On Joseph Kony.

I'd gotten into a pretty good discussion with Hjalmar regarding Joseph Kony, though it ultimately spiraled into the misinformation presented in the media, the ignorance of a majority of the American populace in the matter, and modern genocide as a whole.

I've not seen something garner this sort of blind support since SOPA and PIPA were speculated.
Kony has been active for many years. When I was small my father told me horror stories about Joseph Kony and the warring tribes of Africa, and how there was once a sense of stability in Africa under British rule - which, frankly, you can see just about anywhere. Hong-Kong. South-Africa. Arguably, I'd have said we were pretty stable under British rule until they got tax-happy and we got indignant and proud - this has been going on for a long time, America. Don't act like it's the most pressing matter on the table when similar hostilities have been raging in Bosnia, Serbia, Kosovo, and Iran since far before Kony's activity.

And Kony's activity - let's look at that. He's mostly active in the Democratic Republic of the Congo - which is a fucking mess unto itself and has been embroiled in civil war since existence - and better yet, he's leading the LRA: The Lord's Revolution Army. "Christians," whose original goal of instating a theocracy degraded into raiding schools for child soldiers and hacking limbs.

I can see the headlines now - people will pretend they knew nothing about Kony's activities, and they'll forget the Lobbyists and Congressmen they pestered and look straight to the presidency:
"OBAMA INVADES AFRICA. KILLS CHRISTIANS AND CHILDREN."
Yes. Children. Because a majority of his front-line soldiers are pillaged children, and realistically, there's going to be casualties.

And it's the limb-hacking and mutilation that has people outraged.
That gets me.
Bodies have been getting lopped in Africa ever since England backed out and the Tutsi and Hutu decided they didn't like each-other: they lop off hands so people can't work, they lop off breasts so mothers can't breastfeed children, and they disfigure people to shame them.

This, too, has been going on for ages and Kony's not the only guy involved. Arguably, he's just the most organized guy about it.

And Uganda? It's been royally fucked since Britain left, too. Idi Amin. Idi Amin was one of the most civil rights violating regimes ever. There are accounts of people being fed to each-other, and kept alive skewered vertically on poles for days.
Amin got ousted, and what happened? Somewhere along the lines, Kony sauntered in. Catch Kony. Idi Amin proceeded him. The precedent for a barbaric successor is almost predictable.

It's arrogant to think that capturing or killing one man will fix Uganda. The majority of Africa is troubled, and Kony's not the source of it. Disorganization is. Xenophobia is. A lack of education is. A lack of industry and sound health-care is.

The only place running a respectable show in Africa is South Africa, which flourished like Hong-Kong, and even then? It required a blatantly racist regime to work as well as it did, and it martyred Nelson Mandela until his return - the amazing thing that I admire Mandela for is he realized that the British system worked. The only thing he ousted was the racial boundaries. Bravo to you, Nelson Mandela, for seeing the method to your opponent's madness, and for being so patient incarcerated.

Organization is what Africa needs - organization, and unity - and storming into that continent waving guns and looking for a guerrilla warlord amongst a sea of other less-organized guerrilla warlords in a country he's not even active in anymore is not going to provide them that, regardless of how much money you raise, or how many statuses you like, or how many lobbyists you contact.

I think Kony's a terrible person, yes, and he should get what's coming.
But he's not personally doling out these machete-swings.
He's got an army, and it's not going to just collapse because you take its figurehead.
Moreover, it's not going to fix Uganda or the Congo, let alone Africa as a whole.

I would sooner be outraged about how the swap from sterilizable glass syringes to unsterilizable plastic syringes has spread AIDS and HIV throughout Africa. No free clinic in Africa owns an autoclave, so they're just passing contaminated blood like cheap cigars out there.

That's something worth looking into. That's something I'd fund; retiring the plastic syringe.