Kony 2012 and Invisible Children: My response

So yesterday I noticed everyone on Facebook was linking to this Kony 2012 video by the “charity” Invisible Children. I’ve not watched the video; I don’t feel the need to be subjected to thirty minutes of emotional blackmail. I can and will research the topic in depth without mounts of sugar coating designed to “market the cause” to me being tried on. However, I’ve noticed that the truth behind Invisible Children’s somewhat shady activities and beliefs (my post cannot here go into detail about that but do read this link) and posted this response to a Facebook thread:

It absolutely makes me die to see people in Facebook fall head-over-heels to jump on the bandwagon of the "latest" social media charity drive without even thinking about it logically, rationally, and certainly without any research bar a quick, almost token Google search so they know the bare minimum.

I personally never participate in these stupid "awareness raising" drives, as they're ultimately futile. "Raising awareness" isn't helping causes in the slightest; it just makes whoever is retweeting/reposting/reblogging whatever the current emotional rape story of the month feel better about THEMSELVES for doing so.

While the concept of hindering Kony's nasty activities is indeed noble and worthy, the means by which, to what I've gathered, Invisible Children is showing itself to be a shady and disreputable organisation is quite awe-inspiring. What they stand for seems abhorrent and hypocritical to me, and this whole Kony 2012 thing seems not to be an honest attempt to "raise awareness" (like that ever did anything anyway) of the Kony issue, but to raise awareness of Invisible Children's shrouded dogma. It's not a campaign to raise awareness at all; it's simply a marketing campaign for Invisible Children's own political positions to be promoted without scrutiny under the pretext of taking down a vicious dictator. They're playing on the assumption that no-one dare criticise or stand against this, lest they be incorrectly assumed to be "against" stopping Kony, which is supremely stupid. But then again, crowd mentality erupts and people on Facebook and Twitter would just hate to be thought of as not being "in support" of whatever hip "cause" is in at the moment.

I find it quite ludicrous how people get hysterically sentimental and sensitive whenever one attempts to rationalise or publicly criticise, with good reason, the fallacy of these organisations and schemes. Suddenly, people are "not allowed" or are "sick" for thinking straight and examining the evidence, and for what? So people can go back to making themselves feel better for participating in an empty, pointless social media campaign?

My views on charities are almost certainly unpopular, and I fully expect to be called "heartless" and "cruel" but then again I stand by them resolutely; they never waver in the face of what's hot this week, or follow the way the wind is blowing: I don't donate to charity at all. I'd rather help was given to the needy directly somehow, and not through multinational organisations that, no matter how "transparent" they claim to be, cannot help themselves but impart their own dogma and ideology on those they purport to "help".

I’ll be spending time over the next few days researching more into the activities of Invisible Children and how it affects and led to the Kony 2012 campaign, out of my own curiosity. I feel that this is the real truth that people should at least be aware of before supporting Invisible Children mindlessly and passively y hitting Retweet. I can’t promise to be the most informed about this but do comment and maybe we can discuss the “sheep mentality” that seems to be exhibited to every one of these charity dealies.