Kony 2012

[jhulud]

I got sucked into the whole viral spread of this...and then I did some research and additional reading...I'm completely skeptical about Invisible Children and what they're all about. Do some research if you need more info...BUT..

So here's a bit of interesting info...I went to see Henry Rollins do his spoken words thing tonight...and he mentioned the Kony2012 video and the campaign...he didn't have a solid opinion of it as he's not well-read into the Invisible Children organization.

BUT...Rollins did say this much...the bit on the video with Shepard Fairey was lifted from an episode of Rollins' show he had on IFC...without anyone's permission! It seems that the Invisible Children dude did not get the OK from anyone...Fairey's people nor Henry's nor IFC...to use the footage.

May be not a huge deal...but kinda adds to the somewhat shadiness of it all.

And I tweeted this earlier...but I wonder it Trent Reznor knows and even gave any type of OK for the use of the Ghosts I-IV track that is used in the opening and closing of the Kony video.

[aggroculture]

http://boingboing.net/2012/03/08/afr...d-to-hype.html

[botley]

I wonder if Trent Reznor knows and even gave any type of OK for the use of the Ghosts I-IV track that is used in the opening and closing of the Kony video.

He doesn't have to, that whole album has an Creative Commons Attribution license attached so you just need to credit the band (which they did) in order to use it.

[Wretchedest]

So now, for who know what reasons, suddenly everybody cares about the numerous terrible crimes against humanity in africa, in the same way that suddenly everyone cared about SOPA for a minute.

What's disburbing is that the rhetoric, due to the cynicism of most internet folk, is basically, "Don't support the cause, because the people behind the cause are disagreeable" it's like we're waiting around for spiderman to swoop in and save the day, because god forbid some christian fundamentalists are ALSO against child slavery.

What I'm hearing is broadly " I support genocide and rape on a broad scale because X Group is against it, and I don't like how they do things. We should not spread awareness of this because facebook sucks and is ineffective."

It's fucking stupid.

[orestes]

Painting broad strokes, are we?

[Magtig]

After reading way too many articles on this group, I've come to the conclusion that they're ok. Yes, you could probably find a charity that will give more of the money straight to the cause, IC definitely spends a lot on media and content creation. However, unless you were already aware of Kony, and had planned to do something about it, you'd still owe your awareness to IC. Their mission is to make Kony famous in order to raise awareness, which in turn will lead to his arrest. It seems to me as if they're doing the awareness bit rather handily at the moment. Now, I have no idea if this will work or not, but it's pretty hard to say that they haven't made tens of millions more aware, and that they aren't going towards their own mission statement.

What really bothers me about the naysayer crowd is this whole, "clicking like does nothing!" Yes, but it might lead to something (see: arab spring). History has proven facebook to act as a catalyst, has it not? It's also depressing that people shit on this simply because they're annoyed at seeing it everywhere. It seems like anytime a group tries to do something good, they just get torn apart by the apathetic. I'd speculate that the vast majority of people posting that bastardized Game of Thrones picture are definitely not doing a damn thing.

The best criticism of the Kony 2012 group was posted on Lifehacker, but it basically says to support an entirely different cause (which is a problematic suggestion):
"GiveWell's critique, like other Kony 2012 criticism, mostly rests on the oversimplification of the problem as presented by Invisible Children, questioning whether money donated to "intervene in a complex, disputed situation that you don't have the context to fully understand" would be better spent on "a simple situation where all humanitarians really do agree"—namely malaria, which last year " caused an estimated 655,000 deaths, mostly among African children."

A couple article references if you're interested:
Invisible Children's response to the criticism
Gawker (the content of which is almost the same as sister sites, Lifehacker, and io9)
Visible Children's very critical take as posted on Sabatoge Times

[Deus Ex Machina]

Yeah, I don't really understand all the hate for these guys. Well, actually, I do, which is sad.

It's not their fault that people need things to be a big deal before they'll do anything about them; or that people need to be spoon fed information. It's also not their fault that people aren't prepared to fork over large amounts of money and time, or any money and time, towards any given cause. People are prepared to click like, and buy a bracelet, and share a video and that's exactly what they are offering. Upon identifying this thing as 'slacktivism' how many people ran out and volunteered or gave a bunch of money towards whatever cause they deemed worthier? I bet not that many.

Ugh. If 'just clicking like' embarrasses you; that's your responsibility. Not theirs.

[orestes]

Invisible Children funded by anti-gay, Creationist Christian Right.

[PooPooMeowChow]

What now?

[botley]

Why ignorance is dangerous. "Doing something beats doing nothing" is a fallacy.

[miss k bee]

Is the Joseph Kony campaign some "slick, kind of fly-by-night, slacktivist thing"? http://huff.to/zKGZXS

[theimage13]

Just like how people on Facebook were changing their profile picture to a cartoon to 'raise awareness of child abuse' or their bra color to 'raise awareness of breast cancer'. Is there any fully grown adult who isn't aware of these things?

Is there any fully grown adult who's never heard of Pepsi or Coke? Of course there isn't. So clearly, they're wasting billions of dollars on advertising.

Except wait...we have tiny attention spans. And the power of suggestion is powerful indeed. Of course you know what breast cancer is. But are you more likely to donate to a charity because you simply woke up one day and went "oh, I'll give a few bucks to this cause"? No. Most people are more likely to financially support a cause when someone ASKS them to, or at the very least, shoves a notice about it right under their noses and puts in the front of their mind.

[sweeterthan]

They only valid criticism I've seen about this campaign is that the issue was over-simplified in the video. The other stuff - shady donors, how the money is spent, rumored intentions, "slacktivism" - is subjective in my opinion.

[botley]

They only valid criticism I've seen about this campaign is that the issue was over-simplified in the video. The other stuff - shady donors, how the money is spent, rumored intentions, "slacktivism" - is subjective in my opinion.

So there's no objective problem whatsoever with using public outcry to justify increased American military presence in Central Africa? Great! I guess I shouldn't have worried myself about it after all.

Would your alarm bells be ringing if the video labeled Kony a "terrorist and declared enemy of America" instead of an "indicted war criminal"?

[allegro]

From USA Today yesterday:

http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion...ube/53518600/1

[isak]

From USA Today yesterday:

http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion...ube/53518600/1

That's because people need a narrative. No one would support this if it wasn't simple and accessible and had a big archvillian and a simple story to back, and some pretty bracelets to buy to help the cause. I'm pretty sure Kony hasn't been a threat for a while anyway, he's not even in Uganda according to some articles I've read. It's still obviously a good cause, and even if the reasons for people backing it may be a little silly (I know a lot of people let themselves get persuaded by that painfully sensationalised video and backed it without even checking anything) they're still doing something good. It just got me thinking why no one gives a shit about all the horrible things going on in Syria or Iraq, and I guessed it must be because things aren't so easy and black and white as buying a bracelet to stop the big bad man to help the cute little African children.

[danebraddy]

The biggest problem I have with this thing is the 'reputation' the youth/internet movement will get from this. Iran was a bust, Syria was a bust, SOPA was a small victory (supreme court probably would have had issues with the bill in that form), OWS died and now KONY2012 - a problem that doesn't exist in the way it was presented, is incredibly complex and most probably cannot be solved.

I like it as an awareness raising campaign, for the few who didn't know Africa is fucked up and child armies exist - but what is the end goal here? what needs to happen that would not cause people in a years time to say "Yeah, well done on that Kony thing "

Killing/Arresting him won't stop another like him popping up in another form and 'fixing' corrupt governments and the general instability that allows these things to happen simply can't be stopped by awareness - if by us at all...

This will blow over in a month or two and then we'll be onto the next thing - mad as hell and swearing that we can fix <insert cause here>.

I understand that as 'superpowers' we have the means to help all other humans in need and right wrongs etc., but are there still millions of people on foodstamps without adequate housing and health care? Is there still a child sex slave industry working within the united states?

I don't want to dismiss everything and say 'charity starts at home' but how can we in good conscience go fix the world when our own homes are still broken?

**
I noticed I used very US centric examples and I'm Australian - by 'we' I mean the 'western world' and I used US examples because while global Kony2012 started in the US...

**

I'm going to get flamed and I get it, but I think we all need a little perspective - NO amount of awareness or money to charity will fix this problem.

[Space Suicide]

Killing/Arresting him won't stop another like him popping up in another form and 'fixing' corrupt governments and the general instability that allows these things to happen simply can't be stopped by awareness - if by us at all...

Like I say all the time: You can kill people. You can't kill ideas.

If he is taken down (highly doubtful) it wouldn't mean much as his memory lives on in his supporters and in this case, the LRA.

As for this Kony revelation, I am not particularly much concerned about things that won't change. And is it sad that I got dislike at the fact in the feeling of the US interfering in things that aren't our business once again. It's like we are the world police and no one wants to follow the law anyways.

[isak]

This video sums everything up perfectly, and is hilarious.

[danebraddy]

This video sums everything up perfectly, and is hilarious.

Oh man that was funny, and spot on too!

[botley]

Surprise, surprise. http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/...rticle2370125/ 'Stop Kony' screening tour cancelled after Ugandans react with outrage.

[sweeterthan]

So there's no objective problem whatsoever with using public outcry to justify increased American military presence in Central Africa? Great! I guess I shouldn't have worried myself about it after all.

i definitely think any military action anywhere is worrisome but there are already 100 military advisors from the US in Uganda, as stated in the video. Part of the video's mission was to promote keeping them there.

Would your alarm bells be ringing if the video labeled Kony a "terrorist and declared enemy of America" instead of an "indicted war criminal"?

As far as I know, no one hasn't said that about Kony so what's your point?

[botley]

My point is this: Americans tend to support military aggression justified on the basis of stopping a widely-vilified public figure who's considered abhorrent enough to warrant violent intervention. We've seen it again and again: send American boys in to take out the Boogeyman (Saddam, Kony, whomever) — oh, and "stabilize the region" so we can maintain steady access to the oil-rich land they happen to be in (Iraq, Uganda, wherever). It's clever as fuck and works every time.

I saw no indication that the status quo of 100 American non-combat troops in an advisory role to the Ugandan army was going to change — until IC decided to make this video. If they succeed in their stated goal of making Kony a figurehead on par with Bin Laden & Hitler, and it looks like they might, America will happily go to war to take him out (and, of course, keep Uganda on side for tappin' dat oil).

Whether they intended that or not is a different matter. But the message of the video is that the ICC and Ugandan army on their own won't do the job, only America sticking its nose into things will. No wonder Ugandans living in the area of conflict are outraged by that.

[Aaron]

This Ugandan journalist says it best:

But I will say this: I'm not foreclosing the possibility of help, but that's exactly what you do when you decide on your own that "getting the bad guy" is the Most Important Thing (tm) in Uganda and for Ugandans (and lots of other people too, like the people in the countries where the LRA actually is). If you think that a "global force" to get Kony is the way to help, you're already too far from the reality of the situation. He's already been indicted by the ICC. Polls I saw two years ago showed that northern Ugandans were overwhelmingly more interested in living peacefully than they were in the capture of Joseph Kony. In fact, many people supported eventually trying Kony in Uganda, instead of the Hague. Now, I don't mean "under any circumstances" should everybody else refrain from getting involved, but to paraphrase Kagumire above, if you don't tell (or hear) the story correctly, or at the very very least in a way that doesn't reproduce structures of White supremacy/colonialism, you can't help. It's just impossible. As long as you understand something from that lens, from the perspective in the video, and all over Invisible Children's work, nothing you do even has the possibility of help, unless it's by accident or coincidence. Everybody has been in a situation where they tried to help someone, but only ended up making things worse, because they really didn't understand what they were doing. Yeah, that's this.

[DVYDRNS]

This just about nails everything I've been saying about this.

http://vigilantcitizen.com/vigilantr...ew-generation/

[mfte]

sorta related... but George Clooney was arrested at a protest against the attrocities done in the Sudan. Apparently he has his own slick video about it. So this week... he goes to hang out with Obama then days later he is publicly arrested at a protest thus brining more attention to what's happening in Africa.... like the Kony video did.

Am I being paranoid or does this seem like a plan?

[DVYDRNS]

The government has figured out that MSM isn't working anymore. They have resorted to these tactics... and its obviously working because I can't avoid this. its everywhere.

[october_midnight]

Well for all the fools who donated money to these hacks, here's where your hard earned money went to!

Helping Invisible Children's founder party like an idiot and jerk off in public!

[sweeterthan]

Thanks for your response Botley. I understand your point and I can't disagree that the message is America is the world police here to fight any battle in the name of justice or freedom. My alarm bells did go off during operation Iraqi freedom, a mission I couldn't support, only to find out that we were all lied to.

Well for all the fools who donated money to these hacks, here's where your hard earned money went to!

Helping Invisible Children's founder party like an idiot and jerk off in public!

This is just so weird, I don't even know what to say.

Its been a fun two weeks learning about Uganda. I'm going with that.

[DF118]

Well for all the fools who donated money to these hacks, here's where your hard earned money went to!

Helping Invisible Children's founder party like an idiot and jerk off in public!

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH.

Oh God, I hope that's true.