Trump’s BBC Billion Dollar Libel: Will The ABC Be Next?
I saw a headline from The Australian, a News Corp publication, which is an American multinational corporation, asking the question whether the ABC should be worried in light of Donald Trump’s threat to sue the BBC for a billion dollars. This is, of course, all about intimidation. Trump’s BBC billion dollar libel: Will the ABC be next? Trump sues people and organisations to shut them up, as do many powerful people. Intimidating the media is a favourite of the Trump regime, as it seeks to distort and divert attention away from factuality. The Murdoch family, the owners of News Corp, which operates Fox News and Sky News Australia have been a conduit for and supporter of Donald Trump. You could say that they plough the same right wing furrow.
Donald Trump Suing Media Organisations To Shut Them Up
Rich men suing individuals and entities that speak truth to power are a major problem in the 21C. Controlling the media is invariably the next step for any burgeoning authoritarian regime. Trump is trying to change the interpretation of history around what happened on the 6th of January 2021, when he incited a coup to overthrow the free and fair transfer of presidential power to Joe Biden. The failure of the American political and judicial systems to hold Trump to account over this has been the most serious travesty of justice of the last hundred years, in this observer’s view. We would not be where we find ourselves right now if real justice had been served as it should.
Would The ABC Buckle Under A Trump Threat?
Australia’s ABC, is a beacon on a hill, in a shabby commercial media world inhabited by craven organisations like News Corp. However, of late, the ABC has been a shadow of what it once was before being bullied and infiltrated by conservative forces and rats in the ranks. You cannot compare the fearless ABC news and current affairs cohorts of the 1970s, 80s and 90s with what passes for that in this 21C. It is not the personnel, but the management directives which have undermined a news department which used to speak its mind and that of the nation. When timid managers and bean counters rule the roost you cannot expect much in the way of courage or fearlessness. Legacy media is on the way out, replaced by social media and new forms of news distribution, and it is doubly vulnerable in this plight. Commercial networks will do anything for a buck.
Trump Intimidating The Media
Trump’s BBC billion dollar libel: Will the ABC be next? Probably not, as Australia is too small and inconsequential in the Trump mind, I suspect. However, the very fact that the BBC libel threat is out there makes it a potent weapon of intimidation. You have to ask yourself how this bloke gets away with what he does and how complicit are so many in facilitating his grift? In America, careerism and personal ambition sees folk shelving their integrity to jump aboard the Trump bus. Crypto kleptocracy is filling the Trump coffers with digital billions. Selling pardons like get out of jail free cards to crooks and corrupt individuals is another Trump scam. There is a king sized crook in the White House and media organisations are being coerced into looking the other way. It is an American travesty, which is spreading globally, like so much American grift.
“Americans used to tell the world that they were the best of us. Now, with Donald Trump at the helm, Americans: they are clearly the worst of us. Denying food stamp welfare to the disabled and American children is the latest low point in a chaotic and cruel Trump administration performance. SNAP is going unfunded by the Republicans, as they continue their social Darwinism campaign to eradicate the poor and vulnerable within the United States of America. You can only take greed and not paying your taxes so far without taking the food out of the mouths of the needy.”
Robert Sudha Hamilton is the author of What Price Life?; America Matters: Pre-apocalyptic Posts & Essays in the Shadow of Trump; and other titles. NOW AVAILABLE AT APPLE BOOKS & GOOGLE PLAY BOOKS. Google Play Books AUDIOBOOK
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