Kony & Invisible Children

 
UPDATES: There’s been a lot of criticism about “Invisible Children” in the past few days. This “Visible Children” blog is focused, thoughtfully, on that. Boing Boing has a nice roundup of some of the criticisms. The AP also has what I would consider a good piece on the topic, one that “presents both sides” in a rather balanced way and quotes a number of true experts on the matter.

kony invisible children

By now, you might have seen the name ‘Kony’ popping up everywhere you go (on the internet, at least). It took me awhile to get to looking into the story behind this name, but a good friend over on WV Outpost urged me to look into who this is and write a post on him. Watching the video below, now I know why.

–>Sign Invisible Children’s online pledge  now if you already know what this is all about and haven’t signed it yet.

As you can see, some children, in some countries of the world, live their lives hiding and traveling in fear… if they’re lucky. Others are kidnapped and even murdered by rebel thugs. And enough of the kids who survive witness that happening to their brothers, friends, or neighbors to realize that could be them. And, apparently, some have even been forced to kill their own parents or be killed, mutilate the faces of countless people, and much more most of us would never want to think about.

As some of these ‘free’ kids indicate, they think they’d rather be dead than living in the conditions they are living in, with the future they see waiting for them.

Now, to the name: Joseph Kony is apparently the rebel leader of Uganda’s Lord’s Resistance Army, the merciless and bloodthirsty group behind the horror story very briefly and inadequately summarized above.

As indicated, the “Lord’s Resistance Army” pillages, rapes, and murders in an effort to destabilize the Ugandan government. “The LRA turns young Ugandan girls into sex slaves and young boys — more than 30,000 of them — into cold-blooded killers in his force,” as the Huffington Post writes.

“When the U.S. Congress told Russell that Kony didn’t present enough of a financial threat or a security issue to go after, Russell formed a nonprofit (Invisible Children), produced a film (“Kony 2012″) and created a social-media campaign bent on toppling Kony. That strategy has showcased its power this week. The film was made its online world premiere Monday…. At press time, the film had received nearly 250,000 Facebook likes.

Apparently, Obama, moved by the film, put 100 American military advisors in Uganda back in October in order to try to help address the issue.

But, there’s still a long way to go.

Two important things you can do:

  1. Sign the Invisible Children online pledge;
  2. Share this news on every network and email you have.

If you want to go a step further, you can also:

  1. Get the advocacy kit;
  2. Donate to the Invisible Children organization.

Source: Huffington Post

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