Over the past few days, almost anyone connected to social media has seen a video called "Kony 2012" show up in their feeds. Twitter, Facebook have been dominated by the video, and it has been picked up by most major news sites. But what is it? What is it's mission? And why do you need to look at it with a critical eye?
"KONY 2012" is the latest documentary from a 501 (c) 3 organization known as The Invisible Children. According to their Facebook page, "Invisible Children uses film, creativity and social action to end the use of child soldiers in Joseph Kony's rebel war and restore LRA-affected communities in Central Africa to peace and prosperity."
You can watch their powerful documentary below:
"This is a really well done documentary," Glenn said. "It is the Joseph Kony story."
Joseph Kony is an incredibly evil rebel leader who has operated and Africa, and mostly in Uganda, for over a quarter of a decade. He leads the LRA, the Lord's Resistance Army, which is primarily made of children who were abducted from their homes. The male children are turned into soldiers, while the female children are forced into sexual slavery. It cannot be stated how bad of a man Koney is. But despite how bad of a guy he is, he is relatively unknown to the general population. The documentary above aims to increase his notoriety and fame so that people demand action be taken against him.
Since it debuted, the video has received 38,954,272 on YouTube as of this writing.
"All across the world and all across America they are asking you to put up posters of this Joseph Kony to convince Congress that we have to go in there with full military might," Glenn said.
Despite the noble goals outlined in the film, Glenn told the audience they needed to look at it with a critical eye.
"This is the way the progressives do it. This is the way Bernays does it. This is the way Cass Sunstein does it. This is the way you build a dictator. You get somebody -- you get something so outrageous and then you just use it," Glenn said.
Stu added that this is undeniably a horrible and serious issue, but "as we've seen from many people in the administration, they do look to take advantage of crisis, crises."
"I believe that they didn't create this crisis. They found this crisis. Maybe somebody really actually believes in this crisis. I think these guys could be dead inside in the White House but I mean, it's a shocking, horrible thing that should be stopped," Stu added.
American troops are already in Uganda, but were sent without Congressional approval and without a justification of how it impacted the United States.
Complaints have also emerged that the video simplifies the situation and is misleading.
"Like I told my kids, we watched it with my two boys last night and we talked about it afterwards and I said, you know, yes, 66,000 children being kidnapped and used in some warlord's army, horrifying, awful thing. We'd love it to stop. Here's the problem. It's a much more complicated mess than they lead you to believe on the 30-minute video," Pat said.
The Telegraph reports:
But Kony and his diminishing troops, many of them kidnapped child soldiers, fled northern Uganda six years ago and are now spread across the jungles of neighbouring countries.“What that video says is totally wrong, and it can cause us more problems than help us,” said Dr Beatrice Mpora, director of Kairos, a community health organisation in Gulu, a town that was once the centre of the rebels’ activities.
“There has not been a single soul from the LRA here since 2006. Now we have peace, people are back in their homes, they are planting their fields, they are starting their businesses. That is what people should help us with.”
Joseph Kony, a former church altarboy, has spread terror through eastern and central Africa for almost three decades, as he has pursued an aimless war that has killed thousands of people and at one point forced hundreds of thousands from their homes.
Glenn drew comparisons to the situation in Egypt. He said, "We knew about Mubarak. We shouldn't have been propping him up. We knew about him. It's awful. But who's replacing Mubarak? Is it going to be better? No. It's not. It's going to be far, far worse. For not just Egyptians but the entire Middle East. And maybe the world. That's the kind of thing that you need to do and that's why you put a viral video out, you get all of the people who just think with their heart. You know what we need to do? We need to pray, we need to work together, we need to find out about it ourself, find out how we can help, find out how our churches can help. But you don't just say, "Oh, my gosh, this has to be stopped" and send troops in there."
"It's dangerous when you get a situation like this because this one seems very serious. But you're (Glenn) right. When you have the sort of social networking push, you have a slick presentation, a lot of times people don't think about the repercussions of how you deal with those situations," Stu said.
"Again, I have nothing on this Kony thing except it just doesn't feel right to me," Glenn added.
When they returned from a break, Glenn wanted to emphasize that he only had a feeling that something was off with the documentary.
"We're having conversation off the air that I think is important to have on the air and that is, look, I'm not saying this is Obama-funded although you could do ten minutes of work and I'll bet you you'll find somebody involved with Soros behind it, but I could be wrong. This isn't an accusation. This is a warning and -- to all Americans: Stay vigilant. Nothing is as it appears."
"Investigate and question everything," Glenn added.
The Blaze has looked into the video further, and you can read their praise and criticism HERE
