THE BAFFLER MAGAZINE: The latest issue features ‘Tight Ship’….

Pay as You Go

The socialist cash that collected capitalist trash by David I. Backer

Today, the crossroads of socialism and barbarism meet in cities across America. In New York, Seattle, and Chicago, organizers have seized local and state authority, empowering mayors Zohran Mamdani, Katie Wilson, and Brandon Johnson—and a nonnegligible number of other politicians—to pursue the left project municipally. These local victories, won in the years since 2020, have kicked off a positive feedback loop and inspired yet more socialists to run for office in our time. The candidates tell us they want to collectivize the relations of production. Can they?

Bridges and Bullets

The militarization of Mexico by López Cordero

Last winter, the Mexican Army killed its main foe. Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes was spending a Sunday in Tapalpa, a tourist town just south of Guadalajara, the capital of Jalisco. Maybe Oseguera, a cartel leader who rose to international infamy over the past two decades, was there to visit the sixteenth-century chapel that’s nestled behind the main square, or maybe he wanted to admire the town’s snake-decorated fountains. In all likelihood, he was confident that authorities in that part of the country would ignore him spending time in the state that gave its name to his organization, Cártel de Jalisco Nueva Generación.

Jack Squat

On reality television, all tenants are squatters by Michael Friedrich

A bouncer-looking guy with a steel-wool goatee lies his way into a woman’s Washington State home, posing as an inspector. He moves from room to drywall-covered room, testing smoke alarms. The home’s occupant, a quiet, middle-aged woman named Sally Barton Jeffries, offers the guy a glass of water. Her place looks cozy enough, furnished with an orange sectional, a checkered rug, and a table in the eat-in kitchen. She mentions that she has lived there for nine months.

The Pollycrisis

Feral parakeets flock to London by David Wingrave

Before we saw a single parakeet, we heard them: a disembodied static that grew louder as we approached Hither Green Cemetery in southeast London. It was an early evening in late June, and we had come to witness an invasion. By the time my friend and I reached the cemetery’s western edge, the clamor was all-encompassing. We hopped the fence and picked our way across the gravestones. Above us now were the birds themselves, their kryptonite-green plumage, scab-red beaks, pearly black collars, and trailing tail feathers unmistakable: Psittacula krameri, the ring-necked parakeet.