Invisible Children, Kony 2012, and criticisms

[essius]

The other day I noticed the Kony 2012 video by Invisible Children that has been receiving a great deal of attention on the Internet as of late (it’s received over 56 million views on YouTube). I watched the video and was immediately curious. Evidently, the video has received multiple lines of serious criticism. No one denies, of course, that Joseph

Comments

[fornikate]

i think well-meaning but ignorant white people need to stay the fuck out of africa's business 99% of the time

[meus_ovatio]

Except for AIDS and condoms.

[fornikate]

what are you getting at, exactly

[meus_ovatio]

That AIDS and condoms and birth-control are important things.

[policraticus]

Meanwhile, brutal war, genocide, slavery, oppression and unspeakable cruelty are none of our business. As long as people can safely engage in sex, our job is done and we should just step back and let the rest sort itself out.

[meus_ovatio]

It isn't? I would disagree. But I suppose you were speaking ironically, which is something that gets you killed in the French Revolution.

[dwer]

zut alors!

[policraticus]

Oh, I agree it is our business, as long as there is no reasonable belief that we would or could actually do anything about it.

This way we can be excoriated for being moral monsters for not getting involved in Uganda, but we can also be lambasted as being moral monsters for getting involved in Afghanistan. I guarantee you that as soon as the US military started doing to the LRA what we've been doing to the Taliban, the Youtube videos would sing a different song. Cue "sad faced African child soldier freedom fighter made an orphan by US Imperialism macro."

[meus_ovatio]

I think it is unfortunate that "doing something" almost always reduces to "sending the military", so "doing something" arguments always end up arguing about war. But thankfully there is a broad spectrum of things one can do to "do something". Of course, there are just blatant limitations and sometimes you're busy with two other things so you can't do the third or fourth thing, but that's just like choosing which charities to give to in a sense. OMG YOU DON'T DONATE TO AIDS RESEARCH?! WHAT'S WRONG WITH YOU?!

[policraticus]

I don't think that doing something always amounts to sending in the military. G. W. Bush is a hero in large parts of Africa because of his support of AIDS treatment. But in this case, when you are dealing with folks like the LRA or the Ugandan military, I think we are kidding ourselves if we say that the sending in the military isn't the logical thing to do.

And you'll get no debate from me about the scarcity of resources available to do these things.

[underlankers]

We didn't start getting involved in Afghanistan because of the Taliban.

[policraticus]

That is true, for some values of "start" and some values of "getting involved." But for the current involvement, it was the Taliban who were sheltering AQ and who refused to hand over OBL.

[underlankers]

Nope, we deliberately prolonged the USSR's stay there with all that entailed in the 1980s. That qualifies as involvement in all senses except that of the moral cowards who think if it's aimed at Commies it's OK.

[policraticus]

What part of "current" was unclear?

[underlankers]

The whole thing given our direct fuckup in 1998 when Mobutu was overthrown doesn't seem to qualify.

[the_rukh]

Hey man, we didn't start the fire. It was always burning since the worlds been turning.