'Glenn Beck': This Is Recovery Summer?

This is a rush transcript from "Glenn Beck," August 12, 2010. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

GLENN BECK, HOST: We are in an amazing and historic place and time in our country. We are in a time where we have to be better than who we were yesterday. And, man, that's hard. That is hard to do.

I would ask that you join me here every night and we help each other out, because we're in for tough times and I want to talk to you tonight about where we're headed. And I hope I'm wrong.

But there are a couple of things that came out of the news in the last couple of weeks that are connecting for me in my head and it makes me a little nervous.

Let's start in Atlanta: There was quite an amazing scene just outside of Atlanta yesterday, in the small suburb that is just, it's called East Point. Well, news spread that applications for Section 8 government housing were being accepted — applications.

Now, 40,000 people live in this little area. Thirty thousand of them showed up into a parking lot in the sweltering heat, hoping — get this — for a chance at getting on a waiting list for federal help paying the rent.

Dozens were treated for heat-related issues. The crowd often broke in chaos. The media reported that it was the police who acted aggressively. Who even knows anymore? A toddler reportedly had some sort of seizure.

In all, they handed out 13,000 applications. The prize: Again, a chance to get on a waiting list for 455 Section 8 homes. This is just to get on a waiting list for homes that aren't even available yet.

I saw that and I thought, how — how bleak must your future seem to you if you actually think the best option is to go wait in line to get an application to be on a waiting list for housing that will not be available for years? Do this many people really believe their situation will not improve enough in the next few years to be able to afford their own place? And isn't that kind of mentality a self-fulfilling prophecy?

OK. So, I see this disturbing news. And I see how many people are — have lost hope, have lost hope. I see the rest of the economic news. And none of it looks rosy, doesn't look very positive.

First, you have unemployment. Unemployment remains high at 9.6 percent.

The Fed is downgrading the U.S. economic outlook and the Fed — after Ben Bernanke said he would never do it — is now monetizing our debt, monetizing our debt, buying our own debt — very bad.

Next, we just spent another $26.1 billion in new bailouts.

Jobless claims unexpectedly rose to the highest level in six months.

In July, we added $165 billion to the deficit that is already over $1 trillion.

You have all of those. So, now, what does the president come out and say yesterday?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: While we have fought back from the worst of this recession, we've still got a lot of work to do.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BECK: OK. I agree with him. We have a lot of work to do. But we fought back from the worst? Did he see the scenes in Atlanta? I'm not economic expert, but I am a thinker. That doesn't make sense.

I'm not an expert on war, but I am a thinker.

Do you remember when the president, George W. Bush, when the president was on that ship and he said, "Mission Accomplished." Do you remember this? And how the media went crazy — they're still going after him.

Now, back in June, the president launched the Recovery Summer. May I ask how this is any different, besides the fact that they didn't make a big stupid sign to hang behind him? Where is the media? What he is saying doesn't match reality on the ground. So, why is he saying it?

Now, Bush claimed that "Mission Accomplished" was there because the ship had accomplished their mission — not that the war was over, but that ship had accomplished their mission.

But why is he saying this?

Let me do something tonight that I'm am not going to get any credit for and I don't really care at this point. But let me assume the best of this president.

If I'm the president of the United States and I have to tell you how bad it is, I tell you. That's why I'm not the president of the United States. The president, most likely, cannot come out and say, wow, are we about to implode. Why? Because then it's a self-fulfilling prophecy. Once the president says something like that, then people start to lose hope and that is when things really start to fall apart.

And there is still hope. The only problem is, is that we have an administration that is constantly telling the American people that they cannot make it without the government. If you vote for the government, they'll pay for your gas. They'll pay for your mortgage. They'll take care of you. We have celebrities like Michael Moore saying you're never going to make it!

They've taught people not to believe in themselves anymore — but hope in the government.

The people outside of Atlanta have seen to given up on the idea of what makes America great. That if you put your nose to the grindstone and you plug away, tomorrow will be better. They've put hope here.

May I contend we don't need hope? We need faith. Faith is what we need — faith in being able to use our God-given abilities; faith to be able to call down miracles; faith to expect that things will get better.

I told you, what was it, three years ago I think, on radio, I said you have to read up on the Weimar Republic. Read up on the Weimar Republic.

Now, I had a guy who I referred to on radio as "Deep Throat," a guy who is in all the meetings and when he saw the debt and the wall that was coming our way, and he told me about this time is when it was coming.

He said, "Everybody is reading, Glenn, everybody I know is reading on the Weimar Republic. Read up on it." Well, I did. But I didn't just read up on hyper-inflation. I read up on the whole thing. And we are mirroring almost every mistake that they made that eventually led to hyper-inflation, a breakdown of society and eventually, totalitarianism.

In Weimar, once the average middle-class person realized it didn't matter what they did, it didn't matter, they'll never get ahead — and this is what you're seeing now in Atlanta, on the lower class. It doesn't matter what they do. They'll take out Section 8 housing two years from now because they know they'll never get ahead.

When that moved in Germany from the lower-class to the middle-class, the middle-class lost hope. Then they decided they could wrack up any bill because it was falling apart anyway. They could drink, they could act, they can do whatever they wanted because nothing mattered. They lost hope.

And when people lose hope, they let loose. Morals in the Weimar Republic went out the window. It was a free-for-all.

The attitude was evidenced by the "Weimar Cabaret." I don't remember this movie expect I remember — I remember it being very, very popular. I think there was a famous song from it in 1972. I was still, what, I was 8 years old when this came out. So, I've never seen it. I got to watch it now, because this is based on the Weimar-era cabaret.

Clubs and shows in Germany degraded into mostly overtly sexually performances. Prostitution in Germany was decriminalized. Why? Because the government knew just opiate the masses. They started to say take drugs, you can drink, everything is fine, do it all — because they wanted people to forget and keep themselves busy.

Now, put yourself in this time period. My grandfather wouldn't even say the word "pregnant" in the 1970s. I remember my grandfather saying, "Hey, hey, ladies, let's not use that word here." What?

But he came from a time when Ricky and Lucy had to sleep in separate beds. We didn't even talk about it. This is decades — this was decades before Elvis shook his hips and that was considered dirty. This was a total and complete breakdown of society, because of a magic mixture here of several things that we are starting to mirror. But the key was the average person felt hopeless.

How did that happen?

Well, the first thing that happened was they had to destroy faith in Germany. Well, they didn't have to — they just did.

Back in World War I, the churches had become a political organ. The government — the government just went in and they told everybody that, "Oh, God is saying that you got to go fight World War I. And God is saying that we're going to be the victors." So, when it ended and everybody — it's tragic — the church had no credibility because they had merged the church and state into one political organ — German Christian movement.

So, people lost faith. They didn't believe it anymore. And then they moved in to just sexuality of epic proportions, hedonism, free expression — they were actively encouraged. Everything became cool except being moral. And a lot of it was packaged in women's rights. That's how they legalized prostitution: Women have a right to do that.

And then in cabaret, they started to openly mock religion, faith — everything. Everything that society once had considered moral, it had been mocked. It was the time of "eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow we may all die."

Another story that came up recently that I read and I have been holding it because it bothered me and until I saw the Atlanta story, I have didn't know how I was going to share it with you. I was reminded of the "Weimar Cabaret" when I read a review from a Seattle paper of a theater show written by two — I think two women in Seattle. The show was mocking religion, Tea Party-goers, me — really everything, everything.

And I read this review. And here's how the reviewer summed up my
character: "The prophet" — because they're making fun of me and my religious views — "The prophet Glenn Beck withdrew from public life as a TV soldier to the upper reaches of an empty high-rise." He then continued: "While cackling with glee as Beck wept —" this is the this is the guy who was reporter on this — "cackling with glee as Beck wept, I worried briefly that this was Weimar cabaret and laughter at his neurotic displays might come to seem in retrospect ill-advised."

Maybe I'm wrong and I hope I am. But I have to tell you, my track record of direction has been really pretty good in the last five years.

I'm asking you as a nation, as a citizen: Look at the facts and see the direction we're headed.

I showed you the economic news at the beginning of the program. I started with a plane crash. A state rep says I wish Sarah Palin would have died. Have you heard of that, really? Where's the outrage? Where's the shame? The shame?

When you look at the economic news, isn't it at least worth considering what we've been talking about here? When I'm proven wrong, when Obama spends us to safety, that all of the shows making fun of me continually, I will make fun of me, too. It will be a happy time. I'll go away.

But no other time in the history of this planet does bigger and bigger government end well — when it is coupled with the perversion of faith, elites and elite scientists. I mean, remember, Weimar was heyday of science. Eugenics — science was critical to Germans at this period — and then commerce and financial struggle.

When these are coupled with bigger and growing government, it's trouble. It doesn't work. It doesn't ever work. Trouble.

Now, I've seen the news. And I'm going to give the president the benefit of the doubt. He can't say these things to you. But I can. But I don't know other than that, I don't know how he can sit there and say the worst is behind us.

Maybe it's just because he doesn't think it will get worse than 30,000 people out of a town of 40,000, going to a parking lot, standing in a line for a waiting list for 445 government-subsidized houses two years down the road. It doesn't get much worse than pure hopelessness.

And people, I fear, are becoming more and more hopeless. Don't. Check yourself.

I read in The Wall Street Journal the other day about a 52-year-old mechanic named Michael Hatchell. He said that he turned down more than a dozen offers while he was unemployed for 59 weeks. He chose to take the government handout. People are choosing to be dependent on the government — over picking themselves up and taking less and resetting and starting all over again.

Is that hopelessness? Is that dependency? Is that the lack of faith? Or is it the beginning of "eat, drink, and be merry for tomorrow we may all die"?

Mortgage bailouts, teacher bailouts, financial bailouts, insurance bailouts, auto bailouts, extended unemployment for 99 weeks, more welfare, more food stamps — where does it end?

I mean, look, I understand people fall on hard times. We have these time periods. They always come. People fall on hard times.

But the more we don't let people fail or the people who have done things wrong, the more we don't let them face the consequence of their own action, the more we make them dependent and the more risky behavior becomes. The more we rob a man of his spirit and his pride — the more trouble we're in.

I want you watch for three things. I want you to watch for hopelessness — misplaced hope in government. Misplaced hope.

I want you to watch for perversion of faith. We've talked about it on the program. It is social justice and collective salvation.

And then I want you to watch for the possibility of deflation into hyper-inflation, the selling and buying of our own bonds. That, too, was done in Weimar.

That's why you have to understand these things. I know that you are busy. I know that the last thing you need is homework from me. But you must educate yourself.

If we don't know history, we won't be able to predict the future. And I'm telling you — I'm telling you, we are repeating many of the same mistakes.

This generation of Americans — heck, the last generation of Americans — don't know what hyper-inflation even means — like they did in Weimar. We can't understand it. What was it possibly like?

Well, let me tell you something. Here's what happened: Germany was ordered to pay for reparations after World War I. They didn't have the money. They begged people: Don't make us pay this. So, they decided instead to print it all. Well, when they did that, hyper-inflation eventually kicked in. The money inflated so fast that it was almost instantly worthless. People would literally get paid at work. They would pull a big like Brink's truck up to the office and they would pay you in cash. People would go out and buy things and then return to work. Two, three, four hours later, they would pay you again and you would go out, because the prices would rise.

One German writer told a story of two women carrying laundry baskets filled with bank notes. A crowd gathered around the store window. They put down baskets full of money to go look. When they came back, the bank notes, the money was still there but the baskets were gone.

Another German recounts that he stopped in to a cafe for a cup of coffee. He sat down and noticed the price was 5,000 marks. He sat down, grabbed a paper, drank his coffee, sat there for about an hour reading the paper. When he went to pay the bill, the coffee was now 8,000 marks because the mark had lost that much value in an hour.

This — these are bank notes. These are stamps from the Weimar Republic. They put them on the dollars, the marks because the paper wasn't even worth anything. They started doing this. Then they just started rubber stamping them.

One more story on this: An American went over to Germany and he left a dollar tip at a restaurant. It was such a staggering amount to a German waiter that the waiter actually took that dollar home, called a family meeting together to figure out what is the best thing we can do to invest this dollar.

America, the economic laws do not stop at our shore. We are not immune from hyper-inflation or deflation. It's coming. But in our arrogance we must think that we're immune, because we are mirroring the Weimar Republic by monetizing our debt and continuing to spend when we can't afford it.

These three paintings over here — these three paintings I painted about a year ago. I painted them for a reason and I didn't even know at the time, but they're making more and more sense to me every day.

Faith. Faith, our faith, your faith must be restored. Without a strong sense of right and wrong, that that comes from God, we will spiral quickly.

We will — they are already legalizing drugs in California like they did in Weimar. Are you telling me that our society is getting better?

Two: hope. Not false hope, the truth. And the truth is you can make it. Things will get better. You don't need, two years down the road, Section 8 housing. You can succeed!

And three: charity — not from the government, but through ourselves, our neighbors, our churches, our synagogues. We need to pick each other up and be prepared to support one another. That's what Americans do best.

We must have our hearts filled with faith, hope and charity.

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