Monday, August 6, 2018

The Courageous and Needed Voice of Michael Parenti


Every Tuesday from 9-10am Alternative Radio is broadcast on independent KBOO radio here in the Portland/Vancouver area. This program used to be found weekly on NPR in the evening until large corporate interests overtook more and more of "public" radio, a sad and disturbing turn of events. Gratefully, the voices found on Alternative Radio (https://www.alternativeradio.org/#), and other in-depth investigative resources, can be found elsewhere. This past Tuesday David Barsamian shared an excellent talk given by Michael Parenti, which is what is inspiring me to do this post. Again and again I find myself moved to affirm that it is only through independent media resources that we will find a diversity of voices and a depth of information that is largely absent or lacking on corporate funded media. This is not to say that there are not good or even vital stories to be found in places like NPR or PBS or CNN. There are. It is also my perspective that we need to be mindful that these resources are limited to the degree that they are beholden to large corporate donors whose allegiance is to perpetuating silence, the status quo, polarizing propaganda, ignorance and distraction, and misinformation or a lack of information about the issues most affecting us all. If it weren't for programs like Alternative Radio, Democracy Now!, The Intercept, Truthout, etc., I would never have heard the vital voices of those such as Michael Parenti and countless others. Deep bow of gratitude for the truth-tellers in our midst whose courageous integrity and profound commitment to truth is not for sale. May we all seek them out. And listen. The well-being of humans everywhere, of other beings, and of our Mother Earth is dependent upon our relentless search for truth and our commitment to fierce compassionate action. Every act to heal ourselves and our beautiful troubled world is needed and matters. We are all in this together. Another world is possible. Molly


Conventional opinions fit so comfortably into the dominant paradigm as to be seen not as opinions but as statements of fact, as 'the nature of things.' The very efficacy of opinion manipulation rests on the fact that we do not know we are being manipulated. The most insidious forms of oppression are those that so insinuate themselves into our communication universe and the recesses of our minds that we do not even realize they are acting upon us. The most powerful ideologies are not those that prevail against all challengers but those that are never challenged because in their ubiquity they appear as nothing more than the unadorned truth.

In every class society that's ever existed, the ruling element does not rule nakedly. They always adorn their rule with myths, themes and symbols to justify their position at the apex of the social pyramid. 

The real danger we face is not from terrorism but what is being done under the pretext of fighting it.

If the test of patriotism comes only by reflexively falling into lockstep behind the leader whenever the flag is waved, then what we have is a formula for dictatorship, not democracy.

Far from being reluctantly propelled into hostilities by popular war fever, leaders incite that fever in order to gather support for their war policies. Thereby do they attempt to distract the public from pressing domestic matters, serve the overseas interests of U.S. investors, justify gargantuan military budgets, and present themselves as great leaders.

The worst forms of tyranny, or certainly the most successful ones, are not those we rail against but those that so insinuate themselves into the imagery of our consciousness, and the fabric of our lives, as not to be perceived as tyranny.

You will have no sensation of a leash around your neck if you sit by the peg. It is only when you stray that you feel the restraining tug. 

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

The enormous gap between what US leaders do in the world and what Americans think their leaders are doing is one of the great propaganda accomplishments of the dominant political mythology. 

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.

The mass media are class media. 

The first atrocity, the first war crime committed in any war of aggression by the aggressors is against the truth.  

The media have been tireless in their efforts to suppress the truth about the gangster state. 

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. 

Between 1831 and 1891, US armed forces usually the Marines invaded Mexico, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, Panama, Colombia, Nicaragua, Uruguay, Brazil, Haiti, Argentina, and Chile a total of thirty-one times, a fact not many of us are informed about in school. The Marines intermittently occupied Nicaragua form 1909 to 1933, Mexico from 1914 to 1919, and Panama from 1903 to 1914. To "restore order" the Marines occupied Haiti from 1915 to 1934, killing over two thousand Haitians who resisted "pacification."

Only by establishing military supremacy were the European and North American colonizers able to eliminate the crafts and industries of Third World peoples, control their markets, extort tribute, undermine their cultures, destroy their villages, steal their lands and natural resources, enslave their labor, and accumulate vast wealth.

The conquistador is inclined to put a swift sword to the natives; the capitalist finds it more profitable to work them slowly to death.

US multilateral corporations (along with the firms of other advanced capitalistic nations) control most of the wealth, labor, and markets of Asia, Africa, and Latin America. This control does much to maldevelop the weaker nations in ways that are severely detrimental to the life chances of the common people of the Third World. The existing class structure of the Third World, so suitable to capital accumulation, must be protected from popular resistance. Through the generous application of force and terror and by cultural and political domination, the imperialist nation directly -- or through a client-state apparatus -- maintains "stability" and prevents changes in the class structure of other nations.

A nation as such does not give aid to another nation. More precisely, the common citizens of our country, through their taxes, give to the privileged elites of another country. As someone once said: foreign aid is when the poor people of a rich country give money to the rich people of a poor country. 

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. 

Official Washington cannot tell the American people that the real purpose of its gargantuan military expenditures and belligerent interventions is to make the world safe for General Motors, General Electric, General Dynamics, and all the other generals. 

A huge national security state has developed in the United States since World War II. Its function is to buttress anticommunist, procapitalist governments and undermine and destroy popular movements whenever possible.

The US government has given over $200 billion dollars in military aid to some eighty nations since World War II. US weapons sales abroad have grown to about $10 billion a year and compose about 70 percent of all arms sold on the international marketplace. Two million foreign troops and hundreds of thousands of foreign police and paramilitary have been trained, equipped, and financed by the United States. Their purpose has not been to defend their countries from outside invasion but to protect foreign investors and the ruling elites of the recipient nations from their own potentially rebellious populations.

As demonstrated in Russia and numerous other countries, when faced with a choice between democracy without capitalism or capitalism without democracy, Western elites unhesitatingly embrace the latter. 

It's not that socialism threatens democracy. It's that democracy threatens capitalism.

The first law of the market is to make the largest possible profit from other people's labor or go out of business. Profitability rather than human need is the determining condition of private investment.

No system in history [capitalism] has been more relentless in battering down ancient and fragile cultures, devouring the resources of whole regions, pulverizing centuries-old practices in a matter of years, and standardizing the varieties of human experience.

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

The goal of a good society is to structure social relations and institutions so that cooperative and generous impulses are rewarded, while antisocial ones are discouraged. The problem with capitalism is that it best rewards the worst part of us: ruthless, competitive, conniving, opportunistic, acquisitive drives, giving little reward and often much punishment or at least much handicap to honesty, compassion, fair play, many forms of hard work, love of justice, and a concern for those in need.

In societies that worship money and success, the losers become objects of scorn. Those who work the hardest for the least are called lazy. Those forced to live in substandard housing are thought to be the authors of substandard lives. Those who do not finish high school or cannot afford to go to college are considered deficient or inept.

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.

All conservative ideologies justify existing inequities as the natural order of things, inevitable outcomes of human nature. If the very rich are naturally so much more capable than the rest of us, why must they be provided with so many artificial privileges under the law, so many bailouts, subsidies and other special considerations - at our expense? Their "naturally superior talents" include unprincipled and illegal subterfuge such as price-fixing, stock manipulation, insider training, fraud, tax evasion, the legal enforcement of unfair competition, ecological spoliation, harmful products and unsafe work conditions. One might expect naturally superior people not to act in such rapacious and venal ways. Differences in talent and capacity as might exist between individuals do not excuse the crimes and injustices that are endemic to the corporate business system. 

Democrats—lily-livered, weasel-assed collaborators.

The diseconomies of capitalism are treated as the public's responsibility. Corporate America skims the cream and leaves the bill for us to pay, then boasts about how productive and efficient it is and complains about our wasteful government.

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

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

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. 

If one looks into the genealogies of many "old families," one discovers episodes of slave trafficking, bootlegging, gun running, opium trading, falsified land claims, violent acquisition of water and mineral rights, the extermination of indigenous peoples, sales of shoddy and unsafe goods, public funds used for private speculations, crooked deals in government bonds and vouchers, and payoffs for political favors. One finds fortunes built on slave labor, indentured labor, prison labor, immigrant labor, female labor, child labor, and scab labor -- backed by the lethal force of gun thugs and militia. "Old money" is often little more than dirty money laundered by several generations of possession. [Tragically, this is the history of the paternal side of our family's "old money." Molly]

In almost every enterprise, government has provided business with opportunities for private gain at public expense. Government nurtures private capital accumulation through a process of subsidies, supports, and deficit spending and an increasingly inequitable tax system. From ranchers to resort owners, from brokers to bankers, from auto makers to missile makers, there prevails a welfare for the rich of such magnitude as to make us marvel at the corporate leaders’ audacity in preaching the virtues of self-reliance whenever lesser forms of public assistance threaten to reach hands other than their own. 

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. 

The close relationship between politics and economics is neither neutral nor coincidental. Large governments evolve through history in order to protect large accumulations of property and wealth.

Profits are what you make when not working.

Conservatives insist that government should be " run more like a business." One might wonder how that could be possible, since government does not market goods and services for the purpose of capital accumulation.

The conservative goal has been the "Third Worldization" of the United States: 
an increasingly underemployed, lower-wage work-force; a small but growing moneyed class that pays almost no taxes; the privatization or elimination of human services; the elimination of public education for low-income people; the easing of restrictions against child labor; the exporting of industries and jobs to low-wage, free-trade countries; the breaking of labor unions; and the elimination of occupational safety and environmental controls and regulations
.

It is ironic that people of modest means sometimes become conservative out of a scarcity fear bred by the very capitalist system they support.   

The essence of capitalism is to turn nature into commodities and commodities into capital. The live green earth is transformed into dead gold bricks, with luxury items for the few and toxic slag heaps for the many. The glittering mansion overlooks a vast sprawl of shanty towns, wherein a desperate, demoralized humanity is kept in line with drugs, television, and armed force. 

Global warming is already acting upon us with an accelerated feedback and compounded effect that may be irreversible! We do not have eons or centuries or many decades. Most of us alive today may not even have the luxury of saying "Après moi, le déluge" because we will be around to experience it ourselves. And if you think it will be "interesting" or "exciting," ask the tsunami survivors if that’s how they felt. This time the plutocratic drive to "accumulate, accumulate, accumulate" may take all of us down, once and forever.

Ecology's implications for capitalism are too momentous for the capitalist to contemplate. [The plutocrats] are more wedded to their wealth than to the Earth upon which they live, more concerned with the fate of their fortunes than with the fate of humanity. The present ecological crisis has been created by the few at the expense of the many.  In other words, the struggle over environmentalism is part of the class struggle itself, a fact that seems to have escaped many environmentalists but is well understood by the plutocrats which is why they are unsparing in their derision and denunciations of the "eco-terrorists" and "tree huggers."  

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

One does not have to be a Marxist to know there is something very wrong in this society.

Any history that deals with the efforts of the populace to defend itself from the abuses of wealth and tyranny is people's history . . . A people's history should be not only an account of popular struggle against oppression but an exposé of the anti-people's history that has prevailed among generations of mainstream historians. It should be a critical history about a people's oppressors, those who propagated an elitist ideology and a loathing of the common people that distorts the historical record down to this day.

Radical views that are outside the mainstream generally (but not always) are more reliable than the dominant view because they are more regularly challenged and tested against evidence. They do not get to float freely down the mainstream; they must swim against the current. They cannot rest on the orthodox power to foreclose dissent, and they are not supported by the unanimity of bias that passes for objectivity.

Twelve states in the Great Plains have a wind energy potential greater then the electric use of our entire nation. 

All economic and political institutions are contrivances that should serve the interests of the people. When they fail to do so, they should be replaced by something more responsive, more just, and more democratic. Marx said this, and so did Jefferson. It is a revolutionary doctrine, and very much an American one. 

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. 

*****

The most dramatic interventionist testimonial was given in 1935 by the US Marine Corps Commandant, General Smedley Butler:

"I spent thirty-three years in the Marines, most of my time being a hlgh class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer for capitalism.

I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers in 1910-1912. I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City [Bank] boys to collect revenue in. I helped in the rape of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. In China in 1927 l helped to see to it that Standard Oil went its way unmolested.

I had a swell racket. l was rewarded with honors, medals, promotions. l might have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate a racket in three city districts. The Marines operated on three continents."

*****

In 1966, more than thirty years after General Smedley Butler, another former Marine Commandant, General David Sharp, offered this remarkable statement:

"I believe that if we had and would keep our dirty, bloody, dollar-soaked fingers out of the business of these nations so full of depressed, exploited people, they will arrive at a solution of their own.... And if unfortunately their revolution must be of the violent type because the "haves" refuse to share with the "have-nots" by any peaceful method, at least what they get will be their own, and not the American style, which they don't want and above all don't want crammed down their throats by Americans."

The writer William Shirer is quoted as saying:

"For the last fifty years we've been supporting right-wing governments, and that is a puzzlement to me...I don't understand what there is in the American character...that almost automatically, even when we have a liberal President, we support fascist dictatorships or are tolerant towards them."

The liberal columnist Richard Cohen is similarly befuddled:

" I dream that someday the United States will be on the side of the peasants in some civil war. I dream that we will be the ones who will help the poor overthrow the rich, who will talk about land reform and education and health facilities for everyone, and that when the Red Cross or Amnesty International comes to count the bodies and take the testimony of women raped, that our side won't be the heavies.

The US government is usually on the wrong side against the poor and downtrodden, because the wrong side is the right side, given the class interests upon which the [US] policy is fixed.

Just as the power of the feudal aristocracy had to be broken in order for capitalism to emerge fully, so must imperialism and capitalism in Third World nations be overcome if a new system is to prevail.

— Michael Parenti

http://www.michaelparenti.org/

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