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Michael Parenti

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Michael John Parenti
Parenti in 2012
Born (1933-09-30) September 30, 1933 (age 90)
New York City, U.S.
NationalityAmerican
Education
Occupations
Notable work
  • Democracy for the Few
  • To Kill a Nation
  • Superpatriotism
  • Blackshirts and Reds
SpouseSusan Parenti
ChildrenChristian Parenti
Awards
SchoolMarxism
Institutions
 
ThesisEthnic and Political Attitudes: A Depth Study of Italian Americans (1962)
Doctoral advisorRobert E. Lane
Main interests
Socialism · Imperialism · Political economy · Ideology

Michael John Parenti (born September 30, 1933) is an American political scientist, academic historian and cultural critic who writes on scholarly and popular subjects. He has taught at universities as well as run for political office.[1] Parenti is well known for his Marxist writings and lectures,[2][3] and is an intellectual of the American Left.[4][5]

Education and personal life[edit]

Michael Parenti was raised by an Italian-American working-class family in the East Harlem neighborhood of New York City.[6] After graduating from high school, Parenti worked for several years. Upon returning to school, he received a BA from the City College of New York, an MA from Brown University and a Ph.D. in political science from Yale University.[7] Parenti is the father of Christian Parenti, an academic, author and journalist.[8][9]

Career[edit]

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After receiving his doctorate, Parenti taught political and social science at various institutions of higher learning, including the University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana (UI). In May 1970 while he was an associate professor at UI, he participated in a rally protesting the recent Kent State shootings and ongoing Vietnam War. At the rally he was beaten by state troopers and then held in a jail cell for two days.[10] He was charged with aggravated battery (of a state trooper), disorderly conduct, and resisting arrest. After being released on bond, he started a new teaching job at the University of Vermont (UVM) in September 1970. The next month he returned to Illinois to stand trial before a judge. Despite multiple witnesses exonerating Parenti, the judge found him guilty on all three counts. Here's how he describes what happened next:

In June 1971 I returned to Illinois for sentencing. Because I was already employed outside the state and because a host of academic lights from around the country had sent in appeals on my behalf, I was saved from having to do time. Instead, I was given two years probation, a fine, and ordered to pay court costs.[11]

This incident effectively ended Parenti's career as a professor. In early 1972, after his UVM department voted unanimously to renew his teaching contract, the UVM board of trustees and conservative state legislators interceded and voted to not renew, citing Parenti's "unprofessional conduct." In subsequent years, he was unable to obtain a regular teaching position. He learned from sympathetic associates at the colleges he applied to that he was being rejected for leftist views and political activism. He chronicles this period in his life in the essay, "Struggles in Academe: A Personal Account".[12] He discusses the wider question of enforcing political orthodoxy in US higher education in "The Empire in Academia" chapter of his 1995 book, Against Empire.[13] Due to his blacklisting as a professor, Parenti eventually devoted himself full-time to writing, public speaking, and politics.

In 1974, he ran for the U.S. House of Representatives in Vermont as the candidate of the democratic socialist Liberty Union Party; he came in third place, with 7.1% of the vote.[14][15] Parenti was once a friend of Bernie Sanders, but he later split with Sanders over Sanders's support for the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia.[16][17]

Parenti's book Democracy for the Few, first published in 1974 but which has since gone through nine editions, contained a critical analysis of American government with particular focus on the relationship between economic power and political power.[citation needed] His book Blackshirts and Reds defended the Soviet Union and communist states of the 20th century from criticism, arguing that they were morally superior compared to capitalist states, that the problems of the Soviet Union were caused by the Russian Civil War and capitalist interference, and that "Left anti-Communist" and "pure socialist" critics failed to offer any alternatives to the Soviet Union's "siege socialism".[18]

In the 1980s, he was a visiting fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington, D.C.[19] In 2003, the Caucus for a New Political Science gave him a Career Achievement Award.[7] In 2007, he received a Certificate of Special Congressional Recognition from U.S. Representative Barbara Lee.[7]

He served for 12 years as a judge for Project Censored.[20] He also is on the advisory boards of Independent Progressive Politics Network and Education Without Borders as well as the advisory editorial boards of New Political Science and Nature, Society and Thought.[21][22]

Appearances in media[edit]

Apart from several recordings of some of his public speeches, Parenti has also appeared in the 1992 documentary The Panama Deception, the 2004 Liberty Bound[23] and 2013 Fall and Winter documentaries[24] as an author and social commentator.

Parenti was interviewed in Boris Malagurski's documentary film The Weight of Chains 2 (2014) about the former Yugoslavia.[25] He was also interviewed for two episodes of the Showtime series Penn & Teller: Bullshit!, speaking briefly about the Dalai Lama (Episode 305 – Holier Than Thou)[26] and patriotism (Episode 508 – Mount Rushmore).[citation needed]

New York City-based punk rock band Choking Victim use a number of samples from Michael Parenti's lectures in their album No Gods, No Managers.[27]

Books[edit]

  • The Anti-Communist Impulse (1969) LCCN 72-85615
  • Trends and Tragedies in American Foreign Policy (1971) LCCN 74-161844
  • Ethnic and Political Attitudes: A Depth Study of Italian Americans (1975) ISBN 9780405064135
  • Power and the Powerless (1978) ISBN 9780312633738
  • The Sword and the Dollar: Imperialism Revolution and the Arms Race (1989) ISBN 9780312011673
  • Make-Believe Media: The Politics of Entertainment (1992) ISBN 9780312058944
  • Land of Idols: Political Mythology in America (1993) ISBN 9780312098414
  • Inventing Reality: The Politics of News Media (2nd edition, 1993) ISBN 9781471731822
  • Against Empire (1995) ISBN 9780872862982
  • Dirty Truths (1996) ISBN 9780872863170
  • Blackshirts and Reds: Rational Fascism and the Overthrow of Communism (1997) ISBN 9780872863293
  • America Besieged (1998) ISBN 9780872863385
  • History as Mystery (1999) ISBN 9780872863576
  • To Kill a Nation: The Attack on Yugoslavia (2001) ISBN 9781859843666
  • The Terrorism Trap (2002) ISBN 9780872864054
  • The Assassination of Julius Caesar: A People's History of Ancient Rome (2003) ISBN 9781565849426
  • Superpatriotism (2004) ISBN 9780872864337
  • The Culture Struggle (2006) ISBN 9781471610721
  • Contrary Notions: The Michael Parenti Reader (2007) ISBN 9780872864825
  • Democracy for the Few (9th edition, 2010) ISBN 9780495911265
  • God and His Demons (2010) ISBN 9781616141776
  • The Face of Imperialism: Responsibility-Taking in the Political World (2011) ISBN 9781594519185
  • Waiting for Yesterday: Pages from a Street Kid's Life (2013) ISBN 9781599540580
  • Profit Pathology and Other Indecencies (2015) ISBN 9781612056623

See also[edit]

Notes[edit]

References[edit]

  1. ^ "How Bernie Sanders, an Open Socialist, Won Burlington's Mayoral Election". jacobinmag.com. Retrieved January 8, 2022.
  2. ^ Parenti, Michael (January 1, 1998). "The Increasing Relevance of Marxism". Socialism and Democracy. 12 (1): 115–121. doi:10.1080/08854309808428215. ISSN 0885-4300.
  3. ^ Boggs, Carl (June 1, 2012). "Reflections on Politics and Academia: An Interview with Michael Parenti". New Political Science. 34 (2): 228–236. doi:10.1080/07393148.2012.676401. ISSN 0739-3148. S2CID 147258248.
  4. ^ Lattin, Don (April 5, 2010). "Review: 'God and His Demons,' by Michael Parenti". SFGATE. Retrieved January 8, 2022.
  5. ^ Carr, Paul R. (2011). Does Your Vote Count?: Critical Pedagogy and Democracy. Peter Lang. p. 274. ISBN 978-1-4331-0813-6.
  6. ^ Parenti, Michael (August 2007). "La Famiglia: An Ethno-Class Experience". Contrary Notions: The Michael Parenti Reader. City Lights Books. p. 149. ISBN 978-0-87286-482-5.
  7. ^ a b c "Michael Parenti – The Humanities Institute – The Humanities Institute". Scripps CollegeScripps College. April 17, 2018. Retrieved January 13, 2022.
  8. ^ Bergman, Tabe (January 1, 2019). ""Old-New" Directions in Political Communication: Taking Michael Parenti's Media Criticism as a Guide". Frontiers in Communication. 4. doi:10.3389/fcomm.2019.00023. ISSN 2297-900X.
  9. ^ "Christian Parenti". John Jay College of Criminal Justice. January 31, 2018. Retrieved December 12, 2019.
  10. ^ Dirty Truths. City Lights Publishers. 1996. pp. 238–240. ISBN 978-0-87286-317-0.
  11. ^ Dirty Truths. City Lights Publishers. 1996. pp. 245–246. ISBN 978-0-87286-317-0.
  12. ^ "Struggles in Academe: A Personal Account". Dirty Truths. City Lights Publishers. 1996. ISBN 978-0-87286-317-0.
  13. ^ "The Empire in Academia". Against Empire. City Lights Publishers. 1995. ISBN 978-0-87286-861-8.
  14. ^ "Elections Results Archive". VT Elections Database.
  15. ^ Sanders, Bernie (1997). "You Have to Begin Somewhere". Outsider in the House.
  16. ^ Zeitlin, Matthew (June 13, 2019). "Bernie's Red Vermont". The New Republic. Retrieved October 5, 2021.
  17. ^ Archived at Ghostarchive and the Wayback Machine: "Michael Parenti on Bernie Sanders". YouTube.
  18. ^ "Worker's ice pick". The Anarchist Library. Retrieved July 3, 2023.
  19. ^ Parenti, Michael (September 2, 2013). "The State of the Discipline: One Interpretation of Everyone's Favorite Controversy – PS: Political Science & Politics". PS: Political Science & Politics. 16 (2): 189–196. doi:10.1017/S1049096500015043. ISSN 1537-5935. S2CID 155444644. Retrieved January 13, 2022.
  20. ^ "Michael Parenti". Project Censored. May 24, 2015. Retrieved January 13, 2022.
  21. ^ Parenti, Michael. "The Michael Parenti Political Archive". Retrieved January 2, 2008.
  22. ^ "Political Scientist Michael Parenti To Speak At Muhlenberg". Muhlenberg College. Retrieved August 8, 2023.
  23. ^ "Liberty Bound (2004)". BFI. Archived from the original on January 13, 2022. Retrieved January 13, 2022.
  24. ^ "Fall and Winter on iTunes". iTunes. December 1, 2013. Retrieved January 13, 2022.
  25. ^ "The Stars of the Film – The Weight of Chains 2010 – - Boris Malagurski films". The Weight of Chains. September 18, 2019. Retrieved January 13, 2022.
  26. ^ "Michael Parenti on Penn & Teller: Bullshit! (2005)". youtube.com.
  27. ^ Manner, Lauri (June 14, 2001). "Choking Victim – No Gods / No Managers". Punknews.org. Retrieved January 13, 2022.

External links[edit]

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