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The peculiar danger of executive power is that it executes.
Michael Parenti
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Michael Parenti
Age: 91
Born: 1933
Born: January 1
Historian
Journalist
Political Scientist
New York City
New York
Power
Executes
Executive
Executives
Peculiar
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Political
More quotes by Michael Parenti
[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
Actually, the New Deal's central dedication was to business recovery rather than social reform.
Michael Parenti
Union busting has become a major industry with more than a thousand consulting firms teaching companies how to prevent workers from organizing and how to get rid of existing unions.
Michael Parenti
The nation, like the church, has its visible symbols and insignia, its parchments engrossed with the revealed word, its dogmas, hymns, liturgy, holy day celebrations, its early Fathers, prophets and martyrs, its priesthood and its lay sodality, its myths of sacred genesis and apocalyptic crises, its world-saving mission and its missionaries.
Michael Parenti
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
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
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
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
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
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
It is ironic that people of modest means sometimes become conservative out of a scarcity fear bred by the very capitalist system they support.
Michael Parenti
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
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
The rich have grown richer, but their tax rate has declined. The poor have grown poorer, but their taxes have increased.
Michael Parenti
The first atrocity, the first war crime committed in any war of aggression by the aggressors is against the truth.
Michael Parenti
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
The crucial role communists played in organizing industrial unions in the 1930s and struggling for social reforms, peace, and civil rights strengthened rather then undermined democratic forces.
Michael Parenti
There is a century-old saying, The dollar votes more times than the man.
Michael Parenti
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
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