Make Joseph Kony famous

[You kip if you want to...]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4MnpzG5Sqc

[Lief 🗽]

Please don't donate any money to Invisible Children. They're a terrible, terrible organization.

[MASHED POTATOES. VOTE!]

What is this I don't even....

[Seattle]

I feel that the most important message of getting involved and actually acting out is getting overrun with a bunch of other less important stuff.

I've already seen a lot of negative feedback to this, but I take this as a reminder that nothing will happen if nothing is done and at least supporting this cause you are attempting to get rid of a very bad man.

[Modernity has failed us]

Please don't donate any money to Invisible Children. They're a terrible, terrible organization.

[Atlas Has Shrugged]

[CatoMinor]

Please don't donate any money to Invisible Children. They're a terrible, terrible organization.

Whats wrong with them? I don't know much about them other than they apparently are pushing to get rid of Kony.

[Paul Kemp]

This seems to be the big thing on Facebook today from people that mostly don't pay attention to anything going on in the world.

[© tweed]

This seems to be the big thing on Facebook today from people that mostly don't pay attention to anything going on in the world.

yeah my ex-girlfriend is 'attending' a Kony event at TCNJ this weekend.  God knows wtf.

[Atlas Has Shrugged]

This seems to be the big thing on Facebook today from people that mostly don't pay attention to anything going on in the world.

Its funny, I posted a status about this to the chargin of a apolitical "friend".

ME: I have an idea! Lets spend a billion dollers and sacriface our soldiers to invade an already dirt poor Uganda to get Kony. It worked with Bin Laden right? Only took 10-11 years and 4,000 lives

Jane Doe: Oh so you want him selling and raping and hurting 300,000 innocent children?

Me: No, I just dont want another war. Were also going to invade Syria and Iran within the next few months, and if it continues their bringing the back the draft and thats another can of worms...Im not a chickenhawk, basically.

Jane Doe: K well idk what you just said but the reason you haven't been sold and taught to kill your parents I because of our troops. They don't have to fight for us but they wanna. Enable convo

Me: All I am sayin is this: What makes more sense: Sending in the army so all the heroes we have get killed by this evil pyscos army, as the guy from Invisible Soldiers wants to do, or send in money, medicine, and stuff like that. I dont hate the army, I hate the endless wars Obama and Bush got us into.

I had to do it in yeoman's terms, of course

[King]

I got invited to a KONY event on April 20th.  Sounds like we're gonna smoke pot to end child slavery.

[they don't love you like i love you]

This seems to be the big thing on Facebook today from people that mostly don't pay attention to anything going on in the world.

Its funny, I posted a status about this to the chargin of a apolitical "friend".

ME: I have an idea! Lets spend a billion dollers and sacriface our soldiers to invade an already dirt poor Uganda to get Kony. It worked with Bin Laden right? Only took 10-11 years and 4,000 lives

No one is calling for that.

Me: No, I just dont want another war. Were also going to invade Syria and Iran within the next few months

LOL.

[Redalgo]

I like the intent and am generally hawkish when it comes to humanitarian interventions, but I do not think putting up a poster, getting bracelets, or donating charitably would be an effective use of my resources. We need global governing institutions that can capably deal with human rights abuses - not PR campaigns for one intervention when more than half of folks polled in the States already think foreign aid needs to be cut back on.

The ongoing, central African experience with the LRA serves as an example of nationalism and realpolitik, packaged more aesthetically as pragmatism, distracting the masses and elites alike from the common interests of humanity and giving them an excuse to neglect those interests whenever doing what is arguably the right course of action would threaten to be inconvenient. Enforcing basic human rights should be a globalized, not interest group, responsibility.

[The Mikado]

Kony is terrible.  He's been terrible for decades.  That said, this campaign and Invisible Children are huge money pits and should be avoided at all costs.

[patrick1]

This seems to be the big thing on Facebook today from people that mostly don't pay attention to anything going on in the world.

Its funny, I posted a status about this to the chargin of a apolitical "friend".

ME: I have an idea! Lets spend a billion dollers and sacriface our soldiers to invade an already dirt poor Uganda to get Kony. It worked with Bin Laden right? Only took 10-11 years and 4,000 lives

Jane Doe: Oh so you want him selling and raping and hurting 300,000 innocent children?

Me: No, I just dont want another war. Were also going to invade Syria and Iran within the next few months, and if it continues their bringing the back the draft and thats another can of worms...Im not a chickenhawk, basically.

Jane Doe: K well idk what you just said but the reason you haven't been sold and taught to kill your parents I because of our troops. They don't have to fight for us but they wanna. Enable convo

Me: All I am sayin is this: What makes more sense: Sending in the army so all the heroes we have get killed by this evil pyscos army, as the guy from Invisible Soldiers wants to do, or send in money, medicine, and stuff like that. I dont hate the army, I hate the endless wars Obama and Bush got us into.

I had to do it in yeoman's terms, of course

So you told her you thought it was foolish that the local Baron should expect you to fight some distant Moors and as a result of such endeavour that your taxes would surely increase by four guineas come next Domesday Book.

[they don't love you like i love you]

Please don't donate any money to Invisible Children. They're a terrible, terrible organization.

Whats wrong with them? I don't know much about them other than they apparently are pushing to get rid of Kony.

They are regularly ranked low on charity watch sites because they spend money inefficiently, give pretty lavish "compensation" to their leaders, and only spend about a third of what they take in helping LRA victims.

[Paleobrazilian]

I like the intent and am generally hawkish when it comes to humanitarian interventions, but I do not think putting up a poster, getting bracelets, or donating charitably would be an effective use of my resources. We need global governing institutions that can capably deal with human rights abuses - not PR campaigns for one intervention when more than half of folks polled in the States already think foreign aid needs to be cut back on.

The ongoing, central African experience with the LRA serves as an example of nationalism and realpolitik, packaged more aesthetically as pragmatism, distracting the masses and elites alike from the common interests of humanity and giving them an excuse to neglect those interests whenever doing what is arguably the right course of action would threaten to be inconvenient. Enforcing basic human rights should be a globalized, not interest group, responsibility.

That's what the International Criminal Court stands for, and that's why the ICC indicted him and four other people nearly 7 years ago, and also issued an arrest order for surrender in 2005, an order that has been unsealed since 2005 as well. Hell, he's being accused on 33 counts of crimes (21 war crimes and 12 crimes against humanity). This guy is NOT a good person, of course.

The biggest problem, IMO, is that only with true cooperation from all states parties the ICC will actually have a chance to bring the most serious criminals in the world to justice. In this case, for example, it was Uganda (an ICC member) itself that referred the case of the LRA to the court, since the country didn't have the necessary resources to bring those criminals to justice. However, all of them have basically disappeared ever since, and if Kony is still in Uganda, then there's a good chance authorities know that and are disrespecting their legal obligation to surrender Kony to the ICC. Oh, and considering that the neighbouring countries of the DRC, Kenya and Tanzania are also ICC members, things get even uglier.

That makes me remember of mr. Omar al-Bashir, which is wanted by the ICC for genocide and has travelled to ICC member states a few times now (Kenya and Malawi, IIRC). In all cases those countries refused to arrest and surrender al-Bashir saying they had no business arresting a president of a sovereign country, in clear violation of the Rome Statute, which makes the immunity of heads of state irrelevant for the persecution of the crimes within its jurisdiction (even though there's still some legal controversy here...). In the end, though, the political factor still makes things hard for the ICC to go harder after the crimes within its jurisdiction, and the fact that the United States, Russia and China have been running away from it for the last 10 years make things even harder.

[Simfan34]

What has the USA done to stop the LRA? Ask the 202 House and 65 Senate cosponsors of the Lord's Resistance Army Disarmament and Northern Uganda Recovery Act. Heck, ask them all- it passed with just one vote against it . Ask the 100 US officers in Uganda right now. The idea we are standing idly be is ludicrous. Don't ask Rush Limbaugh though. He likes the LRA.

In general, I'm concerned about what seems to be this sudden viral groundswell of concern. Every time I see such things on Facebook, they usually are hoaxes. While this situation is indeed very real, the organization behind this spends very little of it profits on actual aid, and indeed in this documentary resorts to a sensationalism. Indeed, what is being done? I'm yet to see a substantial movement.

The fact of the matter is that the situation in Uganda is far less black and white than Kony 2012 makes it out to be. To focus on Kony- who isn't even in the country- would be to ignore the atrocities committed by the standing army and Pres. Museveni. The macro issues affecting Uganda are those of development and democratization, and that is something that cannot be solved with a mere press of the "like" button- they must come from the people. They've made some laudable moves in recent years, but more progress must be made in adressing the root causes that cause organizations like the LRA to exist in the first place.

But what truly irks me is this sort of obfuscation coming from Invisible Children. Less than one third of the money they raise goes directly to aid; and I looked at their website, and it seems they focus on advocacy as opposed to direct relief. While advocacy has its place, I think what we in the West can and should do is give aid to the refugees, the victims of all of this, and not just "advocates". There's really no way to help them through IC.

[Jacobtm]

This is, unsurprisingly, a great front to use for the U.S. to send more troops to countries with precious resources we want.

[John Dibble]

Please don't donate any money to Invisible Children. They're a terrible, terrible organization.

Whats wrong with them? I don't know much about them other than they apparently are pushing to get rid of Kony.

They are regularly ranked low on charity watch sites because they spend money inefficiently, give pretty lavish "compensation" to their leaders, and only spend about a third of what they take in helping LRA victims.

They also have links to a number of anti-gay groups.

[LastVoter]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rU_1jnrj5VI

What has the USA done to stop the LRA? Ask the 202 House and 65 Senate cosponsors of the Lord's Resistance Army Disarmament and Northern Uganda Recovery Act. Heck, ask them all- it passed with just one vote against it . Ask the 100 US officers in Uganda right now. The idea we are standing idly be is ludicrous. Don't ask Rush Limbaugh though. He likes the LRA.

In general, I'm concerned about what seems to be this sudden viral groundswell of concern. Every time I see such things on Facebook, they usually are hoaxes. While this situation is indeed very real, the organization behind this spends very little of it profits on actual aid, and indeed in this documentary resorts to a sensationalism. Indeed, what is being done? I'm yet to see a substantial movement.

The fact of the matter is that the situation in Uganda is far less black and white than Kony 2012 makes it out to be. To focus on Kony- who isn't even in the country- would be to ignore the atrocities committed by the standing army and Pres. Museveni. The macro issues affecting Uganda are those of development and democratization, and that is something that cannot be solved with a mere press of the "like" button- they must come from the people. They've made some laudable moves in recent years, but more progress must be made in adressing the root causes that cause organizations like the LRA to exist in the first place.

But what truly irks me is this sort of obfuscation coming from Invisible Children. Less than one third of the money they raise goes directly to aid; and I looked at their website, and it seems they focus on advocacy as opposed to direct relief. While advocacy has its place, I think what we in the West can and should do is give aid to the refugees, the victims of all of this, and not just "advocates". There's really no way to help them through IC.

Invisible Children is a solid marketing campaign to enrich it's owners.

[patrick1]

The Spokesman for the campaign on what I am assuming is PCP...
Quite NSFW

http://www.tmz.com/2012/03/18/jason-russell-video-naked-meltdown-kony/#.T2damxH2af4