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Title: Land of Idols: Political Mythology in America by Michael Parenti ISBN: 0-312-09497-3 Publisher: Bedford/st Martins Pub. Date: 01 February, 1994 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $27.70 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.5 (2 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: A Brief History of Thralldom Through the Ages
Comment: In "Land of Idols: Political Mythology in America" Michael Parenti demolishes a number of more insidious and invidious tales of the state (see Tales of the State, Schramm and Neisser, 1997), tales that have been told from the ancients as they have sought to reserve power to themselves. Clearly, concisely, he shows how our contemporary lives are organized according to the whims of one slice of the population: the 2% who own 90% of the wealth, and exploit 98% of the people. Here's one common tale and its antidote: the economic pie will get bigger if only liberal government will get out of the way and let the free market do it's job. In fact, when the economic pie has grown larger, the bigger piece has always gone to the rich, leaving the working class with a smaller piece each time. A supplementary tale says that because they assume so much more risk than the working man does, capitalists deserve much bigger rewards. Tell that to an Enron employee, or someone who was downsized, who receive all the risks, none of the rewards, and don't have billions to fall back on.
He notes that any kind of Marxist perspective, even the use of the word "class" will not be tolerated in the media any longer. When Marxism is mentioned, it is excoriated as a failed system, and the notion of "class" is reviled along with this characterization. He points out that Marxist predictions have been more right than wrong, however. The creation of a worker's paradise through the withering away of the state never materialized, but his observations about business cycles and recessions were correct, as is his prediction of capital concentration, the growth of the proletariat and the increasing misery of the working class, the need for capital to chase around the world looking for new peoples and materials to exploit.
He suggests that the capitalists have made a monopoly culture in their own image through the funding of the arts, universities, the promulgation of legalistic views of the lifeworld, control of the media, medicine and healthcare. He destroys the "tales" that we have either pluralism or "democratic capitalism" as promoted by "free markets." He notes that rich live at such a remove in terms of social distance that they might as well be living on another planet and thus cannot hope to promote such ideals. And yet, the ruling class promulgates the tale that worthy members of the working class may some day attain this same lofty perch through hard work and pluck, when if fact there is very little movement between economic segments (or classes, as they used to be known before mainstream sociologists changed the terminology to make it more "neutral"). All proof to the contrary, this canard of the "rugged individualist" still enjoys the support of the media, and many Americans.
But is this a conspiracy? Here's a little known but appropriate quote from Abraham Lincoln (circa 1837) that speaks to this, as quoted by Parenti: "These capitalists generally act harmoniously, and in concert, to fleece the people..." For those who would point out that 20th century capitalism and early 19th century capitalism are incommensurable, he quotes a critical study of David Rockefeller's Trilateral Commission as a way of demonstrating how 20th century "conspiracies" work: "A conspiracy on the part of certain members of the international ruling class is not being suggested here, but rather that many of these people, who have a great deal of influence, are consciously making efforts to guide and control the direction of the world's political and socioeconomic system in their class interest." A de facto conspiracy, in other words.
Parenti sometimes goes a bit far in his acceptance of some conspiracy theories (multiple assassins of both Kennedy and Martin Luther King, the incompetent investigation of Malcolm X, for instance), but, given that it is the paranoid right who are historically much more likely to create and promulgate such theories -- liberal media, communists in the State Department, the hazards of fluoride, homosexual teachers perverting their students -- Parenti's occasional paranoia is relatively benign.
There was a political party in New York State in the early 1830s called the Anti-Masonry party, whose conspircist theories about the Freemasons served as the foundation for the Working Man's party, an anti-Albany Regency party which succeeded in driving Freemasons underground, and nearly out of existence. A similar anti-elitist party with a compelling conspiracy theory is what lefties need now!
Rating: 5
Summary: Probably Parenti's best work
Comment: This is Micheal Parenti at his best where he analyzes every aspect of American society and pluralism and destroy's all the myths that accompany it. A must have for those interested in reality of American society and for those interested in constructive change.
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Title: Inventing Reality: The Politics of News Media by Michael Parenti ISBN: 0312020139 Publisher: Thomson Learning Pub. Date: 01 August, 1992 List Price(USD): $29.95 |
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Title: The Sword and the Dollar: Imperialism Revolution and the Arms Race by Michael Parenti ISBN: 0312011679 Publisher: Palgrave-Macmillan Pub. Date: 01 November, 1988 List Price(USD): $21.30 |
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Title: A Machine That Would Go of Itself: The Constitution in American Culture by Michael G. Kammen, Hayden ISBN: 0312091273 Publisher: Bedford/st Martins Pub. Date: 01 December, 1993 List Price(USD): $29.15 |
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Title: History As Mystery by Michael Parenti ISBN: 0872863573 Publisher: City Lights Publishers Pub. Date: 01 September, 1999 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
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Title: Justice at War by Peter Irons ISBN: 0520083121 Publisher: University of California Press Pub. Date: 01 May, 1993 List Price(USD): $21.95 |
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