09-08-2013, 04:03 AM
Out of interest, here's a review I did a couple of years ago for Jesse Ventura's AMERICAN CONSPIRACIES. The review was mainly done to introduce readers to other, relevant works of political research. I plan to reuse the bolded section in some forthcoming reviews of JFK assassination volumes on Amazon over the next couple of months, but will add and change a couple of titles to include the new works by DiEugenio, McBride, the reprint of Meagher's ACCESSORIES and a tentative mention of the upcoming CIA ROGUES AND THE KILLING OF THE KENNEDYS by Patrick Nolan.
Quote:AMERICAN CONSPIRACIES arrives at a time when conspiracies, specifically American conspiracies, are in the news now more than they have been in years. Oliver Stone appears on the Bill Maher show with a copy of JFK AND THE UNSPEAKABLE by James W. Douglass, and the book becomes a national bestseller. Elsewhere, ABC news reporter Chris Bury, at a conference in Philadelphia, labels noted FBI whistleblower Colleen Rowley a conspiracy theorist on camera after she critiques the Bush administration's curious activities prior to 9/11. The phrase `conspiracy theorist' is wielded as an all-purpose put-down by some, and unwillingly adopted by others who now question the `official story' surrounding any number of events.
As Rowley noted to her aggressive interviewer, a conspiracy is quite often simply "people deciding to do something bad". People who make such a decision aren't likely to announce it in a press release, hence the logical requirement of secrecy. Likewise, some misdeeds would require more than one person to be successfully carried out, hence the accompanying notion of collusion in private. Yet the idea of two, three or more people in key positions of power privately deciding to do something nefarious is viewed by the mainstream media as an invention of the mentally insane. Criminals might do it, the Mafia might do it, doctors or dentists or lawyers might occasionally do it (as folks from all walks of life are prosecuted for criminal acts every year), but the idea of certain politicians or elements within a government colluding to commit a criminal act is somehow viewed as beyond the pale.
With the vast amounts of power and profit available to those in government, you don't have to buy the premise of every conspiracy theory going to realize that - no matter how big or small - private collusion for personal gain, and a subsequent cover-up by those involved, is going to occur at some point or another. Likewise, there would be few incentives for later politicians to shed light on the events, and many more incentives, both professionally and privately, to keep their big mouths shut. It may all simply depend on the personalities involved. To suggest a hypothetical, can anyone think of any recent, powerful leaders of mainstream American political parties who largely avoided intensive scrutiny by the press, encouraged governmental secrecy, and displayed a notable interest in enhancing their private wealth while in office? Even better - and to extend the argument into areas covered at one point in Ventura's book - can you think of two such upstanding folk, perhaps with a shared background going back some years? This is not to point the finger (if you browse the later book and DVD recommendations in this review, you'll find material that clearly does), but simply to note that the extremes of long-held ideology, paired with the potential for wealth and the accumulation of power, would provide fertile grounds for conspiratorial behavior to be encouraged, rather than reduced.
Ventura's interest in the topic seems both sincere and substantial. Photos of a launch event for the long out-of-print deluxe hardcover of John Armstrong's HARVEY AND LEE (a massive volume discussing curious events in the background history of Lee Harvey Oswald) depict a smiling Ventura holding his own personal copy. A more recent filmed interview with Ventura on the Alex Jones show a few years back concluded with Jones passing Ventura a copy of his documentary TERRORSTORM, and requesting him to watch it. Ventura agreed that he would, and parted with a handshake. Concluding footage of Ventura's car pulling out and driving away revealed, with a zoomed-in shot, the former Governor solemnly reading the back cover of the DVD. (Ultimately, Ventura not only watched the film, but later appeared on camera in an expanded second edition of the movie). Since then, Ventura has appeared in the Alex Jones film TRUTH RISING, debated potential conspiracies with numerous TV and radio personalities, and hosted his own TruTV show on the topic, bluntly titled CONSPIRACY THEORY. The quality of the episodes of the latter that I saw struck me as varying from mixed, to quite good, but not for a moment have I doubted Ventura's own curiosity about the subject.
As author, Ventura could have chosen any number of conspiracy theories to discuss in this volume, but the selected few are compelling and backed up with detailed research. The Wall Street plot against Roosevelt - a very public conspiracy neutered by General Smedley Butler, and now almost forgotten - is covered in detail. The assassinations of Lincoln, John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King are also examined. (As noted in other reviews, the King family ultimately won a court case that suggested the official story explaining MLK's shooting was contrived to cover up government involvement in same). Watergate (a topic thoughtfully covered in earlier books like Jim Hougan's SECRET AGENDA) is dipped into, as are the chances of vote-rigging in the two elections won by George W. Bush, and how the recent Wall Street bailout has benefited a chosen few. 9/11 - the subject of a recent article by Ventura, written on the request of the Huffington Post, then censored by the same site within hours of being posted - is covered in particular detail. Ventura's co-author is Dick Russell, a fine writer of past works on the JFK assassination (such as THE MAN WHO KNEW TOO MUCH) who lends a tremendous depth of research to Ventura's gruff, singular writing voice.
Some readers might wish to dig further into the topics explored in AMERICAN CONSPIRACIES. On the assassination of JFK, I highly recommend James W. Douglass's JFK AND THE UNSPEAKABLE, Philip H. Melanson's SPY SAGA (covering the background of Lee Harvey Oswald), Hinckle and Turner's DEADLY SECRETS (documenting the CIA's use of anti-Castro mercenaries for covert activities), Gaeton Fonzi's THE LAST INVESTIGATION (recounting the abortive House Select Committee on Assassinations inquiry from the mid 70's), and Gerald D. McKnight's BREACH OF TRUST, (studying the machinations of the Warren Commission after the event). On the death of MLK, Melanson's THE MURKIN CONSPIRACY (`Murkin' being the code chosen by the FBI for their investigation into King's death), and William Pepper's AN ACT OF STATE are both exemplary. On the shooting of RFK, THE ROBERT F. KENNEDY ASSASSINATION: NEW REVELATIONS ON THE CONSPIRACY AND COVER-UP by Philip Melanson (currently only available from Amazon marketplace), THE ASSASSINATION OF ROBERT F. KENNEDY by William Turner, and Shane O'Sullivan's recent, extremely thorough WHO KILLED BOBBY? are the best works available, and each generally supports the conclusions and evidence presented by the others. (It should be noted that James Douglass is at work on books of his own about the murders of King and Robert Kennedy).
On the subject of 9/11, (and in recommended order), I'd suggest the key books by the indefatigable David Ray Griffin, those being THE 9/11 COMMISSION REPORT: OMISSIONS AND DISTORTIONS, THE NEW PEARL HARBOR REVISITED and THE MYSTERIOUS DEATH OF WORLD TRADE CENTRE 7. These can be supplemented with the most thoughtful and comprehensive overviews of the entire event, Jim Marrs's THE TERROR CONSPIRACY, Webster Tarpley's superlative 9/11 SYNTHETIC TERROR, and the overlooked but extremely incisive 9/11: THE NEW EVIDENCE, by British journalist Ian Henshall. Peter Dale Scott's THE ROAD TO 9/11 is a lengthy, heavily annotated University of California Press volume that suggestively fingers two ex-Bush administration members as being busier that morning, with clearly deleterious results, than you may have realized. The major documentaries on the topic are the aforementioned TERRORSTORM: SECOND EDITION, the recent LOOSE CHANGE FINAL CUT and LOOSE CHANGE 9/11: AN AMERICAN COUP, and the disquieting CORE OF CORRUPTION: IN THE SHADOWS. Readers (or viewers) pondering the subject of 9/11 anew might like to contemplate the subject of the various military drills that took place on 9/11 - notably, `Vigilant Guardian' and the other suggestively titled drills re-enacting mock hijacking scenarios on the day of the attacks - and how beneficial they were to the success of the actual hijackings on the day. (General Richard Myers, in a Commission interview, enthused at one point that the drills had actually helped, not hindered, their response on 9/11, presumably suggesting that if the drills had not been present, the US military response - which failed to intercept any of the planes, or prevent any of them from reaching their targets - would have been even worse. The clear embarrassment of General Myers and NORAD commander Ralph Eberhart towards those `coincidental' hijacking drills that mirrored the hijackings they failed to prevent, magically predicted the who and the how and where and when, and fortuitously helped to confuse the immediate response of others, is outlined in detail in Chapter 21 of Michael C. Ruppert's CROSSING THE RUBICON). For a perceptive and sympathetic overview of the entire topic of conspiracy, I'd recommend THE ROUGH GUIDE TO CONSPIRACY THEORIES, a lengthy volume now available in an expanded second edition. Finally, two volumes that exemplify the interconnected nature of much of the above material are Russ Baker's FAMILY OF SECRETS, a Bush family biography (following the exploits of Dubya's Presidential father George H.W. through CIA-linked involvement in Watergate and - possibly - the killing of JFK), and H.P. Albarelli Jr's A TERRIBLE MISTAKE: THE MURDER OF FRANK OLSON AND THE CIA'S SECRET COLD WAR EXPERIMENTS, a recent, mammoth volume that sheds light on much that was once unclear about the CIA's involvement in MK-Ultra, the covert program that dumped much of its documentation following shred orders from nervous, odious CIA head Richard Helms.