"KONY 2012" Putting the Lie to Big-Time Fundraising

By: Thaddeus S. Kaczor, Jr.

Throughout the years, Americans have been ushered into many quagmires and down many rat-holes around the world by cynical propagandists using the cloak of well-meaning emotionalism (THINK OF THE CHILDREN!) and slick, cynical, political and economically-based media campaigns to promote an ideological and economic hidden agenda. By now, the Charity organization INVISIBLE CHILDREN has gotten over 50 million YouTube hits for it's "KONY 2012" video, and the accompanying 'awareness campaign' is now in high gear. Is this media and social networking phenomenon a legitimate campaign to raise awareness of a brutal warlord, or yet another polished propaganda campaign designed to tug at the heartstrings (and wallets!) of gullible and ill-informed Americans? As more light is shined on this suddenly surging movement, more and more questions are arising as to what exactly IS the ultimate objective of INVISIBLE CHILDREN's latest fundraising drive. 

Unfortunately it appears to be all too convenient for many marching in this Pre-Packaged Propaganda Parade to forget that the Ugandan Army that is FIGHTING Kony has itself performed atrocities just as outrageous and numerous as he has! But that is conveniently shoved down the media's memory hole, since it contradicts the KONY 2012 'storyline', and raises uncomfortable questions as to why we now have American Advisers working with the Ugandan Army (and in THREE other African countries) fighting against Kony's Lord's Resistance Army! But apparently having American Troops work alongside individuals who have committed Child Rape, Genocide and wholesale slaughter is OK , because they're OUR psychopaths! This display of moral relativism is not only disgustingly cynical, but furthers to diminish America's tattered reputation around the world. 

In reality, while 

Kony is truly a brutally psychopathic power-mad warlord,he is also neither the biggest,  nor the worst of the literally thousands of psychopathic leaders- not only in Africa, but around the world. He is receiving a propaganda press push, however, in large part to justify the US military Advisers that are ALREADY in FOUR COUNTRIES in Africa! A secondary, but more base impetus behind "KONY 2012" appears to be the sophisticated marketing push designed to raise not just 'consciousness', but also funds (THINK OF THE CHILDREN!) that may or may not go to 'the cause'. Fundraising figures prominently in this slick and well-organized campaign, with the majority of the proceeds surprisingly going not towards African Children, aid to the dispaced, or even any ostensibly charitable cause.  An investigation by  Grant Oyston, a political science student at Acadia University in Canada, found that only 37% of the money raised by INVISIBLE CHILDREN actually goes to African Charities, with the remaining 63% spent on salaries, travel, transportation and film production.   

Putting emotional arguments, and sidestepping questionable fundraising issues, we Americans must instead take a hard, sober look at exactly what taking Kony, or ANY other warlord out will entail. Eliminating Kony would ultimately cost Americans billions of dollars, countless lives of both American troops and innocent civilians, and in the end will do NOTHING to stop the cycle of violence! When someone like Kony is eliminated, unless wholesale changes are made in the social, economic and political structure of the entire society that has allowed such a figure to rise to power, another (perhaps WORSE) leader will inevitably rise up to fill the power vacuum, and the cycle will renew itself with almost no pause. 

But an even worse and more insidious effect of a social and frankly, political campaign such as this is the effect on society. The promoters of this propaganda campaign are using America's children as pawns- with the consent and support of the Education Bureaucracy! Well-meaning (but seriously misguided) educators are latching on to this cause and bringing it into our schools as a 'teachable exercise' in 'public awareness'. These Educratic Indoctrinators merely have to say 'It's for the CHILDREN', and people willingly folllow the educated idiots in the academic bureaucracy in suspending their critical thinking skills (if any), diving headlong into emotionalistic knee-jerk cognitive dissonance- opening themselves up to not only their OWN emotional manipulation, but in the process dragging along impressionable children for a drive down Indoctrination Avenue!!!  

Don't fall prey to emotional propaganda, and don't be deterred by personal attacks on your 'lack of compassion' (THINK ABOUT THE CHILDREN!). It's not being hard-hearted when you look with a jaundiced eye towards those who try to manipulate YOU and your CHILDREN in order to benefit economically, socially or politically.

 "KONY 2012" is just the latest in a long line of tried-and-true emotionally-based campaigns that attempt to play on the good will of well-meaning people to achieve political and economic goals that are not apparent, and often at odds with the stated objectives. Don't fall prey to the sickly sirens' song of "KONY 2012", and definitely don't let anyone use your children to promote yet more costly, deadly and wasteful interventionist wars, this time in Africa.