Michael Parenti, born on this day in 1933, is a Marxist American political scientist and cultural critic. He has taught at American and international universities and has been a guest lecturer before campus and community audiences.
Michael Parenti was raised by an Italian-American working-class family in the East Harlem neighborhood of New York City. 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 PhD in political science from Yale University.
For many years Parenti taught political and social science at various institutions of higher learning. Eventually he devoted himself full-time to writing, public speaking, and political activism. He is the author of 20 books and over 300 articles.
Parenti's writings cover a wide range of subjects: U.S. politics, culture, ideology, political economy, imperialism, fascism, communism, democratic socialism, free-market orthodoxies, conservative judicial activism, religion, ancient history, modern history, historiography, repression in academia, news and entertainment media, technology, environmentalism, sexism, racism, Venezuela, the wars in Iraq and Yugoslavia, ethnicity, and his own early life.
His book Democracy for the Few, now in its ninth edition, is a critical analysis of U.S. society, economy, and political institutions and a college-level political science textbook published by Wadsworth Publishing. His book Blackshirts and Reds defended the Soviet Union and socialist 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 have failed to offer any alternatives to the Soviet Union's "siege socialism"
In 1974, Parenti 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. Parenti was once a friend of Bernie Sanders, but he later split with Sanders over Sanders's support for the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia.
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I almost made a thread about this but I decided it wasnt big enough for one
Have any of you ever met an anti-choice athiest? (Watch there be a prominent one I'm not aware of lol)
There's probably some who are concerned about "demographics" aka totally not eugenicists that think like that.
There definitely are some who literally just want to control women. Not very common though.
I know an atheist gay guy that doesn't care at all and don't see what the big deal is. I tried explaining it to him that women's rights, opportunities and living conditions are all tied closely to their control over their own reproductive systems but he just kind of glazes over. Like he vaguely agrees in principle but doesn't really care since it doesn't impact him directly
I think there's a lot of dudes like this (gay and straight ofc) who aren't going out of their way to criminalize abortion but also don't really go out of their way to protect it or legalize it.
Yeah irl a couple times. Americans by and large are very vibe based and can form strongly-held opinions based on, like, a single Facebook meme.
Those forced-birth billboards with a picture of a baby saying "please momma I don't wanna be aborted" work pretty well on some people.