Everyone Please Watch This(All Kony2012 Chat Here)

Brilliant video.

 

i watched it, thought it was great...

then saw a wee * on FB mocking it, made a bit of a fool out of him :icon_mrgreen:

 

Just saw this on facebook, was just about to post it on here. Well worth a watch

 

Check out Machine Gun Preacher as well. It's based on the true story of an ex-criminal going over there to help the children and fight against Kony and the LRA.

 

Watched this yesterday, good video. Wonder what will happen on that April 20th doubt anything in Glasgow?

 

"I do not doubt for a second that those involved in KONY 2012 have great intentions, nor do I doubt for a second that Joseph Kony is a very evil man. But despite this, I’m strongly opposed to the KONY 2012 campaign.

KONY 2012 is the product of a group called Invisible Children, a controversial activist group and not-for-profit. They’ve released 11 films, most with an accompanying bracelet colour (KONY 2012 is fittingly red), all of which focus on Joseph Kony. When we buy merch from them, when we link to their video, when we put up posters linking to their website, we support the organization. I don’t think that’s a good thing, and I’m not alone.

Invisible Children has been condemned time and time again. As a registered not-for-profit, its finances are public. Last year, the organization spent $8,676,614. Only 31% went to their charity program (page 6)*. This is far from ideal, and Charity Navigator rates their accountability 2/4 stars because they haven’t had their finances externally audited. But it goes way deeper than that.

The group is in favour of direct military intervention, and their money funds 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arguing that the Ugandan army is “better equipped than that of any of the other affected countries”, although Kony is no longer active in Uganda and hasn’t been since 2006 by their own admission.

Still, the bulk of Invisible Children’s spending isn’t on funding African militias, but on awareness and filmmaking. Which can be great, except that Foreign Affairs has claimed that Invisible Children (among others) “manipulates facts for strategic purposes, exaggerating the scale of LRA abductions and murders and emphasizing the LRA’s use of innocent children as soldiers, and portraying Kony — a brutal man, to be sure — as uniquely awful, a Kurtz-like embodiment of evil.” He’s certainly evil, but exaggeration and manipulation to capture the public eye is unproductive, unprofessional and dishonest.

As Christ Blattman, a political scientist at Yale, writes on the topic of IC’s programming, “There’s also something inherently misleading, naive, maybe even dangerous, about the idea of rescuing children or saving of Africa. […] It hints uncomfortably of the White Man’s Burden. Worse, sometimes it does more than hint. The savior attitude is pervasive in advocacy, and it inevitably shapes programming. Usually misconceived programming.”

Still, Kony’s a bad guy, and he’s been around a while. Which is why the US has been involved in stopping him for years. U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) has sent multiple missions to capture or kill Kony over the years. And they’ve failed time and time again, each provoking a ferocious response and increased retaliative slaughter. The issue with taking out a man who uses a child army is that his bodyguards are children. Any effort to capture or kill him will almost certainly result in many children’s deaths, an impact that needs to be minimized as much as possible. Each attempt brings more retaliation. And yet Invisible Children funds this military intervention. Kony has been involved in peace talks in the past, which have fallen through. But Invisible Children is now focusing on military intervention.

Military intervention may or may not be the right idea, but people supporting KONY 2012 probably don’t realize they’re helping fund the Ugandan military who are themselves raping and looting away. If people know this and still support Invisible Children because they feel it’s the best solution based on their knowledge and research, I have no issue with that. But I don’t think most people are in that position, and that’s a problem.

Is awareness good? Yes. But these problems are highly complex, not one-dimensional and, frankly, aren’t of the nature that can be solved by postering, film-making and changing your Facebook profile picture, as hard as that is to swallow. Giving your money and public support to Invisible Children so they can spend it on funding ill-advised violent intervention and movie #12 isn’t helping. Do I have a better answer? No, I don’t, but that doesn’t mean that you should support KONY 2012 just because it’s something. Something isn’t always better than nothing. Sometimes it’s worse.

If you want to write to your Member of Parliament or your Senator or the President or the Prime Minister, by all means, go ahead. If you want to post about Joseph Kony’s crimes on Facebook, go ahead. But let’s keep it about Joseph Kony, not KONY 2012.

~ Grant Oyston, visiblechildren@grantoyston.com

Grant Oyston is a sociology and political science student at Acadia University in Nova Scotia, Canada."

 

Something is bound to happen in Glasgow City Centre, its all people are talking of at Strathclyde and Glasgow University and when students are keen you know something will happen.

 

Kinda * me off when I read this..going on my Facebook Kony 2012 has now really hit the ground running. I feel manipulated.

 

african is a crazy place to live, i wish them well in their mission to stop that guy,

 

I would never go anywhere in Africa, seems absolutley mental.

 

I was just about to post this link.

I brought up the people should support the cause but not the kony2012 charity on facebook and i've had nothing but abuse since. Even my girlfriend is in a rage at me.

Social conformity is the worst.

 

That link that larsson93 posted has been posted on facebook but it keeps being taken down.
A good cause, but it'll all come to nothing probably. Raising awareness is probably the best that will happen. Military invention means you are supporting the Ugandan Army which is also apparently guilty of raping and looting, and the miltary opposition is the army of children. Kony 2012 want military action, so that would mean killing the children who have been abducted.

Will be watching how this whole thing pans out very closely.

 

KONY 2012

I don't know if there is a thread on this already folks.

Only found out about this today, this video on youtube tells us alot about it: [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4MnpzG5Sqc"]KONY 2012 - YouTube[/ame]

 

Threads Merged.

 

I didn't know there was a thread on this already guys, my bad.

 

no probs

 

clearly Kony has to be stopped but Invisible Children isn't the charity i'd choose to do it.

They spend 68% of expenditure on non-charity activities - wages, transport and film making. They have links with the Sudanese PLA and Ugandan Army who have use rape and looting as weapons of war. They carry on supporting the Ugandan Army despite the fact the LRA left there in 2006 and haven't been active there since.

Also, I dont like seeing charity workers in pictures such as this.


Kony needs to be stopped by UN and AU diplomacy and, if necessary military action. Invisible Children has done well in raising awareness but their finances and links to the SPLA and UPDF are dubious to say the least

 

Very nice, well produced video, but the rumours I'm hearing about this organization behind Kony's capture aren't good and that's putting it mildly. Larsson93's post earlier in the thread offers a lot more insight into what "Invisible Children" is really all about.

Clearly, this monster must be stopped and I'm glad that they are raising huge awareness for this cause. That goes without saying. But what chance do we have if indeed this organization is more interested in the money than actually setting these children free?