Aug. 29, 2009 - The Political Cesspool - James Edwards
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Welcome to the Political Cesspool, known worldwide as the South's foremost populous radio program.
And here to guide you through the murky waters of the Political Cesspool is your host, James Edwards.
All right, welcome back to the show, everyone.
I'm James Edwards.
It's Saturday evening, August 29th, and we continue on for tonight's second hour.
I sure hope everyone enjoyed the first hour as Keith Alexander and I gave you a 60-minute expose on the true life and times of Ted Kennedy.
Informative, I'm sure.
But not to be outdone, we have two more great hours of programming forthcoming as we hear from Dr. Greg Johnson during tonight's third hour.
We have not one, but two great guests appearing together in tandem during tonight's second hour.
But before we bring them on, let me say that now filling in in the co-host seat is none other than Winston Smith.
Winston, how are you doing?
I'm doing very well.
Still musing over, well, everything that's been happening.
I mean, I guess we could sort of say it's been a good couple of weeks.
First, Michael Jackson's gone.
Now Ted Kennedy's gone.
I hate to be craft, but really, what good have they done?
Zilch.
None for me.
I always hate when any fellow human being dies, but, you know, frankly, you've got to measure the life versus the accomplishments.
And Ted Kennedy's accomplishments have been scant, and the damage he has caused has been abundant.
Well, I can tell that you are certainly keeping Keith's chair warm because you're filling it up right where he left off, buddy.
But truer words were never spoken, particularly with concern to Teddy Kennedy.
And so what can you say?
Someone's got to say it, and here we are saying it.
But that's not why we have you on tonight.
Tonight, Winston, you are on with us to analyze the media and movies and what we can do collaboratively to foster a better image for our people and for our movement.
And we have two guests on the line now from Phoenix, Arizona and Denver, Colorado, respectively.
Merlin Miller and Craig Botaker, two very good friends of mine and ours and yours, and obviously two men of great accomplishment.
Merlin and Craig, are you there?
Hi, yes.
How are you?
Doing well.
We have a barbershop quartet here now, so we are excited about that.
Although, Craig, I just heard that you had a little bit of an unfortunate circumstance arise.
As a matter of fact, when the screener called, I completely forgot.
I just got back from the hospital.
I got T-boned by a woman in a giant SUV.
And obviously you're doing okay.
Doing okay.
The painkillers have kicked in.
I got 11 stitches in my head and 11 stitches in my knee.
And my car totaled, I guess.
But so it was an interesting afternoon.
And still here to do the show.
Now, that's a soldier, Winston.
I'm going to keep my commitments.
Winston, this makes me think of a certain other interview that we conducted under similar circumstances.
You know where I'm going with this?
No, I can't see just yet.
Sonny Landam.
You remember Sonny Landam.
He was getting prepped for heart surgery, and they were medicating him, and he was still doing the interview, and he was telling the nurse to get out of his room.
He's on the radio.
He was in the hospital the night before heart surgery on all sorts of medication.
And when I called him, I had no idea he was going to be, obviously, in the hospital when we booked him for the interview, and he didn't let it be known.
And I said, Sonny, are you ready?
Oh, yeah, I'm in the hospital and this, that, and the other.
I'm on all sorts of medicines, and I got heart surgery tomorrow.
Well, are you sure you want to do it?
Oh, yeah, the show must go on.
And it went on all right.
And if anybody can find that one in the archives, you're in for a treat.
But Craig.
That's hilarious.
I guess you're doing.
That's one that will live on in Seth School history.
We've got a lot of those out there at the archives.
But anyway, Craig, apparently you're doing much better than that.
And my God, man, thanks for sticking with us tonight.
What can I say?
You know, I think it's important.
Well, it is.
And hopefully we'll try to make it worth your time before you go to bed.
And I hope you will go to bed after this.
But Craig and Merlin, listen, y'all have done so much good with regard to reshaping our image and using the media to our advantage.
You've been on the show, both of you, respectively, have been on two or three times of peace to talk about some of your past work and accomplishments.
And that's not the focus of tonight's interview, although I do think it's important because we do have an ever-growing audience that we quickly, and I mean quickly in a minute or less, recap who you are and what you've done.
Merlin, we'll start with you.
And don't be modest.
Yes, thanks, James.
And Craig, I'm glad you're with us.
You're a trooper.
Well, thanks, Merlin.
I appreciate it.
And Winston, hi, how are you doing?
But anyway, yeah, James, what I'd like to do is just let you know a little bit about what we're at.
My experiences were in Hollywood starting in 1983.
I went back to USC Film School and spent two years there.
A number of years making low-budget features, primarily assistant director, assistant producer.
Finally left there after about 10 years in the mid-90s to start off on my own and do some independent features.
And that's what we've been doing the last several years.
And most recent film was a film called Jericho, which was a mystery western that we have out.
And we're taking it to a new level now.
We're forming a new company and building our team to really have a viable chance of competing against Hollywood.
And that means not only producing quality, but also being able to have our distribution outlets so that we can get direct to the public and not be, you know, fall victim to the barriers that Hollywood will put in front of us.
And we're going to talk more about your future projects, Merlin, and Craig, obviously, as this interview continues.
And it goes without saying that Merlin is a legitimate Hollywood producer and director.
He's worked with some A-list talent, Wilford Brimley, Arleigh Ermy, and others.
And you should check him out and check out some of the films that he's been a part of because this is what we're talking about, having an avenue and a venue into the mainstream.
And we have to have people willing to sign on to our issues and subscribe to the tenets that we subscribe to and then not be afraid to usher those into the mainstream.
And certainly Merlin has done that.
And Craig has also.
Craig, it goes without saying, Craig Bottaker is the man who brought us a conversation about race.
Craig, tell us a little bit about a quick synopsis of that DVD documentary.
Well, in a nutshell, I just began to have questions about this word racism that we hear so much, especially from TV and from our politicians.
And what I learned was that when people use it, they really don't apply any specific definition to it.
In fact, I was so sure about that that I took a camera and a crew and I said, let's have some conversation.
And I interviewed about 50 people, and we got into the subject where most people fear to tread.
We got into some of the more discomforting areas.
And it was funny that most of the people who really believe that racism is everywhere, not only couldn't they see it anyplace, actually, they couldn't really find an example of it, they couldn't even define what it was.
Well, and the result of all of your work was a just incredibly engrossing and informative 60-minute documentary that I think most people listening to this program are at least familiar with if they haven't seen it already.
And we encourage you to check it out, a conversationaboutrace.com.
We've been promoting it heavily.
And I do appreciate that.
Well, it's the least we could do, truly.
And obviously, Merlin Miller with Americana Pictures, we're going to be talking much more about both institutions and organizations as this interview goes on.
But I guess it probably could have gone without saying, but I wanted to, for the benefit of the audience, quickly recap the accomplishments that each of you men bring to the table before we spend the next 45 minutes talking about where we're going with that.
But Winston, truly, you really can't understate what these men have done.
You cannot, and you cannot anticipate too much the work that they will do in the future.
And I look forward to hearing them describe their accomplishments and getting into the questions because I have several.
And knowing these gentlemen as I do, I know they will give excellent answers.
And it's going to be a good time with Craig Bottiker and Merlin Miller.
And we're going to get into that and more, much more, in fact, after this next commercial break here on the Liberty News Radio Network, the Political Cess Pool.
James Edwards and Winston Smith now with you hosting.
And absolutely, I say again, Winston, when you're talking about, and it's so important because I think oftentimes we, and this is something we'll be talking about with Greg Johnson during the third hour, we kind of take ourselves out of pop culture.
We just build a wall around us because so much of it is evil and counterproductive.
And we just completely wall ourselves off from pop culture.
And we ought not do that.
We ought to be finding ways to retake our institutions and find talent out there that can cultivate good, wholesome messages and get them out in a way that will be palatable with Joe Sixpack and not just Joe Sixpack, but with more intellectual audiences as well.
And that's what Merlin and Craig have done.
I think they have created films that can reach out to a broad spectrum of our people that positively, that shapes a positive image of our people and our issues.
And when we talk about folks who are using the media to our advantage, there's just really no one, I think, that have done more than the two guests we have on tonight.
And that's why we have them on tonight.
Together in tandem, for the first time on the radio, at least, Craig Bottaker and Merlin Miller are appearing in tandem.
And we will be talking to them more as the Political Cess Pool continues on the Liberty News Radio Network right after these words from our sponsors.
Sit tight, everyone.
just getting started don't go away There's more political cesspool coming your way right after these messages.
Welcome back.
To get on the Political Cesspool, call us on James's Dime, toll-free, at 1-866-986-6397.
And here's the host of the Political Cess Pool, James Edwards.
All right, everybody.
Introductions or reintroductions now out of the way.
We're back, James Edwards and Winston Smith, with our guests and friends, Merlin Miller of Americana Pictures and Craig Bottaker, the DVD documentarian who gave us a conversation about race.
Winston, you have an excellent question to sort of set the tone for the rest of this interview.
Let's go right at it.
All right.
Good evening, gentlemen.
Evening.
And James?
I like that, Winston.
Craig and Merlin, when it comes to culture, the racially aware white people in this country are divided roughly into two camps.
The first camp is those who think American culture is lost and we are locked out of it.
And therefore, we should abandon culture to our enemies since they successfully absconded with it in the first place.
And we should set about establishing our own culture.
And the second camp is those who think that we should fight to retake culture since it belongs to us in the first place.
And we should be about reclaiming it.
I'd like to ask you, do either of you fall into either of those camps?
And if so, why?
And is there another alternative?
Go ahead, Merlin.
Yeah, I guess my response would be that I think as a race, European Americans have been dispossessed largely over the last 40 years since the Immigration Act of 1965, which incidentally was co-sponsored by Senator Ted Kennedy.
But since then, we've gone from 90% European-American-derived to about 65%, and that is radical change in demographics, and it caused a tremendous amount of problems that we're now experiencing.
I believe we need to fight to lay claim back to our mainstream media.
We need to say, hey, we're a people, too, and we need a voice, and we built this country, and we're going to stand and fight for it.
Well, I think I agree with Merlin myself.
I'm not sure that trying to hop on board today's cultural bandwagon could really change anything.
I could go and try to get a job working with Quentin Tarantino, but I'm not sure that's going to help white people at all.
I kind of like Merlin's idea about the idea of looking for our own avenues of getting people to see these things, distribution or movies, television, the internet, any different way to get these things across.
As a matter of fact, for a little plug here, I'm going to air a conversation about race September 17th here in Denver at 7.30 p.m. for the first time on TV.
Great.
So hopefully we can get some people talking about that.
But as far as culture is concerned, honestly, it's kind of a loaded word, number one, but it's become so anti-white and so poisonous today that I would think the best thing would just be, let these guys keep making bad movies.
Let these guys keep making a saying, you know, this is garbage.
And people will look for alternatives.
Well, and then the alternatives are there.
It goes without saying with the films and documentaries that you two gentlemen have produced.
And again, I want to impress upon the audience as strongly as I can that we don't have two guys here that took a course on film in college and said, you know, hey, I'm a filmmaker.
I mean, we're talking to two guys here who have produced very tangible, very real results.
And well, I would like to just give a heads up to Merlin.
Merlin's actually worked in Hollywood and made real, actual, good feature films.
I'm a documentarian.
I thought I'd throw that out there and let the audience know that I'm not trying to pretend that my accomplishments meet Merlin's.
Well, you can be as modest as you want.
Also, Merlin has worked with R. Lee Ermi.
I already mentioned that.
What could be better?
Well, the only thing that could be better is working with James Edwards.
There you go.
James Edwards is my hero.
I am available for roles.
I'm out of work.
Oh, good.
Are you the stormtrooper?
Yeah, I've never been.
I've got a face made for radio.
That's what they say.
Come on.
No, seriously.
I mean, no, Craig, I mean, what you've produced, obviously Merlin's work is legitimate Hollywood work, and he's worked with a lot of A-list actors, as we've said.
But, no, I mean, come on, Craig, what you've produced could have been on, I say this not as an insult, but as far as professionalism goes, could have been on PBS or any of the other HBO documentaries, History Channel, you name it.
It's that good.
So we're talking with people who have produced results, and that's who we try to showcase you on the political system, people who are getting the job done.
But what we have here, I mean, obviously the question about media, the media plays such an important role in the dispossession of our people and also shaping pop culture and the way we perceive certain images and terms, and we have got to start fighting back.
And the way you fight back is by producing things that will counteract all of the negative imagery that we're getting from Hollywood.
You've got to do it as professionally and as good as the evildoers are doing it, if that makes any sense, gentlemen.
And that's what y'all have done.
That's why I'm so excited about your work.
That's why we can't promote you enough on this program.
But Winston, for the next actual question, I'll turn it back over to you.
Well, unfortunately, I can't hear Merlin at all, but I guess the next question I would have is: so since you both see that our best option is to begin to establish our own media and to begin to establish our own culture again, I assume you see that there are really two world views in Mortal Kombat here.
Do you see that if we do succeed in establishing our own culture, that we can succeed with it, that we can carry it on, that we can have an impact?
If I can answer that, definitely.
I think the audience has been lost.
75% of the potential filmgoers don't go to films anymore.
People are tuning out of television every day.
I mean, it's just gotten so atrocious, the programming.
Political correctness still exists, but in terms of quality, there's no quality there.
Since Walt Disney died in the mid-60s, we really haven't had a representative in Hollywood that stands for the values at least I was raised with, and that respect the Constitution and respect things like truth, justice, and liberty.
All those founding fathers' principles, we need to stand up and say there can be an alternative voice here, and we just can't depend on Hollywood for it.
We have to build it ourselves.
And Craig, before you chime in on that, I just have to interject here.
I absolutely agree with what Craig's saying there is that there is a magnificent void out there that is not being filled.
I think it's one of the main reasons that this radio program has been so successful is that there's just no other radio shows on the AM and FM airwaves that are addressing the issues from the point of view that we do.
But it's a void that a void that's being filled, certainly, but it's the void.
I mean, Merlin's right.
I mean, 75% of the people, I would say truly, 75% of European Americans still fundamentally agree with the message and ethos of this program.
And so they're not getting on the radio other than here.
They're not getting it in the film other than perhaps Merlin and a couple of others.
They're not getting it with regard to documentaries other than people like Craig.
There's just a huge, huge market out there that would probably be responsive to some sort of a paleoconservative or race realist message, and that's what we're trying to produce.
But Craig, yes, over to you.
Well, I couldn't agree more.
And I think that the next step, I've actually worked, hired a group of small actors myself and just had one meeting so far about trying to just make two simple two to five minute videos, just something we can get on YouTube, just something out there that gets our message across with humor, as opposed to somebody talking to a camera or trying to make a serious point.
Let's use a little humor.
So I've contracted a team of four people to try to get a couple of videos out by October.
I don't know if I'll make it or not.
But I've got a couple of talented individuals.
As a matter of fact, I've got a talented black guy, a Japanese woman, a couple of white guys and a girl so far.
And they seem like they're kind of flexible.
So there may be some room just to make some quick, you know, make some quick anti-racism PSAs or something like this.
Just brought to you by your government or something like that.
Just anyway, so if I get sidetracked as the drugs.
Yeah, I was just going to say between now and then, just be careful where you drive.
Oh, yeah, no more driving tonight.
Yes.
Well, we have only 30 seconds left before the next break.
So rather than opening up another line of questioning here, I want to quickly toss back to something Craig had mentioned earlier.
You said you're having your first, what, commercially aired presentation of a conversation about race in Denver.
Now, is this a live viewing or is this something that's going to be aired over a local station?
It's a local station.
They're local channel 53 on your Comcast dial.
And they're not a big station.
I have to pay to put it on the air.
But then I got to pay to buy some ad stuff.
But they've made me the best offer that anyone has so far.
Well, we look forward to it.
And you heard it there, folks.
So for anyone tuning in in Denver tonight, mark that on your calendar.
And we'll be back with more right after this.
Don't go away.
The political cesspool, guys.
We'll be back right after these messages.
On the show and express your opinion in the Political Says poll,
call us toll-free at 1-866-986-6397.
What an appropriate intro back to the next segment because Winston, just not two hours before tonight's program, I just bought tickets to my next Frankie Valley concert.
But I wanted to throw that out there in case anybody was wondering.
No, we are going to go to the phone lines, though.
We don't do it enough here in the Political Cess Pool.
1-866-986-News.
1-866-986-NEWS.
We're going to take some phone calls now for our featured guests, Merlin Miller, the acclaimed filmmaker, producer, director, and Craig Bottaker of A Conversation About Race, the much talked about documentary.
Give us a call.
1-866-986-News to be on the Political Cess Pool with James Edwards, Winston-Smith, and our guests tonight, courtesy of the Liberty News Radio Network.
And going to those phones, let's first go to Mike in Ohio.
Mike, you're on the line with James, Winston, Craig, and Merlin.
Hey, James, how are you doing?
Long time no see.
We're hanging in there.
We're doing the best we can with a very bad dick.
Well, don't worry.
I got the fried chicken and potato salad.
All right.
Well, that makes it better already.
Yeah, if you get the cultural reference to a specific public figure several weeks ago.
Absolutely.
Yeah, we covered that on this very show.
Yep.
Hey, Craig, I got one quick question for you.
The question is, I saw your film, and there was one guy, specifically in your film, who was being asked by you, what would you do if someone broke into your house?
And he goes, like, I'll kill the blank.
Yeah.
You know, that was the most ironic incident in the whole film because then you said you said the cops are racist, but then you're a criminal.
And what was his name, just out of curiosity?
I don't have it off the top of my head.
I've got all the releases in boxes somewhere.
He was one of the outdoor interviews, so we didn't talk that long, probably no more than 10 minutes.
Because I was wondering if all those subjects saw the film or not afterwards.
The truth is, I don't know if any of them have.
I've never had contact with any of them.
Once I got a call from a, or I got an email from a law firm in Los Angeles with no subject attached.
And of course, I didn't respond to it.
But other than that, I mean, I've never heard a word from any of the subjects.
True.
Because I agree, some of them would have looked really foolish, especially that particular guy.
The same with Martin, probably, and also Paul.
Well, really, truly everyone pretty much in that film, if you've seen it.
And yeah, I mean, and Craig in no way did what the liberal media does to conservative guests.
He basically just asked a point-blank question, in no way tried to lead them or set them up to fail.
Their own answers and their own hypocrisies sealed their fate.
Right, right.
Because I was wondering, Craig, what led to your, well, for lack of a better term, awakening before you realized the truth of everything?
Well, I think the easiest answer is I started to travel a lot.
And when I travel, I've done a lot of traveling in Asia, especially and a little bit in Europe.
And I've just kind of seen how things differ from what I see on TV and what I see in the movies versus what I see in real life.
I mean, to use the term racist, I mean, I hate the word, as you know, as you probably know, but we're all, if I have to use it, I would say that we are all racist.
And the nice thing is when you go overseas and you travel, you find out it's true.
You find out that, well, everybody thinks the same way about a lot of things.
I remember what John Ed Taylor said in his speech at a seminar recently.
He said that everything your grandpappy told you about race turned out to be true.
Well, you know, Mike, and thank you for the call.
Always a pleasure to hear from you.
That's a good question for Merlin as well.
I think it's always interesting to find out how each of us got on this breadcrumb trail of race realism and America First, true paleoconservatism, whatever you want to call it, nationalism.
Merlin, a question to you, a man with Hollywood credentials.
What got you on this trek?
Well, you know, I think it just gradually built up over a period of years.
I just saw an insidious process of becoming more and more politically correct, which was historically incorrect, or in terms of truths and what's really going on in the world.
I didn't think was a fair representation for our life's experiences.
And finally came to the point where I say we've got to start representing our interests and start telling stories that appeal to our people and that are positive stories that can lift us up and not bring us down into the gutter.
And that led me on a research and several years of exploration to try to find out what's really going on and how can we combat this.
1-866-986 News.
I know for everyone listening out there on the internet, there's a couple of minutes of a delay from the live satellite feed that goes out to the AM stations and from what you're getting.
But give us a call.
We'll try to get you on as quickly as possible.
1-866-986 News.
Coming up in the next segment, we're going to be talking with Craig and Merlin about their future prospects and hopes and dreams, so to speak.
But guys, I got a general question here just from a fan's perspective.
And this is a real broad question, so it's probably be hard for y'all to narrow it down.
And Merlin, we'll start with you and then toss it back to Craig.
In your experience in films, in Hollywood and with documentaries and with the people you meet and the fan mail you get and the hate mail that you get, what is the single most interesting story that you have?
Gosh, as far as a story, I don't know that there's one that really jumps out among all the others.
I just detect a frustration and it's a growing frustration.
It's like people are saying that Hollywood is no longer insidiously doing this.
They're doing it over the top and they're shoving it down our throats and saying this is the way it is and you can't do anything about it.
And people's frustration is there and the timing could never be better for us to build an alternative that can reach the people.
And I'm talking to the majority of the people.
Craig, what about you?
Can you summarize the question again?
Are you still there?
Yeah, we're here.
We're all here.
Can you summarize the question again for me, James?
I was just basically asking, it's a pretty general and broad question, but the most amazing experience or story you have from your time in the media.
I know your time perhaps isn't as long as Merlin's, but I guess a couple of years you've been in this business from this particular perspective.
Well, I guess the best story that I can think of is that when the BNP was in the contest in England for the parliamentary positions, and the BNP put my video on their website a week before the election, and 200, I'm sorry, 25,000 people watched my film in the UK.
And as it turned out, that the two candidates got elected to parliament.
So that was pretty cool.
But the interesting thing was that I have never gotten such hateful personal attacks as I did from the people in England.
Well, I don't doubt that, but thankfully, those who weren't writing hateful letters were voting for Nick Griffin and Andrew Bronze.
And of course, Nick Griffin was on this show not even a month ago.
While you're listening in much better shape.
Before we toss it back to Winston, let's take another quick call from Utah.
Utah, you're on the line.
Jeffrey from Utah.
Yes.
You're on the air.
Yeah, I just wanted to ask a question I got listening to this channel.
Never heard anything like it.
And me and my brother were talking yesterday about the effects of affirmative action on the workplace in America.
Just wanted to hear some of your guys' opinions on that.
Well, Winston, I'll let you take that.
Thank you for the call, Jeffrey.
It's obviously an issue that we talk about a lot on this show.
I don't know if it particularly correlates with what we're talking about with Merlin and Craig, but it's a good question and it's seemingly a sincere one.
So Winston, a quick overview on that.
James, I'm sorry, I could not hear the caller at all.
Talk, he was asking our opinion on affirmative action in the workplace.
Affirmative action in the workplace has been the cause of despair and ruination for untold thousands of lives.
Affirmative action in the workplace creates distrust.
It creates friction.
It creates everything opposite to what a workplace should be doing.
It makes people take time away from production.
It forces people to waste time on sheer politics.
And frankly, there is just no good that has come out of it and no good ever can come out of it.
It is simply a waste of time, money, and other resources.
Well, there you have it.
He also said he was a new listener and had never heard anything about our, like this before on the radio, and it seemed as though that was complimentary.
And I have no doubt that he's telling the truth.
We are a very unique show, a show that's grown quite a bit, to say the least, over the course of the last five years.
And with regards to affirmative action and all that stuff, I think truly, though, the line we advocate is where our heartfelt convictions lie.
We want equal opportunity for all, but special privileges for none, particularly when the special privileges are privileges that are going to dispossess our family in the workplace and in academia and in entertainment and the church and so on and so forth.
But anyway, thank you for the call, Jeff from Utah.
We'll try to take another call or two in this final segment we have coming up.
Coming up, perhaps the most important segment of the night with Craig Bottaker and Merlin Miller.
We're going to be asking them what their future plans entail.
You're not wanting to miss what they have to say.
So sit tight on the political settlement.
Continue live this Saturday night, August 29th, right after these words from our sponsors.
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Tonight's show.
Now, yes, I say it every week, and every week I mean it.
It goes by so fast.
How are we already 45 minutes into this interview?
It seems as though we just introduced Craig Bodaker and Merlin Miller.
And even though we haven't really focused on things too specific tonight with these gentlemen, we did that in previous interviews with them individually.
I did feel it incumbent upon myself to have them both on to remind everyone about the good work that is being done out there with regards to reclaiming our media.
This is our media.
We made it.
It's our country.
We can take it back.
And taking it back starts with folks with talent like Craig and Merlin doing their part.
And certainly they are.
And that being said, I'd like to ask both of them, what's next?
Merlin, we'll start with you.
Obviously, Americana Pictures, you have produced and directed and worked with some great talent in Hollywood, and your name has been attached to some very good and wholesome films.
And now you've started your own production company.
You're moving forward.
You've had screenwriters' workshops, and you're in a phase now where you're going around and building support for Americana Pictures, and you've got projects forthcoming.
Tell us more about it.
Thank you, Kate.
We're reaching out to try to find Mid-America again.
And like you say, we did the screenwriting workshop.
We want to do more of those to develop talent to feed us great scripts.
We have a pipeline of quality product that we can look at and hopefully produce.
Our first one we've just committed to is called The Liberator.
It's a story that's kind of in the spirit of Braveheart or the Patriot or Gladiator set 2,000 years ago.
It's about a man who united the tribes in Germania to stop and ultimately defeat three Roman legions and stop the Roman Empire from basically Romanizing the northern part of Europe.
Instead, it became Anglo-Saxonized, which changed the course of history.
An incredible story.
I mean, the soap opera elements are fantastic, but it's based on a real story, a real hero in history.
And the Barnes Review, which is probably the best magazine of any kind of historical relevance, is going to feature the Liberator, the Arminius story, in their next issue, the September-October issue, which actually commemorates the 2,000-year anniversary of the famous battle that he fought to defeat the Romans.
And that's a project we're real excited about.
We've committed to it.
We're building our management team right now.
And over the course of the next several months, we'll be pulling the pieces together and look to be in production next year with it.
Well, Merlin, I guess it's a rhetorical question.
To ask the question is to answer it.
If we were waiting on someone else to produce a major picture on one of the greatest heroes in the history of our people, Arminius, how long would we be waiting?
You'd never see it.
You'd never see it.
Quick answer, that's for sure.
Well, we can't wait to learn more about it.
Craig, over to you.
You burst onto the scene with a conversation about race, a documentary that I just can't say enough about.
Folks, if you think I'm giving these guys undue and overly lavish praise, you don't know who we're talking to.
You need to go and research these men and their work at their websites.
We'll be sure to give those out in just a moment.
But folks are obviously waiting, Craig, on maybe not the sequel to a conversation about race, but certainly your second DVD.
I haven't shot my wad.
It'd be hard to top.
Now, I'm going to tell you, you've got a hell of a task in front of you topping what you accomplished with the conversation about race.
So where do you go from here?
Well, thank you.
Thank you for that, James.
I really do appreciate it.
Like I said right now, I think what I'm trying to do is I'm trying to do everything that a producer can do all by myself, and I guess they really shouldn't do it.
But the truth is, it's just all about money, and I don't have a lot, so I do what I can where I can.
And I'm using Craig's list like I did in a conversation about race, getting actors.
And luckily, I've got a verbal commitment from my editor, Hans Domkohler, the editor of a conversation about race, to work with me on this project.
And I can't give Hans enough credit for what he did with a conversation about race, so I'm just really excited to be working with him again.
But basically, like I said, that the next project you should expect from me should be two to five minute just make you think little videos.
Winston, where would you like to see both Merlin and Craig go from here?
Onwards and upwards.
They both have incredible talent.
They both have incredible vision.
And James, I'm with you.
You cannot say enough for what they've done so far.
And it gives me a lot of hope for the future.
I would like to ask them a question, though, before we go much further.
And gentlemen, my question is this.
It's obvious, in fact, few things could be more obvious, that Hollywood has no intention of representing what we could probably call red state Americans any longer.
In fact, Quentin Tarantino's new movie pretty much spills the beans, spills the beans and the cat out of the bag for what Hollywood's agenda is.
But I'd like to ask that since Hollywood no longer represents normal working Americans, why do normal working Americans continue to go see these movies that are meant to denigrate them and eventually destroy them?
Why do we keep going to see them?
Can I handle that one, Merlin?
Sure, you bet.
I'm thinking I was conditioned as a young man to always go to the movies.
And the thing that kept me coming back was the advances in technology.
And it's like I got to the point where I would tell people, the only reason I go to theaters anymore is just to see the big special effects.
So I thought that was kind of a draw for a while.
But now I realize that the special effects are actually ruining the movies.
They're not making them better.
They're just making them dumber with a big CG ending at the end.
So people are going to the movies.
But I think the truth is we've been spoiled with movies.
We only see these polished, wonderful Hollywood products.
Just like with music, the only songs we hear on the radio are perfect, polished, stylized versions of songs.
I mean, our musicians spend more time promoting themselves than they do actually performing music.
So I think maybe it's time for America to consider what we consider entertainment.
Does it always have to be a big, fat, fancy movie?
Or could we see a movie that one of our friends made?
I think that the current movies that we see being really nothing more than film productions of comic books and remakes of older movies, I think it characterizes the current crop of filmmakers as the most unoriginal bunch imaginable.
They simply take a a classic story, one that was well done years ago, and they add they add distracting special effects to it, and they they call that filmmaking.
But they are unoriginal.
They are uncreative.
And they're trying to use technology to cover up that lack of originality and that lack of creativity.
Are you saying if you add a hip-hop soundtrack to It's a Wonderful Life, it wouldn't be a hit?
No, it wouldn't be a hit.
In fact, I was talking with somebody not long ago, and I expected somebody to make a hip-hop version of The Wizard of Oz.
They kind of did that, didn't they?
The Wiz?
That was a pop version.
Okay.
It wasn't a hip-hop version.
They did make the hip-hop version to Romeo and Juliet with Leonardo DiCaprio.
I don't know if anybody caught that.
It was set in, what, modern-day Los Angeles?
I was probably the only one.
Never mind.
I know what you mean.
I saw that movie, but it's Phil.
What is it?
It's a remake of William Shakespeare's classic drama.
And they just, they put it in, they made the, they put it in Mad Max's world, you know?
Well, anyway, good question, nevertheless, and obviously a great answer.
Merlin, I just can't believe how quickly the sand's run out of the hourglass tonight.
You've got to plug your website.
We've got to let people know that they can get more information about both of you gentlemen and find out that we weren't just blowing smoke their way tonight.
So where can they learn more about Merlin Miller and Americana Pictures?
Well, we have a website, James.
It's Americana-Pictures.com, you know, with a hyphen between Americana.
Remember the hyphen, ladies and gentlemen.
Yes, put the hyphen in there.
And it's a startup website.
We've got a little information about where we're going, and we'll update it as we get more information to put out.
And Winston, one little comment I'd like to make about your question there, too, is I think the real problem is people don't have alternatives.
They don't know what quality entertainment is anymore.
They're given a choice between bad and worse.
We need to give them a choice between good and better.
You're here.
I heard that.
Winston, everyone in the world can hear Merlin tonight, except for Winston, but he gave a very eloquent statement there.
Craig, over to you before we have to go to the next commercial break, and I'll tell you, in commercial radio, commercial breaks are relentless.
Where can folks learn more about your work?
Conversationaboutrace.com.
And they can email me there as well.
Well, there you go.
So stay in touch and folks, support the people who are producing results.
We said that in one of our most recent fundraising letters.
Anyone in the world can ask for your money.
Anyone can be a fly-by-the-seat of their pants type of figure or come up with some sort of a shell of an organization.
Support the people who have delivered results and produced positive results for our people in their respective fields.
And when it comes to media and movies, there just aren't two more accomplished gentlemen, and I do say gentlemen, than Merlin Miller of Americana Pictures and Craig Bottaker with his documentary, A Conversation About Race.
Gentlemen, it's always my pleasure to host you on this program.
I look forward to the next time already.
And we will do it again sooner rather than later.
And Craig, Godspeed to you.
Stay safe.
Get healed up and get on the mend.
And Merlin, have a safe trip back to Tennessee.
I know you're out on the road tonight.
Well, thank you, James.
Thank you, Winston.
Great listening to you too, Craig.
Yeah, thank you, Merlin, and James and Winston as well.
We'll see you all next time, everybody.
Thanks for being with us this hour.
Much more to come during tonight's third hour.
We're going to take a little break here.
We've got six minutes of national news, and we'll be back for tonight's third and final hour of the Political Successful Radio Program as Winston Smith and I sit down and talk with Dr. Greg Johnson, editor of the Occidental Quarterly, live and exclusive, tonight on TPC.
We'll be back with more right after this on the Liberty News Radio Network.