Marc Cooper - Controversial Views

Controversial Views

Although Cooper espouses many traditional leftist positions, he also criticizes some of his fellow leftists for what he says is a kneejerk and irrational tendency to support "unworthy" and marginal causes. He ruffled many ideological allies by his criticism of Mumia Abu-Jamal, whom he famously dismissed as "a bad choice for poster-boy of the anti-death penalty movement." Cooper also disparaged Ward Churchill, calling him a "guaranteed loser" who was "an irrelevant and clearly deranged loner on the edge of the looniest left." Cooper was vocal in his opposition to the 2003 invasion of Iraq and the subsequent occupation, but he has been scathingly critical of other leftist opponents to the war, such as Canadian journalist Naomi Klein, who he lambasted as a "friend" and "apologist" for prominent Iraqi Shiite Islamist Muqtada al-Sadr in response to a piece she wrote for the September 13, 2004 edition of The Nation.

Cooper has also been harshly critical of Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez, whom he regards as a "thug," and very supportive of the Ukrainian Orange Revolution, the latter of which some viewed as an attempt by the U.S. to manipulate the country into the Western sphere of influence.

Over the past few years Cooper has sharply criticized the Cuban government for its crackdown on internal dissidents—some of whom have been handed stiff sentences for receiving funds and instructions from the United States. Cooper has helped write and circulate international letters of protest defending the locked-up dissidents.

He has described his current political position as "contrarian" and declares himself "agnostic" on grand ideological schemes.

Cooper has published three books: Roll Over Che Guevara: Travels of a Radical Reporter (1994), an anthology of his journalistic pieces,Pinochet and Me: A Chilean Anti Memoir (2001) which was an L.A. Times best-seller, and The Last Honest Place in America: Paradise and Perdition in the New Las Vegas (2004).