@Bones8677: Explore the issue, form your own opinion of it. If you still think there is something that can be done, continue to be a part of the buzz surrounding it. If opportunities present themselves to make your voice heard, do it! Write to your representative and make sure they know that it's a topic that you care about. If you truly don't care then there's nothing I can say.

Just don't sit on your ass and go, "meh...", that makes you as bad as the so called pretending teenagers, who apparently don't care they just want facebook cred.

Just hopping in to say that saying something is bad, misguided, or unrealistic doesn't make you cynical or apathetic.

@Maluvin: That's true. Most people in this thread seem to have the opinion that Africa is beyond help, so why should I care? That is cynicism and apathy, how can problems get solved if we've already decided that they're unsolvable?

@RollingZeppelin said:

@themangalist: I agree, we have to be cautious with the way we direct our initiatives, although I believe that your painting with a wide brush on your opinions of teenagers. You have to agree that there is potential here to do a great amount of good though. I'm excited that that potential exists. Kony 2012 is not something I subscribe to, but it shows that we can motivate ourselves to do some truly great things. THAT is the point of this blog.

I'm excited too about the idea of us being able to change the world, it just makes me wonder WHO are "us". I really wish it's you and I who can discuss rationally and not troll or swear every 3 words, but reality is there are a lot of people driven by pure charisma and propaganda. With technology today three teenagers can make a convincing tear-jerking video of Ugandan children living in hell under the fear of a rebel leader, and get a huge following. I don't want a world where irrational, easily manipulable crowd to decide which direction the world goes.

@Demoskinos said:

You know what? Plenty of people were "aware" of Hitler. Ask the jews how that went.

Logical fallacy...Kony isn't Hitler.

@themangalist: That's the great thing about crowd sourcing, with the right direction we can achieve amazing things, like everyday people folding genetic code to help further science's understanding of genetics. I understand your cautiousness too, I'm just optimistic about the fact that we can now, using the help of social media, redistribute power from big business and corrupt politicians back to the people. Back to the way a democracy should truly operate. The dangers are there, but so are the opportunities, that's what makes it exciting!

@SpikeSpiegel: I also found this interesting reading. I'm not sure what to believe regarding Invisible Children, with so many differing viewpoints out there, but some of the criticisms laid out by the movement's opposition seem pretty serious.

@RollingZeppelin said:

@themangalist: I agree, we have to be cautious with the way we direct our initiatives, although I believe that your painting with a wide brush on your opinions of teenagers. You have to agree that there is potential here to do a great amount of good though. I'm excited that that potential exists. Kony 2012 is not something I subscribe to, but it shows that we can motivate ourselves to do some truly great things. THAT is the point of this blog.

You really must forgive us for confusing your intentions when you premise the thread with

@RollingZeppelin said:

And who are we to say that freeing the children captive under Kony and ending his reign of tyranny is not a noble goal? Yes the governments are fucked up and it will take far more effort to create lasting change, but we have to start somewhere. Kony is not the source of Africa's problems but he's certainly contributing to them.

Maybe a more accurate thread title would have been "Kony 2012: I Personally DGAF But Possibly You Will, and If You Do That's Great"

@Bones8677 said:

Okay, I'm aware of Kony.

Now what?

You are now a human rights activist. Thank you for saving Africa.

Invisble Children are a bunch of dumbass college drop-outs who understand nothing of the complexity of the African or Ugandan situation. You can't "save the world" through awareness campaign and merchandise selling. My problem with this whole thing is people are making decisions on issues they clearly know nothing about. Invisble Children are cashing in on a situation they clearly don't understand and clearly don't want to understand either. The problem in Uganda is infinitely more complex than Kony.

By the way I can't be passed off as another apathetic westerner since I do international development work. The solution has to be thought out a bit further than "saving the world".

@superpow said:

Invisble Children are a bunch of dumbass college drop-outs who understand nothing of the complexity of the African or Ugandan situation. You can't "save the world" through awareness campaign and merchandise selling. My problem with this whole thing is people are making decisions on issues they clearly know nothing about. Invisble Children are cashing in on a situation they clearly don't understand and clearly don't want to understand either. The problem in Uganda is infinitely more complex than Kony.

By the way I can't be passed off as another apathetic westerner since I do international development work. The solution has to be thought out a bit further than "saving the world".

I never said that Invisible Children have the right strategy of helping out the region. That's not the point of my blog, and I agree that the solution has to be thought out further. I never deviated from that point in any of my posts here.

@Jumanji said:

You really must forgive us for confusing your intentions when you premise the thread with

@RollingZeppelin said:

And who are we to say that freeing the children captive under Kony and ending his reign of tyranny is not a noble goal? Yes the governments are fucked up and it will take far more effort to create lasting change, but we have to start somewhere. Kony is not the source of Africa's problems but he's certainly contributing to them.

Maybe a more accurate thread title would have been "Kony 2012: I Personally DGAF But Possibly You Will, and If You Do That's Great"

That's not the main point of my blog. All I'm saying in that paragraph is that Kony is a criminal and deserves to be brought to justice and doing so would be a start to helping out the region. I would also appreciate it if you could stop cherry picking my posts, and trying to be a shit starter.

@RollingZeppelin: Got it. We'll go wherever the goalposts take us.

Okay, I'm gonna post this once, along with a link to the financial statement that supports my claims.

Assuming this document is not falsified, this legitimizes claims against Invisible Children that only about 30% of their funds are actually donated directly to the cause and not held by the organization or used to fund filmmaking and pay members.

Essentially, between 2010 and 2011, Invisible Children collected 13 million dollars (3). Roughly 7 million of that was dedicated to the program, while nearly 2 million was dedicated to general management and development of the organization. Of the 7 million dollars dedicated to the program, nearly 3 million were dedicated to compensation and travel expenses; the remaining four were divided between donations (about 3 million, all told) and expenses summarized the remaining 1 million dollars (6).

Meanwhile, that money does go towards military intervention groups, with claims legitimized by their acknowledgement on their own website of working with the UPDF. This is problematic mostly because the army they are hiring has regularly been accused of misconduct, but also because military intervention will lead to a serious number of casualties amongst the child soldiers we are aiming to free. There is no easy solution to this problem, but the US Government has sent strike forces into Uganda to take on the LRA and are mobilizing now under Obama more than previously.

The criticisms in the article previously mentioned are legitimate. However, Joseph Kony is a very bad man. While Invisible Children have done great work in raising awareness for the issue at hand, I do not believe it was for genuine reasons, and I cannot support the organization. I will stand by our government's approach and intelligence over the Invisible Children organization from here on out.

misguided armchair activism for pretentious liberal arts cunts and highschool students who couldn't even point out uganda on a map.

if you support invisible children in any way, you're either a hypocritical piece of shit or a naive hippy douche.

Yeah Kony is obviously an awful person but Invisible Children's motives are shady at best.

Also in that video the dude talks more about his son than he does the actual problem at hand, which definitely rubbed me the wrong way.

EDIT: http://i.imgur.com/162Be.png this made me lol

@Demoskinos said:

You know what? Plenty of people were "aware" of Hitler. Ask the jews how that went.

The internet wasn't around, and the ease of communication was simply not there. There are many people from that era who still aren't entirely sure that the holocaust actually happened. There is no refuting what is going on in Africa today, and with the internet it is far easier for somebody such as myself to throw some of my extra cash (what little there is) at charities and awareness groups. When enough people speak loudly about something thing get done. How long did it take America to intervene in WWII? And you're kidding yourself if you think that had much to do with the awareness of the people to the war crimes Hitler was committing. That stuff didn't really become evident until later on.

The doctored message that they put out is clear and concise. You couldn't incite the masses with real head-scratchers like "Guys, Uganda is real messed up and we can't really do anything to help right now, but you should probably know about it, m'kay?". The truth would just confuse and frustrate people, and no one would care in the slightest. Instead, it may be better if awareness is brought to a more singular issue that actually has a reasonable answer. No, things aren't going to be solved over there if this campaign actually results in Kony being brought to justice (Which in itself is very unlikely), But hey - people are interested. It can truly only be a positive thing. The negativity in this thread astounds me.

What's more, the double-hipsters who are all "I was into Kony before it was cool" are laughable. Such behaviour is ironically more self-absorbed then those who haven't heard about Kony, because you're continuing to think first about your personal social standing while faced with an important issue. Grow up, take a look at the situation at hand, and get angry accordingly. Apathy may make you super cool in some circles, but personally I can't stand it.

Furthermore, do not equate the sympathy of others to be equal to what your own black heart contains. These people are caring as much as they possibly can about a place on the other side of the world.

I really don't even care if InvisibleChildren are frauds. People are interested, and are actually thinking about something outside of their petty lives for once. That's an incredibly hard thing to do - something that can't be pulled off with the straight truth. The people need something hard and personal to latch onto before they can begin to sympathize. They have swayed the public opinion greatly, and that sort of thing are how wars are ended. Lack of such movement are how terrible atrocities are committed in secret. Protest is the lifeblood of democracy.

As for politics... Confound you all and your damned politics! We can all agree that this dude is a real jerk. Let's get 'em!

@Akrid: My problem with this whole thing is that many don't know what they are jumping on. They simplified the problem too much, using old footage and making it seem like Kony is in Uganda when he isn't. So what is the solution, we are talking about an army of children protecting Kony. Any military action would result in children dying, and lets look at the fact that the US sending in an active force would result in American casualties. That is not taking in the fact that Israel and Iran are almost reaching the boiling point, with Israel asking the US to commit.

@RollingZeppelin:

Good post.

However, I will say this: I don't like people spamming my FB with this sort of stuff.

@Akrid: Very well said!

I heard an interview on the radio recently with a journalist who had been working in the region, and met the guys who started this. He was also confused as to the actual point of their campaign, and thought it was a bit weird that they chose to focus on a guy who hasn't been seen for 6 years or something. But at the same time he said whatever brings more eyes on the region is a good thing.

So what if a majority just press a Like button on a page? There will still be a lot of people who get genuinely caught up in this, and they might not have found out about it if those "fake" supporters hand't pressed that Like button.

We really don't need more than one Kony topic. One may even be too many.