Glenn Beck (31:59)
So I remember when I first started warning about China's role in the fentanyl crisis. This is years before we started talking about sanctions and sanctions today coming out. You can't have sanctions on China high enough for my taste. But every time I talked about China and their role in the fentanyl crisis, called an alarmist and conspiracy theorists. You know, you're just so eager to paint felons with a broad brush. I can't get a broad enough brush for villains, quite frankly. That was, I don't even know, eight, nine years ago. And now it's in the headlines again. Did you notice yesterday, Congress confirmed it. Experts have testified to it. The truth is finally a little bit mainstream. The Chinese Communist Party, or at least, at the very least, elements within it, have enabled, subsidized and promise and profited off of the flow of synthetic opioids. Fentanyl, okay. And they profited off of all of it coming into the United States. And they knew what they were doing, what they were doing. And I wish I felt vindicated today, but I don't. The truth that was once dismissed is too dark to be real, is really only being proven to be darker. We have watched families bury their children. We've watched our communities unravel. We've read the reports and seen the data, and still the scale of it is overwhelming. But doesn't it all feel familiar? Because we've been here before. We have only the last time. The. The roles were reversed. Back in the 1830s, the British Empire had a problem. China had things the British wanted. Tea, silk, porcelain. But the Chinese didn't want what Britain was offering. So they had to come up with something else. And they found a solution. It was something that was grown in India. Opium. And the British started trafficking it into China. And the result? Mass addiction, social collapse, and eventually war. Isn't that great? The Chinese emperor tried to shut it down, tried to protect his people. And for that, Britain just sent in gunboats. They were called the Opium wars, and they weren't just about trade. They were all about power, about profit, about poisoning a population that had to gain the upper hand. It was evil then and it's evil now. And it's happening. This is exactly what I told you was happening. And now we've just confirmed it. What Britain did to China, China is now doing to America. And we are watching the replay of one of the worst songs ever in history. Except it's just new instruments. Some of them are digital, different players, same melody, same song. And yet, like the empires of old, we pretend we don't even hear. What song? I don't. What are you talking about? Fentanyl is the new opium. And the Chinese Communist Party is the new merchant cartel. And America, we're the attic. We're hooked. We're hollowed out, we're held hostage. But this isn't just about fentanyl at all. That would be bad enough, but it's not. It's. It's. It's worse than that. Who's doing this to us? China. A country that is committing genocide. Forced labor, Slave camps is what we would have called them at one point. The full spectrum of state engineered suffering and death. In China, over a million Uyghur Muslims have been swept into reeducation centers, prison camps. They've been beaten, they've been brainwashed, they've been sterilized, they've been separated from their families. Many of them are just put to work. If they survive that, you can sew some clothes, you can assemble some electronics, and they're making the goods that we buy every day. And here's what's horrible. We know it. We know it. It's not a secret. It's not even controversial anymore. The US government formally declared it's genocide. Human rights organizations all around the world have documented the abuses. Survivors have testified. Investigators have traced the products made in those camps all the way to the shelves in our stores. And yet we just keep shopping. I do it too. I'm not lecturing you. This is monologue. I'm far too egotistical. This monologue really is about me. Because we wanted our iPhones, we wanted things to be convenient. We want our cheap shirts, we want our tech toys, we want our solar panels and smart devices. And if they're made by slaves, I don't. I don't know. I mean, I don't know if that's even true. Even though we do. But we say we're against slavery, just not that kind of slavery, you know, not the kind that makes our stuff more affordable. Not the Kind that, you know, happens behind a closed border that we can't actually verify. I mean, really not the kind that might raise the price of our lifestyle or cost us convenience in any way. You know, like when Americans were against slavery before, unless it meant that, you know, you had to go out and work in the field and pay more for your cotton or do the things that others should do, you know, for free, because I own them. It's the same thing. The secret is we all like to consider ourselves moral, but we like our morality abstract, clean, neat. You know what I mean? In a little box. I would have stood up back then. Uh huh. Really? I would have spoken out against slavery in the 1800s, I would have marched against fascism in the 1930s. I would have said something really, you know, half the nation right now couldn't give you a correct definition of fascism. And yet it is the most overused word in the English language, at least in America right now, that insists gender fascism is everywhere. Define it. We'll fight against it, I mean, unless it benefits us politically. And remember, poll after poll, pro poll, shows growing number of us. We don't really have an opinion. We're kind of undecided. How are you undecided on all of this stuff? Well, it's not clear. I haven't paid enough attention to it. I've been busy. It's complicated. And anyway, what could I do? You know, I've said all of those things. As I was reading this story about fentanyl, I just. It was like just this giant finger pointing at me. I've spoken out, but I've thought those things. I've said those things to myself. As, as I was making notes for this monologue last night, I was typing them out on an iPad, you know, in part built by those people who may not have had the actual option to go. I don't want to build that iPad. I've sat here in this throne calling you to action, and yet kind of making peace with my own compromises. And I don't know where it's. I don't know where to stop. I don't. I just know this. I can't lie to myself about that anymore. Because the truth is collective sin, I think, may be the most common sin among us, among me, my circle, my friends, my family, me. We claim to know better. We do. I will come on here and I will preach about the power of the individual to make a difference. We are swimming in complicity. Why, here's what I tell myself. I'm tired, I'm Tired. I'm too entertained to get out of the water, quite honestly. We look back at history and shake our heads. How could they let that have happened? How did they not see we're doing the same thing? We are repeating almost everything from history at the same time right now. How could the world ignore the signs of genocide? How could Americans tolerate slavery? How could so many good people do nothing while evil marched forward? But here we are. Millions of people are still enslaved today, in fact, more than ever before. Genocide, not in the past tense. It's happening right now. How about child sex slavery? Don't want to talk about that. We're ignoring it because it's inconvenient. It costs too much to care. It's too hard, I think, really, because history's worst songs have a beat we find easy to dance to. You look around today and you see all the old songs playing on repeat. Economic slavery, propaganda dressed up as patriotism, the exploitation of the vulnerable, the weaponization of addiction, moral blindness passed off as just a nuisance printing of money as the clowns of the printing press, you know, giving us all kinds of cakes and circuses, all the while telling us no, it really. It's different this time. And above it all, the lie we keep telling ourselves. Well, in the past, I would have done the right thing. Would we? Would I? I can't speak for you. Would I? Am I? Fentanyl crisis is just. It's not a natural disaster, it's not an accident. It is a deliberate poisoning of our population. The US government has now admitted that China's regime has directed or at least enabled the flow of these drugs for strateg strategic gain. Destruction is not a side effect. That's the point. And what have we done about it? Boy, these tariffs on China can't come fast enough for me. And at worst we. We enable it on the border. Our government in the last administration, they partnered with it. We've wagged a few fingers, we've issued a few sanctions, we sign a bill here or there, but we haven't changed. We haven't sacrificed anything. Who's buying the drugs? We don't even wanna talk about that. Who are the child porn marketers selling the children to? We don't wanna think about that. We don't even wanna think about the question because we know the answer. It has to be us. Maybe one of our friends, family, neighbors. We just don't want to believe that to be true. But for this problem to be this big, it has to be true. And I've kept telling Myself that, you know, my job is to make you aware of things. But is that enough? Because we're not just ignoring, you know, the worst songs of history. We're humming along. We're humming along. I found myself last night thinking. I believe in the power of the individual more than anything else. I believe that one person can make a difference. I say it over and over again. I believe it is one of my core beliefs, to the center of my being. And then I find myself at times going, yeah, but what does it matter? I've excused myself because I'm tired. I've already done so much. Oh, my gosh. Boy, am I going to pay for that one. I'm tired. Somebody else should carry this for a while. And nobody else is coming. It's just. What are we gonna do, honey? What are we gonna do? Well, nobody else is coming. Oh. In the end, I just want to remind myself it's just gonna be me at the judgment seat. Me. Not the whole crowd. Me. There is no collective salvation, no collective judgment, except from historians. But there is collective sin, and the individual is still the only one that can break the cycle. I don't. I don't. I don't want to be another comfortable coward in a line of them stretching back through time. I really want my grandchildren to be able to tell the story that I stood up for what was right. I wrote about it. I talk about it. Did I care enough to actually change my buying habits? Holy cow. How can I come to you every day and preach a message of individual salvation of Christ when I'm living and I don't know, in my own life, living and building a world of collective excuses. I can't say it more plainly than that. What England did to China during the Opium Wars. Evil. They flooded a nation with drugs for profit, crippled its society, called it trade, and now China's doing the same to us. What China is doing now, enslaving people, destroying culture, erasing faith, evil. And it is. It rivals some of the darkest chapters of the 20th century. And we're. We're funding it. What we buy matters. What we ignore matters. What we excuse matters. And we're running out of excuses. Shame on me. Shame on me for knowing it and then not realizing. What I was saying is, I'm writing something to lecture you about it, and I look down and I'm looking at my iPad. Shame on me. I can preach as long as I continue to partake. It's okay. I don't want to be a hypocrite. I don't think anybody wants to be a hypocrite, do you? I really want to be changed. And if anything in this monologue has stirred you, maybe you feel like I do. And I don't know what this all means. I don't know. But let's do something. Let's stop pretending history is behind us, because it's not. We're making history every day. And I'd like to start making history in a different direction. You know? I'd like to stop singing the same worst songs. Maybe we write something new. Because the world doesn't need more outrage, more. It needs more courage. It needs more people that are willing to be torchbearers. Let others see the light. They can join us or not join us. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. But here's what does matter. What we do in our own private lives, that matters. Every minute that we have, that we live, matters. Every day, every moment. I can't speak for you. I'm going to double my efforts every moment. Just do the next right thing.
