Why more response to one DOG than global immiseration and Darfur combined?

Well, who knows how it will be viewed, from the standpoint of horshitory? I can say that agenda counts more than issues, and glass walls more than either. So people have little real democracy and try to pursue their agenda, whether it's the equal rights for lobster tails types or whatever.

I must say that this example from the current board is NOT an isolated case. Specific examples of profound issues that routinely sink to the bottom have been cited to me by people who have a keen eye for these details at the DU board. We need to ask -- are we more concerned about the ENTERTAINMENT at Live 8 than the politics of absolute poverty as a controversy, and if the latter is more important, why not more focus. There's a zillions rationales, but the real reasons were state above? We need to be civil about this issue, but we also need to be real, and really aware of the pose of the "How Dare you?" indignants that seem to be treated with such generosity everywhere (including here). I say that authentic progressive politics will go nowhere unless and until we confront the problem, not just as one of apathy in the general sense, but at its root, which I have tried to allude to. (When addressed more bluntly in a thread about Judith Miller, it did draw quite a chorus of protestations, and got locked, so here it's toned down.)

We are actively creating atrocities in Iraq.

The entire "military budget" wasted in the process of destroying Iraq could have funded the Army Corps of Engineers to build irrigation, water treatment, and other useful projects in Niger and Darfur, building allies instead of enemies. Our so-called "geopolitical strategists" from PNAC are utter morons. The "moral authority" built up in Darfur, Niger, and elsewhere could have been exploited for direct oil capital in Iraq and Iran instead of creating anti-US sentiment in Iraq and Iran, shutting down oil production in Iraq, and funelling anti-US sentiment toward the Euro-based Iranian oil bourse.

Surely there is some need to address massive genocides at least 'internationally'. I understand how the US exploits issues like the tsunami (then quietly lifts arms embargo on Indonesia) but at least the UN or someone should be pressured when hundreds of thousands of people are dying, and it appears reasonably preventable.
We don't live in a perfect world, but there are minimal actions and levels of concern on the part of activists, short of necessarily advocating even minimal military intervention by anyone, that would at least reflect some moral proportionality.

Other have noted, as I say, that Paris Hilton &c get more of a response than reports of famine in Niger. This is not due to the admittedly genuine issues of moral quandary that have been raised about legitimating imperialism.