Michael Parenti
| Michael Parenti link Amazon Sourcewatch Unwelcome Guests Website (Historian, academic) | |
|---|---|
| File:Michael Parenti2.jpg | |
| Born | Michael John Parenti September 30, 1933 New York City |
| Died | January 24, 2026 |
| Nationality | US |
| Alma mater | City College of New York, Brown University, Yale University |
| Children | Christian Parenti |
| Interests | Ancient Rome/Deep state, deep politics |
A highly recommended American historian. | |
Dr Michael John Parenti was a highly recommended American historian. Woken up by the Vietnam War, he looked closely at history and drew his own conclusions about what is really meant. He was denied a regular university job because of his political activism. A lot of his work is still available on the internet.
Background
Michael Parenti grew up in a working-class family of Italian descent, and managed to take a Ph.D. in political science from Yale in 1962. The Vietnam War made him wake up politically. Parenti explained "I began questioning the war, then I questioned the leaders who produced the war, and then the system that produced the leaders. At first I thought the war was an irrational venture, a tragic mistake. Eventually I concluded that the war was quite rational, a tragic success (or at least partial success) serving global corporate interests. At that point I started moving from a liberal complaint about how bad things are to a radical analysis about why they are the way they are."
Career
Parenti was denied a regular university job because of his political activism. While peacefully protesting at the University of Illinois in 1970, he was arrested and charged with aggravated battery, disorderly conduct, and resisting arrest. Ever since then, teaching opportunities was hard to find, and he made his own way as an independent writer.
Subjects
Parenti's writings cover a wide range of subjects: U.S. politics, the deep state culture, ideology, political economy, imperialism, fascism, communism, free-market orthodoxies, false flags, religion, ancient history, modern history, historiography, repression in academia, news and entertainment media, technology, environmentalism, sexism, racism, Venezuela, the wars in Iraq and Yugoslavia, ethnicity, and his own early life.
He served for 12 years as a judge for Project Censored.
Online lectures
He was not only a talented writer but a fine orator, and many of his lectures are available online. For example:
- https://archive.org/search.php?query=michael+parenti
- http://www.tucradio.org/parenti.html
- https://www.unwelcomeguests.net/Special:WhatLinksHere/Michael_Parenti
Quotes
{{#subobject: |Has superobject=Michael Parenti |Has objectClass=Quotation |Has author=Michael Parenti|+sep=, |Has text=“When change threatens to rule, then the rules are changed.” |Is about=Michael Parenti,Power, class struggle,rule of law,power structure, deep state|+sep=, |Has wikipediaPage= |Has location=|+sep=, |Has publicationDate= |Sourced from= |Has sourceDetails= |Has sourceTitle= |Has sourceName= |Has sourceURL=https://quotefancy.com/quote/1535320/Michael-Parenti-When-change-threatens-to-rule-then-the-rules-are-changed
}}
“When change threatens to rule, then the rules are changed.”
Michael Parenti [1]
{{#subobject: |Has superobject=Michael Parenti |Has objectClass=Quotation |Has author=Michael Parenti|+sep=, |Has text=“Official Washington cannot tell the American people that the real purpose of its gargantuan military expenditures and belligerent interventions is to make the world safe for General Motors, General Electric, General Dynamics, and all the other generals.” |Is about=Michael Parenti,military-industrial complex, General Motors,General Dynamics,General Electric|+sep=, |Has wikipediaPage= |Has location=|+sep=, |Has publicationDate= |Sourced from= |Has sourceDetails= |Has sourceTitle= |Has sourceName= |Has sourceURL=https://www.quotetab.com/quote/by-michael-parenti/official-washington-cannot-tell-the-american-people-that-the-real-purpose-of-its
}}
“Official Washington cannot tell the American people that the real purpose of its gargantuan military expenditures and belligerent interventions is to make the world safe for General Motors, General Electric, General Dynamics, and all the other generals.”
Michael Parenti [2]
{{#subobject: |Has superobject=Michael Parenti |Has objectClass=Quotation |Has author=Michael Parenti|+sep=, |Has text=“The most powerful ideologies are not those that prevail against all challengers but those that are never challenged because in their ubiquity they appear as nothing more than the unadorned truth.” |Is about=Michael Parenti,ideology,power structure,Third rail topic|+sep=, |Has wikipediaPage= |Has location=|+sep=, |Has publicationDate= |Sourced from= |Has sourceDetails= |Has sourceTitle= |Has sourceName= |Has sourceURL=https://www.quotetab.com/quote/by-michael-parenti/the-most-powerful-ideologies-are-not-those-that-prevail-against-all-challengers-b
}}
“The most powerful ideologies are not those that prevail against all challengers but those that are never challenged because in their ubiquity they appear as nothing more than the unadorned truth.”
Michael Parenti [3]
{{#subobject: |Has superobject=Michael Parenti |Has objectClass=Quotation |Has author=Michael Parenti|+sep=, |Has text=“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.” |Is about=Michael Parenti,ruling class,oligarchy,political power,capitalism,class struggle|+sep=, |Has wikipediaPage= |Has location=|+sep=, |Has publicationDate= |Sourced from=Dirty truths (1996), Chapeter 1 POLITICS AND ISSUES, Rollback, p. 46 |Has sourceDetails= |Has sourceTitle= |Has sourceName=Dirty truths (1996), Chapeter 1 POLITICS AND ISSUES, Rollback, p. 46 |Has sourceURL=
}}
“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.”
Michael Parenti [4]
Bibliography
Selections of his writings are available at his website (http://www.michaelparenti.org)
- The Anti-Communist Impulse. Random House, 1970.
- Trends and Tragedies in American Foreign Policy. Little, Brown, 1971.
- Ethnic and Political Attitudes. Arno Press, 1975. ISBN 0-405-06413-6
- Democracy for the Few. c.1974. 8th edition, 2007.[10] ISBN 978-0-495-00744-9
- Power and the Powerless. St. Martin's Press, 1978. ISBN 0-312-63372-6, ISBN 0-312-63373-4
- Inventing Reality: The Politics of the Mass Media. 1986. ISBN 0-312-02013-9 / 2nd Edition, 1993. ISBN 0-312-08629-6
- The Sword and the Dollar: Imperialism, Revolution and the Arms Race. St. Martin's Press, 1989. ISBN 0-312-02295-6
- Make-Believe Media: the Politics of Entertainment. St. Martin's Press, 1992. ISBN 0-312-05603-6, ISBN 0-312-05894-2
- Land of Idols: Political Mythology in America. St. Martin's Press, 1993. ISBN 0-312-09497-3, ISBN 0-312-09841-3
- Against Empire. San Francisco: City Lights Books, 1995. ISBN 0-87286-298-4, ISBN 978-0-87286-298-2
- Dirty Truths. San Francisco: City Lights Books, 1996. Includes some autobiographical essays. ISBN 0-87286-317-4, ISBN 0-87286-318-2
- Blackshirts & Reds: Rational Fascism and the Overthrow of Communism. San Francisco: City Lights Books, 1997. ISBN 0-87286-329-8, ISBN 0-87286-330-1
- America Besieged. San Francisco: City Lights Books, 1998. ISBN 0-87286-338-7, ISBN 0-87286-338-7
- History as Mystery. San Francisco: City Lights Books, 1999). ISBN 0-87286-357-3, ISBN 0-87286-364-6
- To Kill a Nation: The Attack on Yugoslavia. Verso, 2002. ISBN 1-85984-776-5
- The Terrorism Trap: September 11 and Beyond. San Francisco: City Lights Books, 2002. ISBN 0-87286-405-7
- The Assassination of Julius Caesar: A People's History of Ancient Rome. The New Press, 2003. ISBN 1-56584-797-0.
- Superpatriotism. San Francisco: City Lights Books, 2004. ISBN 978-0-87286-433-7
- The Culture Struggle. Seven Stories Press, 2006. ISBN 1-58322-704-0, ISBN 978-1-58322-704-6
- Contrary Notions (City Lights Books, 2007).[8] ISBN 0-87286-482-0, ISBN 978-0-87286-482-5
- God and His Demons. Prometheus Books, 2010.
- The Face of Imperialism Paradigm, 2011.
- Waiting for Yesterday: Pages from a Street Kid's Life Bordighera Press, 2013.
- Profit Pathology and Other Indecencies Routledge, 2015.
Videos
References
- ↑ https://quotefancy.com/quote/1535320/Michael-Parenti-When-change-threatens-to-rule-then-the-rules-are-changed
- ↑ https://www.quotetab.com/quote/by-michael-parenti/official-washington-cannot-tell-the-american-people-that-the-real-purpose-of-its
- ↑ https://www.quotetab.com/quote/by-michael-parenti/the-most-powerful-ideologies-are-not-those-that-prevail-against-all-challengers-b
- ↑ Dirty truths (1996), Chapeter 1 POLITICS AND ISSUES, Rollback, p. 46