American Conspiracies (Jesse Ventura and Dick Russell) - Skyhorse Publishing - 2011 - 246 pages

It would be easy to dismiss this book as the exploitation of the ravings of the lunatic fringe.  However, Ventura, the former independent governor of Minnesota, is known as a straight shooter.  Certainly, there is a profit motive but this is a well-researched and well-documented volume.  Many of the 16 conspiracies may be false, but if only one is true, the American people should be alarmed.  Ventura's distrust of official government explanations was solidified by encounters with the CIA during his term as governor.  Remember that the CIA has no official capacity within the U.S. borders.

I have some knowledge of most of the conspiracies in this volume but it is stunning to see them all together and to see how many of them may be linked.  Although the CIA budget is super-secret, there is little doubt that their operating funds have been augmented by their involvement in drug trafficking as evidenced by the Iran-Contra affair.  The CIA drug business has been enabled by the disastrous "War on Drugs" policy that is responsible for the incarceration of millions of otherwise innocent individuals whose lives have been ruined forever.  According to the book, the prison population has increased by over 500% since 1970.  When "The Rise and Fall of the USA" is written, this runaway spy network will be identified as a major cause.

I am one who believes that the 2000 and 2004 elections were stolen by the manipulation of electronic voting machines.  I also believe that the official version of the events of 9/11/2001 is incomplete.  It does not seem possible that such an enormous catastrophe could have been staged but there is so much circumstantial evidence for that conclusion.  The feds quickly destroyed as much evidence as they could.  It is interesting that Building 7, that was used to store government documents, fell without being hit.  And, the Pentagon was struck (probably by a missile and not a plane) in a location that destroyed most of the military accounting records.  So many of the results of that day served nefarious ends.  Ventura is the rare government official who believes that the populace should hear the truth.  I encourage all truth-seekers to read this book before you dismiss it. [JAM 7/16/2011]