All Roads Lead to Cornithaca

“Discredit the Witness” Road Signs

There is a certain animal cunning in the survival tactics that authorities employ to protect their acts of corruption and misconduct from exposure; but they follow predictable pathways, and leave recognizable tracks. • One of their most common tactics is exemplified the progression in these signs. The first two steps: “Discredit the Witness” and “Discredit the Facts”; need no explanation. The third step; “Discredit the Context,” is the deliberate attempt to minimize and trivialize the incident or issue; they will claim that it’s been exaggerated to obtain money, or notoriety, that it’s a political attack, and more recently; to use scams like TDML to convince the public that everything is now under control, and there is no need to investigate or take further action. • If inquiries persist; authorities pull together to create an inescapable maze of “in-house” adjudications: by conducting investigations that ignore all pertinent material, handing the issue back to the group accused of the misconduct for a self-investigation, or falling back on the legality of a permit or a regulation that has been formulated for just this sort of eventuality — thereby effectively “caulking” all the cracks. • “Tompkins County and Tammany Hall” may be able to document and expose corruption — but that doesn’t mean anything will be done about it.