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The enormous gap between what US leaders do in the world and what Americans think their leaders are doing is one of the great propaganda accomplishments.

Michael Parenti

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Michael Parenti
Age: 92
Born: 1933
Born: January 1
Historian
Journalist
Political Scientist
New York City
New York
Peace
Deceit
War
Gaps
Great
Propaganda
Think
Accomplishment
Thinking
Enormous
World
Leaders
Americans
Leader
Accomplishments

More quotes by Michael Parenti

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One finds fortunes built on slave labor, indentured labor, prison labor, immigrant labor, female labor, child labor, and scab labor - backed by the lethal force of gun thugs and militia. 'Old money' is often little more than dirty money laundered by several generations of possession.
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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.
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Only by establishing military supremacy were the European and North American colonizers able to eliminate the crafts and industries of Third World peoples, control their markets, extort tribute, undermine their cultures, destroy their villages, steal their lands and natural resources, enslave their labor, and accumulate vast wealth.
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Capital requires protection, as do the institutions through which it operates. As capital expands its operations, the state that is associated with its protection must develop its capacity for autocratic control. Thus, the Free World increasingly resembles a dreary string of heartless police states.
Michael Parenti
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If the test of patriotism comes only by reflexively falling into lockstep behind the leader whenever the flag is waved, then what we have is a formula for dictatorship, not democracy... But the American way is to criticize and debate openly, not to accept unthinkingly the doings of government officials of this or any other country.
Michael Parenti
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Our fear that communism might someday take over most of the world blinds us to the fact that anti- communism already has.
Michael Parenti
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A huge national security state has developed in the United States since World War II. Its function is to buttress anticommunist, procapitalist governments and undermine and destroy popular movements whenever possible.
Michael Parenti
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The powers that be not only try to control events, but they try to control our memory and understanding of these events, which is part of controlling the events themselves.
Michael Parenti
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The rich have grown richer, but their tax rate has declined. The poor have grown poorer, but their taxes have increased.
Michael Parenti
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Even though the crime rate has dropped in recent years, the United States has more police per capita then any other nation in the world.
Michael Parenti
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Maintaining silence about a dirty truth is another way of lying, a common practice in high places.
Michael Parenti
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The two party electoral system performs the essential function of helping to legitimate the existing social order.
Michael Parenti
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America is a simplified ideological abstraction, an emotive symbol represented by other abstract symbols like the flag. It is the object of a faithlike devotion, unencumbered by honest history.
Michael Parenti
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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
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You see there are people who believe the function of the police is to fight crime, and that's not true, the function of the police is social control and protection of property.
Michael Parenti
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When change threatens to rule, then the rules are changed.
Michael Parenti
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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
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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.
Michael Parenti
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Generosity toward the lower classes historically has never been an important part of upper-class awareness.
Michael Parenti
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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