cod.edu College of DuPage, Writers Read, Heart of Darkness Series - "The Darker Myths of Empire" Michael Parenti Jason Snart, SRC 2800, November 16, 2005
Kwame Nkrumah, president of Ghana from 1960 to 1966, is credited with coining the term, which appeared in the 1963 preamble of the Organization of African Unity Charter, and was the title of his 1965 book, Neo-Colonialism, the Last Stage of Imperialism
I heard about Parenti not so long ago and I'm currently reading his book 'A People's History of Ancient Rome'. It's very accessible, sharp and good use of language, and manages to be completely on point in its anticapitalist and antiimperialist methodology. Great, great work, I see a long road of Parenti-reading ahead of me!
I've been searching a while now to find a political speaker as interesting to listen to as Parenti. Chomsky can really go off on a topic. Otherwise, I've found few others. Thanks!
Wouldn't be a Michael Parenti speech without frequent interruptions to complain about the mic and the speakers, even though there's never anything wrong with them.
Napoleon complex. He is not doing that to check audio, he is punctuating with a stop-check in that of drawing attention to himself. Less of a ‘complain’, and more of an absorb me. The _pattern interrupt_ serves into an assured attention draw.
1:05:20 this reminds me of my mom. Loves her crime shows but it’s made her feel like she is surrounded by crime. I have to remind her that we actually live in a pretty safe neighborhood and to relax a lil. this was a great talk.
Wonderful piece of thought. Very dynamic and yet precise. The only thing I noticed so far is that Michael left out Tacidus when he spoke of Calgacus. Correct me if I'm wrong.
It's true: every time Parenti speaks at colleges or gives general lectures, he struggles fiercely with the entire sound system, not just the microphone. It's absolutely hilarious.
If the movement to stop the Viet Nam war is considered as having moved an imperial power to change, it certainly had an effect, but if the movement won a victory over the policies of the Empire, it was a Pyrrhic victory, because the response to it, and the civil rights movement, was Nixon starting the drug war. Once enough time had passed to get the Viet nam vets acclimated to civil authority and integrated back in to society with enough social and economic interest vested in it, Regan poured out the propaganda and hatred making it the number one menace to society, and pushed Congress to fund an internal civil-soldier "police action" against the population. The drive in theater down the road from my fathers property use to have weekend long parties that had live music during the day and played biker movies, on the big screen for the hundreds of bikers that I'd watch ride past on their choppers all day, mostly in groups of 10 or 20, with one that had over sixty bikes that first sounded what I imagined the rumbling of tanks would sound like. There was a "Head Shop" set up inside selling their wares, and the smell weed burning filled the air. I was only 14 when I went down to sneak in the drive-in for the first time, but walked right in with some people that I met that were parked among cars on the sides of the half mile long stretch of road from my fathers property. I saw a State Police car and questioned one of the people I met when we stopped just in side the entrance where they were talking and smoking a joint, "weren't they were worried about the cops", with there being a cop that had a clear line of sight to us right outside the entrance of the drive-in? I remember that guy telling me with the certainty and conviction "the police would never come in here" that I will never forget. This was in 1972 or 73. Decades later, when I was thinking how different it was then, I couldn't imagine any event like that happening today. I remember one night when I was 18 or 19, after finishing the keg of beer at one of many keg parties we use have at spot along one of Pittsburgh's three rivers, some of us ended up at a house rented by three of the local vets, where I was shown pictures of these guys posing with their trophies, that consisted of ears on a strings, severed heads held by their hair, and an assortment of other mutilated treasure mixed in with the more mundane pictures of them in their environment. They were among the many local vets that went over on the buddy plan. Vets returning from the the middle east are first on the list of people posing a potential threat to government officials/force. Preemptive war and the police state that exists today can be found in the preemptive nature of the drug war, and what was the excuse to be in Viet Nam, preemptive war to stop the spread of communism. After the Pentagon Papers came out, Watergate, and what was revealed in the Church Commission Report, it was the duty of the public in America to rout out every remnant of imperialism, the CIA should have been liquidated, the Army decommissioned, Nixon arrested, along with everyone responsible for the war crimes committed by Americans. Americans didn't have the moral courage to oust traitors whose criminal acts were more pernicious to the country, and the enormity of how many, to so many, of such severity that all the crimes and all the harm of all the people ever in prison or jail in America, is so many more magnitudes worse it beggers the imagination to quantify the evil of killing so many millions of people. An injustice of of such proportion the had done more to criminals that had committed more
hadn't finished the prior post. The Injustice that was done and the further injustice of americans doing nothing about it, is a cost that has yet to be paid. The indifference to the evil, and the price for letting it remain seeds the inevitability of destruction. The indifference of americans for the deaths of millions in the middle east, and the ongoing naked campaign off terror to pacify the indigenous population and any potential leader opposing americas occupation with a relentless threat of being killed at any moment that never stops and Americans pretend what couldn't be anything else, is something different than what is. When, or as the empire collapses the same forces that are killing them over there will show the same indifference to killing americans here, and they too will believe lies, that what they are doing here, is something other than what they are really doing. As ye sew, so shall ye reap. It would be hard to find another example where applying that ancient proverb would be more appropriate than to america today.
If you're still around...I'd love to hear more about the drive in and any other pertinent memories of Pittsburgh(my hometown) you may have from the era.
1:21 When it is asked, and he says workers in the defense industries are possibly bought off by higher wages is TRUE. I have known workers who know they are voting against their own best (people) interests, but thought it necessary to vote conservative to keep the defense and space (NASA) dollars coming to their workplace. Very Very true.
at the 57:00 ish mark i tihnk the person meant what can we physically do? PArenti like most leftists is a person that engages in intellectual action. Not everyone can talk like that or has the patience to go on like that. Some of us just wanna get dirt under our fingernails as we fight for our way of life. I think that's what the person meant as I do.
7:31....... Heard it so rarely, thanks for...well, a mere remark, so obvious...and Everybody knows (those who don`t ...do too, unless they are mentally severely disabled. ) Quote (by John Marley, English writer and political leader, talking about the British Empire, 1877 ) : "We have had imposed upon us by the unlucky prose of our ancestors the task .of ruling millions of alien dependants...We undertake it with a disinterestedness and execute it with a skill of administration , to which history supplies no parallel..." Quote: Parenti: "...millions of alien dependants?!...Who made them dependants??!!!.. They did not ask to be made dependants on the British!!!... .THEY WERE BRUTALLY CONQUERED BY THE BRITISH...They were independants--------until the British came along!!! You did not inherit them...you went out ...and GOT this whole "thing"....and it was not undertaken with a disinterestedness!!! " ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- A fine, straightforward, factual, just straighten things out... AND I HIGHLY RECOMMEND TO LISTEN TO THE WHOLE SPEECH!!
I keep seeing people make statements like this yet I have a difficult time finding much that they disagree on with without resorting to misquoting or taking one or both outta context. I'm pretty familiar with both and heard what they've had to say about each other and more often than not it's quoting or otherwise citing the other. The area of disagreement is small from what I've seen and the agreements are wide so a conversation between the two would be far more likely to resort in a better understanding and maybe an adjustment of positions instead of a "creaming" lmao Idk why anyone would want that anyway. It's like we just love slitting our own throats and trampling each other instead of trying to come to a common ground and a better understanding on the 1-2% we disagree on in order to face down the massive obstacles we face to defeat capitalism and the bourgeois state and their reactionary ideologies. But sure 👏👏👏
This is enlightening but, I am a sound engineer: Don't touch the damn microphone grrrrrrrr... That's okay, I don't have to watch I can listen and learn.
The guy is a genius no doubt. I just have one objection. The modern use of the word Imperialism. This word stands out in my mind as a uniform distinction set apart from capitalism. Yet in most modern lectures the word is used in conjunction with capitalism in order to define its limitations. I would argue that capitalism was at some certain point in time injected into imperialism. Capitalism took over from within and there is now nothing left of what actual imperialism was. Imperialism in its pure form was a time in which people sought refuge from the horrible reality of foriegn invasion and enslavement. What we see today is a world in which the most monetary affluent individuals rule the masses through purely trade values. Not even Rome or Britain can be compared to the origins of imperialism, nor what it was designed to accomplish. Setting this distinction between the two, we can see communism as injecting into capitalism and the obviousness of the end of the era of capitalism. Failing to set this distinction, we are left with the idea that if we can just eliminate the bad king and or queen, capitalism will work its own way into communism, which is not at all the case. Obviously, state capitalism as a corrupt form of communism might occur without clear definitives.
Uncomfortable fact: The ONLY reason reason and objectivity is objectively better than subjectivity and delusion, is because of the power that reason grants through science and technology. At the deepest level might, does in ironic fact, make right. I don't see a way around that. This is important for his comments around 17:00 since he implies that power doesn't grant rights. But I think there's a solid argument that yes it does. Certainly by definition it implies abilities, and don't they in turn ethically at least imply responsibilities? And again ethically aren't rights always included with responsibilities? Seems like there is a deep logical problem here somewhere. And if it's my problem I'd love to know exactly what and where it is.
Maybe it's just me and it's not that I disagree or maybe with me they are preaching to the choir but the speaker seems to take so long to get where he's going that I just give up and continue surfing. From what I did listen to I agree with.
I have viewed a few of Dr. Michael Parenti presentations on RU-vid, and am troubled by a man that knows so much and understands so little. An economy is like a river of cash where all come to drink, by means of their claim, be it someone on public assistance, to Bill Gates. Dr. Parenti sees an economy like a private lake where only the rich can partake. Dr. Parenti views the USSR and Mao's Peoples Republic of China as suffering from attacks from the outside as their excuse for problems experienced in evolving a "Worker's Paradise" while ignoring the Gulags and mass murder of millions of peasants and political purges, and the millions murdered by Mae. I do not understand why anyone would listen to this propagandist for the tyrants who have enslave millions of people in the name of communism. I find Dr. Parenti rambling in his presentations, and insulting in his huge leaps in logic, omissions of facts, and out right fabrications to support a twisted view of anyone who he disagrees with. He slanders everyone who has worked hard to get ahead, provided economic benefit, and contributed to mankind. For this weak minded strap-hanger who has never made a payroll or paid a dividend to a Teamsters Retirement fund, he makes me ill. He is profound, profoundly blind to reality. May he rot.
Economy is like a river we all drink. So true. Except some can pollute it all day and night and get away with it or pay minor fees. Others can be incarcerated for pissing in it or taking too much to drink. You speak about the economy as though it is part of the commons and then rail against this man who advocates for an economy that the common people can benefit from. You make the same illogical jumps you accuse him off and end your comment with an ad hoc celebration of his death. You've said nothing and contributed nothing with your foolish metaphor.
