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The Baffler

@thebaffler.com

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Political and cultural criticism. Since 1988. Online and in print. https://thebaffler.com/

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The Baffler @thebaffler.com · Sep 3

The Baffler no. 80 is now available online and in print.

“American Vendetta” considers our grudges and grievances: blood feuds and broadsides, lawsuits and gang wars, and the racist paranoia driving immigration policy.

Start reading now.

no. 80—American Vendetta

Gauche, in my opinion, to settle a grudge worthy of the name with money. (Did you not nurse that grievance? Would you sell your child?) But when the payoff grows big enough, cooler heads prevail…

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The Baffler @thebaffler.com · 41m

Poetry from Baffler no. 80: “Mouse Song” by Yongyu Chen.

Mouse Song | Yongyu Chen

There is so much intuition left on the exposed outcrops. Won’t we scrape it off the / beams, the split plinths, until nothing is left?

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The Baffler @thebaffler.com · 2h

The Zoxx Social Club was a once popular watering hole for General Motors workers. When the factory closed, the bar persevered—until the city of Janesville started eminent domain proceedings.

Last Call at Zoxx Social Club | Nick Rommel

Will a power-guzzling data center take the place of a beloved watering hole in Wisconsin?

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The Baffler @thebaffler.com · 12h

The state of contemporary criticism is dire, but here at The Baffler, we’re still plugging away. Subscribe to Culture Trust to see the fruits of our efforts.

Get reliable access to the eviscerating cultural reportage for which The Baffler is known worldwide!

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5 9

The Baffler @thebaffler.com · 14h

The Block family could fully fund the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette if they wanted to. Indeed, meeting the demands of the striking workers would be cheaper than replacing them and retaining a union-busting firm.

Stop the Presses | Tadhg Larabee

In Pittsburgh, one newsroom has been on strike for more than two years. Something has to give. Will it be the workers?

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The Baffler @thebaffler.com · 17h

“Everywhere we look, the world is ceding control to automatic systems that cannot be reasoned with like humans and whose decisions are often inscrutable, interrogated only after the damage has been done.”

High-Agency Individuals | James Vincent

The exhortation to “just do things” is in part a response to the specter of automation.

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4 14

The Baffler @thebaffler.com · 18h

“The NAFTA Novel remains the literary form of a diminutive bourgeois class: the lettered colonials tasked with mediating between the elites of Mexico and the United States. But the latter elite no longer has use for such cosmopolitan intermediaries.”

The NAFTA Novel | Nicolás Medina Mora

For all its utopianism, the NAFTA Novel remains the literary form of a diminutive bourgeois class.

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5 4

The Baffler @thebaffler.com · 19h

From the Archives: Maureen Tkacik conducts a survey of the literature that came out of the Great Recession, which was brought about by—what else?—stupidity and greed.

Journals of the Crisis Year | Maureen Tkacik

A stemwinding survey of the literature that came out of the Great Recession.

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The Baffler @thebaffler.com · 21h

In new short fiction from Blake Butler, spend your years relaxing and consuming in the cost-efficient eco-plastic at Walden Homes—where everything is flammable and nothing hurts.

Walden Homes | Blake Butler

Maybe not every shitty story had to end so shittily if we only knew how to interpret it.

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The Baffler @thebaffler.com · 23h

Can you really “just do things?” As @jjvincent.bsky.social writes, the popularity of the exhortation speaks to a pessimism about society’s capacity to improve itself—throwing responsibility back on the individual.

High-Agency Individuals | James Vincent

The exhortation to “just do things” is in part a response to the specter of automation.

thebaffler.com

2 3

The Baffler @thebaffler.com · 1d

Walden Homes was said to be the top of the class when it came to retirement—or at least the largest all-inclusive private work/play facility in Lockheed-Concord. New fiction from Blake Butler reveals that it’s not all it’s cracked up to be.

Walden Homes | Blake Butler

Maybe not every shitty story had to end so shittily if we only knew how to interpret it.

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The Baffler @thebaffler.com · 1d

“If capitalism has failed, and socialism has failed, and the only remaining option is some improved version of the drab ‘mixed economy’ that currently exists, then we are living in a perilous ideological vacuum.”

Journals of the Crisis Year | Maureen Tkacik

A stemwinding survey of the literature that came out of the Great Recession.

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The Baffler @thebaffler.com · 1d

In 1988, historian Enrique Krauze accused Carlos Fuentes of producing work “refracted through a North American perspective.” These were fighting words–part of a still-ongoing debate about Mexican literature’s relationship to its northern cousin.

The NAFTA Novel | Nicolás Medina Mora

For all its utopianism, the NAFTA Novel remains the literary form of a diminutive bourgeois class.

thebaffler.com

The Baffler @thebaffler.com · 1d

“No one on God’s green Earth can be expected to predict the laws of the future, and even granted hindsight, it’s impossible to correlate cause and effect in the blind.”

Walden Homes | Blake Butler

Maybe not every shitty story had to end so shittily if we only knew how to interpret it.

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The Baffler @thebaffler.com · 1d

Last week, our former fact-checker and colleague Alex Colston was detained by the Israeli military while reporting from the Global Sumud Flotilla. We join @dropsitenews.com in calling for the release of Alex and all Flotilla participants.

Drop Site Urges the Immediate Release of Global Sumud Flotilla Participants, Including Drop Site Journalist Alex Colston

All of us at Drop Site News are deeply disturbed by the reports of inhumane and abusive treatment of nonviolent activists and journalists detained by the Israeli military while on board the Global Sum...

www.dropsitenews.com

10 20

The Baffler @thebaffler.com · 1d

Poetry from Baffler no. 80: “From ‘Opera Fever’” by Chelsey Minnis.

From Opera Fever | Chelsey Minnis

I was on my best behavior that autumn… / A poem was pawing at the door..

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The Baffler @thebaffler.com · 1d

José Mujica, the former president of Uruguay, died in May. “Suviving the 21st Century” collects his conversations with Noam Chomsky about empire, the environment, political economy, and the battle ahead.

Free Radicals | Sammy Feldblum

Though José Mujica did not publish much writing, his views on life and politics live on through the corpus of interviews.

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1 1 10

The Baffler @thebaffler.com · 2d

Are we barreling toward another recession? The indicators are indicating. Back in 2010, Maureen Tkacik surveyed the literature—and architects—of the last major financial crisis.

Journals of the Crisis Year | Maureen Tkacik

A stemwinding survey of the literature that came out of the Great Recession.

thebaffler.com

5 8

The Baffler @thebaffler.com · 2d

José Mujica didn’t spend his life consuming things. He spent it dreaming and fighting for a better Uruguay. Little wonder that he spent his later years patiently receiving a steady stream of international journalists eager to parse his wisdom.

Free Radicals | Sammy Feldblum

Though José Mujica did not publish much writing, his views on life and politics live on through the corpus of interviews.

thebaffler.com

5 13

The Baffler @thebaffler.com · 2d

In his history of his country’s oppressors, Palestinian scholar Sabri Jiryis delivers the origins of Israel from the amnesia of historical inevitability.

Given This Reality | Mary Turfah

“Who are these people? Why did they come here?”

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1 8

The Baffler @thebaffler.com · 3d

Even in a perfect ecosocialist utopia, we are going to need material stuff from nature to keep the lights on. So how to handle the politics of extraction?

Schrodinger’s Element | Ajay Singh Chaudhary

In her new book, Thea Riofrancos homes in on the extraction of lithium—and the thorny problem of an ecologically sound energy transition

thebaffler.com

1 3 5

The Baffler @thebaffler.com · 3d

As American democracy comes apart at the seams, the sharpest minds of our techno-culture have bravely volunteered to halt its undoing. Their prescription: AI-powered focus groups.

E Pluribus Uh Oh | Leo Kim

“Pro-democracy” initiatives coming out of Silicon Valley are a sleight of hand. Platform authoritarianism is the end goal.

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The Baffler @thebaffler.com · 3d

“The conversations are most touching when exploring questions of how to live, which Chomsky and Mujica tether to, though never fully reduce to, the political.”

Free Radicals | Sammy Feldblum

Though José Mujica did not publish much writing, his views on life and politics live on through the corpus of interviews.

thebaffler.com

1 4 7

The Baffler @thebaffler.com · 3d

The energy transition is an extremely complex endeavor—with all sorts of logistical, geopolitical, environmental, social, and political facets. One particularly vexing problem? We’re going to need a lot of lithium.

Schrodinger’s Element | Ajay Singh Chaudhary

In her new book, Thea Riofrancos homes in on the extraction of lithium—and the thorny problem of an ecologically sound energy transition

thebaffler.com

The Baffler @thebaffler.com · 3d

Yuri Herrera, Valeria Luiselli, and Álvaro Enrigue are three leading examples of the NAFTA novelist. How do their works read in today's protectionist age?

The NAFTA Novel | Nicolás Medina Mora

For all its utopianism, the NAFTA Novel remains the literary form of a diminutive bourgeois class.

thebaffler.com

The Baffler @thebaffler.com · 4d

Poetry from Baffler no. 80: “Fatigue Performance” by Noah Falck.

Fatigue Performance | Noah Falck

The air may be a risk / for some people, the radio repeated.

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