9DCU0304HD_Directors_Cut_Studio_Transcript

 Use fear and falsehood. . .  We had a double Guantanamo. . .  What do you talk about when you have nothing to say? This was insanity.  Some of these people frightened me.  They frightened me.  President Bush has talked about our staying in Iraq for 50 years. . .  Maybe 100.  The danger from Iran is grave.  Well, I'm not concerned about the voters. . .  It will be a really nice. . .  Fruitcake. 

. .  But I can't be president unless you choose me.  And I hope you will.  ( static ) Deficit financing, big government.  More taxes.  More bureaucracy.  More regulations.  More policing the world.  What are you guys talking about, you know? Hi, and welcome to Director's Cut, I'm your host, Charles Monroe-Kane.  That was a clip from the documentary "For Liberty: How the Ron Paul Revolution Watered the Withered Tree of Liberty. " We're joined today by the film's directors, Corey Kealiher and Chris Rye.  Thanks, guys, for joining us today.  Thanks for having us.  So, let's go back to the time and just remind people.  Who is Ron Paul? Well, Ron Paul is a congressman from Texas who ran for president in 2008 and found himself at odds with his own party.  He ran as a Republican.  Right, right.  And it was mainly over the war issue.  I mean, he's a strict constitutionalist, he's strict fiscal conservative, you would think that's something republicans would love in their candidates, but because of the war issue, he was marginalized and ostracized for it.  Now, two things, we'll go to you. 

 I want to pick up on, one, I want to help define what a strict constitutionalist is so people can know what it is.  But what separated him about the war, as well? What was that thing that separated him? It was, it was obvious to people watching the debates, his stance on the war was drastically different than the rest of the people on stage, the other ten candidates, which is what it started out with.  And he was basically, he's been opposed to the war since the beginning.  He voted against it, he never supported it, and these other candidates on the stage with him, they're basically, I guess you'd call neo-cons.  Remind us, they're Rudy Giuliani, obviously George Bush, who were the other people up there? Not Bush, I'm sorry, John McCain, and they were all, standard pro-war.  So he separated himself there.  It's interesting as I watch this documentary and I think about Ron Paul, and I remember the Ron Paul campaign, and this is a question for you, and would be one for Ron Paul if he was sitting here as well.  Why? I mean, he was not gonna win the candidacy for president for the republican party, but he spent a lot of money and a lot of his own psychic energy to do it, and so did you guys.  You guys made this film, you must've started editing after he lost.  Yeah, yeah, we did.  What's, for both of you, start with you, what would sustain your energy to make a film about a candidate who couldn't win and then making it after he lost? I think it's the thing that sustained us all the way through the campaign, too.  Most of us knew that, obviously, they weren't gonna let him be president, it just wasn't gonna happen.  But it was more about educating people, it was more about bringing people on board with the ideas of the constitution and what it means to be free.  I think that we've lost a lot of that in the last 50, 100 years.  We don't really have a really good grasp on what it means to be free.  And what it means to obey and follow the constitution.  And when we're doing this film, it was a lot of the same thing.  We were more concerned with just trying to get this message out there.  We were part of the campaign, obviously we invested a lot of time into this, and we thought that, well, this is another good opportunity, through a film, to get these ideas out there.  And you, why did you make so much sacrifice to make this film? Just to record this for history.  This is, I think a unique event in the political history of the United States and even though Ron Paul, when he announced, he knew he wouldn't win, he figured this would be more of an educational endeavor than anything. 

 And that's the important part of it, so when we decided to make the film, we wanted to show people kind of what happened during the campaign, what went down during the debates, how these other candidates kind of treated someone like Ron Paul with his views, on stage, publicly in front of national audiences.  They would ridicule and laugh at him, and things like that.  So we just wanted to tell the story, make sure it doesn't go down the memory hole, and do some education, too, show this to audiences and let them see what happened, in case they missed it.  Let's, for our viewers who maybe don't remember Ron Paul or need a good reminder, let's see Ron Paul in action.  This is a clip from the second debate he was in.  Can you set it up for us and then we'll show people this clip.  Well, what happened was, he was trying to explain to people how our meddling in Middle Eastern affairs actually hurts our national security, because that's the reason people come over here and want to attack us.  And Rudy Giuliani, the big terror warrior, jumps in and kind of interrupts the debate structure to make the point that Ron Paul's insane, basically.  And that's the argument we always heard, right, about Ron Paul? "Ron Paul's insane. " Let's see Ron Paul in action.  It is the constitutional position.  It is the advice of the founders to follow a non-interventionist foreign policy.  Stay out of entangling alliances.  Be friends with countries.  Negotiate and talk with them, and trade with them.  They looked at the republican stage that night and they're like, what is this guy saying? We've never heard anything like this.  And what's better, it makes a lot of sense.  So there's a lot of merit to the advice of the founders and following the constitution.  And my argument is that we shouldn't go to war so carelessly-- ( bell rings ) When we do, the wars don't end.  He was talking more about the things that really mattered, not the war in Iraq, but should we be the policemen of the world? Should we be at war anywhere? And why and when? And under what circumstances? Congressman, you don't think that changed with the 9/11 attack, sir? What changed? The non-interventionist policies.  No, non-intervention was a major contributing factor. 

 Have you ever read about the reasons they attacked us? They attack us because we've been over there.  We've been bombing Iraq for ten years.  You know, if we misbehave around the world, you know, there are going to be people in the world who don't like the United States, period, end of story.  I think that's just common sense.  I think most kids know that, you know, at the kindergarten level.  It's very easy to be Rudy Giuliani and say, we've got to get the terrorists.  You know, yeah, people will vote for you for that.  It's very hard to get them to vote for somebody who actually makes them think, or says, wait a minute, these slogans are fit for a 7-year-old.  Right now, we're building an embassy in Iraq that's bigger than the Vatican.  We're building 14 permanent bases.  What would we say here if China was doing this in our country or in the Gulf of Mexico? We would be objecting.  We need to look at what we do from the perspective of what would happen if somebody else did it to us.  I thought, what fun.  How are they going to answer that? It must have been embarrassing for the other candidates to have to sit there and hear this deep discussion, and to know in their hearts that the guy's absolutely right, but. . .  That's a great clip, the republicans must've hated him.  So, who funded this film? Did Ron Paul fund it? Did the Ron Paul campaign, or supporters, or did you guys do it? We basically just did it.  We did it on the cheap, very cheaply, so that was nice.  Chris has a 1984 veggie-driven Mercedes, so that saved us a lot of money on gas traveling around the country.  And yeah, basically all we paid for was, what, food? People put us up for lodging, a lot of the people that we went around and interviewed, so we did it very cheaply. 

 You traveled around the country, you went to Ron Paul supporters around the country.  Yep.  One guy from the clip was from Texas, and a bunch of people.  We went literally from coast to coast to coast, yeah.  On your own fryer grease car, sleeping on people's couches.  We actually had a pump with us, a little pump that was charged off the battery of the car, and then we'd pull up and pump veggie oil out of the dumpsters at restaurants and use that, and we drove 10,000 miles on the trip, we did basically a loop around the whole country filming our interviews.  I just have to ask this question because it's interesting to me, because I watch, I was watching this film, sitting on my couch and watching it, and I knew this.  They're traveling around the country in a veggie fryer car.  You're young.  He's anti-war in Iraq, he's anti-Afghanistan, you're sleeping on people's floors, that just sounds like liberal stuff to me, like completely.  That's just the stereotypical way people think.  But this is not liberal, Ron Paul is conservative, he's very conservative in a sense, more conservative than even a John McCain.  What's the difference, how do you separate Ron Paul from, like, a total left-wing liberal? It's just the message of freedom, I think, that's what really brings people together on all sides of the political spectrum.  When people talk about liberal and conservative, I think they're just very arbitrary divisions that we kind of impose on politics.  And when we use terms like that it's because we've forgotten what it means to follow the constitution.  We didn't really have a lot of these problems, say, 150 years ago.  We didn't have these deep political divisions.  But nowadays everybody is just trying to get their politicians into office so they can seize power and take what they can from the system.  Sure, a simple message equals a vote, that's what's worked.  But that means that the people who don't do that, you guys, aren't gonna be "successful. " You won't win. 

 Doesn't mean you won't get the message out, doesn't mean you won't be successful.  Don't you find that frustrating? Well, yeah, there's a lot working against us.  But it kind of empowers you, though, if you keep getting pushed down, you just want to get up that much more.  To move your views forward, especially with just educating people about Ron Paul and the issues.  It's funny you say that, that was something I pulled out of the documentary that some of these people, it wasn't like they wanted to be abused or thought they were victims, but I think they liked the fact that the media was unfair to Ron Paul, they kind of liked that people thought they were done but then they liked that they were being lied about, They kind of liked the fact that they would get back up again.  I think we just expect that by this point.  Well, tell me about some of the people.  Tell me about someone you met on the road that you just remember, like, man, that's America and I wish all Americans would be.  I don't know, I couldn't pick out just one person.  Because they all had their little quirks that were just really interesting.  During this trip, I think we interviewed maybe 20, 25 people for the film and the gamut, the wide variety of people was just astonishing.  It was, I was surprised by it.  I think that if you would've made, and I don't want to disparage this particular candidate, but I think there's a lot of other candidates that ran who, I think if you made a documentary about their followers around the country, it would be fairly ubiquitous.  This kind of person, this kind of person, this socio-demographic.  But you guys, there were some total free spirit types, I was saying, like my one uncle.  He's just a trip and he's like the cool guy.  They're interesting, free-thinking people, interesting people that you got caught with.  I want to show another clip from the film, and this actually is my favorite part of your film.  It was about Ron Paul, the history of Ron Paul's logo.  So why don't you set it up for us, we're gonna see that clip about how his logo was invented.  Right. 

 Basically it's the word "revolution" and they take the R"evol" and flip it around so it says "love" backwards.  So it's basically the word "revolution" but there's this subtle "love" in there.  So it kind of puts a new spin on the word "revolution" which is really a powerful word.  And they just came up with the slogan, these people in Arizona.  And it just, people loved it and they started making them.  And he didn't, Ron Paul, I just want to make sure people get this.  This wasn't like, Ron Paul didn't approve it, Ron Paul didn't work with it, it just happened and people started spray-painting it and they ran with it.  Right, and this was all grassroots.  There's no contact with the official campaign at all, I mean, people are just out doing things on their own.  They don't care what the official campaign thinks.  And they're just gonna do it.  Wow, that must've made Ron Paul excited and very nervous at the same time.  Yeah, and it's kind of sketchy with the FEC, the Federal Elections Commission, there's a lot of really strict regulations that govern, watch over all these selection processes and fundraising and all this stuff.  You guys just threw a spin in the works, I love it.  Let's see that clip, this is the logo clip from "For Liberty. " The Revolution logo, I don't know, I ripped it off of somebody, off the Internet.  I happened to see something like that, where they did the backwards "love. " And all we did was put Ron Paul on top of the logo and explode it.  I don't know, maybe the implications are that a revolution means, you know, you bring out the guillotine and the peasants storm the castle with pitchforks and torches.  The word revolution has a certain strength to it.  Combining it with the word love, obviously gives it a completely different spin. 

 We started the Ron Paul Revolution sign production.  Okay, here we go.  ( laughter ) We would do this every Friday.  We'd have at least one to three stations across, just in Arizona, the Valley of the Sun here.  We would have people on a Friday making 200-300 signs.  That's another batch of another 42 more signs for tonight.  We started shipping them to friends all over the country.  I needed some banners.  And I saw one of these things that said Ron Paul Revolution, and I go, that's pretty cool.  I got a look on the Internet and I found out who was making them, and I just wrote him a letter.  I said, you know, I'm Linda Hunnicut, I would really like to have some of your banners.  And he called back.  He said, what's your address? So I gave him my address.  And he hung up.  About four days later, here we get this huge box.  In South Carolina, we wanted to find out who's going there, who's going to be there.  The stage is set and the candidates are ready for tonight's republican presidential debate.  Sent those to Granny Warriors.  And a lot of the activists that were there in support of Dr.  Paul, they held them up, and the cameras got their first view of them, and that's when it kicked.  It went cross country. 

 It went cross country.  As I watch that clip I can't help but think about the 800-pound elephant in the room.  That's Barack Obama.  From what I was told, and from what we understood from the media, he also had a grassroots campaign.  He had supporters from young people.  That was kind of a wave that started, and obviously he won.  It's a two-part question.  First, how did you guys react when someone with a similar style and grassroots background kind of just took over.  And kind of dwarfed what you guys were doing.  And then also, what do you feel about the Obama grassroots campaign? Well, I wonder how much grassroots campaigning was actually going on.  I know in Stevens Point where we're from, he had an office and they had sent out a lot of young people to do some door-to-door canvassing.  But it was all teenage kids who just loved more the idea of Barack Obama as president than his ideas.  And they paid them with pizza and soda, had a little party for them and everything.  So, I mean, I don't how much real grassroots was there.  And how did you guys feel when that wave finally hit? It must've been annoying, I would assume, to you.  That's all the media talked about, it was totally grassroots, it's all for the people, all that stuff.  And you guys felt you were that, of the people and of freedom.  That's how the media put, that's how Barack Obama framed himself.  Do you find that annoying since you probably found it disingenuous, I assume? Well, we knew from our experience that what was going on inside the Ron Paul campaign was actually a real grassroots.  There was no top-down controlling it, it was bottom-up controlling.  And the media was definitely working against us the whole time, would try to paint us as these kooky weird people. 

 But with Obama, they were holding his hand the whole way, they were helping him along.  So anytime they would have some "grassroots" things going on, the media would put all the focus and attention on it and make people believe that it really was this grassroots win, when the real grassroots movement, the Ron Paul campaign, was kind of just tossed to the side and ridiculed.  So I guess, what can you do? It's somewhat frustrating, you know, but that's just-- You've got to move on.  The Internet played an interesting role in the Ron Paul campaign, kind of post Howard Dean, that no one else really did.  What was the role of the Internet for Ron? The Internet was the biggest driving factor to the whole campaign.  Without the Internet, there wouldn't have been a campaign like Ron Paul's campaign.  That's interesting, because that's true.  It's an interesting fact.  That means 20 years ago, it couldn't have existed.  Meaning it can exist again.  Right, we saw something similar with Ross Perot.  Sure.  And that got pretty big, even without the Internet.  So, you know, without the Internet, there's just no way.  Ron Paul's ideas have been out there for a long time, since the founding of the country.  You know, why is it that just recently these ideas, you know, bubbled up to the surface, and everybody got a good look at it? Well, it was because of the Internet.  It was very Internet driven.  And from the Internet, it got out to everybody else, everybody who's not online.  I want to show another clip, that doesn't need any set-up.  This is kind of a clip of you guys, the grassroots campaign in action.  It's a very telling clip. 

 So, let's see another clip from the documentary "For Liberty. " I think the people now have understood how much power they as individuals really do have, and where the battle really is.  Mind to mind.  Individual to individual.  One on one.  Me putting a sign out on the freeway, and a 100,000 people see it, know what I think.  I vote every time I put a sign up.  The sign bombing culture that developed as a means of spreading awareness.  It was something that I did, you know, climbing up on overpasses.  You know, putting up signs with zip ties.  These are all things that the grassroots thought of because their man wasn't getting the attention.  So they basically had creative tantrums.  Young people are, they're just natural born activists.  It's in their blood.  They're, you know, they're rebellious.  They rebel against their parents and teachers, and so it's in them, not to be fearful, and to stand up.  Don't just play by the rules.  Think of ways to do unique things that break through.  It's not just what kind of places.  It's like, can you attach it.  If you can attach it, it went up. 

 Just walk down the street, inconspicuously with the signs.  Then, you know, you get somewhere, put up a sign, just keep on walking.  And all these young people that had never even thought-- I go, do you have a permit to put that sign up? Never even crossed their mind.  Didn't even blaze over their cortex, brush it at all, that they were going to seek some kind of permission from the man to challenge the man.  You don't need permission from the man to challenge the man.  That's the quote of the day.  I really like it.  One part of your film that you follow, that's kind of a narrative through the film, that I kind of like, is there was a walk across Wisconsin, that Ron Paul supporters did.  Can you tell me a little about the walk? Yeah, this was after the campaign had ended.  This group of people, they wanted to do this walk to Minneapolis from Green Bay, that's about 280 miles, in three weeks.  And the reason they were walking to Minneapolis is because the Republican National Convention was happening there, in St.  Paul.  And Ron Paul, and his new organization that he started, called Campaign for Liberty, they were holding a defiant, alternative rally across town at the Target Center.  So there were these two conventions happening, you know, six or seven miles away, which is kind of crazy.  I mean, I don't think that's ever happened before.  So these guys walked, ended their journey, then attended the rally in Minneapolis.  So, it just timed out really good for us, because we kind of followed them through their journey and inter-cut, as they were progressing, into the film, through the history of the campaign.  Then it all kind of culminates at the end, at the rally there.  They seemed like interesting characters.  They seemed like interesting guys on the walk.  It's interesting, you were talking about the alternative set-up in Minneapolis. 

 You know, there's a stereotype of democrats, that they tend to shoot themselves in the foot because they splinter.  They have different groups that splinter and they fight among themselves.  But once republicans have a candidate chosen, it's lock, stock and barrel, and you blindly follow, and that's what republicans do.  There's been success based on that.  So, they must have really found you guys a burr in the saddle, because you didn't do what you were supposed to do.  Republicans are supposed to follow their leader, and you guys didn't do that at all.  What kind of flack did you get back from official republicans, or from other republicans? I would assume liberals wouldn't be mad at you.  You were walking across Wisconsin, oh, this is cool, that's interesting.  But I would assume that the right wing, the neo-conservatists, must have been pretty annoyed at you guys, especially at the end, I would assume there was some annoyance.  I'm sure he got a lot of flack.  Did you guys get people just annoyed at you because you weren't doing what republicans were supposed to be doing? Not, I mean, we weren't there at the convention.  But a lot of Ron Paul supporters had been elected as delegates, and had gone to the national convention.  Right, of course.  And the republican party was pretty annoyed that they were there.  And a lot of those people were being watched, and the republicans were really expecting them to just make a big show and just disrupt the entire thing.  Adam Kokesh, who we just saw in that clip, he had actually snuck in a sign to the convention.  And while John McCain was giving a speech, had pulled it out and it said, "John McCain votes against Vets," or something like that.  And they were afraid that the Ron Paul people who were there were going to pull, you know, something huge, that they were going to make a big-- But you know, it never happened.  It was just, you know, paranoia, I'm sure.  They actually had security teams following some of the Ron Paul delegates around at all times.  Good for you guys, that's great. 

 Tell me, I want to move into another topic, because I think this is an important part of the Ron Paul campaign that I think a lot of people would remember, and I do.  It was about fundraising.  He was an amazing fundraiser.  He raised a lot of money, or a lot of money was raised in his name.  The one I like the most was the November 5th.  We're going to show a clip about it, but can you tell me a little bit about the thisNovemberfifth. com campaign? Yeah, thisNovemberfifth. com was basically an idea that the grassroots came up with.  They called it a "money bomb. " The idea was that, you know, promote this ahead of time, and pick a date.  They picked November 5th, which plays into the whole "V for Vendetta," the movie, November 5th, and how the movie is kind of against-- And remind people again what November 5th is.  It's significant in England.  Well, it's Guy Fawkes Day.  But that's an aside.  The real reason is they wanted to tie "V for Vendetta" in, because the movie itself is kind of against a lot of the things that Ron Paul supporters are against, you know, like the spying, wire tapping, the development of a police state.  The movie is just kind of a parallel.  And they decided to have this date.  They just promoted it online, and it kind of went viral.  Then the day came, and all these people, at the same day, within the 24-hour period, donated $4. 2 million to the campaign.  I think that set a record at that time. 

 Yeah, it was a record.  Well, let's check out the clip.  Let's remember, remember the fifth of November.  The money bomb for Congressman Ron Paul, organized by grassroots supporters to coincide with the 1723 Boston Tea Party, is now happening.  Everybody wanted to see that number go up.  Ron Paul's numbers, you know $6 million in one day.  I mean, that's just unbelievable.  Revolution is in the air.  The resistance is on.  Take action right now, ladies and gentlemen.  Tell everybody you know.  We are blessed to have had Ron Paul stand for us all these long years! Now we are here today to stand for him.  ( cheers ) And there were just parties held everywhere, you know, hey, let's get together.  You know, basically probably inspired by the MeetUp groups, which were just flourishing all over the nation.  I'm with the Ron Paul headquarters in New York, and it's going crazy here.  We've got a couple hundred people.  And Ron Paul is about to reach his goal, $12 million.  When we blew past, you know, you could see the crowds going crazy, as soon as he passed $12 million.  It's really probably a reaction that happened across the Ron Paul community.  ( cheers ) The old thermometer came down.  And then a few minutes later, a new one came up with a higher goal. 

 And the $12 million was passed.  It was just awesome.  What do you think, man? That was awesome! Success? Absolutely, $5. 5 million so far.  ( cheers and applause ) You set the record.  In the history of American politics, nobody has ever raised more money on a single day than you.  And yet, this is happening without your campaign people coordinating it.  This is completely about grassroots.  And it's completely about you, just saying what you believe in.  Wow, the audacity of saying what you believe in.  We're almost out of time.  A quick question.  2012, where are you going to be? Campaigning for Ron Paul, I hope.  2012? We'll be there, and "For Liberty, Part 2. " We're doing it.  Well, come back.  "For Liberty, Part 2. " If he wins, we'll have you back even earlier, how's that? There you go.  If he beats the Sarah Palin machine that comes back.  Thank you very much.  It was a refreshing documentary. 

 I really enjoyed it Thanks for having us.  Thank you all for joining us today, as well.  For more information on "For Liberty: How the Ron Paul Revolution Watered the Withered Tree of Liberty," please go to: wpt. org/directorscut And while you're there, send us an email, because we absolutely love hearing from you.  I'm your host Charles Monroe-Kane, and for everyone here at Director's Cut, thank you very much for joining us.  Check the gate. ECHO is on.