Author Archives: Maria

Michael Parenti: Ideology and Conspiracy Part One

By MariaApril 28, 2026Newest Catalog Items, Newest Podcasts

From: Understanding Deep Politics Conference, Santa Cruz, CA. – May 14/16 2010
In this entertaining talk, rich with historic references, Parenti describes the right-wing agenda of dismantling social democracy while calling anybody who describes this as a purposeful strategy a conspiracy theorist. He shows that this strategy began right after World War II but culminates now as powerful segment of right wing media and the GOP have moved so far to the right that they have overshot their popular base. Meanwhile democrats, including Obama, unable or unwilling to formulate the social democratic alternative, still talk of bipartisan approaches.
https://tucradio.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/Parenti_DeepPolitics_ONE_100801.mp3

Michael Parenti: The Struggle for History (TWO of TWO)

By MariaApril 21, 20262011, All Time Favorites, Catalog, Newest Podcasts

The conclusion of this speech builds up to a timely and inspiring quote by William Faulkner: “The past is never dead and buried, in fact it is never even passed. If we are lied to with impunity we are robbed of the first condition of a democratic citizenry, how the present can help us understand the past and the past understand the present. How we can arm ourselves against the lies and calumny that are bombarding us all the time. And our history need not bore us, our history need not imprison us but it can liberate our understanding so that we might become not its victims but its active agents.”

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Michael Parenti: The Struggle for History (ONE of TWO)

By MariaApril 14, 2026All Time Favorites, Catalog, Michael Parenti, Newest Podcasts, Podcasts

Parenti quotes Winston Churchill who said to his fellow party members: “History will be kind to us because I plan to write it.” Far from being an objective account of events history bears the mark of its writer, the omissions of the censors, and the interests of those who benefit from making it. Parenti shows how to take the recording of history back from politicians, the media, professors, clergy, and business people.

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Michael Parenti: The Pathology of Wealth (TWO of TWO)

By MariaApril 7, 20262012, Newest Catalog Items, Newest Podcasts

Parenti describes the pathologies of capitalism by its inability to respond to climate change. Quoting a cartoon he reads: “While the end of the world scenario will be rife with unimaginable horrors, ..the pre-end period will be filled with unprecedented opportunities for profit.” Also arguments for the benefits of socialism in areas of our lives that should not be managed under the profit system. He lists health care, energy, and transportation.

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Michael Parenti: THE PATHOLOGY OF WEALTH (ONE of TWO)

By MariaMarch 31, 20262012, Newest Catalog Items, Newest Podcasts

The first talk of 2012 by the social critic and noted author Michael Parenti fit perfectly into the debates of the time, that of the One versus the 99% and the finally no longer taboo question: What exactly is CAPITALISM? Parenti is debunking some of the myths of capitalism: That it creates jobs, peace, democracy and wealth – etc.

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Michael Parenti: The 1% Pathology and the Myth of Capitalism (TWO of TWO)

By MariaMarch 17, 2026Newest Catalog Items, Newest Podcasts

Dr. Michael Parenti (1933-2026) gave this keynote speech for the 4th Annual People’s Movement Assembly at Evergreen State College, Olympia, Washington in October, 2012. He talked about economics, neo-liberalism, globalization and the history of capitalism. Parenti spoke and wrote about these topics long before most other academics dared mention – and much less critique –capitalism, the chosen economic form in the US, and really the world.
In this conclusion of Dr. Parenti’s one hour speech he explores how the post World War II prosperity emerged in the US and how at the same time the organized destruction of the human and environmental support systems accelerated.
Raised in a working class Italian family in East Harlem, New York City, Parenti went on to [ . . . ]

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Michael Parenti: The 1% Pathology and the Myth of Capitalism (ONE of TWO)

By MariaMarch 10, 2026Newest Catalog Items, Newest Podcasts

Dr. Michael Parenti (1933-2026) gave this keynote speech for the 4th Annual People’s Movement Assembly at Evergreen State College, Olympia, Washington in October, 2012. He talked about economics, neo-liberalism, globalization and the history of capitalism.
Parenti spoke and wrote about these topics long before most other academics dared mention – and much less critique –capitalism, the chosen economic form in the US, and really the world.
Raised in a working class Italian family in East Harlem, New York City, Parenti went on to receive his Ph.D. in political science at Yale in 1962. His academic career was cut short by his dismissal after he was arrested for protesting the US war on Vietnam. Parenti became an independent scholar, lecturer and author of [ . . . ]

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In Memory of Robert Fisk — His Warning, in 2002, of the Pending War on Iraq

By MariaMarch 3, 2026All Time Favorites, Catalog, Newest Podcasts

Robert Fisk, the award winning war correspondent and dean of Middle East journalists died in Dublin on October 30. He was only 74.
Robert Fisk won more British journalism awards than any of his peers, including British Foreign Reporter of the Year seven times and the Martha Gellhorn Prize for Journalism in 2002. The New York Times described him as “probably the most famous foreign correspondent in Britain.” And that in spite of his principle of speaking truth to power.
Fisk reported for the London Independent on Israel’s invasion of Lebanon, the wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, and Syria, without sparing responsibility of the United States and his native Britain for so much of the carnage.
He became one of very few Western [ . . . ]

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Michael Parenti Theocracy VS. Democracy – The Political Uses of Religion

By MariaFebruary 24, 2026Michael Parenti Audio CDs, Newest Catalog Items, Newest Podcasts, Politics

Michael Parenti (1933-2026) said that democracy couldn’t survive under religious rule – whatever that religion may be. Parenti’s warning in this archival recording is as timely and urgently expressed as it was when this speech was first given during the second term of the Reagan administration. This talk is also very funny. Parenti explains how God may be considered as a “founding father” and why Woody Allen calls him an underachiever. It is easy to extend this timeless analysis to the present circumstances.
With roots in a working class Italian district of New York and a Ph.D. in political science from Yale Michael Parenti became an internationally known writer and lecturer. He is the author of twenty books.

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Michael Parenti, The Supremely Political Court

By MariaFebruary 3, 2026Newest Catalog Items, Newest Podcasts

In his extraordinary 26 minute history of the Supreme Court Dr. Michael Parenti warned us in 1995 that this partisan, aristocratic institution might one day empower an autocratic president. It seems that time has come and two Trump appointees, Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh, can push the scales of justice in favor of their politics. Unless there is a groundswell to question and change the legal rules of that institution. Why is so much power being given to 9 unelected, non term limited judges.
Michael Parenti was born into a working class Italian family in East Harlem, New York City. He went on to receive his Ph.D. in political science at Yale in 1962. His academic career was cut short by [ . . . ]

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WWI – The Christmas Truce of 1914 – TUC Archive for 2025

By MariaDecember 16, 2025Newest Catalog Items, Newest Podcasts

Silent Night in trenches of the Western Front The Christmas Truce was an unofficial cease-fire on parts of the Western Front. Guns fell silent for one to several days. Soldiers emerged from the trenches and talked, exchanged gifts and kicked around a soccer ball. Trenches were close in some places, separated by 50 yards or less.
The Story of the Christmas Truce WWI is a documentary film about this spontaneous cease-fire. Thanks to historians Peter Hart, Taff Gillingham and Robin Schaefer, and their choice of rare documentary photos, footage and archived letters from soldiers of both sides.
This archival TUC Radio program first went into distribution on December 13, 2022. By coincidence on the same day that nearly 1,000 faith leaders called [ . . . ]

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Chalmers Johnson – Nemesis – The Last Days of the American Republic, Archive TWO of TWO

By MariaDecember 9, 2025All Time Favorites, Amazing Speakers & Events, Newest Catalog Items, Newest Podcasts

Johnson’s name is being quoted in the 2023 work of analysts and historians
Today’s analysts and historians say that one statement is more timely now than when Johnson first made it in 2006 that “nothing is more dangerous to democracy, than military expansion and war” and argued that the U.S. is in danger of internal collapse, due in large part to the vast expenditures required to maintain its ever-expanding empire.
Chalmers Johnson is the acclaimed author of Blowback, The Sorrows of Empire and Nemesis. He is a former analyst for the CIA and professor emeritus of the University of California San Diego.
Chalmers Johnson was interviewed by the California based author of “Imperial San Francisco”, Gray Brechin, in March 2007.
DATES: March, 2007
Location: [ . . . ]

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Chalmers Johnson – Nemesis – The Last Days of the American Republic, Archive ONE of TWO

By MariaDecember 2, 2025All Time Favorites, Amazing Speakers & Events, Newest Podcasts

Johnson’s name is being quoted in the 2023 work of analysts and historians
Chalmers Johnson wrote that “nothing is more dangerous to democracy, than military expansion and war” and argued that the U.S. is in danger of internal collapse, due in large part to the vast expenditures required to maintain its ever-expanding empire.
Chalmers Johnson is the acclaimed author of Blowback, The Sorrows of Empire and Nemesis. He is a former analyst for the CIA and professor emeritus of the University of California San Diego.
He was interviewed by the California based author of “Imperial San Francisco”, Gray Brechin, in March 2007.
DATES: March, 2007
Location: MLK Junior High in Berkeley

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TUC Archives: The Quest for Water and the American West

By MariaNovember 4, 2025About, Newest Catalog Items, Newest Podcasts, Uncategorized

By Dr. Gray Brechin: Imperial San Francisco
This is Part TWO of the history of San Francisco. The town that grew from 16 houses on sand dunes in 1850 to the largest city on the West Coast in only 30 years.
Gray Brechin explains in the first chapter of his book Imperial San Francisco how the gold rush connected two major factors for city building: A swelling of the population and the growth of investment capital.
But the mix of people and money was lacking another major ingredient: water. As the first wave of destruction of California was brought about by gold mining, the second wave was caused by the damming of rivers, and the flooding of land for reservoirs, even eventually inside [ . . . ]

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TUC Archives – The Underground History of the Gold Rush by Dr. Gray Brechin: Imperial San Francisco

By MariaOctober 28, 2025Newest Catalog Items, Newest Podcasts, Uncategorized

This is part of the history of a city, grown from 16 houses on sand dunes in 1850 to the largest city on the Pacific Coast in only 30 years. The book, Imperial San Francisco by Dr. Gray Brechin, is one of the few examples of a scholarly dissertation that becomes a very popular book. Imperial San Francisco brings to light the huge sacrifices extracted from the surrounding land by large cities, from Babylon to the Italian city states to the instant cities of North America.
This program focuses on the Gold Rush and the early conflicts between mining and farming. Next week we’ll talk about the valleys flooded and the rivers diverted to bring water to SF. Was it worth [ . . . ]

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