Jesse Ventura in American Conspiracies
On Government Reform:
Require paper ballots & hand-counting
All votes should still be paper ballots and hand-counted. Minnesota is still that way, and I hope this never changes.Would you use an ATM machine that didn't give you a receipt? These electric voting machines don't do that. There's no way to keep a
record of whom you voted for, so there can't be a valid recount. When computers can be used to change votes, it challenges the legality of our system. The only way to change that is to go back and make it as primitive as you can, one person one vote.
Source: American Conspiracies, by Jesse Ventura, p.130
Mar 9, 2010
On Government Reform:
Electronic voting machines are a GOP conflict of interest
It's obvious that, to avoid the specter of vote fraud always hanging over our elections, we've got to outlaw the electronic voting machines and return to a system where there's a "paper trail."
How can we not see the blatant conflict of interest that currently exists, with the computer companies and the vote-counters being dominated by the Republican Party? Give the
Democrats enough years in power, and you can bet they'd follow the same pattern. While we're after real reform, let's finally abolish the antiquated Electoral College and allow the popular vote to prevail.
And let's open the ballot and the debates to legitimate third-party candidates, and break the stranglehold that big money has on the two-party system.
Source: American Conspiracies, by Jesse Ventura, p.141
Mar 9, 2010
On Homeland Security:
Federal surveillance is a waste of taxpayer dollars
Let's focus on rethinking the meaning of surveillance. Certainly in the case of Malcolm X, as well as Dr. King, being shadowed by government agencies seemed to lead inevitably to their death. There is too much secrecy in our government, and surveillance
today is even more widespread that it was then, at a considerable waste of taxpayer dollars. Let's also teach our young people that a willingness to change your attitude, as Malcolm X was willing to do, is a mark not of weakness but sometimes of greatnes
Source: American Conspiracies, by Jesse Ventura, p. 52
Mar 9, 2010
On Homeland Security:
Why were there no black boxes from any of the 9/11 planes?
The official story is that, for the first time in history, the black boxes were not recovered. Not from any of the four planes. For the TV pilot I did about 9/11 on TruTV, we spoke to a guy who knew about the existence of three black boxes.
He physically saw one, and his partner saw two more. He says they were taken away in a black government van. Another thing I find very interesting:
Also for the first time in history, no attempt was made to reconstruct the planes with whatever parts they could find. They even did this with TWA flight 800 that went down in 1996 in the Atlantic, and for that they had to dive down 1,200 feet.After
Pearl Harbor, General Martin Shore and some admirals were fired because of their alleged negligence. After 9/11, not a single employee at the FAA or NORAD got punished. In fact, all the major military men involved received promotions.
Source: American Conspiracies, by Jesse Ventura, p.154
Mar 9, 2010
On War & Peace:
1980: Carter's failure on Iran hostages let Reagan win
The Incident:
On the same day that Ronald Reagan was inaugurated as president, January 20, 1981, Iran released the American hostages it had been holding in our embassy there for 444 days.
The Official Word:
The timing was coincidental.
My Take:
Reagan's people had cut a deal with Iran to keep the hostages beyond the presidential election, to ensure that President Carter's negotiations with Iran failed and that he lost to Reagan.
Source: American Conspiracies, by Jesse Ventura, p.104
Mar 9, 2010
On Budget & Economy:
Balance American Dream with unfairness of capitalism
Let's face it, capitalism isn't always fair. So if you're looking to bring fairness to life, you have to take steps more toward socialism. Which then causes a conflict of interest, because socialism means you're going to be even more controlled in your
decision-making by the Establishment. Then again, is that what's required to keep an equal balance? What I really see leaving is the American Dream. The destruction of the middle class means you're no longer going to have that dream, which is that a youn
person can achieve anything if you put your mind to it because the opportunities are there. Now are they still? Yes. But are they more difficult? Yes. I see many more obstacles in the way of the American Dream today, and a great deal of it is caused by
greed. It's understood that a certain amount of wealthy people are going to control the majority of the money, but when it's moving so drastically that you've got 5 percent of the people having 90 percent of the money, that can't be healthy.
Source: American Conspiracies, by Jesse Ventura, p.165
Mar 8, 2010
On Budget & Economy:
Keep savings banks separate from speculative investments
The new era of deregulation resulted in a boom time for the rich getting richer. Reagan opened wide the door for companies to gamble with taxpayers' money. In 1999, the Glass-Steagall Act was repealed, and a real free-for-all began. It was passed in
1993 to keep separate the low-risk commercial banks where we put our deposits, and the brokerage banks that engage in high-risk speculative investments. This worked just fine for more than 50 years. During the Reagan years, the lobbyists for the finance,
insurance, and real estate outfits started pushing to dump the law; then the rules of the game changed totally. Mergers and commercial/investment partnerships skyrocketed. Now banks could start taking multiple home mortgage loans and turning them
into securities to trade on Wall Street. They could all gamble like crazy, and with very little regulation.How insane was it to destroy one of the main protection devices created out of the pain of the Great Depression.
Source: American Conspiracies, by Jesse Ventura, p.169
Mar 8, 2010
On Budget & Economy:
Return to staid banking: low-risk highly-regulated loans
Is it naive to think about banking returning to the austere, staid practice of simply taking deposits & making conservative loans at low interest rates to qualified borrowers, under rigid regulations administered by moderately paid federal employees?
Here's what some smart economists think we need to do: - Reinstate the Glass-Steagall Act and wall off commercial banking from investment bank gambling, and require strict leverage limits
- Insulate the federally insured depositors from reckless
investment schemes with no social utility whatsoever like there "credit default swaps" that are entered into by entities that don't own the underlying bonds
- Withdraw the massive handouts and taxpayer-backed guarantees given to prop up specific banks
and financial institutions, and use these funds to instead support the struggling homeowners and defaulting borrowers who form the root of this crisis
- Let the already-insolvent bank go bankrupt and begin removing the bad debt from the system.
Source: American Conspiracies, by Jesse Ventura, p.180-181
Mar 8, 2010
On Corporations:
Keeping fat cats in business deepened 2008 collapse
The Incident: America's worst economic crisis since the Great Depression occurred in the fall of 2008, brought on originally by the collapse of a housing bubble that damaged financial institutions and caused the stock market to plummet.
The Official Word:
Huge corporations like AIG and Goldman Sachs were considered "too big to fail," and received multibillion-dollar bailouts from the federal government in order to prevent economic collapse.
My Take:
The government conspired to keep the "fat cats" in business, while the American taxpayers are left holding the bag. CEOs that should be going to jail for scams beyond belief and instead reaping the biggest bonuses ever.
Corporations basically run the government, and the same players that made the mess still have a stranglehold on our future.
Source: American Conspiracies, by Jesse Ventura, p.164
Mar 8, 2010
On Corporations:
2008 bailouts were conspiracy to keep fat cats in business
The Incident: America's worst economic crisis since the Great Depression occurred in the fall of 2008, brought on originally by the collapse of a housing bubble that damaged financial institutions and caused the stock market to plummet.
The Official Word:
Huge corporations like AIG and Goldman Sachs were considered "too big to fail," and received multibillion-dollar bailouts from the federal government in order to prevent economic collapse.
My Take:
The government conspired to keep the "fat cats" in business, while the American taxpayers are left holding the bag. CEOs that should be going to jail for scams beyond belief and instead reaping the biggest bonuses ever.
Corporations basically run the government, and the same players that made the mess still have a stranglehold on our future.
Source: American Conspiracies, by Jesse Ventura, p.164
Mar 8, 2010
On Crime:
Watch out for DNA Fingerprint Act's biometrics
A provision was slipped into the Violence Against Women Act reauthorization bill at the end of 2005. It's the DNA Fingerprint Act, meaning that if you get arrested at a demonstration on federal property, they can take a sample of your
DNA and keep it on permanent file. This fits nicely with a billion-dollar FBI project to have a massive computer database containing individuals' physical characteristics. They call this biometrics, and it gives the government a brand-new opportunity to
identify folks at home and abroad. They're storing digital images of faces, fingerprints and palm types in a climate-controlled underground facility in Clarksburg, West Virginia. They'll soon be crime-stopping even by analyzing the way we walk and talk.
At some airports, people who aren't line-standers at the metal detectors are taking advantage of the "opportunity" to have their irises scanned to prove they've passed a background check (that's called Next Generation Identification).
Source: American Conspiracies, by Jesse Ventura, p.197
Mar 8, 2010
On Drugs:
Banks & prison-industrial complex gets rich on the drug war
Federal law still considers marijuana a dangerous illegal drug, although 14 states have now enacted laws allowing for some use for medical purposes.Let me cite a few statistics that I find mind-boggling. According to NORML, an advocacy group for
legalizing marijuana, more than 700,000 of America's estimated 20 million pot-smokers got arrested in 2008. About HALF of the 200,000 inmates in our federal prisons are in there for drug-related offenses. Between 1970 and 2007, we saw a 547% increase in
our prison population, mainly because of our drug policies. Of course, that's just fine with the new prison-industrial complex, where corporations are now running the show. We as taxpayers shell out $68 billion every year for prisons, & a lot of that end
up going into private contractors' pockets!
Of course, they're not the only ones getting rich. Well-documented federal reports lead to the conclusion that American banks are "collectively the world's largest financial beneficiary of the drug trade."
Source: American Conspiracies, by Jesse Ventura, p.114
Mar 8, 2010
On Foreign Policy:
Visited Cuba & Fidel Castro, despite presidential opposition
In 2002, I got the opportunity to meet Fidel Castro. A few of America's sanctions against Cuba dealing with food and agricultural products had finally been lifted, so Minnesota was able to put together a trade mission for humanitarian purposes. Pres.
Bush was very opposed to my going along, but I decided it was my right as a American citizen.I'd grown up in fear of Fidel Castro. I was young when his revolution took place in 1959, but I remember the propaganda. I vaguely recall hearing about the
Bay of Pigs invasion.
I met Castro at the trade fair. The first words out of his mouth were, "You are a man of great courage." I was puzzled; he looked at me and said, "You defied your president to come here." I guess he has pretty good "intel."
And
I looked right back at him and said, "Well, Mr. President, you'll find that I defy most everything." I told him that I felt the U.S. boycott was wrong. It did nothing positive for either of our countries, and it was time for Americans to get over it.
Source: American Conspiracies, by Jesse Ventura, p. 26-27
Mar 8, 2010
On Government Reform:
CIA operatives in every state government
Shortly after becoming Governor, I found out something and it stunned me. There is a CIA operative inside every state government. They are not in executive positions--in other words, not appointed by the governor--but permanent state employees. While
governors come and go, they keep working, holding down legitimate jobs but with a dual identity.I wasn't sworn to secrecy about this, but only my chief of staff and I were allowed to know his identity. I still have no idea what they're doing there.
Are they spying? Checking out the state government and reporting back to someone at headquarters? But who and for what purpose? I mean, are they trying to ferret out traitors in the various states? (Or maybe just dissidents--like me!)
Anyhow, I wasn't
told the reason and was simply left to ponder how come our Constitution is being violated. And that's another reason why I am writing this book, because I believe it's vital to our democracy to see the hidden pattern that's been undermining this country.
Source: American Conspiracies, by Jesse Ventura, p. xiii
Mar 8, 2010
On Government Reform:
Kennedy assassination involved CIA, Pentagon, & 2nd gunman
The Incident:
The assassination of President John F, Kennedy, riding in his limousine in Dallas, on November 22, 1963.
The Official Word:
Lee Harvey Oswald, an ex-Marine and Communist sympathizer, shot the
president twice from behind, firing a rifle from the sixth-story window of the Texas School Book Depository. He was captured later that day in a theater, and killed two days later by Jack Ruby.
My Take:
The cover-up of what really
happened to JFK starts with the Warren Commission's "lone assassin" conclusion, and continues to this day with the help of the big media. A second gunman assassinated the president from the grassy knoll, while Oswald was set up as the fall guy.
The perpetrators behind Oswald are tied into the CIA, the Pentagon, and the Mob, along with right-wing extremists who tried to make it look like Cuba was behind it. Oswald himself was part of an intelligence operation that involved a look-alike "double."
Source: American Conspiracies, by Jesse Ventura, p. 22&43
Mar 8, 2010
On Government Reform:
Get rid of the antiquated Electoral College
Gore won the 2000 national popular vote from the get-go. How can you get a half million more votes that the other guy & lose? The presidential is the only election where we allow that to happen. We should have gotten rid of the Electoral College long ago
It was fine back in the days when everybody was still on horseback. It's time to leave an antiquated system behind. Who's profiting from keeping it going? As a third-party guy, I was hoping 2004 would bring the opposite result: Bush would win the popular
vote and Kerry would take the Electoral College. Maybe that would have brought them to the table to abolish the whole thing.But 2004, it turned out, was even more blatant election theft than in 2000. The exit polls were predicting a huge victory for
Kerry. But somehow Bush had taken a decisive lead and Kerry conceded on the day after. There is no evidence of vote theft or errors on a large scale, the NY Times "informed" us. The Washington Post called any talk of vote fraud "conspiracy theories."
Source: American Conspiracies, by Jesse Ventura, p.132
Mar 8, 2010
On Government Reform:
Government cites "national security" for too many secrets
vote and Kerry would take the Electoral College. Maybe that would have brought them to the table to abolish the whole thing.But 2004, it turned out, was even more blatant election theft than in 2000. The exit polls were predicting a huge victory for
Kerry. But somehow Bush had taken a decisive lead and Kerry conceded on the day after. There is no evidence of vote theft or errors on a large scale, the NY Times "informed" us. The Washington Post called any talk of vote fraud "conspiracy theories."
Do you ever think that maybe our country needs a Truth Commission, to understand the crimes that were committed "in our name" over these recent decades? My hope is that some of you will stand with me in calling for accountability.
The only way we can truly move forward is to come to grips with a recent past that's brought us to the brink of losing it all.
Source: American Conspiracies, by Jesse Ventura, p.202-203
Mar 8, 2010
On Government Reform:
Release 10,000 documents held under "national security"
We've got to have a more open government. Why can't those 10,000 documents on Able Danger be released? The old excuse of "national security"? Shouldn't there be some elected board that would say, "Okay, tell us why this falls under national security and
we'll make the determination whether it truly does, or is this simply a political cover-up?" When the government starts keeping too many secrets for us, that's a big step on the road to losing more of our liberties.
Do you ever think that maybe our country needs a Truth Commission, to understand the crimes that were committed "in our name" over these recent decades?
My hope is that some of you will stand with me in calling for accountability. The only way we can truly move forward is to come to grips with a recent past that's brought us to the brink of losing it all.
Source: American Conspiracies, by Jesse Ventura, p.202-203
Mar 8, 2010
On Health Care:
Treat anyone: the doctor issue us a human right
Are we that selfish a nation where health care can be such a divisive issue? Where is mainstream America today? To me, the doctor issue us a human right. I don't care if you're an illegal alien or whatever, if you're sick you should be able to have
treatment. It amazes me that we've got people out there holding signs and making our president look like a Nazi, because he supports a change in the system. Here's another point:
If government-run health care is so bad, does that mean we've been screwing over our veterans for close to a hundred years? My father would go nowhere else but to the Veteran's Administration hospital.
The one here in Minnesota is state-of-the-art, brand-new, and completely government-run, and I don't see anyone protesting about that! If it's good enough for the veterans, shouldn't it be the same for all of us?
Source: American Conspiracies, by Jesse Ventura, p.178-179
Mar 8, 2010
On Homeland Security:
Vietnam War was all about somebody making money
My questioning of the "official" line goes back to my school days, being taught that we had to fight in Vietnam to stop the domino effect of Communism. That's what I learned in school, but my father--who was a World War II vet--took the exact opposite
position at the dinner table. He said that was a load of crap, that the Vietnam War was all about somebody making big money off it. At first I thought my dad was crazy, because I could not believe they would lie to me in school.
I fought with him over it, and he'd keep doing his best to debunk what I was saying.When I, in turn, went into the service and learned a whole lot more about Vietnam, I had the good fortune to come home and tell my father that he was right. Especially
growing up in the Midwest, you never even contemplate that your government might not be telling the truth. You don't realize until you get much older that government is nothing but people--and people lie, especially where money and power are concerned.
Source: American Conspiracies, by Jesse Ventura, p. x-xi
Mar 8, 2010
On Homeland Security:
Lesson from JFK: Don't let feds investigate momentous events
My Take:
A second gunman assassinated the president from the grassy knoll, while Oswald was set up as the fall guy. The perpetrators behind Oswald are tied into the CIA, the Pentagon, and the Mob.
What Should We Do
Now?
One lesson we can take away from the tragedy in Dallas is that the federal government shouldn't be allowed to supersede state and local laws, when it comes to having an "official" investigation into events as momentous as a
presidential assassination or a terrorist attack. We also need to pay close attention to how big media stopped doing their job as the eyes and ears of our democracy, refusing to acknowledge that something might be going on beyond a "lone nut" assassin.
The pattern of denial continues, and we the people must demand thorough investigation and honest, unbiased information.
Source: American Conspiracies, by Jesse Ventura, p. 43
Mar 8, 2010
On Homeland Security:
1999: Special Ops ID'ed several 9/11 hijackers, but ignored
Ever heard of an army project called Able Danger? It was established in 1999 as part of the Special Operations Command. Able Danger was an offensive counter-terrorism project which was designed to kill senior al-Qaeda leadership. It wasn't long before th
Able Danger squad uncovered al-Qaeda cells in the NYC area, one of whose members was Mohamed Atta. At least six witnesses later recalled seeing Atta's picture on a chart they'd drawn up back in January 2000. Turns out three more of the alleged hijackers
had been ID'ed by Able Danger before 9/11, as well.But when the 9/11 Commission came up with reasons for leaving Able Danger out of its report, the media nodded off again. One 9/11 expert concluded that the commission and the Pentagon were "covering
up dangerous information that suggested Atta was being protected. Combine this observation with the money reportedly sent to Atta--the Able Danger evidence provides additional reason to suspect that the 'hijackers' were really paid assets."
Source: American Conspiracies, by Jesse Ventura, p.159-160
Mar 8, 2010
On Homeland Security:
I'm more afraid of the culture of fear than of al Qaeda
Given all the illegal activity that the non-elected Bush Administration engaged in since the millennium, we can't be too surprised at the reaction. A government that played on people's worst nightmares to achieve its own ends created a culture not only
of fear, but mistrust to the point of insurrection--which is what they secretly seem to have been longing for.I've gone to some lengths to trace these developments since 9/11, because I'm a lot more afraid of this than an assault by al-Qaeda.
What's going on inside our military also frightens me. More and more, we're seeing an army run by Christianist extremists and an accompanying cadre of what can only be described as neo-Nazis. Since the endless "war on terror" began, our armed services
have been turning a blind eye to their own military statutes. A 2005 DoD report said: "Effectively, the military has a 'don't ask, don't tell' policy pertaining to extremism." White supremacists are walking as enlisted men around our bases.
Source: American Conspiracies, by Jesse Ventura, p.194-195
Mar 8, 2010
On Principles & Values:
Patriotism means wondering if were told the truth
This book will delve into a number of things you don't see on TV or read about in the papers. The fact is, the media--the fourth branch of government that our founding fathers anticipated would speak truth to power and keep our democracy on track
--has at least since the assassination of President Kennedy systematically ignored any "conspiracy theory" that might rock the Establishment's boat.Clearly, there's something going on in our national psyche that the New York
Times and the Washington Post don't want to examine. I'm tired of being told that anybody who questions the status quo is part of the disaffected, alienated element of our society that ought to wake up and salute the flag.
Maybe being patriotic is about raising the curtain and wondering whether we've really been told the truth about things like September 11.
Source: American Conspiracies, by Jesse Ventura, p. ix-x
Mar 8, 2010
On Technology:
Feds surveill us via private sector to avoid Constitution
Under our Constitution, government is not allowed to do certain things. Corporate American doesn't fall under those same rules. So the governments is getting the private sector to do the dirty work, violations that they can't be held accountable for.
Then the corporations simply take the information they've acquired and turn it over to the government.What else could they learn? Well, if they know everything you buy in the store, they might say, "Here's a candidate for diabetes, look how he eats,
let's pass this along because you could be at risk."
I know I was surveilled when I was governor of Minnesota. To this day, every time I start appearing on national TV or radio, all of a sudden my phones get weird--you hear clicks on the other end--and
my wife can't get online as quickly and things disappear from her computer. Is this happenstance? It always seems to coincide with when I take a high profile. If you're at all a dissenter, apparently you will be observed and put under surveillance.
Source: American Conspiracies, by Jesse Ventura, p.199
Mar 8, 2010
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