Michael Parenti: Trending quotes (page 2)

“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)

World , Fear , Communication

“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

“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

“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

“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

Light , People , Communication

“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

Love , People , Country , Indifference

“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)

“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

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

Michael Parenti

People , World , Thinking

“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

“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

People , World , Effort

“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.