Kony Baloney

[Count Bobulescu]

http://www.theatlantic.com/internati...ny2012/255626/

Many of the men responsible for the Kony 2012 campaign follow something called the Emerging Church, which has become an unusual and newly influential wing of the larger evangelical mission to Africa.

For Jason Russell, co-founder of Invisible Children, stumbling into Uganda's one-time civil war wasn't an accident; it was a divine calling.
While the rest of the world laughs at or ponders the psych ward-ridden creator of Kony 2012, the unlikely Internet video sensation that brought both himself and a vicious Ugandan rebel instant and overwhelming fame, the mystery of his inspiration and success only grows more curious.

Who is this man? Is he crazy? What drives him? Russell summed it up in two hesitant words -- Jesus Christ.

For me, that's the motivator," Russell told me in an interview early one morning from California in March, as the video was first going viral. He'd just had what was among the first of many nearly sleepless nights, he told me at the time, which his family later said contributed to his nude psychotic breakdown on a San Diego street corner.
"I can't do it without that faith," he said, calling Jesus the "ultimate storyteller." Excitement rushed through his voice. "If I thought I was doing it myself, it would feel myopic."

Behind the origins and success of Kony 2012 is an eclectic and powerful network of Christian activists, traditionally dominated by the Christian right, that has at times brought mass attention, almost single-handedly, to some of Africa's worst and most ignored conflicts, from South Sudan to the Nuba Mountains, Darfur to the Lord's Resistance Army.

The movement has also sparked controversy. It is a community of activists that wields disproportionate influence over African affairs, from military politics to public health to social policy. As they work to organize a global effort to catch the leaders of the Lord's Resistance Army, a distinct but not-so-distant wing of the same movement helped to implement Uganda's notorious anti-gay law, which legalizes the killing of "repeat" gay men.

[Kev Bar]

http://www.theatlantic.com/internati...ny2012/255626/

Did you look at the queer tv link?

Curious though that there is a suggestion that Kony is linked to legislation initiatd by the government of his arch enemy and supposed raison d'etre Museveni

[Count Bobulescu]

Did you look at the queer tv link?

Curious though that there is a suggestion that Kony is linked to legislation initiatd by the government of his arch enemy and supposed raison d'etre Museveni

Yeah, I watched and saw a funny spoof. If you're now tellin me there me there was some other deeper message well that washed over me by a mile.

[People Korps]

Yeah, I watched and saw a funny spoof. If you're now tellin me there me there was some other deeper message well that washed over me by a mile.

Hiding on this thread from your smart ass comments elsewhere http://www.politicalworld.org/showth...927#post239927

you've been Konyed Fed Boy

[Count Bobulescu]

Kony No Show!

http://www.theatlantic.com/technolog...ed-out/256261/

Last Saturday morning, the world was supposed to wake up to city centers plastered with bright red posters telling us to STOP AT NOTHING. Towns were supposed to be covered with the messages of peace and common cause that made themselves known through youth who came out to "Cover the Night." The end game of the Kony 2012 video -- the most successful viral video campaign of all time -- was supposed to be a physical world awash with the graffiti of digital empathy.

The consensus, though? The thing was a flop. Hardly anyone came out.

But why Cover the Night was a flop is, actually, interesting. The hyped event's meager turnout could have a number of causes: our fleeting digital attention spans, or viral content's fireworks-to-fizzle trajectories, or the challenges of translating online activism to real-world change, or Invisible Children's failure to capitalize on the attention it had once it still had it, or Invisible Children's own pivot when it came to the stated goal of the event, or the widespread backlash that brought phrases like "the white savior industrial complex" newly, and powerfully, into the mass consciousness.

[Kev Bar]

I think Jason's own fireworks to frazzled trajectory may have dampened the squib.

But I did spot a lone poster cycling through Ranelagh.

I'd say they are feeling the fear in Sudan

[Count Bobulescu]

I think Jason's own fireworks to frazzled trajectory may have dampened the squib.
But I did spot a lone poster cycling through Ranelagh.
I'd say they are feeling the fear in Sudan.

I agree Jason likely affected it more than the other negative publicity.

Well you are one poster ahead of me. My 86 y.o. dad lives in Ranelagh but he's wheelchair bound, so it probably wasn't him that put it up. Although I better check.

yes likely a lot more now than they ever did from Kony.

[C. Flower]

My poor little town centre was plastered with posters, by 4 hysterical teenage girls.

I hope they have recovered.

The first bit of political context I've seen that makes sense of this caper is here -
http://www.upi.com/Top_News/Special/...8391326129046/

On Oct. 14, U.S. President Barack Obama said he was sending another 100 U.S. troops to Uganda in East Africa, which recently found a major oil field in the Lake Albert basin containing an estimated 2.5 billion barrels.

Uganda is strategically positioned to be an export hub for the region's expanding oil wealth, as well as other mineral resources.

Obama said the deployment was to help Uganda strongman Yoweri Museveni crush a long-running insurgency by the cult-like Lord's Resistance Army led by a religious crackpot and international fugitive named Joseph Kony.

But the now much-diminished LRA has never posed a threat to the United States.

It may well be that Obama is rewarding Uganda for aiding the U.S.-backed Transitional Federal Government in neighboring Somalia fight the al-Shabaab Islamist group linked to al-Qaida.

Uganda could be a valuable jump-off point for U.S. forces to intervene in other potential trouble spots in East and Central Africa, where China is making major economic inroads, should that be deemed necessary.

Read more: http://www.upi.com/Top_News/Special/...#ixzz1uSVytNnk

[Count Bobulescu]

L.A. Times, "Recapturing momentum on Kony: Invisible Children, whose 'Kony 2012' video about a Ugandan warlord went viral, plans a rally to urge new efforts to catch Joseph Kony, who kidnaps children to use as soldiers and sex slaves," by Tony Perry in San Diego : "The new 30-minute video, 'Move,' was posted on YouTube on Sunday night. Invisible Children plans a Nov. 17 rally in Washington to lobby the White House and leaders in Africa and Europe to redouble efforts to catch Kony, who fled Uganda in 2006 and is believed to be hiding in central Africa. For nearly a decade, USC film school graduate Jason Russell has been obsessed with alerting the world to Kony and his atrocities. ... But when his 11th video, 'Kony 2012,' was posted in March, he was not prepared for the tsunami of attention - and criticism." Article http://lat.ms/VQ0NBu 31-min. YouTube http://bit.ly/TkS4bc

More.

Before Gangnam Style came along, it was the international viral video everyone was talking about. That's right, Kony 2012, the sometimes praised, sometimes scorned, viral awareness campaign to put an end to African warlord Joseph Kony. On Sunday night, the group behind the video, Invisible Children, released its 30-minute follow-up video and its celebration of social media and millenial activism is bound to drive social media skeptics like Malcolm Gladwell insane.

Opening with a scene of media pundits chiding the millennial generation for being self-obsessed and hopeless, the message of this new video seems to be that all the adults were wrong: The power of tweets, Tumbls, IMs and all those new-fangled communication tools did have a palpable effect in coordinating government action against Kony's Lord's Resistance Army. "Our generation can bring the worst war lord to justice" says an Invisible Children activist. The video cuts to scenes of youths texting, Facebooking and commenting on YouTube.

It's a point that critics like Gladwell, who believe the influence of Twitter and Facebook on social activism is over-stated, would surely dispute, and not without merit. After all, Kony is still at large, most likely central Africa, so despite over 111 million views, it hasn't succeeded. On the other hand, the video did trigger bipartisan action in Congress at a very difficult time to get anything done. So there's room for debate.

Regardless, just like the effort to capture Kony itself, the video goes meta, focusing on Invisible Children, which has been criticized for everything from its "white savior complex," to its financial record its co-founder Jason Russell, who had something of a nervous breakdown earlier this year when he was detained for running naked through San Diego yelling incoherent things.

Taking the viewer through the creative process behind the original Kony 2012 video, the new video discusses the moments when the campaign just went viral. "I was the person who actually like clicked the public button on YouTube," says a woman identified as Invisible Children's social media guru. The video proceeds to defend the group after it fell victim to attacks, sometimes over-heated, that Kony 2012 is a scam. We were "overwhelmed" by our critics, one activist says. Russel has also been defending the group and explaining his traumatic experience on Oprah and in newspapers.

"You have to either laugh or cry every day at how embarrassing it was. I've decided to laugh at it and say, 'Yes, I was crazy and out of control,'" Russel told The Los Angeles Times. It goes without saying, the mission to bring Joseph Kony to justice is an admirable pursuit. Will this latest video bring the group back into the fold? Let's just hope it goes better than his Oprah appearance.

[Mick Tully]

Anyone remember the so called nurse in the hospital during the Iraq invasion of Kuait. She claimed on US TV that she saw Iraqi soldiers trow kids out of incubators to take them back to Iraq.
When the war was over she was exposed as an actress connected to the Kuati royal family.
Reporters, can they be relied on.

[Count Bobulescu]

NAIROBI — Ugandan and American troops have suspended their joint hunt for war crimes suspect Joseph Kony and his Lord’s Resistance Army, delivering a major setback to efforts to capture a notorious warlord accused of abducting tens of thousands of children. The Ugandan military and the U.S. State Department separately announced Wednesday that they had temporarily halted the search because of political turmoil in the Central African Republic, where Kony and his deputies are thought to be hiding

.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/...y.html?hpid=z4

[Count Bobulescu]

The United States offered $5 million for information leading to the capture of Ugandan warlord Joseph Kony, following the Ugandan army's decision to stop pursuing him.