Glenn Beck: Things of Value
Monday, November 29, 2010 
This is a rush transcript from "Glenn Beck," November 26, 2010. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.
(APPLAUSE)
GLENN BECK, HOST: Hello, America.
If you're anything like me, you spent Thanksgiving eating your face off, and then you — and then you said, no, I can't eat another bite. And then you retired to the other room where you just let your stomach go for a while. And then strangely, about an hour later you're like, is there anything to eat anywhere?
But what else did you do? If your family is still there, I'm going to
— I'm going to — I want you to talk on this show. If you are DVR-ing the show — good. Feel free to pause it and have a conversation about it because that's really what we need to do. We need to have more conversations in this country among the people that we love.
How many of us talk about things that are meaningless? But things are about to change. And we need to lead that change.
I saw a piece of video that I know that everybody — because everyone on the planet has yelled at me and said, "Oh, gee, Glenn, that's Oprah Winfrey. You can't pick on Oprah Winfrey, because those people are really excited about getting new stuff and stuff." I'm like, really?
Watch the audience as they are on Oprah Winfrey and they find out that she's going to do her — I don't know, favorite things show and they're going to get her favorite things. Watch this audience.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
OPRAH WINFREY, TV HOST: It's a brand new totally redesigned 2012 Volkswagen Beetle!
(CHEERS)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BECK: Now, we want a new car. That's cool and everything. But watch.
(VIDEO CLIP)
BECK: OK. Now, it's starting to get spooky. It goes on and on and on. People are down on their knees and they're praising God and everything else.
And I mean, I — look, I never won a car. And I got to believe I'd be going, yes, Oprah, I love you! But it seemed — is it just me? I mean, when nobody here is winning a car.
(LAUGHTER)
BECK: You've won a brand new pencil! Yes. I mean, is it just me? It just seemed over the top.
Here we are on Black Friday. You know, the original Thanksgiving happened on, I think it was December 18th in the 1700s, after our country was founded. And they said, let's have this Thanksgiving. And they said, even harmless recreation shouldn't be done, because we should be falling to our knees and giving thanks to God for everything that we have.
But what we have I think is maybe is leading us — what we have is what we're worshipping now. There are Black Friday camp-outs. Do we have pictures of the Black Friday camp-outs?
There have been couples that are in this tent and they've been there for like a week-and-a-half. They got their stuff. Yes, look at me! I'm going to get stuff!
Apple iPhone lines — I've never understood the Apple iPhone. Here's this — the Apple store in Manhattan, and dopes line up for the new apple iPhone. I mean, you can buy them without camping out in like two weeks. I mean, what's? Really!
What is — what is happening to us? What's happening to us? Do you remember the people that were in Detroit and had the Obama cash? Remember I played this audio for you. Do we have what audio?
Here's the — here's what people in Detroit, they lined up to get free cash. They didn't even know what it was. But listen to the joy in their voice:
(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)
HOST: Why are you here?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: To get some money.
HOST: What kind of money?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Obama money.
HOST: Where is it coming from?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Obama.
HOST: Where did Obama get it?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I don't know, his stash? I don't know. I don't know where he got it from, but he's giving it to us to help us. We love him. That's why we voted for him! Obama! Obama!
(END AUDIO CLIP)
BECK: I don't — gosh, I hope I never worship stuff like that.
You know, Rabbi Lapin was on a couple of weeks ago and we were talking about the story of the Tower of Babel and what binds us. Remember, the Tower of Babel story was about Nimrod, the king, the hunter of men, and he made everybody into bricks. In other words, they weren't stones.
I mean, if you're going to look at — if stones, stones are more like people. Stones can be like this. They're all different. And they're made individually. No two alike.
If you notice — fingerprints, no two alike. Nobody. Even identical twins have different fingerprints. And it's interesting, because our fingerprints, it's our hands. It's what we do. It's what we create. We create with our hands. And they're all different.
But Nimrod wanted to make all of us the same, into bricks. And then he used mortar. If you remember what Rabbi Lapin said, the Hebrew word, really, mortar is materialism. Materialism is what held everybody together as bricks. They're stuff.
Let me show you something that is in "Broke." This is a book that — I mean, you don't need stuff, but you definitely need to run to the store and buy this.
(LAUGHTER)
BECK: I've been saying for a couple of weeks — if you just go stand in the bookstore and you just read the first couple of pages, I can guarantee you that you will buy this book and you will have it on your shelf and you will use it for years to come.
Just in the first couple of pages, the first chapter is "Ancient History, Modern Lessons." And it talks about ancient Rome. We're going to do a show I think next week on ancient Rome and parallels of ancient Rome. They're spooky. We are repeating everything ancient Rome did.
But in the — I think it's on page six, page seven, is in those in the city in ancient Rome got an increasing amount of government hand-outs for their money, a practice that was part of a long-term plan to make people forget about the history. So, they were trying to figure out — they were trying to make people forget about what was going on. And so, they gave the people, particularly in the cities, more money.
According to Gibbon, the guy who wrote "The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire," which was, what, in the 1700s that he wrote, he said, "It was artfully contrived by Augustus that the enjoyment of plenty would make the Romans lose the memory of freedom."
The enjoyment of plenty would make us — would make them forge forget freedom. That's intense. Think about that.
There would be a place, jut give me like five more seconds and then stop and talk about this amongst yourself, with your family. How much did we even know about our own history two years ago? And why?
Why did we not learn it? Why didn't we know? Why didn't we explore?
Why didn't we ask more questions about the Patriot Act? Why didn't we ask more questions about what's really going on with our finances and how can we possibly afford Social Security, Medicare and now, health care and everything else? How come we didn't ask these questions earlier?
Because of our stuff. We were held together by stuff, by entertainment, and I was going to say because of yesterday, food — entertainment and stuff. If we are hungry — and I've told you before that inflation is coming — if we're hungry, what binds us? If we don't have our cable television, if we can't get the latest, you know, game, if we're sleeping outside of the Apple store for the latest iPhone. We're sleeping outside of the Best Buy for what? For entertainment.
But what does the entertainment do? I mean, it keeps us busy and everybody loves entertainment, et cetera, et cetera, but really, it stops us from talking to each other. Do you remember — at least me, when I was a kid, we didn't watch football. We had food. Grandma, whoa, we had food. If she would have been Italian, I'd be a dead man. Have lots of food, entertainment, but we didn't have a lot of stuff.
But what we did have was we talked. I remember the holidays lasting well in to the night all around the kitchen table. We were always sitting, and they were the same stories every year — every single year, the same stories. But we learned about our past. That's important.
Did you do that this Thanksgiving? The weekend is not up yet. Do it. Your children must know their past.
I want to show you this coat, because I learned so much about myself in the last week or so with this coat. And it actually also restored hope in people. This coat, you see here, it says here, "For the wardrobe of Bill Beck by the Varsity Shop, Mount Vernon, Washington."
My father had one suit. One. And he apparently got it at the Varsity Shop. This is my father and this is my sister. I'm not in this picture. But this is my father. And this is our bakery when I was growing up.
And I grew up in a little teeny town called Mount Vernon, Washington. In the 1970s, early 1970s, the town was dying. And my folks saw it coming. The mall moved in to town and my folks saw it coming. They knew, as stores were closing, they knew we had to change.
So, here it is 1972-1973, somewhere in that area, and the bicentennial is coming. We lived in Mount Vernon, named after Mount Vernon, the home of George Washington in Washington state named after George Washington. And there's nothing like this on the West Coast.
And so, they said, you know what, maybe we should make a little colonial town. It'd be kind cool for the bicentennial, and we can make it into a little town. It's a destination. We're going to have to change. It's not going to be — we're not going to have JC Penney, we're not going to have Sears and everything else, but it's going to change but we could bring in specialty shops and we can have gas lamps and everything else.
And so, what they did is we started this little militia. Yes, I've said it, America. Glenn Beck is in a militia.
(LAUGHTER)
BECK: I think there were three at the beginning. And this is my father. This is that coat. I haven't seen this coat probably since 1977. Maybe.
I don't know where it has been. I'll tell you how I found it here in a second. But what I learned from this coat, as it was delivered to my office here in New York just last week was that it's not by happenstance that I'm here.
My folks loved my little hometown. I still do. It's a great, great town. It has weathered — they're still, they are still bricking the streets. And they're now making it in to the town, my folks said, to make it into. Because see, my folks — they didn't win.
And it became very awkward for my family. I mean, you're dressing like this in the Pacific Northwest, they're not real popular. And they could only get a few people to catch the vision of it. Too many people in town at the time were in denial. They said, "Oh, no, the malls are a passing fad." Really? Are they now? And so, they couldn't save the town.
And my folks ended up getting a divorce. And my — our bakery was sold. And — a bakery that had been there since the late 1800s closed. And they never stopped fighting.
And this coat made me realize that I'm my dad. I'm just doing it on a national scale. Not the local scale like my dad and mom did. My mother made this coat by hand. I remember she made the patterns herself. She cut out the patterns and she made the patterns, herself.
So, the second thing I learned from this coat. People are good. People are good. Let me tell you how it found its way to me.
It's the story of a young woman. She was struggling to make ends meet, provide for her family. She had just really gone through a rough divorce. And she was about to lose her house.
Let me show you her story and how it affected me and my family personally. Watch this:
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BECK (voice-over): Like a lot of people across America, this past year, Amanda Zych struggled to stay in her home.
AMANDA ZYCH, FOUND GLENN'S DAD'S COAT AT THRIFT STORE: I have a big mortgage for my house. The house is very much still under water. It's just me, a single mom.
BECK: Making it more the difficult, the 30-year-old from Mountlake Terrace, Washington, is newly divorced and a single mom to a 3-year-old girl named Ella.
ZYCH: It's scary being a single mom and having a big mortgage to pay for.
BECK: Yet, she refused to ask for help from friends and family.
ZYCH: My parents are there ready to help when I need it, but I want to do it on my own.
BECK: Instead, she tapped in her own entrepreneurial spirit, opening up her own online vintage clothing shop.
ZYCH: I look at it as a kind of great form of recycling. I find treasures and able to pass them on to people that really love them. And it just really fulfills me, really my passion in life.
BECK: She often searches the racks of her local Goodwill for unique vintage pieces to sell at her online store.
ZYCH: January 2010 is the first month I actually made any money. Not much. And each month, I've made more. So, I don't know how much I can actually make, but last month, I made over $3,000 profit.
BECK: The site is helping her bring in a little extra cash she needs. But it also helps her do something so much more.
ZYCH: If I found somebody else's personal property at the Goodwill, I would want to return it to them right away. It was someone's personal item that needed to go back to its owner. That's how I looked at it. It's not something to make money off of.
BECK: Recently, she came across something, a custom-made revolutionary war coat. The name tag said read "Bill Beck."
ZYCH: It said on the tag, for the wardrobe of Bill Beck, Mount Vernon, Washington. And I thought who is this Bill Beck fellow that gets coats exclusively made for him. So, I Googled it and Glenn Beck's name pops right up. I called my mom immediately and I said, I think I have Glenn Beck's dad's coat.
BECK: My mom handmade the coat for my dad, sewing a custom made label in the lining and hearts in the swing coattails. I haven't seen this coat since about 1976 or '77.
ZYCH: I saw the hearts embroidered on the inside of the jacket and I thought that it must have been made with love to put the heart on the inside. It was a real special thing.
BECK: My dad and my family dressed up in revolutionary gear. It was to celebrate the bicentennial, but it was also a way to draw attention to the town. It caused a rift in the community and my family took a lot of heat. But my mom and dad stood their ground.
And those ideas have stood the test of time. Apparently, so has the coat.
Amanda says she probably would have gotten $300-$400 for the coat in the online shop, but instead, she chose to send it to me. And I am grateful to her for that. For me, the coat has invaluable memories sewn into it.
ZYCH: I think it's a great story to tell my daughter one day, about how I found this coat, it belonged to somebody famous and returned it to him and added a good deed. And it's a good lesson to share with her.
BECK: When I called Amanda after I received the coat, she wanted no fame or fortune for her kindness. I could tell that she knows she's leading by example. Just as I once looked up to and admired my dad in his custom coat, Ella is looking up to and watching her mom's actions today.
ZYCH: I hope she learns to be selfless and to do things for others without the thought of what happens in return.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BECK: I was on my way home from a doctor's appointment, when I finally got when I finally got Amanda's phone number. I had just received the coat that morning in my office. I have called her up and I had a great conversation with her. It didn't last long. And I hung up.
And I looked at my assistant who was there. And I said, she never ever mentioned the name of her business. She never asked me for a dime. She was just happy I got the coat.
I said, can you ask her if we can put her and her daughter on a plane and bring her to New York. I want you to meet Amanda. Next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(APPLAUSE)
BECK: That is my father's jacket that came, that my mother made for my father when they were trying to save our little hometown of Mount Vernon, Washington, which, by the way, it's a great town. Go visit and see some of the specialty shops and go see a movie in the Lincoln Theater. It's where I saw "Star Wars." It's unbelievable.
That jacket, I haven't seen forever. And Amanda Zych, she found the jacket at a Goodwill store outside of Seattle. And then — hi, by the way. How are you?
ZYCH: Good.
BECK: You are my hero. How did you find the jacket? You went to Goodwill and —
ZYCH: I go to a lot of thrift stores looking for stuff to sell to make money for my — to save my house.
BECK: Somebody actually would have bought that?
ZYCH: I don't know. I don't know.
BECK: I mean, that's crazy.
ZYCH: Yes.
BECK: When you wrote — you called your mom and said, I think I have Glenn Beck's dad jacket, right?
ZYCH: Yes.
BECK: And your mom, did she think you did or not?
ZYCH: She said well, you should probably contact, but she kind of didn't believe me, I don't think.
BECK: Yes.
And we get just my radio show address gets 5,000 e-mails every single day. And we read them all.
And this one actually came to me. It was forwarded up to me. And a guy walks in to my office that morning and he said, "Is this your father's jacket?" Just out of the blue. And I went oh, my gosh! Let me see that. Yes, I think it is!
And what I said to him, he told me the story that you had found it and you just wanted to know if it was — you were running a vintage clothing store. And I said, oh, boy, this is going to hurt. Ask her how much.
And I just figured somebody is just going to take and just, especially in Seattle, the odds are very high that you would hate me.
(LAUGHTER)
BECK: And just bleed me dry. And then two days later, the coat shows up. And I said, what did we pay for it? What did she charge? They said nothing. Why?
ZYCH: Well, it belonged to you. Well, I thought it did. So, I thought it should go back to its owner.
BECK: And you started this because you just went through a really hard divorce.
ZYCH: Yes.
BECK: And the banker told you basically about 80 percent of the people that are in your situation will lose their house.
ZYCH: Yes.
BECK: And you decided not to be a victim.
ZYCH: Trying, very hard.
BECK: Right. How is business? Hang on a second. Where is it? Let me —
ZYCH: Oh, my goodness.
BECK: How's business?
(LAUGHTER)
ZYCH: Good.
BECK: Is it? What could you find here?
(LAUGHTER)
ZYCH: Oh, I have about 1,000 things for sale right now.
BECK: A thousand things that are like really, really great bargains! And well-cared for and wonderful stuff.
ZYCH: Oh, my goodness.
BECK: Please go here. Please. Please. What are you watching the show for? Go here.
(LAUGHTER)
BECK: Here is a woman — do you hate her child? Is that what it is? You want her baby girl — you should see Ella. She is so cute. Do you want her not to have food? Is that what it is?
She can eat if you go here. And buy stuff. I know this whole show is about don't buy stuff, but —
(LAUGHTER)
BECK: This isn't working out well for me. OK. OK. Don't buy other stuff. Just buy this stuff.
ZYCH: There we go.
BECK: So you now have this business online. And it is — you still have another job. This is your second job.
ZYCH: Second job.
BECK: And you work for —
ZYCH: The local health department.
BECK: Which is a lot of fun.
ZYCH: Yes.
BECK: Yes.
ZYCH: Yes.
BECK: It could be worse. You could work for the TSA.
ZYCH: Yes.
BECK: Yes.
(LAUGHTER)
BECK: Which is strangely becoming almost the same thing.
So, what do you do from here? Where do you — what — is this — is this shop something that you think, I'm really — this is me, or is this a steppingstone?
ZYCH: I love my shop. I love vintage clothing. It's my passion. I'm excited to have found it.
It's a great — I'm happy right now. Really happy. Divorce is over.
BECK: Did you think that that was possible a couple of years ago?
ZYCH: No. About a year ago, no.
BECK: Yes.
America — first of all, I'm grateful for you. I am grateful for that jacket. I can't tell you what it means to me. And I'm grateful for your example that people who just want to do the right thing still do it. There are still decent people.
And I'm grateful for your example of someone who wasn't going to live off the backs of somebody else. You reached inside yourself and you did it. You're a hero. I don't know if you know that. You're a hero.
And hopefully, you'll be able to burn this show to a DVD and when your daughter is old enough, you can play it. And, Ella, be like your mom. She's a hero.
— Watch "Glenn Beck" weekdays at 5 p.m. ET on Fox News Channel
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