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- [00:02]
A
Hello there, ladies and gentlemen, I'm John Doyle. If you're listening to this right now, chances are you are someone who is not yet insane in 2025. Congratulations. You are one of 10 people who understands how the world works. Most media today is designed to do exactly that. Make you literally insane, dumber, weaker, more confused. They bait you to click, one might say the John Doyle show, hosted by me. John Doyle does the opposite. This is a place for people who want the truth about America, for Americans. Maybe with a little style, a little playful intolerance of anyone who disagrees with me on literally anything. But frankly, a lot more courage than you'll get elsewhere these days. You're not gonna fall asleep. You're not gonna be lectured. You're gonna be entertained and informed. Also, I'm gonna lecture you and probably yell. But if you want a show that respects your intelligence, that makes you think, that makes you laugh, and that actually equips you to understand the world rather than just react to it, this is where you need to be. So after you're done listening to this podcast, don't just sit there pretending you have something better to do. I implore you to understand. You don't. Nothing is more important than listening to my podcast on the Internet. So go check out the John Doyle show and we'll see you out there.
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B
Yesterday, our DOJ and FBI busted and is prosecuting a few people out of California. The Turtle Island Liberation Front. What is that? Well, if you listen to this show, you heard about it, I think, back in April for the first time. We've talked about it a couple of times. It's very, very, very dangerous. Ryan Morrow joins us because he's the guy who all the research on it, and thank goodness the country is now waking up to this. But we talk about what it is and what it means, why you have to pay attention, because there's something much deeper and more sinister even than the attacks they had planned all across America. You know, on New Year's Eve. Also, the Christmas truce. It is a true story from World War II about something that. That I know of. This never happened in war before. An amazing story with the documentation. Also, a movie that we watch all the time at this time of the year. It actually was a giant failure. And what the movie actually is trying to say to us, it's a wonderful life. All of this and more on today's podcast. First, let me tell you about choosing life around the holidays. We talk a lot about hope, about new beginnings, about the value of every single life. I Don't know. Christ child comes to mind. Preborn puts those beliefs into every action, into action every single day by providing free ultrasounds to expectant moms who are facing fear and pressure and uncertainty in life. When a mom sees that baby on the screen, she hears the heartbeat. Everything changes for her. It's a moment of clarity and connection and a moment of courage. But she still feels alone. That's why preborn doesn't stop there. They also provide counseling and baby supplies and long term support so the women don't feel like they're walking this journey alone. Because usually they are completely alone. It's practical care that meets people in their most vulnerable moments and offers them something they may not have felt in a long time. Hope. That's what we should be offering. Every mom preborn serves faces a moment of decision. When she sees her baby in an ultrasound, that sacred moment, she has the opportunity to say yes. And usually she does. The odds go way up this Christmas, for $28, you can support a woman like this and save a life, her life and the baby's life. A life that might just change the world. Donate by dialing £250. Say the keyword baby. That's £250, keyword baby. Or donate securely at preborn.combeck preborn.com Beck Sponsored by Preborn Hello America. You know we've been fighting every single day. We push back against the lies, the censorship, the nonsense of the mainstream media that they're trying to feed you. We work tirelessly to bring you the unfiltered truth because you deserve it. But to keep this fight going, we need you right now. Would you take a moment and rate and review the Glenn Beck podcast? Give us five stars and lead a comment. Because every single review helps us break through Big Tech's algorithm to reach more Americans who need to hear the truth. This isn't a podcast. This is a movement. And you're part of it. A big part of it. So if you believe in what we're doing, you want more people to wake up, help us push this podcast to the top rate review. Share together, we'll make a difference. And thanks for standing with us. Now, let's get to work.
- [04:37]
C
You're listening to the best of the Glenn Beck Program.
- [04:41]
B
I want to tell you a personal story that you may or may not have heard it, but it is one of the, I think one of the most historically important moments in war to ever happen. I was lucky enough to be able to add to our collection just a few months ago. This it is called the Christmas Truce. The Christmas truce is something that happened in World War I in 1914. And this is a very, very rare letter from one of the people. It's seven or eight pages long from one of the people that were. Was there. And this is an eyewitness account not years after this was written, the day after it happened and sent to the guy's mom. And it tells the whole story, kind of. Kind of. There's another letter from. I think his name was Otto Hahn and he's German. And he was actually there as well. Not actually on the field, but he played a different role. I'll tell you about that here in a second, but let me just read this. This letter. It says, dear Mother, it was awfully good of you to send chocolate, which arrived safely and went down very well indeed. I've just come out of the trenches again after spending Christmas Day in them. If you imagine by any chance that we would have had a rotten Christmas, I can assure you you were very much mistaken. Now remember, the trenches are some of the worst places you can be. They're not. They're just killing people. They're just slaughtering people. And nobody is advancing. And it just goes on and on and on. And they're giant mud holes. Okay? He said on Christmas Eve, it was chilly and we were shelling the German trenches. But then it stopped. There was a little rifle fire until about 5pm when it became dark. It was Christmas Eve. We started singing carols and songs. We heard the Germans do the same. Then one of them pushed a Christmas tree on top of their trench. After that, we decided we would light candles and lights and put them on top of the trenches to cheer them up a bit and carry on some sort of quote. I love this line. Matey conversations with the enemy. Merry Christmas. One of us shouted. As things seemed to be going very well, we thought, maybe we can get out of the trench and go up on top. Now imagine the risk of this guy. He said, four of us did this. Imagine you're. You're. You're killing each other. It's a killing field. Dead bodies of your friends are right on top of this trench. And you think they just pushed up a Christmas tree. We've been singing Christmas carols. They've been singing Christmas carols. We just put candles up, maybe four of us. And these were Highlanders. So you know that they. The Highlanders, you know, they have matey conversations all the time. These are Scots that actually were the first to do it. So four of us got on top and first we struck matches, which was received well by them on the other side. So then all of us got out and we decided to hold a concert and dance out in the open. After this, a few men thought it would be swell to shake hands and exchange cigars, cigarettes and gingerbread with them. We called out to them. I met a few halfway between the trenches. And they were jolly good sports as well. I shook hands with a German officer. We spoke with them and exchanged small gifts. Chocolate, cigars, buttons. We shared stories from home and photographs. It seemed impossible that we were actually really enemies. We also had time. So we took it and buried our dead. We buried them together with short prayers spoken in both languages. For a time, the war simply was not there. It was strange, very strange, because tomorrow we will have to shoot at one another again. It will be hard to shoot them now. That's the letter that we have now at the American Journey Experience Vault that I just acquired and will go into our clay pot project to save our history and to save what our civilization really was like. This is a moment here where Judeo Christian values come to play a role. It's the healing power of. Of Christmas and the message of Christmas that in the middle of this war they stop and they are able to come out of the trenches. They've just been killing each other. They come out of the trenches, they stop. Here's what one German soldier wrote in another letter. What I still believe to be madness. Just several hours ago. I could now see with my own eyes. One Englishman was joined so soon by another. They came towards us until he was more than halfway toward our trenches. He's responding. He's talking about the guy of the letter I just read to you. By which point some of our people had already approached them. None of us had our rifles. Between the trenches, the hated and the bitter opponents met around the Christmas tree and we sang Christmas carols. I will never forget this sight for as long as I live. Listen to this line. One could see that the man, the human being lives on, even if he knows nothing more in these days than killing. Christmas 1914 will be unforgettable to me. I wanted to share this with you today for a couple of reasons. One, it's one of my favorite stories of Christmas. There have been a couple movies made about this moment. This is the original letter that told the story that the movie makers used. But I wanted to tell you this story because it feels really dark at times. And it's in that darkness that the light really matters, that that candle really shone. They lit matches. I mean, they're not close to each other and there's barbed wire and dead bodies in between them. They light matches, and that light signaled something that is the spark of Christmas. That is the light of Christmas. That is what we built our whole civilization on. And you can say, yeah, but look at what happened in that war of, you know, World War I. It was awful. The Germans gassed, et cetera, et cetera. Well, the guy who wrote the German letter, the most famous German letter, he's actually a guy who was there and he was on the chemical squad, if you will. He saw it deployed once and he asked for a transfer. And he wrote to his wife and said, this is an abomination. This has got to stop. He stayed in Germany. He was one of the guys who got the Nobel Prize for splitting the atom. 1937, 38, I don't remember, but he's one of the guys that got the Nobel Prize. And he never joined the ranks of the Nazis and never went to build the atomic bomb. He warned you can't. You can't do this. You can't do this. Can't do this. See, a good guy or a bad guy, he's really. He's. He's really neither, really. I think he's something rarer. He's a man that understood too late that knowledge is never neutral. It's what you do with the knowledge. So what are we doing with our knowledge now? And what are we doing in this holiday season? Are we finding those striking matches? Are we looking for the light? We learned a couple of things, a couple of things this week in my life. Tomorrow is the last TV show. I'll be doing the last Wednesday night special on Blaze tv, and I urge you to join me, but it'll be the last and kind of end of, I don't know, end of a chapter. And we also announced yesterday that Stu is going to be leaving the show shortly after the New Year. I have been begging him, borrowing him, bribing him, threatening his family, doing everything I could to keep him with me for 27 years. And he has finally found something that he really wants to do, and how can I possibly stop him? I want to support him in that. So he'll be leaving. But I want you to know, while there is an ending to some of these things, there is a match strike in January, and I call it the Torch. And let me bring it back to the history here. You know, when you read a letter like that or you hear somebody tell a story like that, you realize something uncomfortable. History is not living in textbooks. And it's not about dates and memorizing the date. And the name lives in breath. It lives in cold hands. It lives in fear and in longing. And a letter like that is not data that you should remember. 1914. That letter is a heartbeat that has long gone, long been silenced. And I have been spending years collecting things like this. Letters and artifacts and moments that were never meant to survive. But if you want people to learn history, you can't just tell them what happened. They have to feel it. Let me tell you about our sponsor. It's my Patriot Supply. This time of year, we think a lot about taking care of the people we love. And sometimes the most meaningful gifts are the ones that actually, you know, make a difference in exactly that way. My Patriot Supply does that. They put a deal together. It's their buy one gift to Christmas special. And it's one of the most practical, useful offers you're seeing all season. When you purchase a four week emergency food kit for your own family, they give you two one week food kits for free. That means you're not just preparing your household. You're able to pass along something of value to your friends and your family or anyone who could use a little encouragement to be ready for the unexpected. You're literally giving them the gift of preparedness. World's not getting more predictable. It's getting much less predictable. This special lets you cover your bases while giving gifts that actually matter. And it's a smart move for a season built around generosity and care. So head on over to my patriotsupply.com Glenn grab yours today. The offer is only around for the holiday season. Go to my patriotsupply.com/glenn, do it right now. My patriotsupply.com glenn now back to the podcast. This is the best of the Glenn Beck program. And don't forget, rate us on itunes. So announced in Los Angeles by the Department of Justice, four members of an anti capitalist, anti government group that calls for violence against the United States and its officials. The plan? Allegedly plotting an attack on two US Companies with improvised explosive devices this New Year's Eve. We don't know what those those companies were, but it was, was not good. The Turtle Island Liberation Front. Turtle Island Liberation Front. Ever heard of Turtle Island? That's what the indigenous people call America. Turtle island. That's what they call the North America. It's, this is a far left, pro Palestinian, anti government and anti capitalist group. When I say it was pro Palestinian, I want you to understand this. That is, that is not their main thing. They are anti American and anti capitalist. This is part of what's called the Red Green alliance and we'll explain that here in just a second. But they were preparing to conduct a series of bombings against multiple targets in California beginning on New Year's Eve. They also plan to target ICE agents and vehicles. The four were arrested. They faced federal charges of conspiracy and possession of an unregistered destructive advice. This was called Operation Midnight Sun. And they were going to plant backpacks and pipe bombs and complex IEDs to detonate simultaneously at multiple locations targeting US companies on new Year's Eve at midnight. It's considered obviously a terrorist attack. Their searches of their homes uncovered Turtle Island Liberation Front posters like Death to America and Death to ice. You know one of the funny things that I read was this is from their Facebook post. Little known extremist group has paraded around slicks six slogans like Death to America and insisted that the United States mere existence is inherently violent. Now this is what they posted on Facebook. When we say Death to America and call for an end to colonization, it doesn't mean the displacement or harm of non indigenous citizens. Wait, you were targeting ICE officials and you were going to blow things up? I do not think it means what you think it means, but maybe that's just me. Sorry, thought of Rob Reiner there for a second. I just, it's. It's sad to lose Rob Reiner with. Anyway, let me go to Ryan Morrow. Ryan is with us now, researcher and, and joining us at the Torch as somebody who's just really going to sharpen us on all of our warnings and all of our research into these radical groups. Welcome, how are you?
- [20:32]
C
I'm doing great. Thanks for having me on.
- [20:35]
B
So it was in April, I think you were on and you said, Glenn, you have to pay attention. One of the groups you have to pay attention to is Turtle Island Liberation Front. And here it is. Almost exactly what you said would happen is happening now.
- [20:50]
C
Right? So what had happened was is that with my colleagues at the Capital Research center, we had mapped out basically the entire anti Israeli extremist movement, over 150 groups. And that was with limited time. So it's much bigger than that. But one of the things I saw in their ecosystem, and this just shows how we live in completely separate worlds, is that this term Turtle island was commonplace. So whether you're a communist or an Islamist or you're an anarchist or whatever, you would refer to the US as the so called United States or fertile island and say it's occupied and needs to be liberated, just like Palestine. And so they would refuse to say Israel, they say Palestine, they refuse to say the United States, they say Turtle Island. Why? And it's because of this conception out there that I'm not even sure is that accurate, that the Native American tribes referred to the US And Canada and Mexico as Turtle island because they believed that the continent was created on the back of a turtle. And then until the evil white settler capitalist came in and ruined everything. That's what it inherently was. And so it's equivalent to Palestine. And so the conclusion of my study and I debuted some of the findings with you, and in fact, I think you were the only media outlet that actually made a point of this and got this, was that there's a certain level of diversity among these pro terror extremists. So what's the unifying factor, the theme? It's liberating Turtle Island. It's a way that of calling for violence and the destruction of the US Just like they want to destroy Israel, but to do it in a way that goes over the heads of people. But people who understand the language know what it means. And it's, it's frankly smart because of all the, the sympathy and, and the way American students have been taught about the history of the Native American tribes. So it taps into something where if you think that there's a lot of sympathy for Palestinians, the people that American, the youth don't know anything about, now imagine tapping into what they feel about what happened to the Native Americans.
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I will tell you, the left has been courting the Native Americans for a very long time because the right just hasn't, you know, paid attention to it at all. And so the left saw an opportunity and they are, they are deeply in, especially the Navajo, deeply, deeply in with the left, or the left is deeply in bed with the Navajo. And there is an opportunity to turn people very, very radical. And that's what you're talking about here. And you know, when, when you say this is an anti Israel thing or pro Palestinian, I want to make sure people understand, just as the Marxists were the ones who helped overthrow the Shah of Iran and bring the Ayatollah in. They were partners with the Islamists. The Islamists and I think the Marxists too, they're not, they're not, they're not part of the same end game. They don't have the same end game in, in mind, other than in that case, the destruction of the Shah of Iran and freeing its people and having a Revolution when Iran was overthrown in 1979, within two years 30,000 Marxists were either killed, jailed or disappeared. And that this is same kind of thing, this alliance with the indigenous people, with the, with the Islamists, with Marxists. They're all going to sort that out later. They just want to kill us first, they want to overthrow the government first, then they'll start eating each other. Do I have that right or wrong? Ryan?
- [24:40]
C
You have that right. They don't even bother talking about scenario too much because they just kind of feel like when you burn things to the ground, what's natural and good will rise from the ashes. And so the theme of Turtle island is kind of the, that's why I called it the Turtle Island Intifada is kind of like what's bringing together all of these ideologies. But what we also talked about back in April and actually before that too was well, what's the targeting strategy going to be? And what we concluded was that the campaign is going to broaden because they were openly, I was seeing in their communication, they're saying, look, this Israel issue is going to go away. And they didn't want to say it was partially because Israel was kicking their butts so badly, but they said this issue is going to not rally people anymore. What do we do? We need to become an anti police movement. And to whatever degree we can broaden it out to be an anti Zionist, anti capitalist movement. And so you were able to tell what was the next stage. It was going to be under the banner of Turtle island and they were going to target law enforcement specifically. ICE was the one that was most talked about, so that was able to be forecasted as well. But also companies that they can connect even by some leap to the Zionist infrastructure because that way you're hitting all the themes anti police, anti anti Zionist, anti capitalist Turtle island and pro Palestine. And that's exactly what this plot was doing. It actually came to fruition in a way that's much more vivid than I anticipated. So although this plot was foiled, make no mistake about it, it is a marker in time for this new era, this new offensive that has begun.
- [26:15]
B
How likely is this going to be? How likely is this to become the next BLM movement? This, you know, Turtle island liberation, you know, from, you know, from sea to sea, Turtle island will be free kind of crap.
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C
I think it's extremely likely. The chances are far better than, than 50, 50 in fact, I think it's inevitable. It's going to get a lot of support just by people Talking about saying, well, what is this Turtle island thing? Oh, the Native Americans. Oh, well, they're. There's this almost biblical narrative that follows this where it was like the Turtle island was the Garden of Eden. The capitalist white colonists, white supremacists, with their patriarchy came in and infected it like the snake. And then the Native Americans were essentially. It's like a Jesus narrative at that point. Well, they died for our sin, and so now we need to restore the original Garden of Eden. So. So sometimes they use that language specifically. Most of the time it's just that type of theme. But that's kind of the emotional pull that comes in by tapping into that narrative. And by the way, one of the accounts that this specific terrorist group followed on social media was the Christian anarchists. Now, I know you've said in the past, you've noted how some of the anarchist language went over even into the white supremacists. And people say, oh, they think of anarchists. They just think of the far left. Like, no, if you watch this, how this goes like that is the cycle. There is a, I guess you could say right wing, but it's more like anarcho capitalist anarchist that sometimes identifies Christian. And so it goes. This propaganda goes from the, the terrorists, overseas governments to Turtle island folks, over to the Christian archives, and then, and then it cycles around. So this is all one seditionist movement.
- [28:00]
B
Do you think the Trump administration gets it? I mean, hats off to the FBI and Cash Patel for, you know, thwarting this and stopping this as they were in the desert beginning to assemble these bombs. Do you think the administration gets how deep this goes and is willing to do the things. I mean, Ryan, you and I both know the west is on the verge of being lost forever. If we don't wake up to this and we don't start calling, you know, calling evil by its name. We are. We're going to lose. We're going to lose this. We're close to losing Europe. Mm.
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C
Well, three business days after you and I released my report that wrote about the $80 million that went from Soros's network to the pro terror groups, it was reported that the administration had launched investigations, specifically naming the report that we released on. On the Charlie Kirk show one week after he passed. So. So do they get it? I don't know possible to fully get it if we don't. Like, are they doing things?
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B
Yes.
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C
Can we help them do things? Yes. Remember that groups like FBI and all them, they can't just collect intelligence on everyone's Free speech protected activity. But civilians can. That's where civilian researchers come in. And so that's what happened. The source report. We can collect all of that. We can make the case. And so does the FBI know all of it? No, because we and the citizens haven't given them everything that they need. And so I think two things have to happen. First, we need to put together a team to map out the Turtle Island Intifada and map this out so action can be taken. And the second thing is actually what I think you're doing with preserving history is very important here because the counter narrative is going to require us to use historical documents to tell the truth of everything that went on with the Native American tribes, the good, the bad and the ugly. So that this type of simplistic hijacking of a biblical narrative for evil ends can't really happen for these anti American ends, even if the perpetrators of it don't realize it's a biblical narrative. That's. That's where it's coming from. It's a combination of the Garden of Eden story and the Jesus Christ story put together and framed for evil propaganda that even Satanists sometimes parrot.
- [30:23]
B
Ryan, I, I mean, we're supporting you. We're doing everything we can. I want to make sure that others, because you run a nonprofit, your research center, Capital Research center is a nonprofit and you, you operate on donations. If you are interested in helping what, what Brian is doing. And this why I'm bringing him on the air a lot beginning next year and working closely with him because what he is finding, the research that he's doing is unlike anybody else's and it's critical that it happens. If you happen to want to make a donation to a charity or to a, you know, a 501C3, please consider Ryan's group. How do they contact you? Ryan, how do they give?
- [31:12]
C
Well, I partner with Capital Research center, who are excellent to donate to. So that's kind of like a, like a research wing. And then also Ryan morrow.com, which is my personal website, that's where my specific intelligence gathering group is also based. So I would say check out those two, because Capital Research center is broader. But if you want to focus just on, on the Turtle island countertreamism stuff, then ryanmarrow.com is where people can contact me or make a donation so that we can, I mean, I mean, your fans can like, they give me great intel, but I don't have the resources to act on all of it. And so I'm trying to rectify that because you've gotten. You've got an intelligence gathering army behind you and it's time that we.
- [31:52]
B
But thank you so much, Ryan. I appreciate it. Ryan Morrow.com Ryan M A U R O Ryan Morrow.com they could use your support because we're about to turbo the research. You're listening to the Best of Glenn Beck.
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C
Need a little more?
- [32:08]
B
Check out the full show podcasts anywhere you download podcasts. Let me tell you a story that you think you already know. It's about a movie that feels like it has been there our whole lives. It's like a tree in the town square or the hymn you don't ever remember learning, but somehow you know it by heart. But this particular movie hasn't been around forever. It just seems like it was actually born out of failure. It was born out of exhaustion and it was born out of people who felt just like its lead character, George Bailey. It's a Wonderful Life has a fascinating story behind it and it speaks volumes about us. Our hopes, our fears, our desires. The movie was made by Frank Capra and it was right after World War II. Frank Capra had just come back. He didn't come home triumphant. He came home a changed man. He had spent the war making film for the United States government, the War Department about why the west is worth saving. This film series are fantastic. It's called why We Fight. And when he returned his old style of doing things, the old machinery just didn't fit Hollywood anymore. So he started his own studio. He bet absolutely everything on it. And It's a Wonderful Life was supposed to be the movie that proved Frank Capra is still Frank Capra. And it nearly ruined him. The movie lost money. Critics really didn't like it. They mocked how schmaltzy it was. Audiences stayed home. Jimmy Stewart, this was his first movie that he made when he came back home from the war and this was his start. And between Frank Capra and Jimmy Stewart. Oh my gosh, you've got a massive hit, right? Nobody came, nobody watched it. Jimmy Stewart, the most beloved man in America, gave a really raw, shaken, almost too real performance for people at the time. He wasn't the cheerful hero that is coming out of war as a victory. This was a man that was cracking under the weight of responsibility. A man who did everything right, but he still feel like, he still felt like he was a failure. Any of this sound familiar? It was a story about what happened during the Depression and the crash of 29. Well, America had been living that forever. They had been living that since 29. They went through the long Depression, then they went through the war. And the first thing out of war, they don't want to watch a movie about how depressing life can be. Okay, so it was a total failure. Film disappears, goes into a vault. It is a noble misfire. Good idea just did not land. Maybe wrong time, maybe too schmaltzy. Then something weird happened. Everybody forgot about it. And so the rights lapsed. There was no grand relaunch. There was no marketing genius, just a legal oversight that let the rights lapse. Enter Ted Turner. Ted Turner and Superstation tbs. Do you remember Superstation TBS when he had bought. Bought a bunch of stations across the country and he tied them all together, and then cable came in and is SuperStation TBS became TBS. Turner. Well, he was looking on SuperStation TBS. They needed some holiday programming, and they needed it cheap. And I. When I say cheap, what. What they. What Ted really meant was free. We need a bunch of free programming that we can run all Christmas, okay? No rights, no royalties. What is out there? The vaults open up, and lo and behold, they find It's a Wonderful Life. Suddenly it appears in our life. And I don't know about you, but I always thought it had been around forever. I mean, it didn't seem like it was a new relaunch. It wasn't like, hey, have you heard about this new movie? It just was there and on, and we thought everybody knew about it. Nobody knew about it. Our grandparents probably didn't even know about it because it was a massive failure. It's on afternoons, late nights. It's on morning. It's everywhere. It's everywhere. Black and white. Snow flickering in the living rooms as our kids are playing on the floor. And we as adults are in the kitchen, half listening and half watching. And slowly, slowly its message found us. It found us this time because America had changed. We weren't fresh from despair, and we weren't fresh from victory anymore. We weren't those people. It wasn't so close to us that we didn't want to look at us. Yes, we were tired. We were busy. We were stretched thin. But we were also a group now that measured our lives in promotions and in square footage and bank balances. We were starting to become a little Mr. Potter, like, and we didn't want to be Mr. Potter. And there on the screen is George Bailey, standing on a bridge, wondering, would the world be better without me? He's not a villain. He's not a loser. He's actually a really good man. He's the best of us. And that's why it still works. Think of all the happy endings that we have and everything else and all the stories that we tell ourselves. This movie doesn't tell you that life is going to turn out the way you planned. This one tells you something much, much harder. That the measure of your life is probably going to be invisible to you while you're living your life because Clarence ain't coming down in his, you know, 1800s clothing and having a hot toddy with you. So you probably won't know the real measure of your life. And the biggest victories in your life don't come with applause. And the sacrifice, it usually doesn't feel heroic at the moment. It just feels like sacrifice and crap. Why me? Why me? Why don't I ever get the adventure that I planned my whole life? Remember, George never left Bedford Falls. He never becomes famous. He just stays and he shows up and he keeps his promises and he holds people together. What is the real. What's the real miracle of the film? It's not Clarence. It's not the bells. It's not him getting his life back. The real miracle is the ledger. That's the miracle. The names, the faces, the small kindness, all stacked up, one on top of each other, until you realize, oh, my gosh, all of those little acts, they amount to a life that actually mattered. We are all looking for the big splashy. He did not get any of those. He didn't get that. That's why he felt like he was a failure. That's why when the town shows up in the end and they're all giving, you know, just a few dollars, it breaks us every single time. Because deep down, we're not watching George Bailey. Deep down, we're checking our own books, our own ledger. Did I. Do I matter to anybody? Would I be missed? Did the things I gave up, the things that I really wanted to do in life, but because something else came up, I had to serve. I had to do this for my kids or I had to do this. The things I gave up, does it mean anything? This film answers it with a whisper. Doesn't shout it. It whispers. You'll never fully know the good you've done. I can't give you an answer. You'll never know. You'll never see the ripples while you're standing in the water, but they're there. Believe me, they're there. So this year, when you either just have it running while you're all in the kitchen and you're watching from time to time. Oh, I love this part. I love this part. And everybody gets quiet for a minute or you just curl up on the couch and watch it again. Remember you're not watching a Christmas movie. What you're watching is a reminder that life doesn't have to be loud to be important. That staying can be braver than leaving. That loving your family and your neighbors and your town, imperfect as it is, that's not settling, it's choosing. And whether Ted Turner knew it or not, I can guarantee you that Jimmy Stewart did and Frank Capra certainly did that. Every time you see that, why we, year after year when the snow starts falling in that old piano theme plays we come back not for the nostalgia but for the reassurance. Because every once in a while all of us need somebody to just to look us in the eye and say, you're here, you mattered and it is a wonderful life.