E-Mail This Article to a Friend ‘Dissent = Democracy’ Eric Bogosian sounds off about ‘The New McCarthyism’ BY MIKE MILIARD

"I was absolutely, vehemently against this war. I believed it was about oil to begin with, and it will always be about oil. And all these kids are dying because of it, and they’re working-class kids, and to me it’s just tragic. It breaks my heart. I don’t know what else to say."

It’s not often that monologuist/playwright/actor Eric Bogosian is at a loss for words. But these days of Dixie Chick–bashing chicken hawks and McCarthy-exhuming leggy blonde neo-cons are enough to flummox even the most motor-mouthed professional ranter. Still, in an age where (to crib from Yeats) the best seem to lack all conviction while the worst are full of passionate intensity, making noise is imperative. That’s why Bogosian will share a stage this Tuesday with playwrights Gip Hoppe and Andre Gregory, The Perfect Storm author Sebastian Junger, novelist/poet Marge Piercy, historian/leftist maven Howard Zinn, and the eternally irascible Norman Mailer for a symposium called "Dissent = Democracy: A Teach-In on the ‘New McCarthyism’" at the First Congregational Church in Wellfleet that’s been organized by (and as a benefit for) Wellfleet Harbor Actors Theater.

Bogosian’s been interested in modes of public discourse at least since Talk Radio, his 1984 play-turned-movie about a blistering shock jock whose diatribes eventually get him killed. Yet despite a climate where radio is dominated by the extreme right and the tabloid-reactionary Fox News is the dominant paradigm on talk TV, what’s happening these days, he says over the phone from New York, "is not some conspiracy . . . this big system that’s really trying to hurt people, trying to suppress people actively. I think the ‘system’ is a machine. It’s mechanistic, and it just follows the path of least resistance."

In other words, most AM radio jocks are fire-breathing rightists because their product is the most titillating. Liberals don’t enjoy the same hegemony on the airwaves because, he says, "the left point of view, the humanist point of view, is just not that entertaining. It’s more well-balanced, it’s calmer, it’s more mature. Sensibleness is just not entertaining."

Yes, Ann Coulter — whose new book, Treason, is a brazen effort to rehabilitate Joe McCarthy — is a "fuck wit." And yes, the Dixie Chicks’ crucifixion looks to have been aided and abetted by scores of the 1000-plus ClearChannel–owned radio stations — only a taste of what might come to pass if the FCC’s plans for further consolidation come to fruition.

But, Bogosian goes on, "Who cares?! Whoever said that the mass media is anything but oppressive? It has been since it was first created. As long as there is a mass media, there will be a compromised message. They will always do it that way. There is no mass media with a progressive point of view because the mass media is corporate."

So it’s the job of progressives to "embrace smaller, more mobile outlets. Which are there. The Internet is an amazing thing which has shown up and been a real Godsend to us. Noam Chomsky is finding lots of people to read his stuff without the help of the mass media."

And though the political climate is a little chilly these days, things (knock wood) are not as bad as they might be. Bogosian has been re-reading his Solzhenitsyn lately. "What will be interesting is if we ever do end up at a place where writers are getting arrested or people really are being blacklisted." Meanwhile, he says, "I’m not depressed. I find a great deal of action going on. As sad as it was that the peace marches that we went on last fall didn’t seem to stop the war in Iraq, it was invigorating to see how many people showed up, and that we’re making our voice be known. Fox? Good. I’m glad those guys are yelling and screaming. I’m looking forward to the day when I can get on the air and yell and scream at them."

"Dissent = Democracy: A Teach-In on the New McCarthyism" takes place this Tuesday, August 12, at 7:30 p.m. at the First Congregational Church, 200 Main Street in Wellfleet. Tickets are $27, or 2 for $50; call (508) 349-6835.