Invisible Children And KONY 2012 Exposed

Invisible Children And KONY 2012 Exposed

        The KONY 2012 movement has been exposed as nothing more than a scam to make money to promote the personal ventures of the co-founders and top leaders of the organization called Invisible Children (a self-proclaimed activist and humanitarian aid organization). When critics of the viral video called “KONY 2012” accused the filmmakers of over-simplifying an over 26 year conflict and exaggerating the militia strength of Joseph Kony’s child soldiers in Uganda, Invisible Children went on talk shows to explain why they made the viral video the way it is and to defend where the use of their funds expired; funds that were donated freely to Invisible Children worldwide. There were plenty of defenders of Invisible Children on the internet who fiercely had their back.

        It is a fact that the warlord, Joseph Kony, is not even in Uganda anymore and has been pushed into the region of the Congo by the Ugandan military. No doubt, Joseph Kony is an evil man and should be punished for his crimes, but he is just a number in the thousands of evil men this world has produced this last century alone. It is also speculated that he might not even be alive anymore since 5 years ago. Obviously the conflicts in Sudan, Syria and other areas of the world are more current and imminent emergencies to worry about. It seems there are many neglected Invisible Children in other parts of the world being killed and used as child sex slaves, more so than Uganda. There are also many child soldiers in African militaries besides Joseph Kony’s small militia. Nobody seems to talk much about the kids being castrated in Muslim Extremist societies, or stoned to death on the spot for looking “different” (search “emo kids in Iraq” and find out that over 15 young people were stoned to death for dressing “emo”).

        It has been shown that only about 33% of the money donated to Invisible Children was even used as direct aid for humanitarian efforts. It could be said another 33% went to movie productions by Jason Russell and his co-founders, music projects and concerts, awareness materials like bracelets, T-shirts, posters, conferences etc. (each sold for a mighty profit on their website, you can be cool and look like a true activist by forking out 15 bucks for a cheap bracelet that probably cost 10 cents to make, as well as 30 bucks for an action kit in a case with posters, stickers, a t-shirt, and bracelet with DVD; a must have and collector’s item for all true caring activist hipsters and Christian college students). The final 33% went to travel expenses so they could go tour the country and do speaking engagements and take long trips to Africa and back. So it looks as if Invisible Children is nothing more than a cover up for white-liberal-guilt ridden slacktivists, so they can go on Christian-activist vacations, make movies, and receive glory from other people as great western heroes of black children in the dark continent of Africa. What does simply creating awareness do? So we are aware, now what? Unless the actual cause is giving most if not all of its money to save children and give them educations and spread the gospel why should Christians support it?

        Invisible Children has often used Christianity to get donations on Christian University Campuses, churches, missions conferences, and has even disguised itself as a genuine “Christian mission” at said events (i.e. Jason Russell spoke at Liberty University about Christian activism: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wkB8o5VWAjE). But truthfully, what organizations like this do is direct funding away from actual missionaries who were called by God to spread the gospel message of salvation through God’s grace alone through Jesus Christ. The message of His death and resurrection that gives eternal life and transforms the dark, evil hearts of men into worshipers of God who seek His glory. That is the true message that can change the world, but this politically correct society does not like such things. Invisible Children has barely ever talked about the gospel to children in Africa and has kept most of the money to pay a nice salary of over $89,000 a year to its CEO’s who live in rich Southern California as well as pay for all their movie production costs and travel expenses. They get all the health insurance and house payments they need while their precious Invisible Children are apparently being forced into sex slavery and child warriors who kill their parents. How ironic. Most of the people donating money to Invisible Children don’t live as well as Jason Russell, the co-founder who is the “voice and dreamer” of Invisible Children.

        You can confirm anything in this blog article by simply doing an internet search.

        Recently, 2 days before this article was written, Jason Russell was found in the streets of the Pacific Beach area of San Diego running around in speedo-like underwear. He then was witnessed to proceed to take his underwear off and run around like a maniac, interfering with cars, possibly vandalizing some, and publicly masturbating on the sidewalk. He was screaming incoherent things, and bent over in a strattle-like position and began pounding his fists on the pavement in all out rage.  

        The fact such bizarre behavior happened proves that Invisible Children is nothing that a true Christian with the Holy Spirit’s conviction should support. If you do, you are being deceived into wasting money you could have been instead giving to true missionaries who are fighting real spiritual battles every day to spread the Word of God. Not delusional slacktivist fantasies (No! Sorry to burst your bubble you liberal pentecostal/charismatic gullibles; public masturbating and naked mental breakdowns are not the sign of a spiritual battle, but of a man owned by sin and possibly on drugs or demon possessed, not the marks of a true Christian leader; have you read Luke 8:27?). Real missionaries need money to survive, to pay for housing, and materials to spread the Bible’s message. Missionaries do not make millions of dollars a year, and many do not even make $89,000 a year unless they are sent by rich corporate mega-churches who seem to lack much of the gospel and just want numbers. Supporting true biblical missionaries is something more evangelicals should seek to be doing with some of their extra money! Find some, they are out there! There are also local national missionaries who could use some support to do house to house, and street evangelism in their own countries.

        In the early 2000’s, political and social activism had taken over the place of evangelization within evangelical circles. It still continues its trend, sliding downward into Christian hipsterism and other pretentious hypocritical, self-righteous and unbiblical attitudes. First and foremost, Christians must support the cause of the Bible being spread and the gospel message rightly interpreted to people. Any kind of social activities like helping the poor are an obvious necessity to open the door to spread the gospel, but they are not the main goal. The goal is to spread the gospel for spiritual transformation to give the message of eternal life. Obviously, Christians should help the poor and the people being taken advantage of because Jesus Christ commands it. But what does it profit a man to feed his stomach if he loses his soul? (Matthew 16:26, Mark 8:36). But how can a Christian ignore the weak and drop off a message about Christ without curing some of their physical issues like hunger and thirst? Only then can a person can be coherent enough, calm, and ready to hear the gospel. The Bible commands us to help unfortunate people (James 2:14-18). Unfortunately, it seems Invisible Children does none of these things, if anything only a 33%’s effort. The other 66% goes to the promotion of themselves.

        When a co-founder who is the face and voice of an organization is found doing such insane and perverse behavior it is just an outward sign of a deeper, internal problem. It is obvious God is not with Invisible Children and Satan has used it to distract people from the real war at hand: the spiritual war Christians should fight every day through Scripture.

        Obviously, Jason Russell was either on drugs because he spent all of his donation money on PCP, or he is demon possessed. Either way God has drawn out his deception and exposed him (no pun intended) for what he is: a huckster and scam artist who got rich off of people’s hearts. Not only that, but he is most likely delusional and actually believes he is being righteous and is lying to himself. If any Christian still argues for this person and Invisible Children, they are simply giving into spiritual deception and acting foolish. But in this ecumenical age it is obvious that people will still support this wacko and find every excuse in the book for his x-rated and despicable behavior. These are not the marks of a Christian leader. Add to the fact he greatly admires Opera and Bono, Universalist leaders who are also extremely rich. It appears he wanted to be on their level and as rich as them one day. Well his madness got the best of him. Now he has lost all dignity, respect, any kind of honor he had with many people, and has become a disgraceful representative of a father to his son (who can be seen in the “KONY 2012” movie claiming he wants to be just like his dad) and has dishonored his wife and humiliated her. Russell will never live this one out, he has permantly damaged his reputation. Fortunately, Jesus Christ can cover such sins and God is ready to forgive if Russell repents of his sin and confesses the truth. But he will still have a bad reputation in this world. Hopefully, he will repent and publicly declare what he really was doing with Invisible Children and why he acted like a maniac and fool.

        Do not support the KONY 2012 movement and stop wasting your money on Invisible Children! All Christians should pay attention to this lesson and start giving money to real missionaries who love the Bible and want souls to be saved. Stop giving into the sin of Christian hipsterism and slacktivism!

“Everything exposed by the light is made clear, for what makes everything clear is light.” Ephesians 5:13

“I will expose your righteousness, and your works—they will not profit you.” Isaiah 57:12

Los Angeles Train Trip Into Chinatown

Los Angeles Train Trip Into China Town

*September 24, 2006 was the date when I wrote this reflection about traveling into Los Angeles Chinatown on the Metro Link when I was going to school in La Mirada at my university. This article was a project that was about using the trust building in interactions with complete strangers and to make notes about the cultural exerperiences I interacted in. Building trust opens the door wide for personal evangelism on the streets. On this trip I did not do evangelism since I was new to it and still afraid. This trip was basically a practice run. I was partnered up with a female student in my Intercultural Adjustment class.  

Here is my reflection:

        I recently went to downtown Los Angeles on the Metrolink Train with my classmate Kathryn for a school project we were partnered up to do. We went to Union Station and then walked to Chinatown. We had a few interesting interactions with people along the way.

        First off on our journey we started at the green line station and were trying to figure out how to buy the train tickets with the machine and a black girl came up to us and helped us buy them. She was very kind and eager to help us. During the trip I was thinking about how I was going to build trust to open up conversations in all the interactions that day. When the black girl came up to help us it was as though instead of us instigating trust, the Black girl was building trust first before for us. When she helped us it felt like she built a trust bond between us even though she left right away after that. I thought about this and how I could do similar things.

        Later, on the train it took us awhile to get to downtown so we just sat and observed people. I noticed that we were obviously the only white people in our part of the train. I heard a lot of different accents of English as well as totally different languages like Spanish and Chinese. I even heard Ebonics. It looked like everyone was pretty much going about their lives and traveling to different destinations. Then we made it to Union Station and walked a few blocks to Chinatown.  

         During the entire trip I saw practically every kind of culture and class of people. Most of the people were Mexican or Asian. There were a lot of Black people too. I even saw a few Indian and Arabic people as well. Social class-wise I saw a lot of types. I saw the down and outers in downtown L.A. begging for money and living in small tarp like tents with shopping carts on the sidewalk. I even saw more of the low class families up to the higher middle class people too. I did not see any really rich people my entire trip that I could point out.

        Different types of subcultures of people were around too. I saw a lot of skateboarder kids, but the interesting thing about them is that they were all Hispanic youths. Back where I grew up in Oregon, skateboarding was a very White thing. It’s interesting to see that other ethnic groups are embracing it as well. I saw at least one punk with a Mohawk when I was in Chinatown, and I saw a lot of gangster/thug hip hop type people. Two girls who really stood out to me when we were traveling towards downtown on the Metrolink were two Asian girls. They looked very dazed and drugged out. Their eyes could hardly stay open and they walked in such a slow and uncoordinated way. They were definitely on some type of drugs. The entire time when I saw people like this: the bums begging, the drugged out people, and just people in general my heart sank for them. I wanted so badly to somehow reach out to them, but I didn’t know how. Especially when I saw bums asking for money and I couldn’t help them. I could not give them all of my money because I would then be broke and stuck in downtown. While I thought about it, I knew Jesus would have walked up to them and talked with them, but I did not know what to say because I did not want to be bothered for money or harassed. I do not know if this is a wrong feeling to have, so it bothered me. Somehow, I think as a Christian I am required to interact with these people, but at the same time I don’t know how far I can spread myself out and even how to be effective with it.

        There are definitely types of people I would choose to reach out to if I was given a chance, like the two drugged out Asian girls, the skateboarder kids and the other families around. The people I do not think I would choose to talk with are the bums living on the street. The only reason being is because I don’t have enough money to give to them. I do not want all of them to come up to me and be aggressive with me and beg for it. This has happened to me a lot in the past. A lot of times I did give them money, but now I am a little more cautious about it than to just hand it out to anyone who asks. One time I was in downtown at night with the Hispanic Club from the university and many bums were extremely aggressive, and dangerously abrasive when asking for money. It was not good to be out there, it was not safe. This is the only reason I did not intereact with the bums on this trip. The bums in downtown Los Angeles are extremely aggressive and some are dangerous. It is not like other places I have lived.

        On this trip I felt many different kinds of emotions. At first I was a little afraid to go on the train since I am not used to doing that. I did not know what to expect. I was nervous about traveling in a new city and being alone as well as having a fear of getting lost. But when I got my ticket I was very excited and really happy to be there. This feeling really lasted a long time. I think the entire trip it never went away. I do not feel like I had much culture shock. I know that I was only out there for a few hours, but at the same time usually people have ups and downs when they haven’t done something before. I know that before I left to go on this trip I was not too happy about it. I felt as if it was inconvenient to have to make this trip. And as I mentioned before, not knowing the train system was a bit intimidating too. Possibly I experienced my culture shock at the start of the trip or even before I left, and then my emotions went high up on the scale to feeling confident and happy right away. This is a feeling I am going to make note of for my future trips to places. (It is also a feeling I had when I was in the Philippines and going through Metro Manila on my internship).

        If someone was to ask me if I had any surprises or irritations I would have to answer both. The surprises were not anything that made me feel negative, but were positively exciting. Being able to bargain with the merchants in Chinatown is really fun. Kathryn bought a hat for work and bargained with the man selling hats and talked the price down. In American culture we are not allowed to do that at stores. We are so stubborn with money and most of the shops are owned by bigger corporations who have a specific price and are not allowed to sell it for less. I observed more bargaining with Filipinos in a shop that sold bootlegged DVDs and toys and internet access. I noticed how industrious Asian people are.

        A lot of the people in downtown are very easy to talk to if you just try, especially the bums who are begging for money. Getting over the intimiation factor with bums is easier than I thought at first. So getting interactions with all kinds of people was not as hard as I thought it would be. The only irritation I had was the bums who wanted money because it made me feel depressed and guilty for not helping them. Another irritation was some of the smells in the area, such as a strong smell of urine behind a bus stop.

        After the trip I felt that overall I had a good experience trying to build trust in order to open the door for conversations with people and that I could apply it in future evangelism. During the entire trip I was actively assessing and modifying my thoughts and behaviors to build trust. I will keep doing this as I establish future relationships in life as well. I can remember when I was heading to Union Station on the red line, there were two Asian men sitting in the seats across the aisle from me. I asked one if this train was headed to Union Station and he looked really nervous that I was talking to him. Then he said “What?” So I repeated the question and I smiled and then he smiled back and told me “Yes.” At first he was nervous then when I smiled to let him know I am okay and not dangerous, it established a trust bond in our interaction and he was happy to help. Through all of the unfamiliar settings I entered, I feel like I am able to keep in mind the various aspects of “The Trust Bond” in interpersonal interactions with others.

        I talked to several people during this trip, but four of the interactions I want to highlight:

        The first one was when me and Kathryn went into this $1 Chinese deli. As we were looking at the food and deciding what to get a young Mexican man walked up to me and asked me for fifty cents. He did not make a lot of eye contact, and he said he needed it for the phone. I took out fifty cents and gave it to him. Before I did that he looked very low and humble before me. He seemed like he did not expect me to give him any. He acted like he really needed the money too. When he saw that I gave him the money he was very happy and smiling and looked me in the eyes and let me know that he was very thankful. When I responded nicely, even before I gave him the money I felt like I already was establishing the trust bond with him. He walked away very happy.

        The second guy was also in the Chinese deli, and he was a really big, tall and heavy Mexican man about in his 30’s. He began to tell us about all the food and about how he trains in a Chinese martial art called Wushu. He was very easy going and he initiated the interaction. He showed a lot of acceptance towards us and was talking about how great the Chinese martial arts masters are. He was very excited and when he got his food he walked towards the door, but before he left he shook my hand and said “Have a good day brother!” I was really surprised and thought it was so cool a guy I don’t know was being so kind and talking to us.

        The third interaction happened in one of the market areas where a young hip Filipino man was selling bootlegged DVDs, ran a small arcade with video games and also sold real estate in the Philippines. I talked to him about a Jet Li movie he had for sale on DVD and was still only in theaters in the U.S. This was the movie Fearless that just came out during this time in the USA. This opened up an opportunity to just chat with the guy. I talked with him a lot and as Kathryn walked up he told us all about his life and where he has traveled and what he does for fun. He basically told us his philosophy on life. We had a nice conversation that lasted for about 45 minutes and before we left he gave us his personal phone number if we ever wanted to talk again. We really established a trust bond with this man. It was so cool to see how easy it is to have good relationships with total strangers and make new friends. This made me feel so happy.

        The final interaction I had was the highlight of my day when we were on the train going back to La Mirada. I pulled out a Jet Li DVD I bought from the Filipino man and a Black college student my age commented about it. He struck up a conversation with me and I began to ask him where he is from and about life in downtown L.A.He was from the ghetto. After awhile of talking I found out he was also a Christian like us! It was so amazing to randomly meet another Christian. He did not have a home church so I invited him to mine and got his phone number and everything. I feel so blessed by God to be able to help out this kid. It was encouraging to know there are others out there who live in downtown L.A.who are living for Christ.

        I feel that this trip overall was an awesome intercultural experience and I am so glad I was able to go. I feel like doing these things is really going to prepare me for the intercultural communication I will be experiencing when I go overseas to be a missionary.