Kony 2012 And The Explosion In Social Media

Grand Rants ^ | 03-09-12 | Gerry Ashley

[Stoutcat]

Imagine you come upon a child under 10 years old who, along with his friends, is in obvious distress. Now imagine, when you ask that child what you can do to help him, he turns to you and says, with all seriousness, “It is better if you can kill us…”

What in the name of all that is holy could cause a child that young so much stress and fear in his life, that given a choice, he would have you kill him as an act of kindness?

Meet Jacob, the unsuspecting star of Youtube’s most viral video to date (It’s closing in on 50 million views).

Through the new social medias (blogs, Facebook, Twitter etc.) intercommunication between people representing all nationalities, races, religions etc. has opened up possibilities limited only by our imaginations. The imagination of a young man named Jason Russell has initiated what may be the most ambitious yet potentially controversial experiment involving this emerging application of technology. The goal? To bring down the man who, according to the International Criminal Court in The Hague tops their list of the world’s worst criminals. His name: Joseph Kony. His crime? Abducting thousands of children and forcing them to become soldiers in his rebel army.

For over 20 years, children in central Africa like Jacob have lived in fear of being captured by the Kony’s rebel army. The second goal is to reunite thousands of young children with their parents. The deadline? THIS YEAR. And, although it might sound crazy, they might just pull it off.

[DocRock]

Kony bookmark

[JPII Be Not Afraid]

My 17 year old senior daughter came home the other day and started researching this whole Kony 2012 thing. She said all her friend were talking about it and posting it on their facebooks. But she had this strange feeling in the back of her mind something was not right. So by the time I had gotten home from work about 10 pm, she had researched it and made up her mind that this was not something she wanted to be involved with. Citing that most of the money doesn't go to helping the people and that why when these people hate America and never want us to help would they want us there to kill this Kony guy. She wanted me to watch the video for my imput, but when I read that Kony was no longer there and that the military they want to give all this money to also rapes and kills children, what was the point except to get the world after just one person. If that can happen to this just one person, who could be next? You, me?

Proud to say, she even come here to FreeRepublic on her own to do a little research but found nothing. The first article showed up that night after I had gotten home and it was met with mixed emotions here on this site at that time.

She said "when the liberals are pushing something, I better check it out for myself." Good girl!

[panthermom]

Funny you say that...this is the 2nd time today I have heard that opinion..

[LachlanMinnesota]

My daughter lived there and did extensive study in the region while there. She and all of her group, who have seen the reality in that country are unanimously outraged and disgusted with this video, and are greatly concerned abut the disinformation and false information it spreads.

It truly is exploiting the situation for personal gain, and will not help one person in the region. Many have been taken in by this video, because you are right, we all want to help, and we don’t know how. It is easy to follow our hearts right over the cliff.

We need to allow our emotions to motivate us, but we need to use our brains to decide what to do that works, and does no additional harm.

I reject the idea that this is useful as an “awareness” campaign. Awareness of things not true, is worse the conscious ignorance.

[LachlanMinnesota]

Amen to that, FRiend.

[Lancey Howard]

This is almost as big as the video of that cat who rode around the house on a vacuum cleaner!

[BigChiefLtd]

Well, Obama is still President,last time I checked, so that takes away our right to criticize ANYONE for having ineffective leadership. And keep in mind, if anything were to happen to Obama, that would leave us with Joe Biden leading the show. The only ones celebrating that would be Comedy Central and Saturday Night Live.

[panthermom]

Do you think that Kony is unique? There are thousands of mad-men all over the world!

[FreeAtlanta]

I wish FR had it’s own internal “Like” button. You have a good girl.

[BigChiefLtd]

Then by all means, what is your suggestion?

You seem to be under the mistaken idea that this video and the movement is limited to the United States. It’s not. It’s world wide. The benefit of this video is that a cold-blooded MAD MAN will no longer be able to travel outside of Africa because this awareness is being made world wide. Uganda is only one part of it. The real goal here is awareness. And no one has to pay a dime for that.

[FreeAtlanta]

I used to think Biden was great insurance for Obama, but that changed shortly after Obama became the great American wrecking ball.

Now, I don’t think O’l Joe would be that bad for a year or less.

[LachlanMinnesota]

I repeat, awareness of things not true is worse that conscious ignorance.

He is already under indictment by the world court, and all governments in the area want to seize him. Everyone there is aware of him.

Telling people worldwide of his exploits is not what I object to. It is that it is being portrayed incorrectly to benefit a political end that is not going to work to catch him in any regard. It will, however, justify the pursuit of other ends behind the veil of humanitarian or “kill the terrorist” fears.

What do I suggest?

I suggest we ask the people in Gulu what they need or want from the West. I have earlier linked to two articles where people from the region discuss this.

I am not the font of knowledge that is adequate to the task, but the people that have lived there or are there now are. Let us communicate with them. Let them tell us.

Let them make us aware.

[Whenifhow]

I think this is as much about awareness as anything, and that part is free.

Nobody is suggesting we invade Uganda. He’s probably not in that country any longer. The point is to spread the awareness all over the world so no matter where he goes to try to hide, he will be recognized, seized and brought to trial (or executed).

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Oh but they are getting ready to invade Uganda - IMHO
The awareness (with the help of Hollywood and politicians) is to gain public support and funding.

Obama was interviewed by Jake Tapper - abc news

President Obama Talks About Joseph Kony
Obama “...it is an INTERNATIONAL OBLIGATION for us to try to take them out...”

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/video/president-obama-talks-joseph-koni-15879153

Now combine that with the Panetta video.

Panetta: ‘International Permission’ Trumps Congressional Permission For Military Actions

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=5zNwOeyuG84

See this thread:

Youth Movement Promotes US Military Presence in Central Africa

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/2856639/posts

Post #25
Ping
Article, # 2 , - and esp. # 23.

[IronJack]

If every person who viewed the video would send in a dollar, the organizers could hire a hit team to find this clown and retire him with extreme prejudice. And have plenty of money left over to retire his successor and his successor's successor. And buy drinks on the trip home.

A lot of this is feel-goodism, albeit with an ostensibly noble purpose.

[yefragetuwrabrumuy]

I am suspicious of this whole thing. On other forums, I have seen close to “advertisements” about this video, so I suspect it is not just “a naturally occurring virus”, but one that was man-made in a propaganda lab somewhere.

This raises the question, who would benefit, and in what way?

While there is already a small contingent of US advisers in the area, helping some African countries to fight these kooks, is someone pushing to make a large, sustained military entry by the US military into Africa?

Remember that trying to generate artificial support for US military operations has been around since Joseph Pulitzer and William Randolph Hearst agitated in their newspapers to bring about the Spanish-American War (successfully) by creating bogus stories to sell their newspapers.

[LachlanMinnesota]

He is hiding in a jungle and bush area bigger than the size of Texas, and the locals are afraid to help find him in the DRC. It would be nice if money were the issue.

I’ll bet not one penny raised will see the shores of the African Continent anyway.

And those who donate will feel smug because they proved they care to their buddies.

Meanwhile, we militarize the area and cause no end of harm, which will be someone else’s fault and problem.

[LachlanMinnesota]

He is hiding in a jungle and bush area bigger than the size of Texas, and the locals are afraid to help find him in the DRC. It would be nice if money were the issue.

I’ll bet not one penny raised will see the shores of the African Continent anyway.

And those who donate will feel smug because they proved they care to their buddies.

Meanwhile, we militarize the area and cause no end of harm, which will be someone else’s fault and problem.

[dfwgator]

But that’s all that matters - that people “feeeeeeeeeeel” good about themselves.

[dfwgator]

He is hiding in a jungle and bush area bigger than the size of Texas

And of course everybody living there has a Facebook account. /s

[Riflema]

Yes, the video is moving and all. However, my inner cynic suggests something else here - take note of the date plastered all over this video "2012".

Picture this: this dude, and Cluney and Bono and all the other usual suspects arouse 20-30m skulls full of mush to get behind this issue. The social media campaign peaks, as they plan, on April 20, spilling over and enthusing the waiting MSM. We then have a couple of months of following the adventures of Barry's 100 advisers in central Africa - will they corner the evil arch enemy? Can our plucky boys outwit the diabolic warlord?? It's a great story for the Spring and Summer.

Then in September we find him and kill him in the firefight. Osama II. Only this time there's 20-30m following the events on FB. That's 20-30m enthusiastic voters. Don't kid yourselves, this crew in the WH know how to play this.

They're always the ones accusing the repubs of planning convenient low cost foreign adventures, well, how is this operation for the ultimate in low cost and convenience??