Best of the Program | Guests: Pat Gray & Dave Isay | 3/5/19

Hello podcasters, it's Tuesday.

We've got a great show for you.

I'm going to start at the ending with...

Yeah, believe it or not, Will Smith, he may not be black enough to play a role.

Oh, absolutely.

You have to have the exact shade of skin to match the actor.

And we're finding out that now even a black actor can't just play black roles.

A black actor has to play the exact shade of black that he happens to be.

So we urge you to get your color wheel out from Sherman Williams, and we're going to start, we're going to match actors to the roles and make sure we get exactly the right color.

And it's really amazing.

We'll tell you about that.

We've sent on the Michael Jackson thing today.

There's the documentary wrapped up.

You've got to watch that.

I can't believe you haven't watched that yet.

It's a big commitment.

It's four hours.

You've got to watch it a little highlights.

Yeah, I've seen some clips.

It looks very disturbing.

We get into that.

We get into socialism, the myths of socialism from the Washington Post.

We also have Dave Issei, who is with Story Corps.

give us some really good news.

And of course, what would a show be without all of the insanity of our postmodern world?

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Now, on with the podcast.

you're listening to the best of the Blenbeck program.

All right, so the Washington Post has come out with five myths about socialism.

Yeah, and this is important for you to understand.

A lot of people in the audience are conservatives.

They're not going to get this.

They've been told all these lies, and now they need to know the truth.

Myth number one: socialism is a single coherent ideology.

Now, at no point did I ever consider socialism to be coherent.

That's a good thing.

That's right.

That was the word I focused on, too.

Very strange.

But they talk about, they give examples of people who are saying crazy things like, you know, Democratic socialists,

columnist Jenna Ellis wrote in the Washington Examiner, all are precursors to full-blown Marxist-Leninist communism.

An editorial

investors business daily, all forms of socialism are the same.

Many attacks on socialism as well.

Polls, gauging its surprising popularity, take for granted that it's a unified philosophy.

Again, not coherent, but unified.

Yet socialism, this is from the Washington Post, has multiple meanings and interpretations, which have to be disentangled before a discussion about its merits can begin.

You can't just judge it, Glenn.

It's too national.

One distinction centers on whether socialism is a system that must supplant capitalism or one that can harness the market's immense productive capacity for progressive ends.

Really?

Socialism is about how you can take capitalism and make it work better.

Really?

That would be interesting to a lot of socialists.

Karl Marx, who predicted that historical forces would inevitably lead to capitalism's demise and to government's control of industry, was the most famous proponent of the first type of socialism.

So that's just like, all right,

the history, forces of history, going to change this.

Capitalism can't last long enough.

That's the Marx one.

Then you've got Vladimir Lenin, who said he wanted a revolutionary vanguard to destroy capitalism.

That's type number two, according to the Post.

And by the way, he was a democratic socialist.

Just because people were afraid of communists, he said, we are too.

That's why we're a democratic socialist.

Totally different.

Totally different.

That's what we saw with the multiple decades afterwards.

Other socialists, however, did not accept the violent, undemocratic nature of that course.

Right.

Those were called progressives.

Although they agree that capitalism was unjust and unstable.

The left's role, in the view of these democratic socialists, the Czech-Austrian theorist Karl Kotsky, for instance, was to remind citizens of capitalism's defects and rally popular support for an alternative economic system that would end private ownership and assert popular control over the means of production.

I would say once again, Glenn, these first three categories, there is no distinction as to what they are.

It's just the means of how to get there.

How fast do we go?

Right.

Right.

Marx says it'll happen over a bunch of years with history because capitalism will fail.

Lenin says it's got to be a revolution.

Kotsky says, ah, well, you know what?

We'll have a,

we'll tell everybody how bad capitalism is.

They'll realize it and then come to our way.

But it all ends in the end of production as far as private.

Could I just go to the Webster's dictionary?

Now, I honestly search for this thinking, well, it's not going to say that.

They've changed everything.

Right.

So here is the current online Merriam-Webster's dictionary definition of socialism.

Socialism, any of various economic and political theories advocating collective or governmental ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods.

Two, a system of society or group living in which there is no private property.

To be a system or condition of society in which the means of production are owned or controlled by the state.

Oh, well, I can't see the last one because I just won a new iPad.

Oh, congratulations.

That's fantastic.

I don't need to win iPads, though, because I keep getting these wonderful inheritances from princes in

Nigeria.

Yeah, and I can really buy as many as I want as soon as the cash comes in.

Sure, sure.

Well, I can't read the last one.

Okay, but to get the point there.

Here's how,

again, you see, all those would be...

What everyone thinks is socialism, right?

So they need to come up with a way to make Acasio-Cortez seem okay and her approach.

So although Sanders, Bernie Sanders, and Ocasio-Cortez embrace the term democratic socialist, the policies they advocate place them much closer to yet another socialist tradition, social democracy.

Now, these are totally different because democratic socialists and social democracy have the same words in different orders.

Yes.

Which is totally different.

Totally different when it's social democracy or democratic socialism.

Just like national socialism is totally different than social nationalism.

If the Nazis came back today and said they were social nationalists, we'd all embrace them.

Yes.

Surely.

Yes, we would.

Okay.

So

social democrats say it's possible and desirable to reform capitalism.

This tradition does.

Hold on just a second.

That does not say that in the actual bills that they are now trying to pass.

It says an end of capitalism.

Right.

We've seen,

we've read you column after column from actual democratic socialists who say very clearly what they want to do is anti-capitalism.

The New Green Deal says they're going to reform it.

The bill,

not the thing that it caused to accord.

The actual bill.

It was ridiculous.

This tradition dominated the post-World War II European left and influenced the American Democratic Party, most notably during the progressive era and the New Deal, inspiring Social Security, unemployment insurance, and the eight-hour workday.

This is exactly what the Democratic Socialists don't want you to think.

They've told us specifically that this is not, they're not just New Deal Democrats.

They're much further than that.

And they are in their Washington Post.

They're trying to put a little shine on there and say, you know what?

They're saying they're socialists, but in reality, they just want Switzerland or Sweden.

That's all they want.

They want some big programs.

They love capitalism.

Everything's fine.

They're just using, you got to understand, Bernie Sanders, an ideologue for 50 years pushing for this cause, just doesn't understand the terms he's using.

That is legitimately their case.

Now, you could certainly make a case like that over Ocasio-Cortez, who doesn't seem to understand the words that she's speaking on numerous occasions per day.

But Bernie Sanders doesn't understand socialism?

I mean, that is, it's insulting to the 947-year-old Bernie Sanders.

And that's just myth number one.

Myth number two is socialism and democracy are incompatible.

In a speech last month, Crisis in Venezuela, Trump argued socialism must always give rise to tyranny.

Socialism is pseudoscience enforced by political tyranny.

I wrote the Heritage Foundations, blah, blah, blah.

Communists reject democracy, of course, but other socialists have strongly supported it.

Look, it always starts as democratic.

Unless it's a revolution, it always starts as democratic.

In fact, Maduro

was

a democratically elected president of Venezuela.

A normal guy, a bus driver.

He was democratically democratically elected.

Then he decided, you know what?

I don't like this democratic election thing.

I'm going to fix it.

Now he's a dictator.

The best of the Glenbeck program.

So last night I finished watching the

documentary about finding Neverland.

And yesterday at this time, I said,

I believe them, but it was weird.

And I wanted an answer from the parents.

I couldn't see.

How did the parents not know, et cetera, et cetera?

Then I watched part two on HBO's documentary.

And there is no doubt in my mind that these guys

at least 100%

believe it

and the families believe it.

I happen to believe them that this happened, but you know, a documentary, you're only seeing one side.

However, they completely rang true.

And it's not just these guys, it is their families as well.

And the way it has disrupted these families and torn these families apart,

they're just not that good of actors.

You couldn't fake this interview.

Do you agree?

Yeah, and I don't know why you would.

I mean, I guess if there was money involved, but for them,

they're not getting any money from it.

They're not getting money from it.

The statute of limitations is already up.

Especially not after this.

Like, you could theoretically go to the family and try to harass them to give you a giant check.

But I mean, after you're on TV and the documentary is over, they're not going to give you any money.

I think they kind of tried that.

I think Robson went after the Jackson estate in 2013 or 14 and failed, and it was thrown out of court because of the statute of limitations.

And so

from that standpoint, there's not much to gain.

And you've sort of

then created this thing that I don't think you'd want that on

your reputation.

When you were watching.

They didn't enjoy saying any of this.

No.

You could feel it.

I mean, when he was talking yesterday, Robson, the guy who was, you know, he did all of the choreography for Britney Spears and In Sync and everybody, he's actually, he's turned into somebody.

And I watched it and in the first episode, he's talking about, you know, how much he, Michael and he loved each other at the time.

And it was very bizarre.

He spoke about that last night, too.

Yeah, he did.

And the reason why he said, I testified in his behalf, was first, the first time,

because Michael had asked him and they loved each other.

And Michael had gotten out of his life, and then he was suddenly back in and he wanted the attention from Michael.

And Michael was like, had told him from day one, since he was seven, you know, we'll both go to jail.

We can't let them divide us.

And

then the second time he testified later,

he tried not to.

He said to Michael, I'm done.

I'm out.

I don't want to be involved in this anymore.

And Michael's team actually subpoenaed him.

And once he.

Alice's sister said, Michael can't go to jail.

He won't survive in jail.

And that resonated with him.

Yeah, he said

that they went to Michael's house for dinner, the whole family before.

And he said, I saw Michael, and he said he was a shell of a person.

And he's like, my sister was right.

He'd die in prison within days.

And I just didn't want him to go to prison and die in prison.

He also does a really good job, I think, of explaining that the first trial when he was 11, he didn't consider it abuse.

He considered it

an expression of, you know, as sick as it is, an expression of love from Michael, a 35-year-old man to an 11-year-old boy.

I mean, it's sad, but that's what his mind made of it all.

Yeah, I mean,

he was basically in an alternate universe, right?

I mean, where rules are completely different.

He's not going to understand as a kid.

He's the most powerful celebrity on the planet.

And he loves you.

And he said, I looked at him like a dad.

And your mom keeps letting you go over there.

Right.

Right.

So, I mean, like, it all kind of aligns in your mind as this might be something that other people don't understand.

And the pain that they expressed in last night's episode was

truly genuine.

The other guy had nervous breakdowns.

Right.

Yeah.

In fact, too, for Robson and James Safechuck was kind of in a perpetual state of breakdown.

Yeah, I felt bad for him.

In his adult years, he is really messed up from this.

And there was no,

remember, he didn't come out and try to sue the

Michael Jackson estate for anything.

He never came out.

He only came out after

Robson came out.

Right.

And he came out and said,

okay,

I have to talk to you because this happened to me, too.

And he couldn't figure out why he was so so depressed and screwed up.

And why he hated himself.

Right.

And he couldn't put it together and he couldn't make sense of what had happened to him with Jackson.

And

then

Robson came out, and then they started to communicate, and it was the same story.

I mean, it's amazing how exactly the same those stories were.

Yeah.

You know what else was amazing to me is after the first trial in 93, whenever that was, 93, 94,

and they had both been ignored mostly by Jackson for months or years at a time.

And then after they both testified, he was back in both their lives and big time and calling him every day again and having him come over again.

And he picked up right where he left off with the sexual abuse,

even after the first trial.

Unbelievable.

I mean, that's incredible.

It really is bizarre.

I mean, if you can't trust a millionaire musician to care for your child when he's sleeping over at his amusement park for a few months,

who can you trust?

Well, that was the thing that I found interesting.

The mother from Australia, Robson's mother,

she's, I mean, this added so much credibility because she's been ostracized from her son now.

She's taking on all of the guilt.

The daughter is mad at the mother.

The other brother is mad at all of it.

And it's just destroyed this family.

And then there's another family.

The dad committed suicide.

Yeah.

And then there's another family

who lived in California that they bought him, you know, Michael Jackson, bought him a house and everything else.

And they really considered them family.

If you watch

how they set up the story in the first episode, they just thought Michael Jackson was part of the family.

And mom, when mom found out that this was happening, she went nuts.

She She went nuts.

She said she danced when she found out he was dead.

She really

took it, I think, appropriately.

She blamed herself for not seeing it.

As well she should.

And she blamed Michael Jackson.

Yeah, as well she should.

Right.

It's a.

Part one was one of the creepiest, most disturbing things I've ever seen.

I don't watch a lot of disturbing shows.

But this one was

maybe the most disturbing I've ever seen.

I didn't see

Schindler's list, so I don't know.

No, I mean, that was a little more disturbing.

Considerably more disturbing.

But I haven't seen that.

So this was one of the, I mean, you just feel icky after it.

Yeah.

Jackie couldn't do it for part two, but part two wasn't as bad.

Part two wasn't as bad.

Part two was.

You could probably watch part two and get the gist of everything.

Yeah, probably.

Without watching all of the graphic details that you hear in the first part, which is so bad because these little kids.

Yeah, when you're seeing pictures of them.

This kid was six, six when he was first introduced to Michael Jackson.

And you see him,

you see the videotape of him going back to Australia and being on like Good Morning Australia.

And, you know, Michael gave me this hat and everything else, and you know that Michael had abused that kid.

You know, he talks about what had happened on that trip to see Michael, and then he's abused, then he goes back and you see this little teeny kid on television.

You're like, oh my gosh.

So it's phenomenal.

Curious, because I did not see any of it.

What happens now, our system of justice, is a documentary is made, and then we figure out whether they're guilty or not.

And then we make judgments, like, for example, like, you know, Bill Cosby, like, or R.

Kelly, and we pull all their music and their shows off the air and never to be seen again.

That's happening.

Is that happening with Michael Jackson, you think?

Supposedly, BBC2 banned his music, but they say they didn't,

but it hasn't been played

since.

I don't think we should do anything because of this documentary

except learn.

Except learn.

But, I mean, so Michael Jackson and his, you know, his estate doesn't get punished now that we have extensive evidence that he committed horrific crimes.

They're just going to keep playing like, you know,

we're going to keep playing PYT like it's no big deal.

And like we don't know what's going on.

There's no defense.

He's not here to defend himself.

In the closet's just going to keep running.

You know, with the lyrics.

The lyrics of that are amazing.

Oh, man.

But like, I mean, is that what happens?

Because, I mean, it's one thing to ban R.

Kelly's music, right?

It's not that big of a deal in a cultural way.

I mean, I guess it is maybe with some, but that's Michael Jackson's, you know, it's a lot of music to ban.

It's an entire era of music.

And not to mention, it influenced the next era of music.

I mean, he was...

What do you do with that?

I mean, they sample his song and how many other songs?

Do those get

excised as well?

I mean, I think you still listen to his music.

I think his music is good.

He's dead, so he's not hurting anybody anymore.

He's dead.

I'm not glorifying him by listening to his music.

I am listening to his music because his music was good

and it was part of our culture for so long.

I still watched the Cosby show with my kids.

You know, I didn't tell them until it was all over, you know, hey, by the way, you know, Dad,

he's not such a good convicted rapist.

Yeah,

he went to prison.

But the Cosby show is still really good.

I mean, what's crazy about that is that entire decade, I mean, the two things you would use to define that decade culturally would be Michael Jackson and The Cosby Show.

Right?

Like, those two are the number one thing and the number one artist.

Yeah, and they're both completely destroyed now.

Crazy.

It's amazing.

I mean,

that whole era is just gone.

Yeah.

Not Reagan.

No, I mean, that's what I mean.

Not Marty McFly.

Yeah, no, that's true.

We'll always have Marty McFly.

Yeah, we will have Marty McFly.

We will always have Marty McFly.

In fact, Star Wars, Empire Strikes Back.

Yeah, Star Wars would certainly be.

I don't know if I love Back to the Future, but I don't know if it would put Back to the Future as the lead of that decade culturally.

No, not the lead, not as big as Michael Jackson.

No, Star Wars, though, pretty bigly would be there.

I would say in the 80s,

Back to the Future was huge.

I was pretty defining it inside comedy.

It's not Star Wars, though.

No, no.

I mean, Cosby's show was like the Star Wars of television of that era, was it not?

I mean, it was the biggest show.

I think that's safe to say.

Yeah, I think that's safe.

And that is like, and that's gone.

And Michael Jackson was the Star Wars of music, and now that's gone.

I mean, Madonna was huge too, but I mean, Michael Jackson was, I would say, the peak of that.

And like they said multiple times during the special,

there's no one like that today.

And we may never, I don't think we'll ever have a star.

No, because everything's too fragile.

It's too fragmented.

Everything's too fragmented.

You know, you can be a huge star in a little pool over off to the side that's not even little, but you can be a huge star and half the country have no idea who you are.

Where even I think we were the last generation, Bill O'Reilly, Glenn Beck, Sean Annity,

we were the last of the people on cable news that

were big across the whole country.

It's not like that anymore.

No, I mean, doing Christmas shopping this past year, you go down the toy aisle of Target or, you know, whatever toy store is open and still selling toys

in a place.

Every freaking other toy has the face of some kid that your kid watches on YouTube on it.

These are all just like kids who open up presents and their whole thing is they review toys or whatever.

Those are

the ones today are all over the place.

And 90% of this audience has never seen them at all.

But if you have little kids, that's what they watch.

And those are the celebrities right now.

It's an

entirely parallel culture that is built and they all have deals with like Mattel.

Like all of the their faces are on every toy in the aisle.

You know who they also have deals with?

You know who there represents them in most cases?

Ellen.

Oh, really?

Ellen

Satan.

No, Ellen.

Ellen goes out and her team looks for the next big little kid stars and reps them and gets them these deals.

And then brings them on the show, probably.

Brings them on the show.

Introduces to the parents.

Yeah.

And then makes money off of the kids.

She's too smart.

That's annoying.

She's annoyingly smart.

Yeah.

This is the best of the Glenn Beck program.

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Darnell Bird McPherson.

She's the mayor of Lamar, South Carolina.

She's the volunteer mayor.

I don't know what that means.

Do you just think that means she calls herself the mayor, but isn't actually the mayor?

I have a feeling that could be it, or everybody just stands around is like, anybody want to do this job?

Well, I do.

All right.

Anyway, she says she was a victim of a hate crime after she found yellow

sticky substance that had been sprayed on her car early last month.

McPherson had returned to her home February 7th and told Newsweek magazine that her husband went out to get some things out of the garage and the car.

They had both left their car outside of the garage the night before, and he came in and said, somebody has painted our cars.

She went out.

She said it was a grainy substance like an industrial spray foam used to patch concrete.

It was in like

a swastika.

Well, I mean, Newsweek said it looked like little pebbles, and the stuff was also on her husband's car.

McPherson told Newsweek she said it was a hate crime because, number one, there is a history of racism in our little town of Lamar, which I think you want, I think you want the mayor of Lamar going out and saying, oh, you know, when you think of Lamar, think hate crimes.

I think you move it right over to the tourism bureau because that's really nice.

By the way, that's not how our justice system works.

I don't know if anyone understands that.

Yeah.

You know, you're like, you know what?

Well, there was a crime in this town 50 years ago, so that must be...

This is a hate crime today.

So she says, it's a hate crime because, number one, history, during the 70s, crosses were burned in the yards of our home when my mother was involved with the civil rights movement.

It's the very same corner in this very same front yard.

So it happened in the 1970s.

And it was on the same location.

So I think if it's only a few decades and it's the same corner, you automatically assume it's a hate crime.

Her statement noted, the incident happened last night.

My husband

and I

and our neighbor noticed that the cars looked like someone had spray painted both of our vehicles, which were parked right in our front yard.

She said, it ignited the same fear in my spirit.

My God, who would do that?

I thought.

It was something, it was unnerving to me.

And while no words or symbols were drawn with the substance, she told the magazine

to me, hate was the message.

Newsweek said McPherson had no possible motives for a person or people targeting her.

She said, I really have a good reputation.

I've never been subjected to something like this.

Now, she called the sheriff.

The sheriff came.

Sheriff Sheriff's Office Lieutenant Robbie Kilgo

told Newsweek

that when they were called out,

there wasn't a reason for us to collect a sample because it was

pollen.

It wasn't even paint?

She had left her car, which was normally in the garage

outside, and it was pollen.

Now.

So she got pollen on her car and reported a hate crime?

Well, who would do that?

It was a sticky yellow substance that was covering both her and her husband's car.

Right, but again, like, why would you...

There wasn't a swastika, obviously.

What was the

1970?

They were burning crosses on that corner.

You're saying that they're not going to put a pollen-like substance on her car?

Look, she knew.

She knew it was hate.

Although, who knows, Mother Nature might be wearing a hood.

You don't know.

You don't know.

You don't know.

McPherson has said she does have another possible suspect in mind.

Wait, she's still sticking with us after the pollen thing?

You don't know the rest of the story.

There was a police officer, unnamed.

There was a police police officer who came to me and said,

There are rumors out there that someone's trying to assassinate you.

So she has asked local law enforcement to file a complaint about the death threat,

as well as the yellow sticky stuff that the police strangely didn't want to take a sample of.

So she thinks the police are doing this to her.

No,

they just are turning their eyes away from somebody who is spraying pollen all over her car.

She said, I don't care about my car anymore.

What I want is my life.

So

there's your volunteer mayor

from

North Carolina.

So she is, after the pollen analysis, is sticking by the hate crime thing.

Well, because it wasn't an analysis.

The police came and they ran their fingers on the car, and her husband even says, yeah, it looks like it was pollen.

They ran the fingers on the car.

The other neighbors also have reported a strange yellow sticky substance on their cars when they leave it out at night.

But she is,

well, I should say, I mean, she thinks it was something else and she thinks she knows who did it.

But there's this rumor out that somebody's trying to assassinate her and she doesn't care anymore about the car.

She wants to know who's trying to assassinate her.

So we have a rumored assassination of a volunteer mayor.

Okay.

Yes.

Uh-huh.

Yes.

This is.

Now, you might think that that has gone too far, that our society has gone over the deep end.

But then I bring you this story:

Jareth Nebula, 33,

has shunned human genders and now wants to be accepted as something else.

33-year-old, a 33-year-old who was born a woman but transitioned to become a man when

she was 29 and then became a he

now believes he doesn't fit into either gender.

And in fact,

he has had his nipples removed because he...

Always a good move, by the way.

You just don't need them.

People don't understand this.

You just don't need them.

They're like the tonsil.

Just remove it whenever your first chance

is to just take those things off.

You just don't need them.

I mean, no Barbie or Kendall has them.

I mean, how do they live?

Right.

You know, I mean, like, oh, this is magically, they're the only people who don't need nipples.

No, no one needs them.

Amen, brother.

Amen.

So he has taken his nipples off and shaves his eyebrows because

those things make him feel human.

He claims now that he belongs to another planet.

I tend to agree.

I tend to agree as well.

He's now living alone and wants people to.

What?

That's a stunning development.

Yeah, no.

Well, there's nobody else like him.

You know, on this planet.

On this planet, right?

Yeah.

There are many like him in the universe, but

not a lot, not a lot like him.

So anyway,

he just wants people to accept who he is, and he would prefer if everybody call him a thing

or it rather than he or she.

That's the least we can do for this Niplus it.

He or it has legally changed its name four years ago after coming out as transgender.

He said it said, I firmly believe at that time that I finally found myself, but then I was wrong.

I wasn't male.

I wasn't female.

I wasn't even human.

I don't think or feel like humans.

I can't really explain it to others because I'm simply otherworldly.

But I didn't feel comfortable as either gender or anything in between.

I know I'm stuck in a human form and that's how I'm perceived by others, but I am an alien without a gender.

Jareth says he didn't fit in when he was diagnosed with EDS, which is a lifelong condition affecting connective tissue and resulting in stretchy skin and an increased range of joint mobility.

He was born with this condition, but not diagnosed until he was 26.

He has been nicknamed Mr.

Elastic,

which has got to hurt.

I'm offset they're calling him Mr.

That's what I mean.

I mean, just you can call it it, the

Elastic.

He was nicknamed Mr.

Elastic by his doctors due to his stretchy skin, a condition that causes him chronic pain.

He said it's one benefit that he has as an alien because his skin is wrinkle-free and it makes him appear younger than he really is.

Now, I don't know, no word yet on how old he really is.

He may be thousands of years old.

Fair point.

Jareth does not want to disclose his birth name.

He said that its birth name.

Sorry, its birth name.

Now I realize it says why I could pop my joints out on purpose.

It was a fun party trick as a kid.

But that happens to me not because of EDS, but because I'm an alien.

If you are

any Democratic presidential candidate running in 2020,

what other reaction is there to this than,

well, that's just wonderful.

And I accept him for what he says he is.

Sorry, what it says it is.

An alien with stretchy skin and the ability to disconnect all joints at any time because he's thousands of years old.

And I mean, seriously, it really is what their stance would have to be.

Why on earth would you accept a man transitioning to a woman and just by a feeling in their head, as I believe Ellen described it, gender is just a feeling that you have in your head.

If this person has a feeling

in its head

that it is an alien, why wouldn't you accept it?

No, you'd have to.

You have to.

To be consistent, you have to accept that that is what it says it is.

Now, here's the question.

Is it more compassionate to just go along and

call

her,

who transitioned to him and is now it, so call her

it?

Is it more compassionate to go, you know what?

Yep, you're from outer space.

You're an it, and you should have your nipples removed, and you should do all of these crazy things to your body.

You should, you should do that.

Is that more compassionate, or is it more compassionate to say

you, you, there, there, there's, you need help, you need help, you need help, and and then there is therapy that can possibly help you.

I can understand that you really feel this way

because I really, I really understand.

I've had clinical depression and I know the power of the mind and what the mind can do.

But the more you think you're

an otherworldly alien,

the more you will believe you're an otherworldly alien and that's not healthy.

So your question is, is hate more compassionate?

Is what you just did, which was hate more compassionate?

I'm more.

Well, the next thing you know, I'm going to say that on the radio.

The next thing you know, I'm going to be taking pollen and spraying it all over his car.

You're listening to the best of the Glendeck program.

So Dave Issay is a friend of the program, and he is the founder and president of StoryCorps.

And StoryCorps is this amazing thing that usually runs on NPR.

And

to me, it's tragically sad because it tells an American story.

And like everything else,

the country is divided.

And so

we have these American stories, and they become the stories of the left, or American stories become the stories of the right.

No, they're American stories.

And Dave has been

strong enough

to make an appointment with me, I don't know, about six months ago and say, Glenn, we're starting something new and we really want to invite your audience to participate in this.

So it is truly an American story because we have to start listening to each other.

And I welcome Dave Issei to the program.

Dave.

Glenn, great to be back.

Yeah, thanks.

What story are you going to share with us today?

I think we're sharing today the,

as you said, Storycorp has been around for 15 years.

And for

half a million people who know and love each other have come and recorded an interview with one another.

And we started very recently what I came to talk to you about, this project, One Small Step, where we're bringing people across the political divides into a Story Corps booth where these interviews go to the Library of Congress so your great, great, great grandkids can get to know you through your voice and story, building people, bringing people across the divides to the the booth,

just to remember that

we're people, we're just people.

And I think, Dave,

the secret to this is, perhaps,

that it is being recorded for the Library of Congress, and nobody wants to be remembered as being a jerk 150 years from now.

That's exactly right.

I mean, I think part of the secret sauce here is that it's in so many ways the opposite of Twitter

because you realize that, you know, this is how your great-grandchildren are going to hear you.

So you want to be your best self.

And that's who, you know, that's...

That's who we are.

We're born, you know,

one of the lessons of Storycore is the basic, you know, goodness of people and how similar we all are to one another.

So this is, I thought I'd play a very early One Small Step test interview

today.

And

this is from Boston.

And it's a 29-year-old woman named Jen Stanley, who's a writer, and her father, Peter, who works in construction, who's conservative.

And they came together.

We're focusing now on strangers in one small step, but this was a family interview just to see what would happen,

what could happen when we put family members together in this safe space to feel free to have a thoughtful and honest conversation.

Here it is.

I try to not bring up politics, but you always watch the five o'clock news.

And the minute any politician steps on, it doesn't matter who it is.

I just cringe.

Me too.

Yeah.

But you have to say something, whereas I would like to just pretend it's not happening.

But maybe the answer is we don't watch the news when you're there.

Maybe.

But now I feel like we've gotten to this point where we're together and we're fighting about politics.

And those would be the times when I hear you say, I can't even talk to you, Dad.

If you're going to get so angry and flip out about it, then you know what?

I'd rather you didn't talk to me.

But see, this is what drives me crazy, though.

You start these conversations out of the way.

Well, I ask questions.

What do you think about this?

And what do you think about that?

It's me trying to glean information from somebody who is significantly more educated than I am and whose opinions I trust.

I'm really surprised to hear you say that.

I had no idea that you were genuinely interested in what I had to say.

I thought that you wanted to tell me how I was wrong and also make a joke about how I was silly.

Well, I would never feel that way about you.

I have nothing but respect for you.

I don't agree with you all the time.

I don't agree with you most of the time.

But that's okay.

We have a lot of things in common.

And I do know that everything you did when you were a little kid was because you wanted to be like me.

You even played softball, which you hated because I love baby.

I just really hate it.

I mean, I just really worshipped you, Dad.

I just thought that like everything that you thought and said was right.

And you were just my best friend.

But I think as I got older, I realized that you were really wrong about a lot of things.

Well, you're probably right, Jen.

I never profess to be right about everything.

The important thing in our relationship is that you have your own beliefs and that I respect you for your beliefs.

You were raised to be a sensitive, caring person, and that's exactly who you are.

You say that, and I feel loved.

But I will say, I think you used to like me, and I don't necessarily know that you like me anymore.

Oh, yeah, I like you a lot.

It doesn't make me feel good that you say that.

I don't agree with everything you say you do,

but do I like you?

Yeah, you bet I do.

And I'm extremely proud of you.

You know, when my time comes to say, yeah, my father was a good man.

We didn't agree politically, but he was a good man.

And if you can say that, then

I'll be happy.

I don't think that you're right all the time, but I think you're the best man.

Well, thanks.

And you're the best dad.

I bet there's a lot of people that are suffering with this and wish they could heal the divide.

Let me ask you this, Dave.

I noticed that their language was very different.

He never said she was wrong.

He said over and over again, I don't agree with you on everything.

But

she said several times, and it struck me,

you know, I found out that you're very wrong on things.

Did you notice that?

And

is there something to learn from that language?

You know, I didn't notice that.

You know, I think what's happening is that it's two people

who are having a conversation that they haven't had before.

And, you know, it could flip.

You could have the conservative person

using that language and the liberal person not.

I think it just happens to be the dynamic in their ages.

But

what's striking to me.

Do you know which one is which?

Oh, yeah.

Okay.

Yeah.

So the dad is conservative and the daughter

is liberal.

But one of the cool things about these one-small step interviews, actually, is that

when you listen in on these,

and we ask people not to talk about politics.

What all this is about is that Mother Teresa line.

We've forgotten that we belong to each other.

Just seeing the humanity in people who we disagree with.

And I actually

think of the culture of,

you got to this a minute ago in the intro with Stu, the culture of fear and disgust and division represents, and I don't know if you agree with me on this, but I've come to think, especially in the last couple of months, it's potentially an extinction-level threat to

see.

Oh, I agree with you.

And I think that, you know, it's our job, like with smoking.

You know, smoking at one point was thought of as cool and sexy.

And now being, you know, kind of being at each other's throats is considered cool and hip.

And I think that in the same way, we have to start looking at the way we're treating each other in this country

as less than human, as extremely dangerous and not okay.

But if you listen in to many of these conversations, you will have no idea

who's on what side.

They're just people talking to each other in a way that you never hear anymore, which is just being human with each other.

How do people get involved in this?

So we are still, we're still testing.

We're hopefully going to go and really start scaling this thing over the next six months.

But come to StoryCorps, which is S-T-O-R-Y-C-O-R-P-S dot org backslash one small step, which is one word, storycore.org backslash one small step to sign up.

And you'll be on a mailing list.

And as we start to roll this out across the country and hopefully, you know, spreading

this idea that it's our patriotic duty to see the humanity in people we disagree with, you will be a part of it.

And

you'll be on the front lines as we take this to the country and,

again, just try and take one small step towards one another again.

Dave, thank you so much.

Glenn, thank you for having me on.

You bet.

Dave Isaac.

I'll talk to you next month.

You got it.

He's the founder and president of StoryCorps, and you can follow it at storycore.org.

This is the best of the Glen Beck program.

Hey, it's Glenn, and you're listening to the Glen Beck program.

If you like what you're hearing on this show, make sure you check out Pat Gray Unleashed.

It's available wherever you download your favorite podcasts.

So, Stu and I are having an argument now about the safest place to to live.

And I say it's, you know, my town, Mount Vernon, Washington, or Bellingham, Washington, where I grew up.

And

he said.

You were wrong, completely wrong.

It's third, third best

in the country.

Because you were like, come on, it has extreme weather.

Every place has something.

No, there's no extreme weather in Washington state.

There's no extreme weather.

It's just always rainy.

Always.

Always.

Some snow.

It gets cold.

It gets below 32 degrees in Washington.

So he gets four inches of snow.

Once in a while.

Once in a blue moon, and you get 12 inches of snow.

That's a lot.

It's very slick.

Everybody just stays at home and it melts.

We even get snow here

in Texas.

Yeah, actually, they list Dallas as the worst in the nation.

What?

Yeah, they say

lots of almost everything but quakes.

They have twisters, hurricane remnants, hail, wind, drought, and floods.

Yeah.

No mudslides.

You know what, guys?

You You shouldn't move to Texas.

I guess

that's the answer.

Yeah.

Especially if you're from California.

But yeah, no, it's the southeast that is really the biggest problem.

I mean, I remember, you know, look, I moved here for the weather,

mainly.

Forget you and your stupid show.

I came here because of the weather.

We did not do our research on weather.

Oh, just listen to God.

Where should we move?

I did plenty of research about weather before coming here, and I love it.

I love the weather here.

I hate the weather here.

Why?

It's either cold or hot.

It has like one day

where we'll have it in probably April or May where it's like, oh my gosh, open the windows.

It's beautiful.

This Friday, the highest 79.

79 this.

And then tomorrow, the next day, it could be 40.

It could be.

Yeah.

It could be a lot of things, Glenn.

But it usually is.

It's very cold here now.

It's like in the 30s right now.

Yeah.

And then it's, and then so it goes from cold without really snow or anything.

You know, if you have anything extreme, it's ice.

That's not fun.

Without any,

there's no sanding for the roads.

They don't have a salt truck.

They have nothing.

If it has ice on the road, stay home or you're dead until the sun comes out.

And it could be 80 the next day.

It still could be 12.

And then in the summer, it's like a hundred and

you know, 102, 103 with humidity.

This is this is a mass misstatement of fact here.

No, it's not.

If he's this accurate on, I might, I might vote for Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez for president if this is your level of analysis.

Because, you know,

you know, look, it's much better here in the winters than it was up north.

You don't get the

cold.

I mean, you have a few days a year where it gets around 30 degrees, but that was like the best day of the freaking year.

I know that.

I know that.

So I'm not comparing it to New York or to the Northeast.

That sucks.

Everybody knows that.

Well, that's where we moved from.

Why do we know we're comparing it?

Well, if you're going to move someplace and we need to move to someplace like Arizona where it's nice.

Oh, because Arizona doesn't get hot.

That's true.

No, Arizona gets hot, but the other six months out of the year, it's paradise.

No, it's very nice.

Paradise.

As long as it's warm, I can deal with it.

Because I'm not moving to California, and that's perfect.

I disagree.

It doesn't get warm enough in California.

We went out in California.

I took a vacation, a summer vacation to San Diego, which San Diego is awesome.

I like San Diego.

It was too cold to even go in the pool.

It was like 70.

I want a summer.

You just don't like the wind.

And you probably don't like it.

It was cold at night.

But it's 70 degrees outside as a high temperature.

It's not swimming weather.

Not to me.

I'm a wuss.

I want it to be 95 degrees.

I could just hop in the pool.

It's beautiful.

You get out.

You go inside of the air conditioning.

The average temperature in San Diego is 77 degrees, and it is perfect.

perfect.

Perfect.

It's got a nice breeze.

Some

great days.

I like the Pacific Northwest.

I like the west coast where there's no humidity.

You got a nice breeze going all the time.

And at night, even if it's blistering hot during the day, it's not at night.

The sun goes away and it somehow or another cools down.

Here in Texas, the sun goes away and it's still 100 degrees at night.

You're like, what's happening here?

Let me tell you why the sun goes away because Kim Jong-un has just fired a nuclear weapon and it can hit you.

That's how it goes away.

It becomes nuclear winter.

You like that?

That's your option there.

We're in the middle.

Nobody can reach us.

Nobody can get to Dallas.

It's way too far for missiles.

It's exactly what I'm believing for the rest of my life.

I'm using the word safe.

I do not think it means what you think it means.

It is actually listed as the worst.

I mean, we do get tornado warnings sometimes.

Hail, for sure.

It's a big deal here.

Wind, oh, yeah, it's really windy.

Drought, sure.

Floods?

Yeah.

I mean, I, yeah,

and hurricane remnants.

I mean, you're stretching out hurricane remnants.

It rains.

Houston gets hit really hard with a hurricane, and then it rains.

Yeah, we're not affected by it.

Yes, we do get rain from hurricanes, but please.

It helps us with the drought.

What?

You're complaining about everything now.

I'm a little depressed.

That's why I'm taking uppers to get rid of the downers.

Right.

Right.

I mean, geez.

So I don't know.

I guess you're right, though.

It does look like the Pacific Northwest Northwest is the place to avoid extreme weather.

But then

you have to deal with all of the progressives and the socialists and the crazies and the anarchists

and the people who were rejected by California.

California told most of those people, get out.

You're too weird.

I would think it would be the reverse.

No, all the rejects, all the rejects from California that went down, like, I am just going to live.

And then they got down there and they're like, oh, my gosh, this is just so fake and so then they went up to california went up to oregon and they were like the people in uh portland they don't mean it and so then they moved to seattle and you can't go any farther north and that's when canada built the wall yeah that's in canada they got a peace arch that bull crap that's a peace arch that's keep your progressive hippies out of our country that's what that is i don't understand those policies are working so well glenn uh like for example the 15 minimum wage

huge success in Seattle.

Really?

Doing really well.

Now, every Democratic candidate has embraced it as part of their platform, except for Bernie Sanders.

I will say Bernie Sanders said at least $15 minimum wage because that's an old school proposal.

There is a new study out about New York City who got to a $15 minimum wage.

And honestly, that's a city that needs one.

I disagree with that completely, but I do understand what your point is that it's expensive.

I'm not saying that you need a minimum, I don't believe in that.

Pay

what the market bears.

But

compared to, you know, Des Moines, it does not need a $15 wage.

New York, it is hard to live on $15.

There are places that are going to have a $15 minimum wage that that's a lot of money for that market.

Right.

I mean, there should not be a, we've made this point many times, should not definitely not be a federal minimum wage.

I don't think minimum wages do anything for the economy or for people anyway, but at least you could argue it

if you're going to customize it to an area.

The idea that you go to $15 minimum wage nationally is completely insane.

In Washington, excuse me, in New York, the $15 minimum wage has been implemented.

It's ramping up now.

And as it ramps up, the New York restaurant industry has only experienced the worst decline in restaurant jobs since

recorded time.

You'd think.

The Depression.

Well, I mean, most people would say 2008 depression, right?

Like, we had a major recession in 2008.

All employment went down dramatically, and it did go down in New York with the restaurant situation.

But no, this goes back to 9-11 for New York.

So 9-11, if you remember,

half-half the island was closed.

Right.

That was pretty much it.

And in fact, the last two, 2008 and 2001, were the last two drops.

Both, of course, occurred in real recessions.

Now, as of right now, we don't think we're in a recession, although the possibility of one seems to rise in probability kind of by the day.

However, this drop was more dramatic than even the 2008 financial collapse.

And that's just because, you know, hey, they wanted to give a little bit more money to the average worker to make a living wage.

And it makes it

so good.

Wait, how is that killing restaurants?

Well, restaurants have to pay these amounts.

Yeah, they just charge more.

Yeah, no, apparently not.

Apparently, that's not working out.

They're just letting people.

The people of New York don't want to pay more?

Yeah.

And I think, was it Cuomo that just came out and said, by the way, you know, here's the other side of the fun millionaire taxes we've been having.

They've all left the state.

All the millionaires have left, and now we're $2.4 billion short than where we thought we were going to be with tax revenue because the millionaires are ditching us and going to other states where they don't get

attacked.

Remember, they're talking about a millionaire tax of 70%.

Wasn't that the exact percentage that France said that they were going to put on their millionaires?

Remember, they did this.

And Girard Depardieu and all these people left and went to Russia.

Went to Russia.

That's how bad it is.

And said, fine, you're going to do that.

I'm going to Russia.

And they left.

And it caused all kinds of misery in France.

And so they repealed it.

This is the problem when your policies aim to punish the most mobile and

affluent people around.

They can all go wherever the hell they want.

And when you tell them we don't like what you do,

their quote-unquote shouldn't be any billionaires.

Elizabeth Warren is proposing a wealth tax, which almost certainly is unconstitutional, as basically every legal expert and constitutional expert, because the 16th Amendment specifically made it so you could not go after these types of property, but she's going to try it anyway.

Bottom line is,

you keep targeting people like this, they're going to want to leave.

And if you target, it's easy to target poor people because where are they going to go?

Right?

Like, you could target them with a soda tax, no problem.

That affects them.

Oh, sure.

You can collect all your money.

Now, of course, that's also going to destroy businesses as well, but at least you can collect your cash from the poor who want to buy their soda for cheaper prices.

That's a wonderful,

wonderful aspiration.

But when you go after millionaires, they just leave you.

They're like the hot girlfriend.

When you start treating them like that crap, they just go to somebody else.

That's why you have to crack down on them.

That's why you have to force somebody.

Okay, Harvey Weinstein.

Yeah, the government is essentially Harvey Weinstein.

Exactly right.

In this particular case, well, otherwise, I mean, we got to do it.

We got to punish them.

We got to keep them here.

Otherwise, I mean, they just want to destroy everybody with their

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