Chamblee54

During the Booknotes chat with Howard Zinn, someone compares Mr. Zinn to Noah Chomsky and Michael Parenti. PG had never heard of Dr. Parenti. There was a Booknotes chat, to promote The Assassination of Julius Caesar: A People’s History of Ancient Rome.
There is a lot about Roman history that PG does not know. It seems as though the death of Julius Caesar marks the end of an ara. Arguably, it was downhill from then on. There were many people who were not happy with Mr. Caesar, and had reasons to kill him.
Mr. Parenti was critical of the American government being focused on communism during the cold war. This leads to the best quote of the show.
LAMB (Brian Lamb, host of Booknotes) : I was on a Web site … they defined you as a Marxist. Is that fair? PARENTI: Well, what I don`t like about the term is, I write about all sorts of things that Marx — you know, that`s what somebody said about “Inventing Reality.” Is this a Marxist analysis of the media? The eagerness to label something puts a closure on thought. And I said, Well, you know, I don`t know what Karl Marx had to say about U.S. corporate media in the 20th century. In fact, he didn`t have a word to say about it. He`s been dead for 100 years. So I came to these things on my own. So I don`t use — I don`t use labels of that sort.
There are two more dandy quotes. If you have an hour to spare, the entire show is worthwhile.
PARENTI: Could I read a quote by Joseph Schumpeter? LAMB: Sure. Who was? PARENTI: Joseph Schumpeter was a conservative economist who was read widely in the first half of the last century. … and he said, “Rome was governed by that policy which pretends to aspire to peace but unerringly generates war, the policy of continual preparation for war, the policy of meddlesome interventionism. There was no corner of the known world where some interest was not alleged to be in danger or under actual attack. If the interests were not Roman, they were those of Rome`s allies. And if Rome had no allies, then allies would be invented. The fight was always invested with an aura of legality. Rome was always being attacked by evil-minded neighbors, always fighting for breathing space. The whole world was pervaded by a host of enemies, and it was manifestly Rome`s duty to guard against their indubitably aggressive designs.” ….
LAMB: So where does that phrase, “as pure as Caesar`s wife,” come from PARENTI: It`s — it`s — that`s true. It`s only half the phrase. It really should be “One must be.” If you`re Caesar`s wife, you must be pure, in other words. And his statement was, I`m divorcing her. He maintained, No, no, she had no affair with Claudius. But Caesar`s wife must be above suspicion, so Caesar`s wife must be pure. Doesn`t mean Caesar`s wife was pure. You know, it`s a misphrasing, in a way.
Pictures are from “The Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library”.