"American Pie" explained by Glenn Beck: What does "The Day the music died" mean?

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“Our culture has erased the meaning of anybody who tried to issue a warning. Anybody who was on the other side. They're trying to do it now with the ‘Hobbit’ and the ‘Lord of the Rings’ and they are saying that that has nothing to do with Jesus and Christianity. That was the point. They're trying tried to do it with ‘The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe’ and the ‘Adventure of the Chronicles of Narnia’. They try to do this every step of the way and they've done it with much of music,” Glenn said on radio this moring

He was specifically referring to songs like “Revolution” by The Beatles, which was clearly suspicious of violent revolution and uprisings, as well as “American Pie” by Don McLean.

Many people think that the song “American Pie” is about the death of Buddy Holly and other musicians in a plane crash, but Glenn presented a reading of the lyrics on radio and showed how it could also be seen as a warning against the danger of violent uprisings like what is happening now with Occupy Wall Street.

“ I've never understood I drove the Chevy to the levee, I didn't know what that was. Let's just start there on the simple part because Chevy, just think of Chevy and mom and apple pie. He's making a point here. Chevy, I drove my Chevy to the levee. This actually goes back into the 1950s and a Dinah Shore commercial for Chevy,” Glenn explained.

Watch the commercial Glenn is referring to below:

“So America is the greatest country of all and it was an era that believed in America. I drove my Chevy to the levee. I drove the Chevy. I bought into the idea that America was the greatest.”

“So in the second verse he goes back to his childhood and he goes back to sock hops in the gym and the pickup trucks and... and here he's talking about the book of love, which was a song by the Monotones in 1957 and he asked her about faith. He asked her about faith and whether she believes, no matter what, if the Bible tells her so. That is the representation of the faith in the Fifties. He then talks about, do you have faith in rock and roll, that music will save your mortal soul.”

“But music is the metaphor for life in America. So the girl moves on to somebody else, leaving him with his truck and the carnation. But it's not really about the girl. It's about America. She's moved on from all of those things just as America began to move on from all of those things that faith would help you, that faith, you would do it through faith. You would do things because the Bible told you so. But now you're starting to believe that music will save your soul.”

Glenn played more of the song, reaching the part where McLean sings “Now for 10 years we’ve been on our own”.

“For ten years now we've been on our own. It's the decade of the Sixties. Remember in the Fifties you had faith, you had the Bible, you had family, you had all of these things that were there. But now for ten years we've been on our own and moss grows fat on a Rolling Stone. This is referring to Bob Dylan who the court jester and his song like a Rolling Stone. Also Dylan wore a coat from James Dean on the cover of his '63 album Free Wheelin' and McLean laments all of the change in our values that was occurring in the 1960s when he said that's not how that's not the way it used to be.”

“So he's singing dirges in the dark mourning the loss of America, that America is changing fundamentally. Lenin read a book of Marx. We know that John Lennon was influenced at the time by Karl Marx. Lennon read a book of Marx. The quartet practiced in the park. Could be a reference to the Beatles preparing for their role in the cultural revolution. And as the ultimate icons of the new era. But McLean is saying, but we sang dirges in the dark because we knew what was coming.”

What was coming?

Helter Skelter in a summer swelter

The birds flew off with the fallout shelter

Eight miles high and falling fast It landed foul on the grass

The players tried for a forward pass

With the jester on the sidelines in a cast

Now the halftime air was sweet perfume

While sergeants played a marching tune

We all got up to dance

Oh, but we never got the chance

‘Cause the players tried to take the field,

The marching band refused to yield.

Do you recall what was revealed,

The day the music died?

We started singing

“Helter Skelter in a Summer Swelter, again the Beatles song reference also indicates the chaos and the violence that broke out in the summer of '68. The Byrds he spells with a Y, flew off to the fallout shelter. Nature, represented by the Byrds, sense the danger, headed for safety in a shelter. But eight miles high is another song reference by the band the Byrds. So they are falling fast, because everything is falling fast. Everybody, the smart people, nature knows, get into a fallout shelter. Then he goes into the youth culture clashing with the government violently, using a football metaphor.”

“You're at halftime. He said the players youth going for a forward pass. The players going for a forward pass. That's the youth, going for a forward pass. And the government hitting back. And the jester on the sidelines in a cast. Remember that's, the jester is Bob Dylan. Bob Dylan had a serious motorcycle accident for a while and he was healing on his own and music flounder everything kind of floundered for a time. Then he gets to halftime.”

“Halftime, he's seeing the summer of love. This is 1967, a brief respite in '67 with the flower children. Sergeant's playing a marching tune. That's the Beatles and Sergeant Pepper. And the summer of love was an opportunity to get up and dance. But the violence returned in the summer of '68. And remember we're here at '68, recreate '68. We never got the chance.”

“We just passed our summer of love. What happened there in the park, that was just love. There were people in the park that were just trying to be loved. We're now headed for 1968.”

“What happened in the summer of '68. Do you remember, do you recall what was revealed, the Miss America protest of '68 when women were burning their bras and everything else. But also Altamont, and this is such a clear, clear message against what is coming and what happened in an event that almost is erased. It's more important than Woodstock, and it was it's being erased in history. Here he is warning.”

There we were all in one place

A generation lost in space With no time left to start again

So come on Jack be nimble, Jack be quick

Jack Flash sat on a candle stick

‘Cause fire is the devil’s only friend.

As I watched him on the stage

My hands were clenched in fists of rage

No angel born in hell

Could break that satan’s spell

And as flames climbed high into the night

To light the sacrificial rite

I saw satan laughing with delight

the day the music died.

“ Because fire is its only friend. Okay. Gathering all in one place, 300,000 flower children flocked to Altamont in the fall of 1969. It was, it was the followup to Woodstock: Drugs, alcohol, increasing violence. They were a generation lost in space. Remember, the space race was also going on. There was nowhere left to go. Their momentum was fading and the decade was gone. And so was America. Then the rolling stones who had pushed the counterculture envelope with the last couple of albums took the stage as McLean alludes to with, "Come on, Jack be nimble, Jack be quick, Jack sat on the candlestick," that is the Jumpin' Jack Flash song by the Rolling Stones. And he's referring here to Mick Jagger was the Devil who refuses to end the Altamont concert despite the violence and the loss of crowd. Even, even the Grateful Dead said this is crazy.”

“’No angel born in hell could break that Satan spell.’ The Hells Angels were hired for security. They couldn't stop the chaos. In fact, they added to it. And Jagger, Satan in the song, continued to hold the audience in his spell.”

“A gun wielding man in the crowd heads for the stage but Hells Angels intercept him and they stab him to death. That's what happened at Altamont. They stab him to death. The sacrificial rite. Shortly before the stabbing, right before this guy starts going on a rampage, the Stones had performed ‘Sympathy For the Devil’.”

“Could it get any creepier than this? Don McLean was not just writing about this event but the demise of an era. The erosion of your culture. The erosion of our values. Altamont was the final blow to bring about the day the music died.”

Glenn took a break and then returned to discuss the song further.

“We're just looking at some of the old interviews with Don McLean because he never talks about this song anymore. But at the time he said that he was obsessed with what he called the death of America and so many things. The loss of so many things that he grew up with.”

“ (McLean) said in a sense ‘American Pie’ was a despairing song. In another way it was hopeful. He said Pete Seeger told me that he saw it as a song in which people were saying something, that they had been fooled, they had been hurt and they weren't going to let it happen again. He said that's a good way to look at it, a hopeful way. Unfortunately Pete Seeger was a communist and I mean, that's the way that's why this happens again.”

“It happened with Mao and it won't happen this way again. It happened at Altamont but it won't happen like that again. I mean, it's the same story over and over and over again.”

“The good news is, is that there was at least somebody that was in this culture at that time that was mourning the loss of America then and we didn't lose America then. We're still going. We might despair now and say, ‘Jeez, we're going to lose America’. That's not necessarily true unless we allow it.”

The truth behind ‘defense’: How America was rebranded for war

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Donald Trump emphasizes peace through strength, reminding the world that the United States is willing to fight to win. That’s beyond ‘defense.’

President Donald Trump made headlines this week by signaling a rebrand of the Defense Department — restoring its original name, the Department of War.

At first, I was skeptical. “Defense” suggests restraint, a principle I consider vital to U.S. foreign policy. “War” suggests aggression. But for the first 158 years of the republic, that was the honest name: the Department of War.

A Department of War recognizes the truth: The military exists to fight and, if necessary, to win decisively.

The founders never intended a permanent standing army. When conflict came — the Revolution, the War of 1812, the trenches of France, the beaches of Normandy — the nation called men to arms, fought, and then sent them home. Each campaign was temporary, targeted, and necessary.

From ‘war’ to ‘military-industrial complex’

Everything changed in 1947. President Harry Truman — facing the new reality of nuclear weapons, global tension, and two world wars within 20 years — established a full-time military and rebranded the Department of War as the Department of Defense. Americans resisted; we had never wanted a permanent army. But Truman convinced the country it was necessary.

Was the name change an early form of political correctness? A way to soften America’s image as a global aggressor? Or was it simply practical? Regardless, the move created a permanent, professional military. But it also set the stage for something Truman’s successor, President Dwight “Ike” Eisenhower, famously warned about: the military-industrial complex.

Ike, the five-star general who commanded Allied forces in World War II and stormed Normandy, delivered a harrowing warning during his farewell address: The military-industrial complex would grow powerful. Left unchecked, it could influence policy and push the nation toward unnecessary wars.

And that’s exactly what happened. The Department of Defense, with its full-time and permanent army, began spending like there was no tomorrow. Weapons were developed, deployed, and sometimes used simply to justify their existence.

Peace through strength

When Donald Trump said this week, “I don’t want to be defense only. We want defense, but we want offense too,” some people freaked out. They called him a warmonger. He isn’t. Trump is channeling a principle older than him: peace through strength. Ronald Reagan preached it; Trump is taking it a step further.

Just this week, Trump also suggested limiting nuclear missiles — hardly the considerations of a warmonger — echoing Reagan, who wanted to remove missiles from silos while keeping them deployable on planes.

The seemingly contradictory move of Trump calling for a Department of War sends a clear message: He wants Americans to recognize that our military exists not just for defense, but to project power when necessary.

Trump has pointed to something critically important: The best way to prevent war is to have a leader who knows exactly who he is and what he will do. Trump signals strength, deterrence, and resolve. You want to negotiate? Great. You don’t? Then we’ll finish the fight decisively.

That’s why the world listens to us. That’s why nations come to the table — not because Trump is reckless, but because he means what he says and says what he means. Peace under weakness invites aggression. Peace under strength commands respect.

Trump is the most anti-war president we’ve had since Jimmy Carter. But unlike Carter, Trump isn’t weak. Carter’s indecision emboldened enemies and made the world less safe. Trump’s strength makes the country stronger. He believes in peace as much as any president. But he knows peace requires readiness for war.

Names matter

When we think of “defense,” we imagine cybersecurity, spy programs, and missile shields. But when we think of “war,” we recall its harsh reality: death, destruction, and national survival. Trump is reminding us what the Department of Defense is really for: war. Not nation-building, not diplomacy disguised as military action, not endless training missions. War — full stop.

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Names matter. Words matter. They shape identity and character. A Department of Defense implies passivity, a posture of reaction. A Department of War recognizes the truth: The military exists to fight and, if necessary, to win decisively.

So yes, I’ve changed my mind. I’m for the rebranding to the Department of War. It shows strength to the world. It reminds Americans, internally and externally, of the reality we face. The Department of Defense can no longer be a euphemism. Our military exists for war — not without deterrence, but not without strength either. And we need to stop deluding ourselves.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Censorship, spying, lies—The Deep State’s web finally unmasked

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From surveillance abuse to censorship, the deep state used state power and private institutions to suppress dissent and influence two US elections.

The term “deep state” has long been dismissed as the province of cranks and conspiracists. But the recent declassification of two critical documents — the Durham annex, released by Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), and a report publicized by Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard — has rendered further denial untenable.

These documents lay bare the structure and function of a bureaucratic, semi-autonomous network of agencies, contractors, nonprofits, and media entities that together constitute a parallel government operating alongside — and at times in opposition to — the duly elected one.

The ‘deep state’ is a self-reinforcing institutional machine — a decentralized, global bureaucracy whose members share ideological alignment.

The disclosures do not merely recount past abuses; they offer a schematic of how modern influence operations are conceived, coordinated, and deployed across domestic and international domains.

What they reveal is not a rogue element operating in secret, but a systematized apparatus capable of shaping elections, suppressing dissent, and laundering narratives through a transnational network of intelligence, academia, media, and philanthropic institutions.

Narrative engineering from the top

According to Gabbard’s report, a pivotal moment occurred on December 9, 2016, when the Obama White House convened its national security leadership in the Situation Room. Attendees included CIA Director John Brennan, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, National Security Agency Director Michael Rogers, FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, Attorney General Loretta Lynch, Secretary of State John Kerry, and others.

During this meeting, the consensus view up to that point — that Russia had not manipulated the election outcome — was subordinated to new instructions.

The record states plainly: The intelligence community was directed to prepare an assessment “per the President’s request” that would frame Russia as the aggressor and then-presidential candidate Donald Trump as its preferred candidate. Notably absent was any claim that new intelligence had emerged. The motivation was political, not evidentiary.

This maneuver became the foundation for the now-discredited 2017 intelligence community assessment on Russian election interference. From that point on, U.S. intelligence agencies became not neutral evaluators of fact but active participants in constructing a public narrative designed to delegitimize the incoming administration.

Institutional and media coordination

The ODNI report and the Durham annex jointly describe a feedback loop in which intelligence is laundered through think tanks and nongovernmental organizations, then cited by media outlets as “independent verification.” At the center of this loop are agencies like the CIA, FBI, and ODNI; law firms such as Perkins Coie; and NGOs such as the Open Society Foundations.

According to the Durham annex, think tanks including the Atlantic Council, the Carnegie Endowment, and the Center for a New American Security were allegedly informed of Clinton’s 2016 plan to link Trump to Russia. These institutions, operating under the veneer of academic independence, helped diffuse the narrative into public discourse.

Media coordination was not incidental. On the very day of the aforementioned White House meeting, the Washington Post published a front-page article headlined “Obama Orders Review of Russian Hacking During Presidential Campaign” — a story that mirrored the internal shift in official narrative. The article marked the beginning of a coordinated media campaign that would amplify the Trump-Russia collusion narrative throughout the transition period.

Surveillance and suppression

Surveillance, once limited to foreign intelligence operations, was turned inward through the abuse of FISA warrants. The Steele dossier — funded by the Clinton campaign via Perkins Coie and Fusion GPS — served as the basis for wiretaps on Trump affiliates, despite being unverified and partially discredited. The FBI even altered emails to facilitate the warrants.

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This capacity for internal subversion reappeared in 2020, when 51 former intelligence officials signed a letter labeling the Hunter Biden laptop story as “Russian disinformation.” According to polling, 79% of Americans believed truthful coverage of the laptop could have altered the election. The suppression of that story — now confirmed as authentic — was election interference, pure and simple.

A machine, not a ‘conspiracy theory’

The deep state is a self-reinforcing institutional machine — a decentralized, global bureaucracy whose members share ideological alignment and strategic goals.

Each node — law firms, think tanks, newsrooms, federal agencies — operates with plausible deniability. But taken together, they form a matrix of influence capable of undermining electoral legitimacy and redirecting national policy without democratic input.

The ODNI report and the Durham annex mark the first crack in the firewall shielding this machine. They expose more than a political scandal buried in the past. They lay bare a living system of elite coordination — one that demands exposure, confrontation, and ultimately dismantling.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Trump's proposal explained: Ukraine's path to peace without NATO expansion

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Strategic compromise, not absolute victory, often ensures lasting stability.

When has any country been asked to give up land it won in a war? Even if a nation is at fault, the punishment must be measured.

After World War I, Germany, the main aggressor, faced harsh penalties under the Treaty of Versailles. Germans resented the restrictions, and that resentment fueled the rise of Adolf Hitler, ultimately leading to World War II. History teaches that justice for transgressions must avoid creating conditions for future conflict.

Ukraine and Russia must choose to either continue the cycle of bloodshed or make difficult compromises in pursuit of survival and stability.

Russia and Ukraine now stand at a similar crossroads. They can cling to disputed land and prolong a devastating war, or they can make concessions that might secure a lasting peace. The stakes could not be higher: Tens of thousands die each month, and the choice between endless bloodshed and negotiated stability hinges on each side’s willingness to yield.

History offers a guide. In 1967, Israel faced annihilation. Surrounded by hostile armies, the nation fought back and seized large swaths of territory from Jordan, Egypt, and Syria. Yet Israel did not seek an empire. It held only the buffer zones needed for survival and returned most of the land. Security and peace, not conquest, drove its decisions.

Peace requires concessions

Secretary of State Marco Rubio says both Russia and Ukraine will need to “get something” from a peace deal. He’s right. Israel proved that survival outweighs pride. By giving up land in exchange for recognition and an end to hostilities, it stopped the cycle of war. Egypt and Israel have not fought in more than 50 years.

Russia and Ukraine now press opposing security demands. Moscow wants a buffer to block NATO. Kyiv, scarred by invasion, seeks NATO membership — a pledge that any attack would trigger collective defense by the United States and Europe.

President Donald Trump and his allies have floated a middle path: an Article 5-style guarantee without full NATO membership. Article 5, the core of NATO’s charter, declares that an attack on one is an attack on all. For Ukraine, such a pledge would act as a powerful deterrent. For Russia, it might be more palatable than NATO expansion to its border

Andrew Harnik / Staff | Getty Images

Peace requires concessions. The human cost is staggering: U.S. estimates indicate 20,000 Russian soldiers died in a single month — nearly half the total U.S. casualties in Vietnam — and the toll on Ukrainians is also severe. To stop this bloodshed, both sides need to recognize reality on the ground, make difficult choices, and anchor negotiations in security and peace rather than pride.

Peace or bloodshed?

Both Russia and Ukraine claim deep historical grievances. Ukraine arguably has a stronger claim of injustice. But the question is not whose parchment is older or whose deed is more valid. The question is whether either side is willing to trade some land for the lives of thousands of innocent people. True security, not historical vindication, must guide the path forward.

History shows that punitive measures or rigid insistence on territorial claims can perpetuate cycles of war. Germany’s punishment after World War I contributed directly to World War II. By contrast, Israel’s willingness to cede land for security and recognition created enduring peace. Ukraine and Russia now face the same choice: Continue the cycle of bloodshed or make difficult compromises in pursuit of survival and stability.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

The loneliness epidemic: Are machines replacing human connection?

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Seniors, children, and the isolated increasingly rely on machines for conversation, risking real relationships and the emotional depth that only humans provide.

Jill Smola is 75 years old. She’s a retiree from Orlando, Florida, and she spent her life caring for the elderly. She played games, assembled puzzles, and offered company to those who otherwise would have sat alone.

Now, she sits alone herself. Her husband has died. She has a lung condition. She can’t drive. She can’t leave her home. Weeks can pass without human interaction.

Loneliness is an epidemic. And AI will not fix it. It will only dull the edges and make a diminished life tolerable.

But CBS News reports that she has a new companion. And she likes this companion more than her own daughter.

The companion? Artificial intelligence.

She spends five hours a day talking to her AI friend. They play games, do trivia, and just talk. She says she even prefers it to real people.

My first thought was simple: Stop this. We are losing our humanity.

But as I sat with the story, I realized something uncomfortable. Maybe we’ve already lost some of our humanity — not to AI, but to ourselves.

Outsourcing presence

How often do we know the right thing to do yet fail to act? We know we should visit the lonely. We know we should sit with someone in pain. We know what Jesus would do: Notice the forgotten, touch the untouchable, offer time and attention without outsourcing compassion.

Yet how often do we just … talk about it? On the radio, online, in lectures, in posts. We pontificate, and then we retreat.

I asked myself: What am I actually doing to close the distance between knowing and doing?

Human connection is messy. It’s inconvenient. It takes patience, humility, and endurance. AI doesn’t challenge you. It doesn’t interrupt your day. It doesn’t ask anything of you. Real people do. Real people make us confront our pride, our discomfort, our loneliness.

We’ve built an economy of convenience. We can have groceries delivered, movies streamed, answers instantly. But friendships — real relationships — are slow, inefficient, unpredictable. They happen in the blank spaces of life that we’ve been trained to ignore.

And now we’re replacing that inefficiency with machines.

AI provides comfort without challenge. It eliminates the risk of real intimacy. It’s an elegant coping mechanism for loneliness, but a poor substitute for life. If we’re not careful, the lonely won’t just be alone — they’ll be alone with an anesthetic, a shadow that never asks for anything, never interrupts, never makes them grow.

Reclaiming our humanity

We need to reclaim our humanity. Presence matters. Not theory. Not outrage. Action.

It starts small. Pull up a chair for someone who eats alone. Call a neighbor you haven’t spoken to in months. Visit a nursing home once a month — then once a week. Ask their names, hear their stories. Teach your children how to be present, to sit with someone in grief, without rushing to fix it.

Turn phones off at dinner. Make Sunday afternoons human time. Listen. Ask questions. Don’t post about it afterward. Make the act itself sacred.

Humility is central. We prefer machines because we can control them. Real people are inconvenient. They interrupt our narratives. They demand patience, forgiveness, and endurance. They make us confront ourselves.

A friend will challenge your self-image. A chatbot won’t.

Our homes are quieter. Our streets are emptier. Loneliness is an epidemic. And AI will not fix it. It will only dull the edges and make a diminished life tolerable.

Before we worry about how AI will reshape humanity, we must first practice humanity. It can start with 15 minutes a day of undivided attention, presence, and listening.

Change usually comes when pain finally wins. Let’s not wait for that. Let’s start now. Because real connection restores faster than any machine ever will.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.