Michael Parenti

[Hen]

I've only JUST ran into Michael Parenti. Listened to some of his lectures. Can anyone give me a good book to start with?

[RadioRaheem84]

Let me put it this way.

If Land of Idols was required reading in all public schools, we would have a fundamentally different country.

Land of Idols is not only one of Parenti's best books, but one of the best books ever written.

Start there and move on to Sword and the Dollar and Democracy for the Few.

Parenti dismantles many myths about Western social life.

[WeAreReborn]

Against Empire is interesting if you want to see in an depth analysis of the brutality of American foreign policy.

[Hen]

In Land of Idols, Parenti say's:

"Blending private and public concerns is the best method of ridding ourselves of poverty, including the poverty of compassion and personal feeling that plagues too many of our citizens"

Is use of the word "blending", an argument for reformism?

[Property Is Robbery]

Against Empire is interesting if you want to see in an depth analysis of the brutality of American foreign policy.

How would you know? You never read it :p



Superpatriotism and Against Empire are great

[Nolan]

In Land of Idols, Parenti say's:

"Blending private and public concerns is the best method of ridding ourselves of poverty, including the poverty of compassion and personal feeling that plagues too many of our citizens"

Is use of the word "blending", an argument for reformism?

Context? What exactly is he talking about here?

[syndicat]

"Democracy for the Few" has a lot of information. Worthwhile from that point of view. He's also a fairly clear writer. As a theoretician, he's very superficial. He's also an old time Stalinist, and his conception of the alternative is entirely statist.

[Nolan]

As a theoretician, he's very superficial.

That's probably because he's writing with a non-Marxist audience in mind. He calls the Soviet Union communist because if he called it socialist or noted the class aspects of it it would probably go right over a lot of people's heads. Most people think socialism is a mild communism or something and Russia was communist. But yeah I have noticed this.



He's also an old time Stalinist, and his conception of the alternative is entirely statist.

Statism = sex. That's also what I tell all the ancap kiddies that spam my YouTube page after I made the mistake of successfully trolling a Mises Institute video.

[Hen]

Context? What exactly is he talking about here?

It's the concluding paragraph of a chapter called "'God in action': money and power":

"The ancient Greeks understood that when we are divorced from the polis, deprived of engagement in the community by exile or by a tyrant, or confined totally to the private realm, we are denied our full humanity. Native American Indians and other indigenous peoples know that to inflict upon our natural environment a misdirected accumulation process for the enrichment of the few also removes us from our full humanity. Real self-empowerment should combine personal awakening with political concerns. We must show that greed and self-enrichment for the few should not be - and really cannot be - the way to a happy society for all. Blending private and public concerns is the best method of ridding ourselves of poverty, including the poverty of compassion and personal feeling that plagues too many of our citizens. All this is easier said that done. Whatever self-help is gleaned from New Age thought, it would seem that the political quietism it fosters does not bring us toward any real liberation - neither social nor personal".

[Manic Impressive]

"Democracy for the Few" has a lot of information. Worthwhile from that point of view. He's also a fairly clear writer. As a theoretician, he's very superficial. He's also an old time Stalinist, and his conception of the alternative is entirely statist.

I always face palm when someone says this he's not a Stalinist and would certainly not describe himself as one. back it up or it's bullshit

[chegitz guevara]

Democracy for the Few is the best book on how the U.S. government works out there.

[RadioRaheem84]

I always face palm when someone says this he's not a Stalinist and would certainly not describe himself as one. back it up or it's bullshit

Read Blackshirts and Reds where he totally lambastes the Soviet system and listen to his lecture titled Reflections on Communism. He challenges the Stalinist charge and insists the he disliked Stalin's autocratic rule.

You sir deserve the facepalm.

Now, back up your bullshit.

[bailey_187]

Read Blackshirts and Reds where he totally lambastes the Soviet system and listen to his lecture titled Reflections on Communism. He challenges the Stalinist charge and insists the he disliked Stalin's autocratic rule.

You sir deserve the facepalm.

Now, back up your bullshit.

Synidcat and people of his ideology regard everyone who upholds the USSR as socialist a Stalinist. Parenti was in the CPUSA, IIRC, and defends the USSR as Socialist. Thats enough for him to be classed as a "Stalinist", he doesnt have to be a Grover Furr or Enver Hoxha to be regarded as one. To the poster, you and me are probably Stalinists.

[syndicat]

Synidcat and people of his ideology regard everyone who upholds the USSR as socialist a Stalinist. Parenti was in the CPUSA, IIRC, and defends the USSR as Socialist. Thats enough for him to be classed as a "Stalinist", he doesnt have to be a Grover Furr or Enver Hoxha to be regarded as one.

yep. I could have said "authoritarian Leninist state socialist." doesn't matter if he had criticisms of Stalin...after being a member of CP, and defending the USSR -- a repressive bureaucratic class-run system -- as somehow genuinely "socialist." His class analysis in "Democracy for the few" is defective also in that he doesn't recognize the existence of the bureaucratic class even as a subordinate class within capitalism. that's so he can consistently defend the bureaucratic mode of production.

[Manic Impressive]

Read Blackshirts and Reds where he totally lambastes the Soviet system and listen to his lecture titled Reflections on Communism. He challenges the Stalinist charge and insists the he disliked Stalin's autocratic rule.

You sir deserve the facepalm.

Now, back up your bullshit.

Firstly let me just say Fuck off

secondly please reread my post
he's not a Stalinist

thirdly Syndicat said he was a Stalinist

fourthly apologise :p

[bricolage]

To the poster, you and me are probably Stalinists.
Ummm...
Location: Marching with Stalin flag

[bailey_187]

Ummm...
Location: Marching with Stalin flag

lol thats when everyone kept accusing the CPGB-ML of always marching with Stalin Flags, even though they only do on May Day. I would change it but i forgot.

[RadioRaheem84]

Firstly let me just say Fuck off

secondly please reread my post

thirdly Syndicat said he was a Stalinist

fourthly apologise :p

Didn't you say that you face palm ppl who tell you that Parenti is not a Stalinist?

[RadioRaheem84]

His class analysis in "Democracy for the few" is defective also in that he doesn't recognize the existence of the bureaucratic class even as a subordinate class within capitalism. that's so he can consistently defend the bureaucratic mode of production.

Say what? Have you ever read his work on the state? Parenti is extremely critical of it.

[Manic Impressive]

Didn't you say that you face palm ppl who tell you that Parenti is not a Stalinist?

No other way round bro
read like this

I always face palm when someone says this

he's not a Stalinist and would certainly not describe himself as one. back it up or it's bullshit

seriously I don't know how you misinterpreted that

[Nolan]

Parenti = stalinist because he's not a Chomsky and doesn't hate everything about the USSR.

Oh and *popcorn*