Political Discussion - "on-topic & unmoderated"Rated PG13, unmoderated but threads must stay on topic - that means you can flame each other all you want as long as it's legal
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Africa is 'ass-backwards' because of Western self-righteous cultural colonialism/interventionism.
Yes and no.
Yes, the Euro's ****ed the African's over when they pulled out and left no tested governments in place.
No because a lot of that cultural hate and war within these countries were already there before the Euro's got to these countries. And a lot of the hatred between the cultures and tribes were put on hold when the Euro's came, but resumed immedietly after the Euro's left, mainly because no one was there to keep them in check. And with the the influx of new ideologies and technology in to these countries, it made these tribal wars so much more brutal.
Yes, the Euro's ****ed the African's over when they pulled out and left no tested governments in place.
No because a lot of that cultural hate and war within these countries were already there before the Euro's got to these countries. And a lot of the hatred between the cultures and tribes were put on hold when the Euro's came, but resumed immedietly after the Euro's left, mainly because no one was there to keep them in check. And with the the influx of new ideologies and technology in to these countries, it made these tribal wars so much more brutal.
Bolded 1: It doesn't help when you're forced to be in the same 'nation' as your 'enemies' because a more powerful group of nations decided to draw it that way. Self-determination would have prevented the Rwanda genocide. Hell, self-determination would have stopped the Bosnia-Herzegovina genocides as well.
Bolded 2: Precisely, cultures are meant to develop much more naturally, and who's to say that our Western model fits all cultures best?
For the record, I'm not blaming Europeans entirely. Most human social/political/economic relations are more complicated (and paradoxically, more simple) than we tend to think.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Alex
It's stupid comments like this that make me want to throw up.
Then puke already. Is it so hard to criticize constructively, or do you actually have nothing to say?
I think they'd get a lot more posters up if they picked another day.
Great concept nonetheless. To use advertising, msm, propaganda for good... It's a great idea and hopefully brings an end or at least puts a dent in what's happening across the pond.
"Invisible Children has been condemned time and time again. As a registered not-for-profit, its finances are public. Last year, the organization spent $8,676,614. Only 32% went to direct services (page 6), with much of the rest going to staff salaries, travel and transport, and film production. This is far from ideal, and Charity Navigator rates their accountability 2/4 stars because they haven’t had their finances externally audited. But it goes way deeper than that. "
Here is a photo of the founders....seem like well intentioned folks, eh?
The video itself is a good piece of emotional porn but that's about it. It's honestly NOT worth the 30 minutes when you find out some things about the organization that is doing this [Invisible Children].
First of all, the guy who made that film gets paid $90,000 a year. That's for him and his family. This does not cover the costs for film equipment or video editing software, nor does it cover travel or accommodations whilst anywhere else. Those are all covered under the ludicrous budgets that the Invisible Children organization actually deal with. Let's go to that now. Here are some expenses from CharityNavigator:
Compensation of Leaders | % of Compensation relative to amount of money made by IC | Title
$88,241 | 0.99% | Ben Keesey - CEO
$89,669 | 1.00% | Jason Russell - Co-Founder/Filmmaker
$84,377 | 0.94% | Laren Poole - Co-Founder/Filmmaker
Revenue
Total Contributions: $10,334,060
Program Service Revenue: $3,423,351
Total Primary Revenue: $13,757,411
Other Revenue $7,769
TOTAL REVENUE: $13,765,180
Expenses
Program Expenses: $7,163,384
Administrative Expenses: $1,444,570
Fundraising Expenses: $286,678
TOTAL FUNCTIONAL EXPENSES: $8,894,632
Payments to Affiliates $0 Excess (Or deficit) for the year: $4,870,548
Net Assets $6,584,811
As if that isn't bad enough, they've refused to cooperate with the Better Business Bureau. Their transparency rating is fairly low on Charity Navigator, and there are allegations of fraud. HuffingtonPost has an article on it here.
They make a fairly large point about sending money to the Ugandan Military. This is a big no-no for a couple of reasons. First of all, Kony isn't even in Uganda. Funding a military that has no real authority over another country to LOOK in other countries is a moronic idea to begin with. Secondly, the Ugandan military is already using this as an excuse to enter other countries and exploit resources from surrounding areas. The Government of Uganda is full of criminals that are worse than Kony himself. Not to mention the bloody PRESIDENT of Uganda is responsible for millions of deaths. Then you've got allegations coming out that Kony is already dead. The LRA (Konys ragtag bunch of *******s) isn't that large, or all that active.
The worst thing about Invisible Children (in Lord_Cade's opinion) is that they lobby for DIRECT MILITARY INTERVENTION IN AFRICA. After all of the terrorist hunts in the Middle East, and having troops stuck in Afghanistan and Iraq, don't you think that the people would have learned by now that having troops in another country to hunt one ******* isn't exactly the best idea? Especially when most of the Republicans believe that invading Iran is a fairly good idea at the moment? There are SERIOUS issues with this group, issues that people are overlooking. Lord_Cade will admit that at first he was already on Twitter and ready to ***** at people about the injustice that's being served in other countries, but then he decided to look into the organization. The information is there, and willing, but people are afraid to even look. Scared, lazy, or just swept up by the movement. Injustice exists in the world. It is damn stupid, and it sucks ass, but that's the nature of this planet at the moment. Humanity, since rising from the primordial ooze, has killed people over far less than anything you could imagine. Then there's the fact that if Kony is alive, and the ICC, or International Criminals Court, manages to put him on trial, what's it going to achieve? Numerous war criminals have stood trial before the ICC. This isn't a game of chess. You don't topple a pawn and move on. The pawns replicate. It's like fighting a hydra. If you slice off one head, more are going to pop up in its place. You remove one player, and 10 others will appear. Hell, there's a case to be made that awareness driven ngos perpetuate the current state of affairs and are an integral part of the current system of global unfairness. They offer placebos for guilty consciences and as such, they don't change anything. If you think of large entities such as Global Corporations, conglomerates and powerful nation states that capitalize on injustice, corruption and disorganization and exploit the poor for their resources and manpower, the best thing that could happen to them are programs such as this. There's a lot of reasons why Invisible Children have a good idea of what they're doing, but FAR too much on the opposite sides of the scales to tip myself (and no doubt others) into not bothering with this group and its practices.
Information retrieved by use of google, and a variety of different comments spread across Kony2012 post comment fields.
Injustice exists in the world. It is damn stupid, and it sucks ass, but that's the nature of this planet at the moment.
And what's your point exactly? That the world would be a better place if everyone who is fired up about this go play Xbox or fap instead?
The NGO is far from perfect. But this movement isn't a bad thing. Think of how many people are going to do something (however small) who would otherwise be doing absolutely nothing. It gets previously uninvolved people involved in something bigger than themselves.
Of course you'll respond by saying that this won't work. It won't remove Kony and, even if it does, someone will fill his void. Maybe. Possibly. But just because there will always be homeless people, it doesn't justify me not helping the homeless that I can. Just because there is bad in the world and always will be, it doesn't mean you can't make things better. Or that trying isn't admirable. There was millions of people just like yourself who said the civil rights movement wouldn't get anywhere. People tried to discredit the movement, discredit the people involved, and claim that it was a waste of energy.
But still, I'm sure at the end of the day this won't get rid of Kony. But you know what? The fact that literally millions of people now know more about the world makes it worth whatever money the NGO spent. Do you know how stupid the average person is about the world? This is going to rock people's foundation of what they thought they knew. And who knows what kind of a long-term impact that's going to have on humanity. Who knows. It's impossible to measure. But whatever amount of money Invisible Children has spent is making some impact. It's easy to criticize, but if they did nothing, those millions wouldn't have been spent any more productively.
