Muckrakers

by Doug Nufer
Free Press contributor

Imagine a world without truth, where all value reduces to fiscal gain, where all you see, hear, taste, and smell, all you touch and all that touches you comes from a single brutal proposition: how much will those suckers pay? The cities of this world rise gleaming from the ruins of unprofitable pursuits, as office towers house software industries in place of tenements, libraries, and museums. The books, art, music, and movies of this world have long since been digitized and trimmed to fit catalogs limited to what sells best, and are now delivered to users for a fee set purely by marketplace ideals which really work to perpetuate monopolies enjoyed by a few rich men. The public institutions have been privatized to function with a ruthless efficiency. Public schools are downgraded as taxes for education are shared with private academies, and prisons provide slave labor to temporary employment agencies. The poor are left to fight among themselves and the sick are left to die.

To some, this world is our future; to others, it has existed for years. While mainstream media sources, elected officials, and others corrupted by the pressures of comfortable survival continue to act as though this condition were neither imminent nor relevant, the Baffler disagrees. The Baffler is a magazine published on the South Side of Chicago by its editors. It has some good fiction, poetry, and graphic art, many well-researched and adeptly observant articles, and the most vehement, brilliant, and inspired critical commentary available anywhere.
Standing opposed to the idea that every last piece of human endeavor should be sold to the highest bidder, Baffler editor and lead writer Thomas Frank has seen the enemy to thought, discourse, and democracy, and labeled it the Culture Trust. At COCA's Alternative Communications Expo in January (in a speech mostly reproduced in the April 1 Nation), Frank compared the state of affairs where a few multinational corporations own virtually all media outlets to the infamous trusts of yesteryear. The term "trust" invokes the populist spirit of early twentieth century muckrakers who attacked oil barons, sugar barons, and other industrialists who made fortunes by controlling access to certain commodities.
Because media products such as movies and songs inspire more excitement than drab stuff like oil or sugar, we should be infuriated by the prospect of having the culture markets cornered by the likes of Disney kingpin Michael Eisner, but we're not. Information Age propaganda promises global access to all anyone should ever want to experience, and dissenting views of this glorious future are dismissed as elitist. Or, more shrewdly, dissent is exploited by corporations who see rebelliousness as a key to unlocking the youth market.
Frank's speech to a roomful of zine publishers and radio pirates differed slightly from the devastating view he expressed in Baffler #6's "Dark Age." Subtitled "Why Johnny Can't Dissent," this essay develops a pessimistic theme Baffler #5 handles with its spirited denunciation of "Alternative" music: no matter how rebellious your art, music, or ideas may seem, if these ideas can generate income, the Culture Trust will have you. Resistance is not only impossible but ridiculous. In "Dark Age" Frank poses the Beats as "the patron saints of the countercultural idea . . . whose frenzied style and merry alienation still maintain a powerful grip on the American imagination," and shows how these heroes of cultural dissent have since been converted into pitchmen for various lifestyles, goods, and services. Perhaps the greatest example of this is William Burroughs, Nike shill. If the author of Naked Lunch pitches sneakers, what hope can the reader and the writer in the street have to resist the commercial onslaught?

Indeed, Baffler #7 contributes to this argument with a full-page ad for High Risk Books which reclaims the Nike poster boy for the cause of radical letters so he can sell his own product, Ghost of a Chance. In the wake of #6's dismantling of the Beat mystique, were the people at High Risk trying to be funny? And what's so risky about publishing Burroughs now?

Baffler #8 continues the running critique of the way we live with an uncharacteristically short article by Frank on "The Cultural Miracle," a phrase which also serves loosely as the issue's theme, referring not just to the media's tendency to ignore social problems, but to the complacent majority's tendency to accept a status quo which blatantly attacks that majority's own best interests. An account of the news coverage of the November and December French strikes by Edward Castleton reams the caliber of reporting we have come to expect from the mainstream press. This article wraps around the margins of "The Time Management Gospel" by Jennifer Brostrom, where the author tells how her company has become enthralled by a calendar system aiming to maximize efficiency by making workers spend time more effectively (i.e., they work harder cramming a lot of bullshit into their day, but don't get paid any more for their trouble). Not only do many people accept the lies forced upon them, in cases where they openly resist, their resistance goes unreported. The absolute authority of the day planners can't be questioned; and the global media authority which admonishes French citizens for not tightening their belts can speak without fear of having to answer dissent.
A certain consistency which has characterized, strengthened, and vulnerably marginalized previous Baffler issues gets disrupted in #8. No matter how legitimate or articulate their complaints, writers could be classified (and therefore, put down) as gen-Xers, twentysomethings, or whatever. Also, articles following a particular line of discourse can overlap and play off each other's rhetoric in a way that serves cohesion but limits unpredictability. Some of the strongest parts of #8 are contributions by and about ex-bandleader Artie Shaw. Shaw's struggles in the music business during the 1930s reinforce links Tom Frank makes between the Depression and the present and provide an almost reassuring answer to artists wondering if the capitalistic relationship between creator and producer wasn't better before (don't worry-it wasn't).
Even more reassuring than Shaw's radical feistiness, in a way, is a lobbyist's account of actor Steven Seagal's U.S. Senate campaign. In an "interview" with Celia Brady, Ryan G. Branaugh discusses strategies which, oddly or not, concentrate on determining exactly how much ponytail the martialarts Zen environmentalist Republican dare expose to the California electorate. Branaugh reveals himself as a canny master of political realities who couldn't care less what Baffler readers might think of him. His trenchant amorality is particularly refreshing in the midst of some critiques which provocatively argue or imply that art should be socially responsible or even moral.
Consistency must have its limits. The Baffler must live up to its name, pushing the limits to show us as we are-not just as what we want to be.

For back issues or subscription information, contact the Baffler at: P.O. Box 378293, Chicago, IL, 60637. Subscriptions cost $16 for 4 issues, $30 for 8.

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Contents on this page were published in the July/August, 1996 edition of the Washington Free Press.
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