Glenn Beck: The Overton Window

“Their predecessors had sweated out a tidy little hundred-million-dollar market over the preceding century or so, and these men were happy with the success they’d inherited, but they wanted a tiny bit more. Maybe just three to five percent domestic expansion on an annual basis. So they came to me, hats in hands, and asked if I thought such a heady level of growth might somehow be within their reach. And they brought a binder with them, much like yours, full of their fears and worries and their modest little hopes and dreams.”

He turned to directly address the other man still standing across the room. “Mr. Purcell, isn’t it? A very slowly rising star, I understand, in our mighty Department of Homeland Security?”

A tight little nod, nothing more.

“You were so eager to guide me along earlier. A virgin whiteboard awaits there along the wall, freshly erased, with a new set of colorful markers all at your disposal. I believe we can even muster a laser pointer to help you direct our rapt attention around your fascinating illustrations. So, would you like to lead this meeting now, or will you indulge me to continue?”

A muscle tensed in Purcell’s jaw but he didn’t speak. After a moment he moved to return to his chair but was stopped by the slightest tic of the old man’s hand. It was the sort of unspoken cue that a dog trainer might give to a spirited bitch on her first session off the choke chain.

“Stay another moment, Mr. Purcell. Help me. Ask me what it was that these men were selling, and I’ll show you the path to a whole new world in which everything you want is laid out before you, ripe for the bountiful harvest.” The old man walked around to the other side of the table, until the two were nearly toe-to-toe. He nodded, encouraging. “Go ahead, ask me.”

When Purcell finally spoke his voice was weak and low. “What was it?”

Arthur Gardner let a smile touch the corners of his eyes.

“Oh, nothing of any value. Only water.” The old man put his hand on Purcell’s shoulder, gripped it warmly, and then motioned for the bewildered man to resume his seat, which he did. “Forgive me, everyone. Our colleague Mr. Purcell has graciously assisted me in a demonstration, the point of which we will return to shortly.”

Projection screens began to hum down from the ceiling, gradually covering the paneled walls of the wide, round room. As the screens clicked to their stops in unison the lights dimmed to half brightness. All that remained was a circle of soft illumination that dutifully followed Arthur Gardner as he made his way back to his place.

“I’ll tell you all what I told those bottled-water men, twenty years ago in this very room. If that binder is the limit of your ambitions, then you’ve come to the wrong place. Both sides of Madison Avenue are lined with hucksters and admen, the most backward of which can deliver such a minor achievement for an insignificant fee. Go in peace if that’s all you want. But they stayed, as I hope you will, and I led them to where they stand today, with their goals not only realized, or doubled, or quadrupled, but in fact multiplied a thousandfold. And I can do the same for yours.”

A bookish younger woman in the client party hesitantly raised her hand just a bit above the edge of the table, as though volunteering for a solo frontal assault on the guns of Navarone. She spoke, but only after a nod of permission from the man at the podium.

“I’m not sure we understand what you mean, Mr. Gardner,” she said. “Our goals?”

“Your goals, yes. Your future. The future of the government you serve. Which is to say, the future of this country, and the urgency to act on her behalf. And that brings us to my second story, which strangely enough continues our watery theme.

“A while ago I was vacationing abroad in Sri Lanka-what year was it now? Ah yes, 2004, just after Christmas. A servant girl came to me and woke me from the most wonderful dream. She was breathless, the poor young thing, and told me an urgent message had arrived, word of an earthquake near Sumatra, and that we needed to leave as soon as possible. Well, I had my breakfast brought in as my things were packed and an aircraft was chartered, and we all dressed for travel and then went up to the roof to await our departure.

“A wave was coming, you see. This earthquake had released the energy of half a billion atomic bombs under the ocean and a tsunami was spreading out from the epicenter at five hundred miles per hour in all directions.”

He took a moment to sample his tea and then set the cup back carefully onto its saucer.

“The helicopter soon arrived and our party began to board. It was such a beautiful morning, everything seemed as though all was right with the world, and by every appearance all the people down on the beach were completely unaware of what was coming. I wanted to stay, and so we stayed. There were teenagers surfing, families walking their dogs along the sand, or boating, or flying kites; children were searching for shells with their buckets and shovels. I couldn’t look away; it was fascinating to me-the people down there either didn’t know or didn’t understand that something unthinkable was on its way to destroy them.

“From the roof I watched the waters slowly pull back from the beach. They all watched as well. It must have been an illusion but it seemed the sea receded halfway out to the horizon. For every one of those people who turned and ran for higher ground there were hundreds who stayed, mesmerized as their impending doom gathered strength.

“I was later told that there had been some form of warning system in place but it had failed, or that those in charge of the public safety had become so complacent that the red phones and radio alerts went unheard and unanswered. But I’ll tell you what I believe.

“I believe those people stayed because they thought the fragile things they’d built would last forever. They looked at the breakwater walls and they trusted them. Nothing could breach those walls, because nothing ever had before. But when the seas came in it wasn’t in the form of a wave at all, it was an uprising of Nature herself, steady and swelling and ruthless and patient, completely oblivious to the frail constructions of mankind. And it was all swept away. My holiday was cut short, and two hundred and fifty thousand people in the region lost their lives.”

The old man looked to each of the attendees, one by one.

“Bear Stearns, a cornerstone firm of Wall Street founded when my father was a young man, a company whose stock had quite recently been selling at a hundred and sixty dollars a share, was bailed out by the Federal Reserve and J.P. Morgan at two dollars per share. That was the beginning, my friends. That was your earthquake under the sea.

“As I reviewed your situation this morning it occurred to me: you’re just like those people down on the beach in Kalutara, aren’t you? You’re watching a world-changing disaster on the rise, and yet for some odd reason you seem to be fretting about how the American people would feel if they were to read of your perfectly justified panic in their morning newspaper. That isn’t your problem at all, of course. It’s not what they might think of you that should be keeping you up at night; it’s what they might very well do to you, and to your superiors, in the aftermath of the global catastrophe that’s just around the corner.

“Look at you. You’re stacking sandbags when your entire coastline is about to change forever. All the while the crimes you’re so worried that people will discover are still in progress. We are in the midst of what will become the most devastating financial calamity in the history of Western civilization, and just this week-please do correct me if my figures are wrong-the Congress and the administration have committed to funnel almost eight trillion dollars to the very institutions that engineered the crisis. And in your infinite wisdom you’ve openly placed their cronies and henchmen in charge of the oversight of this so-called economic stimulus. It’s a heist, an inside job. It’s been done before, of course. Social Security was the boldest Ponzi scheme in history until now. But all the bills for all those years are finally coming due, and there’s not enough money in the world to pay them.”