the kony ticket: kony island baby

Too many coincidences. Too much “noise” . Yes, he guy really did and does kidnap, rape and mutilate. And the KONY 2012 video is a fishy affair that does reinforce colonial politics and the racism endemic to the white savior complex. And by extension he entire political and social dissent industries that claw for equal space on the media landscape. Just the title KONY 2012 as if he is running as a fringe candidate in the election. And how could a video garner 50 million views in four days?

An awesome figure not easily explainable. Somehow, this all has to be connected to the U.S. and the West claiming, staking claims to Africa to counter Chinese incursion there , and, as a piece in the puzzle of how the U.S. is going to get rid of Iran’s nuclear aspirations. Israel will probably attack, its a question of when and how. Through Africa? The visit of Netanyahu over the Jewish holiday of Purim was not random, and Purim, with the villain Haman set to boot the yids into the cemetery recalls eerily the Babylonian kingdom of which the nerve center was Iraq and Iran….

Also, Uganda and Israel have been getting quite cozy over the last several years, establishing normalized relations, culminating an a historic visit to Israel in 2011,

NYT: It is a good way for Kissinger to prepare the reader for a dualistic approach to two vast philosophical and military traditions, which he begins by summarizing the key differences between the Chinese players of the board game weiqi (the Japanese go) and those favoring the contrasting game of chess. While chess is about the clash of forces, about “decisive battle” and the goal of “total victory,” all of which depend on the full deployment of all the pieces of the board, weiqi is a game of relative gain, of long-range encirclement, which starts with an empty board and only ends when it “is filled by partially interlocking areas of strength.”

Teachers and practitioners of grand strategy have studied these contrasts between the two for many centuries. The principles of weiqi are echoed in the haunting text known as The Art of War, by a certain Master Sun, writing around the same time as Confucius. Kissinger quotes Sun at some length, drawing especially on his insights into the concepts of “indirect attack” and “psychological combat.” Read More:http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2011/jun/09/kissinger-and-china/?pagination=false

The group, Invisible Children, posted the video on the Internet on Monday. Within a day, it began to be tweeted by celebrities from the U.S. music and film worlds, including the pop singers Janet Jackson, Taylor Swift, Diddy and Rihanna, and the actresses Zooey Deschanel, Olivia Wilde and Juliette Lewis. The 29-minute video was watched by an astounding 2.7 million people on Tuesday alone. And on Wednesday, the numbers continued to explode, with more than 14 million people having watched the video. Many people said they wept when they saw it.The issue has dominated the conversation on Facebook and Twitter this week. With the hashtags #stopkony and #kony2012, the anti-LRA campaign has suddenly become one of the hottest topics on Twitter worldwide, including the United States and Canada….

The maker of the video, Invisible Children co-founder Jason Russell, has grand ambitions for the campaign. He insists that the power of celebrity endorsements and youth awareness – including the distribution of thousands of posters, stickers, bracelets and “action kits” to young Americans – can lead to the arrest of the LRA leader by the end of this year. “If we succeed, we change the course of human history,” he proclaims in the video. “We are going to make Joseph Kony a household name. We are making Kony world news.” He succeeded in that.

But the wild success of the campaign has provoked an angry backlash on social media sites and from many Africans, and from scholars who study Africa. They say the campaign is simplistic and manip

ive, with deceptive claims, murky finances and a questionable strategy. The U.S. activists are “selling a pack of lies to unaware youth to raise money for themselves,” said Ugandan blogger TMS Ruge in one of a series of critical tweets….

…Another criticism is that the group promotes U.S. support for the Ugandan military, even though the Ugandan army has been implicated in many human-rights abuses. The group claims credit for helping persuade U.S. President Barack Obama to deploy 100 troops to support the Ugandan army in pursuing the LRA in the jungles of Congo and Central African Republic, but opponents say this means an expanded U.S. military role in Africa….Read More:http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/invisible-children-and-its-kony-2012-campaign-in-the-spotlight/article2362416/page2/

ADDENDUM:

The group’s finances have also been questioned. Of its nearly $14-million in annual revenue, millions are spent on film production and less than half is spent on programs on the ground in Africa, critics say. One respected watchdog, Charity Navigator, gives the group a rating of two stars (out of four) for accountability and transparency, although it gives the group an overall rating of three stars.

But the most common criticism is simply that the group over-simplifies the reality of the LRA and perpetuates the image of the “white saviour” for Africa. In the video, Mr. Russell tells the LRA story in almost childlike terms, explaining to his 3-year-old son that Mr. Kony is the “bad guy.” Read More:http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/invisible-children-and-its-kony-2012-campaign-in-the-spotlight/article2362416/page2/

…That unfortunate state of affairs was being nudged to an end by negotiators when the Internet exploded with Kony-mania. Our clicks are just as likely to drive the LRA leader away from a truce again, and to reignite the slaughter, as they are to do anything good. Stopping Mr. Kony is a righteous meme, but there are better ways to get there than this hashtag.Read More:http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/doug-saunders/the-horror-and-the-hashtag/article2364939/
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Tom Rollins:There is clearly more than Kony at stake here. Central Africa is well known for its rich natural resources – including copper, cobalt, gold, uranium, magnesium and tin. Once ravaged by King Leopold II of Belgium, the 21st-century American Empire now wants in.

At an AFRICOM Conference at Fort McNair on February 18, 2008, Vice Admiral Robert T. Moeller declared the programme’s mission meant maintaining “the free flow of natural resources from Africa to the global market.”

Not only that. Ugandan President Yower Museveni has for some time courted Iran and President Ahmadinejad “in all fields.” This is the new Scramble for Africa – a sick twist of history in which global powers are returning to old hunting grounds and fiefdoms in preparation for a new proxy war.

If Invisible Children does not turn out to be some Pentagon-CIA front, the charity is still attempting to align social media, activism and youth political disengagement with the United States’ hawkish economic and military interests in Africa. Read More:http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/the-staggers/2012/03/africa-kony-uganda-military
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As the talented translator of classical Chinese John Minford renders one of the maxims by Master Sun quoted by Kissinger:

Ultimate excellence lies
Not in winning
Every battle
But in defeating the enemy
Without ever fighting.
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Richard Cottrell:”THE VIDEO CONTAINS SUBLIMINAL VISUAL COMMANDS TO E-MAIL, SEND OR SHARE…

“Joseph Kony will be the new ‘devil’ (see Saddam and Gaddafi) and western troops will have to invade to remove Kony from Uganda .

“At the same time, they will take control of the mineral assets and place their puppets in control of Uganda .”…

…”I don’t for a minute believe Invisible Children is an independent do-good outfit. They are paving the way (with Kony, brutal as he is, as the bogeyman) for AFRICOM which would then make it easier for U.S. to control the rich oil fields in the northern part of Uganda, in South Sudan, in Congo’s lake Albert region, and in Central Africa.” – INVISIBLE CHILDREN has made a First Class propaganda….

Master Sun succinctly lists his favored tactics for success in order of their priorities and effectiveness: first on the list is an all-out attack on the enemy’s strategy, second comes an attack on his alliances, then comes an attack on his armies, followed by an attack on his cities. “Siege warfare,” says Master Sun, “is a last resort.” Read More:http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2011/jun/09/kissinger-and-china/?pagination=false