Invisible Children: The race to capture Joseph Kony
Discussion
I'm a little surprised there isn't a topic on this already; I searched Kony and Invisible Children and didn't see it. It's about to go viral and that's a good thing.
I'm not usually one to plug a cause as there are so many with good cases but this is worthwhile. If you can spare 30 minutes, watch the following video and help raise awareness:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4MnpzG5Sqc&fea...
I'm not usually one to plug a cause as there are so many with good cases but this is worthwhile. If you can spare 30 minutes, watch the following video and help raise awareness:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4MnpzG5Sqc&fea...
obob said:
Haven't got time to watch the video but recently Rush Limbaugh voiced his support for the LRA as they were a christian army fighting against muslim rule and this is a bloke who is a political commentator and influences many voters in the US. f
king retards.
Bizarre.king retards.Particularly as IIRC the US sent troops to help teh 'goodies' hunt him down recently.
Toaster Pilot said:
I notice everyone talking about this, wonder how many know anything at all about this "charity" and might like to do some research if not
I don't like sending money to charities, they tend to waste it or it gets turned into aid that gets wasted.The point I was making is that if someone was being a weapons grade a
hole in my neck of the woods, you know, stealing kids at gun point and that sort of thing, then I know that I would do my best to take DIRECT action against him.I clicked 'like' on facebook so I'm pretty sure I'll be almost entirely responsible for his capture.
The charity that made the video look very shifty though, from what I've read. They pay quite a lot to their CEO, they're also have a terrible transparency rating as a charity.
They also directly fund Ugandan forces as well lobby in the US for direct US military involvement in Africa.
Edit:Here's a post from reddit explaining why they're a bit shifty.
The charity that made the video look very shifty though, from what I've read. They pay quite a lot to their CEO, they're also have a terrible transparency rating as a charity.
They also directly fund Ugandan forces as well lobby in the US for direct US military involvement in Africa.
Edit:Here's a post from reddit explaining why they're a bit shifty.
redditcommenter said:
The video itself is a good piece of emotional porn but that's about it. It's honestly NOT worth the 30 minutes when you find out some things about the organization that is doing this [Invisible Children].
First of all, the guy who made that film gets paid $90,000 a year. That's for him and his family. This does not cover the costs for film equipment or video editing software, nor does it cover travel or accommodations whilst anywhere else. Those are all covered under the ludicrous budgets that the Invisible Children organization actually deal with. Let's go to that now. Here are some expenses from CharityNavigator:
Compensation of Leaders | % of Compensation relative to amount of money made by IC | Title
$88,241 | 0.99% | Ben Keesey - CEO
$89,669 | 1.00% | Jason Russell - Co-Founder/Filmmaker
$84,377 | 0.94% | Laren Poole - Co-Founder/Filmmaker
Revenue
Total Contributions: $10,334,060
Program Service Revenue: $3,423,351
Total Primary Revenue: $13,757,411
Other Revenue $7,769
TOTAL REVENUE: $13,765,180
Expenses
Program Expenses: $7,163,384
Administrative Expenses: $1,444,570
Fundraising Expenses: $286,678
TOTAL FUNCTIONAL EXPENSES: $8,894,632
[b]Payments to Affiliates $0 Excess (Or deficit) for the year: $4,870,548
Net Assets $6,584,811[/b]
As if that isn't bad enough, they've refused to cooperate with the Better Business Bureau. Their transparency rating is fairly low on Charity Navigator, and there are allegations of fraud. HuffingtonPost has an article on it here.
They make a fairly large point about sending money to the Ugandan Military. This is a big no-no for a couple of reasons. First of all, Kony isn't even in Uganda. Funding a military that has no real authority over another country to LOOK in other countries is a moronic idea to begin with. Secondly, the Ugandan military is already using this as an excuse to enter other countries and exploit resources from surrounding areas. The Government of Uganda is full of criminals that are worse than Kony himself.
Not to mention the bloody PRESIDENT of Uganda is responsible for millions of deaths. Then you've got allegations coming out that Kony is already dead. The LRA (Konys ragtag bunch of assholes) isn't that large, or all that active.
The worst thing about Invisible Children (in Lord_Cade's opinion) is that they lobby for DIRECT MILITARY INTERVENTION IN AFRICA. After all of the terrorist hunts in the Middle East, and having troops stuck in Afghanistan and Iraq, don't you think that the people would have learned by now that having troops in another country to hunt one asshole isn't exactly the best idea? Especially when most of the Republicans believe that invading Iran is a fairly good idea at the moment? There are SERIOUS issues with this group, issues that people are overlooking. Lord_Cade will admit that at first he was already on Twitter and ready to bh at people about the injustice that's being served in other countries, but then he decided to look into the organization. The information is there, and willing, but people are afraid to even look. Scared, lazy, or just swept up by the movement.
Injustice exists in the world. It is damn stupid, and it sucks ass, but that's the nature of this planet at the moment. Humanity, since rising from the primordial ooze, has killed people over far less than anything you could imagine. Then there's the fact that if Kony is alive, and the ICC, or International Criminals Court, manages to put him on trial, what's it going to achieve? Numerous war criminals have stood trial before the ICC. This isn't a game of chess.
You don't topple a pawn and move on. The pawns replicate. It's like fighting a hydra. If you slice off one head, more are going to pop up in its place. You remove one player, and 10 others will appear. Hell, there's a case to be made that awareness driven ngos perpetuate the current state of affairs and are an integral part of the current system of global unfairness.
They offer placebos for guilty consciences and as such, they don't change anything. If you think of large entities such as Global Corporations, conglomerates and powerful nation states that capitalize on injustice, corruption and disorganization and exploit the poor for their resources and manpower, the best thing that could happen to them are programs such as this.
There's a lot of reasons why Invisible Children have a good idea of what they're doing, but FAR too much on the opposite sides of the scales to tip myself (and no doubt others) into not bothering with this group and its practices.
First of all, the guy who made that film gets paid $90,000 a year. That's for him and his family. This does not cover the costs for film equipment or video editing software, nor does it cover travel or accommodations whilst anywhere else. Those are all covered under the ludicrous budgets that the Invisible Children organization actually deal with. Let's go to that now. Here are some expenses from CharityNavigator:
Compensation of Leaders | % of Compensation relative to amount of money made by IC | Title
$88,241 | 0.99% | Ben Keesey - CEO
$89,669 | 1.00% | Jason Russell - Co-Founder/Filmmaker
$84,377 | 0.94% | Laren Poole - Co-Founder/Filmmaker
Revenue
Total Contributions: $10,334,060
Program Service Revenue: $3,423,351
Total Primary Revenue: $13,757,411
Other Revenue $7,769
TOTAL REVENUE: $13,765,180
Expenses
Program Expenses: $7,163,384
Administrative Expenses: $1,444,570
Fundraising Expenses: $286,678
TOTAL FUNCTIONAL EXPENSES: $8,894,632
[b]Payments to Affiliates $0 Excess (Or deficit) for the year: $4,870,548
Net Assets $6,584,811[/b]
As if that isn't bad enough, they've refused to cooperate with the Better Business Bureau. Their transparency rating is fairly low on Charity Navigator, and there are allegations of fraud. HuffingtonPost has an article on it here.
They make a fairly large point about sending money to the Ugandan Military. This is a big no-no for a couple of reasons. First of all, Kony isn't even in Uganda. Funding a military that has no real authority over another country to LOOK in other countries is a moronic idea to begin with. Secondly, the Ugandan military is already using this as an excuse to enter other countries and exploit resources from surrounding areas. The Government of Uganda is full of criminals that are worse than Kony himself.
Not to mention the bloody PRESIDENT of Uganda is responsible for millions of deaths. Then you've got allegations coming out that Kony is already dead. The LRA (Konys ragtag bunch of assholes) isn't that large, or all that active.
The worst thing about Invisible Children (in Lord_Cade's opinion) is that they lobby for DIRECT MILITARY INTERVENTION IN AFRICA. After all of the terrorist hunts in the Middle East, and having troops stuck in Afghanistan and Iraq, don't you think that the people would have learned by now that having troops in another country to hunt one asshole isn't exactly the best idea? Especially when most of the Republicans believe that invading Iran is a fairly good idea at the moment? There are SERIOUS issues with this group, issues that people are overlooking. Lord_Cade will admit that at first he was already on Twitter and ready to b
h at people about the injustice that's being served in other countries, but then he decided to look into the organization. The information is there, and willing, but people are afraid to even look. Scared, lazy, or just swept up by the movement. Injustice exists in the world. It is damn stupid, and it sucks ass, but that's the nature of this planet at the moment. Humanity, since rising from the primordial ooze, has killed people over far less than anything you could imagine. Then there's the fact that if Kony is alive, and the ICC, or International Criminals Court, manages to put him on trial, what's it going to achieve? Numerous war criminals have stood trial before the ICC. This isn't a game of chess.
You don't topple a pawn and move on. The pawns replicate. It's like fighting a hydra. If you slice off one head, more are going to pop up in its place. You remove one player, and 10 others will appear. Hell, there's a case to be made that awareness driven ngos perpetuate the current state of affairs and are an integral part of the current system of global unfairness.
They offer placebos for guilty consciences and as such, they don't change anything. If you think of large entities such as Global Corporations, conglomerates and powerful nation states that capitalize on injustice, corruption and disorganization and exploit the poor for their resources and manpower, the best thing that could happen to them are programs such as this.
There's a lot of reasons why Invisible Children have a good idea of what they're doing, but FAR too much on the opposite sides of the scales to tip myself (and no doubt others) into not bothering with this group and its practices.
Edited by Frankeh on Wednesday 7th March 13:39
Frankeh said:
Edit:Here's a post from reddit explaining why they're a bit shifty.
Interesting argument from that blog, that there are loads of aredditcommenter said:
Then there's the fact that if Kony is alive, and the ICC, or International Criminals Court, manages to put him on trial, what's it going to achieve? Numerous war criminals have stood trial before the ICC. This isn't a game of chess.
You don't topple a pawn and move on. The pawns replicate. It's like fighting a hydra. If you slice off one head, more are going to pop up in its place. You remove one player, and 10 others will appear. Hell, there's a case to be made that awareness driven ngos perpetuate the current state of affairs and are an integral part of the current system of global unfairness.
They offer placebos for guilty consciences and as such, they don't change anything. If you think of large entities such as Global Corporations, conglomerates and powerful nation states that capitalize on injustice, corruption and disorganization and exploit the poor for their resources and manpower, the best thing that could happen to them are programs such as this.
There's a lot of reasons why Invisible Children have a good idea of what they're doing, but FAR too much on the opposite sides of the scales to tip myself (and no doubt others) into not bothering with this group and its practices.
You don't topple a pawn and move on. The pawns replicate. It's like fighting a hydra. If you slice off one head, more are going to pop up in its place. You remove one player, and 10 others will appear. Hell, there's a case to be made that awareness driven ngos perpetuate the current state of affairs and are an integral part of the current system of global unfairness.
They offer placebos for guilty consciences and as such, they don't change anything. If you think of large entities such as Global Corporations, conglomerates and powerful nation states that capitalize on injustice, corruption and disorganization and exploit the poor for their resources and manpower, the best thing that could happen to them are programs such as this.
There's a lot of reasons why Invisible Children have a good idea of what they're doing, but FAR too much on the opposite sides of the scales to tip myself (and no doubt others) into not bothering with this group and its practices.
Edited by Frankeh on Wednesday 7th March 13:39
holes so why bother putting this one on trial.Either way it looks like the LRA could be on its last legs ( http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Keep-Calm/2012/0307... ) so this looks like it could be a last push for publicity from the charity.
Joseph Kony steals kids and forces them to fight in Uganda
Yank meets one of the escaped kids
He promises to help and starts a campaign to get Kony arrested this year
Obama sends troops to advise Ugandan troops
Yank needs people to support this cause so that US troops stay in the country and capture Kony
Seems all for the good of Uganda
Yank meets one of the escaped kids
He promises to help and starts a campaign to get Kony arrested this year
Obama sends troops to advise Ugandan troops
Yank needs people to support this cause so that US troops stay in the country and capture Kony
Seems all for the good of Uganda
blindswelledrat said:
obob said:
Haven't got time to watch the video but recently Rush Limbaugh voiced his support for the LRA as they were a christian army fighting against muslim rule and this is a bloke who is a political commentator and influences many voters in the US. fking retards.
Bizarre.king retards.Particularly as IIRC the US sent troops to help teh 'goodies' hunt him down recently.
obob said:
Kony 2012 is a new movement devoted to the capture of Joseph Kony, if you don't know who he is then watch this, 30 mins time well worth spending
That was what I was going to post. then saw you already made a thread, I wanted to be thetrend setter 
Edited by The Hitman on Wednesday 7th March 16:18
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