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Michael Parenti

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Michael Parenti
Born30 September 1933 (age 91)
Manhattan, New York City, New York, United States
NationalityStatesian
Political orientationAnti-imperialism
Communism
Statesian nationalism
Political partyLiberty Union Party (1974)
Website
https://www.michael-parenti.org


Michael John Parenti (born 30 September 1933 in Manhattan, New York City)[1] is a Statesian political scientist, academic historian and cultural critic who wrote on scholarly and popular subjects. He taught at US and international universities and was a guest lecturer before campus and community audiences. Michael Parenti is the father of Christian Parenti.

Parenti's writings covered a wide range of subjects: U.S. politics, culture, ideology, political economy, imperialism, fascism, communism, democratic socialism, free-market orthodoxies, conservative judicial activism, religion, ancient history, modern history, historiography, repression in academia, news and entertainment media, technology, environmentalism, sexism, racism, Venezuela, the wars in Iraq and Yugoslavia, ethnicity, and his own early life.[2][3][4]

In 1974, Parenti ran in Vermont on the democratic socialist Liberty Union Party ticket for U.S. Congress and received 7.1% of the vote.[5][6] This run was done with Bernie Sanders who at the time was friends with Parenti. This friendship ended when NATO waged war on Yugoslavia. While Bernie stood with the imperialists, Parenti stood with the anti-imperialists.[7]

Political views[edit | edit source]

Statesian nationalism[edit | edit source]

Parenti is a Statesian patriot.[8] While he is very critical of Statesian policy (both domestic and foreign), while he acknowledges that the United States has always been imperialist since its very inception,[9] and while he criticises the patriotism of the ruling class, he nonetheless upholds the existence of the United States and advocates for Statesian patriotism.[10]

Parenti condemns anti-Americanism and the desecration of Statesian national symbols, arguing that it alienates the Statesian people and allows US leaders to brand all opposition as "anti-American".[11] He calls it a "mistake" to blame the United States for what was being done in its name,[12] even when the country is intrinsically linked to those things. Furthermore, he attributes the hatred of the US by many people in the New Left to its supposed "anarchist tendencies", noting that anarchists likewise view the state as the problem rather than the class it serves.[11]

Parenti tries to distinguish between the jingoistic, chauvinistic, imperialistic patriotism of the ruling class which he dubs "superpatriotism" and his brand of "real patriotism". According to him, the "superpatriots" don't actually love their country, its history, its people, its culture, or any of its supposed virtues (freedom, democracy, or economic opportunity). To them, "America is a simplified ideological abstraction, an emotive symbol represented by other abstract symbols like the flag."[13] "Real patriots" by contrast, he writes, "care enough about their country to want to improve it." "Real patriots" advocate for a different United States, a United States by and for the Statesian people.[10] "Real patriots" find other things in their history to be proud of than the "superpatriots" and champion other figures.

This is why unlike many other Statesian patriots, Parenti does not glorify the Founding Fathers or figures such as Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Delano Roosevelt. He argues that those rulers, who overwhelmingly came from wealthy, affluent, propertied backgrounds, actually opposed popular rule, and that many of their supposed "achievements" (such as the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, the reduction of child labour, and the New Deal) came in whole or in part as reluctant concessions from the ruling class in light of popular agitation.[14]

What Parenti fails to realise is that there is no other United States. Capitalism, colonialism, and imperialism are intrinsic to the United States, and trying to remedy these issues would mean the death of the state. Patriotism in the Statesian context is not a love of the people, the culture, or of democracy, but of the settler colonial project, i.e., the state.

Library works by Michael Parenti[edit | edit source]

This article has yet to be finished. Despite the amount of information available, this article is nowhere near complete. Feel free to check in every now and then to see the new updates.

Articles[edit | edit source]

Books[edit | edit source]

Interviews[edit | edit source]

Journal articles[edit | edit source]

Letters[edit | edit source]

Magazine articles[edit | edit source]

Newspaper articles[edit | edit source]

Speeches[edit | edit source]

Misc[edit | edit source]

Recordings[edit | edit source]

References[edit | edit source]

  1. ↑ Births Reported in 1933—Borough of Manhattan. vol. 1. New York City. New York City Department of Health. p. 241.
  2. ↑ "Articles and Other Published Selections". Archived from the original on 26 October 2007.
  3. ↑ Michael Parenti (2007). Contrary Notions: The Michael Parenti Reader (p. 403). City Lights Books. ISBN 978-0-87286-482-5
  4. ↑ "Books by Michael Parenti".
  5. ↑ "Elections Results Archive". VT Elections Database.
  6. ↑ Bernie Sanders (1997). Outsider in the House: 'You Have to Begin Somewhere'.
  7. ↑ "Michael Parenti on Bernie Sanders".
  8. ↑ Parenti personally identifies as a patriot:

    Now, in contrast to the superpatriots—it begins to brighten here. I'm almost finished—[in] contrast to the superpatriots are the real patriots. We who, for instance, don't want to see the good name of our nation [the United States] sullied.

    AfroMarxist (2020-04-11).: "Michael Parenti: 'Super Patriotism vs Real Patriotism' (1988)". YouTube. Retrieved 2024-11-02.
  9. ↑

    The history of the United States has been one of territorial, commercial, and military expansion.
    [...]
    As our common reading of history would have it, [...] the United States apparently developed a mighty empire while never being sullied by imperialistic practices. If imperialism is admitted, it is most often described as a kind of momentary lapse occurring sometime between the Spanish-American War and Theodore Roosevelt's "big stick" policy.
    In reality, from the very beginning of its history, the nation suffered quite overtly from expansionist pangs.

    Michael Parenti (1969).: The Anti-Communist Impulse. Random House. CHAPTER SIX - Virtue Faces the World. p. 104.
  10. ↑ 10.0 10.1 See this chapter of his 2004 book Superpatriotism in which he advocates for "real patriotism" in the United States, as opposed to the "Superpatriotism" of the ruling class.
  11. ↑ 11.0 11.1 Parenti, "Super Patriotism vs Real Patriotism".
  12. ↑ Parenti, Superpatriotism. America—Love It or Leave It. p. 14.
  13. ↑ Parenti, Superpatriotism. What Does it Mean to Love Our Country? p. 9.
  14. ↑ Michael Parenti (2011).: Democracy for the Few. 9th ed. Cengage Learning. pp. 5–16, 21, 25.
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