Kony Campaign

[Vong]

As I'm sure most of you are aware of this campaign, you can't go anywhere on Facebook without seeing something regarding this. After only two days of seeing this shit on Kony, I'm fed up with it all.

The campaign showcases an old portrait of a man slowly losing relevance in Africa. And not only is it naive to think that this campaign will accomplish anything, the message they are sending is outdated and will do more harm then good.

[Bourne101]

Agreed. I find it scary how quickly the bandwagon social activists jumped onto this one and expect that buying bracelets and liking Facebook statuses is going to do anything.

[DaveyJoeG]

I posted this picture on my Facebook in response to all of the Kony hype. I think the reaction has been pretty ridiculous. The same people who want the US to pull out of the Middle East are all up in arms about this video without knowing the full story. It's not like there is a shortage of "bad guys" in the world. These people need to decide whether they want America to police the world or not.

[fixedMind]

Originally Posted by DaveyJoeG

I posted this picture on my Facebook in response to all of the Kony hype. I think the reaction has been pretty ridiculous. The same people who want the US to pull out of the Middle East are all up in arms about this video without knowing the full story. It's not like there is a shortage of "bad guys" in the world. These people need to decide whether they want America to police the world or not.

http://thedailywh.at/2012/03/07/on-kony-2012-2/

And as far as what they do with that money:

The group is in favour of direct military intervention, and their money supports the Ugandan government’s army and various other military forces. Here’s a photo of the founders of Invisible Children posing with weapons and personnel of the Sudan People’s Liberation Army. Both the Ugandan army and Sudan People’s Liberation Army are riddled with accusations of rape and looting, but Invisible Children defends them, arguing that the Ugandan army is “better equipped than that of any of the other affected countries”, although Kony is no longer active in Uganda and hasn’t been since 2006 by their own admission. These books each refer to the rape and sexual assault that are perennial issues with the UPDF, the military group Invisible Children is defending.

Let’s not get our lines crossed: The Lord’s Resistance Army is bad news. And Joseph Kony is a very bad man, and needs to be stopped. But propping up Uganda’s decades-old dictatorship and its military arm, which has been accused by the UN of committing unspeakable atrocities and itself facilitated the recruitment of child soldiers, is not the way to go about it.

The United States is already plenty involved in helping rout Kony and his band of psycho sycophants. Kony is on the run, having been pushed out of Uganda, and it’s likely he will soon be caught, if he isn’t already dead. But killing Kony won’t fix anything, just as killing Osama bin Laden didn’t end terrorism. The LRA might collapse, but, as Foreign Affairs points out, it is “a relatively small player in all of this — as much a symptom as a cause of the endemic violence.”

Myopically placing the blame for all of central Africa’s woes on Kony — even as a starting point — will only imperil many more people than are already in danger.

Sending money to a nonprofit that wants to muck things up by dousing the flames with fuel is not helping. Want to help? Really want to help? Send your money to nonprofits that are putting more than 31% toward rebuilding the region’s medical and educational infrastructure, so that former child soldiers have something worth coming home to.

[Badbird]

It's kinda weird how the backlash over this is almost as large and fast as the original video spread. I never heard of this thing till last night, and I've seen more stuff about the cynical backlash than the original video.

I can't say I don't agree with the sentiments, though. Yeah, Africa is kinda fucked. Welcome to the last five hundred years.

Kinda reminds me about how no one gave a shit about the WBC when they were protesting gay funerals, but the moment they started protesting funerals of soldiers everyone was suddenly outraged.

[smok3h]

I love this thread. I couldn't agree more with what all of you are saying. I shared that Wonka meme on my Facebook and it pissed a lot of people off who were sharing the Kony link. It made for some entertaining discussion.

I honestly bet in two weeks nobody will be talking about this asshole.

[Squid Vicious]

Originally Posted by Badbird

It's kinda weird how the backlash over this is almost as large and fast as the original video spread. I never heard of this thing till last night, and I've seen more stuff about the cynical backlash than the original video.

I'd say that's a good thing. The fewer people who fall for imperialist propaganda, the better.

This whole campaign would've made Rudyard Kipling cringe...