Michael Parenti Quotes (57 quotes) | Quotes of famous people

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The Assassination of Julius Caesar: A People's History of Ancient Rome

Michael Parenti

Michael Parenti: 57 quotes 79 likes

Famous Michael Parenti Quotes

“One does not have to be a Marxist to know there is something very wrong in this society.”

Michael Parenti

4 POLITICAL THEORY AN CONSCIOUSNESS, Political Science Fiction, p. 231
Dirty truths (1996), first edition

“Our fear that Communism might someday take over most of the world blinds us to the fact that anti-communism already has.”

Michael Parenti

The Anti-Communist Impulse http://books.google.com/books?id=i6V2AAAAMAAJ&q=%22Our+fear+that+Communism+might+someday+take+over+most+of+the+world+blinds+us+to+the+fact+that+anti-communism+already+has%22&pg=PA4#v=onepage (1970)

“Russia became a juicy chunk of the Third World, with immense reserves of cheap labor, a vast treasure of natural resources, and industrial assets to be sold off at giveaway prices.”

Michael Parenti

2 MEDIA AND CULTURE, Yeltsin's Coup And The Medias Alchemy, p. 140
Dirty truths (1996), first edition

“The two party electoral system performs the essential function of helping to legitimate the existing social order.”

Michael Parenti

Source: Democracy for the Few (2010 [1974]), sixth edition, Chapter 11, p. 179

“The dirty truth is that the rich are the great cause of poverty.”

Michael Parenti

1 POLITICS AND ISSUES, Creating The Poor, p. 21
Dirty truths (1996), first edition

“Revolutions are not push button affairs; rather, they evolve only if there exists a reservoir of hope and grievance that can be galvanized into popular action.”

Michael Parenti

1 POLITICS AND ISSUES, Making The World Safe For Hypocrisy, p. 64
Dirty truths (1996), first edition

Michael Parenti Quotes about people

“People who think they're free in this world just haven't come to the end of their leash yet.”

Michael Parenti

“The dirty truth is that many people find fascism to be not particularly horrible.”

Michael Parenti

1 POLITICS AND ISSUES, Fascism In a Pinstriped Suit, p. 32
Dirty truths (1996), first edition

“To make the world safe for those who own it, politically active elements of the owning class have created a national security state that expends billions of dollars and enlists the efforts of vast numbers of people.”

Michael Parenti

3 CONSPIRACY: PHOBIA AND REALITY, The JFK Assassination II: p. 174
Dirty truths (1996), first edition

“Conservatives are fond of telling us what a wonderful, happy, prosperous nation this is. The only thing that matches their love of country is the remarkable indifference they show toward the people who live in it.”

Michael Parenti

1 POLITICS AND ISSUES, Hidden Holocaust,USA, p. 2
Dirty truths (1996), first edition

“The overthrow of communism gave a green light to the unbridled exploitative impulses of Western corporate interests. No longer needing to convince workers that they live better than their counterparts in Russia, and no longer constrained by a competing system, the corporate class is rolling back the many gains that working people in the West have won over the years. Now that the free market, in its meanest form, is emerging triumphant in the East, so will it prevail in the West.”

Michael Parenti

Source: Blackshirts and Reds (1997), p. 58

“It is ironic that people of modest means sometimes become conservative out of a scarcity fear bred by the very capitalist system they support.”

Michael Parenti

Source: Democracy for the Few (2010 [1974]), sixth edition, Chapter 3, p. 44

Michael Parenti: Trending quotes

“It is not Socialism that subverts democracy, but democracy that subverts capitalism.”

Michael Parenti

Source: Democracy for the Few (2010 [1974]), sixth edition, Chapter 17, p. 320

Democracy

“The media have been tireless in their efforts to suppress the truth about the gangster state.”

Michael Parenti

3 CONSPIRACY: PHOBIA AND REALITY, The JFK Assassination I, p. 159
Dirty truths (1996), first edition

Truth , Effort

“The rich have grown richer, but their tax rate has declined. The poor have grown poorer, but their taxes have increased.”

Michael Parenti

Source: Democracy for the Few (2010 [1974]), sixth edition, Chapter 6, p. 81

Michael Parenti Quotes

“Profits are what you make when not working.”

Michael Parenti

Source: Democracy for the Few (2010 [1974]), sixth edition, Chapter 2, p. 9

“Those who control the wealth of this society have an influence over political life far in excess of their number.”

Michael Parenti

Source: Democracy for the Few (2010 [1974]), sixth edition, Chapter 12, p. 203

Life , Wealth

“Union busting has become a major industry with more than a thousand consulting firms teaching companies how to prevent workers from organizing and how to get rid of existing unions.”

Michael Parenti

2 MEDIA AND CULTURE, Giving Labor The Business, p. 122
Dirty truths (1996), first edition

“When change threatens to rule, then the rules are changed.”

Michael Parenti

5 MISCELLANY AND MEMORABILIA, Struggles in Academe: A Personal Account, p. 248
Dirty truths (1996), first edition

Change

“There is a century-old saying, "The dollar votes more times than the man."”

Michael Parenti

Source: Democracy for the Few (2010 [1974]), sixth edition, Chapter 13, p. 222

Time

“Maintaining silence about a dirty truth is another way of lying, a common practice in high places.”

Michael Parenti

2 MEDIA AND CULTURE, The Invisible Bloodbaths, p. 132
Dirty truths (1996), first edition

Truth , Way , Lying , Silence

“It may come as a surprise to some academics, but there is a marked relationship between economic power and political power.”

Michael Parenti

Preface to the Sixth Edition, p. viii
Democracy for the Few (2010 [1974]), sixth edition

“In every class society that's ever existed, the ruling element does not rule nakedly. They always adorn their rule with myths, themes and symbols to justify their position at the apex of the social pyramid.”

Michael Parenti

"The 1% Pathology And The Myth of Capitalism" October 19, 2012 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jKyX7GNHYkQ&t=218

“The close relationship between politics and economics is neither neutral nor coincidental. Large governments evolve through history in order to protect large accumulations of property and wealth.”

Michael Parenti

Source: Democracy for the Few (2010 [1974]), sixth edition, Chapter 1, p. 4

History , Wealth

“The mass media are class media.”

Michael Parenti

2 MEDIA AND CULTURE, Fabricating a "Cultural Democracy", p. 107
Dirty truths (1996), first edition

“Fascism historically has been used to secure the interests of large capitalist interests against the demands of popular democracy. Then and now, fascism has made irrational mass appeals in order to secure the rational ends of class domination.”

Michael Parenti

Table of Contents, Fascism
Blackshirts and Reds (1997)

Democracy

“Here is a story of latifundia and death squads, masters and slaves, patriarchs and subordinated women, self-enriching capitalists and plundered provinces, proﬁteering slumlords and urban rioters. Here is a struggle between the plutocratic few and the indigent many, the privileged versus the proletariat, featuring corrupt politicians, money-driven elections, and the political assassination of popular leaders. I leave it to the reader to decide whether any of this might resonate with the temper of our own times.”

Michael Parenti book The Assassination of Julius Caesar: A People's History of Ancient Rome

Introduction
The Assassination of Julius Caesar: A People's History of Ancient Rome (2003)

Money , Time , Self-confidence , Death

“The peculiar danger of executive power is that it executes.”

Michael Parenti

Source: Democracy for the Few (2010 [1974]), sixth edition, Chapter 14, p. 259

“The crucial role communists played in organizing industrial unions in the 1930s and struggling for social reforms, peace, and civil rights strengthened rather then undermined democratic forces.”

Michael Parenti

Source: Democracy for the Few (2010 [1974]), sixth edition, Chapter 16, p. 298

Peace

“Conservative pundits have a remarkable amount of free speech.”

Michael Parenti

1 POLITICS AND ISSUES, Free Speech-At A Price, p. 83
Dirty truths (1996), first edition

“You will have no sensation of a leash around your neck if you sit by the peg. It is only when you stray that you feel the restraining tug.”

Michael Parenti

2 MEDIA AND CULTURE, Some Call It Censorship, p. 150
Dirty truths (1996), first edition

Feeling

“Archbishop Romero of El Salvador was a member of the Salvadoran aristocracy. He could not have risen to the top of the church hierarchy otherwise. But after he began voicing critical remarks about the war and concerned comments about the poor, he was assassinated.”

Michael Parenti

3 CONSPIRACY: PHOBIA AND REALITY, The JFK Assassination II: p. 189
Dirty truths (1996), first edition

War

“The real danger we face is not from terrorism but what is being done under the pretext of fighting it.”

Michael Parenti

1 POLITICS AND ISSUES, The Terrorism Hype, p. 81
Dirty truths (1996), first edition

Fight

“Caesar’s sin, I shall argue, was not that he was subverting the Roman constitution—which was an unwritten one—but that he was loosening the oligarchy’s overbearing grip on it. Worse still, he used state power to effect some limited beneﬁts for small farmers, debtors, and urban proletariat, at the expense of the wealthy few.”

Michael Parenti book The Assassination of Julius Caesar: A People's History of Ancient Rome

Introduction
The Assassination of Julius Caesar: A People's History of Ancient Rome (2003)

“The operational code is: we have a lot; we can get more; we want it all.”

Michael Parenti

1 POLITICS AND ISSUES, Rollback, p. 46
Dirty truths (1996), first edition
Context: Every ruling class has wanted only this: all the rewards and none of the burdens. The operational code is: we have a lot; we can get more; we want it all.

“Conservatives insist that government should be " run more like a business." One might wonder how that could be possible, since”

Michael Parenti

Source: Democracy for the Few (2010 [1974]), sixth edition, Chapter 15, p. 267
Context: Conservatives insist that government should be " run more like a business." One might wonder how that could be possible, since government does not market goods and services for the purpose of capital accumulation.

Business

“Marx said this, and so did Jefferson”

Michael Parenti

Source: Democracy for the Few (2010 [1974]), sixth edition, Chapter 17, p. 335
Context: All economic and political institutions are contrivances that should serve the interests of the people. When they fail to do so, they should be replaced by something more responsive, more just, and more democratic. Marx said this, and so did Jefferson. It is a revolutionary doctrine, and very much an American one.

“Even though the crime rate has dropped in recent years, the United States has more police per capita then any other nation in the world.”

Michael Parenti

Source: Democracy for the Few (2010 [1974]), sixth edition, Chapter 10, p. 173

World

“In the end I created a career of my own, concentrating on my writing and lecturing, reaching larger audiences than I would had I ended up with tenure and a full teaching load. It was Virginia Woolf who said that it is terrible to be frozen out of a sacred tradition-but even more terrible to be frozen into it.”

Michael Parenti

5 MISCELLANY AND MEMORABILIA, Struggles in Academe: A Personal Account, p. 252
Dirty truths (1996), first edition

“To complain about how the media are dominated by liberals, Limbaugh has an hour a day on network television, an hour on cable, and a radio show syndicated by over 600 stations.”

Michael Parenti

2 MEDIA AND CULTURE, The "Liberal Media" Myth, p. 98
Dirty truths (1996), first edition

“Twelve states in the Great Plains have a wind energy potential greater then the electric use of our entire nation.”

Michael Parenti

Source: Democracy for the Few (2010 [1974]), sixth edition, Chapter 7, p. 118

“The trick is to steal big.”

Michael Parenti

Source: Democracy for the Few (2010 [1974]), sixth edition, Chapter 8, p. 127

“The Federalists also used bribes, intimidation, and fraud against opponents of the Constitution.”

Michael Parenti

Source: Democracy for the Few (2010 [1974]), sixth edition, Chapter 4, p. 60

Fraud

“Actually, the New Deal's central dedication was to business recovery rather than social reform.”

Michael Parenti

Source: Democracy for the Few (2010 [1974]), sixth edition, Chapter 5, p. 71

Business

“Conservatives have nothing againstincumbency when it is their people who are filling the slots.”

Michael Parenti

1 POLITICS AND ISSUES, Term Limits: Trick or Treat?, p. 92
Dirty truths (1996), first edition

People

“One mechanism of repression is the grand jury.”

Michael Parenti

Source: Democracy for the Few (2010 [1974]), sixth edition, Chapter 9, p. 139

“Putting an end to the population explosion will not of itself save the ecosphere, but not ending it will add greatly to the dangers the planet faces. The environment can sustain a quality of life for just so many people.”

Michael Parenti

Source: Blackshirts and Reds (1997), p. 155

Life , People

“Those who think Roman slavery was such a benign institution have not explained why fugitive slaves were a constant problem. Owners did not lightly countenance the loss of valuable property. They regularly used chains, metal collars, and other restraining devices. Slaves who ﬂed were hunted down and returned to irate masters who were keen to inﬂict a severe retribution.”

Michael Parenti book The Assassination of Julius Caesar: A People's History of Ancient Rome

Source: The Assassination of Julius Caesar: A People's History of Ancient Rome (2003), Ch. 1

Problem , Loss , Thinking

“American socialism cannot be modeled on the former Soviet Union, China, Cuba, or other countries with different historical, economic, and cultural developments.”

Michael Parenti

Source: Democracy for the Few (2010 [1974]), sixth edition, Chapter 17, p. 334

Country

“Democracy is something more than a set of political procedures. To be worthy of its name, democracy should produce substantive outcomes that advance the health and well-being of the people.”

Michael Parenti

Source: Democracy for the Few (2010 [1974]), sixth edition, Chapter 17, p. 320

Democracy , People , Health

“There is a tradition of popular struggle in the United States that has been downplayed and ignored. It ebbs and flows but never ceases. Moved by a combination of anger and hope, ordinary people have organized, agitated, demonstrated, and engaged in electoral challenges, civil disobedience, strikes, sit-ins, takeovers, boycotts, and sometimes violent clashes with the authorities - for better wages and work conditions, a safer environment, racial and gender justice, and peace and nonintervention abroad. Against the heaviest odds, they have suffered many defeats but won some important victories, forcible extracting concessions and imposing reforms upon resistant rulers.”

Michael Parenti

Source: Democracy for the Few (2010 [1974]), sixth edition, Chapter 17, p. 320

Peace , Anger , Justice , Victory

“The American two-party electoral system, with its ballyhoo and hoopla, its impresarios and stunt artists, is the greatest show on earth. Campaign time is show time, a veritable circus brought into our living rooms via television as a form of entertainment. The important thing is that the show must go on - because it is more than just a show. The two-party system electoral social order. It channels and limits political expression, and blunts class grievances. It often leaves little time for the real issues because it gives so much attention to the contest per se who will run? who is ahead? who will win the primaries? who will win the election? It provides the form of republican government with little of the substance. It fives the plutocratic system of appearance of popular participation while being run by and for a select handful of affluent contestants.”

Michael Parenti

Source: Democracy for the Few (2010 [1974]), sixth edition, Chapter 11, p. 179

Appearance , Time

“There is no such thing as unbiased or objective reporting of news. All reports and analyses are selective and inferential to some inescapable degree - all the more reason to provide a wider ideological spectrum of opinions and not let one bias predominate. If we consider censorship to be a danger to our freedom, then we should not overlook the fact that the media are already heavily censored by those who own or advertise in them. The very process of selection allows the politico-economic interests of the selector to operate as a censor.”

Michael Parenti

Source: Democracy for the Few (2010 [1974]), sixth edition, Chapter 10 , p. 177

Freedom

“The police confront dangers and social miseries of a kind most of us can only imagine. They deal with the waste products of a competitive corporate society: the ill-fed, the ill-housed, the desperate, and the defeated. The slums are not the problem, they are the solution; they are the way capitalism deals with the surplus people of a market economy. And for all they cost the taxpayer in crime, police and welfare, the slums remain a source of profit for certain speculators, arsonists, realtors, big merchants, and others.”

Michael Parenti

Source: Democracy for the Few (2010 [1974]), sixth edition, Chapter 8

Imagination , Housing , People , Problem

“America represents more than just an economic system; it is an entire cultural and social order, a plutocracy, a system of rule that is mostly by and for the rich. Most universities and colleges, publishing houses, mass circulation magazines, newspapers, television and radio stations, professional sports teams, foundations, churches, private museums, charity organizations, and hospitals are organized as corporations, ruled by boards of trustees (or directors or regents) composed overwhelmingly of affluent business people. These boards exercise final judgement over all institutional matters.”

Michael Parenti

Source: Democracy for the Few (2010 [1974]), sixth edition, Chapter 3, p. 33

Sport , Housing , Business , People

“Nations that chart a self-defining course, seeking to use their land, labor, natural resources, and markets as they see fit, free from the smothering embrace of the US corporate global order, frequently become a target of defamation. Their leaders often have their moral sanity called into question by US officials and US media, as has been the case at one time or another with Castro, Noriega, Ortega, Qaddafi, Aristide, Milosevic, Saddam Hussein, Hugo Chavez, and others.”

Michael Parenti

North Korea: "Sanity" at the Brink (2009)

Self-confidence , Time , Question , Nature

“There is nothing sacred about the existing system. All economic and political institutions are contrivances that should serve the interests of the people. When they fail to do so, they should be replaced by something more responsive, more just, and more democratic. Marx said this, and so did Jefferson. It is a revolutionary doctrine, and very much an American one.”

Michael Parenti

Source: Democracy for the Few (2010 [1974]), sixth edition, Chapter 17, p. 335

People

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