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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
War
Truth
Firsts
Atrocity
First
Aggressors
Atrocities
Aggression
Committed
Crime

More quotes by Michael Parenti

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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.
Michael Parenti
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Ecology's implications for capitalism are too momentous for the capitalist to contemplate. The plutocrats are more wedded to their wealth than to the Earth upon which they live, more concerned with the fate of their fortunes than with the fate of humanity. The present ecological crisis has been created by the few at the expense of the many.
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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 dirty truth is that many people find fascism to be not particularly horrible.
Michael Parenti
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Archbishop Romero of El Salvador was a member of the Salvadoran aristocracy. He could not have risen to the top of the church hierarchy otherwise. But after he began voicing critical remarks about the war and concerned comments about the poor, he was assassinated.
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
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The US government is usually on the wrong side against the poor and downtrodden, because the wrong side is the right side, given the class interests upon which the [US] policy is fixed.
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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The Federalists also used bribes, intimidation, and fraud against opponents of the Constitution.
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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When change threatens to rule, then the rules are changed.
Michael Parenti
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There is a century-old saying, The dollar votes more times than the man.
Michael Parenti
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One mechanism of repression is the grand jury.
Michael Parenti
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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.
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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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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Conservatives are fond of telling us what a wonderful, happy, prosperous nation this is. The only thing that matches their love of country is the remarkable indifference they show toward the people who live in it.
Michael Parenti
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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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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.
Michael Parenti
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Generosity toward the lower classes historically has never been an important part of upper-class awareness.
Michael Parenti