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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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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.
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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.
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Generosity toward the lower classes historically has never been an important part of upper-class awareness.
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There is a century-old saying, The dollar votes more times than the man.
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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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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.
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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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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.
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The dirty truth is that many people find fascism to be not particularly horrible.
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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.
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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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.
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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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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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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.
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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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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One mechanism of repression is the grand jury.
Michael Parenti
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When change threatens to rule, then the rules are changed.
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[The ruling elites] know who their enemies are, and their enemies are the people, the people at home and the people abroad. Their enemies are anybody who wants more social justice, anybody who wants to use the surplus value of society for social needs rather than for individual class greed, that's their enemy.
Michael Parenti