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b808ac5
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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.
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television
nature
humanity
miltary
drugs
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Michael Parenti |
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f4590cc
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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.
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militarism
corporatism
imperialism
united-states
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Michael Parenti |
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6d6cc85
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Almost as an article of faith, some individuals believe that conspiracies are either kooky fantasies or unimportant aberrations. To be sure, wacko conspiracy theories do exist. There are people who believe that the United States has been invaded by a secret United Nations army equipped with black helicopters, or that the country is secretly controlled by Jews or gays or feminists or black nationalists or communists or extraterrestrial alien..
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conspiracy-theorists
conspiracy-theories
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Michael Parenti |
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f343db2
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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.
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corporate-america
corporatism
government-spending
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Michael Parenti |
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b5ad567
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The Italian neofascists were learning from the U.S. reactionaries how to achieve fascism's class goals within the confines of quasi-democratic forms: use an upbeat, Reaganesque optimism; replace the jackbooted militarists with media-hyped crowd pleasers; convince people that government is the enemy - especially its social service sector - while strengthening the repressive capacities of the state; instigate racist hostility and antagonisms ..
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warning
trump
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Michael Parenti |
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9b45b0c
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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 pric..
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socialism
competition
class
class-struggle
capitalism
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Michael Parenti |
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c14f456
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A]ny 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 expose of the -people's history that has prevailed among generations of mainstream historians. It should be a critical history about a people's , those who propagated an elitist ideology and a loathing of the ..
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people-s-history
peoples-history
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Michael Parenti |
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06ad708
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It has long been presumed that the diversity of constitutional forms makes for an optimal result. In reality, it creates a system of impediments that makes popular reform nearly impossible. As with Polybius and Cicero, so with Aristotle, and so with the framers of the United States Constitution in 1787 . . .--all have been mindful of the leveling threats of democratic forces and the need for a constitutional "mix" that allows only limited ..
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democracy
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Michael Parenti |
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40413fc
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I]t is the powerful who write the laws of the world-- and the powerful who ignore these laws when expediency dictates.
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nato-bombing
war-crimes
yugoslavia
imperialism
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Michael Parenti |
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05db1d3
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Profits are what you make when not working.
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Michael Parenti |
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6374fac
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The trick is to steal big.
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Michael Parenti |
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0552002
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One mechanism of repression is the grand jury.
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Michael Parenti |
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da7e006
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There is a century-old saying, "The dollar votes more times than the man."
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Michael Parenti |
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a735860
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The peculiar danger of executive power is that it executes.
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Michael Parenti |
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148ab22
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The dirty truth is that the rich are the great cause of poverty.
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Michael Parenti |
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13d14b1
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The dirty truth is that many people find fascism to be not particularly horrible.
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Michael Parenti |
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03ccd2a
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The media have been tireless in their efforts to suppress the truth about the gangster state.
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Michael Parenti |
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b205520
|
When change threatens to rule, then the rules are changed.
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Michael Parenti |