The Obligatory Kony 2012 Post

Yesterday when I groggily opened my eyes and did my pre-rolling-out-of-bed iPhone Merry-Go-Round (Email, Facebook, Twitter, Repeat), I noticed on the 'ol Facebook feed something to the effect of "3,236 of your friends posted about Kony 2012" (Editor's Note: Actual numbers may be made up) along with a video of the same title.  Being the go getter about town that I am, I didn't have time to watch the video throughout the day, but I became more intrigued as I saw it reposted over and over.  The general gist I got from reading some random comments was "Joseph Kony is this evil mofo in Uganda, captures children and turns them into soldiers and sex slaves, we need to get the word out." This all seems  like a worthy enough cause, and in recent years we've seen political speech often go "viral" on the internet and turn into visible real life action: The coordination of the Egyptian protests using social media, websites going "dark" for a day to protest SOPA, and of course the campaign of Ron Paul, which essentially owes it's existence to social media and the grassroots viral marketing of his supporters.  But perhaps to a fault, I'm often skeptical of "causes" until I've fully researched them.  Sometimes they are legit, sometimes they are complete scams, and often the truth lies somewhere in between. I decided to reserve judgement until I'd actually sat down, watched the video with my dual Openmindedness/Skepticism glasses on, and done a little research.As I lay in my bed with a delightful glass of Jack Daniels and click my YouTube play button,  I was immediately struck by the slickness and high production quality of the video.  I was expecting some sort of grainy documentary footage from deep in the heart of Africa, but stylistically it felt more like a commercial or an MTV "True Life" show.  Which isn't to say that's a bad thing: regardless of what the message is, the first thing any effective marketing campaign needs to do is reel in the viewer and keep them interested, which is especially true of a video 29 minutes in length. And the producers do an absolutely brilliant job. Our "story" begins immediately catering to our most primal human emotions with touching scenes of rescues of disaster victims and a deaf woman using new technology to hear for the first time amongst others interspersed within images of social media such as YouTube and Facebook. Before we know what hit us we are quickly parlayed into images of the Egyptian revolution. The message is clear: people have the power to do incredible things to help others and our social technologies are giving people greater power than ever.  All good so far.From here we are introduced to our narrator, Jason Russell, via video of the birth of his son and a nice little "I'm playing with my son and ain't he the cutest" montage.  Partway through this montage is where I find the first red flag that made me question what this video was really going to be all about. While speaking of how his son dreams of being in movies, there is a graphically added image of a missile and subsequent explosion to emphasize the young boy's movie fantasies.  Now many will say that I'm reading way too into this, but I find it very odd that within the first few minutes we have an image of war slipped into our happy-go-lucky father-son montage.  But I decide to do as many others will and continue to watch to see where they're going with all this.  We then see a brief clip of Mr. Russell speaking to a group of young men and women and saying "Who are you to end a war? I'm here to tell you, 'Who are you not to?'". Still no specifics, but no argument with what I'm hearing.   As early twentieth century writer Randolph Bourne wrote ,"War is the Health of the State", and with The State being completely anathema to liberty, this lion considers himself staunchly anti-war.  So I'm listening.Nearly four minutes in and we finally start to get to the issue at hand.   We begin to learn, through a series of conversations with his son, about Jason's time in Africa and his friend Jacob, a young African boy.  We see some compelling footage of Jacob as a child telling stories of kidnapping by rebel groups and expressing complete lack of hope for the future to the point of saying he'd rather be dead than be living on Earth.  We continue to learn that the rebel group known as the Lord's Resistance Army, or LRA, is led by a religious fanatic named Joseph Kony.  This group launched a rebellion against the Ugandan government in 1986 and since has been charged with numerous human rights violations, and most infamous for the accounts of rape, murder, mutilations and, as this video focuses on, child kidnappings and child soldiers.  This information is accurate and indeed, this Kony feller is One Crazy Emm Effer that's done some heinous things in his 25 year religious crusade.  Jason co-founded Invisible Children in 2005 to assist disaffected children and create awareness of the atrocities.  So far, so good.

Let's hope Sam Jackson is available for Kony 2012: The Movie. Image: STR/AP/Press Association Images

After teasing that he was going to "tell us exactly how to do it" (stop LRA and Kony), we instead cut to a scene where Russell videotapes his son, asking him questions about what he does in Africa and basically guiding him into explaining Joseph Kony and why he's the "bad guy".  I have to admit feeling slightly uncomfortable with this portion of the film.  I understand the purpose: children are innocent and seeing a child learn about such horrors certainly sparks an even greater level of emotion than if Russell himself had been explaining it to us, which he then proceeds to do anyway.  Eventually Russell is able to goad his son Gavin into saying "we should stop him".  Something just feels a little dirty about using one's child, who really doesn't know much about the world and is probably too young to do their own research on these issues, as a a method of pushing a cause.  I'll give Russell a pass here. He's clearly passionate about this cause. If the purpose of the video is to make more people aware of and as passionate about this subject as he is, using his son is an effective way to do so.The rest of the video shows how Invisible Children have been spreading the word about Kony and the LRA with an upbeat montage to the tune of Mumford and Sons "Roll Away Your Stone" - a brilliant choice when the target demographic is the same as those that use social media the most, the MTV Generation.  But the feel good moments start to slow down for this viewer, as we segue into Invisible Children's efforts to lobby the United States Congress, culminating with the announcement in October, 2011 that the Obama Administration was sending a small number of U.S. forces into Central Africa to help with "regional forces who are working toward the removal of Joseph Kony from the battlefield". Cheers erupt!!! The USA is comin' to save the day!!! Wooohooo!!!Wait, what?? Is this the same video where Jason Russell was just telling everyone "Who are you to end a war? I'm here to tell you: 'Who are you not to'"?  Last time I checked troops and soldiers wage wars, they don't stop them.  While raising awareness of an issue and trying to rally people around a worthy cause is commendable, attempting to use money looted from the taxpayers of another country is a whole different story.  Let's put aside the fact that the United States already has troops spread out all over the globe and is bogged down in several unconstitutional, undeclared and unwinnable wars.   The fact remains there is no such thing as "federal money".  Every dime the federal government spends is taken by force from its citizens.  So when a group lobbies for and receives anything from the government, be it direct aid, troops, training or a box of flippin' marshmallows, it is really asking for the government to first take this money from its' citizens, and then redistribute it to that group by force.  Essentially, what Invisible Children is advocating is for the government of one country to take money from it's citizens to pay for troops and training of the troops of another government, so that it can violently go after another group.I realize that most people reading this don't share that worldview, and there will be plenty of blogging in the future to delve further into the philosophy of taxation and the funding of government.  I give Invisible Children the benefit of the doubt that thus far I have no reason to believe their goals are anything but genuine, despite my disagreement with their means of achieving that goal. Now here I go ranting again and I almost missed the big payoff...the Kony 2012 Action Plan!The plan? To spread the message via this Kony 2012 video to make Joseph Kony a household name, targeting 20 "culture makers" (some unsurprising faces like George Clooney, Angelina Jolie, and Bono ... seriously am I watching the South Park parody of this now?) and "policy makers" (featuring such humanitarian stalwarts as Iraq War architects Condoleeza Rice and Dick Cheney), culminating in a mass day of action where everyone will go out at night and plaster Kony 2012 signs all over the place. Oh yeah, and in the meantime don't forget to send Invisible Children some money and wear some wristbands. The date? I swear I am not making this up....April 20, 2012. Yes...the infamous 4 - 20! The further this goes on the more this is starting to feel like a giant prank.Africa has a long history of conflict. Due to a combination of centuries old rivalries amongst an incredible 3,000 + different ethnic groups the continent has been riddled with countless wars and the accompanying atrocities.  You'd be hard pressed to find a country in Africa without some form of ethnic or religious infighting and social unrest. So why Joseph Kony and why now?As it turns out, Joseph Kony isn't even in Uganda, and hasn't been for nearly six years.  The LRA was forced out of Uganda by the Ugandan military in 2006 and since has largely dispersed itself throughout remote areas of the DRC, Central African Republican and the newly created country of South Sudan. (Did I mention the U.S. essentially created South Sudan by funding the Sudanese People's Liberation Army, or SPLA? Did I mention that there's a shit ton of oil there? No? Nevermind).  The Ugandan government has since pursued Kony into other countries, often with disastrous results for local civilians.Invisible Children supports further military action such as this, all while using phrases like "End War".  They make videos highlighting the crimes of Joseph Kony and the LRA.  Meanwhile they ignore countless reports of atrocities including rape, murder and torture by the government of Ugandan dictator President Yoweri Museveni and the Ugandan military (UPDF) which they defend and support.  They have also been associated with the equally unscrupulous SPLA in South Sudan, a group that ironically is saddled with it's own history of using child soldiers. Hey, have I told you Africa was complicated? If your head is about to explode fear not, it's perfectly natural.  Let's just put it this way: in this region of Africa, there are a lot of bad groups doing a lot of bad stuff to a lot of innocent people.Invisible Children seems to be, for whatever reason, outraged by the actions of one bad guy while standing behind others. I'm highly suspicious of any group with such an inconsistent track record to go along with their message.  This is not an anti-war group.  This is not a bunch of peacenik hippies.  In fact, it seems like the founders of Invisible Children are chummy enough with the SPLA that they get to make cool poses with weapons, no doubt to use as their Facebook profile pictures.

Co-Founders of Invisible Children posing with the SPLA.

And what motivation does the United States have to be involved in Uganda? Is it mere coincidence that the United States interest in Uganda picked up shortly after a major oil discovery there? I should note that the area of focus is Northern Uganda, which just happens to be on the border of South Sudan, where our good friends the SPLA and their oh-so-delightful oil reserves reside.  The United States would never attack a country for oil...right?Some will argue that everyone involved, from Invisible Children to the United States Congressmen that voted to send troops to Uganda have the best of intentions.  The greater point is that there is often more to an issue than one side. Even when that one side, on the surface, represents a quite noble and genuine cause.  I encourage people to do their own research.  If that research leads you to believe that Invisible Children is a worthy cause then by all means support it. You should at least know what you are supporting and know that Invisible Children is by no means an anti-war or pro-peace group despite some of their rhetoric.  Invisible Children's approach, by turning a blind eye to the human rights abuses of the Ugandan government and SPLA in the name of battling a "greater evil" while supporting military intervention as the solution is right in line with the follies of U.S. foreign policy and it's alliances with an always rotating cast of alternating friendly dictators turned boogeymen.Seeking truth is an important ideal of liberty. The truth will set you free as they say - we hope if nothing else our blogs will encourage you to seek it.If your primary concern is assisting African children affected by this conflict and others like it through direct aid, please consider some other options for giving. Such as this organization which is making an impact right now. 

UPDATE: Here's a short video I found, "The Truth About Kony 2012" that sums up a lot of the information about Invisible Children quite well. Receive access to ALL of our EXCLUSIVE bonus audio content – including “Conspiracy Corner”, “Degenerate Gamblers” and the “League of Liberty Podcast” by joining the Lions of Liberty Pride and supporting us on Patreon!