The Aspen Tradition

🧭 Context

Something strange is happening on America’s screens. Jon Stewart’s Daily Show just hit its highest ratings in a decade, yet Paramount may cancel it. Stephen Colbert’s Late Show dominated late-night television—until it was dropped without warning.

The official explanation? “Budgetary reasons.” But if the show is thriving, what kind of budgetary reasons could we be talking about?

Behind the scenes:

• Stewart and Colbert both called out Paramount’s $16M settlement with Trump over a 60 Minutes interview.
• Stewart accused CBS of “preemptive compliance,” suggesting the network is softening its content to avoid political heat as it pursues an $8.4B merger with Skydance Media.
• Colbert’s top-rated show was suddenly cut, while FCC scrutiny intensifies.

What we’re seeing isn’t about budgetary concerns. It’s about shaping the narrative and who gets to speak it.

Meanwhile:

• PBS lost $1.1B in public funding. Sesame Street’s HBO deal was canceled, reducing its reach.
• The Kennedy Center removed shows like the National Symphony’s Pride concert and WorldPride events after new leadership took over.
• 60 Minutes lost its longtime executive producer, citing interference with editorial independence.

These aren’t isolated incidents. They’re signals of a broader campaign to curate the American mind—not just what we watch, but how we think.

And here’s the deeper truth: Censorship is freedom erosion, no matter who you vote for. When government and media executives decide which truths are acceptable, every community loses—left, right, and everything in between.

🔮 Why It Matters to Us

In spiritual terms, storytelling is spellwork. It’s how we remember, resist, and reclaim. Our bards and artists are every bit as essential as our priests.

Public media isn’t just entertainment—it’s infrastructure. When public media is defunded, we lose more than entertainment and punchlines—we lose our voice, our stories, our culture. That’s their goal.

This matters to:

• Americans, because truth belongs to everyone.
• Wiccans, because ritual and mythology are how we make meaning.
• Progressives, conservatives, LGBTQ+, and Neurodiverse communities, because all of us deserve representation—not erasure.

Representation is a survival tool. Visibility is liberation. Censorship is war on the truth.

And when we let any group be censored, we open the door for all of us to be next.

💥 The Myth of “Go Woke, Go Broke”

This slogan gets repeated like gospel—but the numbers tell a different story:

Cultural Work	Themes	Financial Impact
Barbie (2023)	Gender satire, feminine power	$1.4B box office – WB’s highest ever
Star Trek: Discovery	Queer love, racial leadership	Multi-season success, global fandom
The Matrix	Trans allegory, resistance	Cult legacy, billion-dollar franchise
Encanto	Neurodiversity, family trauma	Box office + viral soundtrack
Heartstopper	Queer teen romance, mental health	Critical acclaim, renewed seasons

These aren’t flops—they’re cultural medicine. They resonate because they tell the truth. And when truth connects, it thrives.

🧘‍♀️ Spiritual Reflection: The Power in What We See

Censorship isn’t a side note. It’s strategy. By limiting what communities are allowed to see, those in power shape what we’re allowed to believe—and eventually, what we’re allowed to become.

But magic doesn’t work that way.

We are mythmakers. We are memory-keepers. We resist forgetting with ritual. We protect truth with community.

🔥 Action Steps: How We Break the Silence Spell

🛠️ Practical Moves

• Support PBS, NPR, and independent media voices.
• Call your representatives: restore public media funding and defend editorial freedom.
• Refuse to reward censorship—boycott networks that silence dissent.

✊ Community Rituals

• Share canceled shows in your circles—watch, reflect, discuss.
• Uplift creators telling complex, real stories—especially under threat.
• Host story circles, coven screenings, and ancestor-inspired media nights.

🪄 Spiritual Resistance

• Light candles and cast protective sigils for truth-tellers.
• Build altars using books, lyrics, scripts, and characters that survived censorship.
• Align rituals with Mercury or Uranus to amplify clarity and disrupt suppression.

🗣️ Closing Invocation

We protect the mythmakers. We honor the truth-bearers. We sing the stories that try to disappear. Because storytelling is resistance. And laughter? Laughter is sacred.