Chris Hedges, author, columnist and former Pulitzer-Prize winning journalist for The New York Times spoke with RT about how FCC deregulation during the Clinton administration allowed a handful of corporations to dominate US media.

RT: I want to start off by reading a quote from one of your articles on this very topic, you say: “The celebrity trolls who currently reign on commercial television, who bill themselves as liberal or conservative, read from the same corporate script. They spin the same court gossip. They ignore what the corporate state wants ignored. They champion what the corporate state wants championed. They do not challenge or acknowledge the structures of corporate power.” So Chris, what do you think is the problem with media today?

Chris Hedges: Well, that sort of sums it up. It’s a wholly owned subsidiary of the corporate state. You have a half-dozen corporations — Viacom, General Electric, Rupert Murdoch’s Newscorp, Disney, Clear Channel — that control almost everything most Americans watch or listen to. And, you know, as I wrote in that column, the lie of omission is still a lie. They hold up political puppets as part of this charade to deflect attention from where power actually resides, and that’s in the hands of corporations. It’s impossible within the American political system to vote against the interests of Goldman Sachs, and so we don’t hear anything about climate change, the poor —  the rural and urban poor are rendered invisible in this country. And they’re really suffering at this point, I just finished a book on it, spent two years on it – Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt, with the cartoonist Joe Sacco out on the poorest pockets of the country.

We don’t hear anything about the assault on civil liberties, whether that’s the Section 1021 of the National Defense Authorization Act, or warrantless wiretapping, the use of the Espionage Act to shut down whistleblowers — the misuse of the 2001 Authorization to Use Military Force Act, giving the executive branch the power to assassinate American citizens. And climate change – we should have … given the crisis which is now confronting the ecosystem on which the human species depends for its existence, we should have climate scientists on every night. And none of that appears, because it’s all driven by celebrity gossip, trivia — and yeah, okay, Fox will spin it one way and MSNBC will spin it another, but it’s all the same tawdry, useless garbage.

RT: What do you think drives these editorial decisions —  you just pointed out some very important stories. Why do you think there isn’t more airtime dedicated to these kinds of issues?

Chris Hedges: Because we’ve lost control of our media. When General Electric owns, as they do, MSNBC — and I began the column writing about Phil Donahue, who was removed from MSNBC although he had the highest ratings of any show in the evening, because he dared to put on people who questioned the rush to the Iraq War… Look, General Electric’s made a fortune off these wars, as has Microsoft, and they’re hardly going to allow a dissident voice to impede their profits or their ratings. And that’s really at this point what it’s all about — these television personalities, people like Chris Matthews, a cheerleader for the war on MSNBC, makes about five million dollars a year. They’re celebrities, they’re judged on their likeability – what in the business is called a Q Score – and not on their commitment to news, or to the truth.

RT: It sounds like what you’re saying is the state of the media has become more of a business model these days. When do you think that this happened — can you pinpoint an area in time or a point in time when this happened, or has this been something that’s been gradual?

Chris Hedges: Well, it’s been a gradual descent, a kind of deterioration over my own lifetime as a journalist. I’ve watched, especially on the airwaves, the deterioration of news. I would argue that at this point commercial networks don’t even do news. But if we had to point at a particular moment when this process was accelerated it would be Clinton’s decision to deregulate the FCC. And that, of course, allowed these corporations to buy … I think Clear Channel owns about 1,500 stations in the United States — and that was a kind of consolidation into a very small number of corporate hands, and diminished the capacity for alternative forms of information and independent forms of information to reach the American public.

RT: Going along with this journalism as a business model, business of course, with laws of course of simple high and low demand — so could it be that media is simply giving the people what they want? So maybe they want more of these kind of entertainment-driven stories, that that’s what people are going to watch?

Chris Hedges: Well, they stick to the lowest common denominator. They build these kind of soap opera scenarios night after night, week after week, around celebrities. It’s entertaining — it’s really, at this point, the business they’re in is entertainment — but I worked for many years, including fifteen at The New York Times, and news is not about entertainment. News is about information, news is about giving your readers or your viewers often uncomfortable and unpleasant truths — climate change, let’s go back to climate change, would be a good one. That is the purpose of news, it is about fostering the common good. It is about informing the public, and when news becomes a business, when news becomes about entertainment, then issues that are not uplifting so to speak, issues that don’t have an immediate emotional draw — whether it’s around sex, whether it’s around violence, whether it’s around anything else — are shoved to the side. And you’re reduced to what essentially we have been reduced to, which is a kind of carnival act.

Young people in particular, love to rally around and support wily, charismatic, iconoclastic, charming rogues.  That’s why the seductive “The Pied Piper of Hamlin” fairy tale was so popular for decades.  What goes around is still coming around.

The fascination with thumbing one’s nose at authority has always resonated with the young no matter the subject or the circumstances, even when proved wrong later on.

In the College of the Desert (COD) production at the Pollock Theatre, “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest”, director Tres Dean gives full rein to his talented cast to do just that which they do in spades.

The Dale Wasserman written play, based on the novel by Ken Kesey, is a classic study in the role of institutional authority vs. the rights of the individual.  Nurse Ratched (a cool and detached Jennifer Kiehl) in her clashes with patient Randall P. McMurphy (a wonderfully wild, disruptive, and unpredictable Shawn Abramowitz) brooks no interference to her authority and her total control of the Ward and its patients.

When McMurphy arrives on the scene he seeks to change all the rules, to suit himself, and to show the Ward patients what freedom from authority can be like.  But a victory in his war with Nurse Ratched comes at a terrible price.

Long term conditioning, be it with institutionalized patients or domesticated pets, produces a climate and a relationship that fosters a dependency and a reliability on the actions of the “controllers”.  The result being that very little change can take place when change is the goal.  Rogue authority figures, like Nurse Ratched, rely on a No Change policy.  But when challenged they have resources available that are almost impossible to defeat.  All this is not lost on her Ward patients.

The talented cast, all students of the College’s theatre arts department, with a few exceptions, performs in a professional manner under Dean’s creative and encouraging direction.  With nineteen in the production it’s difficult to list them all, however some do standout.  But the production is an excellent example of a solid ensemble effort.

Shawn Abramowitz is outstanding as Randall P. McMurphy, as is Jennifer Kiehl as Nurse Ratched, (who produced a tiny chorus of faux boos during her curtain call, which made her lovely smile become even broader).  It’s the exact reaction she wanted from the audience.  She is one of the department’s solid anchors and looks forward to a career in the arts.  Gazpar Asencio as the stoic and silent Chief Bromden, is solid in his performance.  Johnny Bolth as Billy Bibbit, delivers a memorable performance as the sensitive, stuttering, young patient in the Ward, and Miranda Hane turns in a nice Nurse Flinn portrayal, as does Anthony Gomez as Dale Harding.  Gomez, however, according to program notes, is seeking a career in politics.  Well, the theatre has been known to be an excellent training tool for that profession as well.

 “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” validates COD’ s standing in the community and its mission that colleges and high schools have an important role to play when it comes to preserving the arts in our institutions of learning.  Remember, a great nation deserves great art.  So let us all continue to support the arts.

The drama of life unfolds in the plays of Stephen Metcalfe, and most vividly, in his play “Strange Snow”, now on stage at the Groves Cabin Theatre, in Morongo Valley, CA.

Metcalfe is a journeyman writer of stage and screen.  He’s written and/or adapted more than a half dozen screenplays and over twelve stage plays.  He also wrote and directed the independent movie “Beautiful Joe”, and his stage play “Strange Snow” became the basis for the 1989 movie “Jacknife”, starring Robert DeNiro, Ed Harris, and Cathy Bates.

The powerful and compelling drama currently dazzling audiences at the Groves Theatre, is brilliantly directed by actor/director Abe Daniels, and features a wonderful cast of three Desert Theatre League (DTL) award winning actors: Donette Swain, Kurt Schauppner, and Abe Daniels.

The story deals with two Vietnam veterans and their difficult readjustment to civilian life.  David (Kurt Schauppner), once a popular high school athlete with a promising future, is devastated by his battlefield injuries and by the death of his friend Bobby.

After returning from the war, he takes a job as a truck driver and struggles with depression and alcoholism while bunking in with his younger sister Martha (Donette Swain), a lovely but painfully shy high school biology teacher who is as lonely as David.

 David’s Viet Nam war friend Megs, a likable country boy, found the war an outlet for his own violent temper and emotions, although he too suffers guilt over Bobby’s death.  Upon returning from “Nam”, Megs tries to rebuild his life, becoming an auto mechanic and opening his own business.  David and Megs reunite for a fishing trip where Megs meets Martha, and the two are drawn closer together with each visit.

David fears losing Martha, and does everything he can to throw a monkey wrench into the budding romance.  The shy Martha blossoms with Megs’ attention, and David goes on a destructive drunken rampage, leaving Megs and Martha to seriously reconsider the ramifications of their relationship.

“Strange Snow” is set in the late sixties, and the medical community hadn’t quite discovered the cause of or and how to treat “Post Traumatic Stress Disorder” or PTSD.   Thousands of our military men and women returned home not even knowing why they were sent to fight a foreign war in the first place, let alone receive any counseling as to how to deal with the emotions they were now experiencing once back home.  And they received no support from a confused and unsympathetic American populace, who also didn’t understand why American troops had to be sent to Southeast Asia.  One could make a good case for “Déjà vu all over again” (courtesy of New York Yankee ballplayer Yogi Berra) with our troops once again fighting foreign wars in the 21st century.

Abe Daniels, the director understands his material so completely, that Daniels the actor makes Megs a winning and appealing character.  The audience is pulling for Martha and Megs to ultimately connect and become a couple.  Swain is absolutely enchanting as Martha and a delight to watch.  She also knows how to be always in the scene and focused without taking anything away from her two co-stars.  Schauppner is right on the money as a man in denial.  His almost sleepwalking, detached from reality, and alcohol-fueled performance is reminiscent of stressed out ex-soldiers trying to rejoin society, but not having much luck in the attempt.  It’s one of Schauppner’s best performances.  As a matter of fact, it’s one of the best ensemble performances seen in the desert this season.

The Groves is more than an intimate venue.  The audience sits a mere three feet away from the action.  It’s a postage-sized performing area, but oh what creative people can do in such a small space is a credit to director Daniel’s creativity and to the talent of his cast who makes it all the magic happen.  There were many moments of exquisite silence in the house, while actors effortlessly held the audience spellbound.  The audience was so enthralled, one could hear a pin drop; I even heard one male patron three seats away openly weeping.  When that kind of power produces those kinds of responses and resonance in an audience, you know you’re witnessing something special.

The combination of a sharply and intelligently written Stephen Metcalfe play like “Strange Snow”, and this cast is a recipe for a wonderful theatrical experience.  Don’t miss it!