Russell Dick - Dont Start The Revolution Without Me!

Copyright 2008 by Jesse Ventura

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Paperback ISBN-13: 978-1-60239-716-3

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Ventura, Jesse.
Dont start the revolution without me! : from the Minnesota governors mansion to the Baja outback : reflections and revisionings / Jesse Ventura; with Dick Russell, p. cm.

ISBN 978-1-60239-273-1 (hardcover : alk. paper)

1. Ventura, Jesse. 2. Ventura, Terry. 3. GovernorsMinnesotaBiography. 4. Governors spousesMinnesotaBiography. 5. United StatesPolitics and government1989-6. MinnesotaPolitics and government1951-7. Ventura, JesseTravelSouthwest, New. 8. Ventura, TerryTravelSouthwest, New. 9. Southwest, NewDescription and travel. 10. Baja California (Mexico: Peninsula)Description and travel. I. Russell, Dick. II. Title.

F610.3.V46A3 2008
977.6053092dc22
[B]

2007048884

Printed in China

Also by Jesse Ventura

I Aint Got Time to Bleed: Reworking the
Body Politic from the Bottom Up

Do I Stand Alone? Going to the Mat Against
Political Pawns and Media Jackals

To Doug Friedline,

A man who worked endlessly and ultimately gave his life trying to elect honest people to public office.

Jesse Ventura

and

To our son, Tyrel, and our daughter, Jade, and to all the children of the future: Your freedom is at risk. Be wary.

Terry Ventura

leant be a politician. I dont know how. I love the truth. I love to speak it, to recognize it. And thats why many people criticize me behind my back. To be a politician, you have to take many factors into account, manipulate them, lie if its necessary. Im no good at that. Ill never be good at any ofthat.

Ernesto (Che) Guevara

EPILOGUE: WHY I DIDNT RUN IN 2008
(AND STILL MIGHT SOMEDAY)

Gentlemen, I have had men watching you for a long time, and I am convinced that you have used the funds of the bank to speculate in the bread-stuffs of the country. When you won, you divided the profits amongst you, and when you lost, you charged it to the bank. You are a den of vipers and thieves. I intend to rout you out.

President Andrew Jackson,
to a delegation of bankers in 1832

Theres an old saying: the more things change, the more they stay the same. Since this book was published in the spring of 2008, a whole lot has happened that has Americans wondering whether were about to plunge into another Great Depression. At the least, were going through the worst economic crisis of my lifetime. And weve elected a new president who ran for office on a platform calling for change, whom millions of people are counting on to pull us out of this mess and all the other nightmares that the Bush administration has created.

Barack Obama is a great man whos accomplished a remarkable thing, but he doesnt have a magic wand. Our country lives a bit under this dream-like belief, and people need to understand that you dont just come in and right all the wrongs. The federal government is a huge piece of machinery thats always moving, and you just jump on. Your job is to attempt to guide and inch the machinery along, a little bit to this direction and a little bit to that. But its very difficult because of the bureaucracy and the enormousness of it. So the American people need to give Obama a chance, first of allat least a year before they start passing judgment on him.

Now, I didnt vote for him. I met Ralph Nader during the course of the election and thought he was kind of a cool guy. And I voted for Ralph. I call my vote a protest votenone-of-the-abovebecause I do not vote for Democrats or Republicans. I believe the two-party system is corrupt, for reasons youll understand in reading this book, and I will always cast a protest vote until I see a quality in our elections with more choices than two.

Having said that, Ill never forget my feelings on Election Day, when it became clear that Obama had won. I looked at my wife and it felt good. I mean, really good. Id never believed in my lifetime that I would see a black man elected president. I felt very happy that I was alive to see this happen. Now maybe next it will be a woman. This makes sense when you look at it chronologically, because lets not forget that in this country, blacks could vote before women could! After all these years of white males, hopefully a woman president will happen in my lifetime, too. (But not Sarah Palin. I think we need someone who knows that Africa is a continent and not a country).

I think Obamas message was phenomenal. He ran a remarkable campaign and raised an unimaginable amount of money. However, Im also extremely disappointed with who hes chosen for his cabinet. He ran on a message of change, and yet the only person missing from the old Democratic guard is Robert Byrd! I mean, from Tom Daschle right on down the line to Hillary Clinton and the rest, its pretty much nothing but all the old Democrats from the 90s. How is that change? To me its a step backward. I may be proven wrong, and I hope I am. I hope these people can be advocates for change, but theyre sure going to have to change their spots to do that.

So that part disappoints me. But I think Obama is being very smart, in that he appears to be governing from the center. You dont graduate from Harvard Law School without being smart, and I think its about time we got somebody smart in there! George W. Bush is the worst president of my almost sixty years on this planet. He allowed the largest attack in the history of our country to occur on American soil buthe still has not caught Bin Laden, the supposed perpetrator. We havent even charged the guy! Bush has taken us into two wars and now Afghanistan is getting worse, so apparently were going to shift our troops from Iraq to Afghanistan to finish the job.

He leaves our economy in total shambles. I mean, he makes Richard Nixon look like the greatest of presidents. At least Nixon accomplished a few things. I cannot think of one thing that this guy has accomplished. Spending money contrary to all conservative beliefs what has he done in eight years? I blame this country for electing him twiceif they truly did. And if they didnt, then weve got a lot more problems than we thought we had.

I will state flat-out that George Bush, Dick Cheney, Condoleeza Rice, and other people from that administration should be charged with crimes. Vince Bugliosi, great prosecutor and lawyer that he is (remember, he got Charley Manson convicted), lays it all out in his new book, The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder