Wednesday, February 06, 2008

Michael Parenti is annoyed

I’m currently part way through a spot of painting and decorating. Not my cup of tea really but it has enabled me to catch up on the Michael Parenti back catalogue – though I have noticed that I have to go back to bits I paint when Michael is sounding really, really angry.

Parenti’s three most important qualities as a public speaker are…

  1. He’s just a teensy wee bit Marxist

  2. On the other hand, he’s also a Conspiraloon (well, sort of, sometimes)

  3. He’s annoyed

And if you haven’t seen Mr P. in action before, and you are a bit of a Conspiraloon, this talk, entitled ‘The Gangster Nature of the State’ is worth a spin...







Parenti starts the talk a bit shouty and then moves onto a discussion about Lee Harvey Oswald and the JFK assassination which sounds almost like a stand-up comedy routine in places (not to be confused with this JFK assassination stand-up comedy routine). Parenti closes with an explanation of why there is absolutely no contradiction in believing that human agency (‘conspiracy’) has a significant influence on human affairs as well as following the kind of ‘structural’ analysis Leftist gatekeepers such as Chomsky and Cockburn are employed to confuse and bore the arse off people with.

Parenti is not without his flaws. He’s a polemicist who can play fast and loose with the facts and when he is talking about causes and movements he holds dear any semblance of objectivity flies out of the window. However, he is eloquent, his heart appears to be in the right place and he’s much more interesting to listen to than daytime radio when painting a staircase

Highly recommended

.

33 comments:

Anonymous said...

Apologies, off topic:

http://tinyurl.com/yps2zy

'It's the bankers, stupid'

BZ

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the links.

He appears to have damn good genes too - 75?!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Parenti

paul said...

Its the squat, pugnacious italian genes, the envy of our species

Stef said...

In fairness, I think the talk I linked to in my post dates back to 1993. However, this talk was filmed only last month and the guy still looks scarily good for his age

...as well as exuding the kind of squat, pugnacious je ne sais quoi which is the envy of our species

Anonymous said...

I stumbled upon Micheal a couple of days ago and was thinking about suggesting his lectures to you...

Just in case you do not know Doug Stanhope, he is a comedian, kind of a raw Hicks. I stumbled upon him around the same time as Michael.

The Antagonist said...

Nice one, Tony.

Stanhope has much the same take on notions of 'freedom' and flags as yours truly:

Doug Stanhope on Freedom

Alex Jones says, "I am not a comedian."

No, Alex, not in the traditional sense.

The Antagonist said...

Less than ten minutes in, "YOU CAN'T HANDLE THE TRUTH!"

Jones certainly has a winning style about him.

Which is why the compere ushered him off the stage.

Stef said...

@Tony/ Ant/ BZ

thx for the links - all will be consumed whilst watching/ waiting for paint to dry on the 'morrow

Alex Jones = Comedy god!!

The Antagonist said...

Stanhope's good. The live show with the Alex Jones intro seems more like a ranting improv therapy session than scripted comedy.

The honesty is refreshing.

paul said...

Stanhope is good, never seen him before, the intro neatly encapsulates what's wrong with the roly poly rabble rouser jones

Stef said...

no Italian grandparents?

Anonymous said...

no Italian grandparents?

That's where it usually starts

DE said...

"Scholar and Political Ideological Surgeon"

Anonymous said...

I don't know why Alex Jones gets a bit of a jostling here. The man makes extensive use of official documents not (usually!) intended ever to be seen by public eyes. He is great at using MSM to expose itself. I don't see anything of irritation about him. (even his gravelly horsey voice and USan accent gets 'broken in' after a while)

I remember him asking BuSh (mark I) about CFR/NWO and getting roughly bundled out of the press conference after which he was drriven a few KM away and supposedly beaten up. He also was badly treated when embroiled in an ID based row at some government institution. In addition he brought together a lot of 9-11 researchers together whose information about dodgy dealings has reached millions not to mention all the other work he has done. People like Alex Jones are sorely needed IMO. And his researcher Watson and errmmm, thingy are also great wroters and political analysts.

He also believes in the good values enshrined in the US constitution, that old pit of paper BuSh and Cheney wipe their ass on every day, whether those values were sincerely scribed or not.

And one has the abolity to press 'mute' when he has to take those 'survivalist anti NWO conspiraloon' adverts on his radio show.

Old age is making me a wee bit tetchy.

The Antagonist said...

I'm guessing you've never heard the clip of Alex Jones shouting at a group of policemen something along the lines of, "I was one of you once."

In Terrorstorm, Jones claims that Tony Blair organised the London bombings so he could win the 2005 election. The only problem with this is that the election happened two months before the London bombings.

The rest of his productions are similarly littered with nonsense and all of his work is entirely devoid of politics or ideology.

There are, however, plenty of other reasons to be wary of the likes of the bullhorn bullshitter.

Stef said...

I can’t speak for other folks but reasons why I’m mucho wary of Jones

- The 7/7 coverage in his Terrorstorm video – just littered with inaccuracies and straw men. Utterly inexcusable given that he employs dedicated UK staff. It’s not just Terrorstorm – most of his other work contains the seeds of its own destruction, sometimes so obviously it’s reasonable to start suspecting that it’s by design

- His persistent reluctance to deal with a particular ideology/ political movement that, judging by your blog, you have a big problem with (hint: it begins with a Z.). He also appears to hang out with at least some of the Christian Z. crowd

- The style of his output – loud and incoherent. His message seems to be – ‘Be afraid, and confused, by the sheer, all-powerful enormity of it all’

- He gets on TV a lot. Even in the UK. And as far as I‘m concerned if They give you access it’s because They don’t think you’re a threat

- He’s a fucking Texan – Texas is arguably home to more spook-MIC-Faux Christian fruitloop dodginess than any other 20 states combined (Washington aside

Stef said...

and on the subject of Chomsky here's a link to that classic clip of Chomsky talking about 9/11 Conspiracy theories and his comment 'and even if it were a conspiracy so what?' line which, even on its own, is reason in itself to doubt Mr C.'s soundness

Anonymous said...

Re jonesy, just look at the clip, nelson rockerfeller, fidel castro, prison camps, eugenics all mashed up into a ball of bullshit.
Plus all the ron paul guff, whose vision for america seems to be a white version of kinshasa
Plus he seems to think dead folks like hg wells and bertrand russel are what's wrong with the world.

What gets me is why, if the stories about genesis comms and adnan khasoggi are correct, why he just doesn't fucking ask the boss what's going on?

Anonymous said...

re: chomsky and the scientific method

Hadn't seen that clip before. dreadful stuff,creepy,clumsy sophistry

If something unusual happens, is it not worth investigating? Or are all anomalies and phenomena best explained by the mass media/government propoganda filters he has decried in the past?

P.S. Another jonesy oddity is the barmy beatification of tax dodging wanker Aaron Russo

Anonymous said...

If jonesy did not exit, it would be necessary for urban75 to invent him.

Anonymous said...

exit = exist

Anonymous said...

@ dudes...

I'm no apologist for Jones, but I think I should say a few words on his behalf...
"I was one of you once." - could well mean (and of course, equally 'may not') he sees the cops as believing they uphold a virtuous United States, or that they haven't 'woken up' to reality yet; Jones himself may have been a sleepwalker at one stage. I also was to some degree.


The '7-7 attempt to sway the 2005 election' claim is a mega-monkey of a mistake, undoubtedly, but does the fault lie with Jones or some daft scriptwriter? We had a similar line of questioning earlier about Ron Paul and racism. Is there malice?? Well as an independent conspiraloon (knighted as such by the Queen of North London herself), its hard I guess not to be a tad suspicious about everyone really (btw, love the tag line Stef).

Jones's belief/ideology might be hard to label, but I'd say it contains a Christian streak (of the more virtuous/pious kind perhaps) mixed with a strong belief in the principles of the US constitution and has a reasonable hue of anti-corporatism about him. He's not as critical of the Zionist regime as I would like, but generally the Anti-fascist brigade come in all shapes and sizes. (and true, so will the moles).

As for other mistakes well having failed to properly calculate a 50% increase the other day, I can imagine someone as sloppy as me in the rush to 'bullhorn' on the web, causing ones brain does sometimes take a nap..

"sometimes so obviously it’s reasonable to start suspecting that it’s by design" - well my conspiraloon sense may not be as developed, but I guess I trust yours and ants, so I'll be on the look out for any naughty points in future.

"He’s a fucking Texan" - Aaah! why didn't you say that in the first place! LOL. Case closed.

But seriously, On balance I think he does more good than harm.

@ Paul. Jones was the first person I knew that highlighted PNAC's advocacy of genetic bioweapons, which I read myself. Jones also seems to have done will in publicising (and seemingly wanting to go 1-on-1) against that Berkeley "Law" Filth John Woo, who advocates the crushing of Kids testicles so that parents would talk.

As fort at chap whose been wearing the same Jumper for 40 years, namely Chomsky, we all have our days when we just cant be bothered and have our off days. I’ve seen the best of them talk pap at times. Perhaps it’s relative – I mean there are years where the movies that come out are well poor, but some tripe movie ends up winning the best film Oscar.

I just feel the anti-rot legion (of which I like to think I’m a part of) is far too susceptible to inner fragmentation which in a way, is like having a permanently embedded splinter in my nagging spot on the inside of my nose.

Anonymous said...

What was Jones' recent video where his usual ranting turned into a "prophetical" bullhorning of the Creator of the Universe?

And I looked West and beheld a chubby horse, and lo the horse did pour forth shit unto the nations, and the men of the Tower of Babel were well pleased.

paul said...

There doesn't seem to be too much fragmentation, most posting on this seem to think he is a buffoon. You get the odd interesting story on jonesy's sites,and that's all to the good, but not that much.

The turd to punch ratio is quite high

But to repeat, the fact that Genesis Communications Network is owned by Adnan Khasoggi, who is about as close to a 'new world order' creature as you can get is the really weird one for me.

This has been floating around for a while and I haven't seen any strident denials from our alex. Maybe the bullhorn batteries ran out

Have a look at these connections

BCCI, Iran Contra, bush, bin laden, fair makes your head spin


During Bush's presidency, Khashoggi was identified as conduit in the Iran-Contra conspiracy. He had already run into trouble with US lawmen when, in 1986, he was arrested and charged - but not convicted - of fraud. He was bailed out of the New York prison by Munk, who provided the $4m bond. Bush performed an even bigger favour for Khashoggi: as his last act in office, the president pardoned Khashoggi's alleged co-conspirators, key members of Bush's own cabinet. As a result, no case could be made against Khashoggi.


And I think the endgame thesis is extremely unconvincing.

Anonymous said...

"The turd to punch ratio is quite high" - LOL. All cautions noted. Thanks.

Right now, I'm just absorbing my first common purpose video. Bloody Hell!

Stef said...

re: chomsky and the scientific method

Hadn't seen that clip before. dreadful stuff,creepy,clumsy sophistry


it is quite special isn't it - I like to keep a link to that talk always close to hand just in case anyone expresses outrage at the suggestion that Chomsky might be a gatekeeper - it's not that he doesn't buy into 9/11 scepticism, it's the reasons he gives - and this guy is supposed to be a genius?

I maintain a similar stock of standby links for Greg Palast, Mark Thomas, Shami Chakrabarti and, oooh, lots more

Stef said...

...a link to the enlightened, super-rational truth herders over at urban75 for completeness' sake

Stef said...

@lwtc247

Right now, I'm just absorbing my first common purpose video. Bloody Hell!

Apparently, there's nothing to worry about and the nice folks over at CP are very sad that people think otherwise - as explained in this brief statement they recently put out here

I particularly enjoy the way they hint that they have grounds for pursuing legal action but don't go so far as to state that they will - the creepy, neo-masonic fucks

Anonymous said...

Nice CP Quote:
"In the Netherlands, where there is little or no tradition of citizenship, Common Purpose has a difficult job: to engage individuals from all parts of the community, and inspire them to transform society."
Els Swaab, Amsterdam Municipal Theatre; Dutch National Bank


Into what, one might wonder?

Anonymous said...

Given it's acceptability by the current regime, I hazard a guess...

http://www.junge-nationaldemokraten.de/

Strangely, they don't provide an English translation.

paul said...

Seem like a nice bunch.

On 16.2. 2008 Landsmannschaft East Germany eV, as in previous years, a funeral march in memory of the victims of Allied bombing terror in Dresden. Will be far more than 5000 participants expected.

We are the young generation of displaced persons from the German eastern territories and people who are interested in politics and history and those of Germany heart.

We urge all interested citizens to take join us and with us at 16.2. 2008 durch Dresden zu ziehen. Dresden by 2008.


Talk about ungrateful

Stef said...

back to AJ for a moment...

@tom

And I looked West and beheld a chubby horse, and lo the horse did pour forth shit unto the nations, and the men of the Tower of Babel were well pleased.

nicely put, I may have to steal it at some point

Anonymous said...

Cheers, steal it if you like. It was translated with my "special glasses" on, from the original Russian.

Alex's CV is a bit of a mystery isn't it? It's as if he just appeared from nowhere filming crazy rituals, like some Texan Roger Cook or Donut Macintyre.