http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4MnpzG5Sqc
Invisible Children | Kony2012
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Before you get all riled up, it pays to read this:
Why I Don’t Support “KONY 2012″ | Laci Green
Quote:
Originally Posted by Bruno
Amen, where were these people 10 or 20 years ago when they were needed and where is the money now.
Edit: BTW didnt Obama send some SF guys that way about a month ago to train the local military on how to handle poor ol' Joe.
ugh, I was very happy that this hadn't made it to SRP. Until today :( This is such $#@^ I can't even begin to rant about it. This should be a heated thread though. I honestly have to say I look forward to reading everyones thoughts
Based on the lack of replies thus far, I wouldn't get your hopes up.Quote:
Originally Posted by sleekandsmooth
Its a Monday, give it a day or two.Quote:
Originally Posted by ReardenSteel
I just want to say that I'm OUTRAGED by the things said here.
What are we talking about again?
I am both shocked and appalled, no further comment!Quote:
Originally Posted by joesixpack
I am righteously indignant! I'll have you know that many of my friends are members of the minority group who you have just disparaged and I take offense on their behalf!Quote:
Originally Posted by nun2sharp
The minority be damned sir! Need I remind you that in this fair democracy of ours it is the majority that rules, I find your position most repugnant and lacking moral courage! Furthermore I find your statement of having friends to be with out any merit whatsoever! If you did indeed have any at all it would have to be a minority, I simply can not believe that you could find a substantial number of them to be had at any price. ;P
Perhaps you are not aware of something called the bill of rights! My right to arm bears shall not be infringed by any minority. Am am arming my friends, the bears, right at this moment and we shall stand up for those rights!
Try as I might, I simply can not get my undies in bunch over this one.
I'm not wearing any. SO there. :p
Keeping and arming Bears, being a fan of the 2nd article of our constitution I believe we have finally found common ground and can work together in a cooperative manner befitting gentlemen of our stature. Sir, I doff my cap!
And thus the Republic is saved!
nun2sharp/joesixpack 2012
little hope for change
Why, in the name of a merciful God did I need to know this! Ugh!Quote:
Originally Posted by Wullie
Here's your problem - my name ain't merciful :pQuote:
Originally Posted by nun2sharp
Fixed it for you...:)Quote:
Originally Posted by nun2sharp
No you didn't, you've just been riding my coat tails and now you want to hog the credit that I am rightfully due.
Quote:
Originally Posted by gugi
Then what did you show up for? Dinner? ;P
Close but not quite - for your scheduled after dinner spanking!Quote:
Originally Posted by nun2sharp
Quote:
Originally Posted by gugi
Oh no, thats Jimbolina's job, you didnt want it remember!
Oh, just in case anyone's wondering why we should all suddenly care about Kony and the Lord's Resistance Army, it turns out that that area of Uganda is sitting atop a giant oil reserve.
But don't worry, the nation and her people won't be benefiting from the oil revenues at the expense of oil company shareholders. Phew! Close call there, A developing country almost got rich.
That cant be true we hit "peak oil" 20-30 years ago and there are no reserves. Just more of your left/right/centrist hate mongering! Next you wiil be telling me that we have plenty of oil here at home. I think it is entirely irresponsible of you to wage this kind of class warfare, after all they are the minority, being only 1%. Besides, the people of the country would only spend it on goats, grains and clean water, maybe even such frivolities as shoes.. Surely the country's despots and those already well heeled oil magnates can truly manage the worlds economy to suit themselves. You have a lot of nerve!
That's a blatant lie Joe.Quote:
Originally Posted by joesixpack
It's oil AND minerals.... So There!
Sierra Leona is a prime example of the problem. It is at the same time the world's richest country in terms of ores and minerals, and the world's poorest country in terms of actual money. We like it that way. If we suddenly had to start paying them market value instead of getting the mining rights for a crate of guns, that iThingy would suddenly be more expensive. And the computers. And the TVs. And pretty much everything that contains electronics or other applications of rare eath metals. And gemstones of course...
Sigh.
Look, this is a little disappointing.
I know the whole Kony 2012 movement seems like "slactivism" to a lot of people. And maybe just watching a video, kicking in a few bucks, and signing a petition is slack. But at least it is acknowledging that the situation with child soldiers in Uganda is wrong, and at least the Kony 2012 people have brought it into the open.
Is the money spent as wisely as it could be? I don't know.
And am I naive enough to believe that arresting Kony will fix the problem? No, it is probably about as likely as getting rid of Osama was going to end terrorism. But it is strange, nobody seemed to think that situation was so funny or pointless. Everybody was happy to get behind that.
Just because America has no financial or political interest in Uganda, apparently whatever terrible stuff that goes on in that country is unimportant. For all its faults, at least this Kony 2012 thing has put one world issue into the spotlight, despite offering the west no obvious advantage other that trying to help people.
Is the situation in Uganda unique? No. Terrible stuff like that is happening on dozens of countries across the world. And people like you and me sit on our internet, watch the news, read the paper, and we still don't know about it. Why? Because it is happening in poor countries who have no resources that the west needs. They are "unimportant".
Kony 2012 might be a fad. It might not yield real results. But at least it might have opened a few peoples eyes to something that they may not have been aware of, and maybe some of those people might enquire a bit further about what is going on beyond reality TV, and the Hollywood celebrities are up to.
I don't know. This whole movement seems to be the first time where "the mob", and popular culture, appear to be getting behind something good, rather than something that will benefit themselves.
I just get annoyed when it is made fun of. It could be the start of something important. Do I dare to believe in a world where being altruistic is "trendy"?
I sponsor a child in Sierra Leone. Have done so for years. I've also given quite some money to various 'Doctors without frontiers' initiatives and other things. I do care. Don't think that I don't. And the Kony 2012 has nothing to do with pop culture getting behind something.
1) Pop culture has already forgotten by now. The 5 minutes of facebook fame are over.
2) Even when it was on their minds, they still didn't care that much.
3) The people behind this seem to be living out a white savior fetish.
If you want to do something, find a solid initiative (in my case that was SOS Children's Villages International - A loving home for every child ) read up on it, and if you feel like making a difference, and engage in a continuing commitment. I cannot solve the world's big problems, but I can make life better for a small girl who is currently making it through school on my dime.
In this world, for some reason, the people with money (with the exception of rare people like Bill Gates) just don't care.
We, the middle class, may care, but we have no clout. We may want companies to act decently, but companies answer to stock holders, and stock holders are people wanting to increase their stock value. They don't want their profits to drop because companies pay fair price for humane working conditions. And consumers don't want to pay more for their shiny new toy.
I am not making fun of the problems. I am making fun specifically of the Kony 2012 marketing campaign, and the idea that those problems exist because the world doesn't know. the world does know. It just doesn't care.
Let me tell you a story about one of the worst monsters in human history. A man nicknamed 'the butcher king'. A man compared with whom Hitler is an amateur in the field of genocide. The name of that man is Leopold 2 of Belgium. Due to some political maneuvering, he personally owned Congo, right at the start of the Industrial revolution. The world needed rubber, and Leopold delivered. He supplied the world with rubber, got insanely rich (IIRC he was at one point the world's richest man). and killed between 8 and 12 million African slaves in the process. That number is without counting the people who got maimed and tortured to make an example. We are talking about true evil.
But the world needed rubber, so the world didn't care.
Eventually, it became a political booboo and his enemies were seizing this abomination to beat him over the head with. It was grotesque even for that day and age. And then the miracle happened. The great forgetting. Because Leopold at that point deeded Congo to the Belgian government (before, it was his own). And then Belgium started getting the proceeds. and overnight, all opposition was silenced as if smothered with a pillow.
No more inconvenient news. No criticism. It was not even mentioned in our history books until fairly recently. Many people even in my generation don't know. Or they're even believing that we brought them 'civilization' and 'education'. As recent as 2002 (iirc) we minted a commemorative coin for that SOB. He even got a new statue in some city near the coastline. Can you imagine Germany minting a commemorative coin for Hitler? And Leopold was worse than Hitler.
Individuals may care. The majority doesn't, especially if they benefit by the atrocities.
Wow Bruno. Are there any good books on this guy you can point me to? Sounds like an interesting history lesson.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Bruno
Sad, but true.
The same cast of characters always at the front; until another cause comes around to spotlight themselves.
There are several. the one below is written for people interested in the history. I've seen it mentioned in the news as a work of note, several years ago. It seems to be very cheap as well so I think it would be a good choice.Quote:
Originally Posted by medicevans
I would hesitate to trust any book on this subject written before the 90s. I'm not saying that there were no truthful books about it before then, but Leopold 2 is a huge stain on our history which has been minimized for a long time. It's only since the last decade and a half that people are 'starting' to acknowledge the fact that he might not have been a jolly old chap.
Amazon.com: King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa (0046442001908): Adam Hochschild: Books
For online sources, just google for 'leopold butcher of congo'.
I have an adopted nephew from Uganda, I can learn all about Kony from him. He has been here for 8-9 years now and is one of the best young men you could ever hope to meet.
Bruno, I loved your dissertation of Leopold, his legacy still has central Africa in turmoil, God help us all, we seem not to be able to help ourselves. Every civilization on Earth is blood stained and it is not stopping.
Sooo... Clarify for me. Because Leopold 2's terrible actions were ignored for all those years, and until 2002 he had commemorative coins minted...
Does that prove the point that what Kony is doing to children in Uganda is unacceptable, or is it comparatively reasonable compared to European history, and therefore not worth the effort to trying to correct?
Bruno, your post has left me confused. I'm not sure what you are trying to tell us.
I am trying to tell you that a couple of people are taking the Kony issue and trying to put themselves in the spotlight.Quote:
Originally Posted by Legion
I'm trying to tell you that while Kony DID a number of really bad things, he is not quite doing them now. What he did in the past cannot be undone.
And if you had read my story with a bit more care, you would have seen that the reason for the story was to show that the world at large does not give a damn as long as they get their shiny new toys. 100 years ago, the world exploited Africa for the rubber. These days it is rare earth elements and minerals.
You argue that we should not make fun of it, but really... liking a status on facebook will not change the world.
If you want to make an actual, real change, do what several people (including ones making fun of the Kony 2012 thing in this thread) here already indicated they do: DO something. Find something with which you want to help and do so.
That will have much more real effect than liking a status on facebook.
Bla, Bla, Bla social spot to make them famous.... If we all start something than et`s start from change, changing ourselves. Pay with good for good, pay with good for not good things happening to you/us a then we will never hear about this kind of "actions" or "movements". In just in month I saw (watch video):
1. 2 years old chinese girl ride over by two or 3 cars. No one help her, no one from by standing people> Shame on humans! She die in hospital.
2. 2 years old-death on camera from HOMES (Syria) done by Cooper 360 (after this to me he is biggest hypocrite I have EVER seen-since he never had guts to show what USA army did in Iraq during war, not get me wrong-I don`t care what army it is, USA, Pakistan, Chinese-this is just hypocrite example) where child die in hands of his father from wounds (this really break my hearth regardless of nation, religion, it was 2 years old child for F*** S***)
We all take part in huge "play" of rich people as marionettes (and I`m not idealistic, it is fact, not constipation, not manipulation, simple fact). We are over flooded by news, we stop thinking, we stop feeling.
Why instead of promoting our self we just start doing good things to other people and never expect anything return and do not take credit for that?
I remember when I was small my grandfather (he lost his whole family during WWII, shoot on his eyes and left on the scene) help homeless guy (which was bit up by some punks) took him home, later to hospital and I ask him why he did that? I told him: "You don`t know him". He just smile and said-" Because this is right thing to do and leverage many not right things which were done to us. At least that`s what I can do"
OK, enough… I got little angry… but I will not stop be good person….
+1.Quote:
Originally Posted by proximus26
Before WW2, my grandmother was rich. Loaded would be a better term.
Then during WW2, food prices went through the roof. They of course still had food. Some stuff was rationed but if you could afford it you could eat.
Other people could not. Her neighbors were litterally down to feeding their kids with grass. And they were not the exception.
So my grandmother started buying more and more food, giving it away. A sizable percentage of the village I grew up in owes their life to my grandmother.
After the war, most of the money was gone. She had literally spent a forune on food, feeding countless mouths. The only reason she wasn't poor was that by the time most of the money was gone, the war had ended, and she started with a really big pile of it.
Not all people were like her. Not by far. She never much talked about the war except the everyday stuff (like having to dim lights at night etc), but to my mother she once explained that people came asking for food, and she could not even consider turning them away. Helping was the decent thing to do, regardless of the fact that it would cost her almost everything. If she hadn't, my parents would have been rich, but we all think she made the right choice.
She taught me that you can only help people by helping people.
Holding on to your posessions and yammering that there is injustice and that someone should do something... that is not helping people or making a difference. That is just being selfish and trying to make yourself feel good. Talking about helping is not helping. Helping is helping.
And the vast majority of the people liking the facebook status is not helping.
They're talking about helping.
If it were possible I would like to kiss that womans face, she did not feed me or my family, but she is still owed a thank you.
I see what Bruno is taliking about all of the time, especially when American politics comes up, you have the left wanting the govt to do this and the right wants the government to do that. What they will not realize is that it is not in anybodies best interest to have a large government that ends up only serving itself(the nature of government), and if you want something done right, YOU BETTER DO IT YOURSELF.
As Marcus Aurelius wrote, "Waste no more time arguing what a good man should be; be one."
I too would like to thank Bruno's Grandmother.
I also find it interesting that in most cases these days, people from outside the USA have a better grip on what's happening politically here in the GOOD OL' US of A than 90% of the people that live here.
Bruno, thanks for the insight. I appreciate it.
Willie
Bruno, politically we don't agree very often but I must admit that this particular issue is the rare exception. Kony 2012 is nothing more than ideological masturbation. People getting rich selling the notion that you can save the world by buying a bracelet and some bumper stickers. Years back weren't we going to straighten out Ethiopia by selling some records? How'd that turn out? Well, not so good but for a minute the well meaning sheeple got to feel very good about changing the world, without even breaking a sweat but when it was all said and done and had it's couple months of being the latest call to activism, things in Ethiopia changed very little. What about Somolia? Weren't we going to solve all their problems too? Clinton made a fine show of it until people started dying. Ideological masturbation only works if we can feel really good without anyone being inconvenienced, having to be bothered to figure out facts and cultural realities or worse yet having to explain much about what actually happened. Probably a safe bet that the very military we're helping is guilty of many of the same atrocities as Mr. Kony.
I'll post my thoughts:
MY THOUGHTS!!!
Carry on.
Never try and teach a pig to sing, it frustrates you and irritates the pig.
Well said !..............................................Quote:
Originally Posted by nun2sharp