CONTRARY NOTIONS
The Michael Parenti Reader
CITY LIGHTS BOOKS
SAN FRANCISCO
Copyright © 2007 by Michael Parenti
Cover design: Pollen
Text design: Gambrinus
Front cover photo by: Willa Madden
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Parenti, Michael, 1933-
Contrary notions: the Michael Parenti reader.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN-13: 978-0-87286-482-5
ISBN-10: 0-87286-482-0
1. United States—Social conditions—1980- 2. United States—Politics and government. 3. World politics—19894. Social history—1970- 5. Capitalism. I. Title.
HN59.2.P382 2007
973.92—dc22
2006101941
City Lights Books are published at the City Lights Bookstore, 261 Columbus Avenue, San Francisco, CA 94133.
Visit our Web site: www.citylights.com
CONTENTS
Introduction
I. THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS
1. Media Moments
2. Liberal Media Yet to Be Found
3. Methods of Media Manipulation
4. Objectivity and the Dominant Paradigm
5. Repression in Academia
II. STEALING OUR BIRTHRIGHT
6. The Stolen Presidential Elections
7. How the Free Market Killed New Orleans
8. Conservative Judicial Activism
9. Why the Corporate Rich Oppose Environmentalism
10. Autos and Atoms
11. What Is to Be Done?
III. LIFESTYLES AND OTHER PEOPLE
12. Racist Rule, Then and Now
13. Custom Against Women
14. Are Heterosexuals Worthy of Marriage?
15. That’s Italian? Another Ethnic Stereotype
IV. ROOTS
16. La Famiglia: An Ethno-Class Experience
17. Bread Story: The Blessings of Private Enterprise
18. My Strange Values
V. A GUIDE TO CONCEPTS AND ISMS
19. Technology and Money: The Myth of Neutrality
20. False Consciousness
21. Left, Right, and the “Extreme Moderates”
22. State vs. Government
23. Democracy vs. Capitalism
24. Socialism Today?
VI. MONEY, CLASS, AND CULTURE
25. Capital and Labor, an Old Story
26. Wealth, Addiction, and Poverty
27. Monopoly Culture and Social Legitimacy
28. The Flight from Class
VII. DOING THE WORLD
29. Imperialism for Beginners
30. The Free Market Paradise Liberates Communist Europe
31. The Rational Destruction of Yugoslavia
32. To Kill Iraq
33. Good Things Happening in Venezuela
34. A Word about Terrorists
VIII. THE REST IS HISTORY
35. Dominant History
36. Fascism, the Real Story
37. The Cold War is an Old War
38. The People as “Rabble” and “Mob”
Index
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
My heartfelt thanks to Jenny Tayloe, Peter Livingston, and Elizabeth Valente for the assistance they rendered in the preparation of this book. A special word of thanks to my editor Gregory Ruggiero who first presented me with the idea for this reader, and persisted until I agreed to do it.
INTRODUCTION
Contained herein are the contrary notions, the critical analysis that is so grandly ignored or viciously misrepresented by many persons from across the political spectrum—left, right, and center. To some readers my efforts might appear one-sided, but if it is true that we need to hear all sides and not just the prevailing conventional opinion, then all the more reason why the reflections and analysis presented in this book deserve reasoned attention.
It is not demanded of readers that they embrace my views but that they reflect upon their own. How seldom we bother to explore in some critical fashion the fundamental preconceptions that shape our understanding of social and political life. How frequently, as if by reflex rather than reflection, we respond to certain cues and incantations, resisting any incongruous notion. Our opinions shelter and support us; it is an excruciating effort to submit them to reappraisal. Yet if we are to maintain some pretense at being rational creatures we must risk the discomfiture that comes with questioning the unquestionable, and try to transcend our tendencies toward mental confinement.
My intent is to proffer contrary notions, that is, critical ways of thinking about socio-political reality that will remain useful to the reader long after many of the particulars herein have slipped from his or her recall. What you are about to dip into are readings from various works of mine, from across some forty years and covering a wide range of subjects, including culture, ideology, media, environment, lifestyle, gender, race, ethnicity, wealth, class power, public policy, political life, technology, empire, history, and historiography, along with a few selections drawn directly from my personal life. Almost all these entries have been revised, expanded, updated, and, I like to think, improved. A few have never before been published. A few other selections are from publications or books of mine that are out of print and not easily accessible. This volume presents a varied sampling of my work without trying to represent every chronological phase or every subject I have ever treated.
Most of the writing herein is anchored in extensive research and is concerned with ideas and analyses that go beyond the issues of the day. I am of the opinion that there does not have to be an unbridgeable gap between scholars and lay readers. One can write in an accessible and pleasant style while dealing with complex concepts and constructs. To write clearly and understandably does not mean one is being simple or superficial. The converse is also true: to write in a dense, dull, or convoluted manner (as one is trained to do in academia) does not mean that one is being profound and insightful.
I decided not to include any of the many letters and book reviews I have published in newspapers, magazines, and journals, nor the polemical exchanges, rebuttals, and rejoinders I allowed myself to be drawn into, nor the numerous interviews I gave that have found their way into print. Letters, reviews, and interviews can provide food for thought, I think, but in a form that seems too fragmented and off-the-cuff for this volume. (For further information about me and my talks and writings, see www.michaelparenti.org.)
I hope the reader’s experience with this book will be not only informational but conceptual and maybe even occasionally enlightening. Everything on the pages that follow is meant to cast light on larger sets of social relations. In one way or another, everything herein is meant to engage our concerns about social justice and human well-being. The struggle against plutocracy and the striving for peace and democracy are forever reborn. Along with the many defeats and deceits produced in this age of reactionary resurgence, there have been some worthwhile victories. And although we are here only for a limited time, I like to think that this is not true of the world itself.
—Michael Parenti
I.
THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS
1 MEDIA MOMENTS
For some time now I have been suffering from what I call “media moments.” We all have heard of “senior moments,” a term used mostly by people of mature years who suddenly experience a lapse in recall. The mind goes blank and the individual complains, “I’m having a senior moment.” A media moment is a little different. It happens when you are reading or hearing what passes for the news. You are appalled and frustrated by the conservative bias, the evasions, the non sequiturs, and
the outright disinformation. Your mind does not go blank; you simply wish it would.
I recall one media moment I experienced while listening to the BBC news. Now the BBC supposedly provides coverage superior to what is heard on U.S. mainstream media. It occasionally runs stories on European and Third World countries that are not likely to be carried by U.S. news sources. And BBC reporters ask confrontational questions of the personages they interview, applying a critical edge rarely shown by U.S. journalists. But the truth is, when it comes to addressing the fundamental questions of economic power, corporate dominance, and Western globalization, BBC journalists and commentators are as careful as their American counterparts not to venture beyond the parameters of permissible opinion.
The BBC newscast segment that gave me my media moment was a special report on asthma, of all things. It began by noting that the number of asthma sufferers has been increasing at the alarming rate of 50 percent each decade. “Scientists are puzzled,” for there is “no easy explanation,” the narrator told us. One factor is “genetic predisposition,” he said. We then heard from a British scientist who said, yes, there is definitely a hereditary factor behind asthma; it tends to run in families. Sure, I said to myself, asthma is increasing by 50 percent a decade because people with a genetic tendency toward the disease are becoming more sexually active and procreative than everyone else. I felt a media moment coming on.
There are other contributing factors to the asthma epidemic, the narrator continued, for instance “lifestyle.” He interviewed another scientist who confirmed this “scientific finding.” People are keeping cleaner homes, using air conditioning, and in general creating a more antiseptic lifestyle for themselves, the scientist said. This means they do not get enough exposure to pollen, dust, and dirt the way people did in the good old days. Hence, they fail to build up a proper defense to such irritants.
These comments made me think back to my younger years when I lived next to a construction site that deposited daily clouds of dust over my abode for months on end. Rather than building up a hardy resistance, I developed an acute sensitivity to dust and mold that has stayed with me to this day. Does exposure to a toxic environment really make us stronger? Looking at the evidence on cancer, lung diseases, and various occupational ailments, we would have to conclude that exposure does not inoculate us; rather it seems to suppress or overload our immune systems, leaving us more vulnerable, not less.
The BBC report on asthma then took us to India for some actualité. A young man suffering from the disease was speaking in a rasping voice, telling of his affliction. This was accompanied by the squishing sound of a hand-held respirator. The victim said he had no money for medication. The narrator concluded that the disease persists among the poor in such great numbers because they cannot afford medical treatment. Yes, I said to myself, but this doesn’t tell us what causes so much asthma among the poor to begin with.
Another “expert” was interviewed. He said that in India, as in most of the world, asthma is found in greatest abundance in the congested cities, less so in the suburbs, and still less in the countryside. No explanation was given for this, but by then I could figure it out for myself: the inner-city slum dwellers of Calcutta enjoy too antiseptic a lifestyle; too much air-conditioning and cleanliness has deprived them of the chance to challenge and strengthen their immune systems—unlike their country cousins who have all that pollen and earthy dust to breathe and who thereby build up a natural resistance. At this point I could feel the media moment drawing ever closer.
The BBC report makes no mention of how neoliberal “free market” policies have driven people off the land, causing an explosion in slum populations throughout the world. These impoverished urban areas produce the highest asthma rates. And the report says nothing about how, as cigarette markets in the West become saturated, the tobacco companies vigorously pursue new promotional drives in Asia, Africa, and Latin America, leading to a dramatic climb in Third World smoking rates, which certainly does not help anyone’s respiratory system.
Finally the BBC narrator mentioned pollution. He said it “may” be a factor, but more study is needed. May? More study? In any case, he asked, “Is pollution really a cause or is it merely a trigger?” He seemed to be leaning toward “trigger,” although by then I was having trouble seeing the difference. The media moment had come upon me full force. I began talking back at my radio, posing such cogent and measured comments as “You jackass, flunky, BBC announcer!”
Media apologists like to point out that journalists face severe constraints of time and space, and must necessarily reduce complex realities into brief reports; hence, issues are conflated, and omissions and oversights are inevitable. But this BBC report went on for some ten minutes, quite a long time by newscast standards. There would have been enough time to mention how the destruction of rain forests and the dramatic increase in industrial emissions have contributed to an alarming CO2 buildup and a commensurate decline in the atmosphere’s oxygen content. The BBC could have told us how the oil cartels have kept us hooked on fossil fuel, while refusing to develop nonpolluting, inexpensive tidal, wind, thermal, and solar energy systems.
And there would have been ample opportunity to say something about how the use of automobiles has skyrocketed throughout the entire world, causing severe damage to air quality, especially in cities. One study found that children who live within 250 feet of busy roads had a 50 percent higher risk of developing asthma than those who do not.1 The asthma risk decreased to “normal” for children living about 600 feet or more away from a busy road. The researchers noted that major sources of air pollution like highways should not be the only cause for concern. Local roads also create a serious asthma hazard.
But rather than digging into the actual and less speculative causes of asthma, including the direct link to air pollution, this BBC report chose to be “balanced” and “objective” by blaming the victims, their genetic predisposition, their antiseptic lifestyles, and their inability to buy medications.
Newscasters who want to keep their careers afloat learn the fine art of evasion. We should not accuse them of doing a poor or sloppy job of reporting. If anything, with great skill they skirt around the most important points of a story. With much finesse they say a lot about very little, serving up heaps of junk news filled with so many empty calories and so few nutrients. Thus do they avoid offending those who wield politico-economic power while giving every appearance of judicious moderation and balance. It is enough to take your breath away.
2 LIBERAL MEDIA YET TO BE FOUND
It is widely believed that the corporate-owned news media suffer from a liberal bias. TV pundits and radio talk show commentators (many of whom are ultraconservatives), as well as right-wing political leaders have tirelessly propagated that belief. Meanwhile liberal critics who think otherwise, are afforded almost no exposure in the supposedly liberal media.
Consider the case of David Horowitz. When Horowitz was an outspoken left critic of U.S. domestic and foreign policies and an editor of the popular radical magazine Ramparts, the mainstream press ignored his existence. But after he and former Ramparts colleague Peter Colliers surfaced as born-again conservatives, the Washington Post Magazine gave prominent play to their “Lefties for Reagan” pronunciamento. Horowitz and Colliers soon linked up with the National Forum Foundation which dipped into deep conservative pockets and came up with munificent sums to enable the two ex-radicals to do ideological battle with the left. In short order, Horowitz, now a rightist media critic, had his own radio show and appeared with notable frequency on radio and television political talk shows to whine about how the media is monopolized by liberals.
Another example might suffice. When ABC correspondent John Stossel belatedly emerged as a laissez-faire ideologue, announcing, “it’s my job to explain the beauties of the free market,” his career took off. An ardent supporter of chemicalized agribusiness, Stossel claimed that organic food “could kill you” and catastrophic global warming is a
“myth.” He called for the privatization of Social Security, the curbing of environmental education, and the celebration of greed as a good thing for the economy. Instead of being challenged for his one-sided views, Stossel was given a seven-figure contract and a starring role in numerous TV specials.2
Then there are the many radio talk-show hosts, of whom Rush Limbaugh is only the best known, who rail against the “pinko press” on hundreds of television stations and thousands of radio stations owned by wealthy conservatives and underwritten by big business firms. To complain about how liberals dominate the media, the ultraconservative Limbaugh has an hour every day on network television and a radio show syndicated on over 600 stations. No liberal or progressive or far-left commentator enjoys anywhere near that kind of exposure.
Most toxic of all is Rupert Murdoch’s Fox News Network. Unlike the pabulum dished out by CNN and the three traditional networks, Fox News and Fox commentators are on message every hour hammering home conservative ideological points. Daily memos come down from the corporate office at Fox telling its reporters and commentators what the story of the day should be and what point of view was expected when reporting it. Fox News reportedly quizzes journalistic applicants on whether they are registered Republicans or not. Fox dismisses the idea of an ecological crisis and is scornful of environmentalists in general. It never mentioned the numbers of U.S. casualties accumulating in Iraq, believing that this would reflect unfavorably upon the war effort of George W. Bush (hereafter referred to as Bush Jr. to distinguish him from his father who was also a president). Fox News supports U.S. military interventions around the globe, the untrammeled glories of the “free market,” and just about every other reactionary cause, with a lockstep precision and persistence that is unmatched by the rest of the political spectrum.3
Religious media manifest the same imbalance of right over left. Liberal and often radically oriented Christians and their organizations lack the financial backing needed to gain serious media access. Many liberal Christians are busy doing good: relief work, community assistance, soup kitchens, and the like. Meanwhile right-wing fundamentalist Christians are busy doing propaganda, promoting homophobic, sexist, reactionary causes. Rightist Christian media comprise a multi-billion-dollar industry, controlling about 10 percent of all radio outlets and 14 percent of the nation’s television stations.
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