. (more) Dig deeper ( 2 Min. Read )