KONY 2012, Cool Dads, pissed Ugandans, nervous breakdowns and want to be revolutionaries

If you have not seen, or at least heard of, KONY 2012 yet there is a very good chance that you have no accesses to the internet whatsoever. Kinda like a lot of people in Uganda ... 

After a screening of the, now wildly famous, KONY 2012 video a group of Ugandans, some victims of the Lords Republic Army  apparently got pretty damn angry. Many seemed to misunderstand the message or feel that this was the white man thinking he can come to Africa and solve their problems. Not really to surprising. That is what KONY 2012 was all about. 

Let's face it the video was not targeted to the people that it is trying to help. It's targeted to young, impressionable high school and collage students who want to make a difference somehow but have no clue how to do that, or really what that means. Young impressionable youths who really want to make a difference in the world already are on the road to doing so. In my time I have met a few of them. In fact one of my good friends went to Uganda in 2004. 

In much of my circle of friends, and colleges many of which are journalists, media critics, skeptics of society, nervy college kids and yes some impressionable youths that want to make a difference but don't know how feel the video has created a lot of stir. One thing that I have noticed is that a lot of people I know have not even watch the whole  film yet. 

I happend across it one night when I felt like drinking a beer, smoking some cigarettes and watching something on the internet. I took in the whole thing, it was pretty enchanting. This slick looking dude talking about revolution, his kid, his Ugandan friend as a teenager crying over the death of his brother and his call to action was really quite skillful. I really have no interest in starting a revolution but I thought it was a well made video even tough it left a lot of questions and really seemed over dramatic and did not explain much. 

I was especially not to fond of this cool dad, Jason Russel  talking like some want to be revolutionary. I understood what he was trying to do and what his cause was about but I still was not really sure what I was getting my self into when I hit the Like button on YouTube (for me it triggers a tweet and a Facebook status update saying that I liked that video). I knew that the film was going to blow up and fast. The fact that it asked viewers to pester taskmasters to repost it was quit simply a genus plan.

Turns out he had a nervous breakdown and was caught masturbating in the streets of San Diego. I at first thought this was a bunch of BS until I looked it up myself. He apparently is an evangelical christen which I can't say that I am happy about but makes a lot of sense and may or may not be  relavent. 

There has been quite a backlash against Russel and his NGO Invisible Children. Some fair, some not. Either way I feel this criticism is good. This film and the campaign behind it can be a good model for activist groups and seems to be attempting to do the right thing. 

As a media critic my self I can completely understand much of the backlash. The video was extremely vague in its explanation of what is going on in Uganda right now. Where the front lines are, what is being done on the ground and such. One major criticism is that Kony is not even in Uganda anymore. I can understand that because, after watching the video I figured he was still running rampant thought the streets. 

They also made it out to seem that little has been done to catch Kony, that was the message of the film. "Lets get together so that everyone knows that Kony is still out there and bring him down." Is the general mantra of the production. Oh yeah buy this T-Shirt and wrist band so your friends will ask questions about your cool new T-shirt and wristband. Oh and since you think your some sort of radical we are all going out on April 1st to "bomb the streets" with our posters like revolutionary street artists. The whole idea of this kinda just pisses me off, it's way too cool for it's own good. 

What did they do right? they brought this guy out ...

Invisible Children CEO Ben Keesy seems to be the adult in the room. Answering the questions that everyone is asking and attempting as he says"To be as transparent as possible." This is deferentially the best thing that he can do for his organization right now. IC has created a lot of buzz in a very short period of time. It may have gone a little rye with Russel's break down but they may be able to pull themselves back up if they play the game correctly. They seem to be responding to the criticism the best way they can. They have (what seems like) a real adult talking to other adults about some very interesting issues. 

I want to say that I am all for KONY being banished from the face of the earth. I'm not  real fan of people getting their arms chopped off or anything. I am happy that this video has made people so aware of the issue. I like that people are asking complex questions and trying to figure out what all this means. 

When something like this blows up like this it is important to understand what is really going on behind it. It's easy to take it at face value. If you really want to #StopKKONY  help others in need, I suggest you do your research, find a way to get involved, find the right NGO to get behind (weather it's IC or not is up to you) and do it. 

I also encourage you to be like me and pick it apart and stare at it, talk about it, and figure out the mechanics behind it. 

Or if you don't give a damn about it that's cool too. I don't know why you read all this tough, you should be watching Family Guy or something. 

Bill Maher's donation to "Obama super PAC" encourages democrats to live to fight another day against Citizens United

Comedian Bill Maher donated $1 million to the super PAC Priority USA Action, which supports President Obama, last week at the end of his most recent comedy special. Super PACs have no limit on how much individuales can donate and some don't require any sort of transparency on who donates. These PACs that are legally baned from cooperating with political campaigns have come under major scrutiny from both the left and the right.

Recently President Obama started to support Priority USA Action after previously speaking against the Citizens United Supreme Court decision allowing super PACs to accept large donations from both individuals and corporations.

Maher made the donation in an attempt to encourage other wealthy liberals to put their money where their mouth is. With republican supper PACs raising astronomical amounts of money PACs will be at war with each-other throughout the General Election. Both Obama and Maher's decision to support supper PACs even if they do not support their roles in the political sphere. They do so in order to live to fight another day.

Even though Obama does may not support the Citizens United Decision it is necessary for him and other demarcates to donate to these pacs if they stand a chance against republicans in the general election. If the demarcates drooped support of supper PACs they would essentially be handing over the election to the GOP. The attack ads that the PACs run have shown to be extremely detrimental to their opponents in the primaries and continue to do so. In oder to win the election democrats will have to match the fund raising of the GOP by playing their game. 


>If republicans win the Citizens United decision will most likely stand, if Obama wins he can once again drop his support of the decision and attempt to repeal it. Republicans have been giving the President flack about his flip flopping but I think it is one of the most wisest political decisions he has made on the campaign trail.

Apparently so does Maher "This is the wisest investment I think I could make." he said in a press release.   While Marer's donation was a bit theatrical it has potential to open up the flood gates to both small and large democratic donations.

Political pundits and have been criticizing Maher for claiming that it hurt him to give the $1 Million dollars and that he did so to encourage wealthier liberals who it won't hurt to donate more. His over dramatized presentation of his donation is differentially over the top as is Maher and his statements after the fact are pompous at best since Maher differentially makes a pretty penny from his HBO series, books, live appearances and comedy specials. I doubt that the money really hurt him as much as he would like to claim.



 Never the less his extremely public and talked about gesture has started a larger conversation about how the democratic party and their backers should spend their money No matter what is said about how he did it, what he said about it or his stance on Citizen United, he lit the green light for other liberals to throw their cash at democratic supper pacs without feeling dirty or embarrassed about it.

Political production breakdowns.

Recently GOP presidential candidate Rick Perry got-got at an editorial meeting flubbing up how many court justices there are and mispronouncing Sonia Sotomayor's name. The clips have been spread throughout the media like the rest of Perry's mental glitches that have been crippling his campaign this year. 

This is not the first time we have seen a GOP Candidate loose their minds in a recorded editorial interview. As recently as last month the Herman Cain Libya flub raised the same questions about the legitimacy of his now suspended campaign. 

What exactly is happening at these meetings that make politicians loose their marbles? Might it be that these are exhausted human being rather than characters on TV that both the media and political campaigns make politicians out to be? Or do these people simply have no idea what the hell they are talking about?

Perry has reportedly dropped the ball in almost every form possible. He forgot what government  agency's he wanted to cut in a debate, looked crazy drunk at a speech and now the editorial meeting are just a hand full of examples. It's hard to make the case that this man is prepared to run for president let alone run the country.

Herman never made much of a case for himself either. It seemed that his answer to every problem was his, now infamous, 999 plan. No one could get a straight answer out of him about nearly anything else especially foreign policy. Wether he had a plan or not we may never know because his campaign never seemed to be ready to talk about it. 

In today's non-stop coverage of these political campaigns it is hard to get an idea of who these candidates really are. Many American's are experiencing the race via TV or through video clips online. The entire GOP presidential race and politics in general, have become a heavily scripted and highly calculated production. When these productions go down hill it becomes major news. 

This political production feeds not only the news media but nearly every facit of entertainment in general. It's almost like politics have become the newest reality show creating mellow dramas within mellow dramas. Instead of talking about the issues and the platforms politician's stand on major news organisations and the American public are obsessed with sound bites, mistakes, outrageous out of context quotations and embarrassing moments. 

Not to say that this is anything new, ever since the existence of radio polotics have become a show of sorts, with it's writers, producers and publicist. However in this rich media landscape it seems that the show never stops and no one get's any slack. 

Not to say that this production is not interesting. It makes people that would have never thought about politics before stare at it through lime tinted glasses. For many political news comes from satire and comedy. 

The real question is can we really except our politicians to answer questions on foreign policy, the supreme court or economics when the voting public not only think that these subjects are boring but have little interest in hearing or talking about them. As much as high minded political junkies would like more people to watch long form speeches, read transcripts of interviews and watch CSPAN more than CNN that is not going to happen. 

Being informed is a hell of a lot more work than being entertained, some simply don't have the time and other's simply don't have the drive.