Michael Parenti Quotes Page 2

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

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

“The trick is to steal big.”

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

“There is a century-old saying: The dollar votes more times than the man.
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“When change threatens to rule, then the rules are changed.”

“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.”

“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.”

“Editors and reporters are not as free and independent to invite a variety of opinions as they might think. They are free to say what they like only as long as their bosses like what they say. They are free to produce what they want if their product remains within acceptable political boundaries. You will have no sensation of a leash around your neck if you sit by the peg. It is only when your stray that you feel the restraining tug.”

“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.”

“In the end I created a career of my own, concentrating on my writing and lecturing, reaching larger audiences than I would had I ended up with tenure and a full teaching load. It was Virginia Woolf who said that it is terrible to be frozen out of a sacred tradition – but even more terrible to be frozen into it.”

“Maintaining silence about a dirty truth is another way of lying, a common practice in high places.”

“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.”

“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.”

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

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

“To complain about how the media are dominated by liberals, Limbaugh has an hour a day on network television, an hour on cable, and a radio show syndicated by over 600 stations.”

“To make the world safe for those who own it, politically active elements of the owning class have created a national security state that expends billions of dollars and enlists the efforts of vast numbers of people.”

“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.”

“America is a simplified ideological abstraction, an emotive symbol represented by other abstract symbols like the flag. It is the object of a faithlike devotion, unencumbered by honest history.”

“The American way is to criticize and debate openly, not to accept unthinkingly the doings of government officials of this or any other country.”

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

“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.”