Kony 2012

I find this whole thing incredibly irritating. Child abduction by armies has happened and is currently happening all over Africa and some parts of Asia, yet they focus on a relatively irrelevant and outdated figure in the clusterf*ck that is Africa. They made this movie to make naive people feel like they're doing something by giving free advertisement and money to their organization, whose main goal is filmmaking, not real charity.

Not only that, though. they are advocating for military intervention in a country where the violence is sporadic now, and intervention would just complicate and kill even more people.

But don't dare share your opinions on facebook. I've seen a couple of people voice opinions simply questioning the validity of this viral campaign, and they've been barraged by people calling them heartless. Don't get me wrong, these people's hearts are in the right place, but I think they're very mislead, and they're simply getting their feel-goods for the month without having to work too hard.

 

I don't understand why they would want to send troops into Uganda which doesn't seem to be having problems with the LRA anymore, not to mention that they even mention it and still want to send troops and equipment, i've even seen people on Facebook claim that Kony's been dead for quite a while too.
I do support trying to stop a terrorist organization but look at how "well" the US has done with Al-Queaeda alone. Not only that but it's sad how everyone is becoming so fixated on one problem so randomly. It's really disappointing really when people don't notice world problems then randomly becomes fixated on something just because it was shown on their main form of entertainment (YouTube) it wouldn't be surprising if people soon stopped caring about this too, that's what happened with SOPA after all and I doubt too many people really even know about ACTA. it's disappointing :/

 

Spoiler

 

:roflmao:

heres one, totally describes most of the fake ass people i have as friends on facebook

 

I have mixed feelings about this "Kony hype." Basically the thing I really like is that its getting people actively involved in standing up for improving the world. Its the same reason I got excited about the whole 99% movement at first.

That being said, pretty much everything else is problems I have with it. If you can debunk one of these initial criticisms I have please let me know, because I want to like the video.

1. It is my understanding that only about 30% of the money donated to the charity mentioned in the video actually goes towards the cause. I have heard this same number from a few different people, but I'm not sure how authentic this is.

2. Wouldn't fighting this guy mean we would have to wage war and KILL the children that the video is preaching about saving? I mean, are you really going to force soldiers to shoot children so that other children might not get abducted? Maybe I just don't understand how modern warfare is handled.

And what if we don't ever find him? How much time and effort did the US put into finding Osama Bin Laden? Do you really think we would put that much into someone who didn't personally attack our nation? So we just go fight these kids, and maybe we get him maybe we don't. Then what happens to the army of 30,000 children? Most would probably starve, or turn to crime to feed themselves. Likely someone else would just take his place and the organisation would keep on going.

3. This one is mostly just me being cynical. Everyone has known this stuff was going on forever. I mean, maybe not the specific details, but did anyone really not know there were children soldiers in Africa? Everyone knew that this kind of stuff was going on and didn't care. The only thing the video did was make it "cool" to care about it, and even more importantly give people one specific person to want to kill.

4. I neither feel comfortable nor understand the logic of wearing a "Kony" bracelet. If this guy is so terrible (not sarcasm, I really think he's a horrible person) why the hell do I want to sport his name around like its a hipster fashion accessory? This is just doesn't make sense to me.



Well, those are my initial concerns. I really love to see the nation (/modern world I guess) rallying around a social issue, I'm just not convinced this is an appropriate one. I for one would feel a lot more comfortable about supporting a charity that was providing children with food and shelter rather than give money to someone who is going to play hide and seek with a war criminal.

 

Exactly. I would guess that most people who are dedicating themselves to this cause can't locate Uganda on a map, nor the surrounding countries. That's just a way of illustrating that people know basically nothing about the political and social climate in Uganda.

To me, it's kind of scary how many people are willing to support a targeted assassination after watching a half hour video.

 

Yep ^ Propaganda....