“This is so sick and so dark and so evil”: Johnnie Moore chronicles atrocities in the Middle East

June 12, 2015

Writer

For months, Johnnie Moore, author of Defying ISIS, has been rallying Christians in America to save those being persecuted in the Middle East. He’s heard some disturbing news out of Iraq and Syria, and has chronicled 20 atrocities that have taken place just this week. He shared a few of the stories on radio this morning. Trust us, after this interview you’ll know why Glenn is uniting people to stand for the Christians under attack.

GLENN: We started -- we started the week with a kickoff of something called never again is now. Where we are standing up for the Christians and for the Muslims who aren't Muslim enough and the homosexuals and anybody else that ISIS says we should kill. We're standing up for them. Never again is now. Stop the genocide over in the Middle East. We'll call a spade a spade. It is about Islam. And these Islamists have got to be stopped.

And so we're going to wake up our churches. We're going to wake ourselves up. We're going to wake our neighbors up. And then we'll put our backbones into it, and we're going to send aid over to those guys. Did you hear just yesterday that one of the guys who was just in his church, he was former military, got up and told his preacher, said, I got to do something about it. Went over, signed up, and was fighting with I think the Kurds and was just killed.

But he made a difference. He made a difference. Will we be brave enough to stand? At least stand in our own community and say, enough of -- this is crazy, what we're doing in this country is crazy.

Let's start talking about something that is real. And real injustice. Every life matters. Not black lives. Not white lives. Not blue lives. All lives matter. Young, old. Born and unborn. All lives matter.

Johnnie Moore who is -- put a new book out called defying ISIS. He's currently in Washington, DC, where he'll be speaking at the Coptic Solidarity Conference this weekend. Johnnie, how are you, sir?

JOHNNIE: I'm great, sir. Great to hear your voice.

GLENN: So, Johnnie, you're a millennial who is tired of watching people sit around on their hands and do nothing. Tell me about what you're seeing happening in the country now.

JOHNNIE: Well, it's amazing what's in the last week alone, a lot of people are waked up. It's really, really remarkable. I've been traveling around the country for a solid month just trying to get the temperature of where people are. I've been in places with poor people and rich people. I've been to rural churches and urban churches. I've just been everywhere. And it seems like we've finally reached a moment where this has boiled over enough for people to pay attention. And I think the message that you're sending across the country, that never again is now is something that people are really, really grabbing on to. But we have to do it quickly. Glenn, I just sat down a few minutes ago to write the list of atrocities I've heard this week from Iraq and Syria. Now, my list has about 20 things on it. I mean, it's unbelievable.

GLENN: Give me some of them, Johnnie.

JOHNNIE: Well, one of them, the latest Christian martyr is an 80-year-old lady. So in the Nineveh plain, where we thought there weren't any Christians left, ISIS found one. Because she wouldn't submit to them, they burned her alive. An 80-year-old Christian woman. It's unconscionable.

By the way, in Libya this week, you know, ISIS found a group of Eritrean refugees, like the Ethiopians, and they're mainly Christians. They kidnapped them. They're holding them hostage. We can use our imaginations as to what they aim to do with them. You know, the only church left in Mosul. They had already broken the cross off the church. The church is still standing. So what they did two days ago, ISIS turned it into a mosque. Not only did they turn it into a mosque, Glenn, they call it the Mosque of the Mujahideen. So this is the mosque that is the center of their jihad.

In Egypt, ten Coptic homes were burned to the ground in a single village, and ISIS sympathizers in Sudan, you know, having imprisoned a couple of pastors in Pakistan. They're trying to take land away from a number of churches. The Baghdad municipality in Iraq openly admitted this week that 70 percent of Christian homes in the city have been seized illegally. It's crazy. Then, by the way, we have the special representative of the secretary general of the United Nations. Right? For sexual violence. This is a woman. This is what she does. She faces sexual violence all around the world. So this is from the UN. They tend to not exaggerate. If anything, they try to moderate their comments. And what this woman said was -- she said that ISIS is now selling women on their slave markets for the price of a pack of cigarettes. That's not from some right-wing activist. That's from the United Nations. For a pack of cigarettes. They're advertising in their jihadist literature now that they have new girls. They've kidnapped new girls. So if you come join our fight, for the cost of a pack of cigarettes, you can buy all of them you want. That's this week.

GLENN: This is sick. This is just so sick and so dark and so evil. And evil will grow and grow out of control if good doesn't stand up. But, you know, it's -- I really think that, Johnnie, we can't just -- good is not going to defeat this. God is going to defeat this. This is absolute evil. And, you know, in World War II, we had God. You know, there was God in our country. We have done everything to insult and turn our back on God. And if the people of God -- this is still a country that is 78 percent Christian. At least they claim to be. I would bet you that about 30 percent of this nation is actually Christian. That they -- they're more than just a casual profession of, yeah, I'm Christian. About 30, 40 percent of this country is still, I will stand up for it if push comes to shove. I hope. Maybe it's 10 percent. I don't know. But that group needs to stand up. Be seen. And be doing something. We need to start putting our backbone into what our tongue professes.

JOHNNIE: Yeah, and here's the fact. The fact is, if I could just describe what I just described a moment ago to someone listening to us talk and they call themselves a Christian and it doesn't immediately compel them to do some kind of action, whether that's call a congressman, whether it's provide a donation to help people that are in harm's way, whether it's gather their church community to pray, whatever it is -- if you are not immediately compelled to act, that is your moral compass screaming at you inside of you.

Because here's the difference, Glenn, between what happened in World War II and what happened now. What happened in World War II happened when we didn't have the information age. We didn't have a 24/7 news cycle. We didn't have Twitter and Facebook. This stuff was not in front of our face every day. Not a single person in the world, Christian or otherwise, can say they don't know what's happening in Iraq and Syria. In fact, it's even worse than that. We discovered this week that ISIS had actually self-published their maggot Amazon system. That ISIS had actually gone into Facebook, and they were selling their stolen artifacts on Facebook. They infiltrated our systems. To Amazon and Facebook's credit, they immediately shut it down as soon as they found out about it. This is everywhere. It's on our commercial enterprise. It's on Twitter. It's on Facebook. It's on YouTube. It's in our face all the time. We know what's happening. If you ask yourself why these atrocities happen, they happen for two reasons. There are those willingly to commit them. And there are those willing to remain silent when they do.

GLENN: So, Johnnie, I think, quite honestly -- I mean, I can trace it all the way back to -- to Father Abraham, where good starts, you know, going against evil and trying to wipe out his children. And it goes back and forth and back and forth. And we see the Star of David appear as the sign of the Jew to, you know, to be gathered up and to be put away. Years and years -- centuries before Hitler does. And it always mutates. And it always learns its lesson. But it always has the same marks about it. Evil learns. And it has gone from -- from the Germans. And the German people to the hijackers were from Hamburg, Germany. And it has mutated now. And it has gone to the Middle East. And this genocide is sitting there. And they're not starting with the Jews this time. They're starting with the Christians. They're starting against anything that stands up against them. And what you just said about the -- you know, the internet. I find it -- I find it fascinating that the stakes this time are much higher than they were in World War II. And I mean this. We're still playing for the globe. That's exactly what Nazi Germany was playing for. They were playing for the globe. Global domination. That's the same thing ISIS is playing for. This caliphate is just the beginning. They want global domination. So we're playing for the same thing. But here's -- here's where I up the ante. What you just said, in World War II, we didn't know for sure, you could get away with saying, well, I didn't know for sure. We didn't have that information, did we? Now, every single citizen does. So our souls are in jeopardy.

JOHNNIE: It's a moral issue for each of us as individuals. And, by the way, ISIS doesn't aim to infiltrate our country and the West. They're already here. It's a different game. It's a different game than ten years ago. You know, if you wanted to join al-Qaeda ten years ago, you had to travel to Afghanistan. You had to learn Arabic. You had to live in rudimentary conditions.

Now, in this battle in the last decade, a new battle, you can sit in the privacy of your own home. You get trained and inspired in front of your computer screen, and then you take your American passport and you go over to Turkey and walk over a border or you go across the street. Just stop and think about this for just a minute. Just yesterday, in the United States of America, a 17-year-old kid pleaded guilty in Washington, DC, for recruiting for ISIS. And when he stood in front of the judge, he didn't try to justify it. He didn't say he wasn't guilty. He said unashamedly, he said with more commitment to his hate than most Christians I know are committed to their compassion and their faith, he said without wavering: I am guilty. I aimed to recruit for the Islamic stated.

Seventeen years old, in the United States of America.

GLENN: Johnnie wrote the book Defying ISIS. It's available in bookstores everywhere and also on Amazon.com, but something that everyone should read. And, Johnnie, I sure appreciate everything you're doing. If you want to contact him. He's fantastic at speaking at church and everywhere else. DefyingISIS.com is where they reach you?

JOHNNIE: That's where it is.

GLENN: Okay. Johnnie, thank you very much. I appreciate it.

JOHNNIE: Thanks for having me.

GLENN: If you are moved to action, I would ask that you would do two things: I would ask that you would go to mercuryone.org and you would end the week where we started. And that is, donate your time and anything that you have. If you have five bucks or 100 bucks, we have a 15,000-dollar donation the other day from one of our listeners.

PAT: Nice.

GLENN: And donate to mercuryone.org. We are sending supplies over and we are -- believe me, before we send anything over, we will show you everything that we're doing. We'll show you who our partners are. We're making sure it doesn't fall into the wrong hands. We're very, very careful on it. I hope to be going over with the donation. But we would like to have a staggering donation to make. And you can help us by going to mercuryone.org. Also, you can change your Facebook photo. You can change your Twitter photo. And grab something from never again is now on mercuryone.org. And then I would ask you that you would join us in this movement.

Now, I have -- I have Martin Luther King's pledge that he had everybody sign when they decided to join him. We have updated it for the times. But we really have changed very little of it. And it's up on GlennBeck.com. And I want you to download that. And I want you to sign it.

I want you -- when you sign up, I want you to sign it and say, you're in. Because what's happening in Birmingham, Alabama, on 8/28 and 8/29 is the beginning of a movement. I talked about it on last night's television show. Somebody said, why don't we just get together? Why don't we all go to McKinney, Texas because there's a march with a whole bunch of -- I said, because we're not ready, that's why. We're not ready. We're not disciplined enough.

There is trouble coming. And we better all stand together, and we better be disciplined enough. So make a donation at mercuryone.org. Decide whether you're in or out. And join us there at mercuryone.org. Consider joining us on 8/28. And 8/29. May I ask that you would join us in Birmingham, Alabama this August 28th and 29th. Be a part of history because I'm telling you, I felt this when we went over to Israel. I felt this when we did Washington, DC. This is historic. Restoring Love, which happened at the Dallas Cowboys Stadium. Was the largest volunteer event ever in American history. The first time Dallas Cowboys Stadium has ever been sold out for a speaking event. So that was cool history. This, I believe, is like Restoring Honor, this is going to be historic. Bring your family and join me in a historic moment. Never again is now! Mercuryone.org.

D-Day, the Bedford Boys, and earning it

Wikipedia

Today is the 75th anniversary of D-Day, the largest amphibious invasion in history.

The Allied invasion force included 5,000 ships and landing craft, 11,000 planes, and almost three million allied soldiers, airmen and sailors. Despite such numbers, the location and timing of the invasion was still an enormous gamble. The Nazis fully expected such an invasion, they just didn't know precisely when or where it would be.

Despite the enormous logistics involved, the gamble worked and by the end of June 6, 1944, 156,000 Allied troops were ashore in Normandy. The human cost was also enormous – over 4,900 American troops died on D-Day. That number doubled over the next month as they fought to establish a foothold in northern France.

There were five beach landing zones on the coast of northwestern France, divided among the Allies. They gave each landing zone a name. Canada was responsible for "Juno." Britain was responsible for "Gold" and "Sword." And the U.S. had "Utah" and "Omaha."

The Nazis were dug in with bunkers, machine guns, artillery, mines, barbed wire, and other obstacles to tangle any attempt to come ashore. Of the five beaches, Omaha was by far the most heavily defended. Over 2,500 U.S. soldiers were killed at Omaha – the beach so famously depicted in the opening battle sequence of the 1998 movie, Saving Private Ryan. The real-life assault on Omaha Beach included 34 men in that first wave of attack who came from the same small town of Bedford, Virginia. The first Americans to die on Omaha Beach were the men from Bedford.

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America has a national D-Day Memorial, but many people don't know about it.

America has a national D-Day Memorial, but many people don't know about it. Maybe that's because it wasn't a government project and it's not in Washington DC. It was initiated and financed by veterans and private citizens. It's tucked away in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains, in the small town of Bedford, Virginia. Why is the memorial for one of the most famous days in modern world history in such a tiny town? Because, as a proportion of its population of just 3,200 at the time, no community in the U.S. sacrificed more men on D-Day than Bedford.

There were 34 men in Company A from Bedford. Of those thirty-four, 23 died in the first wave of attacks. Six weeks after D-Day, the town's young telegraph operator was overwhelmed when news of many of the first deaths clattered across the Western Union line on the same day. Name after name of men and families that she knew well. There were so many at once that she had to enlist the help of customers in the pharmacy's soda shop to help deliver them all.

Among those killed in action were brothers Bedford and Raymond Hoback. Bedford was the rambunctious older brother with a fiancée back home that he couldn't wait to return to. Raymond was the quieter, more disciplined younger brother who could often be found reading his Bible. He fell in love with a British woman during his two years in England training for D-Day. Like in that opening sequence of Saving Private Ryan, Bedford and Raymond barely made it down the ramp of their Higgins Boat in the swarm of bullets and hot steel before they were cut down in the wet sand.

Bedford and Raymond Hoback's mother, Macie, learned of both their deaths from two separate telegrams, the first on a Sunday morning, the second the following day. Their younger sister, Lucille, remembered her mother's devastation, and her father walking out to the barn to cry.

The day after D-Day, the killing field of Omaha Beach was already transforming into the massive supply port that would help fuel the American drive all the way to Berlin over the next year. A soldier from West Virginia was walking along the beach when he saw something jutting out of the sand. He reached down and pulled it out. He was surprised to find it was a Bible. The inside cover was inscribed with: "Raymond S. Hoback, from mother, Christmas, 1938." The soldier wrote a letter and mailed it with the Bible to Raymond's mother. That Bible, which likely tumbled from Raymond's pack when he fell on D-Day, became Macie Hoback's most cherished possession – the only personal belonging of her son that was ever returned.

Of the 23 Bedford men who died on Omaha Beach, eleven were laid to rest in the American cemetery in Normandy.

These men, many of them barely out of their teens, didn't sign up to march to the slaughter of course. They had hopes and dreams just like you and I. Many of them signed up for adventure, or because of peer pressure, and yes, a sense of honor and duty. Many of the Bedford Boys first signed up for the National Guard just to make a few extra bucks per month, get to hang out with their buddies, and enjoy target practice. But someone had to be first at Omaha Beach and that responsibility fell to the men from Bedford.

Over the last several years, the D-Day anniversary gets increasingly sad. Because each year, there are fewer and fewer men alive who were actually in Normandy on June 6, 1944. The last of the surviving Bedford Boys died in 2009. Most of the remaining D-Day veterans who are still with us are too frail to make the pilgrimage to France for the anniversary ceremonies like they used to.

It's difficult to think about losing these World War II veterans, because once they're all gone, we'll lose that tether to a time when the nation figured out how to be a better version of itself.

Not that they were saints and did everything right. They were as human as we are, with all the fallibility that entails. But in some respects, they were better. Because they went, and they toughed it out, and they accomplished an incredibly daunting mission, with sickening hardship, heartbreak, and terror along the way.

So, what does the anniversary of D-Day mean in 2019?

In one sense, this anniversary is a reprimand that we've failed to tell our own story well enough.

In one sense, this anniversary is a reprimand that we've failed to tell our own story well enough. You can't learn about the logistics of the operation and above all, the human cost, and not be humbled. But as a society, we have not emphasized well enough the story of D-Day and all that it represents. How can I say that? Because of an example just last weekend, when common sense got booed by Democratic Socialists at the California Democrats' State Convention. When Democratic presidential candidate John Hickenlooper said during his speech that "socialism is not the answer," the crowd booed loudly. When did telling the truth about socialism become controversial?

Sure, socialists, and communists and other anti-American factions have always been around. America certainly had socialists in 1944. But the current socialists trying to take over the Democratic Party like a virus don't believe in the D-Day sacrifices to preserve America, because they don't believe America is worth preserving. They are agitating to reform America using the authoritarian playbook that has only ended in death and destruction everywhere it is followed.

Ask a Venezuelan citizen, or an Iraqi Christian, or a North Korean peasant why D-Day still matters in 2019.

The further we move away from caring about pivotal events like June 6, 1944, the less chance of survival we have as a nation.

At the same time, the D-Day anniversary is a reminder that we're not done yet. It's an opportunity for us to remember and let that inform how we live.

Near the end of Saving Private Ryan, the fictional Captain Miller lays dying, and he gives one last instruction to Private Ryan, the young man that he and his unit have sacrificed their lives to rescue in Normandy. He says, "Earn it."

In other words, don't waste the sacrifices that were made so that your life could be saved. Live it well. The message to "earn it" extends to the viewer and the nation as well – can we say we're earning the sacrifices that were made by Americans on D-Day? I cringe to think how our few remaining World War II veterans might answer that.

Honor. Duty. Sacrifice. Gratitude. Personal responsibility. These used to mean a lot more.

Honor. Duty. Sacrifice. Gratitude. Personal responsibility. These used to mean a lot more. I don't want to believe it's too late for us to rediscover those traits as a nation. I want to believe we can still earn it.

The challenge to "earn it" is a lot of pressure. Frankly, it's impossible. We can't fully earn the liberty that we inherited. But we can certainly try to earn it. Not trying is arrogant and immoral. And to tout socialism as the catch-all solution is naïve, and insulting to the men like those from Bedford who volunteered to go defend freedom. In truly striving to earn it, we help keep the flame of liberty aglow for future generations. It is necessary, honorable work if freedom is to survive.

The end of Lincoln's Gettysburg Address is remarkably relevant for every anniversary of June 6, 1944. This is what D-Day still means in 2019:

"It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us – that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion – that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain – that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom – and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."

Letter from Corporal H.W. Crayton to Mr. and Mrs. Hoback – parents of Bedford and Raymond Hoback who were both killed in action on June 6, 1944

Álvaro Serrano/Unsplash

July 9, 1944 Somewhere in France

Dear Mr. & Mrs. Hoback:

I really don't know how to start this letter to you folks, but will attempt to do something in words of writing. I will try to explain in the letter what this is all about.

While walking along the Beach D-day Plus One, I came upon this Bible and as most any person would do I picked it up from the sand to keep it from being destroyed. I knew that most all Bibles have names & addresses within the cover so I made it my business to thumb through the pages until I came upon the name above. Knowing that you no doubt would want the Book returned I am sending it knowing that most Bibles are a book to be cherished. I would have sent it sooner but have been quite busy and thought it best if a short period of time elapsed before returning it.

You have by now received a letter from your son saying he is well. I sincerely hope so.

I imagine what has happened is that your son dropped the Book without any notice. Most everybody who landed on the Beach D-Day lost something. I for one as others did lost most of my personal belongings, so you see how easy it was to have dropped the book and not know about it.

Everything was in such a turmoil that we didn't have a chance until a day or so later to try and locate our belongings.

Since I have arrived here in France I have had occasion to see a little of the country and find it quite like parts of the U.S.A. It is a very beautiful country, more so in peace time. War does change everything as it has this country. One would hardly think there was a war going on today. Everything is peaceful & quiet. The birds have begun their daily practice, all the flowers and trees are in bloom, especially the poppies & tulips which are very beautiful at this time of the year.

Time goes by so quickly as it has today. I must close hoping to hear that you receive the Bible in good shape.

Yours very truly,

Cpl. H.W. Crayton

After boycotting Georgia over 'heartbeat' bill, Disney finds new production home

Travis Gergen/Unsplash

It's not as easy as it used to be for billion-dollar entertainment empires like The Walt Disney Company. It would be more streamlined for Disney to produce its major motion pictures in its own backyard. After all, abortion in California is readily available, as well as a protected, cherished right. And since abortion access is critical for movie production, right up there with lighting equipment and craft services, you would think California would be the common-sense choice for location shooting. Alas, even billion-dollar studios must pinch pennies these days. So, in recent years, Disney, among other major Hollywood studios, has been farming out production to backwater Southern lands like Georgia, and even Louisiana. Those states offer more generous tax breaks than Disney's native California. As a result, Georgia for example, played host to much of the shooting for the recent worldwide box office smash Avengers: Endgame.

But now it looks like it's Georgia's endgame. The state recently passed what is known as a "heartbeat" bill – a vicious, anti-woman law that would try to make pregnant women allow their babies to be born and actually live. It's a bridge too far for a major studio like Disney, which was largely built on creating family entertainment. How can Disney possibly go about making quality movies, often aimed at children, without access to unfettered abortion? It's unconscionable. Lack of abortion access makes it nearly impossible to shoot movies. So, what's a major studio to do? Disney might have considered migrating its business to Louisiana, but that state too has now signed a heartbeat bill into law. It's utter madness.

These monstrous anti-abortion bills, coupled with having to live under President Trump, has led Disney to seek a new home for its legendary movie magic. Last week, Disney's CEO, Bob Iger, announced that all future Disney movies will now be filmed on location in the Sub-Saharan African nation of Wakanda.

"Disney and Wakanda are a match made in heaven," Iger told reporters. "Wakanda was, until recently, a secret kingdom, much like our own Magic Kingdom. With this new partnership, we'll not only get to continue our legacy of making movies that parents and children everywhere enjoy together, but we'll get to do so in a safe space that reveres abortion as much as we do."

Wakanda is one of only four African countries (out of 55) that allow unrestricted abortion.

As home to the most advanced technology in the world – and with the planet's highest per-capita concentration of wokeness – Wakanda offers women painless, hassle-free abortion on demand. As the Wakandan health ministry website explains, the complete absence of any white-patriarchal-Judeo-Christian influence allows women in Wakanda to have complete control of their own bodies (with the exception of females who are still fetuses). As winner of the U.N.'s 2018 Golden Forceps award (the U.N.'s highest abortion honor) Wakanda continues its glowing record on abortion. That makes it an ideal location for Disney's next round of live-action remakes of its own animated movies in which the company plans to remove all male characters.

Iger says he hopes to convince Wakandan leadership to share their top-secret vibranium-based abortion procedure technology so that American women can enjoy the same convenient, spa-like abortion treatment that Wakandan women have enjoyed for years.

Wakanda is one of only four African countries (out of 55) that allow unrestricted abortion. Disney plans to boycott and/or retaliate against the other 51 African nations, as well as any U.S. states, that restrict abortion. Specific plans are being kept under wraps, but sources say Disney's potential retaliation may include beaming Beverly Hills Chihuahua into the offending territories on a continuous, indefinite loop.

When asked how Wakanda's futuristic capital city and distinctly African landscape would be able to double for American movie locations, Iger said, "I guess America will just have to look more like Wakanda from now on."

One potential wrinkle for the Left-leaning studio is the fact that Wakanda has an impenetrable border wall-shield-thing designed to keep out foreign invaders as well as illegal immigrants. Iger said he understands Wakanda's policy of exclusivity, adding, "After all, not everyone gets into Disneyland. You have to have a ticket to get in. Anyone is welcome, but you have to go through the process of getting a ticket." When one reporter pointed out that Iger's answer sounded like the conservative argument for legal immigration under the rule of law, Iger insisted that the reporter was "a moronic fascist."

What if the unthinkable happens and Florida also enacts its own "heartbeat" law? That would be problematic since Walt Disney World is located in Florida. Iger responded that Disney would "cross that bridge if we get to it" but that the most likely scenario would entail "dismantling Disney World piece-by-piece and relocating it to the actual happiest place on earth – Wakanda." As for whether Disney would ever open character-themed abortion clinics inside its theme parks, Iger remained coy, but said, "Well, it is the place where dreams come true."

With the Wakanda solution, Disney may have found a place where Minnie Mouse can finally follow her heart and have true freedom of choice.

When pressed about the cost of ramping up production in a secretive African kingdom that has no existing moviemaking infrastructure (which could easily end up being much more expensive than simply shooting in California) Iger said, "You can't put a price tag on abortion freedom. Wakanda Forever and Abortion Forever!"

With the Wakanda solution, Disney may have found a place where Minnie Mouse can finally follow her heart and have true freedom of choice. And that will be welcome relief to traditional families all over the world who keep the Walt Disney Company in business.

*Disclaimer: The preceding story is a parody. Bob Iger did not actually say any of the quotes in the story. Neither is Wakanda an actual nation on planet Earth.

Understanding the cry for mercy: I share my 'Journey of Faith' with Paula Faris

"Journeys of Faith with Paula Faris," is a podcast featuring conversations about how faith has guided newsmakers and celebrities through their best and worst times. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints is a much maligned religion so Glenn joined the podcast and took the time to explain what it means to him and how it changed his life.

From his suicidal days and his battle with drugs and alcohol, it was his wife Tania and his faith that saved him. All his ups and downs have given him the gift of empathy and he says he now understands the "cry for mercy" — something he wishes he'd given out more of over the years.

You can catch the whole podcast on any of the platforms listed below.

- Apple Podcasts
- Google Podcasts
- TuneIn
- Spotify
- Stitcher
- ABC News app

Mending fences: Yes, being good neighbors requires building a wall

Patrick Baum/Unsplash

One of these times I'm going to go on vacation, and I'm just not going to come back. I learn so much on a farm.

You want to know how things work, go spend a summer on a farm. You're having problems with your son or daughter, go spend a summer on a farm.

My son changed. Over two weeks.

Getting him out of bed, getting him to do anything, is like insane. He's a 15-year-old kid. Going all through the normal 15-year-old boy stuff. Getting him on the farm, where he was getting up and actually accomplishing stuff, having to build or mend fences, was amazing. And it changed him.

Our society does not allow our kids to grow up, ever. I am convinced that our 15-year-olds could be fixing all kinds of stuff. Could be actually really making an impact in a positive way in our society. And what's wrong with our society is, we have gotten away from how things actually work. We're living in this theoretical world. When you're out on a farm, there's no theory here. If it rains, the crops will grow. If it rains too much, the crops won't grow.

If there's no sun, they won't grow. If there's too much sun, they'll shrivel up and die. There's no theory. We were out mending fences. Now, when I say the phrase to you, mending fences, what does that mean? When you think of mending fences, you think of, what?

Coming together. Bringing people together. Repairing arguments.

I've never mended a fence before until I started stringing a fence and I was like, "I ain't doing this anymore! Where is it broken? Can't we just tie a piece of barbed wire together?"

Let's stop talking about building a wall. Because that has all kinds of negative imagery. Mending fences is what we need to do.

That's called mending fences.

And why do you mend fences? So your animals don't get out and start to graze on somebody else's land. When your fence goes down, your cow is now on somebody else's land. And your cow is now eating their food.

We look at the phrase, mending fences as saying, hey. You know, we were both wrong. Mending fences has nothing to do with that.

Mending fences means build a wall. My neighbors and I, we're going to get along fine, as long as my cows don't go and steal their food, or their cows don't come over and steal my cow's food.

We're perfectly neighborly with each other, until one of us needs to mend a fence, because, dude, you got to mend that, because your cows keep coming over and eating my food.

You know what we need to do with Mexico? Mend fences.

Now, that's a phrase. You hear build a wall. That's horrible.

No, no, no. We need to mend fences.

In a farming community, that means putting up an electric fence. That means putting up barbed wire.

So the cows — because the cows will — they'll stick their head through barbed wire. And they'll eat the grass close to the road. Or eat the grass close to the other side of the fence. And they'll get their heads in between those fences. And they can't get out sometimes. Because the grass is always greener on the other side. You look at these damn cows and say turn around, cow — there's plenty of stuff over here.

No. They want the grass on the other side of the fence.

So you mend it.

And if it's really bad, you do what we do. We had to put an electric fence up. Now, imagine putting an electric fence up. That seems pretty radical and expensive.

Does it really work? Does it shock them? What does that feel like to a cow?

The cows hit it once, and then they don't hit it again. They can actually hear the buzz of the electric fence. There's a warning. Don't do it. Don't do it. They hear the current and they hit it once and they're like, "I'm not going to do that again."

So you mend fences, which means, keep your stuff on your side. I like you. We're good neighbors. You keep your stuff on your side and I'll keep my stuff on my side and we'll get together at the town hall and we'll see each other at the grocery store. Because we're good neighbors. But what stops us from fighting is knowing that there is a fence there.

This is my stuff. That's your stuff. But we can still trade and we'll help each other. But let's stop talking about building a wall. Because that has all kinds of negative imagery. Mending fences is what we need to do.

You can have a tough fence. It could be a giant wall. It could be an electric fence. But you need one. And that's how you come together.

The side that's having the problem, mends the fence.

Glenn's Show Prep