But whether we’re talking about the Cold War against Communism or our current War on Terrorism, the end result is the same. The products of destruction are paid for by mortgaging our country’s hopes for the future. Every new weapons system actually represents a theft: it robs a school of a new library; prevents health care from reaching seniors who desperately need it; and makes universities unaffordable for our most gifted youth. As President Eisenhower noted:
Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, and the hopes of its children. This is not a way of life at all in any true sense.706
We, The People are now barely allowed the privilege of asking how come? But it needs to be asked . We should be asking! How come?
How come there’s always money for another war but never enough money for jobs programs that millions of Americans really need, that could rebuild our breaking bridges and the rest of our infrastructure? How come we give billions to defense contractors for new bomber programs and take money from the teachers who are preparing our children for their future?
How come? If we ask that too aggressively these days we’re told we’re being unpatriotic, possibly even a “terror threat!”
What happened? Where is that Democracy we all grew up believing in? The Land of the Free.
Representative Cynthia McKinney grilled Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld a few years ago over the fact that the Comptroller General of the United States determined that 3.4 trillion dollars was “missing” from the Pentagon budget in fiscal years 1999 and 2000. That’s right, I said 3.4 trillion dollars—I’m not making this up, it’s Congressional testimony.707
Isn’t that insane? Why on earth are we still we putting up with insanity like that? Shouldn’t these maniacs be locked up in a nice little home somewhere to prevent them from sabotaging our children’s future?
JFK faced that same type of political insanity and stood right up to it. At a meeting of the National Security Council in 1961, the Joint Chiefs of Staff presented President Kennedy with their plan for a surprise nuclear attack on the Soviet people.708 They were dead serious.
JFK stood up from the table and walked out in disgust, right in the middle of the meeting. The President’s disgust “was in response to a more specific evil in his own ranks: U.S. military and CIA leaders were enlisting his support for a plan to launch a nuclear attack on the Soviet Union.”709 As JFK walked away, he shot a strong look at his Secretary of State and snapped:
And we call ourselves the human race.710
That’s the kind of leader we were blessed with in President Kennedy. And I think that “blessed” is really the right word.
What we can learn from that is that our problems are really nothing new. JFK had to fight the same demons that we’re now faced with. Russian Premier Khrushchev and Kennedy secretly worked together through back channels to avoid war by going behind the backs of their own generals—because they both knew that was the only way that war could be avoided!
That secret strategy succeeded. In the Berlin Crisis in 1961 and the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, it was only by clinging to the hope of those secret negotiations that the peace was kept.711 Had either leader actually listened to their own military advisors, this planet would have been incinerated with nuclear madness and its fallout.
That was an incredible moment:
The two most heavily armed leaders in history, on the verge of total nuclear war, suddenly joined hands against those on both sides pressuring them to attack. Khrushchev ordered the immediate withdrawal of his missiles in return for Kennedy’s public pledge never to invade Cuba and his secret promise to withdraw U.S. missiles from Turkey—as he would in fact do. The two Cold War enemies had turned, so that each now had more in common with his opponent than either had with his own generals.712
The Joint Chiefs of Staff, in a letter to JFK’s Secretary of Defense on November 20, 1962, stated the following:
The Joint Chiefs of Staff consider that a first-strike capability is both feasible and desirable . . .713
That was a nuclear first-strike they were talking about. And it got even worse. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff delivered a top-secret memo to JFK’s Secretary of Defense on March 13, 1962. That memo urged the Kennedy Administration to create a number of “shock incidents,” in the form of fake attacks on U.S. soldiers stationed in Cuba and other Central American countries and also in Miami, other Florida cities, and “even in Washington.”714 The plans even included blowing up an American ship in Guantanamo Bay. The purpose of the proposed “false flag” attacks was to create a backlash—referred to in the memo as “a helpful wave of national indignation”—that would provide a rationale for invading Cuba.715
The stakes were higher than most people even imagine; then or now. That national security structure firmly believed that nuclear war was winnable . As former Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara put it, “They were certain of that. There were men in power who believed that America could claim victory even if the country lost 20 or 30 million people.”716
President Kennedy was totally committed to drastic reductions in the arms race:
On May 6, 1963, President Kennedy issued National Security Action Memorandum Number 239, ordering his principal national security advisers to pursue both a nuclear test ban and a policy of general and complete disarmament.717
And I want to now end this book with an extremely important point. JFK won that war against his own national security structure. And so can we. Join me in that effort online at “Jesse Ventura—The Official Facebook Page”: facebook. com/OfficialJesseVentura.
I aim to make our so-called leaders once again responsible to the people they are supposed to represent. I want your input on a pledge I’m drafting that we are going to send to every member of Congress and request that they sign.
That pledge will include the following:
• Immediately release all documents related to the JFK assassination that are currently being withheld;
• Repeal provisions of the “Patriot Act” which are contrary to the historically established rights of American citizens as set forth in the United States Constitution and Bill of Rights;
• Any act of warfare against another people or nation must be justified by formal declaration and ratified by the United States Congress;
• Reduce “defense” spending to a level that actually reflects the level necessary for our defense;
• Use the resources from spending reductions and a more just system of taxation to benefit our citizens through increased access to quality health care, a massive public works jobs program that rebuilds our nation’s infrastructure at the same time that it creates employment, the rescue and funding of the Social Security retirement system, and creating quality education through valuing the teachers of our children the way they should be—with our thanks, our vision, and with ample reward.
All those Washington politicians can decide as they wish; either to sign it or to not sign our petition—but I’m gonna put it right into every single one of their laps and they’re gonna have to go on public record of either supporting those principles or opposing them.
I taught at the Harvard University Kennedy School of Government and I’ve learned that innovation is the key to problem-solving. As Margaret Mead, a cultural anthropologist who was way ahead of her time said, “We are continually faced with great opportunities which are brilliantly disguised as unsolvable problems.”718
That translates like this: We’re not powerless! I’ll give you a specific example of the type of catalyst change that I’m talking about. Take the gigantic “immigration problem” in this country right now that no one wants to address. We can change the whole paradigm on immigration and here’s how. We grant long-term permission to stay in this countr
y—“green cards”—to the best foreign students. In exchange for giving them their education, we actually encourage them to stay here in the U.S. and practice the skills that they learned in our universities. We keep the fruits of their education. That’s how we can immediately enrich our U.S. labor pool, by keeping the cream of the crop—the best and brightest academics at the top of the most important fields. Right now, after getting educated here, most of them have to leave the country. It makes no sense.
Meanwhile, we increase teacher salaries and innovate change throughout our school system to make that job worthy of a career in education and gradually that will provide huge future benefits to our economy and our country. That’s how to revitalize our educational system and begin coming to terms with the issue of immigration at the same time; by looking at our problems as opportunities. I don’t believe in problems—I believe in solutions. We can mobilize a political force of concerned citizens that has to be reckoned with simply by caring and getting involved in the future course of our country. We can use that power to turn negatives into a positive. We can energize that knowledge to revitalize our Republic.
Take strength from the fact that others have gone before you, and still more will follow. Join me in standing strong on these issues and promoting that petition to the so-called leaders in our government. Because it’s still our government. They just need to be reminded of that.
Stay vigilant! Let’s take back our country!
I will end with a little story, and it’s an important one, too.
It may shock some to learn that, long before President Nixon’s Watergate tapes conspiracy in the 1970s, JFK secretly taped events like his National Security Council meetings with the Generals and Admirals who were his war-mongering adversaries.719 And unlike President Richard Nixon, Kennedy knew how to keep a secret. Even among the White House inner circle, only he and—one would guess, his brother, the Attorney General—knew of the secret taping system.720 Also unlike Nixon, Kennedy used it to protect the common people from the evil designs of their leaders.
What those tapes revealed when they listened to the recordings of those Generals and Admirals must have scared the hell out of them, too. The tapes were eventually released, and as soon as the President leaves the room, the Joint Chiefs of Staff all start squawking with profanities about what a chicken the President was.721
Listening to those tapes would reveal that even the Joint Chiefs thought to be most loyal to the President and Commander-in-Chief were also viciously opposed to what they saw as his “pacifist” policies. It was no laughing matter.
So JFK would marshal together his forces, telling his real team of advisors that they had better develop a consensus for peace—and fast. He explained why with a simple gesture toward the Joint Chiefs of Staff and one short and scary sentence:
“They all want war.”722
That’s what JFK was up against.
Well, guess what? They still do want war! War has become a very important “business” to the military and corporate Powers That Be who purport to be our masters.
So we, as a nation, must now develop a consensus for peace, because anything less than that is our de facto acceptance of the perpetual war state of that military-corporate complex.
I continue to seek your support for rebuilding America back into a country that again invokes the words spoken by President Kennedy shortly before his murder:
I am talking about genuine peace, the kind of peace that makes life on earth worth living, the kind that enables men and nations to grow and to hope and to build a better life for their children—not merely peace for Americans but peace for all men and women— not merely peace in our time, but peace for all time.
No problem of human destiny is beyond human beings. . . . So let us persevere. Peace need not be impracticable, and war need not be inevitable. By defining our goal more clearly, by making it seem more manageable and less remote, we can help all people to see it, to draw hope from it, and to move irresistibly toward it.
So, let us not be blind to our differences—but let us also direct attention to our common interests and to the means by which those differences can be resolved. And if we cannot end now our differences, at least we can help make the world safe for diversity. For, in the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children’s futures. And we are all mortal.
The United States, as the world knows, will never start a war. We do not want a war. We do not now expect a war. This generation of Americans has already had enough—more than enough—of war and hate and oppression. We shall be prepared if others wish it. We shall be alert to try to stop it. But we shall also do our part to build a world of peace where the weak are safe and the strong are just. We are not helpless before that task or hopeless of its success. Confident and unafraid, we must labor on—not toward a strategy of annihilation but toward a strategy of peace.723
It’s time to put an end to the influence of special interests that pollutes our political process. It’s also time to put an end to the two-party dictatorship sponsored by those special interests that are not in the People’s interests.
When I was Governor Jesse Ventura in Minnesota—as an Independent—I ran and was elected governor with zero PAC money (political action committees). I took no special interest money, and I would not even allow those people into my office—for four years in office I never once met with a lobbyist. I literally banned them from the Governor’s Office. So for four years the state of Minnesota was not run by special interests.
Would you like to know what happened? My state ran budget surpluses, and I returned that money to the taxpayers every year. That’s how it should be— because that’s the People’s money!
It’s time to do the same thing on a national level. Our current system of “politics as usual” has got this country in a chokehold, and we’re pinned down on the mat. As I said in my book, Don’t Start the Revolution Without Me!, if we would have had the money that we spent in the whole fiasco of the Iraq War, we could have worked wonders:
The New York Times recently noted that, for what the war is costing, we could’ve instituted universal health coverage, provided a nursery school education for every three and four year old, and immunized kids around the world against numerous diseases— and still had half the money left over.724
My point is this: That was our money, and it should’ve been us who decided how it was spent, not Pentagon war-mongers, not corporate fat cats, and not special interest lobbyists.
Peace,
Governor Jesse Ventura
689 Talbot, Brothers, 5, 21–22.
690 Ibid.
691 Talbot, Brothers, 15–17.
692 Horne, Inside the ARRB.
693 American RadioWorks, “The President Calling (November 28, 1963, at 8:55 p.m.),” retrieved 12 June 2013: americanradioworks.publicradio.org/features/prestapes/b4.html
694 Talbot, Brothers, 285.
695 President Lyndon Baines Johnson, “President Johnson’s Notes on Conversation with Acting Attorney General Ramsey Clark – January 26, 1967 – 6:29 P.M.,” January 26, 1967:
history-matters.com/archive/jfk/arrb/master_med_set/md68/html/md68_0001a.htm
696 Geoffrey Dickens, “Charlie Rose Endorses America is ‘Not Greatest Country’ View of Aaron Sorkin Show,” June 22, 2012: newsbusters.org/blogs/geoffrey-dickens/2012/06/22/charlie-rose-endorses-america-not-greatest-country-view-aaron-sork
697 Aaron Sorkin, The Newsroom, June 24, 2012, HBO: youtube.com/watch?v=16K6m3Ua2nw
698 Adam Martin, “The C.I.A.’s Silence on Drone Strikes Is Getting Awkward,” The Atlantic, February 6, 2012: theatlanticwire.com/global/2012/02/cis-silence-drone-strikes-getting-awkward/48328/
699 Alexander Pope, An Essay on Criticism, 1709.
700 Tim Cushing, “MA Teen Arrested And Held Without Bail For Posting Supposed ‘Terrorist Threat’ On Facebook,” May 3, 2013, Overhype: techdirt.com/artic
les/20130502/18364622931/ ma-teen-arrested-held-without-bail-posting-supposed-terrorist-threat-facebook.shtml
701 Philip Caulfield, “Massachusetts teen charged with making ‘terror’ threats mentioning Boston Marathon on Facebook,” May 3, 2013, New York Daily News: nydailynews.com/news/national/teen-faces-terror-charges-boston-marathon-facebook-post-article-1.1334038#ixzz2VerYsDsP
702 Thomas Gaist, “NSA Whistleblower Reveals Identity, Exposes US Government’s ‘Architecture of Oppression’,” June 10, 2013, Information Clearing House: informationclearinghouse.info/article35233.htm
703 Jack Kenny, “Jimmy Carter Defends Snowden, Says U.S. Has No ‘Functioning Democracy’,” July 20, 2013, New American: thenewamerican.com/usnews/constitution/item/16043-jimmy-carter-defends-snowden-says-u-s-has-no-functioning-democracy
704 Benjamin Franklin, “Constitutional Convention of 1787 in Philadelphia,” September 17, 1787: ourrepubliconline.com/Author/21
705 Benjamin Franklin, “Pennsylvania Assembly: Reply to the Governor,” November 11, 1755: ushistory.org/Franklin/quotable/quote04.htm
706 President Dwight D. Eisenhower, “The Chance for Peace,” March, 1953: usnews.com/opinion/blogs/robert-schlesinger/2011/09/30/the-origins-of-that-eisenhower-every-gun-that-is-made-quote
707 U.S. Representative Cynthia Ann McKinney, March 11, 2005, “U.S. House of Representatives Hearing on Fiscal Year 2006 Budget for the Department of Defense and Military Services”: fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/031505_mckinney_transcript. shtml and youtube.com/watch?v = Aupqwx6vaCs and Vince Gonzales , “Vince Gonzales investigates the Pentagon’s inability to account for trillions of taxpayer dollars,” CBS News, January 29, 2002: 911research.wtc7.net/cache/sept11/cbs_waronwaste.html and youtube.com/watch?v=LJmS_92Oo9I
708 Douglass, JFK and the Unspeakable, 236.
709 Ibid, 237.
710 McGeorge Bundy, Danger and Survival, 354; Dean Rusk, As I Saw It, 246–247.
711 Douglass, JFK and the Unspeakable, 237–243.
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