Book Review: Ventura goes to the mat again

When perusing revisionist history, a reader must understand that the author’s version of “Truth” and history as it actually occurred may bear little similarity.

Such is the case with former Independent Party governor of Minnesota Jesse “The Body” Ventura’s latest attempt to rewrite the events preceding his election, his four years in office, and the reasons he walked away without trying for another four years at the mansion in St. Paul.

“In Don’t Start the Revolution without Me,” Ventura rather conveniently claims he had become disenchanted with Minnesota politics, when in fact, had he announced for re-election, mobs of enraged Minnesotans may have marched on the Capitol with buckets of tar and bags of feathers.

From 1999 to 2003, Jesse so alienated almost every group of voters — even previously ardent supporters and students he bought off with enticing tax rebate gimmicks — that re-election seemed highly impossible.

One former disgruntled voter summed up the general feeling with, “He started off with good intent, but he’s too thin-skinned, too much of a whiner, and when he saw he couldn’t do it all for the people, he did it mostly for himself.”

Ventura showed many personalities to Minnesotans, with reactions to him ranging from near idolatry just after the election to eye rolling at his antics then eventual disgust at the end of the four years.

Well, Jesse’s back to tell tales!

Formatted as a travelogue that follows Ventura from Minnesota to his new home in Baja California, Mexico, the book allows Ventura to jump from one topic to another as he or wife Terry spot a certain rock, or they round a bend in the road across northern Mexico which clicks a memory from their early past or an incident during their time in the governor’s mansion.

Shilling his book on radio and TV the last few weeks, he has hinted at an independent run for the U.S. Senate and maybe even a run for president. He also manages to expound upon many conspiracy theories about the 9/11 attacks, the supposed CIA bugging his office and home, to rail against organized religion and to detail his convenient brushes with celebrities.

The man is no dummy, and he’s well-read, informed on most national details as well as world events.

For example, he believes that George Bush’s war in Iraq is self-serving and sees the Patriot Act as a step toward fascism.

“I can’t forgive the chicken-hawk cowards — Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, and the rest — who never served, who sent American boys to Iraq to die. All based on a pack of lies.”

In his defense of a new national draft, he writes, “Iraq is the most privatized war in American history. There are as many as 200,000 private contractors over there — a number greater than our 160,000 military troops! You might call it “rent-an-Army.”

He adds in another chapter, “The reality is, a “backdoor draft” already exists through the military’s use of multiple deployments. More than 85,000 troops have been kept on in Iraq beyond their agreed-upon terms of service.”

In the chapter called “In the Eye of the Hurricane,” Ventura quotes Tom Watts, “The trouble with history is that people who really know what happened aren’t talking, and the people who don’t, you can’t shut up.”

Or, sometimes they write revisionist history then show up on talk shows to emote with grand gusto but just won’t shut up.

Al Shaff writes freelance movie reviews for the Green Valley News.