Kony 2012 Sequel Was a Comparative Dud Online

April 18, 2012

Time

By Nick Carbone

“Apparently, nobody really cares about KONY 2012 anymore. This is what happens when your main spokesperson decides to publicly masturbate.” –KTRN

Sorry Invisible Children, but you’ve found out the hard way: the Internet has the attention span of a 2-year-old child watching paint dry in a library. Simply put, we’re always looking for something new to draw our interest. And while Kony 2012 became the most successful viral video ever created, Kony 2012: Part II has not found the voracious audience of the first film, garnering just 1% of the views of its predecessor so far. In its first week, Part II was watched 1.6 million times.

The total pales in comparison to the original Kony 2012, which earned 112 million views in its first week online, and over its five-week run it has notched up more than 180 million views. That’s a staggering tally for a half-hour-long, documentary-style video about a part of the world many have never even heard of before. Sure, the view count has tapered off significantly in the past few weeks, but it’s still far more successful than the sequel ever will be.

Click here for the report.

School Children Forced to Participate in Kony 2012 Activism

April 5, 2012

Info Wars

By Kurt Nimmo

“Shouldn’t the school be asking the parent’s if they want their kids to see this propaganda?” –KTRN

An Infowars.com reader from Colorado writes to tell us the Cherry Creek Public School district in western Arapahoe County is forcing students to watch Kony 2012. According to the father of a student attending school in the district, students were instructed to write “a letter to Senator Mark Udall in support of Invisible Children’s effort to capture Joseph Kony.”

“This is incredibly disturbing that this assignment’s goal was to force students into some level of political activism in support of a potentially violent conflict (war). Schools are not to be utilized for any activist purposes or those viewpoints forced upon the students outside of the will of the parents,” the father writes.

“I plan on consulting a lawyer to find out if there is any legal action I can take against the school district.”

The Invisible Children project used viral video as a delivery vehicle for Africom propaganda. It faced a landslide of criticism within hours of the video’s release on YouTube. The criticism was so intense that the film’s director, Jason Russell, experienced a mental breakdown. He was hospitalized after he was found running through streets in his underwear, screaming incoherently and banging his fists on the pavement, according to The Telegraph.

As we have documented, Invisible Children is a “USAID centric” front group run out of the State Department. On March 17, soon after the Kony 2012 video surfaced, Tony Cartalucci wrote that in addition to the State Department, the group is supported by “Wall Street speculator George Soros and his Open Society Institute, and a myriad of corporate-funded foundations.”

Click here for the full report.

Only 32 Percent Of Kony 2012’s Invisible Children Charity Went To Direct Aid Last Year

March 21, 2012

ABC News

By ENJOLI FRANCIS AND FELICIA PATINKIN

“If you’re going to donate to a charity, Invisible Children is not one you should consider.” –KTRN

Russell said the charity’s programs in Uganda, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Central African Republic and South Sudan included the building of a rehabilitation center, an expanded and early-warning radio network connecting communities and an LRA crisis tracker, which is a mapping platform and data-collection system.

But Visible Children pointed out that although Invisible Children had spent more than $8.6 million last year, “only 32 percent went to direct services with much of the rest going to staff salaries, travel and transport, and film production.”

Click here for the full report.

Top Ten Ways To Tell Kony Is Phony

March 19, 2012

RSA

By Bruce A. Dixon

“Everyone should know by now that KONY 2012 is pure propaganda.” –KTRN

Thanks to relentless promotion by corporate media, government, celebrities and politicians of both corporate parties, along with right wing church groups and foundations, the Kony 2012 video has “gone viral.” Viewed on YouTube more than a hundred million times by now, it paints a vivid and simple picture, clear enough, its narrator says, for a five year old. But is it real, or is it propaganda, and for what purpose?

Social Media Scam Alert: Top Ten Ways to Tell Kony is Phony

Joseph Kony, the Invisible Children YouTube video tells us, is a bad guy in Uganda. He’s a lawless warlord leading something called the Lord’s Resistance Army, which kidnaps, enslaves and murders innocent children by the tens of thousands. We’re never told exactly why, as corporate media simply paint Africa as a hellish and inexplicable place where things like that just happen. The Ugandan government, the video tells us, would gladly shut Joseph Kony down and bring him to justice if only the US would provide the advanced weapons, sophisticated tracking gear, military training and the boots on the ground to help get it done. To make this happen, all that Kony 2012′s promoters ask of us is to help spread “awareness” of Uganda’s “invisible” child soldiers by facebooking, tweeting and repeating the Kony 2012 video, and by emailing influential politicians and the one-name celebrities like Oprah, Bono, Rhianna, Cosby and Lady Gaga (OK, Lady Gaga is two names) to whom they listen. The Kony 2012 video aims to bring this criminal child-enslaving Ugandan warlord to justice by enlisting tens of millions of us little people in making Kony’s name an odious household word around the planet, after which Washington DC will stretch forth its military arm to bring Joseph Kony, alive if possible, before the International Criminal Court for trial and punishment.

Almost everything is wrong with this simple picture, from the missing histories and the hidden motives of storytellers and players to false statements of processes and problems real and unreal on both sides of the Atlantic. In fact, Kony 2012 is not a search for justice. Kony 2012 is a corporate-style PR and psy-ops campaign, a cynical hoax engineered to justify US and Western military intervention to control the incredibly lucrative oil, mineral, water and strategic resources of the heart of Africa. The kind of social media activism the video promotes is calculated to make Americans feel good about themselves for “spreading awareness” of child soldiering when they’re really spreading racist ignorance and disinformation, building a disinformed public consent for ongoing, open and direct, as opposed to covert and indirect US military intervention in Africa. “Don’t study history” the video’s makers tell us – “make history!” But the history that a lied to and disinformed public makes is bound to not be pretty.

Black Agenda Report is far from the first or the only news source to point that Kony 2012 is a warmongering hoax, and we certainly won’t be the last. As our contribution, we here offer our top ten reasons why Kony is phony.

Reason #10: Invisible Children is funded by a core of notorious right wing donors including the Discovery Institute, which Bruce Wilson fingered in a March 11 Talk 2 Action piece as the leading funder of efforts to promote the replacement of biological sciences in schools with “intelligent design,”along with the Caster Foundation and the National Christian Foundation, all prominent backers of anti-gay referenda, politicians and initiatives in the United States and around the world. The Ugandan regime of Yoweri Museveni is a favorite of theirs for having passed legislation making it a criminal offense to be gay, punishable by a life sentence. Credible African journalists like Keith Harmon Snow have also alleged that Invisible Children’s white and male leaders have direct personal connections to US intelligence agencies.

Click here for the full report.

Jason Russell Co-Founder Of Invisible Children, ‘Kony 2012′ Reportedly Detained In San Diego For Lewd Acts

March 16, 2012

Huffington Post

By HP

“These are the kinds of people behind Invisible Children. The statement from the group is ludicrous.  The real question is why aren’t officers going to press charges?” –KTRN

Jason Russell Arrested

NBC San Diego is reporting that Jason Russell, the co-founder of Invisible Children, the advocacy group behind the “Kony 2012″ viral video, was detained at 11:30 am on Thursday morning for allegedly masturbating in public.

TMZ reported Friday afternoon that law enforcement officials don’t plan to bring charges against Russell.

According to TMZ, Russell was allegedly under the influence of alcohol. Police also told TMZ that he was vandalizing cars.

Scroll down for video of alleged incident. WARNING: Video provided by TMZ contains nudity.

In a statement posted online, Ben Keesey, the CEO of Invisible Children, said: “The past two weeks have taken a severe emotional toll on all of us, Jason especially, and that toll manifested itself in an unfortunate incident yesterday. Jason’s passion and his work have done so much to help so many, and we are devastated to see him dealing with this personal health issue.”

Scroll down for Keesey’s full statement.

Russell created the 30-minute film featuring himself, his son, Gavin, and a former child soldier from Uganda named Jacob. Last week, the film received millions of views and rocketed Joseph Kony, the leader of the Lord’s Resistance Army, to fame. However, many were quick to respond with criticisms of the film and the organization’s spending practices.

Jason Russell is described on the organization’s website as a “grand storyteller and dreamer” who dreams of “redefining the concept of humanitarian work” and having “nine more children” with his wife.

A phone call to the San Diego Police Department department had not been returned at the time of publication, and the phone line at Invisible Children was not operating.

“Kony 2012″ has received nearly 100 million views on Vimeo and YouTube.

Click here for the full report.

Secrets KONY 2012 Is Desperate to Hide

March 16, 2012

Info Wars

By Alex Jones & Aaron Dykes

Kony 2012, hyped on the backs of celebrities and do-gooders, is revealed for what it is– a propaganda salvo for a continent wide invasion of Africa. Yes, the mantra War is Peace is once again drumming U.S. soldiers into further conflict.

Research makes clear that KONY is a sophisticated psy-op to muster popular support for what is, in reality, nothing more than a geostrategic positioning vis-a-vis China for oil and mineral resources, as well as an effort to legitimize the U.S. military’s AFRICOM unit in the region through newly-branded “humanitarian” interventions.

It is not only War in the name of “Peace,” but an attempt to empower the International Criminal Court under the influence of NGOs and other related globalist corporate interests.

Nobel Peace Prize “winner” Barack Obama has already deployed 100 special forces troops to the central African region back in October 2011, and a resolution in Congress– on the heels of KONY 2012′s viral views of at lest 80 million– seeks to send more forces there for an all out invasion on the pretext of hunting down a shadowy warlord with less blood on his hands than an average African despot.

Click here for the full report.

KONY 2012 Psy-Op Collapsing

March 15, 2012

Activist Post

By Tony Cartalucci

“The Kony 2012 scam is falling apart.  If the makers of the video weren’t cowards, they would allow comments to be posted about their video.  But nope – it seems they can’t take the heat.”  –KTRN

As the US State Department, USAID-centric Invisible Children psy-op KONY 2012 collapses, Invisible Children has disabled comments on their viral YouTube video.

When last checked, negative comments were voted to the top and a cascading effect of skepticism as well as damning facts began drowning out the initial confusion, sympathy, and emotional knee-jerk support the propaganda video purposefully created and preyed upon.

As comments are now being censored, it is suggested that people simply go to the video and click the “dislike” button to voice their opposition to this stunt. Most likely, even that feature will be disabled, and the video KONY 2012 will become the one-way Wall Street infomercial it really is, rather than the faux-participatory “social media” “activism 2.0″ experience it masquerades as being.

The Establishment-Funded “Anti-Establishment” Charity

It has been revealed that indeed Invisible Children has been working with USAID, a US government agency that helps lay the groundwork for what could best be described as a modern-day imperial administrative network. It is now also revealed that Invisible Children attended the 2010 US State Department and Fortune 500 sponsored Alliance for Youth Movements (AYM) summit in London.

AYM (also called Movements.org) it was reported, played a central role in preparing armies of US State Department funded, trained, and equipped activists to carry out the so-called “Arab Spring” years in advance. Much like KONY 2012, the Arab Spring took many by surprise and in the wave of confusion, entire nations were upturned and US proxy regimes installed. Tunisia and Libya are now full-fledged client states of Wall Street and London, while the fates of nations like Egypt and Syria still hang in the balance.

Unlike the “Arab Spring” however, the KONY 2012 scam has collapsed almost as fast as it first swept the globe. And as it falls, it is taking with it the credibility of all who participated in it and promoted it, including the deceitful International Criminal Court (ICC) and its chief prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo, as well as Hollywood and the corporate-media who did all in their power to lie, manipulate and make fools out of millions once more in the pursuit of perpetuating the imperial ambitions of Wall Street and London.

Click here for the full report.

Lawmakers Push For US Invasion Of Africa Following Kony 2012 Fraud

March 14, 2012

Info Wars

By Paul Joseph Watson

“It looks like the US is going to invade yet another country over a thirty minute propaganda film.” –KTRN

Two House lawmakers have introduced a resolution that seeks to deepen US Military involvement in Africa on the back of the Kony 2012 hoax, despite the fact that Joseph Kony and his Lord’s Resistance Army have been virtually inactive for six years.

“The resolution, introduced by Reps. Jim McGovern, D-Mass. and Ed Royce, R-Calif., calls for, among other things, expanding the number of regional forces in Africa to protect civilians and placing restrictions on individuals or governments found to be supporting Kony,” reports CBS News.

As we have seen from US involvement in Libya and its attempts to destabilize Syria, the “humanitarian” justification is merely an excuse for expanding US hegemony into Africa where China has aggressively staked its claim.

As we highlighted on Monday, the establishment-manufactured hype surrounding Kony 2012 is nothing more than a cynical ruse designed to manipulate naive do-gooders into legitimizing another US-backed “humanitarian” assault aimed at swallowing up Africa’s resources and land under Africom.

While Joseph Kony and his army disappeared six years ago, Ugandans are being killed and evicted in their thousands by western entities right now – but nobody is making ‘viral’ films about the crisis and no celebrities are tweeting their displeasure.

Invisible Children, the group behind Kony 2012 has created a groundswell of support for Uganda’s dictator Yoweri Kaguta Museveni, a man who has been in control of the country for 30 years and was returned to power in an election last year that was rife with fraud according to European Union observers.

Museveni has been implicated in genocide after ordering his guards to shoot and kill civilians. He is also notorious for bumping off his political enemies.

Click here for the full report.

Forget Kony, Ugandans Are Being Slaughtered By Their Own Western-Backed Government

March 13, 2012

Prison Planet

By Paul Joseph Watson

“Don’t by into the Kony 2012 hype. It’s propaganda at its very best.” –KTRN

While the political left and an army of Hollywood trendies are clamoring for a U.S. Military invasion of Uganda to capture Joseph Kony, a man who has not even been in the country for six years, Ugandan authorities, backed by the World Bank and British carbon trading companies, are slaughtering Ugandan villagers and stealing their land in a brutal new form of neo-colonialism that has gone largely unnoticed.

Forget Kony, Ugandans Are Being Slaughtered By Their Own Western Backed Government Bildschirmfoto 2012 03 07 um 12.13

Following the release of Kony 2012, a film made by a shadowy charity with links to USAID, the Tweetosphere exploded with a deluge of leftist politicos and clueless celebrities jumping on the bandwagon to call for Barack Obama to launch yet another act of “humanitarian” bloodletting to go after Kony, leader the of Lord’s Resistance Army (LRC).

In their haste to appear trendy and in vogue with a viral trend that was all over the social networks like a bad rash within the space of 24 hours, those advocating an increased military intervention on top of the 100 US troops already sent into Uganda last year, most notably habitual “humanitarian” warmonger Angelina Jolie, didn’t concern themselves with the facts.

The propaganda campaign that has put Joseph Kony on a par with Osama Bin Laden and Hitler is a crude hoax to legitimize the US military-industrial complex’s agenda to re-colonize Africa under Africom.

“Not surprisingly, the [film] is seriously misleading, falsely implying there’s war raging in Northern Uganda when there’s not. In fact, Kony has not been in the country for six years; his group is a much-depleted rump, numbering a few hundred people at most,” writes ABC Australia’s Jeff Sparrow.

Ugandan journalist Angelo Izama calls Kony 2012 a “misrepresentation,” noting that the film’s “portrayal of [Kony's] alleged crimes in Northern Uganda are from a bygone era,” and that the problems facing the country in 2012 are AIDS, Hepatitis, prostitution and unemployment, none of which would be alleviated by a U.S. military invasion on the pretext of hunting a man who is not even in the country.

Click here for the full report.

Youth Movement Promotes US Military Presence in Central Africa

March 9, 2012

Activist Post

By Nile Bowie

“No one is saying Joseph Kony is a good man. But shroud the US be playing world police in Africa? The whole situation is very sad.” –KTRN

Edward Bernays believed that society could not be trusted to make rational and informed decisions on their own, and that guiding public opinion was essential within a democratic society. Bernays founded the Council on Public Relations and his 1928 book, Propaganda cites the methodology used in the application of effective emotional communication. He discovered that such communication is capable of manipulating the unconscious in an effort to produce a desired effect – namely, a capacity to manufacture mass social adherence in support of products, political candidates and social movements.

Nearly a century after his heyday, Bernays’ methodology is apparent in almost every form of civic and consumer persuasion. The platform of social media is being used in unprecedented new ways; one such example is a new online documentary about the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), an extremist rebel group operating in Central Africa.

The documentary is unprecedented, not for its educational attributes but for its capacity to use visual branding, merchandising and highly potent emotional communication to influence the viewer to support US military operations in resource rich Central Africa under the pretext of capturing the LRA’s commander, Joseph Kony. The Lord’s Resistance Army was originally formed in 1987 in northwestern Uganda by members of the Acholi ethnic group, who were historically exploited as forced laborers by the British colonialists and later relegated by the nation’s dominant ethic groups following independence. Together with the Holy Spirit Movement, the LRA represented the armed wing of a resistance faction aiming to overthrow the government of current Ugandan President and staunch US military ally, Yoweri Museveni.

Click here for the full report.