KONY 2012 is a film and campaign by Invisible Children that aims to make Joseph Kony famous, not to celebrate him, but to raise support for his arrest and set a precedent for international justice. you may have seen this around the web or not. i thought i would post it here and maybe help spread the word a little bit more. The 30 mins to watch the video are worth it... so please watch it.
didn't watch the video.. but I know that part of the world isn't where you want to be remember when the congo had roving bands of lunatics raping women and children, killing the men.. they even went so far as to shoot them in the vagina with a 22 in such a way, they would live but would suffer for the rest of their lives.. missionaries couldn't even get into the parts needed to help.. it's just so sad that you don't hear about it really http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/africa/05/18/ensler.congo/index.html
Machine Gun Preacher is actually about Kony as far as I'm aware, and is certainly worth a watch, while obviously it's a film, it still puts across some of the horrors which happen out there, powerful stuff.
It's definitional worth a watch but not everything is as it seems. http://visiblechildren.tumblr.com/ I support the cause but not the solution, or the charity and its leadership. Discussion on reddit: http://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/qln68/am_i_the_only_one_who_is_suspicious_about/ Trying to stop a very evil person by supporting a different, not particularly nice group of people (the Ugandan army) who have raped and murdered civilians.
Only 37% of the donations go towards project in Africa, as well meaning as the vast majority who share this are, it's probably not going to change anything. They're secretive when it comes to financial disclosures too, getting two stars http://www.charitynavigator.org/index.cfm?bay=search.summary&orgid=12429 http://s3.amazonaws.com/www.invisiblechildren.com/critiques.html
They also don't actually appear to do anything, except make movies. Most film students seem to think of making movies as a career, these guys have obviously found a way to get paid, and at the same time be doing a "good" thing.
I should point out that to be honest, it doesn't matter how much goes to Africa. The make or break thing for these sorts of charities is how far they make their money go on the ground. That said, they look pretty bad. EDIT: I should also point out that charities are more similar to businesses than more people realise.
I came across the film and watched it through last night. Without taking into account the issues raised I thought it was certainly a very well done piece of propaganda.
Same, I was really taken with how well the film was made. After being directed to the visible children blog, though, I've decided to stay on the fence for now - I just don't know enough about it to decide whether the movement comes out as a positive overall. I will say, though, that we shouldn't scoff at the fact that they 'only' make films: that's very specifically and deliberately part of their first objective, to make Kony famous. The rationale is that more publicity and fame mean more pressure on governments and incentive for them to intervene. Their whole deal is that they make films, they're not procrastinating being a 'real' charity or anything like that. Copy pasta from my facebook last night, where I tried to sum up my concerns about the movement: there are three things that make me uneasy about this campaign: first, that it uses children and other cloying propaganda tactics to push its argument; second, that for a large part it's retributional, emphasizing that he deserves it and must be brought to justice (rather than emphasizing the suffering of the victims, the threat he poses, etc.); third, that at its core, it's advocating and relying on mob justice. The good thing about mob justice is that it gets **** done; the bad thing is that with an effective enough campaign it can be aimed at just about anything. This one happens to be fairly moral, but history has proven how easily people can be propagandized into supporting immoral causes, and if this campaign works it'll set a bad precedent, even if it gets a good result. The mob justice and retributional justice aspects really bother me. Their thinking seems to be, "he's so evil, let's all as an international community gang up on him and make him world-famous, and let him know the whole world hates him." Because, you know, what this murdering pseudo-Christian messiah-complex extremist needs is to feel persecuted by the entire world and to feel under constant threat. That'll make him less dangerous. In reality, when this gets to him he'll probably just do what he's currently doing twice as much, twice as ruthlessly, in preparation/retalliation. But even ignoring that, there's something really unpleasant about the retributional tone. I don't think retribution - the idea that it must be done because X 'deserves it' - is a good way to do things. It appeals to the cruel and vengeful instincts of the people administering justice, and I don't think those are qualities we should nurture or incorporate into law. A better one would be prevention. Stopping Kony would end the suffering of hundreds to thousands of people (depending on who you listen to) every year, and that to me is the most important thing. But in the Kony 2012 video and campaign, it almost seems to be a secondary motive beneath the angry, bitter cry of "he deserves to be punished!" And the constant use of children in the film cheapened and detracted from their argument. It's a fundamentally manipulative faux-pas that makes you automatically lose credibility, I think. It reminded me of that South Park episode: "if you vote against us, you hate children. You don't hate children...do you?"
There is much truth in what he says. Question though, is there any oil in Uganda ( or other precious minerals )?...
I thought this was interesting. Suggests a lot about the viral popularity of the campaign in such an elegant way
So what do they start selling on 31/12/12? An App? Clothing range? I lost all faith in humanity after watching this video. The nice chap behind the video, lets arrest him instead, for being a fool.
US deployed 100 military advisers to that region last October to help the local governments get intelligence against Kony's people, it'll get handled eventually. Once he's dead his group will fall apart.
Mob mentality and witch hunts make me very uncomfortable -- I don't believe that balanced and rational courses of action can necessarily come from them. Let me make it abundantly clear that I view this as a completely separate issue from the morality of *any* argument or sanctioning of action. Totally agree -- manipulating people for any end makes me balk. The fact is that the majority of people deal with issues and actions on emotional terms, not rational and critical. The media know this very well -- you're not supposed to engage your faculties too much to get behind an argument. I can't help but agree with the general sentiment of the movement but I'd have my reservations as to whether the end result will be as the founders intend -- the west in general don't have a particularly great track record when involving themselves in other countries business, to say the least. That remains to be seen -- Al Qaeda are still operating, even though Bin Laden is gone.
Also there is oil in Uganda Personally I find that they made the issue far too one-dimensional. And while I'd like to say that I'm wrong, it doesn't seem that there is evidence of the contrary, in fact what's worrying is that there are people who are convinced that somehow eliminating Kony would solve ALL THE PROBLEMS!.
The LRA disappeared from the region over 5 years ago, this is just a load of crap, whatever this video is trying to do, it's not about finding this 'kony' fella. If anything kony is just a snappy recognizable name to help spread this. The hard truth? Whilst us Humans are loving beings, we don't often do anything unless we have a chance of gaining something in return, wether that is a feeling of self worth or a wad of cash. Things like this always make me feel ill, because it's the whole 'V for Vendetta' scenario, lets stand together, do what's right etc. No, this is planet earth ************, I'm going to kill, eat, ****, sleep then die and SO ARE YOU.
The LRA revolves around Kony, the members believe that he has supernatural powers, that he's basically Jesus. Don't think Al-Qaeda is quite the same style. They at least have goals that go beyond rape pillage murder death kill.
Once his dead, some other upstart will take the reins and start... To put it straight, do you think Kony is the only person who does this in Uganda? Africa even? Like a picture on Memebase, if I got a picture of Africa and showed half of the people attempting to support this and asking our Armys to take control, and asked them to point out Uganda, will they be able too? I also find it funny, half of the people who say that they want our Army to take control are the ones saying they shouldn't be at war already...sigh..
