Kony 2012 Scam

A closer look at Kony 2012

It’s 2012 and we’ve made it almost 3 months into the year without a Boogey Man! Can you believe it? Bin Laden was officially declared dead on May 2nd, 2011 and the world was finally free of Boogey Men, and it lasted a whole 10 months… Until the begining of this month, March, 2012, when the Kony 2012 movie made it’s viral appearance all over the web and social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, and Google+… And unfortunately there’s a new Boogey Man in town, and his name is Joseph Kony.

If you’ve been online much this month I’m sure you’ve already been exposed to the 30 minute documentary produced by an organization called Invisible Children, headed by a guy by the name of Jason Russell. I’ll admit that when I first found the Kony 2012 video on my facebook news feed I watched it from start to finish and was somewhat sucked into it.

Just like hundreds of thousands of other people who watched the video, I felt like it was a good cause and even considered getting more heavily involved. I even decided to write a new blog post about it that day, something I haven’t done for months! But the post I originally had in mind was a full out support for the cause, which this post definitely is not.

Dig A Little Deeper…

As usual I like to do a bit of deeper digging into issues, especially political ones, before I make any strong statements about them, but for some reason this Kony issue really pushed me to want to take action NOW, without doing further research. Luckily, I resisted that urge and even noticed how it was strange that it was having such a strong impression on me when normally I would be at least somewhat critical of such a film.

I’ve now done some more research on the topic and have had some time to let the fog clear and think about it a little more. After doing more research I am now convinced that the Kony 2012 film and social media campaigns are actually a well orchestrated psy-op designed to sway public opinion in favor of a new and undeclared war in Africa under the guise of “stopping Kony”, as well as a test run by the banksters, war mongers, and secret government in the effectiveness of a well planned social media campaign. Something that that up until now has been largely underused by these groups to sway public opinion on such matters.

Another Problem-Reaction-Solution

Until recently, most of the Problem-Reaction-Solution situations have relied on traditional media (TV, Newspapers, Radio) to deliver the punch, but now the controllers are seeing the power of social media and social sharing sites like Facebook and Google+ that connect people together and make it possible to make a message “go viral” and reach millions of people in a matter of days, and they are scared shitless of it.

The controllers know they need to master this new type of media (as well as limit its usefulness for regular people) if they want to continue controlling the population, and Kony 2012 is the first Problem-Reaction-Solution to fully utilize this new form of media to mould public opinion on an issue… And it worked extremely well!

First we have the problem. A horrible evil man leading an army of abducted, raped, and tortured children. The movie makes it seem like every night hundreds of children are snatched in the dark of night, and their families are murdered in front of them, forcing them to join Kony’s LRA (Lords Resistance Army).

Then we have the reaction. The public outcry for our governments to do something to stop Kony. The millions of tweets and status updates posted by duped young people who feel they are doing their duty to protect children and encourage freedom by sharing and donating to the Kony 2012 cause, and the Invisible Children organization. Of course this kind of thing plays on the heart strings of the people who watch the film, and even I felt urged to “do something immediately”.

And finally, the solution. To invade Uganda with armed troops in order to hunt down the worlds newest Boogey Man, Joseph Kony, in the jungles of Africa. Something that could take decades and the perfect opportunity to build new military bases and oil pipelines to syphon the newly discovered oil deposits in Uganda. The whole thing is nothing more than a Problem-Reaction-Solution Psy-Op to justify an invasion of African countries for oil.

Here’s a video I found to provide a different perspective:

TONS Of Oil Recently Discovered In Uganda

The most suspicious reason for a need to send troops into Uganda in an undeclared war is the fact that there was recently discovered at least 25 years worth of oil drilling and over 2.5 billion barrels of oil in deposits in and around the area. You better believe the oil barons want a piece of that greasy pie, and what’s a better way to rally public support for an invasion than stopping an evil child abductor and murderer like Kony? The movie openly calls on its millions of fans to beg our government officials to do something by way of sending armed troops into the country without even declaring war.

Kony’s LRA Are Not In Uganda Anymore

The Ugandan government has even warned people that the threat of Kony and the LRA has been largely exaggerated, and that the LRA are not even active in Uganda anymore. Furthermore it’s believed that the Lords Resistance Army’s numbers have dropped to just 300 or so, not the tens of thousands that the Kony 2012 movie reports.

Here is an article about the misrepresentation of the Kony threat

Invisible Children – A Visible Scam

To add to my suspicion of the whole Kony 2012 movement it appears that the organization has been receiving millions of dollars in donations, with an incredibly huge outpouring coming in after the video went viral. In fact, the entire 30 minute video was pretty much a very strong plea for donations, centered around cute footage of the video producers 5 year old son. A great way to warm your heart and get you to open your wallet.

Publicly available documents show that the organization spends only 37% of their income in Africa. The rest of their money is spent on salaries and “raising awareness” which includes buying high tech gadgets, producing pretty videos and artwork, and designing attractive social media campaigns.

As with most charities only a very small portion of all donated money ever actually gets to the intended location of the person who donated it. Most of it gets spent on “public awareness” and the salaries of the people running the organization.

Here is a good post that gives a better look at what the Invisible Children organization is all about: Visible Children.

A One Sided View

The viral video is extremely one sided. Though while watching it you tend not to notice, but in the entire 30 minute film there is very little footage or opinions that come from people who actually live in Uganda. Instead, the video focuses mostly on the Jason Russell’s 5 year old son, Jason Russell’s opinions, and only one Ugandan named Jacob, a friend of Jason Russell’s.

You’d think that a video intended to create a strong case for helping the people of Uganda through an armed military invasion would include at least a few interviews with people who actually live in Uganda right now and want help… But no, the video focuses more on the cute things that Jason Russell’s son says than it does on people who actually live in Uganda.

And just to be fair, here is an interview with Joseph Kony from 2006, when his army was still much bigger than it is today, although even then it was shrinking fast.

Helping People: Good. Invading Countries: Bad

I know that I’ll probably get a lot of hate mail for this post, but before you go angrily typing me a message about how I must not care about children or doing what’s right I’d like you to think for a minute about what is actually the right thing to do here.

I don’t believe that war will end war. It doesn’t work that way. So sending armed troops into a foreign country in an undeclared war is not going to solve any problems and will in fact create even more problems than we are already faced with.

I do believe that helping people is the right thing to do, but sending armed troops into foreign countries without legally declaring a war has never worked to solve any problems in the past, and I don’t believe it will solve any problems now or in the future either.

I strongly believe that abducting children and forcing them to join an army is terribly wrong. I also believe that starting wars with the intent of stealing oil and pretending to be helping children in order to gain support for such a war is also terribly wrong. Considering that today the actual threat of Joseph Kony and the LRA is quite small I find it absurd that anyone in their right mind would encourage an armed invasion of Uganda at this time, and believe that doing so would actually do more harm than good to the people of Uganda and surrounding areas.

If you haven’t seen the Kony 2012 video yet, here is the link to the full video on youtube. I intentionally left this link until the end so that more people would read this entire blog post without getting distracted.