"Maybe our superpatriots love this country for its history. One would doubt it, since so much of US history is evidently unknown to them"
provocative statement. what other provocative excerpts can be gleaned from this post?
Here are some of the most provocative and quotable excerpts from Parenti's Superpatriotism (2004), grouped loosely by theme:
On the darker side of American history:
"What is there to love about the extermination of Native American Indian nations, a bloodletting that extended over four centuries along with the grabbing of millions of acres of their lands? There is nothing lovable about the systemic kidnapping and enslaving of millions of Africans..."
On "freedom" as rhetoric vs. reality:
"Some superpatriots claim that they love America because of the freedom it gives us. Yet most of them seem to love freedom only in the abstract, for they cannot stand the dissidence and protests that are the actual practice of a free people."
And the Mark Twain jab he quotes approvingly:
"The three most precious things Americans possess are 'freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, and the prudence never to practice either.'"
On being "Number One":
"The United States is Number One in certain other things that are rarely if ever mentioned by our leaders. Compared to other industrial nations, we are Number One in homicides and death by firearms... Number One in per capita prison population..."
On military patriotism and machismo:
"Flying a fighter plane is... a macho thing, maybe—an extension of your manhood. You do it, concentrate on it, and under the circumstances it was damn hard for me to get worried about the political implications of the war... We're basically patriotic, conservative people. And we're blameless." (Parenti is quoting a US Air Force captain, using it as a critique.)
On the plutocrats' "patriotism":
"If this is patriotism, then what is treason?" — after detailing how US corporations including Ford, GM, IBM, and ITT continued collaborating with Nazi Germany even after the US entered the war.
On manufacturing fear for war:
Hermann Göring, quoted approvingly by Parenti: "The people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism."
On superpatriotic nationalism as unoriginal:
"The one certain thing about the US superpatriots' claim to messianic exceptionalism is how strikingly unexceptional and unoriginal it really is. Throughout history any number of other movements, nations, and empires have thought of themselves as God's gift to humanity."
On "Why do they hate us?":
"In fact, if we bother to listen to what the terrorists themselves actually say, they hate us not because of who we are but because of what we do — to them and their region of the world."
On Bush and 9/11 (his most incendiary claim):
"The PNAC-populated White House seems to have done nothing to prevent the attacks despite any number of warnings. The disaster of 11 September 2001 served them well. Like another Pearl Harbor indeed, it mobilised public opinion behind US global objectives."
On the flag vs. human dignity (a 12-year-old's essay he cites):
"Nobody cares if a homeless person touches the ground. A homeless person can lie all over the ground all night long without anyone picking him up, folding him neatly and sheltering him from the rain."
Parenti's style throughout is deliberately confrontational — he stacks empirical claims with sharp rhetorical inversions, making the book a sustained provocation against what he sees as the conflation of nationalism, militarism, corporate power, and religion in American public life.
go through the references. suggest a few that would be interesting to pursue further.
Here are some references from the book that stand out as particularly worth pursuing, organized by what makes them interesting:
Primary sources with striking, direct quotes
- Gustave Gilbert, Nuremberg Diary (New York: Farrar, Straus, 1947) — This is the source of the Göring quote Parenti uses about how easy it is to drag people into war. Gilbert was the prison psychologist at Nuremberg who had direct access to the defendants. The diary is full of extraordinary first-hand exchanges, and the full Göring passage is even more chilling in context.
- Jessica Stern, Terror in the Name of God (New York: Ecco, 2003) — Parenti cites this as a five-year empirical study of religiously motivated terrorism based on direct interviews with militants. It cuts against both the hawkish "they hate our freedoms" narrative and simplistic leftist framings, making it genuinely interesting regardless of where you stand.
Corporate collaboration with the Nazi regime
- Charles Higham, Trading with the Enemy (New York: Dell, 1983) — The source for Parenti's most explosive claims about Ford, GM, ITT, and others continuing to service the Nazi war machine after the US entered the war. Higham was a mainstream biographer, not a fringe figure, and the book caused real controversy on release. Worth reading to judge the sourcing directly.
- Edwin Black, IBM and the Holocaust (London: Crown Publishers, 2001) — Exhaustively documented account of how IBM's punch-card technology was used to organize and accelerate the Holocaust. Black spent years in archives across multiple countries. This is probably the most rigorously sourced book in Parenti's entire bibliography and stands on its own as a major work.
- Jacques R. Pauwels, "Profits Über Alles! American Corporations and Hitler," Labour/Le Travail, 51, Spring 2003 — A more recent scholarly article synthesizing a lot of this material, freely available in academic databases.
On the machinery of anti-communist fear
- Robert K. Murray, Red Scare (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1955) — A mid-century academic history of the post-WWI Palmer Raids and the first Red Scare. Parenti uses it for his account of how anti-Bolshevik hysteria was manufactured by authorities and newspapers. It's a reminder that the pattern he's describing has very deep roots.
- David Caute, The Great Fear (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1978) — A comprehensive study of McCarthyism and the second Red Scare — purges in academia, government, the arts, and labor. Expansive and meticulously documented.
On patriotism's history and paradoxes
- Cecilia Elizabeth O'Leary, To Die For: The Paradox of American Patriotism (Princeton University Press, 1999) — Parenti cites this repeatedly. It's a serious academic history of how American patriotism was constructed and weaponized from the Civil War through WWI, particularly in relation to labor suppression and immigrant communities. The origin of the phrase "un-American" appearing here is genuinely interesting.
The most provocative for a general reader
If you only pursued one, Higham's Trading with the Enemy or Black's IBM and the Holocaust would probably be the most startling, because they deal in documented corporate behavior that directly contradicts the triumphalist WWII narrative most Americans internalized — and they're readable, not just academic.
are there any references that deal with the founding of the US?
Honestly, not really — at least not as dedicated works. The founding-era material in the book is handled through primary sources quoted directly in the text rather than secondary historical works. Specifically, Parenti cites:
- Andrew Lipscomb, ed., Jefferson's Works, vol. 2 (Thomas Jefferson Memorial Association, 1904) — just a collected works edition, used to quote Jefferson on the "impious presumption" of rulers imposing religion.
- Marvin Meyers, The Mind of the Founder (Bobbs-Merrill, 1973) — an anthology of Madison's writings, used to pull the quote about religious bondage shackling the mind.
- Max Farrand, ed., The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787, vols. 1–3 (Yale University Press, 1966) — the standard scholarly edition of the Constitutional Convention proceedings, used to show the founders explicitly rejected Franklin's suggestion to open sessions with prayer.
- Paul Boller Jr., George Washington and Religion (Southern Methodist University Press, 1963) — cited briefly for Washington's statement about freedom of worship.
So the founding material is all in service of a fairly narrow argument — that the founders were not the Christian nationalists that Reagan and Bush claimed they were. Parenti is using these sources defensively, to rebut a specific talking point, rather than engaging deeply with the founding era as a historical subject.
If the founding period itself interests you, none of these references would be particularly exciting entry points — you'd be better served going elsewhere, to something like Gordon Wood's The Creation of the American Republic or Bernard Bailyn's The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution, neither of which Parenti cites.
categorize the references for me.
Here's a breakdown of all the references by category:
Corporate Collaboration with Fascism / Nazi Germany
- Higham, Trading with the Enemy (1983)
- Billstein et al., Working for the Enemy: Ford, General Motors, and Forced Labor (2000)
- Black, IBM and the Holocaust (2001)
- Pauwels, "Profits Über Alles! American Corporations and Hitler," Labour/Le Travail (2003)
- Tarpley & Chaitkin, George Bush: The Unauthorized Biography (1991)
- Loftus & Aarons, The Secret War Against the Jews (1997)
US Foreign Policy / Imperialism / Interventionism
- Parenti, Against Empire (his own earlier work, cited repeatedly)
- Parenti, The Terrorism Trap: September 11 and Beyond (2002)
- Blum, William — forthcoming article on myth and denial in the war on terrorism
- Boggs, ed., Masters of War: Militarism and Blowback in the Era of American Empire (2003)
- Petras, Elich, Herman, Johnson — cited collectively as sources on US interventionism
- Elich, "Imperial Enterprise: War Mongers Run Amuck," Swans (2003)
- Ismi, "Ravaging Africa," Briarpatch (2003)
- Montague, "Africa: The New Oil and Military Frontier," Peacework (2002)
- Rampton & Stauber, Weapons of Mass Deception (2003)
- Florentino, Reign of Error (2004)
- Lazare, "Reagan's Seven Big Lies about Grenada," In These Times (1983)
History of American Patriotism / Nationalism
- O'Leary, To Die For: The Paradox of American Patriotism (1999)
- Kohn, Prophets and Peoples (1961) — comparative nationalism, Europe
- Weinberg, Manifest Destiny (1935)
Red Scare / Anti-Communism / Political Repression
- Murray, Red Scare (1955)
- Caute, The Great Fear (1978)
- Preston, Aliens and Dissenters: Federal Suppression of Radicals (1994)
- Abu-Jamal, We Want Freedom (2004) — on repression of the Black Panther Party
- Parenti, Democracy for the Few — his own work, cited for chapter on repression
- Parenti, Blackshirts and Reds (1997) — his own work, on left anti-communism
Labor History
- Boyer & Morais, Labor's Untold Story (1972)
- Reppetto, American Mafia (2004) — cited for corporate use of mob thugs against unions
- Garlin, Three American Radicals (1991)
Terrorism / Security / Post-9/11
- Stern, Terror in the Name of God (2003)
- US Department of Defense, Defense Science Board 1997 Summer Study Task Force report
- Meacher, The Guardian (2003) — on foreknowledge of 9/11
- Conason, Big Lies (2003)
Religion and Politics
- Blaker, ed., The Fundamentals of Extremism: The Christian Right in America (2003)
- Parenti, History as Mystery (1999) — his own work, on Christian suppression of pagan culture
- Marty, "The Sin of Pride," Newsweek (2003)
- Fineman, "Bush and God," Newsweek (2003)
Founding Era / Constitutional History
- Lipscomb, ed., Jefferson's Works, vol. 2 (1904)
- Meyers, The Mind of the Founder (1973)
- Farrand, ed., Records of the Federal Convention of 1787 (1966)
- Boller, George Washington and Religion (1963)
Media / Entertainment / Culture
- Parenti, Make-Believe Media: The Politics of Entertainment (1992) — his own work
- Pearl, Television and Behavior (National Institute of Mental Health, 1982)
- Hesse & Stimpson, "Images of the Enemy on Children's Television," Propaganda Review (1989)
Economics / Labor Statistics / Inequality
- Henwood, After the New Economy (2003)
- Rose, The American Profile Poster: Who Owns What (1986)
- Yearbook of Labor Statistics 1989–90 (ILO)
- OECD Economic Outlook (1991)
- Fortune magazine survey (2003) — on CEO pay
- MacArthur, The Selling of "Free Trade": NAFTA, Washington and the Subversion of American Democracy (2000)
Immigration / Emigration
- Passel & Peck, "Estimating Emigration from the United States," US Census Bureau (1979)
- Warren & Kraly, "The Elusive Exodus: Emigration from the United States," Population Trends (1985)
Military History / Vietnam / Gulf Wars
- Boyle, Flower of the Dragon: The Breakdown of the U.S. Army in Vietnam (1972)
- Griffith & Marciano, Lessons of the Vietnam War (1979)
- UN, The Impact of War on Iraq (1991)
Primary Sources / Firsthand Accounts
- Gilbert, Nuremberg Diary (1947)
- Mazzini, The Duties of Man and Other Essays (1961 edition)
- Marx, "The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte," Selected Works
- Weber, "Politics as a Vocation," in Gerth & Mills, From Max Weber
Comparative / World History
- Moore, Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy (1966)
- Galeano, Upside Down (2000)
- Williams, "American Intervention in Russia: 1917–1920," in Horowitz, ed., Containment and Revolution (1967)
A few observations: Parenti leans very heavily on his own prior books (he cites himself at least six times), and a large portion of the remaining references are journalism and magazine articles rather than academic monographs — Newsweek, The Nation, San Francisco Chronicle, In These Times, and so on. The most academically substantial cluster is the one on corporate collaboration with Nazi Germany, which is also where his most explosive claims sit.
