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Interview with Michael Parenti by Toon (interview Frank Stappaerts) Monday November 05, 2001 at 12:05 AM

tvdaele@easynet.be

Dinsdagavond 30 oktober gaf Michael Parenti een lezing in de kelder van de groene waterman in Antwerpen. Aanleiding voor deze lezing was de publicatie van "Zwarthemden en roden - rationeel fascisme en de omverwerping van het communisme" bij (EPO). Frank Stappaerts gaf een inleiding en stelde de vragen.

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Globalisation & the new war

Een kritische analyse uit de VS. Lezing door Michael Parenti.

Dinsdagavond 30 oktober gaf Michael Parenti een lezing in de kelder van de groene waterman in Antwerpen.

Aanleiding voor deze lezing was de publicatie van "Zwarthemden en roden - rationeel fascisme en de omverwerping van het communisme" bij (EPO).

Michael Parenti haalde zijn doctoraatstitel in de politieke wetenschappen aan de universiteit van Yale (V.S.) in 1962. Hij schreef 15 boeken over de media en politiek, waaronder "History as mistory" (1999) en "To kill a nation: the attac on Jugoslavia" (2001).
Voor meer info: www.michaelparenti.org

Frank Stappaerts gaf een inleiding en stelde de vragen. De vragen werden hieronder uitgeschreven, het antwoord hoort u van Michael Parenti zelf. (interview in het Engels):

F.S: The eleventh of September is the day, like every other day, that about 32.000 children died of starvation in this world. It's also the day of the terrorist attacks in the United States. Since then, Michael Parenti, your country is at war. The richest country in the world is bombing one of the poorest countries. A bombing that will last for years, as one of the official U.S. spokesman said. Can you give a comment on that?
M. Parenti: realaudio (08:07)

F.S: The eleventh of September has not only his broad consequences on the U.S. politics, also at home, you write. There's a hidden agenda of the reactionary right. What kind of an agenda is it? What are they trying to do now, since the eleventh of September?
M. Parenti: realaudio (04:32)

F.S: So, when I come now to your book. The subtitle is "rational fascism and the overthrow of communism". Two keywords: "fascism" and "communism". Now, in your opinion… maybe also in the U.S. in social science, we talk in the "post Anna Arhend" era. We talk about totalitarianism and in that sense communism and fascism are just two parts of the same thing, i.e. totalitarianism. That's a vision you don't agree with?
M. Parenti: realaudio (02:56)

F.S: After 1989, the fall of the Berlin wall. People talked about the end of history. And in western worlds we entered the era of what the french call "la pensé unique". The communism that really existed was reduced to the Goelach, to Stalinism, to oppression of free thought. Not only by reactionary writers, but also by some left intellectuals. When I read your book I see two things. First you're trying to rehabilitate communism, but at the same time you write that communist countries suffered from major systemic deficiencies.
M. Parenti: realaudio (04:41)

F.S: Do you have an explanation why the people in those ex-communist countries so often, so easy neglect the realisations of their own system. What is the meaning of their fixation for the west? They all want to become rich. Why is there that fixation?
M. Parenti: realaudio (07:59)

F.S: In your book you make a plea for the use of the concept "class" in social analysis. But how can you explain that class consciousness is not growing, or even in our western countries is decreasing?
M. Parenti: realaudio (03:35)

F.S: In the last part of your book you write about environmentalism. Now, a few years ago one of our green ministers in this country told me that the opposition between labour and capital belonged to the past. That's a vision you don't agree with.
M. Parenti: realaudio (03:58)