Brief meditation on weaponized use of language: “DEI” and “disinformation”

I’m not quite sure why the “equity” in Diversity, Equity, Inclusion (DEI) has suddenly become a hot topic in the conservative punditry.  It seems to have erupted in the last 72 hours.

But the eruption is a nice opportunity to drop a few observations on the use of language entailed in the DEI formulation.  I had occasion to tweet this weekend about the same use of language with the term “disinformation,” as it is deployed by Western cultural planners today, so I’m including that in the discussion.

I commend to you the discussions of others.

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TOC Ready Room 7 Jan 2023: Border disorder, Project Censorship, Church redux

Back from a Christmas “break,” and I’m still tired of politics.  What a silly method of dealing with human affairs.

A few random updates for the TOC squadron.

Readers probably won’t be surprised to learn that in December, the House Democrats adopted a rule that the J6 Committee materials they were going to send to the National Archives must be sequestered from release for 30 years.

Sourced from Yahoo report below.
Yahoo refs LAT rpt (scroll down) that house Dems rule of Dec 2022 wd prevent Archives release of most J6 docs for 30 yrs (extra-sensitive up to 50).
Democracy so important it requires hiding J6 matl for decades?https://t.co/N96MACCRC9 https://t.co/TvSXEXA311

— J.E. Dyer ☘️ (@OptimisticCon) January 6, 2023

It’s now being reported,

TOC Ready Room 16 December 2022: Censorship, gas lights, and Russia-Iran missile/drone adventure

A phenomenon has been developing in recent weeks that should raise our level of concern about the nature of public discourse, especially as brokered by the media.

It’s more than what the media, per se, are doing, however.  It has to do with “news” that purports to be coming from government, but is backed by no actual evidence, and is unverifiable in terms of whether it came from government at all, much less could be held accountable in any way.

We’ll have some examples below that clarify what I’m talking about.  To start with, however, a tweet exchange for orientation to the topic:

U.S. bombers to Australia: New deployment, old issue

In 2016, I wrote about the recent purchase by a China-based company of a 99-year lease on parts of the port of Darwin in Australia’s Northern Territory.  The company, Landbridge, would execute the terms of the lease, which included port operations and a commercial fuel depot at a location close to where the U.S. Marines are deployed to Darwin, through an Australian subsidiary set up for the purpose.

Landbridge has connections to the Communist Party through its interactions with government officials in its homebase of Rizhao, a port city in Shandong Province.  The company’s owner, Ye Cheng, has also referred to Landbridge’s port lease in Darwin as Landbridge’s participation in Xi Jinping’s “One Belt, One Road” initiative – certainly not evidence of detachment by the company from the Party.  One Belt, One Road is a government project, not the vision of Chinese “private” industry (to the extent there ever was such a thing, or still could be a year on from the Xi regime’s comprehensive 2021 business crackdown).

When the Landbridge deal was being negotiated,

Mar-a-Lago affidavit: Russiagate rides again

The affidavit behind the warrant for the FBI raid on Mar-a-Lago is out, sort of, and it appears to fulfill expectations.  The statute citations are absurd, the prior cooperation of former President Trump with federal agencies is clear, a huge question remains unanswered, and the issue of declassification is dealt with in a series of rimshots that never land in a pocket (which alone should have been a red flag to magistrate Judge Bruce Reinhart).

And that’s just the part we can see.  The real question – not really a question, I think – is what’s invisible behind the massive redactions.

I say it’s not really a question, because one thing it has to be is excuses for the statute citations, which include language implying Trump is suspected of conspiring to hand sensitive national defense material to unauthorized persons, and has unknown confederates in such an enterprise.