Off-Guardian – April 6, 2025
Our successor to This Week in the Guardian, This Week in the New Normal is our weekly chart of the progress of autocracy, authoritarianism and economic restructuring around the world.
1. WEF’s Klaus Raus
Klaus Schwab, founder and leader of the World Economic Forum, is “beginning the process” of stepping down from his duties as chairman of the board of trustees. This “process” is apparently going to take until at least January 2027, so right there you have to wonder how real any of this is at all.
But there is precedent, as this announcement follows on from his resignation as Chief Executive in 2023, a role he was succeeded in by Norwegian politician Børge Brende.
Now, while an 87 year old man (allegedly) retiring is not, of itself, newsworthy it does raise interesting questions.
Such as “why now?” and “who is replacing him?”
As to the former, I would guess it’s because Klaus is now tainted. He is too publicly associated with Covid and the “Great Reset”. His presence immediately turns people off, his ideas are instantly suspected.
It’s the same reason you don’t see Bill Gates giving as many interviews as you did during Covid. These are the faces of the New Normal agenda, and as that agenda becomes more covert than overt the people who proudly nailed their colours to its mast need to be pushed aside so the greater work can continue.
That’s not to say they are being actually rejected or their ideas repudiated, of course, just that their public association is damaging.
In the latter case, one early rumor suggested Tony Blair would be taking the job, but (if my reasoning can be trusted) that was never likely. Replacing Schwab with Blair to reduce bad press is like replacing your toaster with a flamethrower so you don’t burn your muffins.
Other potential replacements include the other members of the board – Christine Lagarde of the ECB, Kristalina Georgieva of the IMF, Larry Fink of BlackRock, Marc Benioff of Salesforce and Mukesh Ambani of Reliance Industries.
But they largely have the same issue as Blair – namely, they are creepy and everyone hates them.
I would suspect that a good portion of the next 18 months of “stepping down process” will be spent holding auditions for some bland-faced Trudeau-like “nice guy” type who can say all the same things Uncle Klaus used to say, without looking and sounding like a Bond villain.
2. Background Bird Flu
Tariffs and Trump and trade are taking up the headlines right now, with online censorship and Adolescence rushing to fill any gaps.
Behind that, the now-familiar strains of music still play on a loop. Digital currency this, Covid that and – among other things – Bird Flu.
Mexico’s Health Ministry recorded its first official human case of Bird Flu this week, according to Reuters
In India, it’s being reported that a two-year-old child died of bird flu after eating raw chicken. The details are unclear, but on the face of it that story makes no sense.
In England, DEFRA have ordered stricter measures be put in place in the north after more cases of H5N1 were allegedly found in wild birds.
The Conversation warns that bird flu “could be on the cusp of transmitting between humans”.
There’s some background noise building. Just in time for an Easter – or post-Easter – scare maybe?
3. Having Children is bad and terrible and really eats into your “me time”
I’m not a monster, screams the headline, but I regret having children:
And you know what, fine. Maybe regretting having children doesn’t make you a monster, but writing an article about it that your children will likely one day see, does.
But that’s just taking the story at face value.
The author is anonymous, the names apparently made up, so maybe the whole thing is just a piece of propaganda attacking the idea of having a family.
BONUS: Red Flag Interview of the week
We’re all more than used to the “free speech is hurting our kids!” argument; there’s always someone somewhere mewling out some variation.
This week that someone is Ian Russell, an “online safety campaigner”, and the somewhere is BBC Newsnight:
“We cannot keep waiting for change to come.”
Online safety campaigner Ian Russell, says there is a “rising anger” amongst bereaved families and calls for Ofcom to be “less timid”.#Newsnight pic.twitter.com/W0B9jgrG6j
— BBC Newsnight (@BBCNewsnight) April 3, 2025
—
My favourite bit is the part where he says that OfCom need to be “less timid” about enforcing an act…that only came into force 3 weeks ago.
I also like how vague the term “real change” is. Just a little tip: When pundits get vague it’s for one of two reasons. Either they don’t know what they’re talking about, or they know the specifics will make them sound stupid. I’m guessing, in this instance, it’s the second one.
All told a pretty hectic week for the new normal crowd, and we didn’t even mention the Colorado Bill that classify misgendering your child as “child abuse” or San Francisco’s “equity-based” speeding tickets, which charge you more (or less) depending on your income.
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There’s a lot of change in the air, a lot of agendas in the works, if you see a headline, article, post or interview you think is a sign of the times, post it in the comments, email us or share it on social media and we will add it to the next edition.
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I cannot post anything in the offguardian, because the freedom loving, free commenting antidote and supposed haven from the Guardian draconian control of comment has banned me, banned my ip and made totally sure to the nth degree that I will never post anything in their freedom loving forum of free speech…I even donated money to their site because I believed that what the said was real, well they are just liars, and indeed, that is a bit “off”..they got that bit correct. Liar, liars, pants on fire…Controlled opposition probably.
Thanks again Truthseeker for giving a forum for freespeech, even stuff I disagree with, but is that not ‘free’ speech is about. But, be careful of offguardian, you do not want gate keepers ruining your hard won good reputaton for posting everything and letting the reader decide. Thank you for treating us as adults.
They’ve already said before that Yuval Noah Harari will take Shwabs place. Yuval says that the notions of God and free will are jokes.
I’m guessing the reason for this slug’s retirement is not his age but his failure. They went too early in their attempt to wipe us out by the billions, probably a generation too early at least and it’s knocked their plan back for a century or more. They’ve dumbed down a lot of people but nowhere near enough. Most of us were educated in classes of about 30 kids so they’d have needed to take 26-27 out of every class. They got maybe 15-18 and possibly far fewer.
The largest group which fell for their propaganda BS is themselves. They thought most of us believed their sh!t, forgetting the majority of us were educated when a smart workforce was something of value.
Kemi Badenoch, leader of Britain’s Conservative Party, said in a TV interview last Sunday that Israel was democratic, proving she is a fully paid-up member of Britain’s Satanic Zionist and is willing to sacrifice Brits in support of the Brutal Jewish Occupation of Palestine and Israel’s genocidal wars.
jay,
You have joined a fine club m8
One day when the dust has settled and like when the Stasi quit east Berlin the records will show the emails and coms between “six” and “off guardian”
the purpose of their jolly little game is to provide levity to a situation that is dire and impending, suggesting that conversation (within the censored parameters) will move us forward and prove to be a method of “resistance”
such merely neuters and absorbs, deflecting any resistance away and shrouding real evidence like a random occasional meat ball in a tin of spaghetti “OOps” that has sunk to bottom `o the tin
For them as keep digging All the lies that pave life in this time and place are falling away like rotten skin on a dying corpse
“off-g” keeps folks looking at the obvious while failing (intentionally) to address the 6 million elephants in the room, and that along with the other really big fat whoppers is where attention is required not endlessly recycling shit that has been dealt with too many times..
Many homeless working people, or those living in squaller, own nothing and are in that situation through no fault of their own because they can’t afford to pay their way. And because they own nothing it makes them depressed and pissed off and not in the least happy about it!😢