A couple days ago I brought forward for your consideration the interview with a man named Dirt. My feelings about him were of course mixed. On the one side there’s no way I could allow him to ever become a role model for myself. But on the other, I have to acknowledge that in spite of all his flaws, he has lived with more integrity and bravery than I ever have.

Maybe calling him brave is not quite right, just like calling him an anarchist isn’t.

Maybe I’m just envious of the degree to which he actually doesn’t give a fuck what people think.

Maybe I’m down on myself, because I still do, for some stupid reason I don’t understand–could be that in spite of all my rebellion I am still on some level trying to please a parent or the other parent or god or somebody.

Watching that interview sent complex shock waves down toward my core.

So naturally, like the shockwave addict I am, I watched more interviews from the same source.

Most of them are with people who are far more broken than Dirt, or even me, but you can see that for yourself if you dare.

The source is Mark Laita, and you can hear about him in his own words on his YT homepage:

Soft White Underbelly Intro Video

I’ve pulled a few quotes from this ‘mission statement’ video, and I’m going to lovingly critique them.

“These videos are meant to create awareness, of things that are broken in our country”.

So far so good, and I’m impressed by the simple acknowledgment of the vast swaths of brokenness that never make it into the media Matrix, and collecting examples of it all in one place. Or to put it alternatively:

“here’s a really good window into what’s really going on”

Yes. It is. In a way that NPR used to be in spots, before they completely sold themselves out to becoming a mouthpiece for White People Problems on the one hand and useless Orthodox Wokeness on the other.

At this point, by contrast, Soft White Underbelly is journalism doing what journalism is supposed to do.

But … we also get this.

“If we don’t look at some of these things, they’re just gonna continue to grow and get worse and worse
and I believe listening, understanding, accepting, and maybe deciding to do something differently
Might make a difference eventually.”

The key words are Deciding, Differently. =Difference.

But who decides, to do something differently, any Thing that crucially matters?

Not me, and probably not you either. We don’t have that much pull, not even as much as might be suggested by the lie of ‘democracy’ and phrasings like the Will of the People.

The way we already do things is exactly the way the Deciders want things done. It’s tautological.

So, barring some revolutionary change in the accelerating inequality, Worse And Worse is absolutely inevitable.

Late in the video, Mr. Mark Laita brings the rhetorical killshot down on himself, in a summary re-framing statement that goes:

“this channel is about helping our government figure out what’s wrong with our country”

It’s at this point that the inherent nobility of his mission crashes and burns for me.

Mark, Mark … god, don’t be such a libtard … they know. They know exactly what’s wrong, but they’re very well paid to speak and act as if it was all very right, or soon will be if people would only donate to them, or vote for this party or that and keep the game running and rigged just the way it is, except worse, and worse.

These broken people are not their acquaintances or co-workers, much less their neighbors.

The whole point of the game is to amass enough wealth, cachet, political and economic power to never, ever have to deal personally with these Fentanyl addicts and PTSD veterans, whose bones their money and clout are built over on purpose.

Even their kids will never go to those vulnerably public schools where mass murder is the fashion.

They won the game, they got out, they go to the gala balls in the highest fashion now, and their only job duty is to be a good little brick in the wall that stands exactly in the way of doing some thing or any thing differently.

Their performance evaluations on that job are written and signed by the donor class.

Kucinich was performing Below Expectations by wanting to Do Different, so he got his walking papers. Ocasio-Cortez: useful idiot, Meets Expectations, conditional contract renewal (and the same for the old Vermont Jew). Pelosi, Schumer, Cruz, McConnell–Exceeding Expectations, Meritorious Brickery; renewal and raises for them all.

The gap widens.

The system rots from within, just as the deciders intended.

Mark, I’m grateful for your witness and your journalism, independent of all that. Among other things, it’s more than I do.

The reason my tongue is sharp with critique is that the lives of your interviewees and their children and their children’s children are never going to get one damn bit better by the mechanism you’re apparently believing in, and offering.

No one in government, or with deciding power, is going to even watch your videos, unless they do it to get off on some twisted version of poverty porn in the dark.

I used to believe that witnessing and recording was enough. And I did hear what you said, about all the money you’ve raised for poor broken people too–I take nothing away from you for any of it.

I just want so badly to move things in the direction of doing differently … not for myself, not even just for all the people in that picture and beyond … but for everyone about to be born into this system, and every soul we’re about to lose to the long sleep.

I believe your heart is in the right place. I’m only asking that your brain follow it there.