Oct. 2, 2010 - 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.
Welcome to the Political Cesspool Radio Program, or welcome back, I should say, to the second hour of tonight's live broadcast.
James Edwards here with you in studio at AM 1380, WLRM, in Memphis, Tennessee, broadcasting live to the internet tonight at thepoliticalcesspool.org.
And also, going out to the AM FM affiliate stations of the Liberty News Radio Network.
It's Saturday evening, October the 2nd.
And we're very glad to have you along with us tonight.
Joining me in the co-hosting position, the co-pilot's position this hour, Winston Smith.
Winston, how are you?
James, I am so good.
I had a great day.
I had a pretty good week.
Today I was out in my wood shop with my son.
We were making a nice little kitchen gadget for my wife.
I have such a good time out there with that boy.
I'm so proud of him.
And, well, it's just been a good week.
There's been some good news, been some bad news, but the bad news has just proven everything we've been saying.
It's a great day to be a Political Cesspool co-host.
That's all I can say.
Hey, listen, he's not kidding.
If you didn't catch our extensive coverage on that in the first hour, just go to thepolitical cesspool.org.
We're blinded by our own celebrity now.
It's getting way out of hand.
Too much publicity regenerator.
We're going to have to scale it back somehow.
I don't know.
But it's not going to happen tonight.
Not with our guests.
Not with Merlin Miller on, the film director.
He is there.
You talked about a good week and a good night, Winston.
It's only going to get better over the course of the next hour as we interview a man who was born and raised in Des Moines, Iowa, where he graduated from the United States Military Academy at West Point, served several years in the U.S. Army where he commanded two units and then worked as an industrial engineering manager for Michelin Tire Company.
In 1983, he was accepted into the University of Southern California's Peter Stark Motion Picture Producing Program, graduating in 1985 with an MFA degree in cinema and television.
Merlin Miller has since been an independent screenwriter, motion picture producer, director, and media instructor.
His award-winning films include A Place to Grow, starring Wilfred Brimley, and Jericho, starring Mark Valley and R. Lee Ermi.
His vision is to build a viable and far-reaching alternative to Hollywood, one that can help shape a more positive destiny for the marginalized yet traditionally valued American majority.
A well written biography, to be sure.
Merlin Miller, welcome back to our program.
It's great to have you.
Hello, James.
Good up being back on your show.
Well, we've got a lot to talk about tonight, and I don't want to waste a precious second of it.
You mentioned in your bio there, and I wanted to be sure to read it for everyone to give them a little bit of perspective about the man that you are.
You talked about your service in the military.
I know that that's something that's very important to you, something that you want to convey in your films.
Let's talk first, though, before we talk projects.
Let's talk about the state of our military and how that reflects upon the state of our country.
What are your thoughts on that?
Well, I think it's a direct reflection on the country.
And, you know, we've got outstanding people in the military.
We personally have family, immediate family, brother and sister in the Iowa National Guard.
We've got a lot of friends, and I have classmates from West Point that are still in the service, and outstanding people wanting to do the best they can for our country.
And they're just placed in an impossible situation right now, and it's not fair to them.
We've basically abandoned them in the sense of the normal traditional use of servicemen to protect the interests of our country.
They're being misused, and it's destroying our military.
We're suffering dearly for it.
Not only the costs in terms of losses of soldiers and the injuries they're coming back with, but the cost in terms of what the taxpayers are being burdened with now, the ill will we have in the world.
Just a lot of problems with this, and it ties directly to the state of our country and how our country has been suffering some serious blows here the last several years.
Winston, obviously, Merlin's a man who's passionate about the state of the military, the military that he loved, the military that he is, for which he is honorably served.
A follow-up question.
James, anybody who went through West Point, they have a special love for the American military.
I think all branches, of course, especially for the Army.
But if you've ever walked through those hallowed grounds and you stood in a place where General MacArthur delivered his seminal speech, duty, honor, and country, you cannot help but be amazed at the kind of people who come from West Point, Merlin Miller being one of the exemplars of all that is best.
But Merlin, I'd like to ask you also about the state of our military.
It seems to me that the main mission of the U.S. military today is to not offend the gays.
That is the main thing that the military exists for, is to not offend gays.
But, you know, Merlin, we've been seeing reports lately of the incredibly high suicide rates in the Army.
Why is that?
Have you ever seen this happen before, even in the worst days of the Vietnam conflict?
I don't think to this degree.
And why it's happening is they're stressed out.
These soldiers are serving two, three, four deployments away from their families.
They're coming back.
They're traumatized while they're over there.
It's a high-stress environment.
And nobody's really safe.
With these IEDs, you could be a service support personnel and still be in danger.
I've got some family in Iowa, and they've just now deployed the largest single deployment that they've had since World War II from Iowa.
And it's almost 4,000 people that are on their way to Afghanistan now.
And this is ridiculous.
And what's the state of Iowa to do if they have some sort of emergency?
There are people all over serving in Afghanistan.
And after two or three deployments, these people are worn out.
They say, where's this going?
Why are we there?
They see the horrors of the environment over there.
They start to really question, are we doing what's right?
Are we serving America?
What benefit can this possibly have for the American people?
Especially since these wars aren't constitutionally declared wars.
They're certainly unjust.
There's no direct links or ties to any assaults against America.
Those were fabrications which got us involved in these wars.
And they really aren't wars.
They're police actions.
And if you buy into the theory that America should be an empire and should be policing the world, then I suppose it serves that purpose.
But that's not what our founding fathers envisioned.
That's not what our Constitution is all about.
And that's how the people I think that joined the military joined it for.
They joined because they love this country.
They want to defend this country.
And not because they want to go out and tell the rest of the world how to live.
Could you take just a moment and explain the unconstitutionality of the conflicts in which our military is now stuck?
Well, sure.
You know, Congress has abrogated its responsibilities.
It's basically allowed the president to determine when and where and how to deploy our troops.
These weren't constitutionally declared.
There was no formal declaration of war.
Nobody attacked us.
No country attacked us.
There may be some indirect links to the Taliban in Afghanistan, and assuming, of course, that Osama bin Laden and the al-Qaeda was behind 9-11 and the beginning of the war on terror, which increasingly there's more and more questions and more and more doubts about.
It appears that this was a fabrication to begin the war on terror.
And there are other parties that I think are going to, in time, be proven to be the guilty parties behind this.
And that leads into a lot of questions as to what has happened to our country.
And how have we and our politicians particularly forsaken the American people to promote the best interests of some special interest groups that certainly don't have Americans in mind?
Merlin Winston, hold on right there.
We're talking with film director and producer Merlin Miller of Americana Pictures.
He's got some very passionate and heartfelt ideas that he wants to advance on the silver screen.
We're going to talk to him about that in further detail, but more politics first with Merlin right after this.
Jump in, the political says, pull with James and the game.
Call us tonight at 1-866-986-6397.
And here's the host of the Political Cess Pool, James Edwards.
Welcome back to the show.
We're very excited to have with us this hour Merlin Miller of Americana Pictures.
Check out his website.
We encourage you to do that.
Americana-Pictures.com.
You've got to push the dash in there, Americana-Pictures.com to read more about his work and his vision to bring to you a film production company that's going to advance the ideas of traditional Americans.
And we're going to get to that in just a moment during this interview.
We've got to talk to him about his ideas and his work in the film industry.
But first, talking a little politics with Merlin, who has, as we mentioned, honorably served in our military, a graduate of West Point.
We were talking with him, in fact, in that first segment about the state of our military, how the troops were overextended and demoralized, how they're being misused and, in fact, betrayed.
We talked about the unconstitutionality of some of these wars, so on and so forth.
We're going to get into who do these wars benefit?
How are the globalists using these wars to, I guess the word I'm looking for is to benefit their enabler.
We're going to get to that.
But first, one final follow-up question about the military from Winston.
Winston?
Merlin, one thing that has galled me more than anything in the past few years is the frequency with which our military personnel are being sued.
They're being taken to court on the most specious of accusations.
Now, General Petraeus is one of the most recent examples, but before then, there were those four Navy SEALs who had to go to court to fight for their careers and their reputations because of an accusation made by a confirmed terrorist, a man who was a mass murderer.
To what do you attribute that?
Why do our military people have to fight an enemy on a battlefield and then fight lawyers in America for doing their military duty?
Well, unfortunately, the military is more involved in politics.
And if you look back in history, the politics of especially general officers can really adversely affect the interests of America.
In Vietnam, the book Dereliction of Duty spelled that out and really showed how the generals would not stand up to President Johnson and how they were basically helping to promote this war rather than protecting their troops in the best interests of Americans.
And it's going on today in the Middle East, a very parallel situation.
And I am proud that one of my classmates, David Petraeus, at least several months ago, did come out and say that, hey, the war is over there, the safety of our troops is being endangered simply because we're not addressing the root cause of the hatreds against America, which is the non-resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
And he did make that connection, which I think took a lot of courage.
And where it goes politically, I don't know.
I would love to see a lot of the senior officers draw the line in the sand and say, our country is not benefiting by this.
We're being betrayed by the civilian leadership.
And if we can't get our country back in line, if these aren't constitutional wars that are necessary for America, then let's pull out of there.
Let's get out right away.
And if they have to retire, if they have to resign from service to come out and speak, do that.
But they have to almost get involved in politics to be able to have any kind of say in that.
Well, I say we make Gunny Ermy Secretary of Defense and Eddie Miller his assistant.
Yeah, Arlie would be a great one.
That'd probably get the job done.
Well, let's talk about that.
We don't have great leadership really in any positions of power in America right now, from academia to the media to the armed forces, government, you name it, churches.
But we're talking about the media, excuse me, the military right now.
Who's benefiting from the misuse of this media, from this military?
I'm a media man.
I'm stuck on media.
Who's benefiting from the misuse of the military, Merlin?
Well, in my opinion, I think there's two primary beneficiaries.
One is the State of Israel.
We're fighting all of their enemies.
They are the ones that basically put forth the information saying that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction.
And you look at the leadership in our government, so many dual citizens, and believe me, their first loyalty is not to America, it's to Israel.
We've got neocons in the government that are putting Israel first.
Our Congress, they know they won't be re-elected if they stand up and do anything against Israel.
It's such a powerful lobby, the American-Israeli Political Action Committee.
So Israel definitely is a beneficiary by these wars.
The other is a military-industrial complex.
You've got a lot of companies making a fortune at the expense of our troops and our taxpayers.
And that's simply not right.
And they're hiring and more and more outsourcing to other countries.
It's just a terrible thing that's going on.
A lot of general officers, too, are basically having their bread buttered because they know when they retire, they've got a lucrative position, lucrative job working in one of the companies that serve the military-industrial complex.
So it's a sinister circle.
Well, I think that there's no doubt.
It can be debated whether or not this is good for America or good for the world.
I don't think it can be debated much, but you could attempt to debate that.
But it can't be denied that Israel is certainly benefiting much more than really any other nation by America's military presence in the Middle East and in other parts of the world.
You talked about some of the dual citizens, some of the neoconservatives in control of the American military policy.
I don't think traitorous is too strong of a word to use to describe their actions towards American interests.
And Merlin, you know, some of these people have been, have had a hand, historically speaking, going back some decades and even now, to numerous false flag operations.
What can you tell us about that?
Well, that's very true.
And, you know, my awakening to that came about about 19, I guess 2002, when I first met a survivor from the USS Liberty.
And I had never heard of it, and I had Naval Academy friends who had never heard of it.
And it was an American ship, of course, attacked by Israel during the Six-Day War.
And not only were we betrayed by our ally, but our own government covered it up.
And had we dealt with it truthfully back then, I think a lot of the problems that have resulted as a result, and our foreign policy now is pretty well determined by what the Zionists want.
That may have all gone down differently had people back in 1967 stood behind our military and protected them and did what was right.
Winston?
I'm sorry, James.
I was unable to hear what Merlin was talking about.
But the question that wasn't really a question is an observation that I made on something that I did hear him say about how Israel is very good at pitting their enemies against each other.
And I was thinking of the controversy over the so-called Ground Zero mosque.
Strangely missing from that entire debate was Jewish voices.
And I didn't have to wonder very long as to why that was, because Jews hate Americans and they hate Muslims.
And when your two enemies are killing each other, you know, you don't want to get involved.
You don't want to stop them.
You want to let them go at it.
Well, it's very true, Winston.
And I truly believe that this war is nothing but pitting Christians against Muslims.
And you have to ask why.
Who's behind this?
And what are the reasons for it?
Just so many problems that are interconnected.
And when you really start to study them, you see all those connections.
And we just need to pull back and say, hey, what's best for America?
Let's start putting America first.
And let's not get all the divisiveness.
Let's not have all these problems.
And of course, with our borders wide open, that really aids the problem because we supposedly have a war on terror going on, yet our borders are wide open.
We've got a mass influx of illegal aliens coming into our country.
And you've got to ask what threat is that, not only from our security standpoint, but from our jobs, from the demographics in our country.
From the time I was a kid, we were 90% European American.
And the European Drived Peoples were the ones that built this country.
And so their stake, their claim in our interests as a country are being challenged, directly threatened.
Because right now, they're only about 65% and barely a majority.
By 2042, European Americans are predicted to be a minority in this country.
And that's a radical demographic change.
And when that happens, it's certainly not in the best interest of the core group that we're here.
And you've got to ask who's making this happen?
Why are they making this happen?
When you start asking all those questions, you see a lot of connects between all these other problems.
And it's a pretty sinister thing that's going on.
All right, everybody.
Stay tuned.
When we come back, we're going to talk to Merlin Miller about the first project that he has slated for his new film company.
And you'll understand then why we've been setting the stage with all of this talk about the American military and how they are being used and who they are being used for.
So stay tuned.
It's going to get even more interesting.
To get on the show and express your opinion in the political cesspool, call us toll-free at 1-866-986-6397.
All right, everybody.
Welcome back to the show, our featured guest this hour and for the entire hour, Merlin Miller, film director, producer, movie insider, Americanapictures.com, Americana-Pictures.com.
That is his web address.
We've been talking with Merlin for the previous two segments about the American military for which he has served.
And now we're getting to the point where we're going to segue from that into his film projects and why they are so interconnected.
Merlin, we were speaking with you in the previous segment about some of the false flag operations that have been perpetrated by those who are currently in control of the American military apparatus.
One of the most infamous of all time, of course, is the attack that occurred on the USS Liberty.
Tell us a little bit about that.
Sure, James.
In 1967, the Liberty was an intelligence-gathering ship, and it was sent to the Mediterranean basically to eavesdrop and monitor communications during the Six-Day War.
And I think it was day five, or no, excuse me, day four of the Six-Day War.
They were attacked by Israel, a country which we assumed was our ally.
And there had been several overpasses during the morning.
American flag was flying strong.
In fact, two flags were shot down, replaced by a third.
Clearly, the markings were American.
The ship was clearly identifiable as an American ship.
And there's even been NSA recordings and intercepts to prove that the Israeli pilots knew that it was an American ship.
They sunk it.
And of course, in retrospect, you have to ask, why did they try to sink it?
And fortunately, they failed.
But the whole effort was, in my opinion, a false flag.
They first attacked with unmarked planes to try to blame this on Egypt and get American people behind the Israel war campaign to basically expand their land holdings in the Middle East.
And had the blaming gone and the ship been sunk and all seamen lost, who knows where that might have led.
We actually had airplanes supposedly in the air that had nuclear weapons that possibly could have dropped them in Egypt.
I mean, who knows where that would have gone.
But fortunately, the Liberty crew survived.
It was just a miraculous thing that they did.
But then the cover-up began.
In fact, we had some aircraft carriers were sending some aircraft to try to defend and rescue the Liberty.
And they were called back twice by Secretary McNamara and President Johnson, who didn't want to embarrass our ally, the Israelis.
So that shows you the degree of betrayal that our own military went through, unfortunately, most of which survived.
But that was such a shocking thing when I found out about it.
I got to learn the fate of a lot of the crewmen.
I got to know them personally, went to some of their reunions.
And these people deserve better.
When they got off that ship, they were basically threatened with court-martial or worse if they ever talked about this.
No two were ever reassigned together.
They were treated like felons rather than heroes, which they were.
And that story needs to be told.
And I could not understand why this story wasn't known, why the mainstream media had never really cared anything about this, why Hollywood wouldn't turn something like this into a major motion picture.
But when you learn the politics of Hollywood and who controls Hollywood, and you realize that our attitudes and beliefs are really formed by what we get from Hollywood and by the news media, our pop culture really sets what we believe we know to be truth and what our attitudes are on those.
But at any rate, my goal then became how do we tell the story of the USS Liberty and honor these crewmen in such a way that we can bring some truth to light and hopefully protect the interests of our service people in the future so we don't have more of these false flag operations happening, which I'm convinced have happened.
And I'm convinced they're in the planning stages for more of these things to happen.
And so that was my goal from the very beginning, was to try to tell a story that would promote the Liberty story.
And we had a a very difficult time with that because how do you as a small independent company construct a major battle, you know, the ship being attacked?
Hollywood could do it, and they would spend $100, $200 million were they to decide to do it.
But we, you know, can't spend that kind of funds.
But we finally came up with our solution and developed our screenplay around the attitude of doing a modern-day story, a contemporary story about journalistic integrity, where a journalist finds out about the Liberty, falls in love with the daughter of one of the survivors, and goes on a quest to find out the truths and to promote those truths, and then how that affects his career in the media.
Ultimately, his life is threatened.
Very interesting story.
It's a political thriller where this guy ultimately has to go underground to survive.
And he learns of another pending false flag operation, which he, of course, tries to prevent.
So it's an edge-of-your-seat kind of thriller that we think is really going to get a lot of attention.
But our first goal was entertain.
If we don't entertain, we aren't going to succeed.
We aren't going to reach a portion of the mainstream.
We've got to do that if we want to get our message out there.
But our message can't dominate.
Otherwise, it's a documentary or we're trying to put a book or something out there.
People want to be entertained first.
And fortunately, the state of the minds of the general public today, they're so consumed by entertainment that we have to do that or we can't win.
Merlin Miller hits it on the head, Winston, and I'm going to give you a chance to reply.
But he's absolutely right.
Dealing with films, it shouldn't be a lecture.
It should be entertaining, but it should reinforce the traditional values that we seek to advance.
And Merlin's also writing, you know, these Hollywood, you know, how much filth has come out of Hollywood?
They make hundreds of movies a year now.
Why has the USS Liberty story, which was an American Holocaust, never been made into a major motion picture?
It has all of the elements that you would want if you were a film director or producer.
It has action, intrigue, drama, heroics, international effects, and best of all, it's a true story.
But we know why.
That was a rhetorical question.
We know why it's never been made into a movie because we know who the perpetrators were and who the victims were.
And Merlin's given us some great background on that story.
And of course, we've had the privilege here on the political cesspool to have been able to interview three of the surviving members of the USS Liberty crew.
And so that brings us to Merlin's first film project.
Ladies and gentlemen, who we have on the line here now, our guest tonight, Merlin Miller, is a film producer who has made movies.
He's made movies.
And he seeks to make movies now that advance the ideas of traditional Americans.
His first project, as you just heard him mention, is from the Shadows of Liberty.
So we have people out here who are trying to do good work.
We're going to talk a little bit later on in this extensive interview with Merlin about how you can support his work.
And we're going to learn more about this from the Shadows of Liberty project.
Now that that's all been recapped, Winston, over to you.
Merlin, I think that was the understatement of the year when you said a movie like that would attract a lot of attention.
Unfortunately, I believe it would be a lot of attention that you may not want.
But still, James, when James brought up the fact that we had been honored to interview some of the Liberty survivors, to my mind, it was one of the most touching and most poignant interviews with which I have ever been involved.
And I agree with you, Merlin.
This is a story that must be told the consequences be damned.
And there will be consequences.
We all know that.
But I salute you for taking it on.
And I look forward to supporting you in that effort.
I look forward to seeing James Edwards in one of the starring roles.
James could certainly pull it off.
Well, Winston, again, was that $50 or $100?
Was it $50 or $100 you charged me to plug me to Merlin there in the casting department?
$27.63.
Okay.
Well, anyway, Merlin, back to the subject at hand, your first project.
Where do you stand right now in the pecking order in terms of getting this produced?
At what level are you at right now in terms of putting this together?
Well, we have our screenplay written, the first draft, and it'll go through revisions all the way through filming.
But it's getting great feedback.
We think we're touching the right nerves with it, and of course, we'll be touching some of the wrong nerves with some people, but we've got a lot of hurdles ahead of us.
Right now, we're in the fundraising mode, and we aren't like Hollywood.
We don't spend $50, $100 million.
Jericho, a place to grow, were made for well under a million.
And this film is a political thriller.
It can be made for under a million dollars.
And we can do it with quality.
It'll stand up and compare against the Hollywood features.
And we think, in fact, better because we think it's going to be a very gripping story that speaks of the right messages and themes.
But it takes the courage of patriots to get behind this project because there will be obstacles.
There will be hurdles that we have to overcome, not only fundraising, but through the production process.
And probably the greatest hurdles is in marketing.
How do you get a film like this, entertaining though it may be, it may be a fantastic edge-of-your-seat kind of film, but if you can't get it into the theaters, if Hollywood puts all their barriers in front of you, you've got to think non-conventionally.
We've got to find ways to let this film grow, start as a guerrilla film in the underground and take a life of its own and hopefully become a cult film and resonate into the mainstream.
And we think it's got that kind of potential, especially with potential support that we may get out of the military, out of Christian organizations, out of conservative groups, out of patriots who are concerned with other things that are going on in the country.
Because not only is this story about just the Liberty and what happened to them and connecting it to our events today, but it's also building into what we think could be a franchise.
This journalist character here.
Merlin, Merlin, hold it right there.
I hate to interrupt.
You've got to take a break.
We're talking with film director, producer Merlin Miller about his first project from the Shadows of Liberty.
We're going to talk more about it right after this.
Political Cesspool, guys.
We'll be back right after these messages.
We got to get out of this place.
If it's the last thing we ever do, we got to get out of this place.
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 Cesspool, James Edwards.
It's always exciting when you have another visionary on the radio program, and we certainly have one tonight with the ability to get the job done because he's proven that ability in the past.
Merlin Miller, film director, producer, founder of Americana Pictures, Americana-Pictures.com on the internet.
Talking about his first project, the one that's on the drawing board right now from the Shadows of Liberty.
He wants this to be an explosive motion picture, a contemporary political thriller, rather than a battle epic.
He's going to display the courage of patriots rather than succumbing to fear or opportunity.
It's going to be a story that honors our service people and restores American sovereignty and dignity, which is, of course, a threat to our would-be destroyers.
Merlin, you talked a little bit about the hurdles that you face as an independent film studio in getting this project from idea to the big screen.
But you think you can make this, and you talked about the millions, hundreds of millions of dollars that it takes for Hollywood to produce the trash that they put out.
You think that you can make a film that looks as good as, let's face it, I mean, their films do look good.
You think you can make a film that looks as good as something that would come from a major motion picture studio for less than a million dollars?
Sure.
I challenge people to go see our film Jericho, and they'll see what we did to the Western film for $100 million.
We won't have the big names.
Big names would probably be afraid to be in our film because they know what would happen to their career.
You just look at the Mel Gibson story.
But I think we can do that.
It's just a question, we've got to get a team of people with the right attitudes.
We've got a good script to begin with.
We've got to keep it on schedule on budget, which is what I've never had any problems doing in the films that I've done before.
It's a question of getting a good team assembled.
And this story will have action, intrigue, and romance.
And if we can put some stirring music to it, it's going to be a sleeper film that's going to surprise a lot of people.
But my idol growing up was Walt Disney.
And were he alive today, there's no doubt in my mind he would have the courage and be taking the lead in trying to restore the values to our country.
And you look at the films and the TV series he did, and Zorro, David Crockett, Swamp Fox, Jericho, Rami Marsh, he was a true patriot who really respected and worshiped our founding fathers.
And he would be taking a lead.
This first story from the shadows really deals with our journalists being involved in the foreign entanglement side of things.
But we see all kinds of potential for sequels, for other ones.
And the character that comes out of this that grows takes on an identity called the echo.
And we see him getting involved in possibly a political campaign in a sequel one where we're dealing with domestic issues.
What are the problems that we're dealing with right here at home?
And how could we have a very commercial, entertaining film built around maybe a tempestuous political campaign?
And just so many things that we could do, and we're looking to develop other follow-up projects to be able to do.
And we can get it done.
We just got to prove ourselves one step at a time, and that means making a good film.
So, Winston, I know you have a follow-up to that.
Merlin has the plans.
He has the talent to get this job done.
He has the plan for the first film that would focus on the true story of the attack on the USS Liberty.
He even has a sequel already in mind.
But the question is, how can we make it happen?
And Winston, I know you had a follow-up to that.
Yes, Merlin, now, I know nothing about financing a movie.
I know a little bit about how Hollywood goes about financing movies and all the different administrative layers through which someone has to go to make a movie in Hollywood.
But you're an independent movie maker.
You're an independent studio.
How would you go about raising the money to produce your films?
How would you go about acquiring investors?
How would people like me who simply want to support the effort, how could we go about doing that?
There are people out there, I'm sure, who want to give you money for this.
I'm one of them.
How do we do that?
Well, there's some difficulties.
You know, you can always take contributions.
Anybody can send you money.
You declare the income and you've got contributions coming in.
But movies cost so much money that that is not really the best way to go.
So with movies, you're normally looking for equity partners.
You might go to venture capital groups.
In the case of our films, venture capital groups will probably shy away because of the controversies of what we're looking to tackle.
And they've got entangling relationships with people that would definitely say, no, we don't want you supporting this project.
So we've got to find patriot groups.
We've got to find wealthy individuals.
We've got to find groups that believe in what we're trying to do and want to come into our company because everybody would basically be an equity holder in our company.
We're a private company.
We're an LLC.
So we can have members coming into our company and all on a piece of the pie.
And we would do this a little differently because we're one company.
We aren't looking to structure it as a separate company for each film project, which most independents typically do.
We're building Americana Pictures as our company and the people that come in.
And unfortunately, you generally have to have wealthy people come in simply because of the limitations the Securities and Exchange Commission places on you.
If you have somebody come in with $10,000, $100,000, or an executive producer maybe comes in with a quarter million or half million and helps you to raise the rest of the money, they've typically got to be millionaires.
They've got to meet the requirements of being an accredited investor.
And you're limited on how many non-accredited investors and basically how many non-millionaires you can bring into the company.
So, you know, to me, that's not fair.
That's the way it's set up primarily to keep the small entrepreneurs small.
But we've got to overcome that.
If we can find enough people that are patriots, that have the courage to put themselves on the line and their money on the line, we can get this done.
And the profit side is potentially explosive.
Nobody's doing what we want to do.
And Hollywood has abandoned the majority of the American people, the traditional American people.
And I think our potential is just explosive.
We've just got to show that we can make good films.
Merlin, I know we're about to run out of time.
The mantra of your film company, Americana Pictures, truth, justice, and liberty, you need help.
This is an effort worth supporting.
Let's just say that someone listening to this program or someone who may listen to this program in the future is interested in becoming a company member, as you put it.
Did you go into the details about exactly how they can do that?
Well, the best way is just to contact me.
And through our website, we have contact information and just get a hold of me and we can go from there.
But yeah, we need that kind of support.
And there'll be smear campaigns.
There's already been things done to try to discredit me.
And I stand by who I am and what I've done in the past.
And they can try smearing however they want.
It's all distraction.
It's all to try to take away and undermine our efforts to do this.
So we've got to be prepared for that and withstand it.
We will.
We've just got to keep marching forward until we get it done.
Well, I want to let people know, and I know this from being a friend of yours, Merlin, and working with you behind the scenes on some projects of mutual interest, this being, of course, one of them.
If you hope to be able to raise the funds necessary in the short term, this isn't something that you want to have to see be a continuing effort for the next couple of years, your attempts to raise money.
You hope to have the funding by the end of the winter this year to produce both projects from the Shadow of Liberties and its sequel in the summer of 2011 for sequential release in early 2012.
Now, this is a great opportunity for fresh talent.
You think that with these films, you can inspire great stories with great characters, heroes, and positive role models for a change.
You offer screenwriting workshops and much, much more.
So your vision is very robust, and what Americana Pictures attempts to accomplish is very exciting.
And we hope that it can be done.
But this is, just to recap the question, something you hope to see come to fruition in the very, very near term.
Right.
We're building for the long term.
We've got to have great projects five and ten years from now.
But right now, our goal is to get the first film funded, ideally two films funded, which could be shot back to back next summer.
And to release these sequentially in 2012 would be a powerful impact.
And I think there's all kinds of marketing strategies that we can put to work here that are going to create a lot of attention for us.
Well, Merlin, Winston, quick follow-up question.
We've got about a minute.
Sure, okay.
Merlin, I'll make you a deal.
I've got $30 right now.
$30 that I will send to you along with a copy of Racism Schmacism if you will guarantee me that you'll cast James Edwards as the hero.
What do you say?
James Edwards, he is one of my heroes.
I mean, your movie.
Yes, you bet.
Oh, we have always cast our films generally with local hire.
In fact, in Jericho, half the cast had never had acting experience.
You see the film, you won't know it.
We typecast, we put people in roles they were comfortable with.
They had great attitudes.
They had the right look, the right charisma.
You can cast your films that way and stay away from the Hollywood packaging.
This is in poor taste, gentlemen.
This is beneath me.
Merlin, if you play this tape for anybody that can help you, please edit out that last question.
I'll tell you, this is out of time.
Mercifully out of time now, as it turns out, with Winston pulling that stunt.
But listen, seriously, though, folks, support Merlin Miller.
This man is a visionary, and he's the real hero on the radio tonight.
And check him out at Americana-Pictures.com and get more information about his company.
Merlin, thanks for being with us tonight.
Thank you very much, James Winston.
Merlin Miller, everybody.
Americana Pictures.
But don't go anywhere.
The political cesspool continues during this third hour.
Thank you, Winston.
You know, I really appreciate it.
I couldn't say I like that in front of Merlin, but you know I appreciated it.
Thanks.
Thanks, buddy.
We're going to take a break, and we're going to be back at the third hour right after this.
Believe it or not, there's a third hour of tonight's installment of the political cesspool coming your way right after these messages.
Because in sun, and it's been the ruin of many a world war.
And God, I know I'm one.
My bad, the world's potato showed my new blue jeans.