I was stopped in my tracks by this video today. Watch it now:
Words can't express how I feel about this video. I don't watch YouTube videos that often as most of them are pure bollocks... yet this film stirred up some serious emotions in me.
I watch the news (read: what the 1% wants me to know) and try to keep current about what's really going on in the world. Can't say I'd ever heard of Joseph Kony until now. This man is kidnapping Ugandan children to be sex slaves or child soldiers. It's been going on for more than 20 years. Did you know that? I sure didn't.
There are two things that really touched me about this film. One is Jason Russell's belief in this cause. He is a textbook example of how it only takes one person to make a change in this world. The second thing is how Invisible Children initially approached the US government and were told the US wouldn't intervene unless Kony's actions were a threat to national security or financial interests (read: oil).
So kids can be killed in someone else's backyard and as long as it doesn't cost me a Benjamin or two it doesn't matter?! What the eff is that!?!?!?!? I'm so glad that in the end the US feds woke up to this cause. If it happened to just one of their children they'd be out for blood.
Finally someone has let the mainstream know that there's more going on in the world than what we see on the news. Crimes against humanity often takes a back seat to bailouts, falling currencies & who's not playing nice in the sandbox. People make this world go round; not the euro's latest shenanigans, not the latest GOP primary results and certainly not fossil fuels.
By the way - did Invisible Children really have to pick Stevie H as one of their 12 policy advisers? He can't even win an election fair & square much less worry about humanitarian efforts. We could do with sending Canadian troops currently in Afghanistan to Uganda to flush this Kony fool out.
Show your support to the Kony 2012 campaign here:
http://invisiblechildrenstore.myshopify.com/
Let's do what we can to bring the Ugandan children back home.
