Kony 2012

Hey impulse is that an alien sitting in a chair in your goggle reflection?

usafpilot07 wrote:  I just took the time out of my day to do some further research into Invisible Children after seeing the video(so their movement worked there), and didn't like what I saw.

 

Edited by agentwhale007 - 10 March 2012 at 7:35pm

usafpilot07, I was in a bad mood due to outside circumstances when I wrote my response to you, so I apologize for the undoubtedly angered tone it carries.  

usafpilot07 wrote: agentwhale007 wrote: stratoaxe wrote:  and so when some duck face starts going off on OMG WE HAVE TO DO SOMETHING it generally invokes a large amount of facepalm from the majority who both knew about and were bothered by world events most of their life. It just seems overly pessimistic to look down on someone, or be overly cynical, about someone learning about an issue they didn't know about before.  When I see people who otherwise never knew or cared about any sort of world event start to care because of something like the Invisible Children promotions (I honestly saw more of this with their GNC and Displace Me events, but that was also when I was a freshman in undergraduate, when a lot of people are learning about foreign events for the first time) it makes me happy, and I hope it sparks their interest in these things. It doesn't matter if it was just because it was a hot trend item on Facebook, they've seen it, and now they have the potential to do something to help, even if it's something small.  It seems like fostering that attitude is way more beneficial (And less gloomy, emotionally) than scoffing and going "Pffft, you didn't know about that before now? Lame."  It has nothing to do with me being cynical or too cool for school. I just took the time out of my day to do some further research into Invisible Children after seeing the video(so their movement worked there), and didn't like what I saw.  The man uses his films to fund his own jaunts around the world and his films, while claiming its all an effort to empower the youth and save lives. I have zero problem with people wanting to become more informed in the plights in other portions of the world, and if they decide to donate to a cause that directly benefits those places? Great. If the videos actually explained what people could do to help in those situations? Even better. But what he does is use his movement to generate income for his organization, while making his "message" that we need to pressure Congress to do something. It's a little deceptive in my opinion. Also, this. Snipa69 wrote: Shocking to some, but that was/is the mentality of a lot of troops in the area. The gov't if you want to call it that is so unstable and just as corrupt as any other that killing one warlord dictator just puts another one who will end up being worse in power. Kony has been in hiding since 06, and the people of Uganda have all felt a sense of peace since then. In fact, some say it has been the most peace the region has seen in decades. Yes, he was a bad guy and still is. But we are 6 years too late for bandwagon jump-ons who want to make a difference.  The Ugandan government isn't exactly a girl scout troop of humane actions. You're basically picking the lesser of two evils, where the lesser evil is a corrupt, mass-murdering dictator who has done plenty of damage on his own to his people.

Wow! African children being kidnapped, raped and/or forced to become soldiers?  I seen this before.  Liberia in 1990.

Whale, I was writing up a pretty decent response to you(and I don't take it personally, everyone has bad days. That combined with us being on opposite sides of the issue can equal a hostile-seeming response), but at this point I feel like the discussion in this thread is going to get drowned out by Impulse's crazy.

I will leave it at this. They may have a 4 star rating for financial actions through Charity Navigator, but their accountability rating is 2/4. IC claims this is only because they only have 3 board members(And yes, I did research the structure of their organization), but elsewhere it is reportedly because they will not let outside sources audit their financial records. That alone raises flags for me.

Plain and simple, I don't like their message, or the manner they go about operating their foundation. I would LOVE to be wrong about the majority of it, and I don't want to sound like a huge pessimist, I just think there are better routes to affecting change in Africa, and he isn't going about it in that way.


I'd also throw out there that the reason a lot of the pessimists you see on FB and such repeating the same bullet points against IC is a result of the same reason proponents use a few facts to support it. The most obvious and impactful facts in most stories like this are going to be the easiest ones to spread.


Edited by usafpilot07 - 11 March 2012 at 12:20pm

DaveEllis wrote: Ceesman762 wrote: Wow! African children being kidnapped, raped and/or forced to become soldiers?  I seen this before.  Liberia in 1990. Post + Avatar=Made me LOL

This one is for you, Dave!