"The Demonization of Slobodan Milosevic" by M.Parenti

[tir1944]

"The Demonization of Slobodan Milosevic" by M.Parenti

What do you think of this interesting article?
I personally don't agree with certain things said in it but would like see what others think.

http://anonym.to/?http://www.michaelparenti.org/Milosevic.html

[Seth]

The only thing that can be said about Milosevic that isn't said all the time is that he was only one fuck in a region full of murdering slime. Tudman isn't mentioned much because he was our bastard.

[Os Cangaceiros]

Milosevic was an opportunist who was more than happy to turn a blind eye while his boy Karadzic turned Republika Srpska into a living hell for Bosnians. He isn't worth defending in the slightest.

[black magick hustla]

parenti is an old cold warrior type. one of those leftover corpses left after the fall of the ussr. he has a knack for trolling in the name of third world strongmen

[Die Neue Zeit]

parenti is an old cold warrior type. one of those leftover corpses left after the fall of the ussr. he has a knack for trolling in the name of third world strongmen

I don't agree with his overly sympathetic assessments of some Third World leaders, but I appreciate the points he has made. My criticism of Parenti is that, in his works to date, he hasn't been able to connect the dots with regards to strategic conclusions. That may or may not have changed since my personal correspondence with him.

[Mr. Natural]

I despise Michael Parenti. I would stop listening whenever he appeared on KPFA in the San Francisco Bay Area. I detect more Stalin than Marx in his politics.

Seven years or so ago Parenti was visiting a girl friend in Cave Junction, Oregon, and consented to speak at the local coffee shop. His amour introduced him as having been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize, and Parenti had to immediately clear this up, saying that someone had sent a letter recommending him.

Might Parenti have been schmoozing his squeeze with false tales of his magnificence?

Parenti is a glib speaker and an easy listen. His remarks, though, were limited to a trashing of Republican Party politics. The inference was that the Democrats were a solution. Capitalism was never mentioned.

I cannot believe anything Parenti speaks or writes.

[thefinalmarch]

whoever feels the need to defend milosevic has got their head stuck up their own arse

[PhoenixAsh]

Slobodan Milosovic was a nationalist and played a large part in the subsequent EU/NATO/Vatican attempt to split Yugoslavia and isolate Serbia in order to regain control of the region both for economic and geopolitical and strategic reasons.

What happened in Yugoslavia is ethnic tensions being stimulated and fueled further by EU/NATO imperialist aspirations.

I don't agree with Milosovic and he is ultimately responsible for horrible crimes.

However...his trail was a sham and a show to smooth out the role of imperialism and as a post date justification.

As such Milosovic deserved support...to expose this trail for what it was. To expose the involvement of western powers and the blatant media bias and hysteria and to show exactly how NATO serves economic interests rather than protect the regions of its members.

[PhoenixAsh]

To clarify the above: the guy was filth. However he was not the only culprit.

[Great1917Revolution]

Milošević was a US-backed fascist dictator who was, after signing the Dayton agreement, officially branded as "the key factor of peace and stability in the Balkans." Let's not forget how the West kept quietly supported him during the 1996/97 protests against the electoral fraud and he remained their puppet until 1998. He also started the privatisation process in Serbia.

[Die Neue Zeit]

I detect more Stalin than Marx in his politics.

So why are the likes of Hobsbawm more popular in the mainstream historian community than Parenti? :rolleyes:

[KurtFF8]

Parenti is a glib speaker and an easy listen. His remarks, though, were limited to a trashing of Republican Party politics. The inference was that the Democrats were a solution. Capitalism was never mentioned.

Typical Stalinist, praising the Democratic party while defending the legacy of the USSR and East Germany! (/sarcasm)

Side note, shouldn't this thread be in "history"?

[Ravachol]

Wow, a tankie jumping to the defense of a genocidal bourgeois ultra-nationalist because he wasa frontman of the remnants of the League of 'Communists' of Serbia. Once again it goes to show how one can get away with being a reactionary nationalist piece of shit can be brushed under the carpet if we cover it with the mantle of 'socialism'. I guess flag waving is more important than actual deeds.

And sure, NATO's operations in former Yugoslavia against Serbia were a form of imperial policing, it's what an imperial apparatus does regardless of the subject of it's police operations.And yes, Tuđman and Gotovina and the whole bulk of scum on all respective national factions are as guilty as Milošević but anyone who defends either for whatever reason (especially under the bullshit excuse of 'anti-imperialism' or whatever) sides with a genocidal nationalist bourgeois faction who led thousands of workers to their deaths and misery. Period.

[Obs]

Oh god please don't let everyone think MLs like Milosevic now

[Agathor]

So why are the likes of Hobsbawm more popular in the mainstream historian community than Parenti? :rolleyes:

Hobsbawm is a masterful historian. Parenti is a low-rank distorter.

[KurtFF8]

Hobsbawm is a masterful historian. Parenti is a low-rank distorter.

It doesn't really help arguments against folks when name calling is the main tactic against them

[Die Neue Zeit]

Hobsbawm is a masterful historian. Parenti is a low-rank distorter.

The former's work comes across as snobby. For example, he's got disdain for the militants amongst the sans-culottes (lower classes) of the French Revolution, writing that they had no concrete political program when in fact they did, to the point of agitating for the restriction of equal suffrage to the sans-culottes only. He also has no grasp of workers organizations above the national level, stuck in a dichotomy of "international solidarity" and something like the Roman Catholic Church (he said exactly this about the Comintern).

The latter's work may be spotty at times, but at others illuminates gems, such as the one on Julius Caesar.

[DarkPast]

Milošević was a quasi-fascist, together with his clique responsible for purging the Yugoslav People's Army of "unreliable people" and changing its prior doctrine (read: he replaced competent officers with loyal cronies, and tried to change the army into a force for supporting Serbian expansionism).

Unfortunately, some communists in Serbia still uphold him as some sort of hero - kindly ignore these people - they are the local equivalent of Nazbols. Of course, there's also the people who support *anyone* who at some point ended up fighting against NATO as "anti-imperialists". :rolleyes:

However, Parenti does make two good points:

1. Miliošević, like so many political leaders the Western capitalists find "undesirable", is usually portrayed as both some sort of crazy buffoon and a stereotypical "oriental" barbaric conqueror. (compare to the portrayal of Gaddafi, Saddam Hussein etc.)

2. Parenti is absolutely correct in stating that the likes of Tuđman and Izetbegović - often upheld as fighters for "freedom" and "economic reforms" - were just as jingoistic as Milošević himself (it should be noted that both men would have been called to stand trial for war crimes had they lived a bit longer).