Reviewing as a Tool of Propaganda

The Commercial Appeal regularly runs the reviews of Paul Rosenberg, of leftist advocacy group Reason & Democracy. Paul is one of those reasonable-sounding far-left guys, as witness this from his review of Ann Power's, A Problem From Hell:

[genocide] meant "a coordinated plan of different actions" to
destroy the cultural identity of a people; mass murder was only part of
the process, and thus genocide could be recognized and stopped well
before the mass killings began.....
Genocide prevention has never been a presidential
priority, and no president has paid a price for permitting genocide. Until
that mind-set changes, she concludes, genocides will continue.

Part of America's job is to go around the world, inserting itself into nations to "prevent genocide?" Not according to my Constitution! The Founding Fathers were very clear on "foreign entanglements," that they would, in Jerry Pournelle's words, lead "from Republic to Empire." Rosenberg seems to have no problem with this:

Still, the practical results have been meager, as [author]Power's penetrating
survey of other genocides - from Cambodia to Rwanda to Iraq to the
Balkans - makes painfully clear. And yet, no one can say how much
worse things might be if not for the maverick figures of conscience
whose unfinished task this book calls on all of us to fulfill.

The "maverick figure" he speaks of was a classic radical, Raphael Lemkin, whose approach to action was a classic radical approach:

he assembled a
committee representing groups with a combined membership of 240
million people, and yet he remained a solitary figure, a distinctly
unofficial man at the center of world affairs....Lemkin then went on, through ceaseless
lobbying, to get genocide prevention incorporated into international law
in the 1948 UN Convention on Genocide....

Yep, call yourself a speaker for others who (conveniently) have no voice and whose numbers don't show up at your meetings, organise a committee, leverage that into press and a seat at power, then get your agenda pressed into unassailable law.

Brrrr....

Until next time,
Your Working Boy