Carnival Talk for the Informed

To avoid being hounded by hucksters as you walk a carnival midway, simply declare to them, “I’m with it!” This is the signal that you are not to be “marked”, that you understand completely the game and approve of it, that you are, to your own glorification and indemnification, one of them.

This is a valuable heuristic for interpreting the increased chatter we’re picking up – not by NSA and not concerning the evil intentions of “others” against “us” – but the steady drone about possible investigations, commissions, and prosecutions concerning certain elements of, and individuals in, the defunct Bush/Cheney administration by the nascent Obama/Biden administration.

Characteristic of this increased chatter is that it is not coming from establishment outsiders. Almost by definition there is a limiting value on the amount of noise outsiders can create. The impression that the people are free to dissent can be maintained but one hears very little sound from those in the bottom of the pool when the pool is always carefully filled to the top with water. Free to yell, yes. Free to yell where it would have the greatest effect, not so fast.

Accountability chatter is now coming from insiders, from establishment “critics” in the political and media elite. There is this lush opportunity to be seen in the light of eternal truth and justice – as a singular seeker going steadfast wherever the trail leads, wherever the evidence leads – while pretending that the grandstands aren’t full.

How seriously this chatter can be taken may be judged by its tardiness, despite protestations that it is never too late. Later is what it always gets. And it is certainly too late to undo or even mitigate the damage done in this 8-year crime wave.

What we might be talking about is picking off a few dispensable pieces from this gang, the preferred alternative to rocking (in this case, severely) the ship of state. A great crime deserves great measures, and such are being taken reflexively by establishment stewards who do not have to be taught the value of preservation.

We are instructed to keep our gaze ahead, on the task before us, to a future beckoning us. Every establishment statement about accountability is tempered with this disclaimer:

Objects in the mirror are farther than you need concern yourself about.

If this behavior was taking place in another country we would not hesitate to term it a whitewash. We have our own term for it. Transition. As in, a smooth transition.

Such is the resolution when you understand the game, when you approve of it, when you’re one of them, when you’re “with it”.