I’m Robbie Martin, Filmmaker, and Creator of A Very Heavy Agenda: Ask Me Anything

a reply to: RobbieMartin

I will be most definitely checking out the other links you have provided. Both videos are now valued additions to my library.

Taken together, your documentaries reinforce my theory regarding not only politics but all endeavors that the power-hungy gravitate toward.

A certain percentage of the population will always be born actual, physical psychopaths because of a dysfunctional amygdala. When you take organizations that would gratify the cravings of a psychopath to accumulate power, wealth and control like the financial sector, politics and the military and you apply the Peter Principle, those at the point of the pyramid will be the most effective of psychopaths, having out-maneuvered all the lesser psychopaths on their way to the top. The only exception I can think of would be some sort of "Shadow Cabal" that operated at a nearly demi-god level that gave the marching orders to those we perceive as being in control.

Thank you for the free viewing of your documentary as well as your time and willingness to answer questions here!

I'm sorry that you've had so few people asking questions. I hope you don't feel it shows a lack of interest...

...Because I'm sure that's not the case - for my own part, it's just a matter of it leaving the mind a bit 'stunned' (to the point that you just can't think of anything to ask as yet).

Well, actually I have something to ask, but I'm not sure it's pertinent:

Has what you've discovered about the neoconservatives' doings in the past given you any sense of anything in particular we may see happening in the future?

a reply to: CornShucker

How did these despicable opportunists appropriate the term 'conservative' when they don't seem to have any concrete core values or morality in their associations and actions? Death and Corruption don't automatically come to mind when someone says either liberal OR conservative to me...

The term 'Neoconservative' was originally coined by someone critiquing the man who is widely credited with starting the ideology in American politics. The man was Irving Kristol, the father of Bill Kristol (co-founder of Project for the New American Century). In a literal sense it means someone who was once liberal who 'woke up' and became conservative. Eventually the term neoconservative became popularized under the Bush administration because many of his cabinet members came directly from a specific form of neoconservative thought. One that applied Machiavellian philosophy to modern geo-politics. At heart these people might have some of the values you're talking about, but at a certain point their hubris about 'what we need to do' eclipses whatever moral framework they're working from. The reason neoconservatives are unique is because a lot of them are extremely candid about these goals and talk about them publicly.

Let me point you to a transcribed section of a podcast we did going into some of the history of neoconservatism:

Irving Kristol, is actually the guy who coined the term Neoconservative, it was a term applied to Irving Kristol by a critic, so someone was criticizing Kristol for essentially being one of these new conservatives, who used to be a liberal activist, who really quickly converted to conservatism, because in Kristol’s own words he was “mugged by reality.” Neoconservative was originally a label to describe people who were once liberal who, based on some kind of real life experience, or some external experience, 9/11 is a good example of that- people who were liberal before 9/11 and 9/11 woke them up to being a conservative, that would be a literal translation of the term Neoconservative. Irving Kristol was originally a liberal, and he was a self-labeled what they call a Trotskyite, which was sort of the two different opposing views in Soviet Russia and there were two opposing factions: the Trotskyites and the Stalinists, so Trotskyites were people in Soviet Russia who believed they were carrying on a more true vision of Marxism. So you can actually in some way trace back the grandfather of Neoconservatism Irving Kristol to a part of the Soviet Union that if it actually would have taken over instead of Stalinism, might have been a much more interesting, less horrible place in retrospect. If the Trotsky ideals actually were what gained ground there and Russia was more intellectual, and it wasn’t as closed off a society to the rest of the world.
So, and I’m not giving him any credit, I’m just saying that that’s where his influence comes from. His ideology that he helped start was in folded leftist policies, such as lack of objection in welfare programs, international “revolution” through nation-building and militarily imposed democracy, Fabian socialism, Keynesianism, coupled with socially conservative viewpoints. And the most interesting part of that I thought was that the international revolution aspect of nation-building is almost a form of liberal activism, in a domestic sense. It’s almost like he’s using a lot of the same liberal activism + ideology to put us on this geopolitical stage. Through international revolution, knock down these other countries which are stifling democracy. That’s where the premise is linked to liberalism. And that’s what we’ve talked about for so long on Media Roots, this idea of how they get people sucked into a lot of these wars now by saying things like the Afghanistan war, part of the reason it’s “valid” is because they have such horrible rights for women and freedom of speech is illegal and all that kind of stuff. So it ties into that. And you can even trace Neoconservatism back even further, but it wasn’t labeled that back then. This guy Leo Strauss was a professor, very influential intellectual, who was the main guy who influenced Irving Kristol, into what is his modern political philosophy of Neoconservatism and really at the core of what Leo Strauss did is he was sort of mashing up two different forms of academic thought, modern political science, but transposing over it the philosophical writings of Plato, Aristotle, and other philosophers like Machiavelli, on to modern 20th century politics. When you try to do that, you start seeing things in this different context obviously, and I think that’s what enabled a lot of Irving Kristol’s ideas to flourish, they were inside of this tiny, almost metaphysical box that was an abstraction from reality. The philosopher that seemed to have the most influence on the modern Neoconservatives is Machiavelli

a reply to: lostgirl

has what you've discovered about the neoconservatives' doings in the past given you any sense of anything in particular we may see happening in the future?

Absolutely.
You can read documents they wrote in the mid 1990s plotting out a geo-strategic vision for destabilizing and reforming the middle east in our image. Wesley Clarke revealed in 2007 that the week after 9/11 in the Pentagon there was a memo going around suggesting that the US invade 7 countries in 5 years. This list included Syria, Libya, Lebanon, Iraq and Yemen. Of course we didn't end up overtly invading all those countries, we have conducted military operations in all of them.
The nice thing is sometimes neocons are so candid with their future plans, it is not difficult to plot out a chronology of their vision unfolding in real-time. This is not to say that neoconservatives engineer all of this, they merely take advantage of each individual situation as it comes. All they have to do is give it an aggressive push.

The general rule of thumb is, anytime a potential military confrontation or situation awaits the United States they come out of the woodwork in droves. You'll see them all over television, 'intellectual' media outlets like NPR and more recently millennial websites like Vice, Buzzfeed and the Daily Beast.
The main difference between now and during the Bush administration is that they're smart enough to not refer to themselves as neoconservative. They know the word has a negative connotation so they've rebranded themselves.

Mr. Martin, I'm a filmmaker as well and would like to know how you go about getting funding to make your documentaries.
And how do you go about marketing your films. I have two socially relevant films in the can but can't seem to find a proper platform for distribution; even won a few awards at festivals.

Hello Robbie,

As lost girl commented - there is great interest in what you have provided and the questions will pour in soon i'm sure.
Given your subject matter i'll branch away from what you may be asked.
Do you believe the United States goes about false flag attacks and if so do you believe any recent
shootings school/theater/etc.. are among them?
If you are able to be specific with your thoughts that would be great if you're unable because you feel it will steer away from where you want this thread to go I will understand as well.

Thank you for taking the time to be here and this will be my only question to allow for others to get theirs in.
I'll take my answer off the air.

Welcome robbie.
Were the anthrax attacks just diversion tactic away from 9/11.
And spill the beans sir of whatever you know about controversial topics such as jfk, Rosewell etc.
a reply to: RobbieMartin

a reply to: olaru12

Mr. Martin, I'm a filmmaker as well and would like to know how you go about getting funding to make your documentaries.
And how do you go about marketing your films. I have two socially relevant films in the can but can't seem to find a proper platform for distribution; even won a few awards at festivals.

So far all of my documentary efforts have been out of pocket. Since most of what i've done revolves around stock footage, my expenditures are low. I've bought some stuff from CSPAN and pulled a view archives from TV libraries (places that physically stock VHS recordings of all sorts of television pre-internet) beyond that I'm doing all the editing on my home computer. Since others have commented on the production value, it's probably obvious by now that this is a mostly independent operation.

My distribution model is also fairly minimal, I used Vimeo.com as a means to share a private screener copy of my film to people who would be potentially interested (journalists, other documentary filmmakers, podcasts, blogs) about a month in advance of the release. This basic strategy would be the same one I used in the past to promote a release of music on my record label. If you haven't already I would suggest giving a small group of people on a private mailing list access to your film(s). If you can afford it consider pressing a small run of physical DVDs. If your movies are political, look for local political movie nights or documentary screenings. Give out free DVDs to these types of groups. Social media like Facebook and Twitter has also been extremely helpful. I don't suggest buying any advertising on those platforms though.

a reply to: Nochzwei

Were the anthrax attacks just diversion tactic away from 9/11.
And spill the beans sir of whatever you know about controversial topics such as jfk, Rosewell etc.

I'll say that when looking at 9/11 from any angle you must include the anthrax attacks in the equation. Even if you completely oppose the 'conspiracy theory' angle of 9/11. The fact remains that at the time it was widely seen and felt as a '2nd wave of terrorism' by the general public. The Bush administration also seemingly had foreknowledge of the anthrax attacks. It was later revealed that many Bush officials were told to take Cipro (the anthrax vaccine) on the evening of 9/11 allegedly because of some kind of warning or intelligence. Of course since the anthrax came from a US bio-weapons lab, it doesn't make much sense that they would get an intelligence warning that a lone nut was about to send out weaponized anthrax through the mail (and its also arguably negligent homicide to let 5 people die from anthrax without warning the public by suggesting Cipro, in fact Bush actually told people not to take it in a radio address ~10 days after the first letter hit). Anything I say beyond this would be speculation.

I'm not well versed on JFK, but I think there is plenty of interesting stuff there. The only stuff I know about Roswell I learned from the X-files

A while back I read about how the Anthrax shots from Desert Storm burned ones nerves a tad I am also curious about Mycoplasmic issues that the VA doesn't seem to look for ,do you know anything?
OH yeah, I was in it as well. Lead element, 1/7 Cav

a reply to: cavtrooper7

A while back I read about how the Anthrax shots from Desert Storm burned ones nerves a tad I am also curious about Mycoplasmic issues that the VA doesn't seem to look for ,do you know anything?

I can speak a little bit about the anthrax vaccine given out to soldiers. It was experimental, and I believe (but not 100% sure) that it was never actually approved and no longer used. It's been suspected (but nor proven) for a long time that 'gulf war syndrome' was caused by this vaccine.

One of the FBI claims about why Bruce Ivins was guilty of the 2001 anthrax mailings, is that he wanted an anthrax vaccine that he designed to be used in a time of panic so that his co-workers would see him as a hero. This was one of the many different motives they prescribed to him during the strange FBI press conference.

a reply to: RobbieMartin

Anthrax here, and anthrax there. You got the long end of the stick

Funny enough, the US sold anthrax to Iraq back then.
US supplied anthrax to Iraq

Do you think that the Bush admin tried to pin this "WMD" on Iraq because of that? I recall Scott Ritter told the US and UN about this, and he said the anthrax was a dead thing, due to deterioration.

'Even if Iraq managed to hide these weapons, what they are now hiding is harmless goo'

Classic start of blaming Iraq on 9/11 no ?

My point is still aftermath...

Bayer cuts price of ciprofloxacin after Bush threatens to buy generics

hmmm..


Somehow happy hour came when they declared Scott Ritter a pedophile..
Remember Scott Ritter?

Discrediting him and name just like Gary Webb... disgusting media!

So why take Scott's word for anything ?

please investigate the aftermath --- love your work!

a reply to: RobbieMartin
First, props for putting yourself out their and doing this project which I'm sure was not easy , cheap , or done in a weekend.



I haven’t watched the film yet, so I cant comment on it

Few questions from some of your post as it appeared to ME that you came across as somewhat favouring Russia over the US on a few things, so to clarify?

1. Do you think that Russia Today is any less of propaganda than our American MSM sources like CNN,Foxnews,MSNBC?

2. Do you believe that Russia is any less corrupt than America?

In regards to our gov't :

3. Do you believe in, support , favor , or associate with one of the two primary parties over the other like the DNC over the GOP or vice versa?

4. What do you think is the number one issue in this country?

a reply to: kloejen

Funny enough, the US sold anthrax to Iraq back then.
US supplied anthrax to Iraq
Do you think that the Bush admin tried to pin this "WMD" on Iraq because of that?

Not just because of, but yes the Bush administration was counting on the paper trail being there. They didn't care that certain parts of the so-called 'fringe-left' would be illuminating the fact that the US supplied WMDs to Saddam Hussein in the first place. All that mattered to them was taking advantage of the present situation.

Classic start of blaming Iraq on 9/11 no ?

There has been enough credible evidence compiled that the Bush administration was trying to figure out a way to blame Iraq for the 9/11 attacks within hours of the world trade center being destroyed. That's why i said in my opening post that by saying they merely 'lied about WMDs' is almost inadvertently downplaying the full scope and blatant manipulation they employed over and over again starting in October 2001 going all the way to when Colin Powell made his ridiculous case to the UN.

I agree with you that the aftermath is extremely important to look at. I've actually spent most of my time researching the ripple effects of stuff like 9/11 and anthrax. I did a lengthy chronological podcast called 'Post 9/11, How We All Became Boiled Frogs' a few years ago that charts the 'war on terror' propaganda narrative from the morning of 9/11 up until the present. Right now my focus is on how easy we seem to be drifting into a new cold war mentality. I also see this being possible as a result of 9/11. The fear and vulnerability that 9/11 created in the American psyche, allowed even more hysterical narratives like 'Putin is the new Hitler' to creep back into our culture.

This is a supposed list of top military officials fired by Obama. Why?



www.rense.com...

Welcome to the site! While I'm still looking through the podcast transcripts, etc, to see if my questions are answered, have a few questions;
What do you feel Trump's relation is to the New American Century/NeoCons? I'm seeing a few hints from him that would likely be very well supported by them-tracking of all Americans for example. Though, he also "threatened" to release details the Saudi connection to 9/11. How about Hillary, people have linked her to being a secret NeoCon?

Also, thanks as it's interesting to see the firsthand accounts of the Ukraine situation wherein heavy speculation perpetuated by either side persists. I'm very saddened by the people trapped in between the the government of Ukraine and rebel held side of Ukraine not even to mention how it's being played off by those in power. What do you see for the future of the situation?

Again, much thanks to you and as well as your sister for your contributions to media, which of course, is sorely needed.

a reply to: interupt42

1. Do you think that Russia Today is any less of propaganda than our American MSM sources like CNN,Foxnews,MSNBC?

There are a lot of great people still doing work at Russia Today. Most of it editorial content, shows like In the Now. I appreciated the channel a lot more when it was seizing on important issues when no other channel was. Issues like torture, Chelsea Manning, digital surveillance, the NDAA, etc. There was a huge void in the United States media landscape around the time Obama first got info office for hard hitting adversarial content (I say hard hitting because most of the Republican leaning media like fox news at the time wasn't hitting Obama in the right targets, they were missing all the bulls-eyes). They still play an important role in showing 'another side' to world events. Just like other media outlets like CNN and MSNBC, RT has reported dubious things at convenient times. When Russia wanted to look good in Ukraine, they used the network to do that. Abby was one of the only people who openly spoke against the slant. That whole situation is actually a large part of the plot of A Very Heavy Agenda Part 2.

2. Do you believe that Russia is any less corrupt than America?

it's also a hard question answer. I have no love whatsoever for the ruling class in Russia. Being thoughtful or concerned about the state of civil rights or gay rights in Russia is totally understandable. Russia is a powerful country. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. In terms of degrees, America has the most power geographically, economically, and militarily at this point in time. For me personally as a citizen of the US i'm much more concerned about corruption here and what my own government is capable of. I'm a bit suspicious of Americans who obsess over the corruption of Putin.

3. Do you believe in, support , favor , or associate with one of the two primary parties over the other like the DNC over the GOP or vice versa?

To be honest, not really. I'm fairly left leaning but I've become so detached and cynical about our electoral system that I don't care too much about who wins the presidency in 2016. If Trump wins I suppose it would make a lot my buddies on the left wake up a lot more to how #ed up things are, but thats just my cynicism talking.

4. What do you think is the number one issue in this country?

Pulling back our military presence around the world

a reply to: thinline

This is a supposed list of top military officials fired by Obama. Why?

Can't answer that, but I looked at the source for the article and there really is no source for the actual list. My gut feeling is this might be fabricated information.

a reply to: RobbieMartin

I have no clue about THAT source(it was the first one) If you do a google search on 'obama fires top generals' or anything like that you get many stories about top military leaders being removed. From many different sources.

I cannot say every one on that list is real. I don't know enough,if the numbers of firing is a typical pattern or not, but there has been a number of high ranking generals put out to pasture.

Thanks for taking time to answer my post.

a reply to: RobbieMartin

Thanks for the quick response. I agree with a lot of what you said but I see no difference between the DNC or the GOP to be honest.

In regards to the number 1 issue I would have to respectively disagree with you.

Pulling back our military presence around the world

I think corruption (conflict of interest,revolving doors,lobbying,and infinite congress term limits) should be issue number 1 as it impacts everything including our military presence around the world. A lot of American companies with lobbying money are making big bucks when we have global chaos.


Thanks again and look forward to watching your film.