{"id":287440,"date":"2024-05-13T07:15:14","date_gmt":"2024-05-13T07:15:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=287440"},"modified":"2024-05-14T14:19:52","modified_gmt":"2024-05-14T14:19:52","slug":"this-week-in-the-new-normal-90","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=287440","title":{"rendered":"This Week in the New Normal #90"},"content":{"rendered":"

Off-Guardian \u2013 May 12, 2024<\/strong><\/h1>\n

Our successor to This Week in the Guardian<\/em>, This Week in the New Normal<\/a><\/em> is our weekly chart of the progress of autocracy, authoritarianism and economic restructuring around the world.<\/p>\n

1. UK Assisted Dying Law<\/h2>\n

The UK will almost certainly have legalised euthanasia by the end of the year, if not this government then it will be among the first acts of Sir Keir Starmer\u2019s \u201cprogressive\u201d administration after the general election.<\/p>\n

The propaganda for this has been going and going and going for years, but it\u2019s been a particularly hot-button issue for the last few months.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s a particularly manipulative example from today\u2019s Guardian<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Woman having assisted death calls for UK law change<\/p>\n

It\u2019s all about an unfortunate woman with terminal cancer who is waiting to die under New Zealand\u2019s euthanasia law, she tells the paper the UK should:<\/p>\n

\u201cLook at what New Zealand has done, and do it even better. There is a lot of focus on the right to life, but people should have the right to a peaceful, gentle death.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s hard to imagine how, given the last four years, anyone could aspire to be more like New Zealand. But then again I\u2019m not a power-hungry autocrat striving to reshape the world into my own authoritarian hellscape.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s the worst kind of manipulative journalism, employing sentiment ahead of reason. As usual with the assisted dying debate, the media only talks about the benefits of the law and never the potential abuses.<\/p>\n

Anyway, the assisted dying topic is begging for a longer piece and will get one, especially with a new post-Covid context. In the meantime, here\u2019s a piece I wrote about it years ago<\/a>:<\/p>\n

How long after the \u201cright to die\u201d law is passed will it stop being a \u201cright\u201d and start being a \u201cduty\u201d?<\/p>\n

How long before people who don\u2019t avail themselves of their right to die are deemed to be \u201cwasting public money\u201d or \u201cputting a strain on the NHS\u201d?<\/p>\n

Will people have their pensions or other benefits halted for refusing to make the right \u201cchoice\u201d?<\/p>\n

The State already has too much power, and has shown that they will abuse it at every turn. Granting them more would be, in this case, literally suicidal.<\/p>\n

2. Google is Watching<\/h2>\n

This week MSN (and others) reported on the story of K Renee<\/a>, an author who was locked out of their Google Docs account for \u201cinappropriate content\u201d.<\/p>\n

Renee is apparently a romance author known for \u201craunchy\u201d stories, so it\u2019s not hard to image what this inappropriate content was. As a result of the block, Renee is said to have lost over 200,000 words of work. As an author, I find that idea heartbreaking.<\/p>\n

And nobody is really seeing how shocking this story is.<\/p>\n

Not only is the Google Workspace service apparently monitoring what you write, it also claims the power to stop you writing it if it\u2019s deemed \u201cinappropriate\u201d.<\/p>\n

Is this content being flagged and read by human censors? Or is it all automated and AI-based?<\/p>\n

Which is worse?<\/p>\n

A reminder for all of us: Keep copies on your own non-clouded storage, preferably not connected to the internet. And keep hard copies if you can too.<\/p>\n

3. Israel Bans Al Jazeera<\/h2>\n

This week Israel announced they would be banning the Qatar-funded news network Al Jazeera<\/a>. This isn\u2019t anything new as far as Israel is concerned, when you\u2019ve already done war crimes and vaccine mandates, censorship is no big deal.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s rather surprising is that they were called out for it by \u201cthe West\u201d.<\/p>\n

The Washington Post ran a piece headlined<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Israel\u2019s bans Al Jazeera, moves one step closer to autocracy\u201d<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the German government tweeted:<\/p>\n

\n

A free and diverse press landscape is the cornerstone of every liberal democracy. In times of conflict especially, it is of crucial importance to protect the freedom of the press. The decision of the Israeli authorities to shut down #AlJazeera<\/a> in Israel is the wrong signal.<\/p>\n

— GermanForeignOffice (@GermanyDiplo) May 6, 2024<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n