Who is Joseph Kony?

You readers are a fairly Astute Bunch, so I trust that most of you are blissfully unaware of the current feel-good idiocy making its rounds on FaceBook. Your humble scribe would have remained just as ignorant, if not for a bout of insomnia that sent him over to 4chan last night, in a search for New Memes.

It seems the /b/tards are all worked up over a new Activist Organization which looks like an Election Campaign.  Allow me to introduce you to Kony 2012:

The jokes just write themselves.

First: a little bit of background.

Joseph Kony is your run-of-the-mill African Warlord.  He rapes women and children (and probably men), kidnaps children after forcing them to murder their parents, turns them into child soldiers, and likes slicing off their noses.  Like most Warlords, he’s a self-declared Christian Prophet.  Originally from Uganda, in 2008 his army was shattered and he was pushed back into the jungle during a joint operation between the Ugandan, the Southern Sudanese, and the DR Congo forces, with the planning and support of the US military.

He was also listed under the 39 Terrorist Organizations declared Enemies of the State by Colin Powell back in December, 2001.  Which is bizarre, but not really relevant.

In other words, he might stand a chance against Santorum in the Republican Primaries, but Romney would crush him.  He’s a nobody; just another sad example of life on the Dark Continent.

So why all the attention in recent days?  This is where things get interesting.

1. Grassroots, or Astroturf?

As I’ve said, Kony is nothing new; he’s been plying his Miserable Trade since the early nineties, at the very least.  But with the release of a student documentary just a few days ago, his name has exploded all over the Internet.

A viral video?  Possibly.  The earlier spikes correspond to US Actions delineated by the Pravda Wiki.  Maybe people are just too stupid to go viral because of written facts, and the video-format is necessary… but my tinfoil hat is itching, nonetheless.

Coincidence One: Last October, Obama deployed 100 Spec-Ops to the region for an ‘armed humanitarian mission’.  Given how long the Kony Problem has been going on, this is noticeably tight time-frame.

Coincidence Two: London-based Oil Company Tullow has signed a deal with the Ugandan government.  From the article:

Uganda’s Oil Minister Irene Muloni said Tullow had accepted the government’s revisions to “stabilisation clauses” which are included in the contracts to protect companies from future losses if the government alters tax laws.

Note that the “stabilisation clauses” are regulatory in nature – in other words, the goal is to make the business regular – they’re not specifically political.  But then again, having an Internation Criminal put down Like a Dog would certainly help stability.

Obama’s suffering in the polls right now; taking aggressive action against the only African Dictator the college set knows about would certainly help him in the youth polling.  Conspiracy?  Astroturf?  Maybe, maybe not.  But either way – if this thing catches on, don’t be surprised if the Commander in Chief jumps into another Foreign Adventure.

2. Activists and Crusaders

I’ve always hated Activists.  Even back when I was a Good Little Canadian Socialist, I couldn’t stand the protesters all over my campus.  It doesn’t matter what the cause is, these people form rallies at the drop of a hat.  Something about them just seems off.

Enter the Captain, to explain what’s wrong with them psychologically.  They are Crusaders – rich kids with nothing better to do, who need to feeel important.

There are two things you can count on with a Crusader: first off, they’re remarkably ignorant.  In this case, these morons never cared about Africa before this, and they’ve never studied the socio-economic realities that create monsters like Kony in the first place.  Second of all, they never have a real plan for how to deal with the ‘issue’, defaulting to the stance of “raise awareness, and give more power to government!”

Last night, while simultaneously arguing with, and trolling these morons, their only proposed solution was sending in the Canadian military to deal with him – a military they’d never deign to serve in.

So: another hopeless foreign war, in a jungle no less, where my brothers-in-arms are forced to Kill Children to reach the Final Boss?  Then what?  Thousands of psychologically destroyed child-soldiers, with little-to-no-hope of re-integrating into society, who wind up repeating the Sins of the Father ten years down the road?  Canadian blood, and Canadian money for a society that’s unable to govern itself?

“At least we’re doing something!  Something’s better than nothing!”

I got called “baby killer” back in the day, even though we never fought in Vietnam.  Why would we want to make this a reality?

Cowards, idiots, and armchair generals.  These dipshits were actually tweeting our Mayor – our Mayor for God’s Sake! – at 1 in the morning.  What a bunch of narcissists.

3. White Man’s Burden

Four-hundred years ago Whites colonized Africa, and brought the Africans civilization.  Over the past hundred, we were told that they did not want us there anymore.  So we left.  And this happened.

Welfare tends to be destructive of any group that it touches, and I’m prepared to remain agnostic on the disaster that is African Society – certainly, the majority of UN ‘aid’ to Africa undercuts their ability to develop a local economy… and that’s precisely my point!

These Activists are demanding that Western Governments take part in an internal, African matter.  That we send troops, and social workers, and strategists, and policy makers.  That we re-invent White Man’s Burden, while keeping Black Puppets in charge to assuage the African Ego.

Could anything be more condescending?

In The Wretched of the Earth Fanon made the argument that it is time for Africans to make their own mistakes, to learn to stand on their own two feet.  And I’m prepared to let them.  I’ve had more than enough Blacks tell me how Evil and Racist I am for trying to bring them Civilization, even though none of my peasant Italian blood ever did anything but die in WWI.

Will the Blacks succeed?  I have no idea.  A lot of people would say no… but then again, Mansa Musa was one hell of a competetive bastard in Civ IV.

This is not WWII.  This is not the Holocaust.  This is none of our goddamned business.  In a sane world, we’d allow the Africans an honest attempt at building their own Civilization.  But with the Meatfuckers we have in charge, that’s never going to happen.

Be ready for another pointless war that destabilizaes an Entire Region.  That seems to be Obama’s specialty.

Leo M.J. Aurini

Trained as a Historian at McMaster University, and as an Infantry soldier in the Canadian Forces, I'm a Scholar, Author, Film Maker, and a God fearing Catholic, who loves women for their illogical nature.

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9 Responses

  1. eric says:

    The US has already taken some positions in Kenya (right next to Uganda), mainly using drones and training African eh… freedom fighters. We’ve went after Kony many times, each time we’ve failed and pissed off a lot of people in the process.

    http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/136673/mareike-schomerus-tim-allen-and-koen-vlassenroot/obama-takes-on-the-lra?page=show

    Kony isn’t even in Uganda anymore by the way.

    The charity that has been promoting this via social media, Invisible Children, has “transparency problems”.

    Ed: What are you tryng to say? That they won’t welcome us as liberators? Nonsense!

    In all seriousness, thanks for the Foreign Affairs link, and the comment on transparency. My research into the particulars was cursoy – I really don’t care about any one African nation. You’re making me think that this might be worth a follow up.

    Deeper investigation might go well with the bug I have up my ass for World Vision…

  2. eric says:

    I mean really, where’s the line between astroturf and grassroots? They know what advertising channels to hit to get the demographics they want, your google account gives your age to Youtube, they have that with Facebook as well, just target the demographic, get an agency account with a charity discount, doesn’t matter. Mass opinion is still as easily manipulated as in the days of halcyon of radio, the methods have just changed. All you need is the right demographic.

    Ed:Heh; good point. One caveat – there is not ‘mass’ opinion anymore (this is why Simpsons fails to reach the same audience it used to), rather, there are a varied mass of opinions. The establishment is keeping up, but it’s beginning to fall short. I’m optimistic that free-thinking will be able to take over soon.

  3. kasee says:

    Woooooooooow. This is pretty dumb i mean come-on atleast theyre doing something to help. Why do you have to hate on it? I mean you said yourself you don’t care about it so why did you take the time to write this whole article. It doesnt matter how they do it or their reasons, as long as he is stopped is all that matters. And you’re in Canada, why do you care what the US does anyways? You don’t live here.

    Ed: Case in point as to why women shouldn’t be allowed to vote.

  4. Xesenta says:

    hmm .. not very inspired writing. No critical path thinking. No resolution or solution offered to (a) problem. Just vacuous, callow, post modern dribble from another soft westernised coward. #zzzzzz

  5. Gun Criminal says:

    I saw this post and had an epiphany.

    I don’t think Captain Capitalism mentions this, but the crusade is invariably perpetual and if a push-button solution was available, the crusader more than likely rally against it (because then the crusade would end). For example, when a room full of enviro-nuts were offered the ability to summon a genie from a magic lamp in a thought experiment and were allowed to wish away all pollution, very few of them were willing to do so. I found this very revealing.

    This also fits in nicely with this obsession by statists to “do something” (usually in the form of worthless gesture politics), as if “doing something” was some sort of a moral imperative while implying that those “not doing something” are therefore approving of whatever they’re trying combat. i.e. If you oppose the war on drugs, you must be in favor of drug addiction. Kasee and Xesenta’s posts are a prime example of this mentality in action. Typical statist garbage.

    You can see how the hostility to laissez-faire politics logically follows from this. It’s as if they seem to think good intentions are enough to morally insulate actors from any negative outcomes.

    I don’t agree with Eric, though. I don’t think the “something must be done. This is something, therefore it must be done” fallacy will be going away any time soon.

    Ed: You just hit the nail on the head. The term “Hedonic Treadmill” comes to mind. It really isn’t about helping any of these problems – it’s about devoting all of society’s spare resources to running on a hamster wheel. There’s something distinctly feminine about all of this. I feel like I’m tip-toeing around my own epiphany just now.

  6. eric says:

    “There’s something distinctly feminine about all of this.”

    This process is one of giving something which isn’t yours to give (tax money, lives of young men even though you have and will never serve in the military), while intervening in the affairs of others based off of gossip instead of a carefully reasoned judgement.

    It is definitively female.

  7. Omnipitron says:

    “In The Wretched of the Earth Fanon made the argument that it is time for Africans to make their own mistakes, to learn to stand on their own two feet. And I’m prepared to let them. I’ve had more than enough Blacks tell me how Evil and Racist I am for trying to bring them Civilization, even though none of my peasant Italian blood ever did anything but die in WWI.”

    This.

    Nothing else to add but this. Am I happy that Africa would have to make some very bloody mistakes if other countries took this stance. Nope.
    However, if one has someone else to prop them up so that they suffer no consequences, how else are they going to learn. Does no one see that the very same thing happens amongst Blacks in Western Countries by and large?

    Other races step together and team up to support themselves BECAUSE of the possible negative consequences. This is life, ugly but true!

  8. MRDA says:

    Nicely put. I agree with pretty much every word you’ve written.

  1. June 13, 2012

    […] everything.  Now it’s just a few clicks away to learn who and what FARC is (let alone Joseph Kony), and the thrill of discovering a New Heuristic is a rare pleasure, indeed (what with social […]

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