So it turns out the last time I blogged I told you all that I was going on an SIA stewarding course.. well yeah I did that about a month ago and a week after was told I passed with the top score in the whole class! Get me.
Since that I've been to London to see Liverpool in the Carling Cup final and win the most dramatic game I've ever witnessed face to pitch, and yesterday was Elly's birthday! So things have been happening, as well as that actually Elly has started driving lessons and nobodies died! Good news I'm sure you'll agree.
KONY
I guess I should have a little talk about KONY 2012 as so many people have and are now aware of it.. if you're not aware of it just type 'Kony' into Youtube and you'll be sucked into something awful with deeper lying issues.
For everyone that's watched the video I imagine some have then followed a similar route to myself.
- Watch video
- Be appalled by Joseph Kony
- Think Invisible Children are great for doing this
- Find myself wanting to help while feeling helpless
- Start thinking about it more
- Research Invisible Children
- Find it's not all it's cracked up to be
Perhaps that's not the exact route for you but it was for me. Let me start by saying what everybody who's written anything or made a video on this has said. Joseph Kony is an awful man who should be found and tried and of course I agree it needs to be done properly.
Invisible Children are a very odd 'charity', I don't know how many charities want people to donate to aid a corrupt army to stop a man via arrest or indeed death, and that's just the start. I tweeted earlier:
I keep hearing that last year Invisible Children spent 33% on Direct Services.. true, but it was only 18% in 2006! 433k on Production cost!
and
In 5 years the Invisible Children charity expenses have gone up $6.2 million, a lot of which is spent on travel
Both facts are true, you can find out for yourselves by going on their website and looking under 'finances' - why I think that it's nice that they've highlighted a man of evil, but they want to make him famous? It's a strange turn of phrase if you ask me.
Famous - Well or widely known.
These days in the world that we live in the word famous is something for sadly in most cases young children to aspire too, they don't want to be a nurse or fight fires they want to be famous, and it's not just kids is it? People that go onto Britain's Got Talent and the X Factor, these people want to be famous too. It's seen as a positive thing really, surely they should have gone about it saying, 'we want this guy known', not to be as 'famous' as George fucking Clooney.
Why involve a child in the video, why involve your son!
For me it says 2 things. One, that if a child can understand it's terrible and bad, so must everyone else! Two, it's the cute factor.
When rewatching the video I don't feel like I could help at all, living in Great Yarmouth on the East Coast of England. I feel like I'm being pressured and told, 'if you're not with us, you MUST be against us and FOR Joseph Kony and his regime. A 'charity' shouldn't make you feel that way.
I've two more points to make, the first being that how many charities do you know that have 'CRITQUES' page on their website?
This page is basically saying, don't believe the bullshit about how bad we are, believe what we say and support our cause. Which on one hand you'd expect them to do, but if they're so squeaky clean why even bother to acknowledge the doubters?
Finally, if this whole thing was so legit, why haven't you seen major news corporations back this video? Why aren't Youtube themselves supporting it? Why have they gone after celebrities and not major outlets of news around the world.
Anyway I promise the next vlog won't talk about this because people far more intelligent know more and you should probably listen to them instead. But I'm entitled to my opinion :D
Thanks for reading.
Ben
