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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
Danger
Political

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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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.
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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.
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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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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
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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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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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The Federalists also used bribes, intimidation, and fraud against opponents of the Constitution.
Michael Parenti
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The last four secretaries of defense have pointed out that defense spending creates jobs. So do pornography, prostitution, and narcotics.
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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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 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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The dirty truth is that many people find fascism to be not particularly horrible.
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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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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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 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 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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There is a century-old saying, The dollar votes more times than the man.
Michael Parenti