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TERMS OF USE | PRIVACY POLICY

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BLOGFebruary 08, 2018

‘Social Media Doesn’t Reward That’: Why Can’t Conservatives, Liberals Listen to Each Other?

How do we heal division in our country when we can’t even have conversations?

“I really feel one of the biggest problems is nobody’s listening at all,” Glenn said on today’s show while sitting down with Eric Liu. “Nobody feels heard right now.”

Liu, founder and CEO of Citizen University, leans liberal in his political views but has the same passion for bringing people together. He pointed out that we’ll have to be better than our political leaders if we want to reach across the aisle. We’re learning terrible habits from our political leaders and the way social media encourages extreme views.

“That’s a set of habits that nobody’s modeling for us in national politics,” Liu said. “Nothing in our daily lives rewards that. Social media doesn’t reward that.”

Listen to their full conversation on today’s show here:

This article provided courtesy of TheBlaze.

GLENN: So much to the, I think, chagrin of my friends and chagrin of his friends, we are friends, Eric Liu. He is the founder and CEO Of Citizen University. Also, the executive director of the Aspen Institute. Citizenship and American Identity Program.

He's -- he's from Seattle. I don't think I need to say anything else. He's from Seattle.

(laughter)

GLENN: So we don't necessarily agree on everything. But we have become friends because we both are trying to find sane ways to have conversations with each other and other people. Or we're doomed. We're doomed.

Welcome. How are you?

ERIC: Glenn, it's great to be back. It's great to see you.

GLENN: How is Seattle?

ERIC: It's beautiful. It's thriving. It's booming. You know, you grew up in the area.

GLENN: I know. I love it. I love it. I love it.

I don't think I would be welcomed there anymore. I don't think I was welcomed there ten years ago, let alone today.

ERIC: Well, we'll follow-up and bring you back together, and we'll do something in Seattle.

GLENN: Yeah, good. I would love to.

So would you agree with me that both sides, to one degree or another, have become unhinged on the extreme edges?

ERIC: Yeah. I think our politics today, and especially if you spend more than ten minutes on social media, it is about voices on the unhinged extremes.

GLENN: Yeah.

ERIC: And it's about this pattern that plays out over and over, where each extreme has to gin it up in order to feed the rage and the anger about the other side's extreme.

GLENN: Yeah.

ERIC: You know, that is our politics as it's mediated, you know, especially through social media. But I think -- you were talking about this before we went on-air. There is a broad swath of, you know, sane people. You know, interested bystanders. People who aren't super active in politics, super active in commenting on politics, who just want to understand each other, and who just want to fix stuff.

GLENN: Yeah.

ERIC: And some of them are as progressive as I am. And some of them are as Libertarian as you are. And many of them are all points in between. But they're not interested in the game-playing and the posturing that so much of national politics is about today.

GLENN: Yeah. I mean, I -- we're making everything about politics now. Absolutely everything is about politics.

And we're not going to survive. That's nuts.

The story today came out on sports -- sports illustrated. They just did a swimsuit issue, that doesn't have any swimsuits. All of the women are completely naked. And they're beautiful women. One is lying down naked, face up with the word "truth" painted on her rib cage. Another one is naked with "feminist" emblazoned on her arm. The other is the daughter of Christie Brinkley that is staring at the camera, laying on her side with the word "progress" written across her back. And they've put this -- this is -- I don't understand this. This is Sports Illustrated, a magazine for men, trying to say, see, we shouldn't objectify women. I don't understand that.

ERIC: Yeah. There's a lot that is great fundamentally about the Me Too movement and the fact that our society is waking up to shifting norms on what's okay when it comes to actually treating women with respect.

GLENN: I agree. I agree. I agree. Yes.

ERIC: But I do not look to Sports Illustrated as my moral guide on the objectification of women. Okay?

GLENN: How do we find a way -- and tell me what your feelings are on the people that, you know, on the -- on the dangers -- even Margaret at wood brought this up, the dangers of just these kangaroo courts, who are not even a kangaroo court. Just, you're guilty, and you're done if anybody accuses you.

ERIC: The danger is there. But I think actually as a society, we're navigate it right now. I mean, this is somewhat uncharted. Right? It's not like the society has tried before to have deep equity between men and women, on what -- who gets to harass whom. We've never done that before. We're having a society-wide reckoning.

Are there going to be cases where people abuse that -- the power that comes with that?

Sure. But are our institutions and are the leaders in our institutions fundamentally trying to reckon with that in good-faith? I actually think we are.

And even this kind of absurd Sports Illustrated cover is a sign that -- you know, one thing you can say about Sports Illustrated is they're trying to tune into the zeitgeist. They are aware of the market place, right? And they know the zeitgeist is, you got to be on the right side of the speech. Right?

GLENN: Yeah. Right. Right.

But if I did photos of naked women and put #metoo, I don't think I would get the pass that --

ERIC: Well, exactly.

GLENN: -- from either side, in my case. From either side.

STU: Yeah.

ERIC: The question is one of -- you know, in the law, they talk about standing. Do you have standing to make a case? Right?

During the Super Bowl, we all watched the ads and stuff. I didn't think Dodge Ram trucks had the moral standing to use an MLK speech about the dangers of commercialism to sell trucks. To me, that was -- and to lots of Americans, that was, you know what, message and messenger not aligned here.

GLENN: You mean the MLK message?

ERIC: Yeah. Yeah.

GLENN: So the MLK message -- may I present an opposite point of view. That's a sermon that most Americans have not heard, was really good. I agree with you that the images of the truck coming in, halfway in. You're like, okay. That's really -- you don't need that.

Just a simple Dodge at the end would have been perfect.

ERIC: Yeah. Yes. Would have been great.

GLENN: However, I have had more email on a monologue that I did on forgiveness, and I used that sermon the very next day. I've had more email on that from people who woke up. So, I mean, you can't necessarily reject it as universally bad that they did it. Because it did affect people.

ERIC: Well, look, I mean, Sports Illustrated was trying to do something like the right thing. But the equivalent would have been, had they had a cover -- if they said, this year's swimsuit issue, here's what it looks like. And it was a black cover that just said, we're taking some responsibility for feeding this culture in which women are treated like objects and which men feel they have permission to treat women like objects. We own a piece of that.

GLENN: And it would be the lowest selling Sports Illustrated.

STU: But that would be a powerful statement. Writing it on naked women's bodies doesn't seem quite as --

ERIC: It would be low-selling as a swimsuit issue. But the whole country would be talking about it. Would be talking about Sports Illustrated.

GLENN: Yeah, that's true. That's true.

So who have you found, Eric, I have been looking for a while, people like you, that we don't necessarily agree, but we can have really good conversations. And we can move things forward together.

ERIC: Uh-huh.

GLENN: Who have you found on the -- on the left or in the media that is really willing to do that?

ERIC: Hmm. You know, and I'm not sure if she's been a guest on your show, but my friend Neera Tanden --

GLENN: Nope.

ERIC: -- who runs the Center for American Progress.

Big, big progressive think tank, that I know you cross swords with. Right? But Neera is both able and willing to have conversations with anybody. And to have them in ways that aren't just the made for TV food fight, that are really trying to say, what's your deal? Right.

What are you getting at here?

GLENN: I really feel one of the biggest problems is nobody is listening at all.

ERIC: Yeah.

GLENN: Nobody feels heard right now.

Somehow or another, the left still controls most of the media. Doesn't feel heard. And the right now that they control the House and the Senate, they don't feel heard. And it's because nobody is -- nobody is actually -- I guess emoting what the average person is feeling right now. You know, we're all scared. It's amazing. I saw a YouTube video of a liberal talking about how afraid she was that Donald Trump was going to build concentration camps. And it was in a room -- probably had 1,000 people in it. And they were all like, yeah, yeah. And I remember, I debunked the lie about Obama making concentration camps. Because that was a big deal.

STU: A big conspiracy theory at the time.

GLENN: Big conspiracy. I was called a conspiracy theorist for debunking that conspiracy theory. And now the other side is feeling the same kind of fear that so many Americans did when they didn't trust the president. And I think this is a moment where we can wake up and say, see, this is why the president should never have this much power. The president should not be able to affect our lives, to the point to where we're afraid of him.

STU: Yeah.

ERIC: I actually agree with that. I think there's one lesson that people on the left are learning today, and that is the dangers of this imperial presidency. Right?

Which is not a Trump phenomenon or even an Obama phenomenon. It's been going back half a century at least, right?

GLENN: Been going for a long time, yeah, yeah.

ERIC: At least since World War II. Right? Concentration, power in the executive, right?

GLENN: Yeah.

ERIC: But I think you're -- I want to go back to something you were saying about listening and being heard, right?

We live in this time right now where there is -- and we've talked about this. There's so much pain. There's so much pain.

The segment you were doing right before the break, in which you were just speaking to a human, an individual about the pain they were feeling in their journey. And you were tying it to the pain that you have felt at various points in your journey, right?

That kind of conversation which is both about listening -- but it's about, I'm not just listening to the words you're saying and the points you're making. I'm trying to listen underneath, to the emotional currents there. That's a set of habits that nobody is modeling for us in national politics. And that we as citizens, frankly, it's gotten easier for us to shed those habits. Because nothing in our daily lives rewards that, right? Social media doesn't reward that.

GLENN: The media doesn't reward --

ERIC: The media doesn't reward that.

So we've actually got to build experiences where we see each other face-to-face again. You know, if we were having this conversation by phone, this would be different. But I'm looking you in the eye right now, Glenn. And I'm looking at you as you've spoken about these questions. And there's a human connection here. That I can't now just call you a nutjob and call you a this and call you a that. Like, we've connected on some level, right? It doesn't mean we're going to agree on the issues.

But it means I'm not going to demonize. And I think the deepest ill in our politics is how we've forgotten how to rehumanize each other.

GLENN: That's -- I just wrote a member of the press morning, a private conversation, that dealt with that. I said, we are -- we are calling each other subhumans, exactly the way the early, you know, 1920s Nazis were starting to. Train people that you're subhuman. If you don't agree with me, you're subhuman. And we're training each other that way.

But it doesn't -- social media is not the only one that doesn't reward it. Media doesn't reward it either. I mean, if you're not going to call somebody a nutjob or a Nazi. You don't win. And they don't put you on. And you, Stu -- was it you yesterday that said that you had seen somebody say, no, well, on the surface, this means X and X. And the guy was like, no. But that's -- can you tell the story?

STU: Yeah. It was an interview about some controversial comment that had gone on media. And they had brought someone on to kind of answer for it. And the typical kind of cable news back and forth. And that's essentially, when the person was pushing back against it. To say, yeah, but you got to admit on the service, it's an insult.

It's like, well, isn't the point here as human beings, that we go beyond the surface, that we think a little deeper about these things?

Because we can all get frustrated at the surface of it. We can all find the worst possible intent of a comment and turn it into something that is going to enrage our side. But that shouldn't be our goal.

GLENN: So, Eric, how do we do that?

ERIC: Well, it starts with something I actually want to give you guys credit for, which is, you got to put something at risk. Right?

When you started a couple years ago saying, I own my piece of how our politics and our political culture have gotten toxic. And I've decided I want to be part of the solution. I want to start reaching out and having conversations across certain divides, right? You put a bunch of stuff at risk.

You feel it acutely, right? You feel it every day. You put -- I don't have to name it. Right? It's not just about the business side of things and the listeners and the sponsors or whatever. I'm talking about reputational power and so forth, right? You put stuff at risk.

And I often ask myself and I ask my friends who are left of center, what are we willing to put at risk in order to change this politics? In order to go a little deeper, beyond the surface and beyond just this throwing of flames at each other? Right.

So number one, it's being willing -- and I want to name the fact that you all have started something and set in motion a different cycle of responsibility, taking rather than responsibility shirking with, right?

GLENN: Thank you.

ERIC: There is only one way to break the cycle of dehumanization and responsibility shirking, and that is to break it.

GLENN: Yeah.

ERIC: That is to say, you know what, I didn't start it. I'm not the one to blame. But darn it, I'm actually just going to say, I'm stopping right now, and I'm trying to change direction here. Go a little deeper. And rehumanize. And, yeah, I may pay some price for that. But this is a question of purpose.

STU: One of -- a famous poet said, we didn't start the fire.

GLENN: It was Billy Joel. Stop it.

ERIC: A poet. Yes, indeed.

(laughter)

GLENN: So what do your friends say to you, when you say, what are we willing to lose? What chip are we willing to put up?

ERIC: Let me tell you about something we've been doing at Citizen University. For the last year plus now, a year and a quarter, we've been doing these regular gatherings that we call civic Saturday. And these are basically a civic analogue to church. It's not church. It's not synagogue or mosque. But it's about American civic religion. Right? The stuff that you and I, civic nerds, are steeped in. Right? Understanding the language and the texts and what you might think of as civic scripture, whether that's from the declaration of the preamble or King speeches or Susan B. Anthony or whatever it might be, and understanding that we have all inherited this body of values and text and idea. And we do these gatherings with the Ark of the Faith gathering.

We sing together. You turn to the stranger next to you. You talk about a common question. There are readings of these texts.

There's a sermon that I've been giving. And then afterwards, there's more song. And then there's an hour afterwards where people kind of form up in circles and talk about, what are we going to do together? Right?

And I go to length to tell you about this, because number one, it's been amazing how people have responded to this. There is this need, across the left and the right, whether you are traditionally religious or not, there is this need in our political life for a space where we can come together and rehumanize, right?

Number one. Number two, when in that space, I've said to folks in these sermons what I've said here, which is, we've got to be willing to take risks. We've got to be willing to ask ourselves, what are we willing to put on the line?

And people are -- people sit there for a minute because they haven't been asked/challenged to do that in a long time, right? All of our political leadership is about, let me indulge you. Let me indulge your worst instincts. Let me indulge you. Not what can you do? And maybe even give up a little bit, in order to start solving the problem, right? And that leads to different kinds of conversations.

And, frankly, not all of them are about Trump or national politics. A lot of these conversations then come to life in our city, which is changing dramatically right now.

GLENN: That's what it should come down to in the first place.

ERIC: Yeah.

GLENN: Eric, we're going to continue our conversation at 5 o'clock tonight on the Glenn Beck Program. He has written a book, You're More Powerful than You Think. His name is Eric Liu. And we'll have more tonight at 5 o'clock. Make sure you join us on TheBlaze.com/TV.

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Balanciaga's DARKNESS goes WAY FURTHER than teddy bears

Balanciaga is under heavy fire this week after releasing photographs featuring child models posting with teddy bears dressed in disgustingly inappropriate outfits. But the fashion company’s dark undertones goes WAY FURTHER than this. In this clip, Glenn exposes just how EVIL this brand’s creative direction seems to be. But this isn’t just Balanciaga. In fact, this scandal mirrors a turning tide within society as a whole, which is why we MUST call it out.

Transcript

Below is a rush transcript that may contain errors

GLENN: Most people don't know anything about Balenciaga. Is that how you say it? Say it, Sara. I don't know.

SARA: Balenciaga.

GLENN: Balenciaga. Okay. 2,000-dollar sweaters. It's really expensive couture kind of clothing. Blah, blah, blah. It's a Spanish fashion house. And it's had real sway apparently for a very long time. They -- well, let me welcome back Stu from vacation. Stu, what do you know about this story?

STU: Glenn, think of me. This is in the theoretical sense.

GLENN: Okay.

STU: Think of me as a person, who went on Thanksgiving break.

GLENN: Yeah.

STU: And tried to stay away from grooming stories while I was on that break.

GLENN: Okay. That's hard to understand. But okay.

STU: And also, in addition to this, have never heard of Balenciaga. See, I even -- I can pronounce it, but I don't know what it is. Have never even heard of it, until this weekend.

GLENN: So what do you know about it?

STU: The only thing that I would say about is, didn't they take some pictures of like kids with teddy bears and the bears were like bondage bears or something? I don't know. I saw one of the pictures, that's all I've heard.

GLENN: All right. So there's a lot more to this story as it goes on.

STU: Oh, no.

GLENN: The bondage bears, and the picture with the panic-faced children surrounded by empty wine glasses, is what we all kind of saw. And we're like, huh. That's not good.

The picture features a dazed looking boy in a cluttered room. Among all the clutter, there is some disturbing things that have been found. For one, the boy is wearing red shoes. That has symbolized royalty and unstoppable power like the red heels of King Louis the 14th. Now, this is a weird connection to Tony Podesta. In the pedophilia paintings owned by Tony Podesta, children are wearing red shoes. Now, the boy -- to the boy's left is a drawing of a rainbow. To his right, is a drawing of earth, with a crow looking down over it. And on the ground, there is a roll of ticker tape with Balenciaga. Spelled not the normal way. But spelled capital B-A-L -- sorry. B-A-A-L-enciaga. You know, the meaning of that, Stu?

STU: Oh, wow. Yeah. That's the god of --

GLENN: Child sacrifice. Child sacrifice. Pedophilia. Unstoppable sex.

STU: Evil.

GLENN: Moloch. It is the ancient God in the Bible. Moloch. Or Baal, B-A-A-L. It is a Canaanite god of child sacrifice. Okay?

You'll find in Jeremiah, Jeremiah 19, Baal is identified as Moloch. And the true drawing shows a horned animal that resembles Baal.

So that's also in the picture. Now, this is no accident. For a couple of reasons: The company had to have had this ticker tape designed and printed and put on the floor.

Also, in March at a Paris show for this company, Kim Kardashian wore a full body dress made only of ticker tape with the word Balenciaga on it, but it was spelled correctly. Now, if one of those things would have appeared on their own, it would have been one thing. But putting these things together, and then seeing the things behind it, it becomes very cheer.

Now, so you know, the company has blamed this on the photographer. And we'll get into it in a second. Then they went out and said, well, it's the advertisement. We didn't even see any of these pictures before they went out. Does anyone believe that?

All right. Here's the photographer. He's described as a documentary photographer, whose projects often make expensive portraits of everyday eccentricity. How do you say that?

STU: I heard it in my head. Now that you started talking.

GLENN: I know. I know.

SARA: Eccentricities.

GLENN: Eccentricities. Thank you, Sara. You should be over here, because I'm already in the Hall of Fame, so I don't even try anymore.

STU: Yeah. You don't even care.

GLENN: A press release from the company said, the gift shop campaign iterates on the artist series toy stories, which features a series of photographs from around the world, of children surrounded by their favorite toys.

Hmm. Okay. In a statement, the photographer said, as a photographer, I was only and solely requested to light the given scene, take the shots, according to my signature style. As usual for commercial shooting, the direction of the campaign and the choice of the objects displayed are not in the hands of the photographer.

Now, who is the person responsible for that? Well, that's their creative director, known as Demna. She's from the country Georgia. She's also worked for Louis Vuitton. She is the person that in the 2021 met gala, she --

STU: It's a she or a he?

GLENN: I don't know. I'm not going to identify.

STU: Right. We don't know. It's a fluid situation here.

GLENN: I think it's he. I think it is he.

STU: Okay.

GLENN: But he designed the gimp outfit that Kim Kardashian wore. Where she was covered all in black rubber. Or whatever the hell it is.

STU: Dramatic.

GLENN: Very dramatic. Now, they also collaborate with Adidas. Remember, this is the company, one of the companies that just fired Kanye. But they're tied deeply into the Kardashians.

Now, if you go back to their old photo shoots, there is a pattern here. They just did one, they released a collaboration with Adidas, which they called the spring '23 campaign.

The pieces are the pieces that were on the Spring '23 presentation on their runway, and the collection was shot by a completely different photographer. And that is important because the imagery isn't a coincidence or a decision made by the first photographer. The theme was business office environment. And the setting was a swanky high rise in Manhattan.

In the photo for a $3100 hourglass handbag, there's a printed copy of the 2008 United States vs Williams decision on child pornography laws, and whether promotion of child pornography curtailed First Amendment freedom of speech rights.

So there's the handbag, and there's the Supreme Court ruling. Okay? But I'm sure it's just a coincidence and the photographer's fault. Yeah.

Newsweek says, the extract is part of an analysis with respect to the United States vs Williams presented by the late Justice Antonin Scalia from May 2008, which details the grounds for material to be defined as child pornography.

Okay. In another photo, a man in a terrible outfit stands in this swanky office, with a postcard view of cities behind him. Behind him also is a diploma with the name of John Philip Fisher. This connection isn't as solid, but speculation is, who is John Philip Fisher?

Apparently, he is a pedophile out of Michigan. Okay. In a -- in a -- another advertisement photo, hourglass small croc-embossed top handle bag, a woman props her feet on to a cluttered desk. So much clutter it's hard to tell what's on the paper. But in the background you see a stack of books. One of them is titled Fire from the Sun. It's about an artist, whose work has been linked to pedophilia, cannibalism, and blood rituals. A description posted on Amazon says that his art work features children who are presented alone or in groups, against a studio-like backdrop that negates time and space, while underlining the theatrical atmosphere and artifice that exists throughout his recent work.

Okay. So he is trying to re-create I guess the cherubs of the renaissance. They are just -- they're allegories. They're not really children. And they contrast their innocence with the evils of the world.

Okay. Now, there's another person involved. This one is really interesting. This is the chief designer for the company. Her name is Lata Volcava (phonetic).

Apparently, and I've seen some of it. Now, it's all been made private.

But you know through the wayback machine. The internet is forever, gang. On her Instagram page, she has -- I mean, when I say tons, I mean, a disturbing amount of satanic imagery and violence.

One image shows a woman lying on a pentagram as a satanic figure looms over her. Another shows a woman dead on her side, in a field with her stomach ripped open, and entrails sprawling out on the grass beneath her. Third photo is a vintage-style men's bedroom, but covered in blood and bullets and broken glass. And the fourth image was a child holding up a skull, with a frame and the star sign symbols, from the astro logical chart. So she seems wonderful. Now, she is the chief designer for this company. Also, on her Instagram account, there's an image of her wearing a T-shirt from her favorite band, Cannibal Corpse. And she's inside of a church.

Now, remember the woman laying with her entrails out, in a completely different -- in a completely different picture?

Cannibal corpse, one of their songs, their lyrics, entrails ripped from a virgin's C-word.

Virgin tied to my mattress, legs spread wide, ruptured bowel yanked from her inside, de-virginized with my knife, internal bleeding -- I can't tell you even more of it. It is awful. Awful.

STU: Good God Almighty.

GLENN: Also, an image of a little girl bound and gagged. This is the woman who is, like, the leader of all of the design for this particular -- particular brand.

She also works with Adidas. Which launched a sneaker line designed by her.

Let's see. I mean, it just goes on and on and on. Now, Kim Kardashian said, she's reevaluating her relationship. Now, I think that's all you need to know. Really? How much thought do you need to put into this?

Well, she reached out to the company, and said, oh, darn. That -- oh, that photographer. Oh, we're going to change things here. Really?

Are you? Yes, we are. Okay. Okay.

Somebody else that is involved, would be the -- would be the daughter let's see, the stepdaughter, I think, of Kamala Harris. She's androgynous. Has just the -- well, a lot wouldn't say, the look of a model. But the guy who was really there for Kamala when she was running for president. Gave the max to her campaign. Happens to run this modeling agency. And after Kamala won as vice president, her daughter reaches out and says, hey, I would like to be a model. And guess where they place her?

With this company. This is everywhere. Absolutely everywhere.

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Watch: THIS Canadian ad shows we’re in a battle AGAINST EVIL

The topic of Medical Aid in Dying is a touchy one, and Glenn admits he’s personally not fully decided on the issue. But a recent video — an ad released by Canadian retail brand La Maison Simons — shows how societies around the world are using this issue to turn further towards evil. In this clip, Glenn plays the ad, and he explains why it shows our world is heading down a dark path. This isn’t JUST about MAID, Glenn explains. “It’s all about control and power and inflicting the same ideology onto every person. And if you disagree, you’re a ‘useless eater.’”

Transcript

Below is a rush transcript that may contain errors

GLENN: I saw something from Canada, that I want to play for you. It is an ad, that I -- it's an ad for a retail brand in Canada. That we don't have here.

Listen.

VOICE: Dying in a hospital is not what's natural. That's not what's soft in these kinds of moments. You need softness.

VOICE: It can take time to figure out what living is actually like.

VOICE: I spent my life filling my heart with beauty, with nature, with connection.
(music)
I choose to fill my final moments with the same. Last breaths are sacred.
(music)
And I imagine my final days, I see music. I see the ocean. I see cheesecake.
(music)

GLENN: So this is an ad called All is Beauty.

VOICE: To help end my life --

GLENN: It is a campaign in support of medically assisted suicide.

VOICE: You just have to be brave enough to see it.

VOICE: I'm seeing the rhythms of what's going to keep going, after I'm gone.

GLENN: Now, I want to -- I want to be very, very careful here. And stick to the facts. Canada is going through a massive transformation. And Canada is leading the way, at least in this hemisphere, on physician-assisted suicide.

I understand, as I've watched people die in pain in my life.

I understand. And I cannot solve the problem of assisted suicide, that we so readily do with our animals. Our dogs. And not with people, other than dogs are not people. But it's the same kind of heartbreak.

You want them out of pain. So I want to make sure that I am very, very clear.

I think the state -- I -- I am undecided on this. My gut is, the state doesn't have a role in assisting anyone, ever. But I'm not sure the state has a right to say, I can't die.

But I -- I don't know. I don't know.

However, this always starts with pain. And usually elderly.

Now, Canada has -- as I told you two weeks ago. Canada has now started execution of people that are mentally unstable or in so much pain, that they can't afford to live anymore. I told you the story of a man who was about to lose his house. He's dying. He said, I don't want to die. But I know I'll die on the street. And it will be awful.

So what choice do I have? And the reporter was making this into a really good thing.

Well, if it is, maybe we have a solution to our homeless problem.

Now -- now, they have proposed something else.

I want you to recognize, and start looking for these things. Because they are happening.

We are dealing with evil. We are not dealing with mere policies. We can argue, tax codes, all day long. And still be friends.

But when we get to executing people, and executing people because they're in pain. And I can't relate to their lifestyle. I don't think they have a good life.

Even though, they say, I'm going to do this, because I can't live on the street. And I'll die a painful death without my heads.

In Canada, we're talking evil. I want you to start watching for the things that are coming out of the media, all over the world, and things like The Great Reset.

The great reset is absolutely Malthusian. So is climate change. Climate control.

The mainstream media several times, and in some of these forums, people have promoted suicide as a solution to climate change.

Now, I'm not saying that this is why we don't pay attention. But it is awfully convenient, that our kids have become more and more suicidal, that our population has become more suicidal, and no one in the medical industry seems to care!

No one is ringing the bell. Well, there's -- as I told you before, there is now a way to take your life back. From early adopting Switzerland, to latest to the table, Australia. More and more countries are legalizing the practice of euthanasia. It's now available to over 280 million people in 11 countries around the world.

It was offered to my mother, who recently and gratefully used Canada's legislation to orchestrate her own wise demise. If we don't claim the design of our own death, it is likely someone else will.

So the government started arguing this. That people who were nearing the end of their life. And had a fatal disease.

The next was someone with mental illness. Now, wait a minute. Mental illness?

If 2021 bill C7 amended the Canadian criminal code, to repeal the provision that a person's natural death be reasonably foreseeable, in order for them to be eligible for MAID. MAID is their assisted in death.

Medical Assistance in Death, is I think what MAID stands for.

So now, if you're mentally ill, you can request death. Kill yourself, because you're depressed. So wait a minute.

So the medical industry that has been pumping out antidepressants and given us all kinds of things, now, what are they just throwing their hands up? You know what, you're depressed. None of that stuff really works. You should kill yourself.

Okay. Okay. Well, the Belgium government just killed an otherwise physically healthy 23-year-old. 23-year-old woman who had survived a terror attack when she was a teenager. Because she suffered every day since, and she was not living a good life.

Now they're crossing the holy grail in Canada. The Canadian Pediatric Society, CPS, has just written medical assistance in dying. A pediatric perspective. Ensuring that newborns, children, and youth receive the highest possible standard of care, as they are dying. And dying is a privilege. And a responsibility for physicians and allied professionals, bringing about a thoughtful, respectful, and personal approach to everyday end of life situations, is an essential and evolving duty of care, and process should meet each patient and family's unique social, culture, and spiritual needs.

Oh. So it's okay to kill children in Canada. As long as we meet their cultural and social and spiritual needs.

The Canadian Pediatric Society refers to the children, it aims to mercy kill as mature minors.

Mature minors.

In other words, you have to have enough sense of self, and request that someone kills you.

That makes you eligible. However, what about those who are born without the ability to understand things?

Are they really living their highest life?

If you look at what is being pushed all over our society, you will see names like -- like Jane Goodall. Who said, are all of our problems on earth -- all of our problems on earth, with climate change, would be solved if the population of earth was reduced by 90 percent.

Hmm. By the way, she's an agenda contributor to the World Economic Forum.

So to kill 90 percent of the population, that would day before, boy, that would be hard. And it would make the Nazis and the Soviets and the Chinese, combined, look like rookies.

Now, I'm not suggesting that they're going to be building camps, like China does. That would be a bridge too far, wouldn't it?

But why the push now to kill our children? Our homeless? Our handicapped? Those people who suffer from depression?

The reason is, we are battling evil. And it is the same evil, the same evil that reared its head back in the 1930s.

Same evil.

It's all about control and power.

It's all about inflicting a certain ideology on to every man, woman, and child, and if you disagree, you're a useless eater.


Which, by the way, is the same exact agenda that people in the Fabian socialist society in England, had around the turn of the century.

What happens is: It rear its ugly head. It's discredited. It rears its ugly head, it's discredited.

Well, it is rearing its ugly head. May I suggest we discredit it, now?

And not wait for the final solutions

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RADIO

Glenn: Ralphie from A Christmas Story is my celebrity encounter REGRET

HBO recently released a sequel to ‘A Christmas Story,’ and Peter Billingsley — who plays Ralphie — will star in the film. But that reminds Glenn of a story he hasn’t told before: The time he met a now-grown ‘Ralphie’ in person. Glenn tells the story in this clip, explaining why it was one of his bigger ‘celebrity encounter regrets…

Transcript

Below is a rush transcript that may contain errors

STU: There are good news. Good things on the horizon.

GLENN: Right.

STU: You know we are three days away from fundamentally getting a sequel to a Christmas Story. Isn't that cool? Ralphie, from back in the day, who has done a lot more since Ralphie. But he always gets called Ralphie anyway.

GLENN: He has now, that's one of my bigger regrets.

In --

STU: Really?

GLENN: In Celebrity Encounters.

STU: Really?

GLENN: Yeah. Well, remember in the days, when we were really, really, really busy.

STU: Yes. I do.

GLENN: Okay. Where I didn't really have time to even think, you know.

And people would make appointments for me and stuff, and then brief me on the way into the room.

Yeah. Yeah. And Peter Billingsley was -- was in my office, one day.

And -- and I said, who the hell is Peter Billingsley? And they said, Ralphie, from A Christmas Story. And I said, why is Ralphie from A Christmas Story in my office? And we're walking towards my office.

STU: Uh-huh.

GLENN: And they said, he's really fascinating. He really wants to meet you. Door open. I walk in. Hey, Peter!

Okay? I know nothing about his life.

STU: Or what you're doing in the meeting.

GLENN: Or what I'm even doing in the meeting. I'm just there by myself, with Peter Billingsley, and he looks like a grownup Ralphie, which he is.

STU: Which people used to say about you. People used to say, you look like a grownup Ralphie. I don't know if they still say that.

GLENN: No. They don't. No, they don't.

So Peter was there. And I said, hey, Peter. You know, feeling kind of bad for him.

STU: You're thinking, this guy worked as Ralphie. That was it, now he's I don't know. Flipping pancakes at the Waffle House.

STU: Sure.

GLENN: And I said, so what -- what -- what have you been doing lately?
(laughter)
And he just -- he said, well, we just finished Ironman. And I was like ah. I've got to reevaluate everything I've got to say to you.

STU: He was the executive producer of Ironman.

GLENN: Yeah. So now he has a new movie out. He has a new movie out.

STU: Yes, he does.

GLENN: And he's playing Ralphie.

STU: Yes. He's excited.

GLENN: I think that's awesome.

STU: I'm a person that absolutely loves that movie. And I know it's not necessarily universal. But it's a Christmas classic. Christmas story, which they've done a bunch of stuff on that. They have a Broadway show for a while.

GLENN: It was really good.

STU: Oh, you saw it?

GLENN: Oh, I saw it. I went with Peter.

STU: Of course you did. Of course you did, you jerk. I went to a Christmas story with Ralphie. Your life is too good. It's better than you deserve. That's what I will say.

GLENN: It really is. It really is.

STU: It really is.

But he -- they're actually doing a sequel to it with Ralphie grown up, hosting his own Christmas.

GLENN: It looks fantastic.

STU: It looks really cool.

GLENN: And I think it's the same mom.

STU: Yeah. I think you're right. And it's coming out, this week, on HBO Max I believe. I don't know if it's in theaters as well. Which, I don't know. I'm excited about it.


GLENN: I did not see Yellowstone last night, which is something that may have improved my mood a little bit.

STU: Really? I thought you loved Yellowstone.

GLENN: I do. I just didn't see it.

STU: So you were disappointed.

GLENN: Watch it tonight.

STU: Let me ask you, are you the type of person -- because I am this type of person, that if I'm watching a series and a big episode airs and I don't see it, I will literally not go anywhere near social media until I've seen it.

GLENN: Yes.

STU: Because you go on Twitter. People are like, hey. That was great.

Yellowstone, when the alien came down and killed Kevin Costner. You're like, holy crap. Really?

GLENN: Yeah. Good thing they saved it for the very end though.

STU: Like no.

And you can't even -- there's no way to filter it out. Like, I want a -- this is a website I've been dreaming up for a while. You tell me if this is a good idea. I want a spoiler-free zone. Right? Where I can go and read -- especially -- especially with these things -- these series, they had five years of episodes out, and you're just picking them up. Because I did that all the time. I really refuse to commit to a series at this point, unless there's five years of it.

GLENN: I'm kind of like that.

STU: Give me five -- show me you can stay on the air for five years. Then I'll start investing my time.

GLENN: There's nothing worse -- I skip everything that says, one season, 2016.

You're like, gone.

STU: I'm not going to give it a try. It might be great.

But I will be frustrated, because it will just stop.

Unless you get five seasons, then you'll go in. Let's say I'm on season two, episode three, and some amazing thing happens.

I can't -- I can't look at any content, about this show. Because they're going to give me what happened in season four, and season five and season three.

So I can't know any of it. I don't get the full experience of watching the show. A big part of that now, is you're following -- the people are speculating as to what happens next. People are trying to figure it out. What happens to this character is that you can't do that, in that community vibe.

So I want a site, that's like a spoiler-free zone. I'm on season two, episode three, and I can read all the articles from that time.

GLENN: Yeah. I like that. I like that.

STU: I like that. So someone do that. And cut me in on the profits, because I don't want to do that.

GLENN: That sounds like a binding contract.

STU: Anyone out there doing that, that's you.

GLENN: You are legally bound now to cut him in. Fifty percent.

STU: I think you'll back me up on this. Anything said on the radio is a binding contract. To anyone who has the same idea and might do it better.

GLENN: Right.

So I went to see George Clooney. Now, see if this --

STU: This is another Billingsley story. Where you're hanging out with George Clooney, and you didn't know who he is.

GLENN: No. I knew who he was. So I went to see George Clooney and Julia Roberts in the movie Ticket to Paradise.

STU: Did you watch it with George Clooney and Julia Roberts?

GLENN: No. I did not. No, no.

Here's the thing: That one was not a decision that I made, per se.

STU: Right.

GLENN: Right, yeah?

So I go, and I realize, before the movie starts, there's no one under 50 in that room.

Okay? There's nobody -- there's no youngings going to see that one, you know.

STU: And those are two big stars.

GLENN: Yeah. Now, it's been out for a while, you think.

However, I realized, I -- I just fell into the Driving Miss Daisy category. You know, nobody who was young, went to see that, or Steel Magnolias.

STU: Right. Yeah. There's a genre there.

GLENN: Oh, I remember when they were young and in their '40s, and they were making movies. They were so great. And then you're seeing all these people that you grew up with, and you're like, boy, they sure are aging well, aren't they?


You know and they have to stop shooting about 4:30 in the afternoon for these people. I realize, that's what this movie is. That's like, I remember -- yeah. Yeah.

STU: Really? They were the stars of my day.

GLENN: With they were so great, in Ocean's Eleven.

STU: Right.

GLENN: Back in the day, and they're still together.

STU: It's been a while, Glenn. Since Ocean's Eleven.

Don't tell me how long it's been.

STU: That movie came out the same year as the September 11th attacks came out. 2001. Ocean's Eleven. That's a 21 years old. When was the last time George Clooney was in a movie, you've seen?

Or made any -- of any note?

GLENN: So I saw on an airplane once. Something he was in, where I don't remember. He wasn't happy in his job. And I don't remember.

I can't tell you the last time I saw a George Clooney movie.

STU: Isn't that weird? Because I still think of him as one of the biggest stars out there. I would say, you have Ticket to Paradise.

GLENN: I just saw. It was actually good. It was actually really good.

Yeah. You know none of this funny business, goes on these days. Anyway.

STU: No. I don't remember the midnight sky. Do you remember the midnight sky? Okay. That was 2020.

Then there was nothing in 2019, other than TV stuff. Do you remember money monster from 2016?

GLENN: Do not remember money monster.

STU: I do not either.

GLENN: Doesn't sound good.

STU: Do you remember kale Caesar from 2016?

GLENN: Oh, ow. I saw that one because someone wrote it, or it had --

STU: It did --

GLENN: Yeah. I'm trying to remember, it was some reason, we went. And it wasn't for George Clooney, and it was bad.

STU: So I can see you remembering tomorrow land from 2015. Again, we're back in 2015 here. I still haven't gotten to one I'm sure you've seen. Or anyone in the audience.

GLENN: Tomorrowland. Wasn't Tomorrowland that awful, awful movie that I thought looked really cool? No, that was --

STU: That was another one. Yeah. That was long before that one.

GLENN: Yeah. No. Didn't see Tomorrowland.

STU: Then I'll get to one that I do know, that you would appreciate. Which is the Monument's Men.

That's 2014. That's really the last George Clooney movie I would say he was a star, and that wasn't a big hit. But it was critically acclaimed, and I liked it.

GLENN: He was looking a little like he was wearing a toupee.

I don't think he was. But he was looking a little like he was wearing a toupee.

STU: What does that mean? He wasn't wearing a toupee. But he looked like he was wearing a --

GLENN: Well, his hair was just not -- it made me feel better as a man, you know.

You can go to this George Clooney movie. It's not like every Tom Cruise movie, that just pisses you off. This one is like, okay. All right. He's looking pretty rough, and then you find out he's 70. And you're like, okay. I no longer feel good about myself.

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RADIO

Hobby Lobby Founder: THIS is the BEST WAY to run a business

Hobby Lobby CEO and Founder David Green recently joined Glenn in-studio to discuss his new book, ‘Leadership Not By The Book.’ During their discussion, Green details to Glenn the ‘direction book’ his family decided to follow while building their business. He explains why it’s the ‘best way’ to run a business, and he dives into several, important leadership lessons he’s learned along the way…

Transcript

Below is a rush transcript that may contain errors

GLENN:So there's a new book out, it is called Leadership Not by the Book by David green and bill high from Hobby Lobby. Welcome, David, how are you sir?

MATT: Thank you. It's good to be here.

GLENN: It's good to see you again. First of all, I did a special last night about how the FBI and the federal agencies and the media are weaponizing against Christians as individuals and as business. You were, your fine was how much?

MATT: Well, they were going to fine me $1.3 millions a day.

GLENN: A day.

MATT: If I didn't follow their instructions. We got that number by the number of employees we had. It's like a thousand dollars a day per employee. That was a lot of money. 1.3 was what we were looking at.

GLENN: And all you had to do was just offer birth control or abortion; right?

MATT: They were for pills and prescriptions that we could not provide because we knew it was after the fact that we were taking life and we knew we just could not do that. We had to have that when we signed our next insurance policy and so this was what the government was asking us to.We knew we couldn't do it. As you said earlier there are some things you just can't do. You can't go against your conscious.They were asking us to go against our conscious.

GLENN: You won that case.

MATT: We did win that case.

GLENN: Thank God you won that case.

MATT: Right.

GLENN: And that changed the course I think the first real big win for America as we have known it then past.

MATT: It sure helped us.

GLENN: It did.

MATT: We didn't know what we were going to do. People would ask me, what are you going to do if you lose this case? I said I don't know what we are going to do, but I do know we're not going to pi for someone's abortive pill. That is what we had decided as a family. In fact we came together as a family. We call ourselves gen 1 and our kids gen 2 and we had all of them in a meeting do you see this any different gen 3, the younger people in our family, and all of us stood the ground and said we're not going to take life for the sake of making profit at Hobby Lobby stores.

GLENN: Let's talk about, by the way I think what you went through and I'd love to hear your opinion on this, it almost seems like the good old days compared to what we're facing now.

MATT: Things have gone pretty much south on a daily basis here. I can't even imagine what the government's asking us to do and how they're coming against us if you want to be a Christian. So some how or another today we're seen as the haters and yet we have the greatest story in the world about Christ who died for us while we're yet sins. So we're not the haters. We're the ones that got the best and the greatest love story in the world.

GLENN: I have to tell you. I've met so many Christians that will come up to me and say what are we going to do? And I'm like there there's only one thing left to do and it's what everybody dismisses but if we don't turn to God and ask him for forgiveness and help we're not going to survive. He's the only answer at this point. People are like yeah, yeah, yeah, but what are we going to really do? I'm like do you not believe? Do you not believe that the guy who rose from dead, harder trick than fixing our country is not -- people of faith, I'm not sure that a lot of them really truly have faith that when it comes down to it, yeah. Whatever happens it's in his hands.

MATT: Yeah, but I think there's something we have to do. I think you'll see us, our family, with a lot of other families coming on the program. You're going to see it at the Super Bowl, he gets us. We're wanting to say "we" being a lot of different people that he gets us. He understands all of us. He hates who, he loves who we hate so I think we have to let the public know and create a movement, really.

GLENN: That a different movement. I agree with you on that. There's lot we have to do. But that's one of the most important movements I've heard, if that what the movement you're doing. He loves those who hate us.

MATT: Right.

GLENN: We have to find a way to love -- it doesn't mean don't stand against it.

MATT: Right.

GLENN: You've got to be firm and clear on your stance and I'm not moving but I can't hate them.

MATT: That's right. We have to present the only answer to this, and it's not politics. you've already said it's him, Jesus who died for us, loves us, and until we accept him and know him and his scriptures and his book that he's given us we can settle the problems we have.

GLENN: So you have written a book leadership not by the book. You're the founder of Hobby Lobby which started out, I love the way you began. You started out making frames with your family in the garage.

MATT: Exact.My boys made seven cents a piece. Today we do 8 billion-dollars so we've come a long ways.

GLENN: I think so, from seven cents.

MATT: Yeah.

GLENN: You have 12 principles in here and I've highlight ad foo of them, but I want you to just kind of give the overview of the book.

MATT: Okay. I think people ask me why I write the book and I thing one of the greatest reasons I wrote it is for us to understand we don't own what we have not because I say so, but because the scriptures and the old testament as well as the new testament says that God owns everything. I think as we see what we have is owned by him we're nothing but servants. When I say nothing but, I would rather be to serve and to be, to take care of what God has given us. Wealth is a curse and how do you handle the curse. That is to be someone that takes what god has given us and know how to handle it.

GLENN: I think we used to understand that concept a lot more. We were country that had great welt. We helped, we helped each other, wear always the first on the scene. And now, I mean, it's, that's kind of like government does that. We just have this, we're just not the same people.

MATT: The government's done too much and that why sometimes we've backed off where we should not have backed off. We want to make sure what we do with our profits really make as difference.

GLENN: Let's go through some of the principles that I'd like to talk to you about.Build for the next 150 years, not just the next generation. I don't think there's people, I think there's lots of people that are just building for tomorrow, not even the next generation. This is more Chinese in your thinking, explain.

MATT: I think it's also thinking about what we're doing in our lifetime. What are we doing that doesn't matter a hundred years from now. If you get to thinking and drilling down on that you want your life to be something that eternal and not just temporal. That's what we're doing there. We're making sure that our children come along and serve the Lord and also have the same priorities you do. That is to have Hobby Lobby going on forever if possible and being ministry to those that are in need.

GLENN: How do you go from a framing place to everything you sell with that? I think there's a lot of people, they separate I want to talk about family too because you talk about this separation. They separate God and their faith from their business. They'll come up with all kinds of excuses that, you know, I gotta do what I gotta do. We gotta do business.

MATT: Right. I don't know had you do it without trying to find the book. This book is called Leadership Not by the Book, but hopefully is by The Book. I really don't know how you do it without following The Book. Because it gives us so much -- our creator has given us a book that really will help us.

GLENN: What are some of the business decisions that you had to make that, you know, on the surface were nuts that regular business people go now but you just had assurance, I know this is what He want me to do and it will work out?

MATT: I think one of those things is how we treat our employees. I sense the Lord just gave me a; the holy spirit, you're in Changer of these people. I'm putting you in charge of these people. Now you're saying what does that look like? It looks like they need to go to church on Sunday you gotta close on Sunday. It looks like you gotta open 66 hours a week maybe your minimum wage at to be 18-dollars an hour. Maybe you ought to have 7 different chaplains to help the people in need that have different problems. I think it looks like that lin of these things by the way are biblical but it's also good for business. We are very, very profitable, we have no debt --

GLENN: People would say, because I know you write about it in the book, people say how can we get to, you know, 16-dollars an how and you're like we're getting up to 18.50 an hour, what are you talking about? And everybody will say, as I know, I've been around business my whole life, people will make the argument you can't overpay. You can't, you can't make your hourly wage that high because you won't be able to afford it. It will jack prices up.

MATT: When we first started we just tried to survive so you need to understand that. It was just surviving. As we tried to follow The Book, which there is what ebb other book do you want to guide your life by, there's only one book that of God, the rest of them are man, there's only one and he's given us a book, a direction book. When you follow it I can't tell you a better way to run a business than following the book and following things I think would be pleasing to our Lord.

GLENN: Tell me how, faith is one thing, but talk to somebody who doesn't necessarily have the faith just about how the principle of paying your employees, doing all of the things that you do, how do they convince somebody who doesn't necessarily may have faith but not your kind of faith.

MATT: Yeah, my kind of faith believes that God's word is where we're going to be best in our life and everything we do. He's given us a direction. Our creator gave us a direction book. If you don't have faith, why doesn't it look good to take care of your people and they take care of yours if you don't have faith at all? How does that not look good? How is what we're being told in God's book, how does it look wrong? He seems to make common sense and that to care for people if you really want them to care for you. So people know by the way who Hobby Lobby is before they knock on the door for an application and because of that I think we get the very; very best people that are out there. People that have a work ethic, people that have integrity. I think that one of the secret sauces is just to have great, great people.

GLENN: It is, it's weird too, as somebody who is a conservative and a religious person, that I was, I can't remember what city I was in but I think there was a Michael's and I didn't know there was a Hobby Lobby. We go into the Michael's, it was just not good. We were like we gotta find Hobby Lobby. It was like this little island respite like I know things are safe here. I know things are the people are going to be nice, nobody's judging, I don't have to have any kind of stupid societal rules. It's nice. It's nice.

MATT: You know who you are when you're in our stores. You hear beautiful Christian music, every department has something that glorifies our Lord. If you come in, in front of the store and there's Bibles and good Christian books. We have a miniature Christian bookstore in the front of out stores.

GLENN: You are breaking every rule of business.

MATT: Right, right.

GLENN: You know?

MATT: It's okay.

GLENN: No. I know. If you were just a business person I think you would us a booking and in say you're going to be a nice niche store you'll never be Hobby Lobby. And it's just amazing.

MATT: Yeah. We're proud of what God has given us. By the way, I give the glory to a lot of great, great people. We have just a lot of great people. Our officers, by the way, average over 25 years. We have people that stay with us, they love it, they love it because they know they're doing something other than just doing something to make the owners rich because that's not what they're doing.