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^^ People are pointing out that the organisation behind this campaign don't exactly have the cleanest of hands. Some people are taking umbrage to that.
Abyss_Worm: The Kosovo War started by the Yugoslav (Serbian) army attempting to quash the activities of an Albanian separatist group indulging in terrorist activities. Despite them being on the CIA list as a terrorist group, they were de-listed in 1998 for classified reasons and NATO begun to aid their activities. During the war, there were reports of atrocities against civilians commited by the Yugoslav army, the most prominent of which (the Račak massacre) later turned out to be an elaborate hoax. NATO used it as an excuse to bomb Yugoslavia.
If it helps matters, Juan, I kind of take after you at times :P
And yeah, this isn't specifically about Kony. Just the general attitude that keeps going on at crap like this.
Sorry if this upset anyone. I know this is IJBM and all, but man, when you guys sound buttmad, it's pretty apparent O.O
Oh. That's completely different than the impression I had.
And suddenly those "KONY 2012" jokes running around are infinitely worse.
Ugh. Read through the Račak massacre. The suppression of the evidence against it was disgusting.
The whole ordeal surrounding Kony does come off as white man's burden. And it really says something that the only thing people are often interested in is the part about killing.
I suppose, but it would still get rid of a mass murderer. The real problem here is how to prevent someone just like Kony rising up in his place.
There is growing outrage in Uganda over a viral internet film viewed by more than 32 million people in four days that suggests Africa’s longest-running conflict is still raging in the country’s north.
The 30-minute video, Kony2012, was produced by three American videographers campaigning for greater efforts to capture Joseph Kony, the leader of the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA).
But Kony and his diminishing troops, many of them kidnapped child soldiers, fled northern Uganda six years ago and are now spread across the jungles of neighbouring countries.
“What that video says is totally wrong, and it can cause us more problems than help us,” said Dr Beatrice Mpora, director of Kairos, a community health organisation in Gulu, a town that was once the centre of the rebels’ activities.
“There has not been a single soul from the LRA here since 2006. Now we have peace, people are back in their homes, they are planting their fields, they are starting their businesses. That is what people should help us with.”
See link for more
^Note: I was not saying that Invisible Children specifically should be supported, nor am I advocating any sort of occupation of Uganda. I simply want Joseph Kony brought to justice.
The world's full of monsters. This one is suddenly special because he got a viral movie.
I just think that it shouldn't be as prioritized as it is. it's kinda like looking for nazis in Argentina. Not unjustified, and certainly should be done, but certainly not really relevant to the current problems of the world.
^Just send the Master of Magnetism after them.
I'd prefer if he, you know, would use his magnetic powers towards solving our energy issues somehow.
I always wondered why Electro didn't make himself rich by offering to be a one-man source of clean energy.
Then again I suppose there's the whole megalomania thing...
It's hardly the first time, and we tend to trivialize things as a defense mechanism anyway. I wouldn't say it's disturbing so much as annoying at best and very fucking dreadful at worst, depending on how much of it turns into a "pissing contest", as you say.
But reducing any political debate to just that is disingenious.
It should still be identified and pointed out, especially since trend-following can be potentially more havoc-wreaking in politics than it ever could in music.
^^Very much yes. It is crucial to dissecting propaganda.
@Milos, the Yugoslav army is hardly blame free on the murdering of civilians front now is it?
After all the atrocities that happened in the wars in Croatia and Bosnia, everyone in Yugoslavia was smart enough to understand that any war crimes are bound to cause a Western intervention. Not to mention that the nature of the war was very different - Croatia and Bosnia had paramilitaries, militias and disorganized volunteers fighting each others, while Kosovo had a professional, regular army pitted against a guerrila movement. Also, a supposed genocide against Albanians in the entire Kosovo would be on a similar scale as against, say, Armenians in Turkey, which Yugoslavia didn't have the means to undertake even if they wished. Before the NATO intervention, there was no reason for haste on the Yugoslavs' side, but the intervention changed that. The Racak massacre, which was the catalyst for the NATO intervention, was a blatant hoax, and the number of civilian casualties skyrocketed after the intervention. If anything, the intervention led to more civilian deaths, not less. This isn't Serbian nationalism talking - many well-respected neutral political figures, like Chomsky, agree. I urge you to read his essay on the matter.
I understand that you have Albanian aquantiances and that it's an emotional subject for you, but I also have friends whose houses have been burned or relatives killed and raped by the KLA, and I try to be rational and objective.
I don't have Albanian acquaintances, I know some people from Kosvo who fled to Barrow in 1999. They told me that being an Albanian Kosovian was pretty bad with the whole persecution thing going on. I also know about the damage that the NATO bombs did to civilian areas in Belgrade because I can remember the pictures. But we both know that an army can commit war crimes.
I understand that just because the West can't intervene everywhere doesn't mean we shouldn't when we can
Slavoj Žižek, on the Demand Nothing comments section:
I love Žižek. He's awesome in an absolutely insane way.
I assume you didn't hear Rush Limburgh on Obama sending troops to Uganda?
The co-founder of Invisible Children and director of the KONY 2012 video just got arrested for running around the street in underwear and masturbating in public, and was sent to a mental facility.
What the fuck?
^Bravo. They've effectively lost the little credibility they had left after experts and survivors thoroughly debunked most of the documentary.
Yup. Worthy causes and charities remain, but at this point there is no real reason to focus on Invisible Children and their Kony 2012 campaign at all.
Does this little incident, practically better than anything satirists could have come up with, mean that Jason Russell is a particularly bad person in any unique way? Not really, IMO. This kind of thing happens to plenty of people, both famous and not. If you read the article, mainly the official statement from the Invisible Children CEO, it's clear that this is what happens when you undergo a huge, stressful endeavor, throw yourself into the public eye, and then get mocked and debunked and refuted by basically everyone. Russell obviously couldn't take it. I almost feel sorry for him...he kind of came off in the original video as so idealistic that he wouldn't even realize how something his whole campaign could fail so badly. And that might be what happened.
I wonder if they're just going to drop it. For all the action kits that have probably been sent out by now, it's still a bit over a month to April 20 and the whole thing's already burned out. My question would be: Are they going to release a public statement saying "Don't cover the night on April 20th, it doesn't really matter anymore" or, if they don't, will anyone still be devoted enough to this whole thing to run around that night anyway? I only know basically one person who persisted in her support for Kony 2012 even after the first criticisms started coming up in the days immediately following the beginning of all this...and I haven't seen her say anything recently. I know there are some people out there whose hearts are generally bigger than their minds and who will mindlessly support a cause when they really shouldn't. But I wonder how strong those people are this time.
The main reasons that there is a KONY 2012 video is a) it's easier to tell the public "this guy is evil, help the Ugandan government" than "this guy is evil, he uses many of same tactics as the Ugandan government, and there is no simple solution to this crisis in which both parties have gravely wronged" and b) they want to draw any and all attention away from the Ugandan government, especially in light of its anti-gay bill and United States support of its anti-gay bill.
Not touching the Yugoslav Wars. There were certainly atrocities committed on both sides, but I don't have enough knowledge of the conflict to draw any conclusions other than the fact that the United Nations intervention was disastrous and largely a mistake.