Editor’s note: Below are the video and transcript of Glenn Beck’s speech at the Freedom Center’s West Coast Retreat, held at the Terranea Resort in Palos Verdes, California from March 21-23, 2014.
To see David Horowitz’s introduction of Glenn Beck, click here.
Glenn Beck: About half way through, I was thinking that’s the problem with Obama Care, everybody knows everything about your life. David, that is, the last time I came to speak at your event was in Florida, and I asked you for a copy of your remarks of introduction, and I’d like to do the same. As you know, it’s rare that people in our position have someone say nice things; especially in California. So thank you. It’s an honor to be here tonight. I am actually speaking tomorrow; also tomorrow morning at a breakfast with some very brave people also in California, and I want to share some thoughts; some reasons why what you’re doing is so critical and so important. Do you mind? I don’t mean to be sacrilegious but I can see it.
We are at a crossroads, and I believe in divine providence. I don’t believe in divine destiny. I believe in divine providence. And there’s a difference. If you are humble, if you are listening and you are willing to serve God, and you’re willing to stand alone no matter what the consequence, divine providence has a way of working things out. And exactly what’s supposed to happen, will happen. And it will all be for His good and His work. That’s what started this country. And we have forgotten. Because there isn’t anybody who’s been essential. We have all just said, “Well, that’s okay.“ We all on 9⁄12 – I really thought we really were; I really thought Nancy Pelosi was a lot like me. I really thought some of these people were just like me. I didn’t really understand the progressive movement. It wasn’t until about 2000 maybe ‘5 or ‘6, I’m thinking to myself, “What is happening to us? How did we go from this country that understood who it was to something I don’t even recognize? What happened to us?“ What happened to us was we got fat and lazy. We said it would never happen here. It could never happen here. We conquered Communism. They just changed their outfits. Progressives are nothing more than patient Communists. And so we are now building a movement that is also patient; must be patient. Must know that we have allowed over 100 years of damage to be done. And there’s a lot to repair.
This is the original prospectus of Disney Land. This is; well David and I were on stage in the Cowboys Stadium, one of my teams was actually here in Los Angeles at an auction house trying to bid and win this, and we were very fortunate to get it. I am trying to preserve important pieces of American history. This is critical. There was a weekend; it’s called the Weekend Prospectus and Walt Disney, nobody would invest. It was 1953. He couldn’t get anybody to see the vision. They thought he was just going to make an amusement park and he said it’s a theme park. There’s a difference. And nobody would listen to him, and so he got a secretary in and his artist; his main artist and said come on in, bring a pillow. We’re working over the weekend and then on Sunday I’m flying to New York and I’m going to get us the money. He brought this prospectus into the banks. He brought it in three different banks. They all turned him down. He left this at the last bank and the banker he was talking to thought it was really neat and brought it home to his kids and said kids I want you to see what Walt Disney is thinking about doing. Did you give him the money daddy? No, he’s a crazy man.
Sometime in 1955 Walt Disney will present for the people of the world and children of all ages a new experience in entertainment. And then he says the Disney Land story, and I want to read one paragraph. As I read it after we won it in auction because it had never been printed before, it had never been seen before, it jumped out as my mission because I don’t think Walt did it. Somehow or another, he got lost.
“Disney Land will be based upon and dedicated to the ideals, the dreams, and the hard facts that have created America. It will be uniquely equipped to dramatize this dream and these facts and send them forth as a source of courage and inspiration to all the world.“
That’s not Disney Land. That is what all of us must pick up and do. We have a story to tell. We have the greatest story the world has ever heard. The story of real freedom and now with technology, now the ideas that our founders only dreamt of are right within our reach because I don’t need a middleman any more. I don’t need anybody to communicate. I don’t need a radio station or a radio company. I can get and do a podcast. I can be in my underpants in my mom’s basement and I can make a podcast on my phone and a million people can hear it. It’s true freedom. But we have to know the story and then live our lives in a way that we are worthy of it.
This is a rare book printed by Thomas Edison on the invention of the connectal phonograph. It is the movie projector. This, he was so excited about, that he printed this book for investors, and the last page says: “The line of thought might be indefinitely pursued with application to any given phase of outdoor and indoor live which is desired to reproduce. Our methods point to ultimate success. No scene however animated and extensive will eventually be within reproductive power. Marshal evolutions, naval exercises, processions, countless kindred exhibitions will be recorded for the gratification of those who are debarred from attendance. The invalid; the isolated country let loose. They will all be able to see not only all our resources but those of the entire world now will be at our command. The advantages to students and historians will be immeasurable,” he said about the movie projector and film. “Instead of dry and misleading accounts tinged with exaggerations of the chroniclers’ minds, our archives will be enriched by the vitalized pictures of great national scenes, instinct with all the glowing personalities which characterize them.“ He said, “Now that we have motion pictures, you’ll never be able to put a lie past anyone.“ Thomas wasn’t so bright.
This is Tokyo Rose’s microphone. This is the microphone that was taken by a naval officer as he arrived and he walked into the radio station. He said, “I’m gonna kill that son of a bitch,” and she wasn’t there. He took the microphone, put it in a box, brought it back to America, and there is sat in his closet. It hasn’t been used until I repaired it just recently and plugged it in, and as I was going to say test into it, we were back in our shop in our movie studies, and I said, “Unplug it quickly. I don’t think it should; I can’t say test into that,” and I wanted a day to think about what should be said. The last time anyone spoke in this microphone it was Tokyo Rose. What would you say? What should be heard all across the nation and the world from this microphone? I decided that what should be said was, “I’m Tokyo Rose. I am innocent of what your government says I did.“
Tokyo Rose is one of the most tragic stories I’ve ever read. Tokyo Rose was actually pardoned by Gerald Ford. But she went to prison. She was an American who went over to Japan to visit her relatives. She was born in America. And she went over to Japan and the war kicked off and she was trapped. And they tried to use her. They tried to do everything they could to get Tokyo Rose; the one that we put in prison. There were five of them. The one we put in prison was a patriotic American that was actually risking her life for our soldiers. Our soldiers later testified that they were in the islands, the Pacific, and Tokyo Rose’s voice would come on and she would say, “For those of you in these islands, you’d better go to sleep early because things might keep you awake tonight,” and our soldiers would say, “Wait a minute. Wait a minute. Is she saying that they’re going to bomb us?“ She actually smuggled medicine in. But because our President at the time at the end of the war and our press wasn’t just lazy, they wanted a good story. They wanted somebody to pay. They went over, they got her story. She was just trying to earn money to be able to come back to her home where she thought she would be a hero. It was Time Magazine came, offered her money, sat down, she told her story. They didn’t write that story. It was one of the most expensive trials up to OJ Simpson in American history. The lies and the corruption from our own government smearing an innocent woman that lasted until 1976. Most people don’t know that story. Why not? Why don’t we know the truth about our own country? It’s not just Tokyo Rose.
These are the shoes of a woman that was also born here in America. Her name was Risotto. She was an artist. Born here in America 1912. She was actually she had some of her art in one of the art galleries in San Francisco when the war broke out and the Japanese were rounded up in the Pacific and sent to camp. She was wearing these shoes when they sent her to one of the race tracks just outside of San Francisco. She lived in a barn with her folks for about three months in a stall of a barn at a race track wearing these shoes. Then she took these shoes and she went to Wyoming where she lived in the cold wearing these shoes. And you know what she did? She taught the little children of Asian descent, I have the art, how to draw little girls in kimonos; holding hands with little white American girls. Even in a camp where she was put by her own country, she refused to turn. She was bigger than the people that put her in.
I’ve talked to her family. They’ve given me her collection for care. They had no idea this was their mother until she; just before passed away. They said they were shocked because she was the most patriotic woman they had ever met. They had no idea she had been betrayed by a country that had lost its moral compass.
We don’t know American history at all because of films. D.W. Griffith; anybody know the film that D.W. Griffith is famous for? Birth of a Nation. And the subject matter of Birth of a Nation? Slavery. It is the Klan. It glorifies the Klan. This is D.W. Griffith’s walking stick. D.W. Griffith was a pretty evil dude. Glorifying the Klan. Anybody know where that actually premiered?
Audience Member: At the Whitehouse.
Glenn Beck: At the Whitehouse. It premiered at the Whitehouse. Because the writer was at that particular premiere, the writer was who? Woodrow Wilson. Woodrow Wilson. I hate that guy. This is the book. Written by Woodrow Wilson. You know that Woodrow Wilson actually resegregated? We didn’t have segregation until the progressive Woodrow Wilson came in and resegregated the military. And yet, somehow or another, we’re the bad guys. Somehow or another, we are the racists. Somehow or another, we’re the ones. And because we don’t know our own history they get away with it. Somehow or another we’re not just racists, we’re also the fascists. We’re the ones that like the Nazis. We’re the ones that want to starve and kill little children.
Look at the people of the progressive movement. Look at the Margaret Sangers. Tell me that we are the ones that hate children. Tell me that we’re the ones that wan t to starve little children and even if I did want to starve them, it’s better than cutting them off. But somehow or another we’re the bad guys. Only because we don’t know our own history.
The President when he went to run for his second term, he put out a video, and it was on and then it was off, and it went away quickly because when I saw the title, I said, “Oh I know that title.“ And it was pulled within the first day. The title was The Road We’re Traveling. Do any of you remember that? The Road We’re Traveling. Forward. The road we’re traveling forward is actually a Stalin campaign. And the road we’re traveling comes from this book, and this book is when the war ends, the road we’re traveling by Stuart Chase. Stuart Chase is the guy who coined the phrase “The New Deal.“ But in here, on Page 99, we can’t go back. We can’t go back on what we’ve started on this road we’re traveling, but what is the road we’re traveling? The road we’re traveling he says, “Soon we will have something I would like to call X. It’s the first intelligent attempt to understand what we are doing; a managerial revolution.“ A managerial revolution. So in other words, nobody’s actually going to be running the country. We’ll just have a bunch of little middle managers; the EPA will be running. He says, “We’re moving the road we’re traveling.“ He says, “This is a good thing,” and he says, “It’s too late to turn back.“ This is in 1945. “We’re moving from free enterprise to X.“ Now he didn’t want to call it anything else – before they were calling it fascism. They were calling it socialism. They were calling it Communism. But because those were all discredited, he then just called is System X. And here’s what System X is: A strong centralized government. An executive arm growing at the expense of the legislative and judicial arms. A control of banking and credit and security exchanges by the government. The underwriting of employment by the government. Either through armaments or public works. The underwriting of Social Security by the government; of pensions, of unemployment insurance that never ends. The underwriting of food, housing, medical care by the government. The use of deficit spending technique to finance these underwritings. The annually balanced budget has lost its old tininess. The abandonment of gold in favor of management currencies. The control of foreign trade, to control natural resources, to control energy sources. The control of the railway, the highway, and the airwaves. The control of agriculture. The control of labor organization. And heavy taxation. The road we’re traveling.
It’s clear to see what we’re doing if you are a Communist with patience. It’s clear to see what they’re doing. They’ve said it. Go try to buy this book online. It’s very hard to find especially with Page 99. I’m not kidding you. I can’t tell you how many…I’ve asked my listeners. Could you go find this book? Send it in. I can’t tell you how many were sent in without Page 99. They know.
So who do we become? At the same they’re doing that, remember we’re the Nazis. There’s a guy named Father Coughlin, and Father Coughlin – this is who I first was accused of being; Father Coughlin, and here’s his series of lectures on social justice. I’m against social justice. I don’t think it exists. Oh and he was for the Nazis. But he was beloved for a long time. See the left doesn’t mind Nazis. They don’t mind the socialists. They don’t mind any of these things until they get ugly and then they have to disavow and distance themselves from them. But then they just change the name and move onto something else. So, here they go. They go in and try to take in our churches because they know the toke veil it’s the church. It’s the people’s faith that makes the difference. That’s what the glue is to America. So we need somebody. Oh man if we could just find somebody like Jim Wallace to get into the churches and tear the faith of the American people apart. Then you win. They don’t shy from monsters. This book is the Intelligent Woman’s Guide to Socialism. Notice that? The Intelligent Woman’s Guide to Socialism. If you’re a dummy you can read about capitalism. This one is for intelligent women only. This is George Bernard Shaw.
George Bernard Shaw I never knew what an evil due that guy was. George Bernard Shaw; we all must know a few people whose life isn’t worth living. Just put them in front of us and we’ll ask them sir or madam. Will you justify your life? And if they can’t, well we have no use for you and we certainly can’t use our substance to keep you alive. He went on to say there must be some sort of a gas that can be used. That’s George Bernard Shaw, the beloved playwright. They found the gas. But first they put triangles on people. This, if you were a Communist or a capitalist, this one meant you were pretty much in charge. This one was you were a criminal. And so they would give you the green diamond. This one was you’re Jewish and criminal. The most rare out of all of these, because nobody ever talks about this one, is this. The purple triangle. That meant you were a bible scholar. You see, Hitler was not a Christian as everybody tries to say he is. He wasn’t a Christian. Christians don’t generally take the crucifix out of the churches and the pictures of Jesus off of the altar, and replace it with the fuhrer. Destroy religion. Destroy religion. That’s what Coughlin was doing. And then mix it with science. Because if you can mix it with science, then we can tell you this is really good. This is good. This is good for all of us. This is good for the collectives and we’re going to be compassionate about it. This is the last thing Mengele assigned. The last order Mengele assigned before he went to Auschwitz. This is as his head of the hospital for children. This is an order for a giant drum of Luminal. He was killing children with Luminal. But just for the good of all the Germans. They didn’t have a quality of life anyhow. We can’t afford it. I mean that child is not really having any kind of life and we’ve got people on the front lines. And we have socialized medicine. We have to make choices. Monsters. The same kind of monsters that decided to stop talking about race cleansing and start talking, taught by the Germans, about family planning. Planned Parenthood. The mix between these two is phenomenal.
One of my favorite letters of condemnation comes from the Germans themselves. The Germans are writing a progressive movement here in California. And in the progressive movement in California, they were – this was the hot bed of international progressivism, and they were the real scientists and they went over and told the Germans exactly how all of this nice science can work, and this letter – I love this letter. It says the last line from the Germans to the, I think it was the California Betterment of Society or something, and it said, ”May you never forget, may you never forget the contribution you have made in exciting this nation and its industry in family planning and eugenics.“ I can guarantee you everybody that received that letter promptly forgot their contribution, but we must not or we will repeat it.
If we forget our past, it repeats. I was on the air in 1999 in New York, and I said, “Have you read Osama Bin Laden’s words? He’s a crazy man. I think he’s crazy enough to do it.“ They actually accused me of being a supporter of Bill Clinton of all people. I was new to talk radio, and I was on WABC, and I said that, and they didn’t know who I was, and they’re like you’re just a Clinton apologist, and I said no, would you stop it? Listen to him. My quote was, “When there are blood and bodies in the streets of New York, when buildings are blocking the traffic, will you then wake up?“ We should have woken up a long time ago. From this book. This is the first Quran printed in America. This was printed by Jefferson. Everybody says well, oh, Jefferson he had a Quran. No, he just – no, no, no, no. At 25 percent of budget when he gets in; 25 percent of our budget is going to pay off the Barbary pirates; 25 percent. And he’s like this isn’t sustainable. I’m pretty good at math. This doesn’t work. He says to somebody can’t we negotiate with them? You don’t know them. What do they want? They don’t want anything. They want to kill you because you’re an infidel. What are you talking about? It’s the Quran. Well get me a copy of it. It had just been printed in England. He read it. We went to war with the Barbary pirates because he knew there is no negotiation. He then had this Quran printed. This is from 1806. Tell me how politically incorrect this is. There’s a note to the reader in the front, and it says, “You will wonder that such absurdities that are found in this book have infected the better part of the world.“ It’s a warning. They will be back. See, our enemies have patience. We don’t. I want it now. We must have patience. We must look not to us but to our next generation and the generation after. I am perfectly willing to lose, not happily, to lose the battle of the country if my children can put the flag back up somewhere along the line. I’m willing to do the hard things. I’m willing to lose right now. But we have to teach our children history so they know. Because the farther this infection, these absurdities go, the more desperate people become. We’re pacifists. Pacifists. Who are talking to his own congregants and saying so if a man believed that war was wrong and if a man believed that killing was wrong, and you knew that, and he knew that, but he had the opportunity to stop a monster, would he be a bad man? His students looked at him and said no. No can you give us an example? No I’m just wondering. His name was Dietrich Bonhoeffer. This is the napkin from the table when they tried to kill Adolf Hitler. A pacifist. A preacher. Because he had tried everything else. Gandhi, I’ve got to talk to Gandhi. Gandhi has the answer. Jesus had the answer. Gandhi had the answer. Martin Luther King has the answer. Washington doesn’t have the answer. You know what the answer is. Standing for principles that are true and then having the courage before things get so crazy and out of hand.
The movie with Tom Cruise, the Vagary, the German Von Stoffenberg. This is his copy of my account. From the Von Stoffenberg library. I just want you to look at the edges. Not one dog-eared page. Never been read. You can dress like a Nazi, but unless you’ve read it, unless you’ve dog-eared it, unless you’re turning the page over and over and over again, you’re not a Nazi. Unless you know our history. Unless you know the sacred scripture that drives you and your faith and you’ve dog-eared every page, and you’ve read it over and over and over again, you’re not a Christian. You’re not a Jew. That’s just a title for you. If you don’t know our history, you’re not an American. You just happen to live here at this time. We have to choose. Each generation chooses, and it’s a tremendous time. I don’t want to live in times where it’s not a challenge. It sucks. Standing up having to know what you believe in sucks. You lose a lot of sleep. You lose a lot of friends. You lose a lot of hair. You gain a lot of weight. It sucks. But you know exactly who you are.
I can go into any room. I can meet with anybody. I can meet with presidents, prime ministers, kings. I can meet with anybody on the street. I know who I am. Who are you? I know what’s worth living for. I know what’s worth dying for. When you don’t care anymore, when you’re down on that shag green carpet, and its Christmas without your children and you can’t even afford to buy them a toy from a CVS drug store, you have a choice. Check out or live. Live. Live is the choice. For Christmas two years ago, my wife gave me this. It’s one of – this is a passport signed by Raul Wallenberg; a man who saw what was happening and said, “You can’t do this. You can’t make them aware of the stars. You can’t just kills them. Come with me. You’re my Jew.“ His own government said you can’t do that. Yes I can. He made so many of these at the end he would stand up on the trains as they were going, and he’d stuff them through the cracks and then he’d say, “Stop, stop you have the wrong people. These are all my people. These are all citizens. Show them your passports. Open these trains back up.“ This particular passport was one of the last he gave. One of the last women that received it said to him, begged him, please, please come with us. The Russians are coming. He said the Russians cannot be as bad. He was last seen running for help to the Russians. He stood. He won. No matter how dark things may get at any time, he won. Dietrich Bonhoeffer won. Martin Luther King won. Gandhi won. Jesus won.
If I were talking to a group of people just like you and this was Europe 1943, and I’d say how are you? You’d say really bad. And look at what they’re doing to our Jewish friends. And if I said you just keep standing, you just keep standing, you’d look at me as if I were insane. But I give you the same message now. Stand back and watch the awesome power of the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. In the 1940s, if I would have said that to you, you would have said, “Look what’s happening?“ And if I would have said in just a couple of years the State of Israel will be refounded, you’d think I was a mad man. We don’t know how this story ends. I tell you this. The good guys do win in the end no matter what Hollywood decides to say. The good guys win in the end. Because good is a much more powerful force. But it requires people to stand and give it all.
One of the most amazing horrible stories from America, the only time a religious extermination order was ever given in America. We don’t exterminate our own people. We did the Indians. But for religion. We did it once. In the State of Missouri. The Mormons. The Mormon prophet was Joseph Smith. He bought one more day with this watch. They had come to tar and feather him. For a third time that week they had tried to arrest him; three times that day. The last time he was in a buggy with Brigham Young in America and the sheriff pulled up on his horse with a goon squad and pulled him out and said, “I gotcha now old Joe. You owe so and so some money on your stove.“ He said, “I don’t owe any man.“ He said, “Yes you do. You owe him $20.00.“ Joseph Smith took this pocket watch out of his vest and put it into the hand of the sheriff and said, “Then I guess this would take care of it. I owe no man any money.“ You may not believe in what he did, but he believed in something enough to risk and lose his life. Do we? Is there anything that motivates you that animates you that much?
Be careful because a spellbinder can talk you into just about anything. It is truly about principals. It’s about having exactness in all that you do. George Washington all he wanted to be was a farmer. He just wanted to go back to Mt. Vernon and farm. When they came to him for the Constitutional Convention, he was tired and the country was falling apart again and they rode from Philadelphia to Mt. Vernon, and they said, “General you have to come or we’ll lose the republic.“ His response in the doorstep – and you never read about Washington losing his temper. He did that day. He stood in the doorway and he said, “Have I not yet done enough for my country?” and slammed the door. In my mind’s eye I see him turning around and walking in and putting his hand on the banister by the key of the vastile and realizing, no. No I haven’t. He got onto his horse and he rode back. He didn’t say anything. He didn’t say a word at the convention. It was his mere presence that held it together. He was truly the indispensable man because of the way he lived his life. If have one regret, it is that I screwed up my life up for far too long. I discredited myself for far too long and we need to find men who are real decent honorable men, decent, honorable, honest people that will self-sacrifice who might say every day, “Have I not yet done enough?” and realize no. This is George Washington’s compass. It had to leave the Washington family this generation. It’s been in the family since. He had this everywhere he went. He was a surveyor. He had this. This is the only compass he owned. He got it when he was 13 years old. He had it with him on the battlefield. He had it with him in the farmlands.
One day I was facing a really tough day and I had two ways to go. I could let my political foes have it and I could smear them or I could let them continue to do what they were doing and I would let that fight be fought by someone far greater than me and believe in divine providence and not become everything I despised. But it was very hard because it would have been a quick and easy win. I took this out of its box; the case that I keep it in and I put it in my suit pocket, and if you would ever watch that episode on Fox, you would see that I had my hand in my pocket the whole time. Just stay true. Just stay true. But the greatest thing happened. As I held that all day, I held it like this and I found a thumbprint. It’s a rub mark right here. I have nothing to back this up but I think Washington from 13 had this in his hand and did the same thing and stayed true. Just get through it. Stay true.
We win in the end if we are strong, if we are courageous, if we are decent, if we are honorable; if we don’t care what the world does or says about us. I come whenever David asks me. I am probably busier than I should be, but when David asks me to come and speak, I always do. Because I believe David is a true American patriot. David didn’t know I brought this with me because he was talking about Isaac Potts. I wasn’t going to show this to you even. I just happened to have it. This is the deed to the land where Isaac Potts saw George Washington pray. We know that story is true only because of Isaac Potts. A guy who was not on our side and he saw him and he stood in those trees and Washington, the only thing about that painting is wrong is that Washington has his head down. Washington never prayed with his head down. He prayed out loud and he looked up. Lord and he spoke it. That’s how Isaac Potts heard him. He said any man who speaks to the Almighty like that is not going to lose. He saw Washington’s example and he switched sides. May I humbly suggest that we each set our own example for the Isaac Potts that is watching us. Set the example and others will follow. Divine providence will assure our victory. God bless you. Thank you.
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