Jesse Ventura interview

Charlotte was telling me that she saw Jesse Ventura on Piers Morgan and it was interesting.

Well I couldn't find the current interview, but came across this inteview [part 2 is here] from the Washington Times.

[What's the Washington Times?  It was a newspaper founded in 1982 by Unification Church founder Sun Myung Moon, and until 2010 was owned by News World Communications, an international media conglomerate associated with the church.

The Times was read every day by President Ronald Reagan during his terms in office.^[11] In 1997 he said: The American people know the truth. You, my friends at The Washington Times, have told it to them. It wasn't always the popular thing to do. But you were a loud and powerful voice. Like me, you arrived in Washington at the beginning of the most momentous decade of the century. Together, we rolled up our sleeves and got to work. And—oh, yes—we won the Cold War.

In his 2003 book, Lies (And the Lying Liars Who Tell Them): A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right, comedian, author, and later senator Al Franken devoted a chapter to criticizing the Times after executive editor Wesley Pruden re-wrote a reporter's story—without the reporter's knowledge—about Franken's performance at a White House party. According to Franken, the rewrite was made to appear as if Franken had received a negative reception, which he says was not the case.

The political views of The Washington Times are often described as conservative.^[48][49][50] The Washington Post reported: "the Times was established by Moon to combat communism and be a conservative alternative to what he perceived as the liberal bias of The Washington Post."

The Washington Times has lost money every year that it has been in business.  And with that...]

Ventura critiques both the Democrats and Republicans in his latest book DemoCRIPS and ReBLOODlicans  [I suppose you could have guess that by the title].

Kelly: Getting into the book, you mention the damage the two parties have wrought on our country, and the fact that there is no major difference between them. In your opinion, is there anything that the two parties differ on?

Ventura: Well, certainly. They’ll differ on things like gay marriage and red herrings that they shouldn’t even be involved in, in the first place. Ultimately why I say that is because they’ve both sold out. Political corporations now control our government. Mussolini would be proud because that’s the loose definition of fascism. In light of the Supreme Court’s ridiculous decision where they stated that corporations have the same rights as you as an individual, and that money is free speech, we’re now getting inundated with all of these millions of dollars into our elections, and I’m not so much opposed to that as much but the fact is there is no open disclosure. They don’t even have to say who is giving the money.

Kevin Kelly: With the election of Barack Obama in 2008, many Americans expected a dramatic change in our political landscape. You chronicle in one chapter of your book how Obama has continued many of the same policies as his predecessor. Do you think that Obama is the third term of George W. Bush?

Jesse Ventura: I think it made “USA Today,” a quote that I had earlier this week, and I said that I can’t tell the difference between the Bush Administration and the Obama Administration except the two leaders’ only difference was the color of their skin. The wars are still going on, Gitmo is still there, the surveillance is still there, Bush suspended habeas corpus, Obama hasn’t returned it. What’s the difference? That leads to what I said earlier, there is no difference. When you vote, and if there is a third candidate or a third party candidate, they always like to tell you that you waste your vote if you vote for that candidate right? I’d like to reverse that and say: No, you waste your vote if you vote for a Democrat or a Republican because you’re going to get the same thing. That’s a wasted vote. Unless you like the same thing, but according to polls people are completely unhappy with our government. Why don’t they change it? The solution is a simple as the nose on your face, but it’s as difficult as climbing Mount Everest. You know what that is? Stop voting for them. It’s that simple, but the lemmings of the United States, they still do it.

[So he criticizes the Democrats, Republicans, and everybody who voted for either party?]

Kelly: Is there any individual currently in the media whom you feel does a good job reporting the facts?

Ventura: Of the organized media? No. It’s shameful that I have to say this. From my dealings, if we can steal the quote from FOX, “Fair and Balanced,” I would tell you that the closest to it is Al-Jazeera. Isn’t that shameful? I don’t say that with pride either. It’s from my dealings. I’m not allowed on FOX and I’m not allowed on MSNBC.

[I thought I saw him on Hannity not long ago? I dunno. Maybe it was an old interview?]

Kelly: Why is it in your opinion that you are not allowed on those networks? Is it because you speak truth to power? You make them uncomfortable? Are they physically intimidated by you?

Ventura: All of the above. You’d have to ask them. Every time I do a book tour, do anything, we attempt to get on every station we can, and FOX and MSNBC will not have me on, and trust me I get ratings.]

Kelly: I bet you do.

Ventura: (Laughs) So they’re willing to sacrifice ratings just to keep me off.

Kelly: Do you think another factor could be that you’ve served your country honorably, and some of the “chicken hawks” at some of the other networks are intimated by that?

Ventura: Absolutely. A lot of them, especially FOX are nothing but warmongers. All they want to do is go to war, and there ain’t one of them that have ever been in the military: Hannity, O’Reilly. None of them and you use the proper word “chicken hawks” you must have gotten it from me. (Laughs) You know the definition of a “chicken hawk?” That’s somebody who when it was their time to serve you couldn’t find them, and when they’re all safe all they want to do then is send young people to war.

[OK, I guess I see what she means that he was an interesting interview.]

From another interview

Also, you hear the Republicans claim about health care – "government-run health care." The veterans have government-run health care – why's it good for them? The congressmen and senators – they have government-run health care. What hypocrisy. In fact, I show in my book, they get five plans they can choose from on health care. We out in the civilian population are lucky if we get one.

You have a lot of facts and figures about individuals, corporations, lobbyists and political action committees that spend billions of dollars supporting candidates. One group you don't target is unions, who spend a lot of money on lobbying and candidates' campaigns, supporting mostly Democrats. Why do you spare them in your book?

You need to understand unions can be abusive also, but unions created the middle class. And as unions disappear in this country, so will the middle class. Because once the unions are gone, they'll go back to sweatshops where they can pay anything they want. We must have collective bargaining from the workers. The workers need some type of mechanism to battle the executive branch.

Can unions be corrupted? Of course they can, they're run by humans. Humans can always be corrupted by money and power.

[The book sells for only $8.89 at Amazon.com.  Gets only one one-star review.  From Tricky Nicky.  One thing you can say for Tricky Nicky, he's consistent..]