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The first atrocity, the first war crime committed in any war of aggression by the aggressors is against the truth.

Michael Parenti

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Michael Parenti
Age: 91
Born: 1933
Born: January 1
Historian
Journalist
Political Scientist
New York City
New York
Crime
War
Truth
Firsts
Atrocity
First
Aggressors
Atrocities
Aggression
Committed

More quotes by Michael Parenti

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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.
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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.
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The dirty truth is that many people find fascism to be not particularly horrible.
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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.
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The peculiar danger of executive power is that it executes.
Michael Parenti
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Russia became a juicy chunk of the Third World, with immense reserves of cheap labor, a vast treasure of natural resources, and industrial assets to be sold off at giveaway prices.
Michael Parenti
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The close relationship between politics and economics is neither neutral nor coincidental. Large governments evolve through history in order to protect large accumulations of property and wealth.
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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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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It is ironic that people of modest means sometimes become conservative out of a scarcity fear bred by the very capitalist system they support.
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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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For the last fifty years we've been supporting right-wing governments, and that is a puzzlement to me...I don't understand what there is in the American character...that almost automatically, even when we have a liberal President, we support fascist dictatorships or are tolerant towards them.
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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The Federalists also used bribes, intimidation, and fraud against opponents of the Constitution.
Michael Parenti
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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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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
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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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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.
Michael Parenti
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One mechanism of repression is the grand jury.
Michael Parenti