Sign in with your pod

Famous quotes

Quotes by famous people, credited to who said them. Your own quotes must not match any of these. More are added all the time. 1,158,269 quotes Who coined it · How we decide

EnglishItalianoPolskiעבריתFrançaisPortuguêsفارسیEspañol中文РусскийDeutschالعربيةहिन्दी日本語ΕλληνικάLatina

Michael Parenti

129 quotes

• “Margaret Thatcher, who we all know is Ronald Reagan in drag.”

  Michael Parenti (1933–2026) first seen 1986 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: University of Colorado, Boulder: "US interventionism, the 3rd world, and the USSR" April 15, 1986

• “Our fear that Communism might someday take over most of the world blinds us to the fact that anti-communism already has.”

  Michael Parenti (1933–2026) first seen 1970 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: The Anti-Communist Impulse (1970)

• “In every class society that's ever existed, the ruling element does not rule nakedly. They always adorn their rule with myths, themes and symbols to justify their position at the apex of the social pyramid.”

  Michael Parenti (1933–2026) first seen 2012 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: The 1% Pathology And The Myth of Capitalism" October 19, 2012

• “Someone once said that Margaret Thatcher satisfied the average Englishman's longing for the perfect dominatrix. No doubt about it, she could deliver pain. The Iron Lady should best be remembered as the Leather Lady. Indeed, today Thatcherism leaves its dreary imprint not only on the Conservative Party but---thanks also to Tony Blair---on a Labor Party that accepts most of her regressive policies.”

  Michael Parenti (1933–2026) first seen 2013 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Requiem for a Dominatrix" (2013)

• “For years the Dalai Lama was on the payroll of the CIA, an agency that has perpetrated killings against rebellious workers, peasants, students, and others in countries around the world. His eldest brother played an active role in a CIA-front group. Another brother established an intelligence operation with the CIA, which included a CIA-trained guerrilla unit whose recruits parachuted back into Tibet to foment insurgency. The Dalai Lama was no pacifist. He supported the U.S./NATO military intervention into Afghanistan, also the 78 days' bombing of Yugoslavia and the destruction of that country.”

  Michael Parenti (1933–2026) first seen 2014 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: The Nobel Peace Prize for War" (2014)

• “In sum, the Nobel Peace Prize often has nothing to do with peace and too much to do with war. It frequently sees "peace" through the eyes of the western plutocracy. For that reason alone, we should not join in the applause.”

  Michael Parenti (1933–2026) first seen 2014 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: The Nobel Peace Prize for War" (2014)

• “Nations that chart a self-defining course, seeking to use their land, labor, natural resources, and markets as they see fit, free from the smothering embrace of the US corporate global order, frequently become a target of defamation. Their leaders often have their moral sanity called into question by US officials and US media, as has been the case at one time or another with Castro, Noriega, Ortega, Qaddafi, Aristide, Milosevic, Saddam Hussein, Hugo Chavez, and others.”

  Michael Parenti (1933–2026) first seen 2009 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: North Korea: "Sanity" at the Brink (2009)

• “It may come as a surprise to some academics, but there is a marked relationship between economic power and political power.”

  Michael Parenti (1933–2026) said by 2026 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “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 (1933–2026) said by 2026 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Profits are what you make when not working.”

  Michael Parenti (1933–2026) said by 2026 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “America represents more than just an economic system; it is an entire cultural and social order, a plutocracy, a system of rule that is mostly by and for the rich. Most universities and colleges, publishing houses, mass circulation magazines, newspapers, television and radio stations, professional sports teams, foundations, churches, private museums, charity organizations, and hospitals are organized as corporations, ruled by boards of trustees (or directors or regents) composed overwhelmingly of affluent business people. These boards exercise final judgement over all institutional matters.”

  Michael Parenti (1933–2026) said by 2026 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Among the institutions of plutocratic culture, our educational system looms as one of the more influential purveyors of dominant values. From the earliest school year, children are taught to compete individually rather than work cooperatively for mutual benefit. Grade-school students are fed stories of their nation's exploits that might be more valued for their inspirational nationalism than for their historical accuracy. Students are instructed to believe in America's global virtue and moral superiority and to hold a rather uncritical view of American politico economic institutions.”

  Michael Parenti (1933–2026) said by 2026 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Ideological orthodoxy so permeates the plutocratic culture, masquerading as "pluralism," "democracy," and the "open society," that it is often not felt as indoctrination. The worst forms of tyranny are those so subtle, so deeply ingrained, so thoroughly controlling as not even to be consciously experienced. So, there are Americans who are afraid to entertain contrary notions for fear of jeopardizing their jobs, but who still think they are "free.”

  Michael Parenti (1933–2026) said by 2026 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Individualism” in the United States refers to privatized ownership, consumption and recreation. You are individualist in that you are expected to get what you can for yourself and not be too troubled by the problems faced by others. This attitude, considered inhuman in some societies, is labeled approvingly as “ambition” in our own and is treated as a quality of great social value.”

  Michael Parenti (1933–2026) said by 2026 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Economically deprived groups are seen as a threat because they want more, and more for the have-nots might mean less for the haves.”

  Michael Parenti (1933–2026) said by 2026 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “The desire to "make it," even at the expense of others, is not merely a wrong-headed at attitude but a reflection of the material conditions of capitalist society wherein no one is ever really economically secure except the superrich.”

  Michael Parenti (1933–2026) said by 2026 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “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 (1933–2026) said by 2026 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “The Federalists also used bribes, intimidation, and fraud against opponents of the Constitution.”

  Michael Parenti (1933–2026) said by 2026 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Actually, the New Deal's central dedication was to business recovery rather than social reform.”

  Michael Parenti (1933–2026) said by 2026 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “The rich have grown richer, but their tax rate has declined. The poor have grown poorer, but their taxes have increased.”

  Michael Parenti (1933–2026) said by 2026 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Twelve states in the Great Plains have a wind energy potential greater than the electric use of our entire nation.”

  Michael Parenti (1933–2026) said by 2026 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Capitalism's modus operandi is to produce and sell an ever expanding supply of goods and services for ever greater profits. But the earth is finite. So is its ability to absorb wastes and toxins. While food yields shrink, the world's population grows 90 million a year and the planet's life support systems move closer to catastrophe. An ever expanding capitalism and a fragile, finite ecology appear to be on a calamitous collision course.”

  Michael Parenti (1933–2026) said by 2026 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “The trick is to steal big.”

  Michael Parenti (1933–2026) said by 2026 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “The police confront dangers and social miseries of a kind most of us can only imagine. They deal with the waste products of a competitive corporate society: the ill-fed, the ill-housed, the desperate, and the defeated. The slums are not the problem, they are the solution; they are the way capitalism deals with the surplus people of a market economy. And for all they cost the taxpayer in crime, police and welfare, the slums remain a source of profit for certain speculators, arsonists, realtors, big merchants, and others.”

  Michael Parenti (1933–2026) said by 2026 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “One mechanism of repression is the grand jury.”

  Michael Parenti (1933–2026) said by 2026 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Even though the crime rate has dropped in recent years, the United States has more police per capita than any other nation in the world.”

  Michael Parenti (1933–2026) said by 2026 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “The two party electoral system performs the essential function of helping to legitimate the existing social order.”

  Michael Parenti (1933–2026) said by 2026 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Those who control the wealth of this society have an influence over political life far in excess of their number.”

  Michael Parenti (1933–2026) said by 2026 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “There is a century-old saying, "The dollar votes more times than the man.”

  Michael Parenti (1933–2026) said by 2026 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “The peculiar danger of executive power is that it executes.”

  Michael Parenti (1933–2026) said by 2026 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Conservatives insist that government should be "run more like a business." One might wonder how that could be possible, since government does not market goods and services for the purpose of capital accumulation.”

  Michael Parenti (1933–2026) said by 2026 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “The crucial role communists played in organizing industrial unions in the 1930s and struggling for social reforms, peace, and civil rights strengthened rather than undermined democratic forces.”

  Michael Parenti (1933–2026) said by 2026 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “There is no such thing as unbiased or objective reporting of news. All reports and analyses are selective and inferential to some inescapable degree - all the more reason to provide a wider ideological spectrum of opinions and not let one bias predominate. If we consider censorship to be a danger to our freedom, then we should not overlook the fact that the media are already heavily censored by those who own or advertise in them. The very process of selection allows the politico-economic interests of the selector to operate as a censor.”

  Michael Parenti (1933–2026) said by 2026 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “It is not Socialism that subverts democracy, but democracy that subverts capitalism.”

  Michael Parenti (1933–2026) said by 2026 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Democracy is something more than a set of political procedures. To be worthy of its name, democracy should produce substantive outcomes that advance the health and well-being of the people.”

  Michael Parenti (1933–2026) said by 2026 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “American socialism cannot be modeled on the former Soviet Union, China, Cuba, or other countries with different historical, economic, and cultural developments.”

  Michael Parenti (1933–2026) said by 2026 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “There is nothing sacred about the existing system. 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 (1933–2026) said by 2026 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “It may come as a surprise to discover that throughout most of the seventeenth, eighteenth, and early nineteenth centuries, leading bourgeois philosophers and economists understood and openly stated, as did John Locke in 1690 that “government was created for the protection of property,” and Adam Smith in 1776 that civil authority “is in reality instituted for the defense of the rich against the poor, or of those who have some property against those who have none at all.”

  Michael Parenti (1933–2026) said by 2026 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “The withholding of labor by workers is called a strike, but not the withholding of capital by employers. The latter is never treated as a controversial disruption of the production process.”

  Michael Parenti (1933–2026) said by 2026 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “If the press cannot mold our every opinion, it can frame the perceptual reality around which our opinions take shape. Here may lie the most important effect of the news media: they set the issue agenda for the rest of us, choosing what to emphasize and what to ignore or suppress, in effect, organizing much of our political world for us. The media may not always be able to tell us what to think, but they are strikingly successful in telling us what to think about.”

  Michael Parenti (1933–2026) said by 2026 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Colonel Blimp is dead and buried, replaced by men in business suits.”

  Michael Parenti (1933–2026) said by 2026 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “No country that pursues an independent course of development shall be allowed to prevail as a dangerous example to other nations.”

  Michael Parenti (1933–2026) said by 2026 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “In sum, there is nothing irrational about spending three dollars of public money to protect one dollar of private investment—at least not from the perspective of the investors. To protect one dollar of their money, they will spend three, four, and five dollars of our money. In fact, when it comes to protecting their money, our money is no object.”

  Michael Parenti (1933–2026) said by 2026 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “The few remaining communist governments, such as North Korea and Cuba, were no longer por­trayed as instruments of Moscow, but as evils in their own right.”

  Michael Parenti (1933–2026) said by 2026 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Countries with ostensibly democratic governments often mani­fest a markedly undemocratic state power.”

  Michael Parenti (1933–2026) said by 2026 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Conservative propaganda that is intended for mass consumption implicitly distinguishes between government and state. It invites peo­ple to see government as their biggest problem. At the same time, such propaganda encourages an uncritical public admiration for the state, its flag and other symbols, and the visible instruments of its power such as the armed forces.”

  Michael Parenti (1933–2026) said by 2026 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “The “global economy” is another name for imperialism, and imperialism is a transnational form of capitalism. The essence of capitalism is to turn nature into commodities and commodities into capital. The live green earth is transformed into dead, gold bricks, with luxury items for the few and toxic slag heaps for the many. The glittering mansion overlooks a vast sprawl of shanty towns, wherein a desperate, demoralized humanity is kept in line with drugs, televi­sion, and armed force.”

  Michael Parenti (1933–2026) said by 2026 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “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 (1933–2026) said by 2026 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “The dirty truth is that the rich are the great cause of poverty.”

  Michael Parenti (1933–2026) said by 2026 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “The dirty truth is that many people find fascism to be not particularly horrible.”

  Michael Parenti (1933–2026) said by 2026 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

More