Michael Parenti

Dr. Michael Parenti (born 1933) is an Italian American political scientist, historian, and media critic. Parenti received his Ph.D in political science from Yale University and has taught at several universities, colleges, and other institutions. As of June 2004, he has had seventeen books and over 250 articles published. Parenti's articles have been published in scholarly publications, periodicals, and assorted news media. His works have been translated into over a dozen languages. Parenti also lectures frequently on college campuses across the nation; his talks and commentaries (e.g., Real History) are also broadcast to radio audiences across North America and worldwide.

Selected quotes

"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."

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"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."

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"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."

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"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."

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