Michael Parenti Quotes

Economically deprived groups are seen as a threat because they want more, and more for the have-nots might mean less for the haves.

Superior firepower, not superior culture, has brought the Europeans and Euro-North Americans to positions of global supremacy.

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

An ever-expanding capitalism and a fragile, finite ecology are on a calamitous collision course. It is not true that the ruling politico-economic interests are in a state of denial about this. Far worse than denial, they are in a state of utter antagonism toward those who think the planet is more important than corporate profits. So they defame environmentalists as "," "EPA gestapo," " alarmists," tree huggers," and purveyors of "Green hysteria" and "liberal claptrap."

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.

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

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.

In their eagerness to neutralize themselves, scholars tend to neutralize the subject matter. But history is never neutral. And relatively little of it is purely stochastic and accidental. While we need not assume there is a grand design to all that happens, we cannot rule out human agency, human intent, and political interests that are purposive in their actions. Such history does not come off as very “gentlemanly” in the patrician sense, nor very nuanced—if by “nuanced” we mean the academically trained ability to mute and dilute the brute realities of political economy and class power.

The mass media are class media.

With the socialist ethic giving way to private greed, corruption assumed virulent new forms in the post-Communist nations. Officials high and low are on the take, including the police. The Russian security minister calculated that one-third of Russian nickel shipped out of the country was stolen. Among those enjoying "staggering profits" from this plunder were and (, 2/2/93). In April 1992, the chairman of Russia's central bank admitted that at least $20 billion had been illegally taken out of the country and deposited in Western banks (, 4/19/93).

Throughout history, in the name of “liberty,” owning classes have opposed political leaders who have sought a more equitable distribution and use of wealth. And in the name of “stability” and “public safety,” they have repeatedly surrendered some of their own power to autocratic leaders dedicated to preserving the privileged socioeconomic order.

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

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

After years of encirclement and repeated rebuffs from Washington, years of threat, isolation, and demonization, the Pyongyang leaders are convinced that the best way to resist superpower attack and domination is by developing a nuclear arsenal. It does not really sound so crazy. As already mentioned, the United States does not invade countries that are armed with long-range nuclear missiles (at least not thus far). Having been pushed to the brink for so long, the North Koreans are now taking a gamble, upping the ante, pursuing an arguably “sane” deterrence policy in the otherwise insane world configured by an overweening and voracious empire.

Countries with ostensibly democratic governments often mani­fest a markedly undemocratic state power.