KONY 2012 - Arrest kidnapper and warlord Joseph Kony

[Sera]

I thought this was a great vid and #kony2012 is trending worldwide, figured people would like to see what the fuss is about.


LOL THEY REALLY DID MOD TYVEN.

[MF Perm tha Fineass]

Videos like this remind me that I hate the ability of clever marketing & psychological techniques that are abused by everyone from major corporations down to "indie" filmmakers to tap into intrinsic attachment and rooted emotions to persuade you to consider a point of view. I get it, but please tell me in one paragraph what you are selling without insulting my intellect by using my emotion as a back door.

[MF Perm tha Fineass]

I guess on the other hand people are so numb from the constant bombardment of targeted news and advertising they need to be manipulated in this way.

[Sera]

I think the tactic is to get the attention of the masses. Talking to ONE person about a warlord that kidnaps children to make them into soldiers and sex slaves is probably easy. Talking to everyone though? Gotta make it affecting, interesting, exciting. Technology and the 24 hour news cycle has pretty much desensitized everyone.

[MF Perm tha Fineass]

ok so thie #kony2012 thing last a day and everyone moves on to the next thing. it's a used and abused tactic and it will blend in with the rest of the chaff in a day. too much effort for too little return imo. so a bunch of fuckwits RT it and pretend to care for a day, armchair activism is the decay of western society - which is why all the jack torrence level christians will take shit over and reset us all to level 1.

[MF Perm tha Fineass]

And why is a black African warlord worse off for his actions than the CEO of Apple that profits from chinese children working until their fingers bleed for less than a penny an hour?

[Sera]

armchair activism is the decay of western society - which is why all the jack torrence level christians will take shit over and reset us all to level 1.

I agree, and let's hope not. One thing I'll say is that technology has made activism more accessible and easier to take part in. During the hubbub over personhood in VA there were websites that linked you to your representative, made it retardedly simple to email them, and then when you were done, the phone number to their office popped up on the screen so you could call it with the cell phone that was undoubtedly sitting right next to you. Maybe I have a group of friends and acquaintances that enjoy being active in this manner, but at least in my experience I'm noticing a trend upward in involvement of this nature. Writing your congressman used to be annoying and a lot of people "didn't know how" or it was just too much effort. Calling your congressman was the same way, but now there are cell phones to call from anywhere you want and internet sites willing to find the number for you from your phone, if you'll just give them your zip code.

I agree with you, though. The world moves fast and the 24 hour news cycle/internet makes us forget about causes before we even begin to care, but I hope we're entering an era where that won't be the case.

[MF Perm tha Fineass]

Unfortunately after some research this Invisible Children non-profit looks a bit bogus:


"This is what sort of sparked it all ( http://www.reddit.com/r/videos/comme...nd_all_week_i/ ) which is not good. The video itself is a good piece of emotional porn but that's about it. It's honestly NOT worth the 30 minutes when you find out somethings about the organization that is doing this [Invisible Children].
First of all, the guy who made that film get's paid $90,000 a year. That's for him and his family. This does not include him paying costs for film equipment, video editting software, nor does it cover travel or accomodations whilst in anywhere else. Those are all covered under the ludicrous budgets that the Invisible Children organization actually deal with. Let's go to that now. Here are some expenses from CharityNavigator.:
Compensation of Leaders | % of Compensation relative to amount of money made by IC | Title
$88,241 | 0.99% | Ben Keesey - CEO
$89,669 | 1.00% | Jason Russell - Co-Founder/Filmmaker
$84,377 | 0.94% | Laren Poole - Co-Founder/Filmmaker
Revenue
Total Contributions: $10,334,060
Program Service Revenue: $3,423,351
Total Primary Revenue: $13,757,411
Other Revenue $7,769
TOTAL REVENUE: $13,765,180
Expenses
Program Expenses: $7,163,384
Administrative Expenses: $1,444,570
Fundraising Expenses: $286,678
TOTAL FUNCTIONAL EXPENSES: $8,894,632
Payments to Affiliates $0 Excess (Or deficit) for the year: $4,870,548
Net Assets $6,584,811
As if that isn't bad enough, they've refused to Co-operate with the Better Business Bureau, Their transparancy rating is fairly low on Charity Navigator, and allegations of fraud. HuffingtonPost has an article on it here.
Besides, they make a fairly large point about sending money to the Ugandan Military. This is a big no no for a couple of reasons. First of all, Kony isn't even in Uganda. Funding a military that has no real authority over another country to LOOK in other countries, is a moronic idea to begin with. Secondly, the Ugandan military is already using this as an excuse to enter other countries and exploit resources from surrouding areas. The Government of Uganda is full of criminals that are worse than Kony himself. Not to mention the bloody PRESIDENT of Uganda is responsible for millions of deaths. Then you've got allegations coming out that Kony is already dead. The LRA (Konys ragtag bunch of assholes) isn't that large, or all that active.
The worst thing about Invisible Children (In my opinion) is that they lobbies for DIRECT MILITARY INTERVENTION IN AFRICA. After all of the terrorist hunts in the Middle East, and having troops stuck in Afghanistan and Iraq, don't you think that the people would have learned by now that having troops in another country to hunt one asshole isn't exactly the best idea? Especially when some of the Republicans believe that invading Iran is a fairly good idea at the moment. There are SERIOUS issues with this group, issues that people are overlooking. I will admit that at first I was already on Twitter and ready to bitch at people about the injustice that's being served in other countries and then I decided to look into the organization. The information is there, and willing, but people are fearful to even look. Fearful, lazy, or just swept up by the movement. Injustice exists in the world. It is damn stupid, and it sucks ass, but that's the nature of this planet at the moment. Humanity, since rising from the primordial ooze, has killed people over far less than anything you could imagine. Then there's the fact that if Kony is alive, and the ICC, or International Criminals Court, manages to put him on trial, what's it going to achieve? Numerous war criminals have stood trial before the ICC. This isn't a game of chess. You don't topple a pawn and move on. The pawns replicate. It's like fighting a hydra. If you slice off one head, more are going to pop up in it's place. You remove one player, and 10 others will appear. Hell, there's a case to be made that awareness driven ngos perpetuate the current state of afafairs and are an intergral part of the current system of global unfairness. They ovver placebos for guilty consciences and as such, they don't change anything. If you think of large entites such as Global Corporations, conglomorates and powerful nation states that capitalize on injustice, corruption and disorganization and exploit the poor for their resources and manpower, the best thing that could happen to them are programs such as this. There's a lot of reasons why Invisible Children has a good idea of what they're doing, but FAR too much on the opposite sides of the scales to tip myself (and no doubt others) into not bothering with this group and it's practices.
Information retrieved by use of google, and a variety of different comments spread across Kony2012 post comment fields."

sauce: http://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/co...o_make_joseph/

[Byrthnoth]

Given the current level of globalization and interconnectedness, I have been wondering how long it will take before people started proposing things like this. Politicizing an issue locally from outside of the country that has no direct impact on us purely for the sake of the global community.

I mean, this is terrible and all, but 30k kids over 20 years on the run? We could have provided various life-sustaining services to South America/Africa that would have totally eclipsed that total in number of lives saved. Clean water. Contraceptives. Education. We have the "Invisible Children" initiative, but where is the "We drink dirty water, so our baby died" initiative?

Honestly, there are times when I wonder if the best thing we can do for Africa/South America/etc. is just get them all wired up to the internet so that we can infect them with our vile morals and social norms.

[Sera]

Interesting shit perm -- I'm still reading

And to the guy above me, eh -- to be expected since the world has become so much smaller in recent years. An initiative like this seems timely. Something like this wouldn't have gotten ANY attention even a few short years ago, or at least would have been given as much regard as those "10 cents a day" commercials

i am very interested in how far they will take it and how many people will take time to participate. Like I said to perm, I see an upward trend in activism, and I'd like to believe it is not just something I notice in my immediate connections.

[MF Perm tha Fineass]

Your heart is in the right place girl but your tig ol' bitties have more room for emotional manipulation than my leg dangles. And that's a fact, Jack.

[altwight]

This is spreading fast.

Are people getting scammed?

[Milkster]

Welcome to the Social Media World, it's how we get our news/information. It's not a scam per say but not completely truthful same thing with a lot of major charitable organizations.

The idea is amazing; proper execution is lacking.

[Sera]

Your heart is in the right place girl but your tig ol' bitties have more room for emotional manipulation than my leg dangles. And that's a fact, Jack.

Again, still reading. I'm interested in this specifically, don't get me wrong, but I'm also interested in watching how far something like this can go. One thing I really loathe is apathy, and IMO in our generation and the one directly before ours it has reached terrifying levels. People just don't give a fuck about anything anymore. Well, sort of.

People are willing to bitch about all sorts of stupid shit all day long ("my phone internet is too slow" "my starbucks drink was wrong!" "What? CROSS PLATFORM WASN'T ALREADY ON THE PSVITA? WHAT DO YOU MEAN I HAVE TO SPEND 10 SECONDS TO DOWNLOAD IT?") and are willing to kill themselves clogging their arteries with big mac after bic mac, but when someone gets riled up about something that might matter outside of themselves people go "hey now, calm down hippie! You're going to give yourself a stroke! Who cares about that anyway? better to just not bother" and mock them. Let's be really real about it: we're all jokes. It's easier to make fun of someone giving a fuck than it is to take a risk putting yourself out there to give a fuck.

I'm a person that is easy to affect because I love humanity, I love people. I genuinely do. Even idiotic, selfish ones who care only about themselves, and apathetic ones who think that not caring about anything is better than putting any effort in and seeing it possibly not go where you'd hoped.

(Except Andrew Breitbart, fuck that guy.)

I'm interested in this because I'd like for the guy to be stopped, but moreso because I'd like for our generation to start doing things and giving a fuck.

not completely truthful same thing with a lot of major charitable organizations.

The idea is amazing; proper execution is lacking.

I agree here. Charity is a racket these days, which only adds to the apathy and cynicism. Sad.

[altwight]

I wanna know what bad things I can tell all my friends spamming me on FB. Fill me in. What's wrong with this? The people you donate to are taking lots of the money?

[Shenrien]

I was interested until it became an advertisement.

[Milkster]

The thing with our apathy is we like to put down things that are issues. "Oh, that child is being forced into slave labor? Well, girls over here are being forced into sex slave labor! Which is much worse!" People have to start somewhere. I don't recommend putting down any sort of activism that helps bring humanity together and the world closer to peace but supporting the cause in other ways instead of the ones that milk the masses for funds and their emotional support and nothing more.

[Sera]

More re: fraud.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/0..._n_433928.html

We shall see

People have to start somewhere. I don't recommend putting down any sort of activism that helps bring humanity together and the world closer to peace but supporting the cause in other ways instead of the ones that milk the masses for funds and their emotional support and nothing more.

The thing is, it seems like we've become pretty lazy in that regard. Like I said above, to get people to email and call their reps, you have to basically hold their hand. Websites are making that possible now, so that part of being involved has become popular because it is convenient. You know what else is convenient? Using your wallet to make yourself feel better when something affects you emotionally. So, you see a video or read an article, feel bad, make a donation, feel better.

But what did you really DO? Probably nothing. Might as well have saved the money and signed an internet petition. Ha. But hey, you feel better without having to inconvenience yourself. So that's perfect, right?
It's an easy trap to fall into.

I see no harm in spreading this message and writing letters to reps, congresspeople, powerful media people etc, like the site makes it very simple to do.
I don't see the harm in going out and spending a night putting up posters and plastering flyers up. That's something one can DO, and regardless of whether or not you donate or buy shit from them, it can help get the attention to their cause that they desire.

I don't think I'd give them my money as of now, though.

[altwight]

So is the Invisible Children organization not putting most of the money toward actually helping these kids and instead are keeping it?

[Drex]

Gotta get people good and pissed before we storm in there blaring flight of the valkyries and take all their oil reserves. If their totally not corrupt org (because not-for-profits are always moral and totally never corrupt) gets some hefty donations to skim in the process, great.