#Kony2012

[RoninatorMarx]

...Yeah, I'm jumping the bandwagon.

If you have not heard, Invisible Children Inc has released a new video highlighting a war criminal named Joseph Kony. The video is to not give him praise but to give awareness to people so he can be stopped. This is actually not the first time they have talked about him (they started their first movie because of the victims of Kony's LRA movement), but this movie is focused on him.

More on Joseph Kony, he is an Ugandan guerrilla group leader, head of the LRA, short for "Lord's Resistance Army", and as I've said, war criminal. The latter because he actually managed to form his own army, and made a resistance movement. And personally, that's the tip of the iceberg. He abducts kids. He forces them into war. He makes sex slaves out of women, possibly the young girls too (Ugh. I'm suddenly reminded of that one doujin). And he's been doing all this for how long? Maybe 26 years? And we haven't shot this bastard yet? Anyway, more info on Wikipedia and the video below. Watch the video below. Share it, tweet it, digg it, so long as we spread the message. If you can, donate to them for a good cause.

http://youtu.be/Y4MnpzG5Sqc

More opinions from me, governments should do something about it. Everyone has to be unified in a movement like this. Should we succeed, it'll be a boost in our morale and future d-bags will think twice of trying to pose a threat on even a national-scale level, specially those with credibility like Kony. And "sent by God"? Personally, I think he's just another loony who probably had something in his diet that's causing him to hear voices in his head. But what do you think?

[nublet765]

I'm going to temper that a bit.  I don't particularly have an opinion on this whole "Kony 2012" campagin, because I don't think I've read enough on this.

But what I will say, is that instead of just jumping on bandwagons, we need to take a deep breath, step back, and read up.  Inform yourself.  The hype is there, but that doesn't mean you have to follow blindly like sheep or lemmings.

[RoninatorMarx]

Well, I did read up and watched the video myself (if I hadn't, then I wouldn't have bothered). The bandwagon I mentioned was spreading this message anyway I can. My defense is that if something's really really important, I share it because...yeah. The gravity of this in my scale is just really high and I feel like I have to say it. (Believe it or not, I took  two hours trying to sink this in) If I am such a bandwagon person, then I would've posted about Whitney Houston's death or recently the "New" new iPad, or whatever's trending on Twitter/people posted on their Facebook.

[chikorita157]

Yeah, I heard about and I'm pretty skeptical since this Kony guy has been around for years and the organization that is funding to stop it is unable to do so successfully.

Of course, the truth about it is over here and I highly recommend everyone to read it before getting suckered in... http://purple-bones.tumblr.com/post/18895660571/kony-2012

Don't get me wrong, he needs to be captured, but this is probably not the right solution.

[RoninatorMarx]

Yeah, I've heard of that earlier this day. Had another screw-drivered-through-my-head moment. I think this guy says it best (though don't be deceived, he'll talk about Kony first).

Things I wanna say that Phil didn't: That Tumblr post states that the thing with Invisible Children Inc. is not that simple. But if that post explained it in so little detail with knowledge that has yet to be proven (but not uncommon in war settings), that will make us believe him. I can post a lot that critisize that guys research but instead, I'll just take Phil's ultimate main point and add this. 1) That was the first post its source "visiblechildren.tumblr.com" have ever made on Tumblr (and he admits he's flawed at it), and 2) I like to dismiss it as hate message and probably not talking about the big picture. There are other charities for them anyway, donate there if you like. The important thing is that it becomes enough of a big deal so bigger, more effective action can be taken.

Also, Invisible Children Inc showed their finances earlier on as well, which may more or less silenced the source of that.

[nublet765]

Well, I did read up and watched the video myself (if I hadn't, then I wouldn't have bothered). The bandwagon I mentioned was spreading this message anyway I can. My defense is that if something's really really important, I share it because...yeah. The gravity of this in my scale is just really high and I feel like I have to say it. (Believe it or not, I took  two hours trying to sink this in) If I am such a bandwagon person, then I would've posted about Whitney Houston's death or recently the "New" new iPad, or whatever's trending on Twitter/people posted on their Facebook.

Whoa, Roninator - didn't mean for what I posted as a personal attack man ... I just wanted everyone to chill out and think about it before going into the whole thing.
My apologies if you took it in that way, (I can see how you could, forgive me for the wording), but let me assure you that that was not my intent.

Anyways - read a whole bunch, idk if I could read all of it, but here's what I see:

There's one group pushing this cause with this Kony 2012 campaign.
Then the other bandwagon is made up with people against that campaign.

Essentially, both agree that Kony is a problem - but I think they disagree on how action should be taken.
My two worries are this - a) that after all this hype around Kony - once Kony is dealt with, people will stop caring about the real problem (child soldiers) because everyone will just pat themselves on the back, then go back to their lives - like ... every other natural disaster that's happened - Earthquakes, we just throw money at it, and then after the news focuses on the happy rebuilding headlines, people stop caring.
b) this charity thing ... I must admit, for spreading the word, the video went viral, so it did its purpose.  But ... "BUY OUR ACTION KIT" ... I don't know about you, but there was a time when fighting for a cause didn't mean spam advertising about the cause ... I'm a bit uneasy at that prospect.  (I've glanced over the big hubbub over the Charity's Finances - but I don't think I'm qualified to comment on those numbers - cause they keep changing in every damn webpage ...)

idk if my opinion's right or wrong.  But I want to see how this plays out over ... a week, two weeks - when people will hopefully have calmed down a bit, and not get swept up in the hype around it 

[RoninatorMarx]

No. I didn't take it as an attack. Don't worry. But yeah. The only thing important is that we're aware enough for the US government to treat it as a national responsibility. I've already said what I wanted up there about us being in the movement, so I won't repeat myself.

[satty]

I heard about this guy before, and I heard what's he's done. (The group visited my high school year after year.)

It'd be nice to catch him, and what he's done is clearly wrong. But I don't think that's going to happen.

Africa is a nice place to hide, and Kony could just as easily move to neighboring countries that either don't care or won't let other countries inside their borders and continue his campaign from there. Another thing is that, frankly, official government armies in Africa are just ill-prepared to deal with this.

And if a Western power (like the US) does send troops there (which in the case of the US, we already have, as advisers to the Ugandan army), there are problems there. To catch Kony, you still have to go through the LRA. Someone can twist the whole situation to say that that power is killing children, which will be a definite possibility. And people will believe, because people think that children cannot fight. Unfortunately, that's not true; a child who's trained to kill people can be just as effective as a regular soldier. In fact, a child soldier is possibly a better soldier, because they're hyped up on drugs and haven't developed a sense of morality, making them much more tougher and more pliable to commands.

...Not to mention all those soldiers that might come home and have to deal with the fact that they've killed kids. I just think a politician would not want to deal with the reputation blow.

And I agree with nublet, that taking Kony down doesn't solve the child soldier phenomenon across the world.