63 Documents the Government Doesn't Want You to Read

Former professional wrestler, ex-US Navy SEAL, movie actor, TV show producer and host, past governor of the US state of Minnesota, and author of five bestselling books, Jesse Ventura has put together perhaps his most sensational and revealing work yet. The idea for his latest book came on the heels of his last one, American Conspiracies. For this one, he has chosen 63 separate documents, most of them somewhat recently declassified and now available through the US Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). He picked 63 from hundreds because that number was the year (1963) of the Kennedy assassination. Within the book, as the inside of the dust cover says, "He proves that we've been duped into wars we shouldn't be fighting, lied to about intelligence, fed hogwash about terrorism, and tricked into losing more and more of our civil liberties.... Government officials can and do disregard the law, torture people, break promises, practically rewrite the Constitution, and keep on lying without raising any eyebrows.... Today, pretty much everything the government does is presumed secret." Not counting the Introduction, "Why You Need to Read This Book," and the Epilogue, "Resources for Curious Readers," Ventura divides the 63 declassified papers into five categories: (1) Our Scandalous Postwar History, (2) Government, Military, and Corporate Secrets, (3) Shady White Houses, (4) 9/11, and (5) The "War on Terror." Before showing each document, many being excerpts from photocopies of the originals, Ventura includes a short synopsis pointing out what he feels are the highlights of its text. This is most helpful as some are old and difficult to read transcriptions and others are detailed testimony from congressional committee hearings. You can then choose to read the entire excerpt, or skim it, picking out the important points he gave you in the synopsis. Here, with brief comments, are what I feel are some of the more startling inclusions. Keep in mind that every document "is in the public domain and, for the most part, downloadable from the Internet." The CIA's Secret Assassination Manual and US Assassination Plots against Foreign Leaders. The first document is part of a 19-page guide prepared for use in a 1954 coup against the government of Guatemala and declassified in 1997. The second involves targeting Fidel Castro. Jesse asks, "How is it that we are allowed to kill other people if we're not in a declared war with them?" Kennedy's Plans to Withdraw Troops from Vietnam. Ventura calls Vietnam "a sham from the get-go, trumped up by the military industrial complex." JFK was killed less than one month after the second memo shown. What Really Happened at the Gulf of Tonkin. According to top secret documents released in 2005 by the National Security Agency (NSA), somebody in Signals Intelligence skewed the data to make it look like US ships were pre-emptively attacked by the North Vietnamese. As a result, roughly 58,000 Americans were killed in the Vietnam conflict and probably over a million Vietnamese. US Capabilities in Chemical and Biological Warfare includes most of the transcript of hearings before a House Subcommittee on Appropriations held in 1969 for the Department of Defense (DOD) 1970 budget. It shows the R&D going on at the time plus how the US was using herbicides (like Agent Orange) in Vietnam. Ventura finds it "ironic that the very thing we attacked Saddam Hussein over, we'd maintained in our arsenal for many years." He also points to a section in the transcript describing "Synthetic Biological Agents" that would soon be developed for which no natural immunity could be acquired, and he reminds us that people started dying of AIDS only ten years later. Statistics on the potency of these chemical and biological weapons is staggering, as are the sizes of the stockpiles mentioned. The list under the category of Lethal Biological Agents includes Yellow Fever virus, Anthrax virus, and Plague. Shocking, to say the least! "Emergency" Detention Camps and Civilian Inmate Labor Program exhibits documents substantiating the Homeland Security Department's contract with Halliburton subsidiary KBR for establishing civilian prison camps on Army installations. A Think Tank's Anticipation of 9/11 suggests that the neo-con's "Project for a New American Century" September 2000 report, entitled Rebuilding America's Defenses: Strategies and Resources for a New Century, actually foreshadowed 9/11. One sentence of that document says: "...the process of transformation, even if it brings revolutionary change, is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalysing event - like a new Pearl Harbor." Of course, after 9/11, it was easy for the United States and its allies to invade Iraq and Afghanistan to produce the kind of "regime change" desired by the neo-cons. Sections 43 through 49 of the book seem to indicate at least prior knowledge if not complicity of government and some businesses in the events of 9/11. The headings include FBI Knowledge of Terrorists Training at Flight Schools; "Bin Laden Determined to Strike US," Bush Was Told; The Pentagon's "Stand Down Order" on 9/11; The "Free Fall" of Building 7 (subtitled Controlled Demolition); and Evidence for Insider Stock Trading Before 9/11 (subtitled Follow the Money). This last one I emphasise because it consists of a riveting, well-documented 8-page exposé by Kevin Ryan that appeared in the November 18, 2010 issue of Foreign Policy Journal entitled "Evidence for Informed Trading on the Attacks of September 11." Ryan's conclusion, reprinted on page 232 of this book, is most telling: "The evidence for informed trading on 9/11 includes many financial vehicles, from stock options to Treasury bonds to credit card transactions made at the WTC just before it was destroyed. Today we know that financial experts from around the world have provided strong evidence, through established and reliable statistical techniques, that the early expert suspicions were correct, and that 9/11 informed trading did occur." Part 5 of the book points to a phony "War on Terror" resulting from 9/11 that is being used to help accomplish the Justice and Defense Departments' secret plans to subvert the US Constitution, justify acts of torture, hide illegal acts of killing, stifle freedom of the press, sanction medical experiments on detainees, foster drug-based economies of foreign regimes, and, in general, help to promote and sustain the military-industrial complex that President Eisenhower warned about. 63 Documents was #4 on the New York Times' bestseller list for a number of weeks. It is dedicated to Texas Congressman Ron Paul, who Jesse Ventura describes as "the only federal elected official who will stand up for America on the Congressional floor." Section 63 of the book fittingly ends with a quote from the 1912 Progressive Party presidential platform of Theodore Roosevelt that I think is a good summary as well as a challenge to citizens of all countries, not just the United States: "Behind the ostensible government sits enthroned an invisible government owing no allegiance and acknowledging no responsibility to the people. To destroy this invisible government, to befoul this unholy alliance between corrupt business and corrupt politics, is the first task of statesmanship." - This review first appeared in New Dawn magazine issue #127

Great books for those that don't know about some corruptions that has happened in our system with in this country and the federal corp called U.S. (Title 28 subsection 3002 (15)(A) with exclusive-jurisdiction-in-D.C.!). If you have been called "conspiracy-theorist" this is a great book to show the proof that you speak facts (just like most of the "conspiracy-theorist" out there)!

Fascinating, terrifying book. Ventura 'almost' lets the documents speak for themselves. What was in US not to question? How did we become so complacent? I've been a voracious reader all my life but politics never appealed to me. It certainly does now. All I read is JFK and the miraculous man he was, despite his flaws. He was prescient in his profound sense of the world. And, of course, I already have three of Mr. Ventura's books on our age-old conspiracies and 9-11. Can our world become more frightening than it is now? I believe it can, and will, if nothing is done. I feel as if I am reading several books at one time, and I do jump back and forth, seeking more evidence, another point of view, corroborating what I've read. I now have the literary freedom I have always longed for and I'm gobbling up books as fast as I can. Thank you, Mr. Ventura, for opening our eyes and our minds. .

In the age of information overload, it's easy to assume that access to knowledge is unrestricted. However, the reality is far from it. The government has a long history of suppressing information that it deems sensitive or harmful to national security. The book '63 Documents the Government Doesn't Want You to Read' unveils a trove of such documents, offering a glimpse into the hidden world of censorship and secrecy. As the title suggests, the book presents a compilation of 63 documents that have been classified or withheld from public view. These include: * Internal memos revealing surveillance programs * Leaked diplomatic cables * Reports on torture and rendition * Government plans for climate change mitigation * Documents related to the assassination of John F. Kennedy The book provides historical context for each document, explaining the circumstances under which it was created and the reasons why it was classified. It highlights the tension between the public's right to know and the government's need to protect certain information. The documents reveal the wide-reaching nature of government censorship. They demonstrate how: * The government has used the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) to delay or deny access to sensitive information. * Agencies have engaged in surveillance of citizens without their knowledge or consent. * Whistleblower protections have been weakened, making it harder for insiders to expose wrongdoing. The book raises important questions about the implications of government secrecy for democracy. It argues that: * Censorship undermines transparency and accountability. * Secrecy breeds distrust between the government and the public. * The public has a right to know about the actions of its government, even if they are controversial. In conclusion, '63 Documents the Government Doesn't Want You to Read' is a compelling and thought-provoking book that shines a light on the hidden world of government censorship. It provides a valuable resource for understanding the ongoing struggle between the public's right to know and the government's need for secrecy. By exposing these documents, the book serves as a reminder of the importance of transparency and accountability in a democratic society.

There are parts that you will just have to slug through. But there is a reward of knowledge at the end.

He describes the behavior of the paranoid schizophrenics who tend to gravitate towards jobs in the "security" services. They are not capable of living in harmony with their neighbors and frequently tend to gravitate to the exclusive club of "In people". This is fairly typical of introspective children who have a "Me or Them" attitude to their classmates. Based on fear, they need constant reassurance that they are top dogs. Bullies become torturers. Such people are very useful in a world governed by ignorance and greed. The tragedy is that others who get caught up in the web, often for idealistic reasons, are trapped. Whistle blowing is a dangerous occupation; that fact does not say much for the rest of us. PS. The American spellings are due to your word processor! I have given up arguing!!!

Pas mal mais l'on reste sur sa faim....beaucoup d'extraits de documents officiels à lire...mais pas vraiment d'analyses. D'autres sources: 9/11 Synthetic Terror: Made in USA The Trillion-Dollar Conspiracy: How the New World Order, Man-Made Diseases, and Zombie Banks Are Destroying America Crossfire: The Plot That Killed Kennedy

元ミネソタ州知事ジェシーヴェンチュラさんのような人がアメリカ大統領になれば またみんながあこがれられるアメリカになれると信じている。 本もこれから読むが面白そう

Good reading for the odd moment of free time.