Alex Jones Show - March 24, 2007


20070324_OReilly_Alex


Episode Stats

Length

9 minutes

Words per Minute

190.40555

Word Count

1,720

Sentence Count

141

Misogynist Sentences

1

Hate Speech Sentences

5


Summary

Mark Cuban, owner of the Dallas Mavericks basketball team, joins Jemele to discuss his opposition to the idea that the government should distribute a documentary debunking the theory that slavery was cooked up by the Civil War, and that it wasn t as bad as historians said it was.


Transcript

00:00:00.000 Let's bring in Mark Cuban.
00:00:01.000 He is the owner of the Dallas Mavericks basketball team.
00:00:07.000 Very successful.
00:00:08.000 Might win the title this year.
00:00:11.000 He's coming to us from Boston with a plan of Celtics.
00:00:13.000 Okay, look.
00:00:14.000 Here's my beef.
00:00:16.000 I've got a lot of people dead in my area on Long Island, 9-11.
00:00:20.000 Sure.
00:00:20.000 And I think the United States has to fight this war on terror with every ounce of its energy.
00:00:26.000 And this is a diversion, in my estimation, a dishonest diversion, because it's absurd.
00:00:34.000 And it doesn't deserve A platform that you might give it.
00:00:38.000 Where am I going wrong?
00:00:40.000 Well, you know, one of the reasons we decided to distribute it is because on the internet and even offline, kind of the discussion about loose change is taken on mythic proportions.
00:00:50.000 And I just happen to believe that propaganda in the shadows is far more dangerous than propaganda out front.
00:00:57.000 Alright, would you distribute a documentary that said slavery was cooked up and it really wasn't as bad as historians said it was?
00:01:08.000 Would you distribute that?
00:01:09.000 Well, you can't.
00:01:10.000 It's not binary like that.
00:01:12.000 It depends on the circumstances.
00:01:13.000 No, but I mean it's a legitimate question because they're having kooky documentaries made about a whole bunch of stuff.
00:01:21.000 Absolutely, positively.
00:01:22.000 But at the same time, you know, it's kind of like, should certain books be published or not published?
00:01:27.000 Should books be in the library or not be in the library?
00:01:30.000 Some of them shouldn't be.
00:01:31.000 Well, then that's where we'll disagree.
00:01:33.000 I just think that more damage, far more damage can be done when you can't confront and you can't identify the people that are crazy.
00:01:42.000 You know, you can talk about slavery and you can talk about the pain that's been caused by Al-Qaeda and you can talk about loose change, but unless you can confront it, how can you come up with an opposing viewpoint?
00:01:55.000 You don't have to.
00:01:56.000 You don't have to legitimize lunacy.
00:01:58.000 We don't have to legitimize Ahmadinejad saying... That's where you've got it wrong.
00:02:04.000 By showing it, you're not legitimizing it.
00:02:05.000 Sure you are.
00:02:06.000 You're distributing it to an audience...
00:02:08.000 No, distribution is not legitimizing it.
00:02:12.000 It gives you the chance to confront and refute.
00:02:14.000 But you don't confront everything in life, Mr. Cuban, with all due respect.
00:02:17.000 You don't legitimize Ahmadinejad of Iran saying the Holocaust never happened.
00:02:21.000 What you do is you dismiss him as a crank.
00:02:23.000 I'd rather have him face to face.
00:02:24.000 Wouldn't you rather be face to face with him?
00:02:26.000 No, because he's irrational and a liar, and he's not going to reason.
00:02:30.000 He's not going to give you a reasonable explanation about anything.
00:02:34.000 You're right.
00:02:34.000 He's not going to be reasonable.
00:02:35.000 Correct.
00:02:36.000 That's all the more reason why you want to know who he is and what his views are.
00:02:39.000 We do know what he is.
00:02:41.000 But if he wasn't given the platform to speak his mind, then you wouldn't.
00:02:46.000 Would you rather have him hiding somewhere?
00:02:49.000 I'd rather have him not have access to people because he can poison enough of them who are going to hate Jews and try to kill Jews.
00:03:00.000 Look, I'm Jewish, and the stories of my family about the Holocaust have been passed down.
00:03:05.000 So are you going to bankroll an anti-Holocaust documentary?
00:03:08.000 Well, first of all, I'm not bankrolling an anti-Holocaust.
00:03:12.000 I'm not bankrolling.
00:03:13.000 You're using your money to distribute the film, are you not?
00:03:15.000 Well, actually, in reality, there'll be more visibility for Lose Change from this show and from your TV shows than would have occurred otherwise.
00:03:25.000 Yeah, but I have to confront you, and I'm not doing it in a nasty way, I'm glad you came on the program, and you're welcome to come on the television program any way you want, but I'm saying you are making a terrible mistake by doing this, because you're legitimizing dishonesty.
00:03:41.000 And whenever you legitimize dishonesty, you then become a partner to it.
00:03:47.000 Distribution is not legitimacy.
00:03:49.000 That's the big difference.
00:03:50.000 In fact, it's the exact opposite.
00:03:51.000 Unless you can look at it and confront to prove just how crazy it is, then... But you're not doing that.
00:03:57.000 Well, no.
00:03:58.000 Look, we're making it available on DVD, potentially.
00:04:00.000 Yeah, you're not debunking it.
00:04:02.000 No, but how can you debunk what you can't find?
00:04:04.000 Well, all right, now look, maybe a fair partnership would be if you're going to distribute this, then you bankroll a film from Popular Mechanics that debunks it.
00:04:12.000 Why don't you do that?
00:04:12.000 Then I might say, okay, that's fair.
00:04:14.000 We didn't bankroll this film, but if Popular Mechanics put together a film that debunks it, I'd be happy to distribute it.
00:04:20.000 I'm sure they're listening now and they'll like to hear that.
00:04:22.000 But let's get back to the philosophical question of bringing pain into people's lives.
00:04:28.000 Now, you're Jewish.
00:04:29.000 I didn't even know you were Jewish, but you're Jewish, and every Jewish person listening to me right now, when they hear somebody like Ahmadinejad, some nutty Nazi running around Idaho or someplace, say the Holocaust never existed, and they know their grandmother or grandfather was put in an oven and gassed to death, Okay.
00:04:49.000 Okay.
00:04:50.000 That brings pain to them.
00:04:51.000 That brings pain, those words.
00:04:53.000 And it's the same thing on 9-11.
00:04:55.000 The people in my town, Mr. Cuban, do not want loose change playing in the theater or Charlie Sheen narrating it.
00:05:02.000 They believe that this is dishonest.
00:05:04.000 They believe it diverts attention away from the real villains.
00:05:07.000 And they believe it gives fodder to the anti-American kooks all over the world.
00:05:12.000 You know this.
00:05:13.000 Al Jazeera is going to take this, Mr. Cuban, and ram it down the throats of everybody in the world Well, let's qualify here.
00:05:21.000 First of all, it's already been on the Internet, so it's not like they're not already doing that.
00:05:27.000 That's not rationalization.
00:05:28.000 This is just fact.
00:05:29.000 What I'm telling you is, by making this available to whoever wants it, then anybody Anybody can refute it.
00:05:35.000 When you have things that are in the shadows that people can't find and take on mythic proportion, that's what they can take.
00:05:40.000 And they can take innuendo.
00:05:43.000 Once you can see something, you can refute it.
00:05:45.000 The guy in Idaho who's running around this crazy disavowing the Holocaust, I want to know who he is.
00:05:52.000 Because he may cause me pain now by reliving memories and bringing back things I don't want to remember, but he can cause a whole lot more pain if he gets people to believe him.
00:06:00.000 No he can't.
00:06:01.000 He can't cause anybody pain.
00:06:02.000 He can cause a whole lot more pain if he can get people to believe him and follow him.
00:06:05.000 But he can't.
00:06:06.000 He can't right now.
00:06:08.000 He can't right now.
00:06:08.000 No, he can't!
00:06:09.000 He's got no platform.
00:06:11.000 The only way to refute the idiot is with facts.
00:06:13.000 You're wrong.
00:06:14.000 And I am an expert at mass media.
00:06:17.000 There is nobody who knows more about it than I do.
00:06:20.000 You marginalize cranks.
00:06:22.000 You put them in a position where they cannot do any damage.
00:06:26.000 How many shows have you spent on this topic?
00:06:29.000 One.
00:06:30.000 You TV show and the radio show.
00:06:31.000 Yeah, that's it.
00:06:32.000 And the only reason I'm doing it is because you're involved.
00:06:36.000 That's the only reason I'm doing it!
00:06:37.000 No, because you're a powerful guy!
00:06:41.000 You're a powerful guy, and you can get this, and the Al Jazeera's of the world are going to take it and ram it down the throat of ignorant people all over the world, and they're going to say, we didn't do it!
00:06:52.000 Al Qaeda didn't do it!
00:06:53.000 Bush did it!
00:06:55.000 Here's where you're mistaken.
00:06:56.000 Here's where we have a fundamental disagreement.
00:06:59.000 I think you can ramrod ideas without any substantiation a lot easier than you can take something that's right in front of you that everybody has access to and ramrod that down people's throats.
00:07:15.000 This is going to be used by America haters.
00:07:18.000 Hatred and stupidity go hand in hand.
00:07:21.000 And the less facts there are, the easier it is to hate.
00:07:25.000 I want you to rethink this.
00:07:26.000 It's not going to do you any good, or your reputation.
00:07:29.000 And I'll tell you this, and you ought to tell your pal Charlie Sheen.
00:07:31.000 I said this on television last night.
00:07:33.000 I've never met y'all.
00:07:34.000 If Charlie Sheen puts his voice on this, he's through.
00:07:37.000 Well, it's Jones' problem.
00:07:38.000 I mean... It is.
00:07:39.000 Well, believe me, he's finished.
00:07:41.000 Because people will turn away from this, turn away from him, and he'll be marginalized.
00:07:47.000 So, you know, I'm just saying, if you're doing business with him, and you're going to pay him to narrate this deal, you ought to tell him, look, O'Reilly is looking out for you, and he's seeing you through.
00:07:56.000 And I'm looking out for you, too.
00:07:58.000 This does not help you.
00:08:01.000 We distributed a movie called Voices of Iraq.
00:08:03.000 Are you familiar with it at all?
00:08:04.000 Yes.
00:08:04.000 Okay, I made sure, they came to me about two weeks before the presidential election and said, look, we really want to get this out.
00:08:12.000 It really created a scenario where it made Iraq look like Shangri-La.
00:08:15.000 It was funded for the most part by the Republican Party and I made sure it got out.
00:08:19.000 I didn't necessarily agree with all of it.
00:08:21.000 But I'm a firm believer that the facts will set you free, and there's what, facts cure hatred and stupidity.
00:08:28.000 And I'm not going to back away from a topic because it's controversial, when I think more people will be harmed because they can't confront what they can't see.
00:08:37.000 All right, there's a difference between controversial and irresponsible, and I would say that these things are irresponsible.
00:08:42.000 But look, I appreciate you coming on.
00:08:45.000 I'm just saying, you might want to rethink this.
00:08:47.000 There's a lot of pain involved with this kind of a situation, and there's potential for harm to the country.
00:08:53.000 There's a lot more pain that can happen when you can't confront the enemy.
00:08:56.000 All right.
00:08:57.000 And if you want to come on TV next week, you're welcome to do so.
00:09:00.000 If I could schedule it, I'd be happy to.
00:09:02.000 All right.