What Would Swayze Do?
By Mickey Z.
12 November,
2008
Countercurrents.org
In the classic 1989 film, Roadhouse, thespian Patrick Swayze inhabits the role of James Dalton, head bouncer at a seedy establishment called the Double Deuce Club. Dalton is armed with a PhD in philosophy from New York University and his three rules of bouncing:
1. Never
underestimate your opponent
2. Take it outside
3. Be nice until it's time to not be nice
Note to those striving for enduring social change: It's time to not be nice.
Being nice got us a nation that pats itself on the back for its freedom and democracy while relegating most of its citizenry to a life of debt, a life without sufficient health insurance, a life of wiretapping and color-coded terror warnings, a life of undrinkable water, polluted air, and inedible food (sic), etc.
Being nice means the US constitutes less than 5% of the world’s human population but is home to 25% of the world’s prison population. Being nice means US women are paid 77 cents for every dollar a man makes. Being nice got us believing that coal is clean, nukes are green, and we must vote for Barack ‘cause the Republicans are mean.
Yeah, being nice resulted in the Legend of Barack Obama™—the most remarkable example of programming and conditioning since the yellow ribbon sticker—while those who refused to guzzle the Obama Kool Aid™ are shoved off to the far corners of Left World.
But, rest assured, as Swayze promises: “Nobody puts Baby in the corner.”
Mickey
Z. can be found in this corner of the Web: http://www.mickeyz.net.
