Marc Cooper is a contributing editor of The Nation and host and executive producer of Radio Nation. He has reported globally for print and radio, appearing in The Atlantic, Harper’s, The New Yorker, Rolling Stone and the London and Los Angeles Times. Marc has produced documentaries for CBS News, Christian Science Monitor and Frontline. He authored the memoir ‘Pinochet and Me,’ and the L.A. Times bestseller ‘The Last Honest Place in America: Paradise and Perdition in the New Las Vegas.’

In Los Angeles, Marc is an adjunct professor of journalism at USC Annenberg School for Communication, a Senior Fellow at Annenberg Institute for Justice and Journalism, a fellow at USC-based Los Angeles Institute for the Humanities and a member of the Pacific Council on International Policy.

Marc Cooper - Thrown out, first by Reagan, then by Pinochet

I grew up in Los Angeles, first at the beach, then in midtown. I went to high school in West Hollywood and went to college in the San Fernando Valley — until I got kicked out of school in 1971 by Gov. Ronald Reagan because of the anti-Vietnam war protests. I had been studying Latin American politics at Cal State University at Northridge, and that happened to coincide with a very interesting time in Chile. This radical government had been elected, and I’d been studying it.

I went down there, and one thing led to another, and I ended up working as the translator to the president, Salvador Allende. Which is great when you’re only 20 years old. Then the coup came on September 11, 1973, and I had to pretty much escape with my life. For those of us who have a Chilean connection, we have a first September 11th that marks our lives every bit as much as the second one does.

Back then, to make a long distance call out of Chile you had to go downtown and get in line at the post office, and it might take a half-hour to get a phone line out. During the coup, I wound up taking refuge in the house of a junior diplomat, and he had this magical instrument — a direct-dial telephone. You literally had to be a diplomat to have a phone that you could pick up and dial out on.

In the situation that was produced after the coup, of severe repression, people getting “disappeared,” having that phone was unbelievable. It was like a miracle. It allowed me to communicate not only with my family, but the families of others who were cut off. It also allowed us to get some help, to organize a way out for a number of people, myself included. We take this kind of instrument of communication for granted now.

On his blog – A website for his book, then an unexpected thrill

I was such a terrible typist, as a young journalist, that it served me well. I became a first-draft writer so I wouldn’t have to retype. In 1982, I was on a flight to Paris and a friend started talking to me about Word. Once I understood, I went out immediately and bought a Kaypro II, with everything. It cost me $2800 — top-of-the-line equipment. I had an MCI email account in 1983. I was on Compuserve very early, and used it vigorously. I didn’t know what the web was. My thought was simply, ‘Wow, I can type now!’

I didn’t really start blogging until April, 2004. I’d had a website built as a holding tank for ‘The Last Honest Place In America: Paradise and Tradition in the New Las Vegas.’ I said, ‘You know, why don’t you give me a blog function?’ I’m fearless. I’ve been in coups and revolutions and been arrested in every country in the world, but the first few days I looked at that blank screen it was really scary.

Then I started to type and it felt terrific. Because for the first time, I didn’t have any editors. I didn’t have to second-guess anyone. It was just a thrilling experience. I have an interest in gambling, and I like to fish, which is also a kind of gambling. The internet touched the same buttons in me, because it too is a complete crapshoot. So that’s the thrill of it, and it’s a thrill that’s only built, never diminished.

On our direction

I have no idea what it will be, and that’s why I like it. It’s like rolling the dice or throwing the line in the water. It feels like the right thing to do, and there’s a lot of good energy around it. We’re not sure where Pajamas is going to go. And it’s kind of fun to be in the political minority at Pajamas, I like that.

I like that it’s got different points of view; that’s one of the great things about the internet. There are all sorts of partisan sites, but there are also all sorts of places where everyone is welcome. I like that kind of bumpy coexistence where there’s some friction, debate and disagreement, but people listen to each other — or at least pretend to.