Tag: political correctness

ESG, DEI, and the Rise of Fake Reporting

We know that the modern West has developed a jaw-dropping degree of totalitarianism, wherein the bureaucracies of the state and the corporate sector coordinate together to cripple humans outside their power networks and media channels. But what are the mechanics of this coordination? To understand one of the games they play, consider the rise of measures and standards associated with DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) and ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) – both occupants of a highly abstract thought dimension and the latter an especially incomprehensible word salad.

ESG as a phrase was coined in a 2006 United Nations report, gradually gaining adoption by private companies like BlackRock via the production of annual ESG reports. Governments then started supporting these voluntary efforts, and eventually began making them mandatory. Since early 2023, corporations in the EU have been compelled to report on ESG. Many US companies with subsidiaries in the EU must observe both US and European rules, and those in the Asia-Pacific region too are starting to follow the ESG reporting pantomime.

In brief, ESG originated at the level of the international and intellectual stratosphere and then grew, unchecked by tedious real-world constraints like scarcity and tradeoffs, as a kind of malignant joint venture between large government bureaucracies and large corporations.

This JV is a serious industry, offering lucrative money-making opportunities for consulting companies, fund managers, and assorted professionals who ‘help’ companies comply. Bahar Gidwani, co-founder of a company called CSRHub, a compiler and provider of ESG company ratings, estimates that the collection of ESG data alone is already costing companies $20 billion worldwide.

It is an expanding industry too, since the reporting requirements keep increasing: according to recent reports, the head of the US Securities and Exchange Commission estimates that the cost of ESG reporting by the companies it oversees could quadruple to $8.4 billion this year, primarily due to the introduction of more ESG requirements. And that’s just in the US.

Large reporting costs are easier for large companies to bear, which offers a clue to why they’re interested: this sort of burden, particularly when made compulsory by the state, helps them dominate their smaller competitors.

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How Fat Pride became the new battleground in America’s culture wars: One in six US deaths linked to obesity but liberal states are banning fatphobia with discrimination laws

Sitting picturesquely in the foothills of the hiking and skiing mecca of the Rocky Mountains, Boulder isn’t known as America’s fittest city for nothing.

Intimidatingly hale and hearty, it’s a place where bars and restaurants are dead by 9pm so locals can fit in an early morning ski or mountain-bike climb before work.

It sits at 5,430ft above sea level so endurance athletes from all over the world come to train here. Boulder’s social calendar is packed with a daunting series of strenuous events including an annual 10km road race that attracts 50,000 runners, a plunge into an iced-over lake and a ‘Tube To Work Day’ in which commuters hurtle down the rapids of a river clinging to car tyre inner tubes.

And then there’s the annual Halloween Dash, when residents run naked down the city’s main street in front of cheering crowds wearing nothing but a hollowed-out pumpkin on their head. Anywhere else the locals might be just a little self-conscious but not Boulder, where many people are only too happy to show off their athletic physique.

Which makes it so extraordinary that Colorado, America’s slimmest state, where Boulder is situated, is set to become the first state in the US for 50 years to ban ‘fat phobia’ by law. And it is not alone in its aims to legislate in this way. Across America, politicians have been planning laws to add a person’s weight to the list of characteristics such as race, age, religion and sexual orientation that are protected from discrimination.

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Bah Humbug: The Police State Wants Us To Be A Nation Of Snowflakes

“This boy is Ignorance. This girl is Want. Beware them both, and all of their degree, but most of all beware this boy, for on his brow I see that written which is Doom, unless the writing be erased.”

– Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol

What a year.

It feels as if government Grinches and corporate Scrooges have been working overtime to drain every last drop of joy, kindness and liberty from the world.

After endless months of being mired in political gloom and doom, we could all use a little Christmas cheer right now.

Unfortunately, Christmas has become embattled in recent years, co-opted by rampant commercialism, straight-jacketed by political correctness, and denuded of so much of its loveliness, holiness and mystery.

Indeed, the season for giving has turned into the season for getting…and for getting offended.

To a nation of snowflakes, Christmas has become yet another trigger word.

When I was a child in the 1950s, the magic of Christmas was promoted in the schools. We sang Christmas carols in the classroom. There were cutouts of the Nativity scene on the bulletin board, along with the smiling, chubby face of Santa and Rudolph. We were all acutely aware that Christmas was magic.

Fast forward to the present day, and Christmas has become fodder for the politically correct culture wars.

Over the years, Christmas casualties in the campaign to create one large national safe space have ranged from the beloved animated classic Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer (denounced for promoting bullying and homophobia) to the Oscar-winning tune “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” (accused of being a date rape anthem) crooned by everyone from Dean Martin to Will Ferrell and Zooey Deschanel in the movie Elf.

Also on the endangered species Christmas list are such songs as “Deck the Halls,” “Santa Baby,” and “White Christmas.”

One publishing company even re-issued their own redacted version of Clement Clarke Moore’s famous poem “Twas the night before Christmas” in order to be more health conscious: the company edited out Moore’s mention of Santa smoking a pipe (“The stump of a pipe he held tight in his teeth, / And the smoke, it encircled his head like a wreath.”)

In the politically correct quest to avoid causing offense, Christmas keeps getting axed.

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Ohio State University health course will require students to address ‘whiteness’ and explain how they ‘navigate race’ in their daily lives

The Ohio State University students who have signed up for a health sciences course are required to address their white, heterosexual or able-bodied privileges, documents have revealed.

The course titled ‘Individual Differences in Patient/Client Populations’ is offered through the university’s School of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences.

Do No Harm, a group of physicians, healthcare professionals, medical students, patients and policymakers who aim to ‘protect healthcare from a radical, divisive, and discriminatory ideology’ obtained course details through a Freedom of Information Act request.

In the documents, reviewed by Fox News, one assignment in the course titled ‘Unpack the Invisible Knapsack’ asked students to complete a series of activities about privilege.

Three options were provided to students as per the document obtained by Do No Harm that allowed students to select from the ‘white privilege knapsack,’ the ‘heterosexual privilege knapsack’ and the ‘able-body privilege knapsack.’

The assignment stems from a 1989 essay titled ‘White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack’ in which anti-racist activist Peggy McIntosh addresses her own experiences of race.

McIntosh’s work, which attempts to prove white privilege exists, is scattered through the course document including statements such as: ‘Whiteness protected me from many kinds of hostility, distress and violence, which I was being subtly trained to visit, in turn, upon people of color.’

The course has seen some backlash by online critics who believe The Ohio State University is a ‘sick waste of money.’

One critic said: ‘Health sciences program offered at The Ohio State University requires students to take part in an array of discussions about gender and race, including students to address their ‘privileges if they are White’, heterosexual or able-bodied.

‘It’s time to flush out college DEI (Diversity, Equity and Inclusion).’

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California To Start Fining Stores That Don’t Have a ‘Gender Neutral’ Kids Toy Section

California is set to implement a new law on January 1, 2024, which mandates that stores selling children’s items must include a gender-neutral section.

This law targets retailers with at least 500 employees across their various store locations. These stores are required to display a reasonable selection of childcare items and toys in a way that does not conform to traditional gender marketing norms.

The text of the law claims that this approach allows consumers to more easily identify unjustified differences in similar products traditionally marketed to either girls or boys. It also suggests that separating these items by gender makes it harder for consumers to compare products and implies that their use by one gender is inappropriate.

“Unjustified differences in similar products that are traditionally marketed either for girls or for boys can be more easily identified by the consumer if similar items are displayed closer to one another in one, undivided area of the retail sales floor,” the text of the law says. “Keeping similar items that are traditionally marketed either for girls or for boys separated makes it more difficult for the consumer to compare the products and incorrectly implies that their use by one gender is inappropriate.”

Retailers who fail to comply with this new regulation could face a civil penalty. A fine of $250 is imposed for the first offense, escalating to $500 for subsequent offenses.

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Government Staff Asked To Check Pronouns Of Co-Workers Before Assuming Gender Identity

People working for the government in the UK have been told that they should check what pronouns their colleagues prefer and not assume they know the gender their co-workers identify as.

The Telegraph reports that civil servants were advised to take the measures in an internal memo that asked staff to mark Transgender Day of Remembrance, one of several calendar days earmarked for LGBTQ+ themed activities.

The report further notes that the director general of trade negotiations in the Department for Business and Trade told staff that the event “encourages us to pause to commemorate those whose lives have been lost due to intolerance”.

The memo also contained a diatribe from a non-binary staff member who expressed a desire for “actions that I’d like to see colleagues take to work towards removing stigma and build [sic] a culture where we are open and inclusive of our trans colleagues.”

The memo continues, “Checking people’s email signatures for their pronouns and not assuming colleagues’ pronouns, are both simple things that I know can make acknowledging gender diversity part of our daily discourse.”

It adds, “Joining DBTs LGBTQ+ Network is also a way to support your LGBTQ+ colleagues and keep up to date with current issues the community is facing.”

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Elon Musk Warns Irish They Could Be Arrested For Having a Meme on Their Phone

Elon Musk has warned Irish people that they could literally be arrested and imprisoned for having a meme on their phone if new hate speech laws are passed.

The new laws were introduced in response to the Dublin riots, with authorities keen to punish people who were angry over an Algerian migrant stabbing three children in broad daylight.

The law creates a new crime of inciting violence or hatred againsts persons by possessing material which offends the “protected characteristics” of an individual or group.

Musk responded to the controversy by posting on X, “Language being proposed as law in Ireland means this could literally happen to you for having a meme on your phone.”

The post was accompanied by a video of a SWAT team smashing down a door and invading someone’s house.

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NYC law banning discrimination based on height and weight goes into effect

A new city law that bans discriminating against someone because of their height or weight went into effect last week, six months after Mayor Eric Adams first signed the legislation.

The law adds those two categories to the list of characteristics that are protected from housing, job and public discrimination — alongside things like age, gender, race, religion and sexual orientation, according to the New York Times.

“All New Yorkers, regardless of their body shape or size, deserve to be protected from discrimination under the law,” NYC City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams and Councilman Shaun Abreu said in a joint statement Sunday.

“Body size discrimination affects millions of people every year, contributing to harmful disparities in medical treatment and outcomes, blocking people from access to opportunities in employment, housing and public accommodations, and deepening existing injustices that people face,” the statement added.

“New York City is leading the nation with this groundbreaking anti-discrimination law.”

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Leaked NSA Doc Reveals Massive Woke Glossary Pushing Critical Race Theory, Gender Ideology At Intel Agency

The National Security Agency, responsible for monitoring threats both foreign and domestic for the U.S. military, assumed a new responsibility under the Biden administration — creating a massive glossary of woke terms for employees, ranging from “anti-racist” to the gender-neutral pronouns “ze” and “zir.”

A copy of the NSA’s Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Glossary obtained and verified by The Daily Wire shows the agency now provides definitions for terms such as “queer theory” and “white fragility,” as part of its expansive guide to 327 social justice terms that blame “white Europeans” for engaging in “settler colonialism” and warn of “transmisogyny.”

The 34-page document, published internally on May 6th, 2022, but never released publicly before The Daily Wire’s investigation, pushes blatantly left-wing views on race and sex. It explicitly endorses the tenets of Critical Race Theory and Queer Theory, both of which are included as terms on the glossary.

The leaked, unclassified NSA document identifies itself as a “a glossary of terms and language commonly used in dialogue regarding diversity, equity, inclusion, and social justice” and cites radical Critical Race Theory educators such as Robin DiAngelo and Ibram X. Kendi.

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Governor Kathy Hochul Says New York Has Started Conducting Special Media “Surveillance Efforts” To Monitor “Hate”

In response to escalating incidents of harassment, particularly against Jewish and Muslim communities, New York’s Governor Kathy Hochul is today intensifying the state’s counterterrorism measures and is boosting the controversial practice of surveilling social media platforms, and therefore the speech of New Yorkers and other American citizens.

This measure follows ongoing tension in Israel and Gaza. Hochul revealed plans for enhancing the FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force personnel and assigning an extra $2.5 million to the State Police.

“…we’re very focused on the data we’re collecting from surveillance efforts, what’s being said on social media platforms, and we have launched an effort to be able to counter some of the negativity and reach out to people,” Hochul said.

“When we see hate speech being spoken about on online platforms, our media analysis, our social media analysis unit has ramped up its monitoring of sites to catch incitement to violence, direct threats to others.

“And all this is in response to our desire, our strong commitment to ensure that not only do New Yorkers be safe, but they also feel safe.”

This isn’t the first time Hochul has stuck her nose into monitoring online speech.

A New York law aimed at regulating “hateful conduct” online was blocked by a judge. This law, signed by Governor Hochul, required social media networks to report and address hateful conduct, broadly defined as actions that vilify or incite violence based on various identity factors.

Judge Andrew L. Carter, Jr. ruled that the law violated the First Amendment, emphasizing the importance of protecting even hateful speech. The court argued that the law not only restricted the speech of social media users but also compelled social media networks to adopt and endorse the state’s definition of hateful conduct.

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