Michael Parenti: Trending quotes

“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

“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 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

People , Truth

“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

“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

“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

“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

Help

“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

Truth

“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

World , Nature

“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

“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

“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

“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

“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

“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

“Profits are what you make when not working.”

Michael Parenti

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

“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

Hope