Greed Is Good? Wrong!
“Greed, for lack of a better word, is good.” Those are the ‘all too memorable words’ spoken by the character Gordon Gekko, portrayed by the actor Michael Douglas in the 1987 movie ‘Wall Street.‘ A much better word would simply have been ambition. Ambition is extremely good. Not so much with the word greed.
Merriam Webster’s definition of greed: ‘a selfish and excessive desire for more of something (as money) than is needed.’ Merriam Webster’s definition of selfish: ‘concerned excessively or exclusively with oneself: seeking or concentrating on one’s own advantage, pleasure, or well-being without regard for others.’
So there you have it, greed is selfishness ‘without regard for others.’ So how is it that that is good? The first time I heard these lines from Michael Douglas in an ad, I was sickened with the thought of how young impressionable minds are soaking up that message of selfishness and overt aggressiveness without regard to ethics and morality.
THE PURSUIT OF CONTROLLING YOUNG MINDS
Unfortunately, young minds are just too impressionable and that fact has been exploited for decades by socialists with Marxist and Communist schemes. Hollywood has become most exploitative in recent years. The late Senator Joseph McCarthy’s famous outing of the Hollywood 10 in its day (the 50’s) was like ‘Hollywood 10 Lite’ compared to today’s hidden socialist propaganda programmed into many of today’s media messages in movies, sitcoms, made for TV specials, documentaries and even cartoons.
Clandestine socialist issue messages being woven into media outlets’ output can be equated to the equally clandestine propaganda being fed our children in our schools through Common Core, or as we call it here, Idaho Core (sponsored by the UN and their very clandestine comrades at the Council of Foreign Relations).
From his article ‘The Real McCarthy Record,’ author James J. Drummey wrote: ‘McCarthyism was a serious attempt to remove from positions of influence the advocates of Communism, the willing and unwilling supporters of Communism and Communists, and persons who would prevent the removal of those who give aid and comfort to the enemies of America. Communist conspirators and their friends do not fear those who denounce Communism in general terms; they do greatly fear those who would expose their conspiratorial activities. That is why they hated and fought Joe McCarthy more than any other public figure in this century. That is why they have preserved his name as a club to hold over the head of anyone who dares to expose Communism.
“The events of the past 30 years have proved McCarthy right, and those who want to halt the communist juggernaut today had better know the true story of McCarthyism. The war against Communism cannot be won by wavering apologists,” said Mrs. J. B. Matthews back in 1961. “Victory begins with a realization that no one who fights Communism — not even a hypothetical god-like perfect man — can escape the liberaloid smear, and that smear image bears no relation to reality.”
“Joe McCarthy was a brave and honest man. There was nothing cynical or devious about him. He said and did things for only one reason — he thought they were the right things to say and do. He was not perfect; he sometimes made errors of fact or judgment. But his record of accuracy and truthfulness far outshines that of his detractors. His vindication in the eyes of all Americans cannot come soon enough. Medford Evans put it well when he said: “The restoration of McCarthy … is a necessary part of the restoration of America, for if we have not the national character to repent of the injustice we did him, nor in high places the intelligence to see that he was right, then it seems unlikely that we can or ought to survive.” – Unquote James J. Drummey
GREED IS DEFINITLEY NOT GOOD!
From his article in the Atlantic, ‘Greed Is Good: A 300-Year History of a Dangerous Idea,‘ John Paul Rollert states, “I think greed is healthy,” an apparent acolyte told the graduating class at Berkeley’s business school in 1986. “You can be greedy and still feel good about yourself.” The speaker was Ivan Boesky, who shortly thereafter would be fined $100 million, and later go to prison, for insider trading. His address was adapted by Oliver Stone as the basis for Gordon Gekko’s “greed is good” speech in Wall Street. An exhortation to shareholders of a sagging company, it reads like a corporate raider’s war cry, with Gekko the grinning avatar of Agency Theory.
“Such a blunt endorsement of greed today remains far beyond the mainstream. If we tolerate greed, it is because we accept the hard bargain of the Invisible Hand. We believe that greed can do good, not that it is good. That, we are unwilling to say.
“But for the most part, I don’t think we don’t say very much about greed, not comfortably at least. Perhaps that is the inevitable price of an economic system that relies on the vigor of self-interested pursuits, that it instills a kind of moral quietism in the face of avarice, for whether out of a desire to appear non-judgmental or for reasons of moral expediency, unless some action verges on the criminal, we hesitate to call it greed, much less evidence of someone greedy. We don’t deny the existence of such individuals, but like Bigfoot, they tend to be more rumored than seen.
“Moral revolutions come about in different ways. If we reject some conduct but rarely admit an example, we enjoy the benefit of being high-minded without the burden of moral restraint. We also embolden that behavior, which proceeds with a presumptive blessing. As a matter of public discourse and polite conversation, “Greed” is unlikely to be “Good” anytime soon, but a vice need not become a virtue for the end result to look the same.” – Unquote John Paul Rollert
AMBITION: ‘THE REAL THING’
Ambition is a strong desire to do or to achieve something, typically requiring determination and hard work. Most of what has been accomplished in this world stemmed from the element of sheer ambition fueled by an unrelenting drive to succeed, believing as I read somewhere years ago, that obstacles are just those frightful things you see when you take your eyes off the goal. With ambition, all can be really good.