Can't decide yet if this is a good thing or a really terrible thing or maybe even a front for something quite devious
The charity Invisible Children upload it 1 week ago, since then it gets 75 million hits, and they raise over $5 million as a result. The video appears centred on an appeal to capture Joseph Kony and members of his army, who allegedly captured, brainwashed and recruited tens of thousands of child-soldiers in Uganda. They want him brought to justice.
Obama has sent in a hundred crack troops to help the Ugandans find Kony, no luck.
He has in fact probably fled Uganda, along with his troops who now only number about 300, and he has not really been active there for about 6 years.
Invisible Children now polarizing views all over the internets, some are supporting the campaign like crazy, some are criticizing them heavily, often mentioning
-the fact that Kony has gone already
-the fact that they only give 30 percent of their charity revenue to the actual causes in Uganda
-the governments they are working with in Africa aren't that clean themselves, some have child soldiers
-it's portrayed as white man swooping in to solve black man's problems, whereas in fact there are already many charities there, helping the locals to rebuild their own shattered lives.
At the extreme, there have been severe criticisms and suspicions:
-the actions of the charity may provoke new unrest/wars at a time when things were calming down, just because they wanted to make a big name for themselves
-coupled with the fact that Uganda has found itself in possession of >2 Billion barrels of oil, it's just America barging in and finding an excuse to 'help' a nation by means of military action, and reap the massive financial benefits of priority access to their natural resources.
The guardian has been reporting on it heavily, with lots of editorial and comment from those 'on the ground'
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/reality-check-with-polly-curtis/2012/mar/08/kony-2012-what-s-the-storyhttp://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/reality-check-with-polly-curtis/2012/mar/13/reality-check-kony-2012-reactionCan't decide if the charity is being naive and dangerous or just being realistic about their target audience and winning by promoting awareness of general wrong-doing all over Africa. Thoughts?
Author