Glenn and Stu talk about how things have changed in a short amount of time, and how the other side has changed too. They also talk about the alternative spellings discovered by Al Sharpton of Aretha Franklin songs, and Giancarlo Sopo.
00:21:04.080Like sometimes you're living in a world where you don't get what you want.
00:21:07.220But are you acting in the way that you believe is the right way?
00:21:10.020Or are you acting in a way that you believe is improper?
00:21:14.820And I think constantly because we feel and correctly feel, by the way, that we've been victims of a double standard over a very long period of time.
00:21:22.480We justify behavior we wouldn't normally justify.
00:21:26.080Because we feel like, well, we've been wrong, so therefore we can do wrong.
00:21:30.840And that's not a good way of going through life.
00:24:16.460I've said this for years, that I think this audience would be the audience that can turn this around, save the nation in the end.
00:24:23.300And when America decides to do a 12-step program, when they decide to admit that they have a problem, not that others have a problem, that we have a problem, we'll be taking our first step towards recovery and being the people that we are.
00:24:45.260The serenity prayer, the serenity prayer, every alcoholic knows it.
00:24:52.280God, give me the grace to accept with serenity the things that cannot be changed.
00:26:11.780Because it requires you to just focus on you and nothing else.
00:26:18.800And while we are egomaniacs, we're self-loathing egomaniacs.
00:26:23.340So nobody really wants to do, look, if you really start to look into yourself and you really start to say, maybe I have a problem here.
00:26:32.600Maybe I'm causing some of my own stress and, you know, I don't need to be outraged by all of this because I'm not going to change that person who I love, like, was friends with, co-workers with.
00:27:37.520Give me the grace to accept with serenity the things that cannot be changed, the courage to change the things which should be changed, and the wisdom to know one from another.
00:28:26.500You're not going to get him to admit anything.
00:28:28.540You're not going to get him to change his ways or see the light or anything else.
00:28:32.900If he decides, you know, I don't like my life right now, and I think he loves his life, I don't like my life right now, I've got to change.
00:29:02.060One man has changed people's positions, their viewpoint, not based on facts or an argument, just because of the fight.
00:29:15.360One man has changed probably 90% of the American people, fundamentally, at the core, they've changed.
00:29:27.940I don't think that's something to be proud of.
00:29:33.800You can't change people, but people can certainly change you if you allow them to.
00:29:41.200This is the best of a Glenn Beck program.
00:29:52.880John Carlos Sopo is a public affairs director on Latin America, and he's a Democrat.
00:30:01.140And he was on with us last week, I think, or two weeks ago, and I had him on because he's taking a very strong stand against Democratic Socialism.
00:30:13.240And we don't necessarily agree on policies.
00:31:56.520You know, what it says to me is that I think most people have no earthly idea of what socialism is, because that same poll also showed that 92 percent of Americans support small businesses.
00:32:08.880Eighty-six percent have a positive view of entrepreneurs, and 79 percent of Americans said that they support the free enterprise system.
00:32:15.860So what that means to me is that most Americans, when you ask them about socialism, they are, like you said earlier, they have some fairytale-like concoction in their mind of Scandinavia, when in reality that's not what socialism is.
00:32:30.460That's not what the democratic socialists of America are proposing.
00:32:33.220And I believe that this level of disinformation is dangerous to the American people, because I strongly believe that there is a significant constituency.
00:32:44.640I think the vast majority of Democrats, if you just speak to them on a regular level, they just want better access to health care and things like that.
00:32:51.580But there is a small but growing minority that wants to go much farther than what they have in, say, Denmark.
00:32:59.280They would like to actually socialize the economy.
00:33:02.240They want to abolish private ownership of enterprise.
00:33:05.880I think that's dangerous, and it looks absolutely nothing like the kind of system that they have in Scandinavia.
00:33:12.520I checked with a dozen Norwegian economists, 11 of which said, no, these views are fringe, including by our standards.
00:33:20.200I mean, the Scandinavian countries, in some cases, are more free than we are at this point.
00:33:27.600I mean, the capitalist system, they just take more in taxes and then give more out.
00:33:34.780But the actual business is not regulated like it is here.
00:33:41.160Yeah, it's probably easier to start a business in Copenhagen than in California now.
00:33:47.560Yeah, I mean, those countries are incredibly free, even by conservative estimates and conservative rankings and libertarian rankings.
00:33:56.860Countries like Denmark performing incredibly well, according to the World Bank.
00:34:01.960You know, Denmark and Norway and Sweden are some of the freest economies in the world and easiest places to start a business.
00:34:08.020Some of them even outrank the United States.
00:34:10.200And not only those countries, but also we're talking about Canada and the U.K. as well.
00:34:13.700So I think there is a very tremendous misconception in the United States as to what democratic socialism is and what it is not.
00:34:23.000The words might be phonetically similar, but social democracy and democratic socialism are not the same thing.
00:34:30.980They're like distant cousins that at one point were much closer aligned.
00:34:35.340But after World War II, they started moving in different directions, particularly at the height of the Cold War, where the social democrats said, this is not what we want.
00:34:43.740And we want to move in a different direction.
00:35:06.260He was only doing that because he's in the race for his life and he had to come out and say, hey, I'm I'm socialist, too.
00:35:15.120Do you see anybody standing against the democratic socialist in the Democratic Party really taking a principled American constitutional stand?
00:35:25.620I think what most Democrats might speak with and whom I, you know, I pay attention to, they kind of they're like trying to weather out the storm.
00:35:35.820And then you have a small group that I believe is trying to utilize this momentum as an opportunity to increase their power.
00:35:44.500I remember why I didn't see it personally, obviously, but President Kennedy's inaugural address where he warrants developing countries around the world not to ride the back of the tiger or else they're going to end up inside.
00:35:57.440And I believe that if we continue fueling this rise of democratic socialism, the Democratic Party is going to go from being what's historically been a center left party with maybe a socialist wing to being a socialist party with then with a centrist wing.
00:36:13.080And I believe that's dangerous for the country and it's moving in the wrong direction.
00:36:18.580You don't think that that's already happened?
00:36:21.440I mean, you know, watching I think the I think the last 12 years have been pretty remarkable on how far left the Democrats have moved.
00:36:36.160Yeah, I think on some issues, I believe, for example, this rise of intersectional intersectional.
00:36:42.440Intersectional identity politics, I think, is dangerous.
00:36:45.440I believe in that this knee jerk reaction to thinking that the first problem, the first solution to any problem is to say, well, let's get the federal government involved.
00:36:54.280I think that's that's not that's not a wise decision.
00:36:57.480So I think in some regards, yes, in some regards, in other ways, I think more like on social policies, you know, on some economic policies, they've moved more to the left.
00:37:08.420On others, they've kind of stayed where they've been historically.
00:37:11.240What I'm worried about is the silence.
00:37:12.920And I think more people need to speak up about this.
00:37:56.740But it's nothing compared to what people in places like Venezuela are going through on a daily basis who have to live under this system, which is absolutely terrible.
00:38:24.180When you take a democratic socialist to Disney, their first reaction is to start hurling accusations of racism and inequality and so forth.
00:38:33.120I mean, I don't understand in what version of the universe these people live in.
00:38:39.080But it's you cannot give them an inch.
00:38:41.980That's what I'm absolutely convinced of.
00:38:43.400And I believe it's shameful that the party of Kennedy, the party of Truman.
00:38:48.400I mean, how did how did we go from being the party of Jack Kennedy and Frank Sinatra to being the party of Bernie Sanders and some guy now who's going out there saying that America has never been a great country?
00:42:06.480I talked to one of my friends last night and he was in tears and basically said, if you're going to say something, make sure the audience in the United States knows that this oil rich country is starving.
00:42:20.740Families are eating out of the garbage can.
00:42:35.100How did how did the country go from a country very much like the United States, very, very wealthy to a country now that literally they have eaten the animals in the zoo?
00:42:49.380Yes, well, I have to tell you this, I grew up with a mother that told us that we were fish of a tank.
00:43:00.720And if she's if my parents stopped feeding us, we would perish.
00:43:05.520And whenever we drove by the poor neighborhoods that used to be 80 percent of the population or approximately that percentage and now it's even more.
00:43:21.160She actually told us that they were fish of the ocean and that the fish of the ocean knew how to survive if they were not fed.
00:43:29.500So I grew up with a deep admiration for the poor.
00:43:38.100When I was at Harvard, I realized that at the business school, they were trying to teach like creativity, like teamwork.
00:43:45.900And at the same time, I was conducting clinical projects on participation in Venezuela.
00:43:51.360And I saw how the leaders of these low income communities have developed all these skills that you have to develop when you lack resources.
00:44:00.960And yet they were not allowed to participate.
00:44:04.820So it is a very volatile situation when you have the majorities, the majorities, even during the 40 years of democracy in Venezuela where disenfranchised, that is not sustainable.
00:44:19.260I remember every time we were going to the university, I studied with my brother-in-law.
00:44:23.300And when we were going to the university, like you have to drive through like a lot of like poor neighborhoods.
00:44:30.400And I said to him over and over again, every morning, this only needs one leader, one leader to mobilize this massive social injustice.
00:44:39.700And sure enough, in my second year or third year of law school, Chavez attacked the presidential palace with a tank.
00:45:47.400Like, um, I have been working for the past 20 years with other countries in the regions precisely to try to, um, address this mindset that always look for like a, a savior, like a, a, a, a, this called a caudillo, like a strong man, um, that is supposed to like help them and liberate them.
00:46:06.260Like, so in the past it was Simon Bolivar and, um, and, um, right now, well, like recently it was Chavez and it's so much to the point that Chavez is dead and Venezuelans still scream Chavez is alive.
00:46:19.140So they don't see him, they don't see him any differently than, you know, Sean Penn in Hollywood.
00:46:24.980They don't see him as the beginning of the problem.
00:46:27.680Yeah, no, and, um, to, to, to be, um, complete honest, my main concern with Venezuela is not even what's going on right now.
00:46:38.000And not just Venezuela, the entire region is that, uh, the Chavez regime, um, has called like, uh, their regime a participatory and protagonistic, uh, democracy.
00:46:48.740And if it, in which like one person is the one that makes their decisions, that actually breeds corruption, abuse, um, massive exclusion.
00:46:59.660It's like having a solo instrument playing, um, the world has not seen like what Latin America could look like when every person is allowed to participate, including the fish of the ocean, um, so that we would move.
00:47:13.820So right now, Latin America has moved historically from a solo instrument, uh, leader to, uh, massive revolutions.
00:47:22.360So all the instruments playing at the same time, producing noise, um, it is about time to have a very different type of leadership, a participatory leader that really like the maestro of an orchestra is able to not just play like a solo instrument, but be the conductor of the orchestra
00:47:41.120and allowed every instrument to participate so that we can move from, from noise to music.
00:47:46.940The world is not going in that direction.
00:47:48.920I mean, nobody, nobody is headed in that direction.
00:47:53.240Well, actually, um, Glenn, we did, um, um, you are absolutely right.
00:47:58.700And that is the very reason why I became a law professor in the United States.
00:48:03.180I used to represent 11,000 students in Venezuela.
00:48:07.100So if I was there right now, I would have been killed or incarcerated.
00:48:11.300Um, and I, uh, I, I thought, and I, and I, I, I thought, and I saw how participation could be done.
00:48:20.380And, um, when, if you have the channels and you develop the skill to participate, and we did it, um, in Brazil.
00:48:29.000So I became a law professor to be able to prove to the world that it could be done.
00:48:35.140And in Brazil, like you can, anyone can go and Google it.
00:48:39.360Um, we actually, um, uh, uh, were given an opportunity at St. Thomas to, with, uh, two experts in civil procedure.
00:48:48.720They were, um, going to, um, pass a law and, um, they decided that they wanted to be more participatory.
00:48:55.960And, um, we, uh, selected leaders, um, well, Brazilians selected leaders from seven sectors of society, from business leaders, low-income community leaders, the legal field, the judicial sector, the nonprofit sector.
00:49:12.020And, um, they built consensus, uh, three times, uh, first per sector and then at a national level regarding what was the, the preferred option to resolve their disputes.
00:49:24.580Um, and, um, it was very interesting because it took, like, uh, six months to train the mediators.
00:49:30.560And then the mediators trained the leaders, um, and then the structures were put into place.
00:49:35.580And, uh, the, the main difference, um, was, um, how, um, they were given a, uh, a seat at the table, but they were also trained in how to participate rather than just persuade others.
00:49:49.560Basically, the, the main difference on participation was, is that the final agreement has to have the flavor of all stakeholders.
00:50:03.760This is, uh, basic, uh, uh, consensus building, um, from MIT, uh, Larry Susskind, and it has been done.
00:50:12.080Uh, and it's called collaborative governance when citizens can participate at the local level, we did it at the national level just to prove it could be done.
00:50:20.260And in Brazil, that is the fifth largest country in the world.
00:50:22.900Um, so if, if, if the, if the stakeholders, if the leaders, um, learn the skills and the structures are created, it, well, it's called, uh, building the Latin America that we want you in SSRN.
00:50:37.960Um, and anybody can, um, can access it.
00:50:42.460It's, it's free, it's online, and they can see what we have done.
00:50:45.480Um, the mediators in Brazil are still there.
00:50:47.940They are alive and they, um, they could lead.
00:50:51.600We work it together and just to demonstrate that it could be done, but you need to have, and, uh, you need to have representative democracies.
00:50:59.900And this will supplement the representative democracy so that, that right now, as you said, Latin America look at heroes, right?
00:51:07.720And when it look at here, when they look at hero, heroes, they basically gave them like, uh, um, uh, blank check, you know, so that they can do whatever with their mandate.
00:51:18.800So, well, this is like a way to supplement representative democracies with consensus building so that when they have the mandate, they have like an organized civic society that would limit the political power.
00:51:32.620So, Mariana, um, let me take you back here to Venezuela.
00:51:51.080Well, I mean, I haven't, I, I, I don't live there since like, uh, 1998, but I do have, uh, I do, I, I do know like, uh, many, um, Venezuelan, um, students and, uh, members actually of the, of the national assembly.
00:52:06.520Like most recently, like there were like, uh, two brothers, like that were incarcerated.
00:52:12.680And one of them was actually a member of Congress and was incarcerated for giving a speech that I would have given.
00:52:21.740Um, so you can basically not speak up or you are in jail and they are like two legislative bodies right now, two Supreme courts.
00:52:30.340There is a Supreme court that actually is operating from, um, Columbia and they, um, and no news.
00:52:37.960I mean, the, the most desperate part about all this, Glenn, is that none of this is covering the media.
00:52:44.840You know, it's like there is a Venezuelan Supreme court that is operating in, in Columbia and they sentenced the Venezuelan government to 18 years and three months.
00:52:58.660You know, daddy's not heard of the best of the Glenn Beck program.
00:53:11.500I'm going to go take Steve in New York, uh, who's been holding for a while on the topic of the Catholic church and what's happening, um, with the, uh, with the church and the massive scandal in Pennsylvania.
00:53:28.660Well, um, I'm a lifelong Catholic and I've seen this a long time.
00:53:33.780I've been exposed to this for a long time and, um, my heart is broken, but I've despaired even further because I don't, I haven't seen them addressing one of the worst problems in the Catholic church.
00:53:48.500And that's the specific incidents of homosexual pedophilia.
00:53:55.060That is, of course, a very politically incorrect topic to bring up.
00:54:01.080Yeah, I was going to say, I saw a lot of people saying that there is no such thing as homosexual pedophilia, but, uh, I mean, I, I think there is, they were abusing, in some cases, small number, uh, of girls were abused, but the vast majority was, was boys.
00:54:17.200Now, maybe that's just access or, you know, I mean, you're sick either way, so it doesn't matter.
00:54:23.540But, uh, the, the, the problem here is, is there is some, there is some real sickness in the, uh, in the way the, the priests, I don't know, are selected or live or what.
00:54:38.140The, the, the culture is obviously very, very bad.
00:54:41.600Well, I am so glad that you mentioned that because that's really what I want to talk about.
00:54:46.040Uh, there's an excellent book on this subject written by Michael Rose called Goodbye, Good Men.
00:54:53.080And he is, it's a very, very knowledgeable and, and deeply researched book.