CommentsEASTSIDER-Back in the “bad old days” at the turn of the century (1900, not 2000) America was in the throes of crooked corporations and banks, employers who treated workers badly, and, oh yes, crooked politicians. Sound familiar? Like 2018? Time to check out a group of journalists referred to as the Muckrakers.
Long before the drug enhanced gonzo journalism of Hunter S. Thompson, there was a group of truth to power journalists who attacked the rot in our society, be it politicians, complicit media, or institutions. Collectively labeled “muckrakers” by a pissed-off President Theodore Roosevelt. They were a group of progressives who were outraged at the moral rot in society at all levels.
I would argue that our current times are getting close to those bad old times that created the muckrakers, and we need some of us to step up and replicate their passion, anger, strength, and willingness to tell it like it is -- speaking truth to power -- without the corporate leashes that tone down journalists who are worried about keeping their jobs…or getting one.
How Bad is Our Economic Plight, Really?
Well, these days in Los Angeles, we have the weird situation of people superficially making a decent amount of money, but in fact are poor because of the amount of money they need to pay for housing. It makes California Number 1 in Poverty -- and Los Angeles is right in there.
If you look at the elements behind the numbers, it is sobering. Over one third (1/3) of the country is not a part of the labor force at all. Unpeople.
Of those people who do have a job, all too many are part-time or gig workers which do not come with either benefits or any real expectation of benefits.
Student debt is staggering, laden with unintended consequences, and the wonderful, allegedly groovy high tech sector of the economy, in point of fact, continues to hollow out the labor market.
Our government institutions are run by bought and paid for politicians who have all bent the knee to get the bags of money it takes to run a campaign just to get elected. The gap between the richest and the poorest is at historic levels and if you contract a significant health condition or have children, your future is grim indeed. Our safety net is broken.
The gap between the rich and poor is the highest ever, and the millennials face a perfect storm that most won’t overcome.
Just to complete this picture of joy, a lot of communities will never recover from the recession.
Something has to change. Similar events were the breeding ground for the muckrakers.
So, Who Were the Muckrakers?
Here are a few exemplars of the breed, provided in the hopes of inspiring some of you out there to read them, pick up the flame, and start calling out our current techie version of the society they skewered so accurately and passionately.
Lincoln Steffens
One of the first was a man named Lincoln Steffens, whose devastating city by city analysis of corruption appeared in McClure’s Magazine in the early 1900’s. You can still find his work in a book called The Shame of the Cities, and his passion and the detail of corruption is still a cry to arms. You can get the ebook version for free through Project Gutenberg.
Upton Sinclair
Next on my list is Upton Sinclair. While he is mostly remembered in history lectures for his book, The Jungle, about the truly evil conditions in Chicago’s stockyards, that’s not my favorite. No sir. He wrote an absolutely searing book in 1919 called, The Brass Check. It was systematic and lengthy look into the world of commercial journalism, and the amount of corruption and cronyism that existed.
The book names names and journals, comparing the commercial journalist class to prostitutes (the title refers to a chit issued to patrons of brothels back in the day). It was so smokin’ incendiary that he had to self-publish the work. I still love the book (which may say something about me), in part because it makes todays press look like lightweights compared to their predecessors. Except for Steve Bannon & Michael Wolff, maybe.
For the adventurous, it’s still available on Amazon.
Tizzy (I.F.) Stone
Finally, there is my favorite, and most recent, muckraker, Tizzy, I.F. Stone. The title of his excellent biography by Myra MacPherson, All Governments Lie, says it all.
A son of Russian Jewish immigrant parents in New Jersey, he is probably best known for his weekly newsletter (written from 1953-71), he defines the concept of a politically radical journalist.
Back in the 1960’s, some of us remember Izzy as the guy who blew the whistle on President Johnson’s rationale for the Vietnam War, proving that the government’s reasons were a flat lie. For those interested, here’s a copy of the actual article in his Newsletter.
It was not surprising that he was beloved of the SDS (Students for a Democratic Society) as they rose up at UC Berkeley to fight against a useless war. Gee, useless wars. Sound familiar?
The Takeaway
I see all too many parallels between the social conditions that gave rise to the Muckrakers and our current society -- crooked banks and financial institutions that have more of a stranglehold on your and my life than The Jungles’ shown in the descriptions of conditions in Chicago’s slaughterhouses in the early 1900s.
A bought-and-paid-for government populated by millionaires and owned by billionaires, who deliver nothing to provide a safety net for our millions of regular normal people who just can’t seem to make it in this system, and maybe never will.
A tame media that loves to chronicle the meltdown by substituting “niche markets” for hardcore reporting on the rot and what needs to be done about it. And government institutions that are slowly becoming eroded and impotent as we descend into division and tribalism.
Yes, my friends, it’s a terrible situation! There is only ONE cure. Step right up and click on the pages of CityWatch! Among our contributors are unpaid, outraged, and very smart people who tell truth to power on a weekly basis, particularly by exposing the contretemps of our politicians and institutions with a serious depth of knowledge and even (gasp) suggestions to remedy the rot. Not to mention the passion.
(Tony Butka is an Eastside community activist, who has served on a neighborhood council, has a background in government and is a contributor to CityWatch.) Edited for CityWatch by Linda Abrams.
-cw
