This Week in the New Normal #2
This Week in the New Normal #2 Freedom gets screwed, prisoners face vaccine blackmail, you can be worse than dead and an old enemy returns. 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. “Jab or jail” In the US, judges have started making getting vaccinated a condition of bail . Brandon Rutherford, a 21-year-old from Cincinnatti, was given a suspended sentence for possession of fentanyl, but the sentence came with a rider – he must get “vaccinated” against Covid19 in the next 60 days, or he will be sent to prison for eighteen months. This is not the first time this has happened. Last month another judge in Ohio made a similar ruling , offering a convicted defendant a choice between five years probation, or one year and a vaccine. Whilst in Louisiana, judges are offering to cut community service sentences in exchange for people getti