{"id":27826,"date":"2023-08-08T20:34:44","date_gmt":"2023-08-09T03:34:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/?p=27826"},"modified":"2023-08-08T20:34:45","modified_gmt":"2023-08-09T03:34:45","slug":"book-a-problem-from-hell-america-and-the-age-of-genocide","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/2023\/08\/08\/book-a-problem-from-hell-america-and-the-age-of-genocide\/","title":{"rendered":"BOOK: \u201cA PROBLEM FROM HELL: AMERICA AND THE AGE OF GENOCIDE\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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\u201cA Problem from Hell\u201d: America and the Age of Genocide<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

by  Samantha Power<\/a><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lightreads<\/a>\u2018s review<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Aug 01, 2013<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Grinding, grueling, exhausting account of a series of genocides and the United States\u2019s response \u2013 or generally lack thereof.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Other people have criticized this book at length for failing to address the ways the United States was actively complicit in genocidal violence through support of its perpetrators. The criticism is accurate, though I think it\u2019s a product of the focus of this book very specifically on passive complicity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I had read excerpts of this over the years, and I\u2019m glad I finally sat down and went through all of it, cover-to-cover. But this is a first generation book, and now I want the fifth generation, or the seventh generation, if you know what I mean. Because Power spends a lot of time documenting American disinterest in mass death, and some time talking about the reasons, but the reasons are very . . . cerebral. This economic interest, that political exigency, a few general comments about racism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This book made me think a lot about pain, and being the observer of it. I mean, most of us catch glimpses of indescribable anguish out of the corners of our eyes all the time, but we\u2019ve developed defensive emotional blinders. But once in a while, someone looks at the newspaper headline that ten thousand other people read and forgot, and that one person is seared. Irrevocably changed just by knowing that five thousand people halfway around the world were \u201cdisappeared.\u201d I\u2019ve known some people like that, and worked with them. One of them was the first person to make me read excerpts of this book.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I want the book about those people. And the contextual, psychological, physiological, etc. differences between them and the rest of us. And the book that takes a deeper, more honest look at the psychology of passive complicity, not just its economic logic. Because Power wrote mostly about when and where and who, and left me pretty messed up over why<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(Goodreads.com)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cA Problem from Hell\u201d: America and the Age of Genocide by  Samantha Power Lightreads\u2018s review Aug 01, 2013 Grinding, grueling, exhausting account of a series of genocides and the United States\u2019s response \u2013 or generally lack thereof. Other people have criticized this book at length for failing to address the ways… Continue reading → <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[922,923],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27826"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27826"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27826\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27827,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27826\/revisions\/27827"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27826"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27826"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27826"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}