Welcome to the Glenn Beck Program. I want to go over a few stories that came across my desk this morning, and I want you to see if you can figure out what they all have in common.
First, Greece is rioting. [video.] These are the police in Greece. More violent clashes as the youths throw rocks and gas bombs at the Greek Finance Ministry over the cost cutting measures being taken by the government. They bombed a satellite truck, they blew up kiosks, they attacked police. The protests and strikes have brought the economy to a grinding halt. Everything from the electric company workers to ambulance drivers to air traffic controllers to public transportation employees -- they all walked off the job. Greece is lovely today.
We told you about this two years ago. We told you it was coming. Nobody believed us then. There's much more coming. Okay, there's story number one.
Now. Similar strike is set to hit the U.K. on Thursday. Up to 3/4 of a million workers plan to walk off their job on Thursday. So there's another nation.
Now, let me take you back in time just a little bit. [video.] This is the Israeli ambassador who was shouted down while speaking at students at U.C.-Irvine. They wouldn't let them speak. Let me now go to the conservatives that speak on campuses. They're often silenced. Ann Coulter has been physically attacked on stage. Then we have the president's spiritual adviser, Jim Wallace, who has several groups that have targeted Fox, this program, [airguotes] hate talk radio -- through groups like Sojourners and Faithful America. Faith in Public Life. There's a whole bunch of them, and they attack through commercials. Although when you go to their websites, you always see -- I mean, it's painfully obvious -- that they are political arms of the DNC and the uber-left.
Soros funds many of these. And I've often been puzzled. He's an atheist. Why would he fund faith groups? I've questioned Soros, speaking of him. How many times has he attack us, through Media Matters? They had a little party for our departure last night. [Beck gets close to camera.] Media Matters, first of all, our departure is Thursday. But just note: enjoy that party while you can. You'll be praying for these days to come back.
How many millions has George Soros spent to silence me? Now, silencing people is what they do best. If you dare to be skeptical of global climate change, and -- according to the scientists -- maybe you should be branded. I, this has got to be a joke. [screen]
It was the same line of attack on healthcare. If you disagreed with Obamacare, it was because you were a racist, you were a hate-mongerer, you wanted to starve children -- not because you believed in small government or entrepreneurs, right? You remember?
[video of Obama, 4/29/09]
Those of you who are watching news networks on which I am not too popular, and you see folks waving them teabags around... -- Obama
Okay, "waving teabags". Why did he say it like that? And why did he do it that way? Now the Obama Administration officials are hiring mystery shoppers to pose as patients to find out if doctors are accepting patients with private insurance while turning away those in government health programs that pay lower reimbursement rates. Of course they are. We told you this would happen. They knew this would happen. What's amazing about this story is that this really is the mark of the death of the free press. You see, the press is supposed to be the watchdog. But if you don't have the press, then who do you have? Well, don't worry about it, because you have the government being the watchdog.
You know you don't have an honest watchdog when the president said that doctors are out amputating legs or feet or taking out tonsils just for profit, and the press didn't expose those doctors or expose the president for lying to the American people. Because only one of those things can be true. So the press just went away, and now the government can be the watchdog.
In Wisconsin, protesters continue to change This-is-what-democracy-looks-like but here's what it really looks like. Listen to what they're saying about a Republican state senator as he's being chased by hecklers along the Capitol building. [video, March 2. Editor's note: hey! I remember this. I think I see some people I know in that crowd. <grumble> Dear Beck, there was some even better footage available to prove your point. I'll try to dig it up for y'all.] Shame! Shame! Shame! Shame!
Now protesters are going around and mobbing banks and other companies. The government employee union is sending letters to businesses asking them to support workers' rights (or else). They put up signs like this one [screen: AFSCME "This business supports workers' rights] in businesses' windows. If you don't, well then, here's what happens. [screen]
Unions did the same thing to Philadephia. [Screen for "Milkboy Coffee"] A little coffee shop, locally owned coffee shop didn't use a union outfit for some of their renovations. They had thugs stand in front of their store every single day saying their coffee shop was harming their community.
Welcome to the third grade, gang. You don't agree with me? You don't agree with me? Well then you must hate teachers. No, no I'll tell you what. You must hate teachers and fire fighters and cops, and you want to starve children to death! Git 'em!
That's what we're turning into. What do all of these stories have in common? MOBS. We're turning into a mobocracy. And they're doing it to the whole planet. But why? They don't need to tear us apart, if we'll tear each other apart. We're being taught to hate each other. From teens in the streets to college liberals to politicians, businesses. At some point, your views are going to be challenged. And, are you part of the mob, or are you on the other end, the one's that surrounded. And if you are that person, how are you going to react?
Tonight, we begin the search for courage.
DUN DUN DEHN DUN
Hello America. There are only three shows left. The last show of this broadcast on this network is Thursday. There are only three shows left. Tomorrow and tonight, I want to talk about a few things that I think are very important, and then we'll have a very special show on Thursday. After that, I'm going in an new direction. I told you that last year. Go to GlennBeck.com, and you'll see what I'm doing and where I'm going, and please stay in touch.
But tonight, I want to spend one of the three on the start of the Search For Courage.
Because courage, it's a process. We're not born courageous. We're not babies -- we're like "Gah! I'm super baby, I'm so courageous." It's a process. And it's a process that includes a lot of things: education -- even knowing on who you are as a person. It requires honor. That's why last year we started with Restoring Honor out at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C. Now, it's about courage. Whatever shape or form it may take in your life, you have to have honor and courage. Whatever it looks like, I can tell you that real courage will never be found in a bag or a bottle, a bong hit, or the comfort of a mob.
[Editor's note: I love the comparison of mob-comfort to drugs. This is beautifully simple and perfect.]
Courage only counts and is real when you are alone, and when you have to dig deep inside and truly question what is it that I believe? What is it that I'm willing to lose? How unpopular am I willing to be?
[Editor's note: I know he's talking about himself and his own experiences, but it sure as hell feels like he's speaking directly to my experience living in Wisconsin through the protests.]
Courage doesn't really happen when you are in a giant crowd, shouting whatever it is you are shouting.
I have friends and acquaintances that I think are amazing people. Amazing stories of courage. Marcus Lattrell is one of my good friends. I consider him a brother. Marcus Latrel is the author of a book -- soon, I think next year, to be a movie --The Lone Survivor. It's really not about him. It's about his courageous brothers in arms. He was part of a SEALs team. All of them were lost, except for him. He was left severely wounded, dying of thirst, and stranded in a remote, rocky, rough, Afghanistan mountain region, surrounded by Taliban, all of which wanted to finish the job. That man had courage. And he's not alone. Almost every member of the military I've ever met has that kind of courage, that I don't even begin to understand.
This last weekend, I met somebody. I took my son, because honestly I didn't want to take him to see Cars, because yeah, it's got an agenda. And he was all excited to see Cars, so I had to bribe him with a Yankees game. So I took him to the Yankees, and something happened with a wounded vet, Michael Caser. At the Yankees game, this guy caught a foul ball. It was one of the most amazing things I've ever seen. He reached out and caught this foul ball with his hat. [video.]
On Sunday, I had the chance to walk with him. I went on a five mile walk with Michael, and we had the chance to talk. Just the two of us. He told me the story of how he lost his arm serving in Afghanistan. He told me he has a lot of survivor guilt. God bless this man. He survived a massive blast-- he was the only one able to walk out. He was wounded so badly that if you see him up close, he has scars on his face. His jaw was broken in some 20 places, and he was ripped from ear to ear. He actually had to lift his jaw up to hold it in place to say, "Please put a tourniquet on my arm."
As we were walking and he was describing these things, I told him, "Michael, I don't know if you've ever seen Schindler's list, er, Saving Private Ryan, but I'm afraid I'm the guy on the stairs that can't go in to do anything because I'm so riddled with fear."
We talked about courage for awhile. And then I talked to him about why he got into the service. He told me that he never really had any interest until, when he was a kid, he went to his dad's base. His dad was in the military. And he saw an instance where somebody right in front of him started to have a seizure. He said, "There's my dad in his uniform, and he reaches down, and he took charge of the situation." He started barking orders -- you gotta do this, you gotta give me this, go go go -- and he said it was then that I saw my father in a completely different way, and I wanted to be like him.
He wanted to be like his dad.
I think that's really the only things we have of value -- something to leave our children with. We leave our children -- hopefully, if we do things right -- with a bigger vision of who they can be. Because they have a chance of seeing that in themselves, because they saw us striving to be a bigger vision of what we could be.
I don't really honestly know what my kids think of me. I know they love me. I think they respect me. And I think they're proud of me. I know they don't want to do what I do. I know they don't question what I do. But they fight to be normal. And they fight to understand what's going on.
I have two children that are in college and then younger ones who don't understand yet.
I can't relate to what it's like to be Marcus Latrel or to be Michael reaching out and catching the baseball hit your hat, and not being bitter about everything. Having the courage to even go over there. I can't. It's so far and above anything that I have experienced in my life, and most likely above and beyond anything that you would experience in your lifetime.
But we are going to have to find courage within us, in our own level, because we are going to have to deal with people calling you a hate-mongerer, a racist, pointing you out, surrounding you on the street. Whatever. People calling you names. The New York Times did it -- called anybody from the middle of the country a neanderthal. I don't understand it.
I'm not sure exactly what it will look like, but your time for courage is coming. Just like I said last year your time for honor is coming. And it is. Those two are put together. You must be a man or woman of honor and let your children see it. You must know what you believe and then have courage. They is not being able to fight back; the key is how do you deal with it. Do you deal with it with courage, dignity, honor.
If I may, I'd like to give you a small, almost meaningless example in the grand scheme of things of what we will all go through. Last night, I decided to take my family out for a nice evening at the park here in New York City. There's this great park, and they show movies in the park. And people grab their picnic baskets -- they've been doing it for years -- and they grab their picnic blankets, and they lay out it the beautiful night and they watch their movie and the sun goes down. I have always wanted to do this. Ever since my daughter was about this tall, I wanted to do it.
A couple of weeks ago my daughter and I were walking by -- now she's in her twenties -- we were walking by this park, and she saw that they were showing a Hitchcock film, one of my favorites, The Thirty Nine Steps. My daughter and I are both fans, and we talked about doing this for a long time. So, we decided to grab the family, grab a blanket, and we headed out to the park. She went out early, about the time this broadcast was going on the air last night. She arrived early to grab a spot. I arrived around seven o'clock. It didn't take long for the comments to begin.
Now, I get it. I'm Glenn Beck. It's New York City. I'm used to getting comments. I didn't go into this one blindly. It comes with the territory. But not the territory for my children and for my wife. You would think that there would be some common decency, especially among the culturally superior here in New York. But it didn't take long for people to start whispering, pointing, and pretending they weren't taking pictures and texting and posting. It really felt as though it was closing in on my family. My wife said, "Do you want to go?" and I said, "Not on your life." I'm gonna watch this movie with my daughter.
It started to build, and people -- this one woman actually stood up and pointed her finger at the four of us and said, "We're in New York, and we hate Republicans." I wanted to tell her, "So do I, we have so much in common." I didn't respond. She yelled at me. She yelled at us, that actual common. You'd think that I was kidding, but I am not.
Now, this particular group of people behind us were obviously drinking, and I get that. I'm sure they're not usually that overt with their hatred. But boy, it was out in full colors. But here we were, surrounded, when my wife and daughter decided they had to get up and go to the bathroom. Now this is halfway across the park. And that's when a man, as they came back and told me, that my daughter with tears in her eyes that another man stood up and pointed at them and yelled, "We hate conservatives."
It wasn't too much longer that the people sitting behind us [air quotes] accidentally spilled an alcoholic beverage all over me and my wife's back. They laughed about it. I thought to myself, "Boy, Mom and Dad must be proud." The people all around us were taking pictures. This was, these were the pictures that were posted online [screen] before the sun even went down, before the movie even started. You'll notice the courage that it took to take some of these shots of my family. They just didn't want anybody to notice they were taking pictures. Why not.
When the movie ended and we got up, I got up just a few moments before it was over, and my wife and I started to walk out. And I left my daughter and her boyfriend there on the blanket. I regretted it as soon as I got up, because the crowd started to jeer and applaud that we were leaving. Again, I wanted to point out that that's what people do at the end of a movie, but maybe that's just me. I regretted it when I got up, because I realized I was leaving my daughter, grossly outnumbered. I can handle it. But I was shocked with the complete disregard of my family.
When I got home, my daughter texted my wife to apologize. It was about midnight. I called her up. She was embarrassed and sad -- and she takes pride in New Yorkers, as I do -- and she said, "Dad, I'm sorry. I didn't know it would turn out this way." And I told her it's not her fault.
All throughout I thought to myself, I needed to bring one message to you. I want to share that with you, next.
Last night, I was here, in New York City, and this isn't an Oh Poor Glenn story. This is actually to speak to you and tell you that you need to have courage. We each serve our time. We each are going to have to stand up for what we believe in. Your time is coming. But we also have to make choices as we're with crowds. Are we going to behave like we behaved as people in Americans on 8/28, or are we going to behave differently?
We have to be able to live together, no matter how much we disagree. I disagree wildly with people like Van Jones and the President, but all I could think of as I was sitting on that blanket last night was this: I have to beg you, that if you ever find yourself on a blanket or in a restaurant or anyplace next to a guy that you vehemently disagree with, be it Van Jones, Michael Moore, it doesn't matter. Don't kick your beverage on them, and certainly not on their wife. Don't become them.
The woman behind me kept shouting about diversity. It didn't ever occur to her that she has become everything that she claims to despise. They were the bigots. I have gay friends. I have gay co-workers. I have gay employees. I have minority friends, I have minority co-workers, and I have minority employees. I have wildly progressive and wildly liberal friends -- and employees, and co-workers. I don't not-hire them because of their view points. I don't shut down their rights or shout them down in the hallway. That's not who we are.
My company is run as a team. Our country needs to be run as a team. Isn't that the way it's supposed to be, that we agree on principles and values?
These clowns didn't even realize what they were doing. They were becoming what they despise while they were shouting at me about diversity. They couldn't even handle the fact that somebody near them disagreed on their policies. If your lack of tolerance begins at diversity of opinions on policies, you might want to re-examine your beliefs and your courage.
Last night, when I talked to my daughter around midnight, [Beck gets choked up] I said, "Honey. We have to love them. We have to love the people that were so angry." She was hurt and angry last night, she said, "Dad, I don't even know how to do that."
This is not the first time that my family has had to deal with this, and it's not the first time that she has had to deal with this. She has seen her father put on a bullet proof vest in America too many times merely because people disagree with my opinion. I actually surprised myself last night. The anger only once welled up in me, and it was quickly squelched. And when I was on the phone with her, I told her, "Honey, most of the people who were there were good. It's the few bad apples that did it."
However, there were those good people that remained silent. Nobody said, "Hey, knock it off. Let them be. Just watch the movie." That's where courage comes in. The ones who did the hating, I told my daughter, this is where you begin -- feel sorry for them. I really felt sorry for them. I will pray for them, because they have no idea, they're creating a world that they're not going to like when they're finished unless they're in the majority. They better not ever deviate.
When they're finished creating it, they're gonna see how much anger and hatred has built it, and maybe they'll start to recognize that they were simply pawns.
They didn't have anything to do with anything, other than they were being used -- by a global corporation, by General Electric or special interests like the labor unions or politicians. The Democratic party. Or George Soros. Oh, they hate the wealthy so much. The wealthiest of the wealthy. And when they wake up, it may be too late for them to get out. Pity them. Love them. Pray for them.. Don't strike back.
The term blind hatred is such an amazing term, because that is what hatred does. It makes us blind. When I felt that anger start to well up in me, I could see less. Before you know it, you're trapped. What I do want to tell you tonight is, Thank You. I celebrate, I celebrate the fact that tonight, after two years of meeting here with you on this network, I can come to you with full confidence and just say those two words. Thank You. Thank you -- for not being... Thank you for never doubting that you are not driven by blind hatred or motivated by rage. I don't have to tell you not to kick your drink onto somebody's wife's back. You'd never do it. I know who you are. Thank you. [Glenn exhales.]
We're back in New York and Preston and his wife are here, and where are you living now?
Preston: Pennsylvania.
Beck: But you were born here in New York?
Preston: Born in the Bronx.
Beck: And you said -- and I agree with you -- the story that I just told, that's not New York. That's not the way New Yorkers are. They're not. These people. These were the young, arrogant cultural elites, you know what I mean? They actually-- somebody came up and gave me a sign-- at this, at this time in our country's history, they actually were passing around a form, signing to ask the city or demand the city actually spend more money on arts in the city. And I really wanted to stand up and say, "Who's a tax payer here? Who's a tax payer here?" Um, David. You're from San Francisco, and you have got to have been in these situations before.
David: Yes. Physically I've been roughed up. During anti-war protests, I was trying to present a humane case for getting Saddam Hussein to surrender quickly, and people in San Francisco didn't like that.
Beck: What do you mean you were roughed up?
David: I was handing out little fliers I had wrote saying, "Well, now that the war's started, we can't stop that, so let's try to get Saddam Hussein to surrender quickly. You, on the Left, who don't like needless bloodshed, let's write letters to Saddam Hussein and get the media and press to get him to surrender quickly so the bloodshed will be over quickly. And the people of Iraq can be liberated quickly."
Beck: What happened?
David: They told me that I was evil and wrong and started yelling at me and then started to jump me and take, pull papers out of my hand. And the police came and protected me, which was great, thank you San Francisco Police. It's very typical. I'm sorry to say, you know lovely city of San Francisco. There is such intolerance for diversity of opinion that unless you march to the Left, they don't let you march.
[Editor's note: Sounds like Madison.]
Beck: It's really amazing how we are in a culture where people are saying, "Celebrate diversity," and yet they don't notice that unless you are This Particular Color of the Rainbow, you can't be -- I'm sorry, you can't be in it. You are silenced. You said now, the exact opposite is Texas.
David: Yes, I was just with some Texas folks over the weekend, and they told me an amazing story, and that was when the San Francisco Giants went to Dallas -- and we won, won the series -- all the people in Texas in that stadium, at least a great majority of them, stood up and applauded, as proper sportspeople would. They're good losers, and they're good winners.
Beck: When we were at the Yankees game, I was talking to my wife, and we were talking about Philadelphia. Philadelphia, because the Colorado Rockies were playing, and I happen to have one the guys from the Colorado Rockies stop by the radio show, and he was in the green room, and he said, "I just want to say hi" and blah blah blah. And I said, "Excited about the Yankees? Now that's gotta be a good feeling?" He said, "Anything -- anything -- is a good feeling, other than Philadelphia." That is one -- I believe he said "passionate" town. It wasn't exactly the word that I would have used when it comes to some of the fans there. Is there -- how do you correct this? You're in Philadelphia and some of the fans are brutal. As a citizen, what do you do? What do you do? Anybody?
Guy: Stay silent. They'd boo Santa Claus.
[Laughter.]
Beck: Okay, maybe Philadelphia isn't a great example. You know, we had this debate this morning at our meeting when I came in, and I told the producers, I said, "I don't understand it." I said, "If I had been in the opposite situation, I would have said, "Knock it off. You losers." If I were in Texas, the exact opposite, and Van Jones were on a blanket with his family and people started treating him like that, I would've said, "Knockitoff. Knock. It. Off." Because it's the bully mentality. But everybody stood silent. Now, the debate we had was, well if you say something, then does it turn into a melee? So, what do you do? Yes, Ann.
Ann: What I was going to say was, the thing that came to mind as you were speaking was, actions speak louder than words sometimes. And what I was hoping you were going to say when you ended your story was that they may have surrounded your family with their presence just to let you know that they were there. And sometimes there are no words to explain bad behavior.
Beck: No no no, you don't need to explain. And that's why I wouldn't get up last night and leave. Because my actions would have spoken louder than words. As grueling as it may have been, I'm sorry, I'm not going to reward terrorists. And that's really what that was -- on a very small, minute scale -- that's really what happened. That's what these mob scenes are. What are the people in Greece? They're terrorists. They're tearing things apart. They want you to be afraid.
Guy: What would Gandhi have done?
Beck: Gandhi wouldn't have been on the blanket watching TV. You know what I'm saying, "We don't have any salsa? What do you mean we don't have any salsa!" Yes?
Guy2: You did the right thing. When a mob breaks out, you can't reason with a mob, especially when a mob is drunk on liquid courage. I mean, that's a very different kind of courage. People are very brave when they feel surrounded by a mob or when they're intoxicated. You know, look at sporting events. Same thing there. People aren't reasonable.
Guy3: I think the thing that's really sad about it is no one stood up for you.
Beck: But I'm not convinced that everybody knew--
Guy3: They may not have known what was going on, they may not have realized, but the truth of the matter is that you go back in any type of history, and you allow that simple minority that then pursues violence to start attacking an individual--
Beck: I will tell you, I will tell you that the most somber moment -- and most likely just for me -- was when an Orthodox Jewish man was trying to make his way through the crowd, and he stepped on the blankets, and he looked like, "there's no place for me to go" and I reached over and I grabbed the blanket, and I pulled it back, and I said, "Go ahead, this way." And that moment, and he didn't even mean it this way, it was just that image of him looking like "I just don't know where to go" and that, I think is what you're talking about. When silence is deafening.
Guy3: If you stood there, in a way, you stood your position by saying nothing. By remaining there, by defending your right to be there. But if somebody had stood up and said, as you said earlier, "You know what, just leave him alone. He has every right to be here, just as we have every right to be here, just knock it off. But we've gotten so politically correct, we're afraid to do that. We're afraid to have that.
Beck. Yeah. And nobody really likes conflict.
Guy3: Right
Guy4: I don't think you could have said something, because it was directed at you, and the person to defend you could only say knock it off, because if they started having an argument, it would have started, everyone would have been shouting, yelling, throwing stuff, they could only say "Knock it off, we're watching a movie here."
[Editor's note: Is this audience dumb? Am I the only one that see what was going on here? This isn't about Beck's stupid right to watch a movie, this is about those mob-minded idiots impeding on all of our rights by (1) spewing their hatred, (2) using hatred and mild physical aggression to attempt to intimidate, (3) interrupting everyone's peaceful night at the movie. It's not about Beck being a celebrity. It's not even about Beck. If it were the unpopular kid at school who happened to set her blanket near the popular kids who hate her, the same thing would have happened. Would anyone have spoken up then? Perhaps. Why? Not just because the want to help or whatever, but because they REMEMBER when it happened to them. When they were the misfit kid. But adults are not standing up for each other, the same way kids don't stand up for each other -- for fear the they will become the object of ridicule. Not for fear of turning it into a melee, that's not where I'm trying to go... I was really trying to stay away from the poem, but how does it go? First they came after Glenn Beck, and I didn't stand up... The lesson of that poem isn't that you should stand up for others lest you be left alone unable to fend for yourself. That's the ironic ending. The lesson is that you should stand up for principles, not for the people. By standing up for principles, you inevitably stand up for the people who need the most defending. All it would've taken to shut down that mob-ish situation would be not for someone to say "knock it off, he has a right to be here" -- 'cos that puts up enemy lines. The way to shut it down is to say, "Knock it off. *I* am trying to watch a movie, and you're disturbing ME." I mean, they have every right to sit there and think bad thoughts about Beck. They also have every right (short of physical whatever) to express their bad thoughts to him. But they did it loud enough for others to know, because that kind of anti-diversity hatred is COOL or whatever. It's fun to hate Beck! (It's fun to hate Sarah Palin! See how cool I am, I can quote ten Palin gaffes in an Alaskan accent!) Confronting the bozos make them more aggressive. They feel stupid that they've been challenged and bark louder to somehow prove to themselves that they are right about their opinions. But it's the actions that are concerning us here. Confront the ACTION. Say, "Hey, knock it off, I can't hear the movie." or say "Hey, if you want to talk about politics or spray beer to express political opinions, take it somewhere else." Maybe it's just a small difference between what I'm trying to say and what Beck's audience is saying, but it seems like a huge difference to me. I dunno. Maybe it's because I've been stuck in the middle of a mob in the Wisconsin protests. Like the night they tore open the windows and busted down the door to reoccupy the Capitol. I went in the building. I took a tour. The beating of the drums and chants was so loud I could feel it reverberating in my sternum. I didn't stay long, because the pure energy -- the bodies pressed together creating a sweaty humidity that hung in the air and clung to the walls, the people dancing wildly, the possessed look in people's eyes -- it began to induce a panic attack, and I got the fuck out so I would be at home by the time my anxiety peaked into physical manifestations. (Very rarely, I will have panic attacks that -- if I don't tend to them quick enough -- will manifest into a seizure-like situation. Not good.) Or there was the time I went to the Tea Party Rally, and the Tea Partyers were surrounded and outnumbered by people -- angry, ANGRY people -- who had shown up for the sole reason that they hated the group I was with -- and, by proxy, hated me. There is NO talking policy in that situation. There is no talking about anything remotely close to the source of their hatred -- Beck, Palin -- but, sometimes, you can say "Hey, I'm not talking about your Issue, but you're preventing me from doing the thing that we all came here to do, see a damn Hitchcock movie in the damn park with our damn families. It doesn't do anything to change their hatred, but it does prevent others from seeing it happen without repercussion.... The more that people see that shit happen without repercussion, the more afraid they'll be to stand up. That's the real danger here, isn't it? That, like it was with any minorities, it becomes socially acceptable for ist actions to be "just the way it is"? Segregated water fountains? That was just the way it was. GAH.]
Beck: I did see something at 8/28. I don't know if you've ever seen the video of this. It's remarkable. It's some people who dressed up as conservatives, but you knew they weren't conservative because it was so -- it was like a cartoon conservative. You know, [voice] "What do conservatives wear?" And they came out and were being the most obnoxious, most blatantly racist people I have ever seen. And it was so transparent. And it was one of the things I worried about when we were planning 8/28 last year on the mall, because I knew that there were people who wanted that strike out. And I was so proud of the people that were there. They surrounded those people and they said, "That's not what we believe, and that's not what you believe. We'll pray for you. We'll pray for you. Would you like for us to pray for you now?" They had no place to go except, "oh crap."
[Editor's note: When Christians tell atheists that they'll pray for them and it's done as some sort of conflict resolver, it doesn't work. It makes most atheists pissed off, because it comes across as using religion as a weapon. It's like telling a radical Islamist that you'll make a Lifetime Movie of their story, so people will know about his message. I'm not saying that's what happened with Beck's 8/28 story. I'm just sayin'. If you're gonna be dealing with atheists and you don't only want to diffuse the situation but also want to leave them with perhaps a changed impression of who you are, don't offer to pray for them. To you, it's a loving gesture. That's not how it's interpreted.]
Beck: Geoffry.
Geoffry: A Mark Twain quote. To be good is noble, to show someone to be good is nobler. I think you did that.
Beck: No. [Laughter.] I just watched a movie.
Geoffrey: But you did the right thing. and let them--
Beck: Yeah. Do what they want. Back in a sec.
[Editor's note: Beck wasn't the one taking action/inaction. Not really. That wasn't the point of the story. It was about everyone else's actions while something bad was happening in front of them. It's that TV show "What would you do?" or whatever it's called, where they show a Mom spanking her kid at the mall and show different reactions that people have. He used his situation to make us ask ourselves what we would have done if we were at a movie-in-the-park and people were yelling at VAN JONES. It's not about the who, it's about the what.]
You know you have the winning hand when you don't have to go to a third grade argument to win. And the arguments are so ludicrous, it's really getting to I know you are but what am I? I know you are but what am I? It really is. Look how far the Left has to go to pain a conservative as a hate-mongerer. I'm going to show you now something I think happened last night. More people are going to see this clip than have seen this show in a whole year, in a couple of seconds. Here is Chris Matthews responding to Michelle Bachmann, who had the unmitigated nerve to praise the founders. Watch this.
[video]
[To the audience] How many are conservatives? [Lots of hands.] Oh my goodness, there's no diversity of thought here. [Laughter.] Lemme ask you this -- how many of you want to return to slavery? [No hands.] Oh, come one. Surely there has to be someone who wants to return to slavery. Okay, we want to return to the founders and the constitution, but how many of you want the constitution without the amendments? Surely you don't want the amendments. If we return to the constitution, we'll just leave that off. No amendments. Right? Who's with me? [No hands.] Isn't one of the amendments that we stop slavery?.... The only one that I would like to overturn is the IRS one. [Laughter.] But still, you wouldn't-- how would you do that? If you wanted to change the constitution, how would you do that? Can anyone tell me?
Audience member mentions Constitutional convention.
Beck: You don't want a Constitutional convention, 'cause then that opens up everything.
Guy: Or you have 2/3 of Congress and the 3/4 of the state legislature.
Beck: So, you want to overturn -- this is what it would take under our Constitution, if you wanted to return to slavery -- which is an absurd idea. And everybody -- I don't know why Michael Steel was laughing at that -- everybody's who's watching that who has an honest heart knows there's no one who wants to return to slavery. You would have to go, get a bill drafted, get it through congress, get it through all of the states... Come on. It's not going to happen. George Soros couldn't make that happen. So what is that all about? What is that clip all about?
Editor's note: They are demonizing Michelle Bachman to make her look evil. Palin's dumb, Bachman's dangerous.
David: It's a very common tactic -- vilifying the messenger and making them seem as though they are ludicrous or racist and delegitimizing them rather than the message or the policy that's being advocated
Beck: So, listen, we showed this clip last night with another clip like it about Rick Perry. They said, I don't even know what he -- what? -- self reliance? -- what? I mean, the things that we have always, every president, every party on both sides, we've said [voice] "They're lying to us, they don't believe that," but they always said it. Now they're not even saying it. They're not only doing a Sarah Palin to Michelle Bachmann, it's immediately labeling her a racist. She wants slavery -- which is ridiculous -- but we'll get to that next.
Editor's note: No, Glenn. Not just racist. She's evil and dangerous. The racism claim is EVIDENCE that PROVES the smear, not the smear itself.
First, Greece is rioting. [video.] These are the police in Greece. More violent clashes as the youths throw rocks and gas bombs at the Greek Finance Ministry over the cost cutting measures being taken by the government. They bombed a satellite truck, they blew up kiosks, they attacked police. The protests and strikes have brought the economy to a grinding halt. Everything from the electric company workers to ambulance drivers to air traffic controllers to public transportation employees -- they all walked off the job. Greece is lovely today.
We told you about this two years ago. We told you it was coming. Nobody believed us then. There's much more coming. Okay, there's story number one.
Now. Similar strike is set to hit the U.K. on Thursday. Up to 3/4 of a million workers plan to walk off their job on Thursday. So there's another nation.
Now, let me take you back in time just a little bit. [video.] This is the Israeli ambassador who was shouted down while speaking at students at U.C.-Irvine. They wouldn't let them speak. Let me now go to the conservatives that speak on campuses. They're often silenced. Ann Coulter has been physically attacked on stage. Then we have the president's spiritual adviser, Jim Wallace, who has several groups that have targeted Fox, this program, [airguotes] hate talk radio -- through groups like Sojourners and Faithful America. Faith in Public Life. There's a whole bunch of them, and they attack through commercials. Although when you go to their websites, you always see -- I mean, it's painfully obvious -- that they are political arms of the DNC and the uber-left.
Soros funds many of these. And I've often been puzzled. He's an atheist. Why would he fund faith groups? I've questioned Soros, speaking of him. How many times has he attack us, through Media Matters? They had a little party for our departure last night. [Beck gets close to camera.] Media Matters, first of all, our departure is Thursday. But just note: enjoy that party while you can. You'll be praying for these days to come back.
How many millions has George Soros spent to silence me? Now, silencing people is what they do best. If you dare to be skeptical of global climate change, and -- according to the scientists -- maybe you should be branded. I, this has got to be a joke. [screen]
Surely it's time for climate-change deniers to have their opinions forcibly tattooed on their bodies. Not necessarily on the forehead; I'm a reasonable man. Just something along their arm or across their chest so their grandchildren can say, "Really? You were one of the ones who tried to stop the world doing something? And why exactly was that, Granddad?" (June 6, The Sudney Morning Herald.)You know, there's nothing better than thinking about your grandchildren coming and seeing something tattooed on your arms. [Beck pats arm, references Holocaust.] That's, that's good. Even to joke about.
It was the same line of attack on healthcare. If you disagreed with Obamacare, it was because you were a racist, you were a hate-mongerer, you wanted to starve children -- not because you believed in small government or entrepreneurs, right? You remember?
[video of Obama, 4/29/09]
Those of you who are watching news networks on which I am not too popular, and you see folks waving them teabags around... -- Obama
Okay, "waving teabags". Why did he say it like that? And why did he do it that way? Now the Obama Administration officials are hiring mystery shoppers to pose as patients to find out if doctors are accepting patients with private insurance while turning away those in government health programs that pay lower reimbursement rates. Of course they are. We told you this would happen. They knew this would happen. What's amazing about this story is that this really is the mark of the death of the free press. You see, the press is supposed to be the watchdog. But if you don't have the press, then who do you have? Well, don't worry about it, because you have the government being the watchdog.
You know you don't have an honest watchdog when the president said that doctors are out amputating legs or feet or taking out tonsils just for profit, and the press didn't expose those doctors or expose the president for lying to the American people. Because only one of those things can be true. So the press just went away, and now the government can be the watchdog.
In Wisconsin, protesters continue to change This-is-what-democracy-looks-like but here's what it really looks like. Listen to what they're saying about a Republican state senator as he's being chased by hecklers along the Capitol building. [video, March 2. Editor's note: hey! I remember this. I think I see some people I know in that crowd. <grumble> Dear Beck, there was some even better footage available to prove your point. I'll try to dig it up for y'all.] Shame! Shame! Shame! Shame!
Now protesters are going around and mobbing banks and other companies. The government employee union is sending letters to businesses asking them to support workers' rights (or else). They put up signs like this one [screen: AFSCME "This business supports workers' rights] in businesses' windows. If you don't, well then, here's what happens. [screen]
Boycott Letters from WisconsinState Employees Union"Failure to do so will leave us no choice but (to) do a public boycott of your business, and sorry, neutral means 'no' to those who work for the largest employer in the area and are union members." AFSCME Council 24 [Editor's note: or maybe 34? 21? It's small, and my eyes are bad.]Do any of you-- Are you seeing a pattern here?
Unions did the same thing to Philadephia. [Screen for "Milkboy Coffee"] A little coffee shop, locally owned coffee shop didn't use a union outfit for some of their renovations. They had thugs stand in front of their store every single day saying their coffee shop was harming their community.
Welcome to the third grade, gang. You don't agree with me? You don't agree with me? Well then you must hate teachers. No, no I'll tell you what. You must hate teachers and fire fighters and cops, and you want to starve children to death! Git 'em!
That's what we're turning into. What do all of these stories have in common? MOBS. We're turning into a mobocracy. And they're doing it to the whole planet. But why? They don't need to tear us apart, if we'll tear each other apart. We're being taught to hate each other. From teens in the streets to college liberals to politicians, businesses. At some point, your views are going to be challenged. And, are you part of the mob, or are you on the other end, the one's that surrounded. And if you are that person, how are you going to react?
Tonight, we begin the search for courage.
DUN DUN DEHN DUN
Hello America. There are only three shows left. The last show of this broadcast on this network is Thursday. There are only three shows left. Tomorrow and tonight, I want to talk about a few things that I think are very important, and then we'll have a very special show on Thursday. After that, I'm going in an new direction. I told you that last year. Go to GlennBeck.com, and you'll see what I'm doing and where I'm going, and please stay in touch.
But tonight, I want to spend one of the three on the start of the Search For Courage.
Because courage, it's a process. We're not born courageous. We're not babies -- we're like "Gah! I'm super baby, I'm so courageous." It's a process. And it's a process that includes a lot of things: education -- even knowing on who you are as a person. It requires honor. That's why last year we started with Restoring Honor out at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C. Now, it's about courage. Whatever shape or form it may take in your life, you have to have honor and courage. Whatever it looks like, I can tell you that real courage will never be found in a bag or a bottle, a bong hit, or the comfort of a mob.
[Editor's note: I love the comparison of mob-comfort to drugs. This is beautifully simple and perfect.]
Courage only counts and is real when you are alone, and when you have to dig deep inside and truly question what is it that I believe? What is it that I'm willing to lose? How unpopular am I willing to be?
[Editor's note: I know he's talking about himself and his own experiences, but it sure as hell feels like he's speaking directly to my experience living in Wisconsin through the protests.]
Courage doesn't really happen when you are in a giant crowd, shouting whatever it is you are shouting.
I have friends and acquaintances that I think are amazing people. Amazing stories of courage. Marcus Lattrell is one of my good friends. I consider him a brother. Marcus Latrel is the author of a book -- soon, I think next year, to be a movie --The Lone Survivor. It's really not about him. It's about his courageous brothers in arms. He was part of a SEALs team. All of them were lost, except for him. He was left severely wounded, dying of thirst, and stranded in a remote, rocky, rough, Afghanistan mountain region, surrounded by Taliban, all of which wanted to finish the job. That man had courage. And he's not alone. Almost every member of the military I've ever met has that kind of courage, that I don't even begin to understand.
This last weekend, I met somebody. I took my son, because honestly I didn't want to take him to see Cars, because yeah, it's got an agenda. And he was all excited to see Cars, so I had to bribe him with a Yankees game. So I took him to the Yankees, and something happened with a wounded vet, Michael Caser. At the Yankees game, this guy caught a foul ball. It was one of the most amazing things I've ever seen. He reached out and caught this foul ball with his hat. [video.]
On Sunday, I had the chance to walk with him. I went on a five mile walk with Michael, and we had the chance to talk. Just the two of us. He told me the story of how he lost his arm serving in Afghanistan. He told me he has a lot of survivor guilt. God bless this man. He survived a massive blast-- he was the only one able to walk out. He was wounded so badly that if you see him up close, he has scars on his face. His jaw was broken in some 20 places, and he was ripped from ear to ear. He actually had to lift his jaw up to hold it in place to say, "Please put a tourniquet on my arm."
As we were walking and he was describing these things, I told him, "Michael, I don't know if you've ever seen Schindler's list, er, Saving Private Ryan, but I'm afraid I'm the guy on the stairs that can't go in to do anything because I'm so riddled with fear."
We talked about courage for awhile. And then I talked to him about why he got into the service. He told me that he never really had any interest until, when he was a kid, he went to his dad's base. His dad was in the military. And he saw an instance where somebody right in front of him started to have a seizure. He said, "There's my dad in his uniform, and he reaches down, and he took charge of the situation." He started barking orders -- you gotta do this, you gotta give me this, go go go -- and he said it was then that I saw my father in a completely different way, and I wanted to be like him.
He wanted to be like his dad.
I think that's really the only things we have of value -- something to leave our children with. We leave our children -- hopefully, if we do things right -- with a bigger vision of who they can be. Because they have a chance of seeing that in themselves, because they saw us striving to be a bigger vision of what we could be.
I don't really honestly know what my kids think of me. I know they love me. I think they respect me. And I think they're proud of me. I know they don't want to do what I do. I know they don't question what I do. But they fight to be normal. And they fight to understand what's going on.
I have two children that are in college and then younger ones who don't understand yet.
I can't relate to what it's like to be Marcus Latrel or to be Michael reaching out and catching the baseball hit your hat, and not being bitter about everything. Having the courage to even go over there. I can't. It's so far and above anything that I have experienced in my life, and most likely above and beyond anything that you would experience in your lifetime.
But we are going to have to find courage within us, in our own level, because we are going to have to deal with people calling you a hate-mongerer, a racist, pointing you out, surrounding you on the street. Whatever. People calling you names. The New York Times did it -- called anybody from the middle of the country a neanderthal. I don't understand it.
I'm not sure exactly what it will look like, but your time for courage is coming. Just like I said last year your time for honor is coming. And it is. Those two are put together. You must be a man or woman of honor and let your children see it. You must know what you believe and then have courage. They is not being able to fight back; the key is how do you deal with it. Do you deal with it with courage, dignity, honor.
If I may, I'd like to give you a small, almost meaningless example in the grand scheme of things of what we will all go through. Last night, I decided to take my family out for a nice evening at the park here in New York City. There's this great park, and they show movies in the park. And people grab their picnic baskets -- they've been doing it for years -- and they grab their picnic blankets, and they lay out it the beautiful night and they watch their movie and the sun goes down. I have always wanted to do this. Ever since my daughter was about this tall, I wanted to do it.
A couple of weeks ago my daughter and I were walking by -- now she's in her twenties -- we were walking by this park, and she saw that they were showing a Hitchcock film, one of my favorites, The Thirty Nine Steps. My daughter and I are both fans, and we talked about doing this for a long time. So, we decided to grab the family, grab a blanket, and we headed out to the park. She went out early, about the time this broadcast was going on the air last night. She arrived early to grab a spot. I arrived around seven o'clock. It didn't take long for the comments to begin.
Now, I get it. I'm Glenn Beck. It's New York City. I'm used to getting comments. I didn't go into this one blindly. It comes with the territory. But not the territory for my children and for my wife. You would think that there would be some common decency, especially among the culturally superior here in New York. But it didn't take long for people to start whispering, pointing, and pretending they weren't taking pictures and texting and posting. It really felt as though it was closing in on my family. My wife said, "Do you want to go?" and I said, "Not on your life." I'm gonna watch this movie with my daughter.
It started to build, and people -- this one woman actually stood up and pointed her finger at the four of us and said, "We're in New York, and we hate Republicans." I wanted to tell her, "So do I, we have so much in common." I didn't respond. She yelled at me. She yelled at us, that actual common. You'd think that I was kidding, but I am not.
Now, this particular group of people behind us were obviously drinking, and I get that. I'm sure they're not usually that overt with their hatred. But boy, it was out in full colors. But here we were, surrounded, when my wife and daughter decided they had to get up and go to the bathroom. Now this is halfway across the park. And that's when a man, as they came back and told me, that my daughter with tears in her eyes that another man stood up and pointed at them and yelled, "We hate conservatives."
It wasn't too much longer that the people sitting behind us [air quotes] accidentally spilled an alcoholic beverage all over me and my wife's back. They laughed about it. I thought to myself, "Boy, Mom and Dad must be proud." The people all around us were taking pictures. This was, these were the pictures that were posted online [screen] before the sun even went down, before the movie even started. You'll notice the courage that it took to take some of these shots of my family. They just didn't want anybody to notice they were taking pictures. Why not.
When the movie ended and we got up, I got up just a few moments before it was over, and my wife and I started to walk out. And I left my daughter and her boyfriend there on the blanket. I regretted it as soon as I got up, because the crowd started to jeer and applaud that we were leaving. Again, I wanted to point out that that's what people do at the end of a movie, but maybe that's just me. I regretted it when I got up, because I realized I was leaving my daughter, grossly outnumbered. I can handle it. But I was shocked with the complete disregard of my family.
When I got home, my daughter texted my wife to apologize. It was about midnight. I called her up. She was embarrassed and sad -- and she takes pride in New Yorkers, as I do -- and she said, "Dad, I'm sorry. I didn't know it would turn out this way." And I told her it's not her fault.
All throughout I thought to myself, I needed to bring one message to you. I want to share that with you, next.
COMMERCIAL
Last night, I was here, in New York City, and this isn't an Oh Poor Glenn story. This is actually to speak to you and tell you that you need to have courage. We each serve our time. We each are going to have to stand up for what we believe in. Your time is coming. But we also have to make choices as we're with crowds. Are we going to behave like we behaved as people in Americans on 8/28, or are we going to behave differently?
We have to be able to live together, no matter how much we disagree. I disagree wildly with people like Van Jones and the President, but all I could think of as I was sitting on that blanket last night was this: I have to beg you, that if you ever find yourself on a blanket or in a restaurant or anyplace next to a guy that you vehemently disagree with, be it Van Jones, Michael Moore, it doesn't matter. Don't kick your beverage on them, and certainly not on their wife. Don't become them.
The woman behind me kept shouting about diversity. It didn't ever occur to her that she has become everything that she claims to despise. They were the bigots. I have gay friends. I have gay co-workers. I have gay employees. I have minority friends, I have minority co-workers, and I have minority employees. I have wildly progressive and wildly liberal friends -- and employees, and co-workers. I don't not-hire them because of their view points. I don't shut down their rights or shout them down in the hallway. That's not who we are.
My company is run as a team. Our country needs to be run as a team. Isn't that the way it's supposed to be, that we agree on principles and values?
These clowns didn't even realize what they were doing. They were becoming what they despise while they were shouting at me about diversity. They couldn't even handle the fact that somebody near them disagreed on their policies. If your lack of tolerance begins at diversity of opinions on policies, you might want to re-examine your beliefs and your courage.
Last night, when I talked to my daughter around midnight, [Beck gets choked up] I said, "Honey. We have to love them. We have to love the people that were so angry." She was hurt and angry last night, she said, "Dad, I don't even know how to do that."
This is not the first time that my family has had to deal with this, and it's not the first time that she has had to deal with this. She has seen her father put on a bullet proof vest in America too many times merely because people disagree with my opinion. I actually surprised myself last night. The anger only once welled up in me, and it was quickly squelched. And when I was on the phone with her, I told her, "Honey, most of the people who were there were good. It's the few bad apples that did it."
However, there were those good people that remained silent. Nobody said, "Hey, knock it off. Let them be. Just watch the movie." That's where courage comes in. The ones who did the hating, I told my daughter, this is where you begin -- feel sorry for them. I really felt sorry for them. I will pray for them, because they have no idea, they're creating a world that they're not going to like when they're finished unless they're in the majority. They better not ever deviate.
When they're finished creating it, they're gonna see how much anger and hatred has built it, and maybe they'll start to recognize that they were simply pawns.
They didn't have anything to do with anything, other than they were being used -- by a global corporation, by General Electric or special interests like the labor unions or politicians. The Democratic party. Or George Soros. Oh, they hate the wealthy so much. The wealthiest of the wealthy. And when they wake up, it may be too late for them to get out. Pity them. Love them. Pray for them.. Don't strike back.
The term blind hatred is such an amazing term, because that is what hatred does. It makes us blind. When I felt that anger start to well up in me, I could see less. Before you know it, you're trapped. What I do want to tell you tonight is, Thank You. I celebrate, I celebrate the fact that tonight, after two years of meeting here with you on this network, I can come to you with full confidence and just say those two words. Thank You. Thank you -- for not being... Thank you for never doubting that you are not driven by blind hatred or motivated by rage. I don't have to tell you not to kick your drink onto somebody's wife's back. You'd never do it. I know who you are. Thank you. [Glenn exhales.]
COMMERCIAL
We're back in New York and Preston and his wife are here, and where are you living now?
Preston: Pennsylvania.
Beck: But you were born here in New York?
Preston: Born in the Bronx.
Beck: And you said -- and I agree with you -- the story that I just told, that's not New York. That's not the way New Yorkers are. They're not. These people. These were the young, arrogant cultural elites, you know what I mean? They actually-- somebody came up and gave me a sign-- at this, at this time in our country's history, they actually were passing around a form, signing to ask the city or demand the city actually spend more money on arts in the city. And I really wanted to stand up and say, "Who's a tax payer here? Who's a tax payer here?" Um, David. You're from San Francisco, and you have got to have been in these situations before.
David: Yes. Physically I've been roughed up. During anti-war protests, I was trying to present a humane case for getting Saddam Hussein to surrender quickly, and people in San Francisco didn't like that.
Beck: What do you mean you were roughed up?
David: I was handing out little fliers I had wrote saying, "Well, now that the war's started, we can't stop that, so let's try to get Saddam Hussein to surrender quickly. You, on the Left, who don't like needless bloodshed, let's write letters to Saddam Hussein and get the media and press to get him to surrender quickly so the bloodshed will be over quickly. And the people of Iraq can be liberated quickly."
Beck: What happened?
David: They told me that I was evil and wrong and started yelling at me and then started to jump me and take, pull papers out of my hand. And the police came and protected me, which was great, thank you San Francisco Police. It's very typical. I'm sorry to say, you know lovely city of San Francisco. There is such intolerance for diversity of opinion that unless you march to the Left, they don't let you march.
[Editor's note: Sounds like Madison.]
Beck: It's really amazing how we are in a culture where people are saying, "Celebrate diversity," and yet they don't notice that unless you are This Particular Color of the Rainbow, you can't be -- I'm sorry, you can't be in it. You are silenced. You said now, the exact opposite is Texas.
David: Yes, I was just with some Texas folks over the weekend, and they told me an amazing story, and that was when the San Francisco Giants went to Dallas -- and we won, won the series -- all the people in Texas in that stadium, at least a great majority of them, stood up and applauded, as proper sportspeople would. They're good losers, and they're good winners.
Beck: When we were at the Yankees game, I was talking to my wife, and we were talking about Philadelphia. Philadelphia, because the Colorado Rockies were playing, and I happen to have one the guys from the Colorado Rockies stop by the radio show, and he was in the green room, and he said, "I just want to say hi" and blah blah blah. And I said, "Excited about the Yankees? Now that's gotta be a good feeling?" He said, "Anything -- anything -- is a good feeling, other than Philadelphia." That is one -- I believe he said "passionate" town. It wasn't exactly the word that I would have used when it comes to some of the fans there. Is there -- how do you correct this? You're in Philadelphia and some of the fans are brutal. As a citizen, what do you do? What do you do? Anybody?
Guy: Stay silent. They'd boo Santa Claus.
[Laughter.]
Beck: Okay, maybe Philadelphia isn't a great example. You know, we had this debate this morning at our meeting when I came in, and I told the producers, I said, "I don't understand it." I said, "If I had been in the opposite situation, I would have said, "Knock it off. You losers." If I were in Texas, the exact opposite, and Van Jones were on a blanket with his family and people started treating him like that, I would've said, "Knockitoff. Knock. It. Off." Because it's the bully mentality. But everybody stood silent. Now, the debate we had was, well if you say something, then does it turn into a melee? So, what do you do? Yes, Ann.
Ann: What I was going to say was, the thing that came to mind as you were speaking was, actions speak louder than words sometimes. And what I was hoping you were going to say when you ended your story was that they may have surrounded your family with their presence just to let you know that they were there. And sometimes there are no words to explain bad behavior.
Beck: No no no, you don't need to explain. And that's why I wouldn't get up last night and leave. Because my actions would have spoken louder than words. As grueling as it may have been, I'm sorry, I'm not going to reward terrorists. And that's really what that was -- on a very small, minute scale -- that's really what happened. That's what these mob scenes are. What are the people in Greece? They're terrorists. They're tearing things apart. They want you to be afraid.
Guy: What would Gandhi have done?
Beck: Gandhi wouldn't have been on the blanket watching TV. You know what I'm saying, "We don't have any salsa? What do you mean we don't have any salsa!" Yes?
Guy2: You did the right thing. When a mob breaks out, you can't reason with a mob, especially when a mob is drunk on liquid courage. I mean, that's a very different kind of courage. People are very brave when they feel surrounded by a mob or when they're intoxicated. You know, look at sporting events. Same thing there. People aren't reasonable.
Guy3: I think the thing that's really sad about it is no one stood up for you.
Beck: But I'm not convinced that everybody knew--
Guy3: They may not have known what was going on, they may not have realized, but the truth of the matter is that you go back in any type of history, and you allow that simple minority that then pursues violence to start attacking an individual--
Beck: I will tell you, I will tell you that the most somber moment -- and most likely just for me -- was when an Orthodox Jewish man was trying to make his way through the crowd, and he stepped on the blankets, and he looked like, "there's no place for me to go" and I reached over and I grabbed the blanket, and I pulled it back, and I said, "Go ahead, this way." And that moment, and he didn't even mean it this way, it was just that image of him looking like "I just don't know where to go" and that, I think is what you're talking about. When silence is deafening.
Guy3: If you stood there, in a way, you stood your position by saying nothing. By remaining there, by defending your right to be there. But if somebody had stood up and said, as you said earlier, "You know what, just leave him alone. He has every right to be here, just as we have every right to be here, just knock it off. But we've gotten so politically correct, we're afraid to do that. We're afraid to have that.
Beck. Yeah. And nobody really likes conflict.
Guy3: Right
Guy4: I don't think you could have said something, because it was directed at you, and the person to defend you could only say knock it off, because if they started having an argument, it would have started, everyone would have been shouting, yelling, throwing stuff, they could only say "Knock it off, we're watching a movie here."
[Editor's note: Is this audience dumb? Am I the only one that see what was going on here? This isn't about Beck's stupid right to watch a movie, this is about those mob-minded idiots impeding on all of our rights by (1) spewing their hatred, (2) using hatred and mild physical aggression to attempt to intimidate, (3) interrupting everyone's peaceful night at the movie. It's not about Beck being a celebrity. It's not even about Beck. If it were the unpopular kid at school who happened to set her blanket near the popular kids who hate her, the same thing would have happened. Would anyone have spoken up then? Perhaps. Why? Not just because the want to help or whatever, but because they REMEMBER when it happened to them. When they were the misfit kid. But adults are not standing up for each other, the same way kids don't stand up for each other -- for fear the they will become the object of ridicule. Not for fear of turning it into a melee, that's not where I'm trying to go... I was really trying to stay away from the poem, but how does it go? First they came after Glenn Beck, and I didn't stand up... The lesson of that poem isn't that you should stand up for others lest you be left alone unable to fend for yourself. That's the ironic ending. The lesson is that you should stand up for principles, not for the people. By standing up for principles, you inevitably stand up for the people who need the most defending. All it would've taken to shut down that mob-ish situation would be not for someone to say "knock it off, he has a right to be here" -- 'cos that puts up enemy lines. The way to shut it down is to say, "Knock it off. *I* am trying to watch a movie, and you're disturbing ME." I mean, they have every right to sit there and think bad thoughts about Beck. They also have every right (short of physical whatever) to express their bad thoughts to him. But they did it loud enough for others to know, because that kind of anti-diversity hatred is COOL or whatever. It's fun to hate Beck! (It's fun to hate Sarah Palin! See how cool I am, I can quote ten Palin gaffes in an Alaskan accent!) Confronting the bozos make them more aggressive. They feel stupid that they've been challenged and bark louder to somehow prove to themselves that they are right about their opinions. But it's the actions that are concerning us here. Confront the ACTION. Say, "Hey, knock it off, I can't hear the movie." or say "Hey, if you want to talk about politics or spray beer to express political opinions, take it somewhere else." Maybe it's just a small difference between what I'm trying to say and what Beck's audience is saying, but it seems like a huge difference to me. I dunno. Maybe it's because I've been stuck in the middle of a mob in the Wisconsin protests. Like the night they tore open the windows and busted down the door to reoccupy the Capitol. I went in the building. I took a tour. The beating of the drums and chants was so loud I could feel it reverberating in my sternum. I didn't stay long, because the pure energy -- the bodies pressed together creating a sweaty humidity that hung in the air and clung to the walls, the people dancing wildly, the possessed look in people's eyes -- it began to induce a panic attack, and I got the fuck out so I would be at home by the time my anxiety peaked into physical manifestations. (Very rarely, I will have panic attacks that -- if I don't tend to them quick enough -- will manifest into a seizure-like situation. Not good.) Or there was the time I went to the Tea Party Rally, and the Tea Partyers were surrounded and outnumbered by people -- angry, ANGRY people -- who had shown up for the sole reason that they hated the group I was with -- and, by proxy, hated me. There is NO talking policy in that situation. There is no talking about anything remotely close to the source of their hatred -- Beck, Palin -- but, sometimes, you can say "Hey, I'm not talking about your Issue, but you're preventing me from doing the thing that we all came here to do, see a damn Hitchcock movie in the damn park with our damn families. It doesn't do anything to change their hatred, but it does prevent others from seeing it happen without repercussion.... The more that people see that shit happen without repercussion, the more afraid they'll be to stand up. That's the real danger here, isn't it? That, like it was with any minorities, it becomes socially acceptable for ist actions to be "just the way it is"? Segregated water fountains? That was just the way it was. GAH.]
Beck: I did see something at 8/28. I don't know if you've ever seen the video of this. It's remarkable. It's some people who dressed up as conservatives, but you knew they weren't conservative because it was so -- it was like a cartoon conservative. You know, [voice] "What do conservatives wear?" And they came out and were being the most obnoxious, most blatantly racist people I have ever seen. And it was so transparent. And it was one of the things I worried about when we were planning 8/28 last year on the mall, because I knew that there were people who wanted that strike out. And I was so proud of the people that were there. They surrounded those people and they said, "That's not what we believe, and that's not what you believe. We'll pray for you. We'll pray for you. Would you like for us to pray for you now?" They had no place to go except, "oh crap."
[Editor's note: When Christians tell atheists that they'll pray for them and it's done as some sort of conflict resolver, it doesn't work. It makes most atheists pissed off, because it comes across as using religion as a weapon. It's like telling a radical Islamist that you'll make a Lifetime Movie of their story, so people will know about his message. I'm not saying that's what happened with Beck's 8/28 story. I'm just sayin'. If you're gonna be dealing with atheists and you don't only want to diffuse the situation but also want to leave them with perhaps a changed impression of who you are, don't offer to pray for them. To you, it's a loving gesture. That's not how it's interpreted.]
Beck: Geoffry.
Geoffry: A Mark Twain quote. To be good is noble, to show someone to be good is nobler. I think you did that.
Beck: No. [Laughter.] I just watched a movie.
Geoffrey: But you did the right thing. and let them--
Beck: Yeah. Do what they want. Back in a sec.
[Editor's note: Beck wasn't the one taking action/inaction. Not really. That wasn't the point of the story. It was about everyone else's actions while something bad was happening in front of them. It's that TV show "What would you do?" or whatever it's called, where they show a Mom spanking her kid at the mall and show different reactions that people have. He used his situation to make us ask ourselves what we would have done if we were at a movie-in-the-park and people were yelling at VAN JONES. It's not about the who, it's about the what.]
COMMERCIAL
You know you have the winning hand when you don't have to go to a third grade argument to win. And the arguments are so ludicrous, it's really getting to I know you are but what am I? I know you are but what am I? It really is. Look how far the Left has to go to pain a conservative as a hate-mongerer. I'm going to show you now something I think happened last night. More people are going to see this clip than have seen this show in a whole year, in a couple of seconds. Here is Chris Matthews responding to Michelle Bachmann, who had the unmitigated nerve to praise the founders. Watch this.
[video]
Bachman at a podium: We have to recapture the founders' vision of a constitutionally conservative government if we are to secure the promise of the future.Matthews: What is this, Michael [member of his panel], like, a Protestant reformation? Somehow we're going back to the purity of the original Christian church, we're going back to the original perfection of slaveholders and how perfect they were, and government is the enemy.Yep, government is the enemy. Show me the great, great government that has been big that hasn't ended up being oppressive. Show them to me, will you? Here he is, jumping through hoops, and he's ignoring the creation of the greatest country the world has ever seen, ever. He ignores the brilliance of the Constitution, the power of the Declaration of Independence, skips all of that and declares that Michelle Bachmann must have meant that she wants America to return to slavery. I know you are but what am I? Come on, Chris. Really.
[To the audience] How many are conservatives? [Lots of hands.] Oh my goodness, there's no diversity of thought here. [Laughter.] Lemme ask you this -- how many of you want to return to slavery? [No hands.] Oh, come one. Surely there has to be someone who wants to return to slavery. Okay, we want to return to the founders and the constitution, but how many of you want the constitution without the amendments? Surely you don't want the amendments. If we return to the constitution, we'll just leave that off. No amendments. Right? Who's with me? [No hands.] Isn't one of the amendments that we stop slavery?.... The only one that I would like to overturn is the IRS one. [Laughter.] But still, you wouldn't-- how would you do that? If you wanted to change the constitution, how would you do that? Can anyone tell me?
Audience member mentions Constitutional convention.
Beck: You don't want a Constitutional convention, 'cause then that opens up everything.
Guy: Or you have 2/3 of Congress and the 3/4 of the state legislature.
Beck: So, you want to overturn -- this is what it would take under our Constitution, if you wanted to return to slavery -- which is an absurd idea. And everybody -- I don't know why Michael Steel was laughing at that -- everybody's who's watching that who has an honest heart knows there's no one who wants to return to slavery. You would have to go, get a bill drafted, get it through congress, get it through all of the states... Come on. It's not going to happen. George Soros couldn't make that happen. So what is that all about? What is that clip all about?
Editor's note: They are demonizing Michelle Bachman to make her look evil. Palin's dumb, Bachman's dangerous.
David: It's a very common tactic -- vilifying the messenger and making them seem as though they are ludicrous or racist and delegitimizing them rather than the message or the policy that's being advocated
Beck: So, listen, we showed this clip last night with another clip like it about Rick Perry. They said, I don't even know what he -- what? -- self reliance? -- what? I mean, the things that we have always, every president, every party on both sides, we've said [voice] "They're lying to us, they don't believe that," but they always said it. Now they're not even saying it. They're not only doing a Sarah Palin to Michelle Bachmann, it's immediately labeling her a racist. She wants slavery -- which is ridiculous -- but we'll get to that next.
Editor's note: No, Glenn. Not just racist. She's evil and dangerous. The racism claim is EVIDENCE that PROVES the smear, not the smear itself.
COMMERCIAL
We've been talking about courage tonight, and the importance of having courage. We only have two shows and seven minutes left. Two hours and seven minutes left on this network for me to share with you what I think is important. You cannot have courage -- or, it's ridiculous to have courage -- if you don't have a conviction. What are you fighting for? What are you fighting for if you don't have something that you're committed to? I can guarantee you -- you see this with your friends all of the time and maybe you have done this, too. You get into a debate with someone and you're like, "No, that is not true." And they'll throw up something in your face, and you'll be like, "Yeah...." You don't have anymore courage, because you don't know if you're right. Right? Courage of your Convictions!
Now how do you get convictions? The other thing they were trying to do to Sarah Palin [he meanns Michelle Bachman] there is they were trying to throw the Constitution under the bus. Because most people don't know the constitution. Most people don't even know why it was written, why it's important. Make the case for the constitution, can you do it? Make the case.
You know how you have conviction? I think it's a three step process.
1. Educate yourself.
2. Question everything. Don't take it from me, don't take if from anybody else. Question everything, even the things that you really believe are true. Don't just let 'em sit there.
3. The third -- anybody guess? -- Repeat one.
Educate yourself. Because, we're growing. The things that I believed two years ago, the things that you believed two years ago, do you believe the same things? Some things. Some things you don't. Are there things that you believe today that when you started watching the show two years ago you would have said -- [to audience member named Bob] -- if I would have introduced you to the Bob of the future, you would have said , "No way, Bob's never gonna believe that..." Absolutely. You educated yourself. you questioned everything. Then things changed that made you see things in a different light. You went back and you educated yourself again. It's the only way we can have courage is to know what we believe, know what's worth fighting for, what in the grand scheme of things what do you actually stand for?
On tomorrow's program, I want to share some things with you. There is a report that is out now from CBN. This report says -- can you put this up? -- this report says that analysts now in Washington are worried about the Arab Spring because, well, it may have some unintended consequences. You don't want to miss tomorrow's program. The last regular broadcast of this program is Thursday. Back in just a second, final thought.
COMMERCIAL
Alright. We have two shows remaining. Tonight and tomorrow's. Tell all your friends and make sure you are joining us tomorrow and Thursday on the Fox News Channel. And sign up so we can stay in touch with each other. Go to GlennBeck.com right now.
From New York, Goodnight everyone.
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