by Sara Flounders, published on Workers World, February 26, 2026
Sara Flounders — a Workers World contributing editor, who helps coordinate the International Action Center and the United National Antiwar Coalition — gave the following presentation at the International Manifesto Group webinar on Feb. 21, celebrating the revolutionary contributions of Michael Parenti.
Thank you, International Manifesto Group and Carlos Martinez.
We may be days or hours away from a horrific war on Iran, a far wider war in Asia and a new level of strangulation of Cuba, so it’s a crucial time to discuss Michael Parenti in this time of war, endless war. Faced with the total violence of an imperialist war we need action, agitation and confrontation.
Just to be clear, I am not an academic! I’m an activist, an organizer. Michael Parenti moved people into action, and he spoke to those determined to resist. He was for the picket lines, the demonstrations, the takeovers and the armed struggle.
The overwhelming corporate propaganda is designed to marginalize any opposition. The role of Western academics is to cushion vicious reality and create confusion, passivity and standing on the sidelines with petty criticism.
My talk will be focused on the period when I worked closely with Michael Parenti, during the decade of war on the Yugoslav Federation. It was a time when we had few allies in the movement.
Parenti was combative, unapologetic. That was so refreshing. Parenti got the essence. The class truth of the issue. He posed it, always, as: Which side are you on?
Parenti was on the side of the working class, especially when it was under attack. He really saw the world in global terms, in a prolonged struggle.
He knew on every issue that he was against U.S. imperialism. He proudly took sides. Then, he gathered the facts, the details, to back up his position. That is why he was such a winning writer.
The U.S. and NATO powers organized with guns, money and tons of propaganda to break up the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia into a half-dozen weak ministates.
Their goal was to assert U.S. military and political dominance in Europe through the U.S.-commanded military alliance NATO and to violently crush, literally rip apart, the last nonaligned government in Eastern Europe.
The propaganda war succeeded even in confusing most progressives in the West — with a well-planned and executed offensive of lies that blamed every problem in the Balkans on Serbia and on President Slobodan Milošević, who they wildly demonized as a fanatic dictator. It was one relentless scenario.
Milošević was merely the elected head of a coalition government, a socialist federation of six distinct republics, two autonomous provinces and numerous political parties. [Milošević was president of Serbia, then president of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia from 1997-2000 when he was overthrown.]
Remember the period in history
The 1990s corporate globalization seemed all-powerful.
There were years of unrelenting war propaganda that created great demoralization and confusion, marked by the collapse of the Soviet Union and all other socialist countries in Eastern Europe, and the catastrophic drop in aid once given by these countries to Cuba, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea and nations throughout Africa.
This war was carried out by President Bill Clinton, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and the Democratic Party, not Bush and the Republicans as during the Iraq war. This further silenced any liberal opposition.
I really value people who are willing to jump into a struggle when it’s difficult and who use their talents to help cut through the layers of rampant propaganda.
The war began with the U.S. /German recognition of republics of Yugoslavia as independent entities under NATO control. Then came the NATO bombing of Bosnia for 22 days to impose the 1995 Dayton Accords.
In Bosnia at that time, I witnessed the absolute ruin and resulting dysfunction, intentionally created by the U.S. Always, it was “Serbia was to blame. The U.S. role was peacekeeper.”
I was in Serbia as part of a solidarity delegation during the darkest days of the U.S./NATO bombing in May 1999. In 78 days of bombings, NATO destroyed 14 tanks — Yugoslavia didn’t have a large military. But NATO also bombed 480 schools and 33 hospitals, busy market places, churches, bridges, passenger trains, crowded buses and the electric grid. Overwhelmingly, bombs hit civilian targets and civilian infrastructure.
This was followed by Michael Parenti and Barry Letuchy’s trip to Yugoslavia, shortly after the war. We needed especially here in the U.S. to hear voices of opposition and of solidarity.
We organized mass hearings, U.S. War Crimes Tribunals, gathering testimony, photos, eyewitness accounts, the names of every school, hospital and market place bombs hit. These were big public events, forgotten even here now, but there were hearings and mass meetings throughout Europe and the U.S.
The International Action Center worked with former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark for years on this campaign.
‘To Kill a Nation’
Michael Parenti was an incredibly fast and comprehensive writer and an extraordinary speaker. Within months of his visit to Serbia, he produced “To Kill a Nation: The Attack on Yugoslavia.” He posted my endorsement on the back cover. It is still a good summary: “‘To Kill a Nation’ is the best explanation of the great crime NATO committed and what it will mean for our future. It is full of insights on the role of U.S. militarism and media disinformation in the service of corporate profits.”
Our determination was that the history of this war would not only be written by the victors.
Michael contributed a chapter, “The Media and Their Atrocities,” and helped John Catalinotto, me and a whole team of activists conceptualize how to organize a ton of material, graphs, lists and testimony into a book titled “Hidden Agenda – the U.S./NATO Takeover of Yugoslavia.”
The war didn’t end with bombings and a brutal ceasefire agreement. Serbia was the first of a whole series of U.S.-orchestrated “Color Revolutions.” It established the template, used again and again, to overthrow elected governments by creating well-funded chaos in the streets.
Milošević put on trial
President Milošević was overthrown, jailed in April 2001 and then kidnapped to the Hague Prison in June to stand trial for alleged war crimes committed against his country.
All the forces who opposed the U.S./NATO war came together to form The International Committee to Defend Slobodan Milošević. It was established in Belgrade and Berlin.
Again it took great, great courage to lend his name to this effort, but Michael Parenti became chairperson of the U.S. National Section of the International Committee to Defend Slobodan Milošević (ICDSM).
Today, as we organize to defend the U.S. kidnapped, elected President of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro and elected deputy to the National Assembly of Venezuela, Cilia Flores, we should remember the conduct of the Hague Tribunal.
Milošević was supposedly put on trial at a specially created International Tribunal at the Hague but was refused a lawyer of his choice, refused the right to represent himself, and his microphone was simply turned off during major sections of this phony “trial.”
After five years, Milošević was finally supposed to present his view in 2006, but he was medically assassinated. He claimed again and again that he was being poisoned and deprived of proper medication for his chronic heart disease. We were waging an international campaign demanding that he receive medical treatment when he died of cardiac arrest.
So I want to salute Michael Parenti for standing up to the wall of U.S. propaganda and aggressive military, political and economic destruction.
Today is a very different period.
A mere 25 and 30 years ago, U.S. domination seemed uncontested. U.S. imperialists arrogantly called it the “American Century.” Their plan was global domination.
Today it is clear that U.S. power, its infrastructure and certainly its economy is in decline. Sanctions, tariffs and war can’t reverse this decline.
I recall that even as Michael stayed firm in his defense of President Milošević, another period of history had his attention. He would talk about it and pull up new facts.
Michael had such a wide-ranging historic interest. Always curious, always class-conscious in an encyclopedic way. His next book was “The Assassination of Julius Caesar: A People’s History of Ancient Rome.”
Why? Because the class struggle is the one constant.
Let’s never leave the writing of our history up to the victors.
Michael Parenti, ¡presente!