Glenn Beck: 5 Stages of Grief

This is a rush transcript from "Glenn Beck," November 23, 2010. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

GLENN BECK, HOST: That's right. Welcome to "The Glenn Beck Program."

The TSA's enhanced security procedure — this story won't go away and there is something not right with this story. I told you before there's a lot of misinformation put out there. We're trying to watch the story, but we're also watching what the other hand is doing.

I came across — where's my USA Today, is it over here? I came across this story in USA Today this morning. And it explains so very much. Here it is: "A Message to the Flying Public" and it's defending the TSA workers.

I've told you on this program, they are not the enemy. You think they really want to have their hand in some sweaty guy's crotch? I don't think so.

Here it is — it's signed by — who took out this ad? The American Federation of Government Employees, AFL-CIO. Hmm. Now, why would the AFL-CIO — oh, wait a minute, hang on just a second. Didn't the government just say that they can now unionize the TSA?

So, Richard Trumka and the AFL-CIO are now on the front line to represent the TSA, these poor disgruntled workers who are being abused by people, you know, just flying home.

Could this really all be just nothing more than about the unions? No! That would be impossible, wouldn't it?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: Just imagine what we could do together. Just imagine what we could do together. Imagine having a president whose life work was your work.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

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(APPLAUSE)

BECK: Yes! How come they're applauding and the "applause" light wasn't lit? Yes. And I thought this audience was stupid. That's what everybody says about this show.

Hello, America.

I just want to tell you, thank you so much for being here. It is going to be an interesting, interesting program. We're going to show you that acceptance is the place to be. And that is different — as we were having a conversation in the audience before we went on today — that is different than OK, well, I guess this is the way it's going to have to be. No, no. Don't miss a second of the show.

Warning: The president does have to make a statement today. And what a surprise. He picks this hour to do it in again. Huh.

All right, let's talk a little bit about what he's going to talk about, because there are some real problems around the globe today. If things around the globe weren't swell enough, the world got another kick in the butt today. North Korea and South Korea are now shooting at each other. This is the first time that they have clashed like this since the 1950s, but not the first time they've clashed.

Back in March, South Korean warship was sunk. Last January, North Korea fired some shells that landed in the water over a maritime border. But this one is considered more serious. I mean, look at the pictures here — the international attention these pictures are drawing now. The images of smoke from the attack are being seen all around the world.

So, why has this happened? Well, I have a few theories. This is the idea that I talked about on my program, what, five years ago? This is one of my — this is one of my longest standing predictions. And I don't know if this is it, but it's going to look something like this.

I said when the perfect storm — when everything was just on the edge, that's when you see the enemies of America say go, now, now, now, now! And they'll take their peace and it will all unravel quickly.

Revelations that North Korea hasn't suspended its nuclear program or ballistic missiles prompted South Korea to make maneuvers that North Korea claimed we're in an act of war. Maybe it's just that because that's what started the shooting.

Like I said, they've had incidents before. But will this one escalate? I don't know. It all depends on China. I believe this will be remembered by historians that the year America, at least at the upper echelons, realized America was no longer the superpower in the world. China is. This makes the globe more unstable.

Japan is on high alert after the attack by the North Koreans. They also announced a couple days ago that their economy has recently entered a lull. Oh, that's good.

Iran's parliament moved to impeach President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad over the weekend. Members of the parliament said their leader is acting without approval of the legislature. It's weird. Almost like — hmm. Their attempt was stopped by orders by the supreme leader Ayatollah Khamenei.

The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are still raging. For Afghanistan, 2010 was the deadliest year on record. We've been going at it for nine years. This was the deadliest year on record. Boy, you sure wouldn't know that by watching the press reports, would you?

Ireland, the markets have tumbled in turmoil, again, uncertainty with the bailout. Investors are now on the edge as Ireland's shaky coalition government veers towards disintegration. Oh, this is good. Protesters took to the streets and broke through the front gate of the Irish prime minister's office in Dublin.

What did we tell you was coming to Europe? Well, these people were upset that Ireland applied for rescue package. The IMF is facing questions now on the proposed Irish bailout. People convinced themselves that when the IMF bailed out Greece, that was going to be the one country and that's it. We told you it wouldn't be. Now, as they get ready to save Ireland, people are saying, wait, wait, wait, when does this end?

News: It doesn't!

Portugal will likely be the next one to fall. Economists say Portugal is past the tipping point but debt interest rates, that's the point of no return. And if Portugal falls, Spain — the poster child for the green economy — will be the next to collapse.

All bets are off, gang.

While the dominoes are falling all over there, here at home isn't really getting any better either. The FDIC says the list of troubled banks rose to 860 from 829 in the previous quarter.

The debt ceiling issue is looming, which is particularly scary, because I don't know if the politicians are more worried about whether they are going to raise the debt ceiling and if that would be good for America, or if they should not raise it, because it would be good for them politically, or vice versa. I don't know. Do we have people of character in Washington anymore?

Then you have the TSA pat downs — you know, the new pat down procedures, have America feeling like they are pushed up against the wall.

Let's take a moment, shall we, to remember what this was originally about. The enhanced pat down was created as an alternate option to the porn scanner. Remember, a few weeks ago, none of us wanted to go through the porn scanner. So, they decided — well, you don't have to do that. We'll pat you down.

Why is it that the TSA has become so incredibly aggressive? You get the porn scanner or you get felt up. May I suggest this is the Overton Window? They will move it so far that the pat downs are so offensive that people will say, are you kidding me? I'll just do the scanner. That's what will happen and we'll all be fine with the porn scanner.

Something is not right here. Something is not right because the TSA and the Department of Homeland Security, as we all know, have enormous power. And now, AFL-CIO is courting them.

The TSA was created after September 11th. And I remember — I'm sure you do — the pushback at the time. People saying that this is going to be the Gestapo, you can't have this kind of power, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. This is the same time that we got the Patriot Act, which has been chastised for being an invasion of privacy — wiretapping and everything else.

The TSA was granting collective bargaining rights to unionize 10 days ago. We now have unions fighting to represent them. Something is not right here, gang. I was on the radio this week and I don't remember what I said to my on-air partner Pat, we were talking about it and I said, you know what, how fast did the Patriot Act? How did they write that? How many pages was that?

I never thought, you know, this is in the innocent days — who wrote the Patriot Act? Because we know who wrote the stimulus act, and that was the Apollo Alliance. We looked it up.

Does anybody here in the audience know who wrote the Patriot Act or when it was written? This will blow your mind. It was written in 1995 — 1995 — including the wiretapping and everything else. America, you know who wrote it? One of the biggest union guys of them all, Joe Biden.

We're on the path to government health care now. Americans didn't want it because we see what's happening in government-run hospitals in the U.K. Patients are literally dying of thirst and they're drinking water from the flower vases. This isn't an old story. This has happened yet again in the U.K. in the last few days.

America has never had hospital where the plants get treated better than the patients. But we soon will. Even the president's appointment to head up Medicare, Donald Berwick, has talked about rationed care. And Paul Krugman came out and said America could face a VAT tax and death panels in the future, but only if we're serious about fixing things.

I thought death panels were a myth that Sarah Palin brought up?

JPMorgan just predicted that the dollar will be the world's weakest currency soon. But don't worry, that's only JPMorgan. And the latest, according to The Financial Times, the U.S. Federal Reserve will slash its growth forecast and predict higher unemployment — hold on just a second. Who predicted this? Oh, the Fed! The Fed is going to predict higher unemployment and lower growth when it releases updated economic projections this week.

But I thought the Fed had all of the answers. I thought they knew that this wouldn't cause unemployment. I thought they knew that this was going to fix everything and there certainly won't be inflation.

Really? How many times are we going to continue to listen to these people? They're wrong every single time.

OK. You look at this and you think that's not a lot of good news. I'm going to — what do you do? Well, there is good news. I remember a couple of years ago, it's probably about four years ago, I was telling my father that, "Dad, these things are coming." And he said, "Glenn, they'll never happen. Stop. This is America."

Yes. I got to the point about a year ago, I couldn't take that phrase anymore — stop telling me, "Oh, it can't happen here. This is America." The laws of physics and economics and everything else don't magically disappear at our border or our shore. Some magic fairy is not going to come in, you know, with the money shooting out of its butt and stop the oceans from rising. It's not.

These problems are real. And we have to face them. We have to prepare for them. Or we can pretend they don't exist and watch it crumble. And then panic and run into the arms of whoever wants to save us there.

Our choice is this: We can become the greatest American generation, even greater than those who lived in the Great Depression, or we can become the last American generation.

I recommend the first choice and it's the one I choose.

Tonight, I'm going to show you the five stages — the five stages of grief. And I want to show you these because to me, this says everything — because all of us are somewhere in this. I was in this really up until about 8.28. And now, I'm here.

Stage one is "denial." And how many friends do you have? Oh, gee, I — nothing is happening. Oh, that's crazy stuff. Really? Did you just hear the opening few minutes? Prove all that wrong. I didn't make that up. That's on the front page of the papers. How can we be in denial? Does that look healthy for our country? The patient is sick.

The next one is "anger." A lot of people were in anger with, well, the Tea Parties. Now, the left — now, the left is angry with Obama. Anger, dangerous.

"Bargaining": I think this is where we were in the 2008 election. There were a lot of people that were bargaining. They were — we all knew that we needed change. We knew this was unsustainable. So, we needed change. That's what we voted for. That's not what we got. We just bargained. We'd listen to anyone, even if they told us nothing. We'd bargained. Please, we just want to keep our job. We want to keep our stuff. We want to keep our country the way it is — except without all the corruption and crap.

Then came "depression." If you remember the show I did on the 9.12 Project, and it's the clip that everybody has made fun of me for it's when, you know, I'm tearing up and I said, "I'm sorry, I just love my country and I fear for it." That has been the butt of jokes for a long, long time. That was depression, not clinical depression. That was depression — I do love my country. And I'm watching my country commit suicide. That's what's happening — and it's depressing. There's a lot of people in country — I didn't know they existed — they don't love the country. They don't have a respect for the Founding Fathers. I do.

I had a hard time going from depression to "acceptance." Now, I'm at acceptance. And that's where you can fix things. Now, I accept where we are and I accept my responsibility as being part of it. I accept what the future could possibly look like.

And then I encourage you to join me in rolling up your sleeves and choosing the future. This is past. What we lived through is past. We write the next chapter. It's not going to be written by George Soros or anybody else. People have to come together. You have to get them out of these other stages and realize that yes, there's our huge mess. We're in a giant mess. We are — we're headed for global change.

Do you remember what global change was like? Do you remember what change was like the last time when we were like, oh, yes, we want change? No, no. Let's design the change.

The people who know this, the people who know this, I just — I just was on an elevator with somebody who said, "My dad is in commodities and he's moving over to Australia," and he said — as the elevators were closing, he said, "And my father said you should really look into natural gas."

Elevators close.

I said, "Natural gas." I looked at my chief researcher Joe and I said, Joe, what did we hear about two weeks ago about natural gas? All the oil companies are buying up the natural gas. Why buy natural gas? Because, what, two days ago or last night, China announced that their cars that they're going to start building in the future are all going to be natural gas.

The people who know get rich. The people who are designing the future can last. But if we stick our head in the sand, if we just want to say, oh, no, nothing is going to change — it's going to change all around us. Somebody else is designing. Somebody else is preparing.

Are you going to be part of that team or are you going to be angry or bargain or, worse yet, be in denial?

We need to figure it out. Lift each other up and help those in need.

Keith Ablow is here. And Keith is a shrink. So, of course, I know him! He's a shrink. And, Keith, help me out on these. Let's take — take me through denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance — but let's do this, because this is normally if somebody dies, right?

DR. KEITH ABLOW, FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR: Dies or is diagnosed with a terrible illness, or loses a job, whatever it might be — a terrible calamity.

BECK: OK. If I am — come down here, yes. If I am — I don't need to explain this. I mean, you guys feel like your country is dying, right? Right?

OK. So, how many here in this audience — is there anybody here that's in denial? Is there anybody here that knows anybody in denial? OK.

We'll start with you — the jacket here. What is your name? You — yes. You, sir. Yes. Tell me, yes.

DANIEL, AUDIENCE MEMBER: Danny.

BECK: Hi, Danny.

DANIEL: There are lots of people I try to talk to and they have no clue what's going on. They don't even know who you are.

BECK: But there's a difference between —

ABLOW: That's real denial.

(LAUGHTER)

ABLOW: I can write a prescription.

(LAUGHTER)

BECK: But I mean, that's not denial. That's just being — I don't know — oblivious.

ABLOW: Well, there is denial where you are ready to fight a little bit and you got your back up and you say, this can't be true.

BECK: Right.

ABLOW: I got this diagnosis. No, it's not reality.

But, really clever people, the form of denial they want you to have is silence. You're not even aware of it. You're not even in touch with the facts. So, you don't have the opportunity. Your psyche doesn't even mount the defense of denial really, that — that loud "No, it can't be." That's at least on the road here of the stages. But if you're quiet and you're like, I've never heard of that.

BECK: Josephine? Way up in the back, right up in the back. Tell me about the person you were in — you were in class with.

JOSEPHINE, AUDIENCE MEMBER: Well, I have been — I teach. And I also was in class with a bunch of people. And they just don't understand what's going on in the world. I was taking — I take certain classes and they just don't get it.

They look at you like you're crazy when you say, you know, that the economy isn't going well or things aren't right. And then you tell them, well, look at the oil prices going up. And they just don't get it. They get all the news, though, from popular shows.

BECK: Yes. You know, I figured this — I figured this recently that what — what better way to keep people sheep than making sure — and I'm part of this — keeping sure — making sure that people get their news from a comedian.

ABLOW: Absolutely.

BECK: I mean, you know, at least I'm giving it in context. I'm trying to make the news entertaining to bring people in. But Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, that's not news. That's monologue. That's jokes.

ABLOW: That's jokes. It's entertainment and it can be a drug.

So drugs keep company with denial, right?

BECK: Right.

ABLOW: You know something about this from your life story —

BECK: Right.

ABLOW: — when you might say, and I know something about your life story.

BECK: Yes.

ABLOW: You might say, I can't be an alcoholic. I don't drink during the day.

BECK: Yes, I did this —

ABLOW: That's denial.

BECK: — I did — I'll pick it up in a second. Hang on. We'll take a break. Back in a minute.

We have to come back.

(APPLAUSE)

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