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| [Ben]: | Kony 2012 | Discuss This [0 comments so far] View Comments | Rachel asked me to watch this and consider posting about it.
I watched the video all the way through and this Joseph Kony fellow certainly seems worthy of a little shock and awe. The presentation didn't move me in the way the presenter wanted it to, though. I kept thinking about how ITAR and uncountable laws and conventions prevent simply shipping rifles to potential victims of these criminals and training them in the appropriate use. I wondered how the training and technology provided by the US soldiers deployed in support of the arrest will eventually be used by the corrupt governments that receive it. I tried to figure if it would be cheaper and more effective to just hire a Private Military Company to handle the situation. But most of all I was uncomfortable by how self-serving and me-focused the whole video was. Maybe I'm just jaded, but most of the video was showing dynamic young white kids working together in amazing ways. It isn't that I don't understand the motivational power of the imagery, it just didn't come across as: "These are people doing good things for a good cause," instead it felt like glorifying the movement ahead of the cause.
Not that Kony doesn't apparently deserve a bullet (or an arrest, then a bullet, depending on how much he resists), I'm not convinced that the best solution is wearing an impotent bracelet and vandalizing property with campaign-style posters all with the intent of getting the Feds to spend tax dollars on another war. And why this particular bad guy? Kony isn't the only bad man in the world. Or in Africa. Or in Uganda or Sudan. He's not the only thug who uses child soldiers. He's not even the worst of the breed; just another very bad man. Where do you draw the line at military interventionism?
The tinfoil hat side of me wonders if maybe this is at least in part the setup for Obama's October Surprise. The style is very similar to Obama's 2008 campaign and indeed Shepard Fairey - the guy who designed Obama's iconic "hope" poster - is in some way involved in this project.
If it isn't, it would be a great idea. Co-opt an existing group's cause. Provide them with edgy artists and media people and a strategy for getting their campaign to go viral. Make the only acceptable solution seem be the elimination or capture of this Kony fellow by US forces, or US-backed troops. Then, just before the election nail the sucker and take credit for it. Please, no one call Messina.
Of course, I'm not the only critic. |
| 2012-03-08
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