Michael Parenti

Education and early life

Michael Parenti was born on September 30, 1933, to an Italian-American working-class family in the East Harlem neighborhood of New York City.{{cite book |chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/contrarynotionsm0000pare/page/403

Career

Following completion of his doctorate, Parenti taught political and social science at various institutions of higher learning, including the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (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 severely clubbed by state troopers and then held in a jail cell for two days. 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. The next month he returned to Illinois to stand trial before a judge. According to Parenti, despite multiple witnesses offering exonerating testimony, the judge found him guilty on all three counts:

This incident effectively ended Parenti's career as a professor. In December 1971, after his UVM department voted unanimously to renew his teaching contract, the UVM board of trustees and conservative state legislators intervened and voted to let his contract expire, citing Parenti's "unprofessional conduct." The battle over his continued presence on the UVM faculty lasted into early 1972, but ultimately he lost his position there.{{cite news |last=Polumbaum |first=Judy |date=25 March 1979 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060105011444/http://www.uvm.edu/~wmiller/uvmprofs.htm |archive-date=2006-01-05 }}

In subsequent years, he was unable to obtain another non-temporary teaching job. He learned from sympathetic associates at the colleges he applied to that he was being rejected for his leftist views and political activism. He chronicles this period of his life in the essay, "Struggles in Academe: A Personal Account", published in Dirty Truths. He discusses the broader question of political orthodoxy in U.S. higher education in "The Empire in Academia" chapter of his 1995 book, Against Empire.{{cite book Because he couldn't earn a steady livelihood as a professor, Parenti began to devote 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 finished in third place with 7.1% of the vote.{{cite book |url-access=registration

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

He served for 12 years as a judge for Project Censored. He also was 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.{{cite web |access-date=January 2, 2008

In his book To Kill a Nation: The Attack on Yugoslavia (2001), Parenti decried what he considered the demonization by Western leaders of Slobodan Milošević and his Serbian Socialist Party. Parenti wrote that contrary to Western media assertions about an official policy of ethnic cleansing, Serbia had long been the most ethnically diverse region in Yugoslavia (with 200,000 Muslims living in Belgrade), and that NATO engaged in "hypocritical humanitarianism" as a pretext for military intervention and the privatization of Serbia's public sector economy. In 2003, Parenti became Chairman of the U.S. National Section of the International Committee to Defend Slobodan Milošević (ICDSM). The committee was formed to urge an end to the war crimes trial of Milošević that commenced in 2002 at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in The Hague.

Personal life and death

In the last decades of his life, he made his home in Berkeley, California. He was the father of Christian Parenti, an academic, author and journalist.

Parenti died at his home in Berkeley on January 24, 2026, at the age of 92.

Works

Accusations of Bosnian genocide denial

Historian Marko Attila Hoare wrote that To Kill a Nation was "simply an outright apologia for Milošević and his regime. Period...", stating that Milošević himself had written the book's foreword. Hoare described the book as "simply worthless", stating that Parenti had mistakenly called the pre-1991 Yugoslavia the FRY (Federal Republic of Yugoslavia), despite it actually being named the SFRY (Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia), and criticized Parenti's sources as citing "the same or other similar authors in support of the same set of allegations, creating a closed circle of mutually supporting references that substitute for any genuine documentation or historical enquiry."

According to David Walls, writing in New Politics, in Project Censored's 2000 volume, Parenti denied reports of genocide and mass rapes committed in Bosnia, writing: "Hyperbolic labeling takes the place of evidence: "genocide," "mass atrocities," "systematic rapes," and even "rape camps" - camps which no one has ever located."

The Congress of North American Bosniaks (CNAB) and the Balkan Witness website characterized Parenti's views as Bosnian genocide denial. In 2012, after the San Jose Peace and Justice Center invited Parenti as a guest speaker, the CNAB published an open letter criticizing the Center's decision and stating that Parenti denied genocide and ethnic cleansing occurred in Bosnia and Herzegovina, as well as "publicly disregard[ing] that approximately 50,000 Bosniak women were raped" during the war. According to Balkan Witness, Parenti minimized the number of Muslims murdered in the Srebrenica massacre and, after Bosnian supporters in 24 countries wrote over 500 letters to the peace group, Parenti's speech was cancelled. In 2013, the Institute for the Research of Genocide, Canada criticized Lone Star College's decision to have Parenti appear at a speaking engagement, characterizing his views as genocide denial.

Summaries of published work

The first notable book in Parenti's writing career was Democracy for the Few. Originally published in 1974, it has since gone through nine editions and been used as a textbook in college political science courses. Democracy for the Few contains a critical analysis of the workings of American government with particular focus on the relationship between economic power and political power.

Parenti's Inventing Reality: The Politics of the Mass Media (1986) was reviewed by multiple scholarly journals and by Michael Pollan in The New York Times. Pollan wrote: "By documenting patterns of conservative bias in a dozen major news stories in the printed and broadcast press, Inventing Reality provides a valuable rebuttal to the drumbeat of criticism of the news media from the right. Unfortunately, Mr. Parenti is so simplistic and doctrinaire in accounting for this bias that he makes his book easy to dismiss." The reviewer went on to note how the author "paints the press in such broad, Marxist strokes that he ignores many details. He cannot, for example, adequately account for episodes of courage and independence, as during Vietnam and Watergate." In a response to the review published as a Letter to the Editor, Parenti challenged Pollan's negative assessment.

Parenti continued his exploration of mass media in Make-Believe Media: The Politics of Entertainment (1992).{{Cite journal |last=Coleman, Jr. |first=William E. |date=Spring 1992

Along with his interest in mass media's role in society, Parenti regularly published articles and books on cultural matters, e.g., "Reflections on the Politics of Culture", in which he agrees with Antonio Gramsci that culture "is largely reflective of existing hegemonic arrangements within the social order, strongly favoring some interests over others."{{cite web

In a Los Angeles Times review, political commentator Kevin Phillips dismissed Parenti's The Sword and the Dollar: Imperialism, Revolution and the Arms Race (1989) as a Marxist polemic, "albeit flavored with scholarship and sprinkled with footnotes". Phillips faulted Parenti for a biased comparison of U.S. and Soviet imperialisms, and for citing sources that too often included "New York's Monthly Review Press, International Publishers, Progress Publishers of Moscow and the like. One has visions of gray East Bloc bookstores and Upper West Side of Manhattan coffeehouses."

Dirty Truths: Reflections on Politics, Media, Ideology, Conspiracy, Ethnic Life and Class Power (1996) contains Parenti's most wide-ranging collection of writings. Among its essays are "Fascism in a Pinstriped Suit" on the possibility of American fascism arriving subtly and gradually rather than intruding in a nightmarish "Big Brother" fashion; "Now for the Weather" on how even TV weather reports can be politicized; and "False Consciousness" on why the lower classes sometimes adopt the opinions and attitudes of the upper classes. In two essays on the JFK assassination, he breaks ranks with fellow leftists such as Noam Chomsky by giving credence to skeptics of the official government narrative. He also explores what he calls "Conspiracy Phobia on the Left".{{cite book

Parenti's provocative 1997 book Blackshirts and Reds: Rational Fascism and the Overthrow of Communism begins by examining the ideological underpinnings of European fascism in the 1920s and '30s as well as its incarnations as neofascism. He then takes the controversial position of defending the Soviet Union and other communist countries from reflexive condemnation, arguing that they featured a number of advantages over capitalist countries, e.g., by ensuring less economic inequality. He summarizes his approach in the Preface to Blackshirts and Reds: He later argues that the Soviet Union's "well-publicized deficiencies and injustices" were exacerbated by the Russian Civil War, the Nazi-led multinational invasion, and by non-military modes of capitalist intervention against the Eastern Bloc. Moreover, he claims that "pure socialists" and "left anticommunists" had failed to specify a viable alternative to the "siege socialism" implemented in the Soviet model.{{cite book

Appearances in media

Apart from video recordings of his public speaking engagements, Parenti also appeared in the 1992 documentary The Panama Deception, and in the 2004 Liberty Bound and 2013 Fall and Winter documentaries as an author and social commentator.

In July 2003, he was invited on the C-SPAN Booknotes program to discuss his latest work, The Assassination of Julius Caesar: A People's History of Ancient Rome.{{Cite journal |last1=Richards |first1=Dean |last2=Terrar |first2=Edward Toby |date=2013 |title=Review of The Assassination of Julius Caesar |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/43496951

Because of his research for the book To Kill a Nation: The Attack on Yugoslavia (2001) and his travel in the war-torn region shortly after the NATO bombing⁠, Parenti was interviewed in Boris Malagurski's documentary film The Weight of Chains (2010) and its sequel The Weight of Chains 2 (2014) about the former Yugoslavia.

New York City-based punk rock band Choking Victim uses a number of samples from Parenti's lectures in its album No Gods, No Managers. Chilean hip-hop artist Ana Tijoux features a section of one of Parenti's lectures in her song "Caluga o menta".

Bibliography

• The Anti-Communist Impulse (1969)
• Trends and Tragedies in American Foreign Policy (1971)
• Democracy for the Few (1st edition 1974, 9th edition 2010)
• Ethnic and Political Attitudes: A Depth Study of Italian Americans (1975)
• Power and the Powerless (1978)
• Inventing Reality: The Politics of the Mass Media (1st edition, 1986)
• The Sword and the Dollar: Imperialism, Revolution, and the Arms Race (1989)
• Inventing Reality: The Politics of News Media (2nd edition, 1992)
• Make-Believe Media: The Politics of Entertainment (1992)
• Land of Idols: Political Mythology in America (1993)
• Against Empire (1995)
• Dirty Truths (1996)
• Blackshirts and Reds: Rational Fascism and the Overthrow of Communism (1997)
• America Besieged (1998)
• History as Mystery (1999)
• To Kill a Nation: The Attack on Yugoslavia (2001)
• The Terrorism Trap: September 11 and Beyond (2002)
• The Assassination of Julius Caesar: A People's History of Ancient Rome (2003)
• Superpatriotism (2004)
• The Culture Struggle (2006)
• Contrary Notions: The Michael Parenti Reader (2007)
• God and His Demons (2010)
• The Face of Imperialism (2011)
• Waiting for Yesterday: Pages from a Street Kid's Life (2013)
• Profit Pathology and Other Indecencies (2015)
• Quotations From Michael Parenti (2024)

References

References

1. Marcetic, Branko. (March 3, 2021). "How Bernie Sanders, an Open Socialist, Won Burlington's Mayoral Election".
2. Parenti, Michael. (January 1, 1998). "The Increasing Relevance of Marxism". Socialism and Democracy.
3. Boggs, Carl. (June 1, 2012). "Reflections on Politics and Academia: An Interview with Michael Parenti". New Political Science.
4. Carr, Paul R.. (2011). "Does Your Vote Count?: Critical Pedagogy and Democracy". Peter Lang.
5. (January 25, 2026). "Michael Parenti".
6. Parenti, Michael. (2013). "Waiting for Yesterday: Pages from a Street Kid's Life". [[Bordighera Press]].
7. (September 24, 2008). "Michael Parenti – Scripps College in Claremont, California - The Humanities Institute".
8. (December 5, 1971). "Professor's Ouster Fought in Vermont". The New York Times.
9. "Elections Results Archive". Vermont Elections Division.
10. Zeitlin, Matthew. (13 June 2019). "Bernie's Red Vermont".
11. (July 5, 2017). "Michael Parenti on Bernie Sanders". [[YouTube]].
12. Parenti, Michael. (Spring 1983). "The State of the Discipline: One Interpretation of Everyone's Favorite Controversy". Cambridge University Press.
13. (May 24, 2015). "Michael Parenti".
14. "Political Scientist Michael Parenti to Speak at Muhlenberg". Muhlenberg College.
15. Elich, Gregory. (Winter 2002). "Review of ''To Kill a Nation''". Science & Society.
16. Parenti, Michael. (2001). "To Kill a Nation: The Attack on Yugoslavia". Verso Books.
17. (May 2000). "The Media and their Atrocities". The Michael Parenti Political Archive.
18. {{harvnb. Parenti. 2001
19. {{harvnb. Parenti. 2001
20. {{harvnb. Boggs. 2012. Parenti says in this interview: "In my book ''The Face of Imperialism'' I call it 'Privatization by Bombing.' I was in Serbia a few weeks after the 78 days of bombing and noted that only government-owned and worker-owned factories, utilities, hotels and the like were bombed. The privately owned [[Hilton Hotels & Resorts. Hilton Hotel]] and other private companies had not a scratch."
21. (1999). "The Rational Destruction of Yugoslavia". The Michael Parenti Political Archive.
22. (July 20, 2021). "ICDSM - About us".
23. (September 13, 2003). "ICDSM-US".
24. (January 31, 2018). "Christian Parenti".
25. (January 25, 2026). "Michael Parenti (1933 – 2026): The Inconvenient Public Intellectual".
26. Kadri, Janna. (January 24, 2026). "World mourns Michael Parenti, Marxist voice against Empire dies at 92". [[Monthly Review]].
27. (December 2003). "Nothing Is Left". [[Bosnian Institute]].
28. Walls, David. "Dubious Sources: How Project Censored Joined The Whitewash of Serb Atrocities".
29. (2012-05-01). "Protest letter regarding genocide denier Michael Parenti".
30. "Speech by prominent war-crimes denier Michael Parenti cancelled by U.S. peace group - May 2012".
31. (2014-09-19). "ACTION ALERT:Parenti Must Be Stopped – Institute For Research of Genocide Canada (IGC)".
32. "Democracy for the Few - 9th Edition". [[Cengage Group]].
33. The 1992 2nd edition of ''Inventing Reality'' changed the subtitle from "The Politics of the Mass Media" to "The Politics of News Media".
34. Berlet, Chip. (April 1987). "Review of ''Inventing Reality''". The Library Quarterly: Information, Community, Policy.
35. Kraus, Sidney. (Summer 1987). "Review of ''Inventing Reality''". Political Science Quarterly.
36. Taylor, Ian. (Autumn 1988). "Review of ''Inventing Reality''". The Canadian Journal of Sociology.
37. Pollan, Michael. (April 6, 1986). "Capitalist Crusaders". The New York Times.
38. (May 4, 1986). "Politics of the Press". The New York Times.
39. Parenti, Michael. (1992). "Make-Believe Media: The Politics of Entertainment". St. Martin's Press.
40. {{harvnb. Parenti. 1992
41. Bergman, Tabe. (January 1, 2019). ""Old-New" Directions in Political Communication: Taking Michael Parenti's Media Criticism as a Guide". Frontiers in Communication.
42. Puette, William J.. (1992). "Through Jaundiced Eyes: How the Media View Organized Labor". [[Cornell University]] ILR Press.
43. Alford, Matthew. (2010). "Reel Power: Hollywood Cinema and American supremacy". Pluto Press.
44. (2014). "News and Entertainment Media: Government's Big Helpers in the Selling of Counterterrorism". [[Perspectives on Terrorism]].
45. Brussat, Frederic and Mary Ann. "Superpatriotism by Michael Parenti".
46. Phillips, Kevin. (May 21, 1989). "Upsetting the Balance: ''THE SWORD AND THE DOLLAR Imperialism, Revolution and the Arms Race'' by Michael Parenti". [[Los Angeles Times]].
47. (June 11, 1989). "Dismissing Imperialism". Los Angeles Times.
48. Parenti, Michael. (1996). "Dirty Truths". City Lights Books.
49. (November 2013). "The JFK Assassination: Defending the Gangster State". michael-parenti.org.
50. (1997). "Michael Parenti Blackshirts and Reds". City Lights Books.
51. "Worker's ice pick".
52. Halpern, Max. (November 9, 2023). "A Communist Review of Michael Parenti's Blackshirts and Reds".
53. "The Michael Parenti Library". [[YouTube]].
54. (January 12, 2012). "Democracy and the pathology of wealth".
55. "Liberty Bound (2004)".
56. (December 1, 2013). "Fall and Winter".
57. (July 28, 2003). "The Assassination of Julius Caesar".
58. (May 13, 2008). "Penn & Teller: Dalai Lama and Tibet". [[YouTube]].
59. (September 12, 2019). "Stars of the Film – The Weight of Chains 2010".
60. (September 12, 2019). "Stars of the Film 2 – The Weight of Chains 2014".
61. Manner, Lauri. (June 14, 2001). "Choking Victim – No Gods / No Managers".
62. (16 April 2025). "Ana Tijoux, Hordatoj - Caluga o menta".