Kony 2012

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Is this the same group that Bono works with?

I’ve always heard the money he and others raised ended up in the hands of guys like Kony more than it did helping the people.
 
bbarrick8383 said:
Is this the same group that Bono works with?

I’ve always heard the money he and others raised ended up in the hands of guys like Kony more than it did helping the people.
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See? This is what I’m talking about. They’re not working to raise as much money as they can and then giving the money away. They’re working to raise as much AWARENESS as they can, and what money they make goes into that first, and then they give what’s leftover directly to the cause.

Who are “he and others” anyway? I think that, one, Bono is one of the few celebrities who actually do more than shoot their mouths off from Hollywood, and two, he’s a slightly too high profile to be getting away with the shady behavior you’re accusing him of.
 
bookgirl said:
See? This is what I’m talking about. They’re not working to raise as much money as they can and then giving the money away. They’re working to raise as much AWARENESS as they can, and what money they make goes into that first, and then they give what’s leftover directly to the cause.

Who are “he and others” anyway? I think that, one, Bono is one of the few celebrities who actually do more than shoot their mouths off from Hollywood, and two, he’s a slightly too high profile to be getting away with the shady behavior you’re accusing him of.
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Wasn’t necessarily accusing him of shady behavior as if he was doing it intentionally.

I also wasn’t accusing them of raising as much money as they could to just give it away.

Probably should have been more clear, but all I wanted to know was if Bono works with this group, and is it true that a lot of the money he and other celebrity types who send money to Africa actually get money to the people or is this Kony fellow going after that money himself.
 
bbarrick8383 said:
Wasn’t necessarily accusing him of shady behavior as if he was doing it intentionally.

I also wasn’t accusing them of raising as much money as they could to just give it away.

Probably should have been more clear, but all I wanted to know was if Bono works with this group, and is it true that a lot of the money he and other celebrity types who send money to Africa actually get money to the people or is this Kony fellow going after that money himself.
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I’m sorry, I put words in your mouth. It’s not as if I even know that much about any of this. But I have done enough research to know that much of the criticism seems petty.

As far as Bono himself, no, he doesn’t officially work with this group. Although he is one celebrity they singled out to make aware of their cause. He works mainly with AIDS campaigns (his wife does charity work for Chernobyl survivors). I do know that quite a bit of Bono’s work is in lobbying congress. Exactly what happens to the money raised by the Red campaign (his own charity) I’m not sure. Although if any of the causes championed by celebrities are “policed” well, I would hope one as huge as his would be one of those. (Disclaimer: my defense of Bono does not mean I agree with all of his politics, nor that of his partners Bill Gates or Warren Buffett. I cannot claim that it doesn’t mean that I have been a rabid U2 fan sinc early childhood, however).
 
bookgirl said:
billykangas I’m going to link to your blog post on this to my FB page if you don’t mind. Also I just very quickly skimmed through your blog The Orant, and it looks really interesting. Nice work!!
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I don’t mind at all THANK YOU!
 
Mike_91 said:
I can’t speak about the vandalizing, but this whole Kony thing is really a scam. The organization behind the video, I think it’s called Invisible Children Inc. is basically making tons of money off of the donations. I believe only 30% of donations are actually spent on the children and the rest is used on the members of the organization for travel, luxuries, and other things. Too many people see a 30 minute video and believe that they can destabilize a Ugandan warlord by simply liking a video. I bet you most people wouldn’t even be able to find Uganda on a map. But according to my facebook feed, people are slowly starting to realize this :rolleyes: I wish people did their research a bit better instead of trusting everything they hear.
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👍
 
LOS ANGELES — Even after decades of well-documented murder and plunder, even after the International Criminal Court indicted him and President Barack Obama dispatched a special operations team to help catch him, African warlord Joseph Kony remained largely obscure to the West.

That changed with startling swiftness this week, with the viral proliferation of a 29-minute video, ‘‘Kony 2012,’’ which calculatedly taps the power of social media in an effort to bring attention to the fugitive leader of the Lord’s Resistance Army.

By Thursday, three days after its release on YouTube, the video had been viewed 40 million times, fueled by Tweets from celebrities including Rihanna, Oprah Winfrey and P. Diddy.

“Can I tell you the bad guy’s name?” Jason Russell, co-founder of the San Diego-based nonprofit Invisible Children, asks his young son in the video. Russell then shows him Kony’s photograph, and explains to viewers that Kony’s LRA abducts children for use as sex slaves and child soldiers. Then he inveighs against the possible withdrawal of U.S. troops sent last year to help African troops catch him.

The video’s popularity reflects the power of Facebook and Twitter to galvanize a generation moved by vivid, instantly downloadable images and the entreaties of celebrities.

Data collected by YouTube show the video is most popular with boys and girls ages 13 to 17, and young men ages 18 to 24.

tampabay.com/incoming/youtube-takes-on-a-warlord/1219127

ABC News Story on the controvery with video report:
abcnews.go.com/International/kony-2012-charity-invisible-children-addresses-critics/story?id=15877622#.T1ofdoEcN0a

Link to the 29 minute YouTube video:
youtube.com/watch?v=Y4MnpzG5Sqc
 
bookgirl said:
See? This is what I’m talking about. They’re not working to raise as much money as they can and then giving the money away. They’re working to raise as much AWARENESS as they can, and what money they make goes into that first, and then they give what’s leftover directly to the cause. .
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So like many “charities” they spend all/most of the money raised on marketing and salaries while the people suffering get the shaft. Thanks for the heads up.

Kind of like how “Feed the Children” was great at showing famine in 3rd world countries, not so good at actually feeding them.

tulsaworld.com/news/article.aspx?subjectid=11&articleid=20100317_11_0_csnwae149766
 
bookgirl said:
I really can honestly say that I don’t know much about any of this, only what I’ve read in the past few days. What’s bothering me about the criticism against IC is that, for one, there is this straw man argument being set up of “they’re making all this money and then not giving it to the children.” They’re not making it in order to give it to the children. They’re openly and honestly making it to try to raise awareness of the problem in a way that they think will make a difference. They could be wrong about that in and of itself, but I don’t for a second think that they’re running a scam to make money. That claim is ridiculous.
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It would be great to get rid of Kony. He and his forces have left a path of abductions and mass murder in their wake for over 20 years. But let’s get two things straight: 1) Joseph Kony is not in Uganda and hasn’t been for 6 years; 2) the LRA now numbers at most in the hundreds, and while it is still causing immense suffering, it is unclear how millions of well-meaning but misinformed people are going to help deal with the more complicated reality.
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First, the facts. Following a successful campaign by the Ugandan military and failed peace talks in 2006, the LRA was pushed out of Uganda and has been operating in extremely remote areas of the DRC, South Sudan, and the Central African Republic – where Kony himself is believed to be now. The Ugandan military has been pursuing the LRA since then but had little success (and several big screw-ups). In October last year, President Obama authorized the deployment of 100 U.S. Army advisors to help the Ugandan military track down Kony, with no results disclosed to date.
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Additionally, the LRA (thankfully!) does not have 30,000 mindless child soldiers. This grim figure, cited by Invisible Children in the film (and by others) refers to the total number of kids abducted by the LRA over nearly 30 years. Eerily, it is also the same number estimated for the total killed in the more than 20 years of conflict in Northern Uganda.
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en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Kony

Even if the # were 30,000 child soliders instead of 30,000 children abducted or killed in 20-30 years of conflict, this number is far far lower than the 53 million killed in abortion in the United States since 1973. Awareness has to be appropriate; otherwise, justice is not served, and we get rescue missions such as Iraq - that destroyed the best health care system in the Middle East from a country complaining about warfare in another country while there is a more horrible war on children here. If they are the axis of Evil, what are we?

And imagine us, if some people in the Middle East started a viral campaign to raise awareness about abortion in the U.S., how would that help us?
Secondly I’m bothered by the claim that they’re fostering the image of Africans “not being able to help themselves”. I get that the people of Central Africa need to feel empowered, that they can very well learn how to take care of themselves, that they are just as smart and capable as we in the US are, and all of that is very true. But acknowledging that help is needed doesn’t do anything to refute any of that. What would those critics have people do, nothing? None of these “scholars” and other charities seem to have any problem throwing condoms at them as opposed to educating them about abstinence, thereby insinuating that they’re, what, incapable of self control, or to dumb to learn about abstinence. How is that any different?
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These people can help Africans help themselves instead of forming system of dependency. Those “scholars” who throw condoms are also criticized for the same. How can any country survive if it is ruled from afar? It seems that subsidiarity would apply here. The East Asian “miracle” countries that were often poorer than the countries in Africa were extremely self-sufficient, and it seems that is the best model for success.

Let’s see how colonialism and slavery were justified. They were intended to civilize a lesser group of savages until the time that these people could take care of themselves. Did that work or did the injustice become far worse than the “cure”?
 
It sounds like a fad… these things are far more complicated than these movements will often tolerate.
 
Regular civilians acting out internationally without government approval…? Just who do these young whippersnappers think they are?
 
TEPO said:
Regular civilians acting out internationally without government approval…? Just who do these young whippersnappers think they are?
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Actually it looks more like someone trying to profit off the misery of the children in Africa.
 
SamH said:
Actually it looks more like someone trying to profit off the misery of the children in Africa.
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Oh, please. I am so tired of people saying things like this. Why don’t you go look on the Invisible Children website and see their finances instead of repeating useless nonfacts?

Everyone has an opinion, but unfortunately, most don’t know what they are even talking about.
 
visiblechildren.tumblr.com/post/18890947431/we-got-trouble

don’t know if this has been posted but it says it’s a money making operation.

Invisible Children has been condemned time and time again. As a registered not-for-profit, its finances are public. Last year, the organization spent $8,676,614. Only 32% went to direct services (page 6), with much of the rest going to staff salaries, travel and transport, and film production. This is far from ideal for an issue which arguably needs action and aid, not awareness, and Charity Navigator rates their accountability 2/4 stars because they lack an external audit committee. But it goes way deeper than that.
 
pepipop said:
visiblechildren.tumblr.com/post/18890947431/we-got-trouble

don’t know if this has been posted but it says it’s a money making operation.

Invisible Children has been condemned time and time again. As a registered not-for-profit, its finances are public. Last year, the organization spent $8,676,614. Only 32% went to direct services (page 6), with much of the rest going to staff salaries, travel and transport, and film production. This is far from ideal for an issue which arguably needs action and aid, not awareness, and Charity Navigator rates their accountability 2/4 stars because they lack an external audit committee. But it goes way deeper than that.
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Many people and sites are out there saying whatever they want to say. You are not getting your information from Invisible children. Nice try, you linked to Visible children.
Why are you not looking at the Invisible Children site? What are you afraid of? That you may find that all of the people saying they are misusing funds are actually the ones that are not telling the truth?

I don’t know how to link it here for you, I am not that computer savy. Perhaps someone else would be kind enough to.
 
Irishmom2 said:
Many people and sites are out there saying whatever they want to say. You are not getting your information from Invisible children. Nice try, you linked to Visible children.
Why are you not looking at the Invisible Children site? What are you afraid of? That you may find that all of the people saying they are misusing funds are actually the ones that are not telling the truth?

I don’t know how to link it here for you, I am not that computer savy. Perhaps someone else would be kind enough to.
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They’re obviously not an advocate for the ‘invisible children’, hence their website address. They are criticising the group, whether it is true or not I do not know. They’ve also added a link to a response from ‘invisible children’ at the bottom of their site, that goes directly to the original organisers site - it is an opinion, only. It all seems to have hit the media all at once and I for one am wary of it, and it is my choice to do so.
If you want to write to your Member of Parliament or your Senator or the President or the Prime Minister, by all means, go ahead. If you want to post about Joseph Kony’s crimes on Facebook, go ahead. But let’s keep it about Joseph Kony, not KONY 2012.

~ Grant Oyston

Grant Oyston is a sociology and political science student at Acadia University in Nova Scotia, Canada.

Please do not email me except to provide alternative causes, or with media requests, as I am no longer able to read emails (which I’m receiving at a pace too rapid to keep up with).

EDIT: Please read Invisible Children’s response here.*
 
Irishmom2 said:
Oh, please. I am so tired of people saying things like this. Why don’t you go look on the Invisible Children website and see their finances instead of repeating useless nonfacts?

Everyone has an opinion, but unfortunately, most don’t know what they are even talking about.
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I did. Have you?
 
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