Kony 2012

[Keroin]

Finally heard back from my NGO friend. Her comment:

"I actually have not watched the video. When I was living in Uganda I knew a few people who were taken as child soldiers. One of whom was the house-keeper for a family I house-sat for. Kony should be brought to justice, no doubt, but I think often in the international development/humanitarian community people act without really thinking and in general there is a lot of bad aid out there, probably as much bad aid as there is good aid. A major reason I am considering getting out of the biz all together, but that's another story... I included a couple links as examples of people doing good but really it's just misguided..."

And the links...

http://matadornetwork.com/change/7-worst-international-aid-ideas/

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/10/10/stuff_we_dont_want_haiti

 

[JMohegan]

Finally heard back from my NGO friend. Her comment:

"I actually have not watched the video. When I was living in Uganda I knew a few people who were taken as child soldiers. One of whom was the house-keeper for a family I house-sat for. Kony should be brought to justice, no doubt, but I think often in the international development/humanitarian community people act without really thinking and in general there is a lot of bad aid out there, probably as much bad aid as there is good aid. A major reason I am considering getting out of the biz all together, but that's another story... I included a couple links as examples of people doing good but really it's just misguided..."

And the links...

http://matadornetwork.com/change/7-worst-international-aid-ideas/

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/10/10/stuff_we_dont_want_haiti

That first link sums things up nicely.

 

[Keroin]

That first link sums things up nicely.

I actually can't wait to talk to her in more detail when she gets back to the US in a few months, between assignments. She's been doing the NGO thing for almost a decade now. I remember when she finished school and was torn by whether to accept one of the very high paying corporate jobs she was offered, or the NGO position which paid little and would be a ton of work in very stressful conditions but would let her "do some good". Sounds like she's a bit jaded.

We met doing volunteer work in Central America. Great gal.

 

[Keroin]

This has all actually started me thinking about the big picture.

Think I'll start a new thread.

(Man it's kind of fun having free time again!)

 

[ControlandDom]

Jason Russell, the filmmaker behind the mega-viral "Kony 2012" documentary, was arrested in San Diego on Thursday night, NBC reported, citing the San Diego Police Department.

Russell, 33, "was taken into custody after he was found masturbating in public, vandalizing cars and possibly under the influence of something," NBC's San Diego affiliate reported, citing San Diego Police Department spokeswoman Lt. Andra Brown.

The San Diego Police Department's Brown did not immediately return two messages left Friday from Yahoo News.

The co-founder of the San Diego-based advocacy group Invisible Children was detained on San Diego's Pacific Beach "acting very strange" the NBC report said.

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/envoy/kony-2012-filmmaker-arrested-san-diego-205649394.html

 

[intothewoods]

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/envoy/kony-2012-filmmaker-arrested-san-diego-205649394.html

That is beyond bizarre.

 

[DVS]

Another take on the same story A different source and a different story.

 

[mikesaysno]

..........................

 

[Keroin]

That is beyond bizarre.

Actually, not bizarre at all, IMO. These guys were hoping, best case scenario, for half a million views. No way they could have been prepared for what happened. Imagine such sudden notoriety, admiration, hatred, scrutiny, etc. Not surprised at all to hear he melted down.

Welcome to the new world.

 

[DVS]

Actually, not bizarre at all, IMO. These guys were hoping, best case scenario, for half a million views. No way they could have been prepared for what happened. Imagine such sudden notoriety, admiration, hatred, scrutiny, etc. Not surprised at all to hear he melted down.

Welcome to the new world.

Reading this article, that's just what happened.

 

[JMohegan]

That is beyond bizarre.

It really is. Good god.

ITW, you've probably heard of the WP blogger, Alexandra Petri. If not, I highly recommend her; she's like a younger Gail Collins. Here's her take on the Kony filmmaker's breakdown (part of a larger piece on Awareness campaigns).


http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs...ith-awareness/2012/03/19/gIQAA0miNS_blog.html

"At one point in the Kony 2012 video, those 27 minutes of our collective lives that we will not get back, George Clooney appears to note that, “I want, I'd like indicted war criminals to enjoy the same level of celebrity as me. That seems fair. That’s our objective is . . . to just shine a light on it.” This is how we do things now.

Kony 2012, from first to last, has puzzled me. It’s a video about a cause that is sort of about the cause, but mostly it is a 27-minute exercise in self-indulgence and telling people how Important You Social Media Users Can Make Yourselves And Also Rihanna.

I am not saying that awareness, per se, is necessarily bad. But it is certainly easier than doing anything. If my foot is on fire, I would appreciate a campaign to raise my awareness that my foot is on fire. But there’s a difference between shouting, “Your foot is on fire!” and putting the fire out.

And most causes are not that simple.

Getting a message to millions of people is no mean feat. But, as in most games of telephone, it is impossible to transmit a message of any complexity through thousands of whispers.

And that can result in arrogant oversimplification, where a major bullet point of your cause is, “Get George Clooney involved.”

Much as it pains me to say so, there are few situations in this earth that actually require the involvement of George Clooney. Yet he’s everywhere. Like kudzu. Attractive kudzu, no doubt, but — what are we really accomplishing here?

I am the last person to talk about making real change. The extent of my involvement in Righting The World’s Wrongs is that I once bought a water bottle that inadvertently benefited tree frogs, I think, but only because I liked the color. So I am in no position to criticize people who are at least trying to make a difference. But I've always been suspicious of causes that require you to wear an armband, unless the cause is Supporting America’s Armband Manufacturers.

Contribute to a fund to buy more megaphones! All right. We’ll get the message loud and clear. But what does all this awareness amount to?

The goal of the campaign is to publicize the campaign, to loom in the skyline and be Much Talked About.

But then what?

Many point out in the wake of the Kony campaign’s viral success that by the time it took us to become aware of what he was doing, Kony had, well, if not stopped, then certainly diminished his efforts and moved to another country, and other, more pressing problems had taken his place.

And there’s a flip side.

This weekend, everyone was rocked by the news of another, shorter video of Kony 2012’s co-founder, Jason Russell, suffering a truly sad and mortifying nervous break.

We might have seen this coming. If your Web site uses the word 'grand' anywhere in your biography ('grand storyteller and dreamer,' Mr. Russell?) you are doing something wrong. If you have so over-personalized the story your charity is trying to tell that it sinks or swims based on whether you succumb to 'exhaustion,' you are doing something wrong."

 

[ControlandDom]

Kony 2012 is gone and forgotten.

Trayvon Martin's death is the new flavor of the moment.

 

[Stella_Omega]

Kony 2012 is gone and forgotten.

Trayvon Martin's death is the new flavor of the moment.

And Rush Limbaugh's hate speech was the flavor last week.

We can take some small actions regarding the things that happen in our own country, yanno?

 

[JMohegan]

Kony 2012 is gone and forgotten.

Trayvon Martin's death is the new flavor of the moment.

Alexandra Petri, again.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs...3/20/gIQAfKlLSS_blog.html?tid=pm_opinions_pop

"Fortunately for the fearful, Florida’s 'Stand Your Ground' law has their interests at heart. To get away with murder, you need not prove that anyone intended you harm before you shot him. All you need prove is that you were very, very afraid. You need a real and reasonable fear that your life is in danger.

But so few fears are. We’re more frightened of public speaking than drowning, of spiders than driving. What the law says is that force is justified if someone 'reasonably believes that such force is necessary to prevent imminent death or great bodily harm.' In a word — fear. If my fear is big enough, it can outweigh your life.

This law terrifies me. I don’t suppose I can shoot it?"

 

[Stella_Omega]

ALEC IS EXPOSED IN THE NEW YORK TIMES

The tragic and needless shooting death of Trayvon Martin in Florida has drawn national attention to Florida's draconian "Stand Your Ground Law." Last week, CMD's Brendan Fischer traced the trajectory of the Florida law, from the NRA to the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) to dozens of states across the nation. See Brendan's article here. CMD Director Lisa Graves then went on MSNBC to discuss ALEC's role in propagating these measures and the corporations like Wal-Mart that stand to profit from increased gun sales. See Lisa's interview here. In a related matter, CMD filed a complaint with the Wisconsin ethics board last week asking them to review the manner in which ALEC "scholarships," provided to legislators to attend meetings with corporate lobbyists, are funded by ALEC corporations and the propriety of other ALEC gifts, such as major league baseball tickets.

Today, Nobel Prize Winner and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman weighed in on the controversy with a shout-out to CMD. We thought you would like to see it. This week we will unveil a new ALEC archive of open records requests that reveal even more of these connections. We will continue our focus on the corporations bankrolling ALEC. Stay tuned and follow us on Facebook and Twitter.
Lobbyists, Guns and Money

Paul Krugman, New York Times

March 26, 2012

Florida’s now-infamous Stand Your Ground law, which lets you shoot someone you consider threatening without facing arrest, let alone prosecution, sounds crazy — and it is. And it’s tempting to dismiss this law as the work of ignorant yahoos. But similar laws have been pushed across the nation, not by ignorant yahoos but by big corporations.

Specifically, language virtually identical to Florida’s law is featured in a template supplied to legislators in other states by the American Legislative Exchange Council, a corporate-backed organization that has managed to keep a low profile even as it exerts vast influence (only recently, thanks to yeoman work by the Center for Media and Democracy, has a clear picture of ALEC’s activities emerged). And if there is any silver lining to Trayvon Martin’s killing, it is that it might finally place a spotlight on what ALEC is doing to our society — and our democracy.

What is ALEC? Despite claims that it’s nonpartisan, it’s very much a movement-conservative organization, funded by the usual suspects: the Kochs, Exxon Mobil, and so on. Unlike other such groups, however, it doesn’t just influence laws, it literally writes them, supplying fully drafted bills to state legislators. In Virginia, for example, more than 50 ALEC-written bills have been introduced, many almost word for word. And these bills often become law.

Many ALEC-drafted bills pursue standard conservative goals: union-busting, undermining environmental protection, tax breaks for corporations and the wealthy. ALEC seems, however, to have a special interest in privatization — that is, on turning the provision of public services, from schools to prisons, over to for-profit corporations. And some of the most prominent beneficiaries of privatization, such as the online education company K12 Inc. and the prison operator Corrections Corporation of America, are, not surprisingly, very much involved with the organization.

What this tells us, in turn, is that ALEC’s claim to stand for limited government and free markets is deeply misleading. To a large extent the organization seeks not limited government but privatized government, in which corporations get their profits from taxpayer dollars, dollars steered their way by friendly politicians. In short, ALEC isn’t so much about promoting free markets as it is about expanding crony capitalism.

And in case you were wondering, no, the kind of privatization ALEC promotes isn’t in the public interest; instead of success stories, what we’re getting is a series of scandals. Private charter schools, for example, appear to deliver a lot of profits but little in the way of educational achievement.

But where does the encouragement of vigilante (in)justice fit into this picture? In part it’s the same old story — the long-standing exploitation of public fears, especially those associated with racial tension, to promote a pro-corporate, pro-wealthy agenda. It’s neither an accident nor a surprise that the National Rifle Association and ALEC have been close allies all along.

And ALEC, even more than other movement-conservative organizations, is clearly playing a long game. Its legislative templates aren’t just about generating immediate benefits to the organization’s corporate sponsors; they’re about creating a political climate that will favor even more corporation-friendly legislation in the future.

Did I mention that ALEC has played a key role in promoting bills that make it hard for the poor and ethnic minorities to vote?

Yet that’s not all; you have to think about the interests of the penal-industrial complex — prison operators, bail-bond companies and more. (The American Bail Coalition has publicly described ALEC as its “life preserver.”) This complex has a financial stake in anything that sends more people into the courts and the prisons, whether it’s exaggerated fear of racial minorities or Arizona’s draconian immigration law, a law that followed an ALEC template almost verbatim.

Think about that: we seem to be turning into a country where crony capitalism doesn’t just waste taxpayer money but warps criminal justice, in which growing incarceration reflects not the need to protect law-abiding citizens but the profits corporations can reap from a larger prison population.

Now, ALEC isn’t single-handedly responsible for the corporatization of our political life; its influence is as much a symptom as a cause. But shining a light on ALEC and its supporters — a roster that includes many companies, from AT&T and Coca-Cola to UPS, that have so far managed to avoid being publicly associated with the hard-right agenda — is one good way to highlight what’s going on. And that kind of knowledge is what we need to start taking our country back.
http://www.prwatch.org

 

[YourCaptor]

So I read up on it, and as far as I can tell the fucker got out of his car. I don't know about Florida, but around here, legally your car is just like your home. If you get out of your car, that it, your done, try the insanity plea.

Not to mention that be pursued the kid, way to stand your ground.

 

[DVS]

So I read up on it, and as far as I can tell the fucker got out of his car. I don't know about Florida, but around here, legally your car is just like your home. If you get out of your car, that it, your done, try the insanity plea.

Not to mention that be pursued the kid, way to stand your ground.

What kind of law is this that you can follow someone without police authorization, shoot him, then claim you were threatened or afraid? I have a couple sweatshirts with a hood on them. God forbid if I wear them at night in Florida!

 

[intothewoods]

It really is. Good god.

ITW, you've probably heard of the WP blogger, Alexandra Petri. If not, I highly recommend her; she's like a younger Gail Collins. Here's her take on the Kony filmmaker's breakdown (part of a larger piece on Awareness campaigns).

I've heard of her, but haven't read her before. I'll check her out.