At this time, Saturday morning, I acquired some excellent news within the mail from The Guardian. A decide threw out a $250 million case in opposition to them from Donald Trump’s media firm.
The go well with goes again to March, 2023, when The Guardian revealed {that a} federal legal investigation was inspecting Trump Media, house owners of “Reality Social,” the president’s media platform. The problem was its acceptance of $8 million of loans from suspected Russian ties. These loans “helped maintain the corporate afloat lengthy sufficient for Trump to take it public final yr, when he netted a further paper fortune of about $4.6 billion.”
Trump Media sued The Guardian for defamation and $250 million in damages, complaining in its go well with that “The Guardian harbors bias in opposition to [Trump Media] and continuously publishes articles important of Donald Trump.” I didn’t know that publishing articles important of a politician was deserving of a lawsuit. Did you?
Kudos to The Guardian for not caving to the powers that may rent groups of (value-free) attorneys to sue whomever they need, every time they need. Particularly the defenseless.
Bravo to The Guardian for not groveling on the ft of highly effective politicians that need nothing greater than to intimidate and bankrupt the press, so that every one criticism ceases. We all know all too nicely the big-name media titans who’ve gotten on their knees to curry favor with this fascist authorities. They’ve made ethical fools of themselves.
We’re reminded of the warnings from historian Timothy Snyder, writer of On Tyranny, who laid out “Twenty Classes on Combating Tyranny from the Twentieth Century.” Amongst them for all media leaders and readers to contemplate are these: #1. Don’t obey prematurely. A lot of the energy of authoritarianism is freely given. In occasions like these, people suppose forward about what a extra repressive authorities will need, after which provide themselves with out being requested.
Sadly, big-time media has so acted earlier than our very eyes. Allow us to not overlook it. Allow us to hunt down media with a conscience. Large media, like huge companies in all places, readily sells its conscience for energy entry.
#11. Examine. Spend extra time with lengthy articles….Understand that some of what’s on the web is there to hurt you.
#20. Be as brave as you’ll be able to. If none of us is ready to die for freedom, then all of us will die underneath tyranny.
Talking of brave media, there are others in addition to The Guardian standing up and talking reality to energy. To call just some, there may be Mary Trump, cousin of the president. She tells the story of the tech business giants and CEOs from Google, Amazon, Meta and Lockheed Martin protection contractors, who wrote multi-million-dollar donations for Trump’s “gaudy ballroom.”
These “moguls maintain over $279 billion in federal contracts” and over half of these in attendance had been dealing with federal investigations for every little thing from violating labor legal guidelines to defending the surroundings. Trump being “the billionaires’ puppet,” these companies are positive to obtain nonetheless extra profitable contracts whereas investigations are sure to be dropped. “Donald has at all times been on the market,” she reminds us.**
One other journalist worthy of reward is Gil Duran, who has been following carefully the rise of a peculiar phenomenon from Silicon Valley which is working feverishly to interchange democracy with a faith of billionaires, by billionaires and for billionaires. Shopping for up the media is an enormous a part of their technique.
One other prophetic voice within the media worthy of belief is that of Thom Hartmann, whose common column is great. His new ebook, The Final American President: A Damaged Man, a Corrupt Celebration, and a World on the Brink tells the story behind the story of the present administration: How the system itself created a determine like Donald Trump: From his brutal childhood to Roy Cohn’s mentorship in shamelessness, from a corrupted Republican Celebration to billionaire puppet masters, Trump was manufactured by the very establishments meant to guard us.
The underside line? “Political cowardice and company greed created the right storm threatening our species survival.”
The media is indispensable to democracy. The destruction of it’s indispensable to fascism.
To be continued.
* Georgia Warren, “How the Guardian beat Trump Media in Court docket,” The Guardian, November 29, 2025.
** Mary L. Trump, “The Grift Goes On,” The Good In Us, November 13, 2025.
To learn the transcript of Matthew Fox’s video meditation, click on HERE.
Banner Picture: Idea artwork for the fever-dream ballroom that Trump desires to construct instead of the now-destroyed East Wing. Picture from the White Home web site.
Queries for Contemplation
How do you management and discern your media decisions and select properly?
Associated Readings by Matthew Fox
Trump & The MAGA Motion as Anti-Christ.
Sins of the Spirit, Blessings of the Flesh: Reworking Evil in Soul & Society.
Faith USA: Faith and Tradition by means of TIME Journal.
A Spirituality Named Compassion: Uniting Mystical Consciousness with Social Justice.
Creation Spirituality: Liberating Presents for the Peoples of the Earth.
Matthew Fox, Skylar Wilson, Jen Listug, Order of the Sacred Earth: An Intergenerational Imaginative and prescient of Love and Motion.
“Warriors for Ecological and Financial Justice,” in Meister Eckhart: A Mystic-Warrior For Our Occasions.
Adam Bucko and Matthew Fox, Occupy Spirituality: A Radical Imaginative and prescient For a New Technology.
