- Jeremy Scahill on the Obama administration’s role in keeping Yemeni journalist Abdulelah Haider Shaye in prison.
- Less freedom for journalists reporting on food scandals in Iowa, more freedom for journalists in Mexico.
- And more on Kony 2012, the discovery of minerals in Uganda and the suspicious funding of Invisible Children.
Joseph Kony is a war criminal and he should be brought to justice. However, the “Kony 2012” campaign that has caught fire over the last week is problematic propaganda. If Invisible Children considers itself to be a charitable organization, then it should focus on charity and goodwill, not diluting a nuanced regional conflict to good vs. evil. A great Foreign Affairs article from last November elaborates on the conflict, pointing out the atrocities committed by the Ugandan government, conveniently absent from the “Kony 2012” video. It also notes that Invisible Children has, “manipulated facts for strategic purposes, exaggerating the scale of LRA abductions and murders.” The campaign paints the people as voiceless victims. Yet a plethora of Ugandan journalists, writers, and bloggers, including a former child soldier, have spoken their concerns over the campaign, stating that it will only increase violence. Acholi religious leaders have stated that, “we do not want the aspect of pursuing Kony with military means. That is an engagement, isn’t it? History has taught us. Pursuing these people militarily will just make the conflict and suffering spill over to other places.” Simply put, “Kony 2012” is bad geopolitics, hypocritical in its failure to mention President Museveni and the Ugandan government, and is capitalizing on bloodshed (“buy your KONY 2012 merch”). It reeks of the white “civilizing responsibility” that has plagued Africa for centuries. But there is another, more sinister and chronic aspect of this whole hysteria; the collective, id driven rallying of people against a common enemy.
Bringing Joseph Kony to justice is a good thing, but it won’t solve Africa’s deeply rooted problems any more than the assassination of Osama bin-Laden helped the war in Afghanistan. In fact, by placing U.S ground troops in the region and bolstering the already questionable Ugandan forces, only more lives will be lost as the LRA would surely react.
Relying solely on emotional responses to demonize a man, as horrendous as his crimes may be, has dangerous moral implications. Kurt Vonnegut’s novel, Mother Night, highlights this perfectly. The novel’s main character, Howard W. Campbell Jr., is an American spy during WWII. His cover is that he’s a Nazi propagandist and radio host, who regularly spouts anti-Semitic, pro-Nazi rubbish. Campbell’s existence as a spy is known to only one man, a man who appears so seldom that Campbell dubs him his, “Blue Fairy Godmother”. When the war ends, Campbell escapes Germany and leads a quiet life in New York for a long time. When his identity is finally revealed, a huge campaign for his capture begins. Although he was an American spy, to the world he is a bombastic Nazi propagandist. He is bombarded with hate and disgust. At the novel’s climax, Campbell is confronted by a vengeful American veteran, O’Hare. Campbell exclaims to him that there is, “no good reason ever to hate without reservation, to imagine that God Almighty Himself hates with you, too. Where’s evil? It’s that large part of every man that wants to hate without limit, that wants to hate with God on its side. It’s that part of every man that finds all kinds of ugliness so attractive.” He continues, “It’s that part of an imbecile, that punishes and vilifies and makes war gladly.”
When Invisible Children exaggerates facts, omits the nuances of the region, omits the atrocities of the Ugandan government, disregards the opinions of the people themselves, relies on emotionally charged rhetoric that paints Joseph Kony as ultimate evil and therefore supports American military intervention, it is playing the part of the imbecile. In the last bout of Campbell’s tirade, he tells O’Hare that punishing him, “won’t change your destiny of bankruptcies, frozen-custard, too many children, termites, and no cash. If you want to be a soldier in the Legions of God so much, try the Salvation Army.” It’s easy to be bloodthirsty and vengeful; it’s hard to come up with a peaceful solution. The problems of Africa are complex and lie in poor governance and brutal dictatorial regimes. They will not be solved by capturing warlords. Until then, charitable organizations should be charitable, instead of making pro-war propaganda films.
Senator Olympia Snowe’s refusal to run for re-election in 2012 is a sign of the times. Republicans that are more moderate are finding it increasingly difficult to run in a party veering to the right. Senator Snowe has stated that gridlock and partisanship have left her exhausted. Of course, the rigid and strange rules of the Senate (primarily the filibuster) have also changed the Senate from a “cooling saucer” to an ice cream freezer. However, the idea of increased partisanship is a fallacy. Only one party has gotten more extreme, the Republicans. As Republicans steer sharper to the right, they pull the entire political spectrum along with them. Increased money in politics has caused this; there is a mutual relationship between corporations and government.
Accompanying the rightward shift of the political spectrum has been an increasing amount of money in politics and the amount of PACs. According to the Campaign Finance Institute, between 1976 and 2008, the number of corporate PACs increased by 239%, while the number of labor PACs actually decreased by 10%. Though the amount lowered, campaign contributions to Congressional candidates by labor PACs did increase by about 516% from 1978 to 2008. Still, this is nothing compared to the 1,412% increase in contributions by corporate PACs from 1978 to 2008. Data for 2010 isn’t available yet and 2012 isn’t over, but given the current rise of Super PACs and the Citizens v. United decision, it will get much worse.
This large increase in corporate donations has made the Republican Party increasingly conservative. Paul Krugman points out that, “political scientists who use Congressional votes to measure such things find that the current G.O.P. majority is the most conservative since 1879, which is as far back as their estimates go.” As politicians of both parties rely more and more on corporate dollars for their campaigns, their policies are more and more reflective of corporate interests. This has meant increased defense budgets and military presence around the world, incredibly low taxes on the rich, the repeal of Glass-Steagall along with more financial deregulation, more drilling, more prisons, less help for the poor; the list goes on. The Republican party has moved farther to the right, and it has dragged the political center along with it. As George Zornick aptly puts it, “When Republicans are deemed moderate by the Beltway press, it’s generally because they buck Republican extremism, much of which ultimately serves corporate interests. Democrats are characterized as moderates when they hew close to the corporate agenda. You’ll notice a common denominator here—big money and business interests are skewing the democratic process.” Combating this isn’t easy. Unless Citizens v. United is overturned and campaign finance is seriously addressed, the rightward march will continue, and that march is headed right for a cliff.
