Who Are You Calling a Greedy Bastard?
January 11, 2012
A "Greedy Bastard" is a Behavior, Not a Person or Group
Our political system is being bought at auction. Legislative policy and regulation is being catered to the highest bidder, and we are witnessing the greatest exodus of wealth and production from our shores in the history of the United States.
At every level of governance, money has become the voice with the strongest resonance, the friend with the greatest benefit, and the focus of every politician, whether they be Republican or Democrat. The mainstream media has become complicit in this auction system, granting a free pass to the political establishment as our nation’s education, healthcare, infrastructure, and trade apparatuses crumble around us. In short, we are a nation being controlled by Greedy Bastards.
But what, exactly, is a Greedy Bastard? The inclination of many people frustrated with the system is to search for a scapegoat, someone they can pin all of these problems on and see them held accountable for the extraction of America’s wealth. While there are certainly people that could be held directly responsible for America’s current woes, the argument forwarded in Greedy Bastards is not a person or a group, but rather a behavior.
Greedy Bastard behavior uses deception to get you to agree to a deal while passing off the risk to you without you knowing about it. It exploits influence for private gain. Greedy Bastards offer customers a low price on something they need, but if you dig deep enough there’s always a catch. That catch is a sliver of chance that something monumentally terrible will happen. Greedy Bastards use money to advocate policies that will make this seemingly impossible event happen.
This is defined in the book as The Very Bad Deal, and Greedy Bastards continue making deals like this with industry. Greedy Bastard behavior is everywhere: multi-trillion dollar thefts across the country in banking, trade, energy, healthcare, education, and even the politicians they buy.
We must recognize Greedy Bastard behavior and seize the modern tools to enforce shared visibility, integrity, and choice into every decision we make so that we can align our interests. For the full definition:
Dylan Ratigan is the author of the newly-released Greedy Bastards and host of The Dylan Ratigan Show on MSNBC.
Dylan,
Republicans wants the keystone XL pipeline, which pollutes drinking water for 2 million people. If opposing this is called “OVER-REGULATION ” and ” KILLING JOBS”, then please call Mitch McConnell and ask him some tough questions. NOT the softies. This is Hot Spotting in journalism. Simply calling every one as corrupt,does not solve anything.
It would be well to contact Congress except they've been bought also, fat as they are splurging upon corporate cash and lobbying success, showing Americans every day why the 1% are not fit to govern the nation. Because they don't need to elicit public support, they don't bother, and simply do what they wish, the public be damned!
Sorry days for democracy thanks to the Supreme Court.
It's not just the republicans and democrats, It's equally the U.S. Supreme court. The president called them out for their decision on money in politicks in a state of the union speech and was ridiculed for doing so. How do we get the money out of Washington with such a political court?
Newt Gingrich, what a seriously goofy man." I want to teach the inner city school kids to work by making them clean their school bathrooms and do the menial jobs, because it's cheaper then paying janitors union wages". I wonder what his plans for the privileged children,with a silver spoon, are.
If by some miracle he wins the nomination, It's a guaranteed 2nd term for Obama..