Michael Parenti
Michael Parenti
Michael John Parentiis an American political scientist, political economist, historian, and cultural critic who writes on scholarly and popular subjects. He has taught at American and international universities and has been a guest lecturer before campus and community audiences...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionCritic
CountryUnited States of America
Michael Parenti quotes about
engineered john kerry seen
I have never seen John Kerry give anything but an engineered response.
argue capitalist functions
I argue that one of the functions of a capitalist state is to defend capitalism from itself, to defend capitalism from the capitalists.
essence luxury humanity
The essence of capitalism is to turn nature into commodities and commodities into capital. The live green earth is transformed into dead gold bricks, with luxury items for the few and toxic slag heaps for the many. The glittering mansion overlooks a vast sprawl of shanty towns, wherein a desperate, demoralized humanity is kept in line with drugs, television, and armed force.
honesty hard-work compassion
The problem with capitalism is that it best rewards the worst part of us: the ruthless, competitive, conniving, opportunistic, acquisitive drives, giving little reward and often much punishment-or at least much handicap-to honesty, compassion, fair play, many forms of hard work, love of justice, and a concern for those in need.
successful liberty fabric
The worst forms of tyranny, or certainly the most successful ones, are not those we rail against but those that so insinuate themselves into the imagery of our consciousness, and the fabric of our lives, as not to be perceived as tyranny.
peg ifs leashes
You don't know you're wearing a leash if you sit by the peg all day
mass-destruction leader drug
With each newly minted crisis, US leaders roll out the same time-tested scenario. They start demonizing a foreign leader ... charging them with being communistic or otherwise dictatorial, dangerously aggressive, power hungry, genocidal, given to terrorism or drug trafficking, ready to deny us access to vital resources, harboring weapons of mass destruction, or just inexplicably "anti-American" and "anti-West." Lacking any information to the contrary, the frightened public ... are swept along.
lilies weasels democrat
Democrats—lily-livered, weasel-assed collaborators.
recovery dedication political
Actually, the New Deal's central dedication was to business recovery rather than social reform.
revolution buttons action
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.
executive-power peculiar danger
The peculiar danger of executive power is that it executes.
party order two
The two party electoral system performs the essential function of helping to legitimate the existing social order.
jury mechanism grand-jury
One mechanism of repression is the grand jury.
party race people
People may like what third-party candidates say, because often they are the only ones saying anything, but they usually won't vote for someone who doesn't have a chance. Since third-party candidates are not in the news, they are considered to be not really in the race; and since they are not in the race, this justifies treating them as if they are not news.