I found reading this article quite a breath of fresh air. The author, a leftist blogger, not only ‘follows the money’ but also sheds valuable light on the whole anti-China angle, microcredit financing in third-world countries and other sacred cows of the ‘liberal imperialist’ crowd.

I reproduce below a few paragraphs:

Darfur, microcredit loan-sharks and Woody Allen’s creepy son

A couple of years ago I used to scratch my head in wonder at those nearly weekly full-page “Save Darfur” ads that appeared in the NY Times. Even if they were discounted in moveon.org fashion, they still cost $65,000. (The full price is about $180,000). My guess is that there were probably at least 20 of them back in 2005 or so. That would add up to a tidy sum, even at a discount: $1,300,000. Where the hell does that kind of money come from?

I finally found out in an article that appeared in the March 30, 2008 NY Times Sunday Magazine. Titled “Changing the Rules of the Game”, it is a profile of some of the “activists” who are involved with the movement, including Mia Farrow and her son Ronan Seamus Farrow. (This is Woody’s offspring. After he was born, Woody named him Satchel Farrow in honor of Satchel Paige, the legendary African-American baseball player, but Mia renamed him after their famous split-up.) Much of their activity seems to revolve around strong-arming their Hollywood pals who lent their name to the Olympics, including Stephen Spielberg.

But I doubt that they could have gotten very far without the big bucks that helps to keep Darfur on the front-burner, largely through very expensive public relations campaigns.
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