'American Idiot 2018'? - 8/20/18

The Blaze Radio Network

on demand glanned back

he who fights with monsters should be careful lest he thereby becomes a monster and if thou gaze long into an abyss the abyss will also gaze into thee

the tormentor becomes the tormented

When it's all said and done, I have a feeling this is going to be the the story of this generation.

It's a theme.

It's definitely already starting to be a theme for the

Me Too movement.

More specifically, as it pertains to Hollywood, I don't know if you saw this, but

Asia Argento, she was one of the real first and real outspoken accusers of Harvey Weinstein.

She was the one that really got the global Me Too movement going and an avalanche of accusations all across the industry, which, you know, I think it's good.

I mean, they've known about it forever.

Hollywood just decided to all of a sudden signal their virtue and go, oh my gosh, we are so against that.

So it brought light to the dark side behind all the glitz and glamour in Hollywood.

And we have become now accustomed to the virtue signaling of actors and actresses and anyone who's involved in the entertainment industry.

They just love going on late-night talk shows, preaching at award shows, championing a cause.

Oh, look at me.

I'm so virtuous.

Most of us just keep our mouths shut.

Even when they, you know, try to hype a man like Howard Zinn.

The message Hollywood has been all too

giddy to send is this.

Our virtue is greater than yours.

And the rest of all you little people need to bask in how ridiculously awesome and woke we are.

Oh, and vote Democrat.

So let me go back to Asia Argento.

Now she began writing op-eds in publications like The Guardian.

Then she took

her message political.

She slammed right-leaning political parties in Italy.

She slammed President Trump.

She wrote in April, just four months ago, quote, the exploitation of women has been central to each of their paths to power.

Weinstein used his company to hunt for prey.

Trump used the Miss USA pageant to gain power and influence in the business and media world for speaking truth to power.

I've been called a whore, a liar, a traitor, and an opportunist.

The one thing, one thing I will not be, though,

the one thing none of us should be

is silenced.

Oh my gosh.

Oh,

she's so virtuous.

Turns out that her,

you know, silence is

something she tried to get her victim to be.

Just have a little silence.

Came out this weekend.

Argento paid a former child actor $380,000 in hush money.

Why?

Well, you'll never guess.

16 years after she was allegedly assaulted by Weinstein, she took an underage boy to a hotel room, got him drunk, and sexually assaulted him.

So, Me Too is now coming for one of its founders.

Sometimes, not always, but sometimes those who

shout and point the loudest are often the ones most guilty.

Weinstein brought a nationwide spotlight on something that everyone in Hollywood already knew.

They just didn't want it out in public until now.

When the dust clouds settle,

I truly expect, you know,

black tar just to be all over the Hollywood soul, and it will finally be exposed.

But I also expect that they're going to continue their virtue signaling.

The question is,

will anyone buy it anymore?

It's Monday, August 20th.

You're listening to the Glenn Beck program.

It's amazing how much is just coming down.

How the walls of everything are, whoo, it's almost like a prediction I made about 15 15 years ago.

How everything that you thought was so solid is just coming down.

You know, the education system, the Hollywood system, the entertainment, television, media, news, politicians, courts, police,

neighbors, I mean, everything.

Has your opinion.

Is your opinion solid on anything?

Is your opinion what your opinion was on anything

10, 15 years ago?

On anything?

Well, yes, of course.

But there have been changes.

There have been changes.

I've certainly lost faith

in

any aspect of government to do anything correct.

Correct.

I didn't have a lot of that.

No, I never.

But I had some.

Yeah, I had some.

Yeah.

There was definitely a change in

that level of trust.

I believed in the judicial system.

Nope.

I mean, you know, I still think it's pretty good if you compare it to anything else,

any other judicial system around the world.

But, you know, it's definitely there's been hesitations there.

I used to believe that, for the most part, justice is done.

And I'm not sure anymore.

I have gone through it and I've seen the underbelly and how politics plays a role and what the government can and can't do or can and won't do.

I'm not sure.

I'm not sure.

Yeah, there's more abuse of it than I think I would have

expected back in those days.

And the same thing, I think, applies to

issues of war and privacy, those sorts of things that we've, I think, both moved towards the libertarian way a little bit more.

I mean, I was listening to

the 2000s on CNN.

I happened to be on the screen.

Oh, you're the one watching CNN?

I don't know that anyone is.

But I was flipping through the channels, and it was on the 2000s, and they're talking about the rock of the 2000s.

And

they're giving examples, and they give cold play and then nickelback.

And their basic concept was that the rock of the 2000s

was terrible, right?

Like, this is just like, you know, cold play was catchy.

Nickelback had a lot of fans, but

they meant nothing.

Rock's supposed to have this message.

Shut up.

They said the one example.

from the 2000s is Green Day because they were taking on the establishment.

They stood up

and they took a stand

and they pushed back against the man.

Yeah.

Right?

Yeah, and Pearl Jam.

Noah.

Yeah.

That's more of the 90s.

I mean, they were in the 2000s.

So was Green Day from the 90s.

Right.

The American Idiot was their big example.

And if you remember this, it was a big deal at the time.

Sure.

And they started, you know, they do the typical thing where they have people commentating on it and then they go back to clips of the song and they bounce back and forth.

And I'm listening.

And, you know, I haven't listened to that song in years.

And I remember at the time it being sort of annoying.

I mean, you know, American Idiot, it's so easy, right?

But you go back and look at the lyrics to this song, and it's every, it's the exact opposite.

These sites have completely changed.

Oh, give me, give me the lyrics.

So what is their complaint there?

Don't want to be an American idiot.

Do you want to be a nation under the new media?

Right?

The media is controlling the agenda, they say, throughout.

It's all about that.

Now, of course, it would be the right saying that now, right?

The media is influencing people the wrong way.

Right.

They also go into, can you hear the sound of hysteria?

It's the age of paranoia.

Well, what side is making the handmaid's tale right now?

It's not the right.

It's not even that they're making the handmaid's tale.

They're praising it and saying, look at the parallels.

Exactly.

There's no parallels, right?

I mean, think about, you know, we have Alyssa Milano out in a protest this weekend in the handmaid's tale outfit saying, I think it says, never Kavanaugh, never Gilead.

Gilead's the fake country that sprouts up in Handmaid's Tale.

That we're going to wind up subjugating women and all these terrible, terrible things.

Combine that with climate hysteria.

Who is the paranoia?

Where's the paranoia coming from?

It's certainly not the right.

So we're talking about the Green Day American Idiot was a stance against the machine.

The machine at the time, as the left saw it, was evil George W.

Bush and evil,

the evil media supporting the Iraq war in their mind, right?

So, here, now we're on the other side of this.

Who's creating the paranoia?

Clearly, the left.

The media is clearly doing this,

controlling the conversation in ways that the right is not uncomfortable with.

And then, the president, who's a Republican, has the same view of the Iraq war as they did in the song.

They both thought.

So, they actually got the

view on that war that they wanted in office, and they're still constantly complaining about it.

I mean, these things change so fast.

This is the exact flip of what we're talking about now.

And it was this big, monumental thing back in the day.

It was an important piece of art, according to CNN.

So, you know, I have a couple of things from this weekend that are kind of similar to this.

I went to see Crazy Rich Asians.

Have you seen that yet?

I did not.

Okay.

Big movie that was number one.

Really good.

Really, really good.

First movie with an all or mostly Asian cast in 25 years.

Yeah, it's since the Joy Luck Club.

It's really good

and

funny and fun and yada, yada, yada.

But basically, it's a little bit of the great Gadsby scenes where it's just,

I mean,

it's the most accurate movie title I've ever.

It's Crazy Rich Asians.

Okay.

I really thought there was irony in the title, but it's not a nice thing.

No, no, no.

They're crazy rich.

Crazy rich.

Okay.

And

it takes place in Singapore.

And it's about a guy who basically is,

you know, he's like a Prince Harry kind of character from Singapore.

He's not actually royalty, but wildly famous, the most famous bachelor in Singapore,

you know, good looking, wildly, wildly wealthy.

I think their grandfather, you know, bought it when it was just like a cricket club and bought all the land, you know, in Singapore and then built Singapore.

So they're that rich.

And he's educated in Oxford.

He moves over to the United States.

He doesn't really want that lifestyle and doesn't want to be known as that.

So he never tells this girl he's dating.

Now, this girl he's dating is Chinese, and she's an immigrant to America.

Her mother fled China

from a bad situation, comes over to the United States, works two jobs.

I mean, is the idyllic American immigrant and works hard.

And now her daughter is teaching game theory at like Columbia University, okay?

So

now what happens is they go over to Asia.

Mom and the family do not want an American Chinese.

She's not Chinese.

She's American.

Okay.

Oh, so bigotry and racism?

Okay.

All right.

Interesting.

Yeah.

You know, we've got to stop America and redistribution of wealth.

And

oh my gosh, our conspicuous consumption is horrible.

Don't worry about us, gang.

Don't worry about us.

Capitalism is alive and well in other parts of the world.

And the conspicuous consumption, it makes us look tame.

It makes us look tame.

And what are you going to do?

So we go communists, then what happens to them?

I mean, it's, yeah, I mean,

we actually are starting to head into a place where you probably need to redistribute some of that wealth over to the United States.

Well, yeah.

That's interesting because there are certain cultures in which it's okay to,

you know, aspire to being incredibly wealthy.

And it's not, it's not, you don't, our politicians all come up in in front of you and say, we all aspire to be middle class.

And it's like, well, there's nothing wrong with being middle class.

It's great life in America.

It's one of the greatest, it's certainly the greatest middle class life in human history in the United States.

But still, that's not necessarily what you aspire to.

Right.

You aspire to, you know, to do even better if you can, make life easier if you can.

It's not a downplay against the middle class, but you look at, you know, watch, wait until Joe Biden starts this campaign.

Middle class Joe, as everyone has called him since he was born, middle-class Joe.

Now, there's no record of anyone calling him that other than himself.

Right.

However, that is what he's going to hit constantly.

Sure.

And it's going to be this situation where he is going to tell everyone.

I don't want to aspire to a middle-class guy who got rich by going to Congress.

Yeah.

Terrible.

I mean, that's a terrible example.

I, I, you know,

look, I've been rich.

I've been poor.

I've been happy both times.

I've been happy both times.

And sad both times.

And sad both times.

And periods of sadness as well.

I mean, it's just, it's like, it's, it's, that's, that's an illusion.

All of that is an illusion.

Yes, it makes your life easier, makes some of the tension at home kind of uh go down, which is really nice, but that's the only real benefit out of it.

Well, that and private air travel.

Those are the only, those are the only real advantages to being rich.

I, I, I tweeted last night, and people were like, oh my gosh, Glenn, you're going to get pulled off the air for saying this.

This is crazy.

I am not going to apologize for my privilege because because I don't have privilege.

What do you mean privilege?

My ancestors came here with nothing.

For over 100 years, they have had nothing.

I'm the first successful one in the family.

My great, great, great grandfather was killed.

in Andersonville, the concentration camp, the notorious concentration camp of the Confederacy.

He was fighting for the Union.

My great, great, great, great uncle was also put, I mean, they were losers.

They just, I mean, they were in the, they joined the army and they fought for about four weeks and they were thrown into a BOW camp.

My great, great, great grandfather died and his brother never recovered from Andersonville.

Well, they were fighting to stop slavery.

Yeah, I know you're joking by saying they're losers.

That's an incredible story.

No, it's an incredible story.

I believe

that,

you know, it's just like, you know,

it would be a back that would be like, I'm going to sign up next day.

You're in a camp.

Okay.

Wow, we made a difference.

So, you know,

nobody in my family, but every single member of my family has fought for a better life for their children.

Now, why would I apologize for my father and my grandfather and my great-grandfather and my great-great-grandfather all working so their children could have a better life.

That better life that they worked for is my so-called privilege.

It's an insult to apologize for what my ancestors did so I could have the opportunity.

Are you going to apologize for doing what you're doing so your children will have a better opportunity?

Yeah, how would that feel to you?

If your kids later on in life were like, I'm so sorry for my

dad did.

Oh, my dad did.

You're killing yourself to do that for your son or your daughter.

Right.

And they're going to apologize for what you did later on?

No.

That would be disagreeing.

No, they can apologize for my mistakes.

Sure.

They can absolutely be ashamed of me for my mistakes, but for working hard so their life was better, so they had opportunities that I didn't have, don't you dare apologize.

It is an insult to your ancestors.

And I got that

by watching a movie about crazy rich Asians.

While that wasn't anywhere in the movie, that's what I took home.

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Hello and welcome to the program.

Glad you're here.

You know, we've got

one of the best tributes I heard all weekend, you know, to Aretha Franklin had to come from Al Sharpton.

He is just, do we have that audio by any chance, Sarah?

It's Al Sharpton and his memorial message.

Are we talking about female canines?

You know what they say about payback?

It's a real.

Well, you, I'm sure you know the word I'm thinking of.

So, in the words of my late friend Aretha Franklin, show some R-E-S-P-I-C-T.

Some respect.

You get a black woman and a beagle confused.

Remember this.

I got you.

Whoa.

That is the single worst delivery of a line, first of all, at the beginning of that, where he tries to,

you know, fake you out that he's going to say the B word.

And then R-E-S-P-I-C-T.

And how do you know?

Respect.

Have a little respect.

What is respect?

It's not a thing.

Oh, yes.

Yes, it is.

Al Sharpton, he's got you covered.

If you are suffering from respect, he's got you covered.

This is the Glenn Beck program.

Addicted to outrage.

Yes, we have another addiction to outrage segment for you.

There's nothing better than this.

Really?

You know, just getting up in the morning and just saying, you know, what can I be pissed off about?

I had a good weekend, you know, enjoyed my family and yada, yada.

Now I got to get back into, I got to get into back into what really matters.

And let's talk some politics.

And what can I possibly be outraged?

I've got something that's going to really push you over the top.

It's Alceie Hastings.

He is in Florida.

He's giving a speech and violence breaks out.

Here it is.

He said, do you know the difference between a crisis and a catastrophe?

And no one held their hand.

So Aarry answered for us.

He says, a crisis is if Donald Trump falls into the Potomac River and can't swim.

And he says, and a catastrophe is anybody saves his

that's violent speech.

That was a death threat to the president.

I mean, I could do everything that the press does

to the right.

We know that there's a double standard, right?

But

if you want to fix today,

if you really want to be outraged, because we are addicted to outrage, hit the jingle.

Addicted to outrage.

If you really want to

further your addiction, let's be pissed off about that.

And we can be so easily.

And justifiably.

Justifiably.

Because you're right.

The standard that would be held against a conservative making a joke about a Democratic president,

and we saw it happen during the Obama administration over and over again.

They acted as if they were legitimate real threats.

Oh, yeah.

They acted as if they'd

targeted a district.

I'm going to target a district.

Everybody knew what that was.

Everybody knew.

They faked outrage and tried to make it into something that it wasn't.

So now we have a choice.

And one is satisfying.

It really is.

One is satisfying.

One is

because it sets off all the good chemicals in your body is

being

outraged by it.

I'm angry because

look at the double standard.

Look at the double standard.

They would never do that

to give us the benefit of the doubt.

Why should I give them?

Because if I've been giving them the benefit of the doubt, I haven't changed my behavior.

And the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

So I'm going to get angry about it.

And

I'm going to be outraged.

And I'm going to express my outrage.

And that feels good.

It does.

Doesn't it?

Oh, it feels fantastic.

It does.

You get your motor running, your juices flowing.

You know, you feel like you're doing something.

Maybe even you can get to a point where this particular representative would be punished in some way.

Maybe he loses his job.

There's a real goal to get to is maybe he loses his job and they replace him with another Democrat.

I mean, they've been doing this to us for years.

We're just starting to make progress on this.

We're just starting to get people

being held responsible and they're getting kicked out.

Yeah, I mean, you know, if that's your goal, right, then you have something there.

It's interesting because I think we have become, as conservatives, experts in pointing out the double standard to the point where you used to stop us from saying it on the air.

You know, like when Pat was here, we would talk about this.

We'd be like, this is a complete double standard.

And you'd say,

we know it's double standard.

All right, let's move on.

And it's true.

We are experts at identifying that, but there is an additional step.

Now you have two standards.

Well, hold on.

Let's go.

No, there's not.

You got a double standard.

That's it.

Now you have two standards in front of you.

Double, right?

Two standards.

Now you have to choose which one you want.

The outrage one.

The outrage one.

The one that makes you feel good.

Well, I want the outrage one.

Does it make you feel good in anything other than the very short term?

Nope.

I guess is my question.

Nope.

Doesn't seem to make anyone feel good.

Nope.

Everyone's applying the standard all the time, and they get more and more pissed off all the time.

And everybody says, I can't read it anymore.

I can't look at it anymore.

And what do we do?

As soon as you have the opportunity to apply it, you go for it.

And I think that that's the wrong way to go.

I mean, look, choose the standard that you think the world should have.

You know,

you're right.

Like, sometimes you're living in a world where you don't get what you want.

But are you acting in the way that you believe is the right way?

Or are you acting in a way that you believe is improper?

And I think constantly, because we feel and correctly feel, by the way, that we've been victims of a double standard over a very long period of time, we justify behavior we wouldn't normally justify because we feel like, well, we've been wrong, so therefore we can do wrong.

And that's not a good way of going through life.

So where is this, where is this,

where is this anger coming from?

Where is this willingness to

become

that which we gaze upon, become that which we despise,

become the monster in trying to kill the monster?

Where does that come from?

What is the root of that motivation?

You think, you know, I have a theory.

I'd love to hear it.

We all feel judged.

We all are insecure,

and we all feel judged.

Somebody is judging me, and they're judging me harshly.

They're judging me

improperly

and unfairly.

And

the

left and the right, I think, feel this way.

You know, the guy from QueerEye,

what was his name?

Jonathan Veness, he came out and he said, hey, we've got to stop saying that everybody who voted for Donald Trump was a racist.

They're not.

Just like, as he says, everyone on the left isn't evil.

He's right.

He's absolutely right.

But that's what everybody's feeling.

We're being shoved into these corners and we're being told we're enemies.

One side is evil.

One side is racist.

And

people on both sides feel like they're judged.

Even when we get together, we still feel judged because

somebody

is trying to change your mind.

We're not comfortable anymore just being friends.

How many friends do you have that really disagree with you politically?

Have you lost any friends or family?

Ask yourself why.

Is it because you tried to change their mind or they tried to change your mind?

And so you're arguing about it and you have no place to go.

And that's become your relationship.

You're judging them.

They're judging you.

You're right.

They're wrong.

They're right.

You're wrong.

And so there's absolutely no place to go except away from each other or to gather

for for battle.

I was singing this weekend.

The serenity prayer

is what we really need a healthy dose of.

You know,

the addicted to outrage, I've said this for years, that I think this audience would be the audience that can turn this around, save the nation in the end.

And when

America decides to do a 12-step program, when they decide to admit that they have a problem, not that others have a problem, that we have a problem,

we'll be taking our first step towards recovery and being the people that we are.

The serenity prayer,

every alcoholic knows it.

God, give me the grace to accept with serenity the things that cannot be changed.

What can't be changed?

What can't be changed?

I can't change other people.

I can't change them.

I can, however, allow them to change me.

I don't want that.

I saw a story this weekend where they were trying once again, trying to change history, trying to take more statues down.

You can't change history.

History is there.

Let it change you.

Learn from it.

Learn the good things from history and learn from the bad things in history so you don't do it again.

But I can't force you to change.

I can't force you to learn from history.

You have to.

How many times have you heard of a friend or a loved one who's an alcoholic and has been in rehab 10 times?

They just can't change.

Well, because they don't want to.

You have to hit a place to where you want to change.

And that's really hard.

It's really hard

because it requires you to just focus on you and nothing else.

And while we are egomaniacs, we're self-loathing egomaniacs.

So nobody really wants to do look if you really start to look into yourself and you really start to say,

maybe I have a problem here.

Maybe I'm causing some of my own stress.

And I don't need to be outraged by all of this because I'm not going to change that person who I love, like, was friends with, I'm co-workers with.

I'm not going to change them.

They believe what they believe.

Instead, I'm just going to love them.

It's really hard.

I'm just going to love them.

I'm going to serve them.

I'm going to be helpful.

I'm going to be kind.

I'm going to be the opposite that they are.

Not to change them.

Not to change them.

Just to stand guard

against them changing you.

If they agreed with you, if they had your same political stance,

if they were kind to you, would you be kind back?

So they're not kind to you.

They do bad things to you.

So what's changed?

You.

You've allowed them to change you.

Give me the grace to accept with serenity the things that cannot be changed, the courage to change the things which should be changed, and the wisdom to know one from another.

That's how we receive serenity.

I can change these things, and the biggest thing I can change is me.

So I can change these things.

I cannot change people.

Number one problem.

I cannot change people.

Anybody who thinks that you're going to change Twitter, oh, we're going to change Alex Jones.

No, you're not.

No, you're not.

Not unless he wants to.

You're going to change Donald Trump?

You're not going to change Donald Trump.

What are you doing?

The press thinks they're going to change him?

You're not going to change him.

You're not going to get him to admit anything.

You're not going to get him to change his ways or or see the light or anything else.

If he decides,

you know, I don't like my life right now.

And I think he loves his life.

I don't like my life right now.

I've got to change.

Then he'll change.

But the press,

and really

90% of this country has allowed one man

to change them fundamentally.

Think of that.

One man

has changed people's positions,

their viewpoint,

not based on facts or an argument, just because of the fight.

One man has changed probably 90%

of the American people fundamentally at the core they've changed.

I don't think that's something to be proud of.

You can't change people, but people can certainly change you

if you allow them to.

I don't know if you've seen

all of the just outrageous predictions now

about

what's coming in the economy.

I don't know what's coming in the economy.

I know eventually the chickens come home to roost.

Did you see the George Will column this weekend?

No.

He was talking about how this is just unsustainable and how our dad is getting out of control.

And we've had now, I think Wednesday marks the longest bull market in history.

History.

Which is.

Because you see what China did,

what, this weekend?

They started bailing out.

They got involved.

They started doing the same things we're doing.

And all of a sudden, it's a bull run again up in the Chinese market.

I mean, it's just, it's,

it's ridiculous.

It's not real.

It's not real.

And eventually it comes down.

And the higher we go, the more, I mean, Kondrakiev was right.

The guy who said, you know, it's a wave and

we need spring and summer, but we also need fall and winter.

We need things to kind of go and die out to refresh.

That's right.

Well, I want to talk to you a little bit about food storage because you don't know.

It could be a wildfire, could be a power outage, could be an attack by the Russians hacking us.

I mean, God only knows.

Would you be surprised if aliens came down, if all of a sudden a giant

spaceship, think of this.

I asked you earlier, have you changed?

Do you believe in anything that you used to 20 years ago?

Think of your reaction 20 years ago if a spaceship would all of a sudden appear over Manhattan and cast a shadow over all of it, okay?

You'd be like, what the...

Today, I think that could happen.

You'd be like, huh.

Huh.

I wonder what Trump's tweeting about.

Anyway.

Right, because constant unbelievable surprise is actually boring.

Exactly.

Exactly.

They're furious.

So don't get bored by it.

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I have to tell you, I don't,

you know, not being a Catholic, I would like to talk to some Catholics about this, but

this scandal in Philadelphia and Pennsylvania, this is awful.

The new Catholic Church scandal, the way they were grooming these kids, really ugly,

passing them around with one another.

I mean, this is

horrible.

There's a feeling, I think, to some level that this stuff had was kind of passed us.

I mean, and I guess that's

older.

I don't think anybody really thought that the institution really

took care of it.

They just kind of tried to take care of it and kind of pushed it off to the side or in the back burner.

I think we hoped that they were taking care of it in private, but they didn't.

I mean, this is where the Pope actually went when he came to America.

He needs to step to the plate more than he already is.

You know, you know, ICE is totally evil, right?

I mean, we all know that.

You know, they're, what are they doing?

They're persecuting people.

Persecuting here are people who are just trying to get here and have a better life for their family.

They're good, law-abiding citizens.

Every single one of them.

Not one of them is bad.

And let me tell you a story.

Okay.

If you don't know ICE is evil, well,

I read some stories this weekend

that'll sure look, I'm re-examining my vote in November

because I saw this story everywhere.

They don't care about human beings.

In fact, if I may tell you one story,

happened this weekend.

An evil ICE agent chased down an illegal immigrant couple and he cornered them at a California gas station and then arrested the poor husband.

His wife is like, No, I've got to go to the hospital.

Now, they were cornered there in the gas station.

They stopped to get gas and I don't know, some MMs or something, whatever.

And

they're on their way to the hospital.

She's pregnant.

And the nerve of this cop to just go and say, Hey, what are you doing?

Are you a Mexican?

I mean, because Americans don't buy MMs and gas.

So

I got to take you to jail.

And she had to drive herself to the hospital.

Isn't that an awful story?

Just an awful, awful.

The pregnant wife, she's having labor pains.

She's driving herself to the hospital.

Man,

evil.

Washington Post, ICE, the Washington Post headline, ICE arrests a man driving his pregnant wife to give birth.

She drove herself to the hospital.

That's the headline.

And that's the story, right?

Newsweek, ICE agents, part of Trump crackdown, detain husband driving pregnant wife to deliver baby.

Oh, this is

Newsweek.

Newsweek, we want to thank you for associating President Trump with this cruelty because he is really responsible for this.

Sacramento B.

They were just on their way to the hospital to have a baby when ICE took him away.

Oh, my gosh.

I mean, it kind of, I mean, that one kind of almost sounds like, you know, they might have taken the baby, too.

I'm not sure.

Okay, so here's the real story.

This guy was wanted,

you know, for murder.

He was evading police.

He came here because he was wanted for murder, not in America.

He was wanted by the Mexican authorities.

for murder down in Mexico.

And

so he wasn't a good guy that was just crossing the border, you know, with just

a just love in his heart.

Just love in his heart.

Just, you know, he was practically dressed as the Statue of Liberty, Uncle Sam.

He was wearing his Uncle Sam hat.

He just loves America so much.

Just wants to be a good guy and provide for his new baby and his wife.

No, he was actually a murderer.

And ICE was doing the job of the Mexican police who had requested,

hey, can you be on the lookout for this guy?

If so, send him back to us.

So we did.

I'm just, I'm.

Does anybody else not get angry over these things?

Just

wonder.

Is the press ever going to wake up to their hypocrisy?

Are they ever going to go,

oh,

this is why half of America hates our guts?

It's Monday, August 20th.

You're listening to the Glenn Beck program.

Jean-Carlos Sopo is a

public affairs director on Latin America, and he's a Democrat.

And he was on with us last

week, I think, or two weeks ago.

And I had him on because he's taking a very strong stand against Democratic socialism.

And we don't necessarily agree on policies.

He's a Democrat.

But he is trying to alert America, and especially the Democrats,

how bad Democratic socialists are, what it really means.

It's not, you know, some Norwegian, I have some Ludevisk and maybe some free healthcare and everything will be great.

It's not that.

This is not the Swedish or Danish healthcare system or system.

They don't have that.

He reached out.

We had him on last time because he had reached out to

some

people over, I think,

in Denmark, some economists, and said, hey, I just want you to see what the Democratic Socialists are saying here and want here.

Is this what you have?

11 out of 12 said, no, that's really radical.

And he's warning about the danger, and he's taking a beating from the left, and he's taking a beating from

many Democrats as well.

Gian Carlos Sopo is with us now.

I want to make sure I get this right.

Is it Gian Carlo or is it Gian Carlo?

Either one works.

It's like the same name as the baseball player.

He knows nothing about Gian Carlos Stanton.

No, I have no idea.

He has absolutely no idea.

So Gian Carlo.

Okay.

So

there was a new

Gallup poll out,

and it shows that

Democrats now have a more positive view of socialism than capitalism.

And

what does that say to you?

You know what it says to me is that I think most people have no earthly idea what socialism is, because that same poll also showed that 92% of Americans support small businesses, 86% have a positive view of entrepreneurs, and 79% of Americans said that they support the free enterprise system.

So what that means to me is that most Americans, when you ask them about socialism, they are, like you said earlier, they have some fairytale-like concoction in their mind of Scandinavia.

When in reality, that's not what socialism is.

That's not what the democratic socialists of America are proposing.

And I believe that this level of disinformation is dangerous to the American people because I strongly believe that there is a significant constituency.

I think, but let me just be clear.

I think the vast majority of Democrats, if you just speak to them on a rail level, they just want better access to health care and things like that.

But there is a small but growing minority that wants to go much farther than what they have in, say, Denmark.

They would like to actually socialize the economy.

They want to abolish private ownership of enterprise.

I think that's dangerous, and

it looks absolutely nothing like the kind of system that they have in Scandinavia.

I checked with a dozen Norwegian economists, 11 of which said, no, these views are fringe, including by our standards.

I mean,

the Scandinavian countries, in some cases, are more free than we are at this point.

I mean,

the capitalist system, they just take more in taxes and then give more out.

But the actual business is not regulated like it is here.

Yeah, it's probably easier to start a business in Copenhagen than in California now.

That's crazy.

Yeah, I mean, those countries are incredibly free, even by conservative estimates and conservative rankings and libertarian rankings.

Countries like Denmark performing incredibly well.

According to the World Bank,

Denmark and Norway and Sweden are some of the freest economies in the world and easiest places to start a business.

Some of them even outrank the United States.

And not only those countries, but also we're talking about Canada and the UK as well.

So I think there is

a very tremendous misconception in the United States as to what democratic socialism is and what it is not.

The words might be phonetically similar, but social democracy and democratic socialism are not the same thing.

They're like distant cousins that at one point were much closer aligned, but after World War II, they started moving in different directions, particularly at the height of the Cold War, where the Social Democrats said, this is not what we want, and we want to move in a different direction.

So

do you see anybody?

I mean, I follow you now on Twitter, and

I see the beating that you're taking.

And, you know, I understand that.

I mean, you're

taking on your own party.

Do you see anybody really standing up?

I mean, mean, look at Cuomo last week.

He was only doing that because he's in the race for his life and he had to come out and say, hey, I'm socialist too.

Do you see anybody standing against the Democratic socialists in the Democratic Party really taking a principled

American constitutional stand?

I think what most Democrats whom I speak with and whom

I pay attention to,

they're like trying to weather out out the storm.

And then you have a small group that I believe is trying to utilize this momentum as an opportunity to increase their power.

And I think that's dangerous.

I remember, well, I didn't see it personally, obviously, but President Kennedy's inaugural address where he warns developing countries around the world not to ride the back of the tiger or else they're going to end up inside.

And I believe that if we continue fueling this rise of democratic socialism, the Democratic Party is going to go from being what's historically been a center-left party with maybe a socialist wing to being a socialist party

with a centrist wing.

I believe that's dangerous for the country, and it's moving in the

wrong direction.

You don't think that that's already happened?

I mean,

watching,

I think the last 12 years have been

pretty remarkable on how far left the Democrats have moved.

Yeah, I think on some issues, I believe, for example, this rise of

intersectional identity politics, I think, is dangerous.

I believe in

that this knee-jerk reaction to thinking that

the first solution to any problem is to say, well, let's get the federal government involved.

I think

that's not a wise decision.

So I think in some regards, yes.

In some regards, in other ways, I think

more like on social policies,

you know, and on some economic policies, they've moved more to the left.

On others, they've kind of stayed where they've been historically.

What I'm worried about is the silence, and I think more people need to speak up about this.

I believe it's important.

There is, like I said, I think there's a massive disinformation campaign underway.

And there are members of the press who are complicit in this, who are issuing

these

phony explanations of what democratic

socialism is.

Of course, they always leave out the part about nationalizing businesses and turning small companies into co-ops.

I mean, Glenn, imagine if you had to turn your business into a co-op.

You wouldn't survive.

It's not how most businesses should be designed or can function that way.

So I think more people need to speak up about this.

And

I welcome the beating.

I think it's entertaining sometimes, but it's nothing compared to what people in places like Venezuela are going through on a daily basis who have to live under this system, which is it's absolutely terrible.

And you know, it's funny, I was this weekend, I went to Disney with my wife.

According, you know, what's bizarre is that you know, she comes from a socialist country, she goes to a place like Disney, and she's in heaven, she thinks it's it's amazing.

Uh, I know you're a big fan of Walt Disney, too, and I saw your Here Prague or U video.

Uh, when you take a democratic socialist to Disney, their first reaction is to start hurling accusations of racism and inequality and so forth.

I mean, it's I don't understand understand in what version of the universe these people live in,

but

you cannot give them an inch.

That's what I'm absolutely convinced of.

And I believe it's shameful that the party of Kennedy, the party of Truman, I mean,

how did we go from being the party of Jack Kennedy and Frank Sinatra to being the party of Bernie Sanders and some guy now who's going out there saying that America has never been a great country?

I think that's absolutely shameful.

Well, you know what?

Let's continue this conversation.

Let me take a quick break and then let's continue this conversation because I think it's, I mean, I can tell you how they got there,

but

I want to look at a

I just want to

delve a little deeper with you.

Hang on just a second.

Sure.

I don't want to foreshadow our conversation here.

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Glenn Beck.

Giancarlo Sopo,

he is a guy who knows what socialism and totalitarianism is

and is a Democrat and standing against Democratic socialism

and wondering how we got here from the time of John F.

Kennedy.

And I think I know the answer, but let me go through a couple of names here.

John Carlo, I'd like to get your call on this because the Progressive Caucus is sort of the thing that

you notice this is the real separation line.

And you go through and

you have

Ted Liu and Barbara Lee and Maxine Waters and Keith Ellison and Elijah Cummings and a lot of these big names that people people recognize.

And there's always been, you know, on the Republican side, there's really conservatives that would fall into a group.

However, when you look at the Progressive Caucus, it is 40%

of elected Democrats in the House.

It's not like a few people.

There's 77 people in the Progressive Caucus.

You look at the Freedom Caucus, what were there?

20?

Yeah, 10, 20, maybe.

And again, you know, there's a big split there.

Am I recognizing the split correctly there with the Progressive Caucus?

And I mean, how do we explain that it's such a large

Well, I think there, like I said before, I think there is an effort in the media to normalize far-left positions in a way that is simply not

the case with positions that we would typically associate with the far right.

So, where are the investigative reports on the Democratic Socialists of America, for instance, right?

Why is nobody asking Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez why she's going around campaigning with an organization that defends the Venezuelan government.

So nobody's asking these kinds of hard questions because there's a tendency to believe, and I think this has been inculcated through the education system in many ways it's not even taught, that somehow the tyranny that people lived in under the Soviet Union was in some ways part of a well-intentioned but botched economic system.

That's just not true.

It was an evil system that ruined the lives of millions of people and killed, I think, what is it, like 100 million people?

That the extremism of the left is somehow more acceptable than what's typically associated with the extremism on the right, which would say someone like neo-Nazis, who, by the way,

are not on the right.

These are Ph.P.R.

status.

So I believe that's what's driving it.

And you also have, though, just people are not covering this.

They're not talking about it.

Look, last year, a friend of mine who's active in democratic politics told me that he was on a conference call, and Keith Ellipson said, this is right after he became vice chair of the DNC, that under his leadership, the DNC is going to feel like the days that they were marching with Che Guevara.

That is an insane comment for anyone in national politics to make.

I cannot confirm that he made it.

But if it's true that he made it, I mean, that should have been a front-page story in every publication in the United States.

But nobody's interested in talking about this kind of stuff because they want to focus on

some of the more extremist elements of the GOP base.

And I think there has to be a greater sense of fairness.

I mean, you cannot cover Antifa fundamentally different than the way that you cover the alt-right.

You have to cover them equally because they're both extreme.

I have to tell you, I would bet you 95% of my audience right now is saying, this guy's not a Democrat.

There's no way you're a Democrat.

Because I've never heard a Democrat say these things.

Never.

Never.

Yeah, well, look, here's what's happening, Glenn.

And when I was younger in my career, I worked in politics.

So what's happening is that.

All right, wait, wait, wait, wait.

I want to hear this fully.

Let me just take a quick break.

Then you come back and explain to us why we've not heard this from any Democrat or anybody in the news that's on the right.

Because

I think you're exactly right.

You've diagnosed the problem.

Giancarlo Sopo, who is a Democrat who is taking a beating online for speaking out against democratic socialism and wondering where the,

you know, where the Democrats are and where the people are in the media that will actually tell you the truth,

which is my question.

Where are these so-called Democrats that see this as a problem, Giancarlo?

Well, here's what I can tell you.

I believe that the, you know, the political-industrial complex has grown to such a degree now that you can't call this stuff out.

Because here's the first thing they do.

The moment you start calling out what, you know, some of the extremism, they start trying to pull your contracts if you're a consultant.

They start calling people who do business with you and steering them in a different direction.

They call their producers, their allies, their friendlies in the media.

Look, I work in PR.

I understand how the media works.

They start calling producers and reporters and start planting hit pieces on you and they start kind of shifting the narrative in a different direction and they tell producers not to book you on TV shows to get your message out there.

And then

if you're on the radio, then they start threatening to pull your advertiser.

So there's an entire machinery set up to try to control speech.

And I believe that's dangerous.

I think the growth of the political industrial complex is a threat to our democracy because it limits the ability of people to have sincere and honest conversations.

So, after I went on your show last week, I had people whom are friends of mine basically try to call me out and say, Why are you going on Glenn Beck's show?

And I said, I'm just speaking the truth.

And so, their argument to that was, well, it might be true what you're saying, but you shouldn't be saying it because it's not politically expedient.

And I say, Well, look, I'm a Catholic.

I believe that we're here on earth to bear witness to the truth and speak what's on our minds and just think freely, right?

What they're trying to do now is to clamp down on any kind of dissent.

And I believe that's dangerous.

I think most Democrats,

I would say, are probably against this.

They just don't realize to the extent to which it's going on.

So

tell me a fellow traveler.

Tell me somebody who is traveling this road, because

I see no one in the media that is willing to do this.

Last week, we played some audio of a group of

journalists sitting around a a table saying, quote, we need a different word for socialism because socialism has a bad name.

Well, it has a bad name for a reason.

And so they were all talking about how it's unfair to call this socialism.

Well, only because you want it to get passed.

I don't see anybody in the media willing to take on Antifa.

I don't see anybody willing to take on democratic socialism, willing to point out what is really happening in Venezuela and why.

And I don't see anybody in Washington either.

Yeah,

it's pretty disturbing.

I will say, I think the guys over at Vox published a good article.

You had the economist who wrote it on your show last week, I believe.

So I credit them for doing that, but I believe that that's one drop in the bucket.

No, no, that's Fox.

Your friends won't, your Democrats won't take anything from Fox.

I'm saying we're the

oh, Vox.

Yeah, you're right.

Vox.

You're right.

You're right.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So, I mean, that was, and I don't don't know if you noticed, Glunt, but as soon as that article came out, NBC published this long story trying to debunk that article.

And there's an entire machinery set up.

And I don't think people who work outside of the media and who work outside of politics realize the level of this,

of the political-industrial complex and how it has its tentacles throughout the economy and how it tries to

manipulate what people watch at night, the news that people get.

There are people who do this for a living, and I just don't think that people realize this.

And then to answer your question, in terms of when do I think the media is going to speak out, I don't think they're going to speak out.

Okay, so

will people in Washington speak out?

Democrats?

Well, I think you're starting to see, look, so take for instance,

a couple of months ago, Hillary Clinton said something like, hey, look, had I,

I think, you know,

the fact that I'm a capitalist probably cost me a lot of votes in the primary.

That was an incredibly revelatory, revealing comment that she made.

This stuff needs to be called that for what it is.

I believe it's a scam.

But I also believe that Democrats are now people who are sensible minded, say someone like Tim Kaine and other senators who are sensible minded, folks that you can just sit down and have a conversation with, they're probably afraid to call this stuff out out of fear that they're going to be primaried.

Because what Sanders and the rest of them are mounting is a machine to go after

sensible Democrats within their own party.

They're trying to cannibalize their party to turn it into a socialist party.

And I believe that's wrong.

They're trying to move the Overton window to a place on the left that's not where Scandinavia is.

It's

like

where Havana is, right?

They're trying to shift this in the wrong direction.

I spoke about a year ago.

I had lunch with somebody who

actually has his name on one of the big Democratic buildings.

I mean, he's given so much money.

And he told me, I can't do it anymore.

I don't know what to do.

I've been a Democrat my whole life.

I will not give them another dime.

You have Keith Ellison and these radicals that are in power now.

He said, that's not Democrat.

That is socialist mentality, and it is out of control.

So

you have people who are walking away.

At what point do you say,

you know, I mean, is there a point that you say,

I just got to give up on the party?

Because, I mean, that's where I'm at with Republicans.

We tried to change it and bring them back to the Constitution and common sense and

common sense spending and everything else.

They didn't want to do it.

They kicked and screamed.

They used a lot of people.

And that kind of, you know, went by the wayside.

So at what point do you say,

you know,

there's nobody supporting this direction?

Yeah, and that's a tricky question.

I think we, you know, in the absence of the collapse of like, you know, religious institutions, people have lost meaning in life.

And now, you know, the new religion is politics and we wear our political labels on our sleeves as though it should

say everything about it.

So

on a personal level,

what I've said and what I'm prepared to say is that

a couple of weeks ago, Tom Perez said that democratic socialism is the future of the party,

or rather Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the future of the party.

And this was followed up by several other people who went on Meet the Press who basically said that Democrats, look,

you either have to get used to this or you leave because this is the future of the party.

And what I'm prepared to say is that if Democratic socialism is the future of the Democratic Party, then I am going to become a part of its past.

I would probably just become an independent.

There's a lot going on right now with the Republicans that I have a hard time dealing with as well.

But

I think most, yeah, I mean, I think most people are fed up with this.

The political-industrial complex is dangerous to our economy.

I'm sure you've seen this yourself.

the level to which things are being controlled behind the scenes.

I don't think most people realize.

And I think this stuff, quite frankly, needs to be exposed, right?

Because we shouldn't be living in a country where if you go out and you say certain things,

people start, you know, calling up the people you do business with and start threatening you.

That's not conducive to free speech in a pluralistic democracy, which is what we should be aspiring to be.

Tell me why you feel so passionately personally about democratic socialism.

Well, so

it all goes back to my wife's experience in Cuba, my family's experience, and what I see

with my neighbors who are from Argentina and Venezuela and the people who've actually lived through it.

And that I have also personally experienced because

I met my wife in Havana, and so the first few months that we were dating and we were just trying to get her affairs in order, I would go down there to visit her.

This system is a disaster.

It just doesn't work.

I was actually in Havana down

in March to visit my family.

I saw a family that lives there.

Glenn, we had to wait an hour in line at a local store just to buy a fan.

My fan broke in the middle of the night.

So we had to wait an hour just to buy a fan, 40 minutes of which was spent registering the fan with the government of Cuba.

Oh my gosh.

Because it was the acquisition of private property.

Oh my gosh.

Yeah, just think about if you repeat that scenario

multiple times throughout a day, imagine how many thousands of hours people are wasting their lives on just just dealing with unnecessary just crap.

Well,

I think we're doing that now.

Think of the last 20 years and the crap we have waste, the time that is forever gone arguing politics.

Why?

Yeah.

They should not have this much power.

You know,

during the Obama years,

the right was terrified that Obama was going to take us to some totalitarian state.

Now, the left is so afraid that Donald Trump can take us to some totalitarian state.

Well, I got news for you.

That's an alarm bell.

That should tell every American we have to reduce the power of the federal government because no president should ever be able to make us feel this way in this country.

I agree.

And what's crazy is that the same people who are arguing that Donald Trump is an authoritarian then turn around and say, well, we need to give the federal government, not just the federal government, but the executive branch more power over our economy.

I was like, and the government.

Yeah.

Like, really?

So you want to be.

You are not a Democrat, man.

You're my grandfather.

You're my grandfather.

My grandfather was a Democrat, and this is the kind of talk that my grandfather would say.

And

I remember my parents going, you know, dad, that's, that's, uh, that's, that's not the Democratic Party anymore.

And I think it was probably at the time, but it's, it's certainly not now.

Is there a movement gathering behind you at all, other than one with torches and pitchforks to come to get you?

Yeah, look, I mean, I've had

since my article in Quillette came out, I've had so many people write me, but it's like they do it in secret.

They're like, hey, like, hey, I'm with you, you know, like, but I can't really say it.

I had, in the same way, I have friends, a couple of buddies who are young guys

and ladies who work on Capitol Hill who wrote to me saying, I'm so glad that you wrote this.

I'm so glad that finally somebody had the courage to say it.

So I do think that there is a movement in this country, there's a silent majority that just flat out rejects this crap and thinks it's insane.

I mean, who looks at the, you know,

like I said, how did we go from being the party of Kennedy and going to the moon to just being the people who are professionally offended all the time?

It's just that most people do not want this direction for the party or for the country.

And I think you're going to start seeing some change,

hopefully, in the near future.

And if not, we're going to have to reevaluate our, you know, where we stand in a few months, because I I think this is dangerous.

And, you know, my team has got to do a better job.

That's not, that's not, this isn't this is not what I signed up for.

And

yeah, I mean, as someone and funny, like as someone who's married to

an immigrant who was raised in a socialist country and we actually do a lot of traveling around the country.

We,

We drive to places,

we really love taking those country roads.

Seeing the beauty of America through the eyes of someone who was raised in a socialist country that supposedly has free health care and education

is really eye-opening because you really realize what a special place this is, what an exceptional country the United States is.

And

I would like to be the party

that cherishes those kinds of values.

And I think most Democrats who actually do,

I just think that there's a problem with the leadership of the party and our dependence on advocacy groups and organizations that have probably outlived the original reasons for why they were created in the first place,

but they still have payrolls to keep and they have consultants to pay for.

That continues pulling the party in further and more extreme directions where we've become unrecognizable from where we were just a few short years ago.

So, Giancarlo,

I salute you and I'm thrilled that you are out there and speaking and I wish you the best of luck and will stay in touch.

Please follow him on Twitter

and get in touch.

If you are a Democrat or you know somebody who is like, this isn't what our party should be.

I hope that he is right.

I think that he is, that there is a lot of people, especially in flyover country, that are Democrats that do not like what's happening to their party.

Giancarlo Sopo.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Hope we get to him in person.

He's

not easy things to say for

and something that Democrats,

I think, I could be wrong, are hungry for.

Because I don't think we're...

We're not the country of these extremes.

We're just not.

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Glenn Beck.

We have a lot to talk about.

Hats off to Bill Maher, who said something remarkable about freedom of speech this weekend that you need to hear.

We're also going to Venezuela next,

tell you a little bit about what's happening actually on the ground.

And I want to talk a little bit about the Pope and the crisis with the Catholic Church.

A lot of people holding on that.

We're trying to get to your phone calls as well.

Mercury.

Glenn Beck.

It's Monday, August 20th.

You're listening to the Glenn Beck program.

Mariana Gonsted,

she's a woman who has all kinds of titles behind her name and

is a very accomplished woman.

But we'll get to that in a second.

I first want you to hear her just as somebody who grew up in Venezuela and whose family is in Venezuela.

She was there in May of this year, and we wanted to get her on the phone to talk to us about it.

Mariana, how are you?

Fine.

Thanks for having me, Glenn.

You bet.

So tell me about your trip to Venezuela.

Yes.

Well, I grew up in Venezuela and

I was there until I finished my law degree and I worked for the Supreme Court before Chavez started

this new regime.

So I haven't really lived in Venezuela since 1998 when he won elections.

But I have been working with all Latin America and countries.

And

I went in May

because there was going to be a national election on May 18th.

And the elections were not going to be recognized.

And

my father was in a critical condition.

So, but when I was first there in December, I have to go there because my father couldn't even find mirror lags.

And I have to fly there with two bags of mirror lacs and protein shakes.

My father ended up in the hospital because of the lack of medicines, basically.

So you

used to be a rich,

and it still is.

That's the most, the fascinating part about all this is that I think Venezuela is like Apple.

It's a country with extraordinary resources that have not been, that are still there.

It's just Apple with a government that doesn't allow the people to participate and it's very unstable.

But

I grew up in a country where where we have

everybody in life.

I mean most Venezuelans used to be able to travel to Florida and there was a saying saying like it is so cheap, give me two.

We were used to have like the

luxury brands that I have not even seen in the United States.

Venezuelans were used to luxury like they were used to

like have the best shampoo brands in the world and now there is not even if they there is not even like bar soaps or anything and there was not even water.

I couldn't even shower

when I was there.

You basically have to I showered twice in 14 days.

I lost, I ate like from a load of bread in

14 days and I ended up losing 14 pounds.

People are now starving.

I talked

to one of my friends last night and he was in tears and basically said, if you're going to say something, make sure the audience in the United States knows that this oil-rich country is starving, families are eating out of the garbage can.

This is unbearable.

What happened?

What happened?

How did the country

go from a country very much like the United States, very, very wealthy, to a country now that literally they have eaten the animals in the zoo?

Yes.

Well, I have to tell you this.

I grew up with a mother that told us that we were fish of a tank and

if my parents stopped feeding us, we would perish.

And whenever

we drove by the poor neighborhoods that used to be 80% of the population or approximately that percentage and now it's even more,

She actually told us that they were fish of the ocean and that the fish of the ocean knew how to survive if they were not fed.

So I grew up with a deep admiration for the poor.

They were able to figure it out.

When I was at Harvard, I realized that at the business school they were trying to teach like creativity, like teamwork, and at the same time I was conducting clinical projects on participation in Venezuela.

And I saw how the leaders of these low-income communities have developed all these skills that you have to develop when you lack resources.

And yet, they were not allowed to participate.

They were invisible.

So it is very, it's a very volatile situation when you have the majorities, the majorities,

even during the 40 years of democracy in Venezuela, were disenfranchised.

That is not sustainable.

I remember every time we were going to the university, I studied with my brother-in-law.

And when we were going to the university, like you have to drive through

a lot of poor neighborhoods.

And I said to him over and over again every morning, this only needs one leader, one leader to mobilize this massive social injustice.

And sure enough, in my second year or third year of Los Co, Chavez attacked the presidential palace with a tank.

Nobody knew who he was, and he became a hero.

And he became a hero because of the silent majority, the ones that had been excluded and the very poor.

Correct.

Yes.

And the economic measures that were taken at that time with an increase of the gasoline.

Is this something that seems to, I mean, it happens a lot in Latin America, and I don't understand why, and maybe you can explain it.

Up until recently, the United States, the presidency has not been, you know, a regal thing and we haven't looked to a strong man who could just tell them all to sit down and shut up.

And we're becoming more and more like that.

That seems to be very Latin America where they look for a hero

just to come in and solve the problems.

Is this accurate at all?

Correct.

Yes.

Like I have been working for the past 20 years with other countries in the regions precisely to try to address this mindset that always look for like a savior, like

this called a caudillo, like a strong man that is supposed to like help them and liberate them.

Like, so in the past, it was Simon Bolivar.

And

right now, well, like recently, it was Chavez.

And it's so much to the point that Chavez is dead and Venezuelans still scream, Chavez is alive.

So

they don't see him any differently than Sean Penn in Hollywood.

They don't see him as the beginning of the problem.

Yeah, no.

And

to be complete honest, my main concern with Venezuela is not even what's going on right now, and not just Venezuela, the entire region, is that the Chavez regime has called their regime a participatory and protagonistic democracy.

And

in which one person is the one that makes the decisions, that actually breathes corruption, abuse, and massive exclusion.

It's like having a solo instrument playing.

The world has not seen what Latin America could look like when every person is allowed to participate, including the fish of the ocean, so that we would move.

So right now,

Latin America has moved historically from a solo instrument leader to massive revolutions.

So all the instruments playing at the same time, producing noise.

It is about time to have a very different type of leadership, a participatory leader that really like the maestro of an orchestra is able to not just play like a solo instrument, but be the conductor of the orchestra and allow every instrument to participate so that we can move from noise to music.

The world is not going in that direction.

I mean,

nobody is headed in that direction.

Well, actually,

Glenn, we did,

you are absolutely right.

And that is the very reason why I became a law professor in the United States.

I used to represent 11,000 students in Venezuela.

So if I was there right now, I would have been killed or incarcerated.

And

I thought and I saw how participation could be done.

And

when if you have the channels and you develop the skill to participate, and we did it in Brazil.

So I became a law professor to be able to prove to the world that it could be done.

And in Brazil, like you can, anyone can go and Google it,

we actually

were given an opportunity at St.

Thomas to with two experts in civil procedure, they were

going to pass a law and they decided that they wanted to be more participatory.

And

we selected leaders, well, Brazilian selected leaders from seven sectors of society, from business leaders, low-income community leaders, the legal field, the judicial sector, the non-profit sector.

And they built consensus

three times, first per sector and then at a national level regarding what was the preferred option to resolve their disputes.

And it was very interesting because it took like six months to train the mediators and then the mediators trained the leaders

and then the structures were put into place and

the main difference was how

They were given a seat at the table, but they were also trained in how to participate rather than just persuade others.

Basically the main difference on participation is that the final agreement has to have the flavor of all stakeholders and it is possible.

I mean I didn't invent this.

This is basic

consensus building from MIT, Larry SoftKind, and it has been done.

And it's called collaborative governance.

When citizens can participate at the local level, we did it at the national level just to prove it could be done.

And in Brazil, that is the fifth largest country in the world.

So

if the stakeholders, if the leaders learn the skills and the structures are created,

well, it's called building the Latin America that we want

in SSRM.

And anybody can

can access it.

It's free, it's online, and they can see what we have done.

The mediators in Brazil are still there, they are alive, and they could lead.

I trained them, we worked together, and just to demonstrate that it could be done.

But

you need to have representative democracies, and this will supplement the representative democracy so that right now, as you said, Latin America looks at heroes, right?

And

when they look at

heroes, they basically gave them like a

blank check, you know, so that they can do whatever with their mandate well this is like a way to supplement representative democracies with consensus building so that when they have the mandate they have like an organized civic society that would limit the political power

mariana um let me take you back here to venezuela you lost 14 pounds you don't you don't recognize some people that you even grew up with because they've lost so much weight.

Do you have friends that have gone to prison for their political stance?

Yeah, well, I mean, I haven't, I don't live there since like 1998, but

I do know like

many

Venezuelan students and members actually of the National Assembly.

Like most recently, like there were like two brothers that were incarcerated, and one of them was actually a member of Congress and was incarcerated for giving a speech that I would have given.

So you can basically not speak up or you are in jail.

And there are like two legislative bodies right now, two Supreme Courts.

There is a Supreme Court that actually is operating from Colombia and they

and no news.

I mean the most desperate part about all these, Glenn, is that none of this is covered in the media.

You know, it's like there is a Venezuelan Supreme Court that is operating in Colombia, and they sentence the Venezuelan government to 18 years and three months.

And we don't hear about that here.

You know, that is unheard of.

Wow.

Hold on for just a second.

I want to come back, and I just want to ask you what we as Americans can do.

You know, we're not going to change the media, but, you know.

I don't want the media to change me.

And how can we help?

If you have some suggestions, we'll come back with that in just a second.

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I'm going to talk a little bit about the Catholic Church and take some of your phone calls here in a second.

We're talking to Marianna Gonsted.

She is

somebody who is just a very accomplished global leader, has worked with the American Bar Association, the World Trade

Union, and

has two law degrees, one in Venezuela, another one here from Harvard.

She's on

conflict resolution is her specialty.

I want to ask you, before I ask you, how we can help, Mariana, why did your friend last night say, please let America know that we used to be a rich country.

Why was that important for them?

Yes, because it's like it was unthinkable for us to even imagine, you know, that this could happen.

Venezuela used to be the country where every every most countries are in Latin people from most countries in Latin America used to go.

Kind of like we have problems with immigration, you know?

And now, like, it's crazy.

Venezuelans are fleeing the country.

The

US ambassador to the UN was actually at the Venezuelan border recently, like just trying to call attention to the problem.

So Venezuela is right now a house on fire.

And like people cannot eat, they cannot, there is nothing.

So they are basically, their only goal is to escape.

And they want Americans to know that, for one thing, like we are your neighbor.

We cannot be ignored.

We are actually like a strategic partner for the United States.

So we need Americans to raise their voice and so that the United States have very different policies towards the region and treat us as a partner, as a commercial partner.

So how can we help?

How can we help the people?

Raise awareness, Glenn.

Raise awareness.

I mean, if every American starts talking about this and how this is like, it would be cruel or an unrealistic to ask Venezuela to stay there

in a house on fire.

But the main problem is not just Venezuela.

The main problem and the reason why Americans need to know is because this is a path.

This is a path where many other countries in the region are going.

And that's basically

it's

imploding.

Do you see this?

Do you see us moving in this direction as well?

Well, if you continue to be a divided country as you are right now, yes.

But my area is conflict resolution, and I have to say this.

You can achieve harmony through uniformity, making everybody the same, and that leads to stagnation and alienation.

Or you can actually allow,

you can actually achieve harmony through unity by integrating the differences.

And

the U.S.

used to be that, the founding fathers, a team.

So, in my field, in conflict resolution, conflict is inevitable because we are unique individuals.

Correct.

So, we need to figure our

differences cannot just be tolerated.

They have to be embraced to build what doesn't exist yet.

And the U.S.

used to do this.

America was never strong because we were a brick wall.

America was strong.

We were a wall made of stone.

It was our mortar of

the Bill of Rights and the idea of freedom that used to hold us together.

But we're stones, not bricks.

Mariata, thank you so much.

And please stay in contact with us.

And if there is anything that we can do, we are working on some things behind the scene that I would like to actually have one of my staff reach out and speak to you about.

But

we cannot forget you.

Yes, Glenn, there is a massive devaluation that is taking place today, and

it's connected to the Petros.

So keep an eye on that.

You got it.

Thank you so much.

Mariana Gonsted.

I'm going to go take Steve in New York, who's been holding for a while on the topic of the Catholic Church and what's happening

with the church and the massive scandal in Pennsylvania.

Hello, Steve.

Hey, good morning, Glenn.

How are you?

I'm good.

Well, I'm a lifelong Catholic, and I've seen this a long time.

I've been exposed to this for a long time, and

my heart is broken, but I've despaired even further because

I haven't seen them addressing one of the worst problems in the Catholic Church, and that's the specific incidence of homosexual pedophilia.

This is, of course, a very politically incorrect topic to bring up.

I was going to say, I saw a lot of people saying that there is no such thing as homosexual pedophilia, but I mean, I think there is.

They were abusing, in some cases, a small number

of girls were abused, but the vast majority was boys.

Now, maybe that's just access, or

I don't know.

I mean, you're sick either way, so it doesn't matter.

But

the problem here is

there is some real sickness in

the way the priests, I don't know, are selected or live or what.

The culture is obviously very, very bad.

Well, I am so glad that you mentioned that because that's really what I want to talk about.

There's an excellent book on this subject written by Michael Rose called Goodbye Good Men.

And he is a very, very

knowledgeable and deeply researched book.

I read it years ago.

He talks about how this is not just haphazard.

This was a very deliberate movement within, you know, among the leaders of the Catholic Church.

They deliberately recruited

people who are sympathetic to this

lifestyle.

So, Steve,

as a Catholic,

I mean, I'm not a Catholic, but you know, as a former Catholic,

I would want to see the Pope get on a plane and clean that thing out from top to bottom and make a huge deal out of this.

This is the second time, and I don't see that happening.

Do you?

No, I don't.

And

that's the real heartbreaker of all of this is I don't see any any um

any any attempt to to address what what is the problem.

I mean, the problem is not you know you know what the the Catholic Church refers to this as sexual immaturity, for instance.

But they will not call it by its name.

It it it has a name.

Its name is you know, it's it's perversion and homosexual pedophilia.

That's that's what we've got.

Steve, thank you very much.

We'll be watching it.

And as you watch it, make sure you call up and give us an update.

Irma, North Carolina.

Hi, Glenn.

It's an honor.

Thank you.

True honor.

Thank you.

Glenn, I'm also a lifelong Catholic like Steve.

And in trying to distill all of this and incorporate it into my into my faith and my everyday life,

you know, there's anger and there's shame and there's just,

to use your word, outrage.

And I'm not addicted to it, but in this case, it applies.

Power corrupts when you get right down to it.

There's a story on page 14 of our diocesan newspaper.

And although it's way in the back, I mean, it's

pretty thorough, but it includes information that I was unaware of.

The abuse of Catholic sisters,

the abuse of students.

I mean, it just goes on and on.

That's bad.

And fairly disgusting.

Nobody's talking about term limits for the hierarchy in the church.

And I think we need to do that.

And I think that's a Would you be for changing the way that allowing priests to be married?

I think we need psychologists and psychiatrists to

help us dissect what's happened and understand what's happened to see if that's a problem.

I mean, you know, when I think of,

well, you talked about humility a week ago and the person that came to mind is my own husband.

You know, I couldn't imagine being married to somebody who has this kind of propensity.

So I don't know how that can be the solution, but I don't know enough about it to say, you know, yay or nay.

But I would certainly be interested in hearing what other people think the solution is.

I know the church is talking about panels that include lay people and, you know, other members that are not priests who work within the church.

And I think that's all fine and good.

But I think, you know, like Steve said, we have to understand why this is happening before we can get to a solution.

But, you know, there's an analogy to be made here

with our own government.

It's the church is big.

And

it might be beneficial to move people around more.

Parish priests are transferred from

the part to another.

But that was part of actually the deal.

They were, you know,

that was what happened in the 90s, and they just made it worse here.

However, however, it would leave,

it would,

when it's less concentrated,

and and as our awareness increases, it's just a good it's a good example of how perception is not reality all the time.

And I think that as lay people, as the people within the church become more conscious of what's going on and

victims or people who feel that they might be becoming a victim are encouraged to speak out, then

they would not I I think the power would not be so deep-seated.

But I do think that this,

I don't understand enough about being a bishop to say whether or not it would be applicable, but

maybe they need a term limit.

Okay.

Irma, thank you so much for your phone call.

I appreciate it.

We'll continue to

watch the story.

Why'd you cut her off?

She's just getting into it.

And then you just step right in and cut her off.

It's unbelievable.

It's unbelievable.

After what, 15, 20 minutes?

I feel bad for

Catholics.

You know, Tanya's family, they're all Catholic, and I feel bad for them because

they love their church, and this is a massive blow.

Especially after 2002, what happened?

Was it 200?

I thought it was in the 90s.

It was 2002.

So 2002, and you know, I mean, I think that people.

I can't speak for other people.

Watching it from the outside, I felt they still buried it.

They really didn't purge the system.

They didn't really get to the root of things.

That's what the Pope himself said.

He said they didn't do enough.

They didn't pay enough attention to it.

They didn't act enough.

And they didn't, obviously.

Do you think that was enough for him to do it?

A thousand?

No.

They need to do a lot more than that.

I think, like you said, he should be on a plane and get to Pennsylvania.

A thousand children have been abused by 300 Predator priests in 70 years?

That's

a problem.

The way they were sharing the kids, too.

I mean,

it was a ring.

It was a sex ring.

I mean, if I were the Pope,

if I was counseling the Pope.

And I hesitate to talk about it because I'm not Catholic.

I've known Catholic since I was 12 years old.

So it's, you know,

I don't know that much about what the church has done,

but I just know what I hear and what I hear.

I don't want to bash the Catholic Church.

I don't want to bash the Catholic Church.

And I feel for you, really, truly, Catholics.

I feel for you.

Oh, my gosh.

I can't imagine.

I mean, this is quite a blow, but you have to stand up and demand that the Pope gets involved himself.

I mean, he honestly, he should be over here.

And it would send such a message to the world.

Here he is, this beloved guy who loves children.

Okay, get your butt on a plane and come here and heal the children and

excoriate the system and shut it down.

Can you imagine what a statement that would make if he got on a plane and went to Pennsylvania?

Oh, it'd be huge.

Oh,

I've never seen a pope do anything like that.

I think you would answer the question: does he care?

Yeah,

he cares.

He cares enough to be there.

And you would answer the question: is the Catholic Church going to do something this time?

Right.

What's the environmental cost of such a move, though?

I mean, taking a flight over

one of the most major moral challenges we face is global warming.

We've We've heard that from the church several times.

I'm concerned about the flight.

That's what makes it hard because he's got these sensibilities.

Do they figure in here?

I don't know.

I don't know if they do or not.

But yeah,

his major focus has been a lot of people.

If he's a man of the people,

you know, that's what they say that, you know, he doesn't like capitalism because it's mean to the poor and everything else.

There is nothing.

I mean, what did Jesus say about abusing children?

Oh, man.

I mean,

you will hope that you had a millstone.

If you've ever seen a millstone, they're gigantic.

A millstone around your neck and thrown into the sea.

I mean, that's Jesus.

That's like, hey, let's all get together here, okay?

That's Jesus saying that.

Holy cow.

Hey, Francis.

You might want to help here because

by not helping, by not solving this, you're just killing the church.

You're just killing the church.

You're making it such an easy target.

And really, it's not even the church, it's the people in it.

I know.

But there's a system there, though, like you said, a culture there that has apparently bred some of this.

When you've got this kind of endemic problem in Pennsylvania, something's wrong in that system.

When you've got this

problem in so many different locations around the world,

you know, Latin America, you've got it in Australia,

you've got it in Washington.

You have it in Boston.

You've got to root that out.

Holy cow.

We have to do this tomorrow on the phones.

I just take your phones tomorrow.

Look at the phone

jammed on this.

So we have to spend some time on this tomorrow.

What are you focusing on with your show today?

We're going to talk about, for one thing, the Prager U situation,

which

Facebook

cut their reach 99.9999%

so people could see still see the video so you could still see the video whereas as long as you were that in that 0.001 they have right they have three million followers on PragerU

usually about 50 to 95,000 people see and share the videos one

to three people in the last week saw and shared the videos one

two three

That is some

people.

I think we should address it.

No, I think we should address this

as well.

Something's wrong, man.

You went to Facebook and I was moved by the impression you had of Zuckerberg, but doesn't seem to be that anymore.

They said they, you know, they fixed it.

They fixed it.

Supposedly.

But what happened?

How many times do they have to fix it?

How many times do they have to fix it?

And what happened in the first place?

There's another system-wide problem.

Well, we have to talk about this tomorrow, and I'd like to have a serious conversation with you as the listener because

conservative voices are being targeted, and

I believe there is a chance in the next

four to five years that voices like mine could very well be gone.

And I mean, I had a serious conversation with my family this weekend.

I talked to Tanya and I said, I want to show you some things that, you know, I'm not sharing with everybody on what's happening.

And I said,

we could be talking to ourselves quickly.

And you need to know about it.

And we need to come together as a group of people that believe in the Bill of Rights because it's being lost.

First, they came for Alex Jones, and I did nothing.

Yep.

And did you see what Bill Maher said?

Yeah.

Holy cow.

That guy believes in the First Amendment.

Yeah, he's great.

Yeah, he's good on that.

He's great.

All right.

If we have time, we'll play that on the other side of the break.

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Glenn back.

For annoying as Bill Maher is,

he once in a while gets it right, and I wouldn't have expected him to say anything other than this, but boy, his audience certainly expected something different.

And so did Senator Kirsten Gildebrand.

Listen to this on First Amendment rights.

Because Alex Jones, who is not my friend and who tells crazy lies about me,

is thrown off Twitter, I think, and Facebook and a few other platforms.

I think he's going to...

Thank God!

That's Senator Tildebrand, thank God.

If you're a liberal, you're supposed to be for free speech.

That's free speech for the speech you hate.

That's what free speech means.

We're losing the thread of the concepts that are important to this country.

Either you care about the real American or you don't.

And if you do, it goes for every side.

I don't like Alex Jones, but Alex Jones gets to speak.

Everybody gets to speak.

That's where we all need to be.

Reaction is really incredible there.

Yeah.

Cheering for him being banned and not a single clap for him saying free speech should be corrected.

Correct.

I think they kind of felt maybe, hopefully, they were a little ashamed of themselves going, oh yeah, crap, you're right.

But look at the automatic response.

Yeah,

we shut him down.

Glenn, back.

Mercury.