Michael Parenti

One mechanism of repression is the grand jury.

— Michael Parenti

A nation as such does not give aid to another nation. More precisely, the common citizens of our country, through their taxes,…

— Michael Parenti

Democracy is not about trust; it is about distrust. It is about accountability, exposure, open debate, critical challenge, and popular input and…

— Michael Parenti

All economic and political institutions are contrivances that should serve the interests of the people. When they fail to do so, they…

— Michael Parenti

[The ruling elites] know who their enemies are, and their enemies are the people, the people at home and the people abroad.…

— Michael Parenti

Even though the crime rate has dropped in recent years, the United States has more police per capita then any other nation…

— Michael Parenti

The crucial role communists played in organizing industrial unions in the 1930s and struggling for social reforms, peace, and civil rights strengthened…

— Michael Parenti

Candidates who win while spending less than their opponents still usually have to spend quite a lot. While not a surefire guarantor…

— Michael Parenti

People who think they're free in this world just haven't come to the end of their leash yet.

— 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 trick is to steal big.

— Michael Parenti

In almost every enterprise, government has provided business with opportunities for private gain at public expense. Government nurtures private capital accumulation through…

— Michael Parenti

The essence of capitalism is to turn nature into commodities and commodities into capital. The live green earth is transformed into dead…

— Michael Parenti

Official Washington cannot tell the American people that the real purpose of its gargantuan military expenditures and belligerent interventions is to make…

— Michael Parenti

Ecology's implications for capitalism are too momentous for the capitalist to contemplate. The plutocrats are more wedded to their wealth than to…

— Michael Parenti

The US government is usually on the wrong side against the poor and downtrodden, because the wrong side is the right side,…

— Michael Parenti

“As demonstrated in Russia and numerous other countries, when faced with a choice between democracy without capitalism or capitalism without democracy, Western…

— Michael Parenti

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

— Michael Parenti

If one looks into the genealogies of many 'old families,' one discovers episodes of slave trafficking, bootlegging, gun running, opium trading, falsified…

— Michael Parenti

Far from being reluctantly propelled into hostilities by popular war fever, leaders incite that fever in order to gather support for their…

— Michael Parenti

I dream that someday the United States will be on the side of the peasants in some civil war. I dream that…

— Michael Parenti

If the test of patriotism comes only by reflexively falling into lockstep behind the leader whenever the flag is waved, then what…

— Michael Parenti

The enormous gap between what US leaders do in the world and what Americans think their leaders are doing is one of…

— Michael Parenti

To make the world safe for those who own it, politically active elements of the owning class have created a national security…

— Michael Parenti

America is a simplified ideological abstraction, an emotive symbol represented by other abstract symbols like the flag. It is the object of…

— Michael Parenti