Kony 2012

Listen, it's horrible that there are things like that going on in this world. You have to realize though that America is America. We have our own issues to work through, aka priorities. These countries suffer a lot, but the matter of the fact is that it won't stop. We need to focus on our own problems, and push these aside until we can lend a helping help. Is America really a last resort country? Why should we be fighting battles that aren't pertaining to us?

I finally found the time today to skim through this video just now, and I must say, it's intriguing. All the special effects, Facebook references, and dupstep remixes. All you need with that is a few college boys with a mission and you have a craze amongst the youth.

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Now think about it for a minute (And I'm going to highlight the key words here). What if, the video on YouTube is really intended to influence younger teenagers. And what if it was meant to market their awareness bracelets/request donations. And they did so by cluttering a sad testimony video and clips from their trip to a third world country into a 30 minute long advertisement, just to turn you into putty and make you vulnerable to donate to their "cause" - That was long!... And almost sounds like a marketing scheme.

Come on man, this is a sham and I would think you people would wake up after being fooled by shit like this time and time again. They're bringing light to something that deserves no more attention than any other brutal leaders in any other country! And they're profiting off of it by having a testimony video, and YOU!

Why is it that you will donate to this, but you never even thought to send a penny to the old guy on the commercials with the starving children. Yeah, remember him? He remembers you.

This is 50% most likely to spice up Obama's campaign (Since he took down osama, and he's about to take down kony, does that make him a super hero?) and 50% sham to make sure these kids never have to wipe their own ass again.

This is stupid. You all need to work towards making YOUR country better. Stop giving in to shit you watch. I swear, they have you all where they want you and you just don't even realize it.

I'm sorry my post seems generalizing at a lot of points.

 

Now that is a win post. You can become a speaker at local schools and community centers now. Any other opinions about KONY 2012?

Give reasonable evidence and support shit like the guy above me did. It's awesome. Good argument.

 

Anyone that supports this is out of their mind, how have they failed to open their eyes?

Why don't people do research? They believe everything they see in videos, and by the media. In one of the videos someone posted a page or 2 back, it's true about the benefits the Libyans have received. I heard their cars were even subsidized 50%! Why would they rebel? There is too much the US is doing around the world. They cause more problems than they fix. They stick their noses in where it doesn't belong. Iraq once offered one of the best educations in the middle east, now it's nothing. I haven't done research, but I heard that there were claims that Iraq had nukes, and that Saddam was up to no good. If i remember correctly, they found out he was clean soon after he was dead. Libya, why on earth did US interfere with that? There was never a rebel, not with the benefits the people were receiving.

The US wanted to take them down. Why? Because Gadaffi and and Mubarak proposed to use a different currency, they wanted to introduce the Gold Dinar. If this was implemented, what would happen to the $? And what would happen to US.

So what happened to both of them? US got involved and look where it got 2 of them.

Why is Saddam dead right now? He wasn't that bad, everyone thinks he's bad because they believe all the crap the media has been showing everyone. He announced that Iraqi oil would be traded in euros. Look what happened.

All you people think these people are bad, when it's actually the US that is. I'm going to make a different thread about this.

Back to the point.

You people are donating more to a bunch of college students, you are giving them more money. You are helping them and not Uganda. Uganda does not need help. Kony has been inactive since 2006, ever since he was targeted by the US.

This is for all you "believers":
http://jezebel.com/5891269

 

"The organization behind Kony 2012 — Invisible Children Inc. — is an extremely shady nonprofit that has been called ”misleading,” “naive,” and “dangerous” by a Yale political science professor, and has been accused by Foreign Affairs of “manipulat[ing] facts for strategic purposes.” They have also been criticized by the Better Business Bureau for refusing to provide information necessary to determine if IC meets the Bureau’s standards.

Additionally, IC has a low two-star rating in accountability from Charity Navigator because they won’t let their financials be independently audited. That’s not a good thing. In fact, it’s a very bad thing, and should make you immediately pause and reflect on where the money you’re sending them is going.

By IC’s own admission, only 31% of all the funds they receive go toward actually helping anyone [pdf]. The rest go to line the pockets of the three people in charge of the organization, to pay for their travel expenses (over $1 million in the last year alone) and to fund their filmmaking business (also over a million) — which is quite an effective way to make more money, as clearly illustrated by the fact that so many can’t seem to stop forwarding their well-engineered emotional blackmail to everyone they’ve ever known.

And as far as what they do with that money:

The group is in favour of direct military intervention, and their money supports 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. These books each refer to the rape and sexual assault that are perennial issues with the UPDF, the military group Invisible Children is defending.

Let’s not get our lines crossed: The Lord’s Resistance Army is bad news. And Joseph Kony is a very bad man, and needs to be stopped. But propping up Uganda’s decades-old dictatorship and its military arm, which has been accused by the UN of committing unspeakable atrocities and itself facilitated the recruitment of child soldiers, is not the way to go about it.

The United States is already plenty involved in helping rout Kony and his band of psycho sycophants. Kony is on the run, having been pushed out of Uganda, and it’s likely he will soon be caught, if he isn’t already dead. But killing Kony won’t fix anything, just as killing Osama bin Laden didn’t end terrorism. The LRA might collapse, but, as Foreign Affairs points out, it is “a relatively small player in all of this — as much a symptom as a cause of the endemic violence.”

Myopically placing the blame for all of central Africa’s woes on Kony — even as a starting point — will only imperil many more people than are already in danger.

Sending money to a nonprofit that wants to muck things up by dousing the flames with fuel is not helping. Want to help? Really want to help? Send your money to nonprofits that are putting more than 31% toward rebuilding the region’s medical and educational infrastructure, so that former child soldiers have something worth coming home to.

Here are just a few of those charities. They all have a sparkling four-star rating from Charity Navigator, and, more importantly, no interest in airdropping American troops armed to the teeth into the middle of a multi-nation tribal war to help one madman catch another.

The bottom line is, research your causes thoroughly. Don’t just forward a random video to a stranger because a mass murderer makes a five-year-old “sad.” Learn a little bit about the complexities of the region’s ongoing strife before advocating for direct military intervention.

There is no black and white in the world. And going about solving important problems like there is just serves to make all those equally troubling shades of gray invisible."

Also
http://9gag.com/gag/3212157

Worth reading
http://thedailywh.at/2012/03/07/on-kony-2012-2/

I think people should think twice before sending them money.

 

This whole thing is a scam. All this thread is doing is making more people believe it.

 

Fuck all this Kony stuff, old-as-hell news and it stole the timeslot for Law and Order: SVU last night.

People need to seriously stop worrying about shit that doesn't affect them. There always have been and always will be warlords in Africa. You might hear about 1% of the bad shit that goes on around that continent and think it affects you, but it really doesn't.

If you guys really want to help people in Africa, nuke the entire continent to kill 2 birds with 1 stone: end reign of terror, and end people's suffering. Make that 3 birds: you get rid of like 90% of the AIDS population in the world.

 

Noble concept and I applaud IC for what they're trying to accomplish. But the impact they will make will be pathetically insignificant, at the cost of millions of taxpayer dollars and drenched with blood.

Kony's not stupid. Most people undermine the fact that the leaders of such criminal organizations are masterminds. Osama Bin Laden, arguably the most high profile criminal over the course of the past century, evaded capture for nearly 10 years, at the expense of billions of dollars, and thousands of lives. Kony will put just as much of a fight, and with fewer resources and less manpower, catching him in 2012 will be a long shot.

What most people don't realize is that this "child army" they're trying to save, is the same army which is willing to put their life on the line to protect their leader(s). Essentially we're fighting and killing the very people we're trying to save.

I also don't like the fact that IC is inciting vandalism, the posters/stickers/graffiti that people will be putting up nationwide will be torn down at the expense of their own money. Resources and manpower are better spent elsewhere, and as horrible as the events are that are taking place in Uganda, it's been happening for decades and around the world.

Kill Kony? Congratulations, someone else will step up to the plate who's just as ruthless, just as cunning, and just as relentless. Take the new guy down? Congratulations, another one just stepped up to the plate, and the cycle goes on and on.

 

it is a good thing.

 

In my toughs its a SCAM because i heard they dont even give 35% of the donated money and their getting BIG salarys when its a non profit company..

 

I'll share it we have to get him

 

The issue has been going on for over 15 years, its sad to see it only being noticed now when it should have been addressed a decade ago. Anyways, I'm skeptical about the honesty implemented within this program.

 

How could this possibly be a Scam, the whole world pretty much knows about Kony now and the money raised will go towards finding him. How they will use that money I have no idea but I'm certain there will be governing bodies watching how that money is spent. Just my idea I could be wrong.

 

The highlighted part contradicted the rest of your argument.

 

I don't how Kony gets the kids to kill there own parents, does anyone else know?

I don't mind most things, but that guy is fucking sickening.

 

Only about a third goes to the cause. While the rest goes towards their equipment, their salary and their expenses during the trip(s) back and fourth.

 

I'm not going to bother to read through the comments, so I'll just say it
To those who are concerned about Kony.
-He hasn't been an issue in Uganda for 8 years
-He's been pushed out to Congo
-The clips you see about him are from a documentary made in 2004
-The organization that uploaded the clips used 80% of the profit for their own benefits.
-People don't understand this and continue to follow these viral trends.
-I'm talking about you.
-The Ugandan Army and SPLA both have done the same things that Kony has
-Kony2012 supports both groups.

 

Only 13% of there moneya actually goes to the children...

 

Nothing is going to happen when everyone 'supporting' Kony 2012 is in the United States. The problem is in AFRICA. The U.S. government is aware of the problem, but this problem has been going on for over 10 years.

 

I love how everyone has been hopping on the bandwagon lately, shit like this has been happening for lots of years and people want to do something NOW?

 

Load of bollocks. Donating to Governments, especially these African ones is very foolish indeed!