Talk:Michael Parenti

Hello, I think, in order to complete this great article, Someone should add the criticism he has got for denying the genocide which happened in yugoslavia after the civil war. He is already mentioned in an article about the denial of that genocide. Thanks! 193.170.142.163 (talk) 09:30, 17 October 2024 (UTC)

Per WP:CSECTION, criticism sections are usually inappropriate for WP:BLPs. But a bigger problem right now is that the sources are mostly WP:PRIMARY cites to advocacy organizations that are not themselves WP:RSes; we can cite them for their opinions, but not for obviously BLP-sensitive statements of fact in the article voice, so if those are the only available sources we have to be extremely careful with our wording and we can't give them too much weight. In particular categorization would require much higher-quality sourcing in order to demonstrate that high-quality sources unambiguously categorize him that way and that no serious disagreement over it exists. --Aquillion (talk) 15:21, 27 June 2025 (UTC)

The article already states that Michael Parenti died but provides no source Ivanmaxx (talk) 22:06, 24 January 2026 (UTC)

Nothing reliable thus far. The best I was able to find was this article by a Serbian news website Telegraf.rs. Brat Forelli🦊 23:02, 24 January 2026 (UTC)

I must admit it is quite strange. Just searched, and all I see is Vijay Prahash’s Substack, and the twittersphere reporting. Contrasting with Yanis Varoufakis and The Newstatesman article (which, I cannot find) about the supposed death of Noam Chomsky, it is quite indicative that the legacy media would rather not popularise him or even report his death. Lf8u2 (talk) 00:53, 25 January 2026 (UTC)

Do you guys think that there is any chance of getting this article to WP:ITN for recent deaths? The quality of report is quite low, but it seems WP:SKYBLUE is various organizations are reporting on the fact that he died User:Easternsahara 04:23, 25 January 2026 (UTC)

@Easternsahara WP:SKYBLUE regards WP:NOTCITE, so common knowledge, indisputable facts that should not need a reference. Someone's death is NOT applicable here. There have been numerous claims about someone's death that were false - this happened to Noam Chomsky in 2024.

If a reliable source for his death appears, then this would be settled. But a day has passed already and there's nothing, we only have tweets, the Serbian article I showed, idcommunism.com and Al Mayadeen which is deprecated on Wikipedia (WP:ALMAYADEEN).

But nothing otherwise. No mention on Reuters, Al Jazeera, The Guardian, AP News, BBC, or any other major and notable press. That alone makes this questionable. Brat Forelli🦊 09:03, 25 January 2026 (UTC)

Okay then if it does require more reliable sources then he shouldn't be listed as dead, could this be corrected? per WP:ONUS, although I do not think it is likely that major news outlets will be covering him and I do think that he has passed away. User:Easternsahara 16:30, 25 January 2026 (UTC)

@Brat Forelli: what about this democracy now article, there is no consensus on democracy now!'s reliability WP:DEMOCRACYNOW EasternShah (talk) 20:30, 28 January 2026 (UTC)

Should be changed to "American academic (1933-2026)" following his death. Thebirdnird (talk) 04:17, 25 January 2026 (UTC)

Summarize Timeline Top Qs Fact Check

@JPHC2003: wrote the following comment on my talk page. It is more appropriate that we discuss the issue on this talk page. It relates to this edit :

Dude, I'm beginning to get sick of you attributing provably spoken statements on here. David Walls quoted Michael Parenti's own words in the 2000 issue of Project Censored, in which he explicitly denied genocide and rape camps were in Bosnia. This is clear minimization, and this is not the first time you have done so. JPHC2003 (talk) 21:17, 25 January 2026 (UTC)
:Balkan's witness also provided receipts for Parenti's minimization and questioning of the Srebrenica massacre, which you could have just read yourself. JPHC2003 (talk) 21:20, 25 January 2026 (UTC)

My view is that the various sources are interpreting Parenti's writings. Their opinions should therefore be attributed. Some of the sources used are not ideal. For example, one was a blog. Burrobert (talk) 09:04, 26 January 2026 (UTC)

Thank you, Burrobert, for legitimately asking for corroboration of the 50,000 number, which is not documented in other WP articles such as War crimes in the Kosovo War, Propaganda during the Yugoslav Wars, etc. IMO, the entire clause beginning "as well as 'publicly disregard[ing]..." should be removed since it starts to turn (what should be) an encyclopedic article about the life and work of Michael Parenti into a diatribe against him. Likewise, the sentence beginning "In 2013, the Institute for the Research of Genocide, Canada..." is unnecessary. The prior sentence already gets the point across that Parenti experienced "cancel culture" for challenging the U.S. government's and mainstream media's Yugoslavia narrative, and citing more examples of his cancelled speaking engagements is just piling on. The-dansker (talk) 15:02, 26 January 2026 (UTC)

And your thoughts on Parenti being accurately quoted about his views on rape camps and genocide in Bosnia never existing? That one isn’t a blog, it’s from a socialist journal. JPHC2003 (talk) 20:38, 26 January 2026 (UTC)

I also question why @Burrobert attributed Historian Hoare’s statement about Milosevic writing To Kill a Nation’s foreword, even though I can see this is simply factually correct. JPHC2003 (talk) 20:49, 26 January 2026 (UTC)

The source which I marked as a blog was on the Institute For Research of Genocide Canada website. The word "Blog" is in bold letters at the top of the page. I did not initially look closely at the source itself. It is hard to find much info about the Institute on the site. It appears to be an advocacy site run by Emir Ramic, who says he is working on his PhD.

Regarding the attribution of "Hoare’s statement about Milosevic writing To Kill a Nation’s foreword", my contribution was to change the verb "noting", which is a word to watch, to the verb "stating", which is preferred under the guideline at wp:said. My view is that there are two points to consider when mentioning this. The first point is whether it is verifiable. The second is whether it is significant. Hoare's opinion is that it is significant. Burrobert (talk) 06:04, 27 January 2026 (UTC)

So we've established the Institute For Research of Genocide Canada is a blog. I understand that, and I don't think that website was ever used as a source for him saying anything about the Bosnian genocide, other than criticizing him for his alleged views. And your thoughts on David Walls criticizing Parenti for his factual statements, considering @The-dansker hasn't responded to my question? JPHC2003 (talk) 01:59, 28 January 2026 (UTC)

Walls' quote of Parenti is accurate. Walls precedes this with "Parenti writes disparagingly about accounts of atrocities in Bosnia". The reason Parenti writes "disparagingly" is that, in the examples he discusses, he says evidence was not produced to substantiate the reports. Walls does not explain why Parenti "wrote disparagingly". At the end of the quote Walls says "Parenti continues this denial in his recent book, To Kill a Nation". Is he referring to "denial of atrocities" or denial of something else? We have interpreted it to mean "denied reports of genocide and mass rapes". Having read Parenti's article, I think a more accurate summary of Parenti's article would be "Parenti said the evidence provided did not support the reports of genocide and mass rapes". Unfortunately, unless there is a source for this interpretation, we cannot include it. Anyway, whatever way we want to paraphrase Walls view, it is his interpretation of Parenti's writings, so should be attributed to him. Burrobert (talk) 10:10, 28 January 2026 (UTC)

I broadly support most of the changes in Burrobert's edit that is under discussion, but not sure on a couple of things:

1. Walls' opinion of Parenti can only be quoted with attribution, but where he is directly quoting Parenti I am not sure we need to attribute that to Walls as it becomes confusing and we have no reason to assume he's not reliably quoting.
2. I'm not sure we're right to label the Institute for the Research of Genocide source as a "blog". It's from the blog section of the website, because it's a news item, but it's not a blog in the sense of a self-published source per WP:SPS. I don't have a strong sense it's reliable, but I note it has an "International Expert Team Council", whose listed members include Brian Masse, Rob Oliphant, Ausma Zehanat Khan, Branko Lustig, John Esposito, Ani Kalayjian, Christian Schwarz-Schilling, M. Cherif Bassiouni, Francis Anthony Boyle, Marko Attila Hoare, Tilman Zülch, Greg Stanton, Gregory Weeks, Payam Akhavan, Daniel Blatman...

BobFromBrockley (talk) 11:54, 28 January 2026 (UTC)

There appears to be very little available information about the Institute. The structure of the website and some of the items on it suggest it lacks reliability. The Board of Directors page has no information. The Director says of himself that "Intellectually he has grown into an extremely serious, well known, and valued researcher and of modern Bosnian and Herzegovian history". The layout of the "International Expert Team Council Members" page is not convincing. It would be useful to know whether any of the people listed include the Institute as an affiliation in there bios. The site has the flavour of a one-person operation a la Kramerica Industries. The page headed "Blog" is attributed to "admin", which suggests it is like an op-ed.

Regarding Walls' quote of Parenti, I agree that there is no need to attribute it. Perhaps start a new sentence and say something like "Walls quoted Parenti as stating that ..." Burrobert (talk) 13:00, 28 January 2026 (UTC)

Ok let’s definitely leave the unreliable tag. Agree on approach re Walls BobFromBrockley (talk) 14:12, 28 January 2026 (UTC)

You're being far too generous in your interpretation of what Parenti might have meant. The quote was "Hyperbolic labeling takes the place of evidence: 'genocide,' 'mass atrocities,' 'systematic rapes,' and even 'rape camps'--camps which no one has ever located." Not only is this blatantly false, I don't understand how you're supposed to read such a thing and not understand exactly what he means: that no genocide, mass atrocities, rape and rape camps ever occurred or existed in Bosnia. The name of the article is "How Project Censored Joined The Whitewash of Serb Atrocities". It should be fairly obvious Walls was referring to Parenti downplaying war crimes committed by both the Bosnian Serbs and the FRY Serbs. So yes, Walls is referring to his denial of atrocities in To Kill A Nation, which I thought would've been obvious given sites like Balkan Witness and historian Marko Attila Hoare already accused him of such. Don't you think you're leaving a lot of room available for someone directly stating "no genocide and no mass rape was committed by the Serbs"? JPHC2003 (talk) 22:42, 28 January 2026 (UTC)

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Add category "Category:Liberty Union Party politicians" to the category section, as Parenti ran for public office on the LUP ticket in the 1970s, as is mentioned in the article. HelloIWanttoHelp (talk) 05:19, 25 February 2026 (UTC)

 Done Day Creature (talk) 06:40, 25 February 2026 (UTC)