Journalism

Kony 2012: Buying Bracelets for White Man’s Guilt

by Aaron on March 8, 2012

in International,Journalism

The folks at Invisible Children released their Kony 2012 movie this week, and it’s been blowing up the twit machines, and the facepages. And basically, they Britta’d the entire internet.

You jags!

Unfortunately, Invisible Children is mostly a badly run propaganda shop. Foreign Policy breaks down the mis-truths and obfuscations in the movie, and why you should think twice about supporting a group that supports the Ugandan Army:

But let’s get two things straight: 1) Joseph Kony is not in Uganda and hasn’t been for 6 years; 2) the LRA now numbers at most in the hundreds, and while it is still causing immense suffering, it is unclear how millions of well-meaning but misinformed people are going to help deal with the more complicated reality.

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There are many reasons uninformed and oversimplified advocacy can cause trouble, and Siena Antsis catalogues some of them here, noting that Invisible Children expertly “commodifies white man’s burden on the African continent.”  Buy a bracelet, soothe some guilt.

But as researcher Mark Kersten notes, after “stopping Kony”, then what? Or what if the activism just results the the 100 U.S. advisors staying but no Kony?

One of the biggest issues with a simplistic “Stop Kony” message is that discussions of Navy Seals or drone strikes are inevitable when patience runs out with Ugandan-led efforts . But what about the dozens or hundreds of abducted and brainwashed kids? Should we bomb everyone? Will they actually stop fighting after Kony is gone? What if they shoot back?

…

In addition to the problems of poverty and nodding disease Izama highlights, Uganda is barely (if at all) democratic, and the president Yoweri Museveni ushered himself to a 4th term last year, taking him to over 25 years in power. Corruption is rampant, social services are minimal, and human rightsabuses by the government common and well documented. Oh, and oil is on the way.

Stopping Kony won’t change any of these things, and if more hardware and money flow to Museveni’s military, Invisible Children’s campaign may even worsen some problems.

Uganda has intense problems with child prostitution, sexual diseases, and human rights abuses. Oh, and poverty. Don’t forget the poverty. Dictators and warlords don’t cause social problems; festering social problems inevitably produce dictators and warlords. Kony is just the tip of the boil, the puss from the festering sores of Uganda.

More criticisms of Invisible Children here, here, and here. More background on the American military assistance to Uganda here.

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Censorship Isn’t The Answer: Sopa Sucks

by Aaron on December 15, 2011

in Journalism

Between the NDAA and SOPA, it’s apparently Crappy Idea Week here in the capital. But when is it not, amirite?! *Clown horns, bow-tie spin, big hook from stage right.*

SOPA is the Stop Online Piracy Act, which thinks that censorship will somehow stop online piracy. It’s supported by Hollywood and the recording industry. The major problem is that it will break the internet. Like, all of it. Folks on both sides of the ideological spectrum agree that this is a terrible bill that ignores, or doesn’t understand, the basic nature of the internet and freedom of expression. And it’s worth repeating, this bill WOULD BREAK THE INTERNET. We need that! I yell at people there!

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“No Conservative Case For Romney”

by Aaron on November 17, 2011

in Journalism,Philosophy,Politics

Republican direct mail guru Richard Viguerie has a piece at Real Clear Politics about Mitt Romney’s lack of conservative Republican support:

First, because of his record in Massachusetts, where he was behind the coercive health care law, raising taxes and abandoning the conservative social agenda. Second, because he has flip-flopped on these and many other issues, bringing into question his character. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, because personnel is policy and Romney’s team is at best a group of establishment Republicans, and at worst a group of big government technocrats — both of whom will never make any effort to fundamentally reform Washington’s culture of spending and crony capitalism.

And the importance of personnel as policy should not be underestimated. When Ronald Reagan ran for President, conservatives could look at his team and see people they had known from the conservative movement for 10 or 15 years. We conservatives knew Reagan would govern as a conservative because we knew the people who he would bring with him — but when I once put the question of who were the conservatives on his team directly to Governor Romney, he blew it off.

Michael Gerson and Tom Ashbrook’s answer to this criticism was first to try to make the case that Romney did indeed have conservative advisors. The problem is, his list was made up of corporate lobbyists and Wall Street-types who actually proved my point — if the next Republican President enters the White House surrounded by Fortune 500 CEOs, then conservatives will once again have won the election for the Republicans, but lost the battle to reform Washington.

Hmmm. If only there were a candidate who was a principled fiscal conservative.

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Al-Jazeera Head Resigns Amid Claims of Cronyism

by Aaron on September 21, 2011

in Government,International,Journalism

Al-Jazeera’s Director, Wadah Khanfar, has stepped down after Wikileaks documents show a close relationship between the network and American Intelligence sources. From the NYT:

The leaked 2010 U.S. diplomatic cable indicated that Khanfar was in constant contact with the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency, responding to U.S. complaints of negative coverage and promising to tone down items on the station’s website. The cables referred to Qatari Ministry of Foreign Affairs as “MFA” which passed him some of the DIA reports.

The cable, written by the U.S. embassy in Doha, said the website piece, “Live Testimony Concerning Tal Afar,” showed 10 witnesses giving their accounts of U.S. military operations in Iraq.

Khanfar, according to the cable, “had taken a look at the piece and had two images removed (two injured children in hospital beds and a women with serious facial injury).”

Khanfar also referred to “a non-paper” agreement between the station and U.S. government, in his criticism of another August report by DIA pointing to a “violation to the station’s agreement.” Khanfar responded by saying “as a news organization, we can’t sign agreements of this nature, and to have it here like this in writing is of concern to us.”

If the non-coercive corrupting influence of government extends to foreign journalists, who make careers out of criticizing America, than what can we expect from our in-house media? Although, like, I can tots understand the need to massage our brand by removing images of the kids we’ve, like, mutilated and whatever. No biggie, though, I bet they weren’t even attractive to begin with. And their clothes? Like what label is that! Barf.

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UN Admits Wealth Creation Helps Poor More Than Redistribution

by Aaron on July 11, 2011

in Economics,Good Reads,Journalism

The UN’s Millennium Development Goals are development targets that aim to reduce poverty worldwide. Fair enough, everyone would like to see that result. The UN plan calls for massive cash transfers to poor countries, so poverty can be eliminated in a “sustainable” fashion. Don’t understand what that means? Give a man a fish, you feed him for a day…

Steven Edwards had a hilariously snarky article in the Ottawa Citizen last week, criticizing UN head Ban Ki-moon for burying the lede in his latest report:

Without too much fanfare, the United Nations admits in its newest report on the progress of the so-called Millennium Development Goals that wealth creation and not wealth redistribution is the main driver behind reduced levels of extreme poverty around the world.

Of course, the UN, being an organization that spends most of its time chastising rich countries for not transferring enough money to the developing world — the total last year came to $128.7 billion, the highest ever — is not quite so explicit with its admission.

Canadian with traditional War Paint

I did not realize Canadians could be so sarcastic. It’s a little unnerving, like being attacked by a rabbit.

But therein lies Ban’s dilemma: a key part of the UN’s solution at the time was to call for massive increases in overseas development aid — whereas the history of the world economy since 2000 has shown that poverty has disappeared the fastest in countries where business has expanded the most.

Hence, only later in the 72 pages of The Millennium Development Goals Report 2011 do we see that fact acknowledged with figures showing incredible reductions in poverty in Asia, where growth has skyrocketed, and dismal reductions in sub-Saharan Africa, where economies have only recently begun to pick up.

“The fastest growth and sharpest reductions in poverty continue to be found in Eastern Asia, particularly in China, where the poverty rate is expected to fall to under five per cent by 2015,”.

A commenter once railed at the idea that a rising tide raises all boats. Similarly, the UN report says that while last year marked the highest level of real aid (read, cash transfers) to the developing world ever, giving still fell far short of the MDG targets. The UN certainly has some chutzpah, staring at results and trying to rationalize them away must be exhausting. Steven Edwards gets it; aid doesn’t work.

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“We Have A One-Party System”

by Aaron on June 28, 2011

in Economics,Good Reads,Government,Journalism

Today Reason’s Matt Welch and Nick Gillespie released their new book, The Declaration of Independents, about how the libertarian “unpolitics” makes sense.

They appeared on Fox Business’ Freedom Watch, and Judge Andrew Napolitano kicked off the interview by claiming America doesn’t have a two-party system at all. If you don’t buy that, check out Glenn Reynolds archive of similarities between the last two Presidential candidates. The video below is six quick minutes of concentrated libertarianism.

For those of you in the area, there’s a signing party tonight at Reason’s headquarters. About half the WaCK crew will be there, so grab a drink, grab a copy of the book, and say hi!

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Media Shield Laws Don’t Apply to Internet Commentors; Amateur Bloggers Beware?

June 8, 2011

The internet has turned the media landscape on it’s head. America’s most trusted newscaster is a stand-up comedian. Great reporting happens in small, targeted markets, like Maggie Hendricks at Cage Writer, or Ufford at Warming Glow. A million people a day “ask for [Gawker] by name”, making them a legitimate media empire. Oh, and yeah, [...]

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Man-On-the-Street Reaction to Bin Laden’s Death

May 2, 2011

The guys at FreeThink went down to the impromptu street party in front of the White House last night and got this video.

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We Can Get It For Your Wholesale: Smarmy TV Wonks

March 29, 2011

As if we didn’t already have enough noxious, unintended side-effects from the growth of government, now we can add the epidemic of cable news commentators to the list. It seems that Media Matters, that little shop of horrors liberal imagineers, has an intensive training program for would-be leftist pundits. I thought professional talking-heads spawned on damp [...]

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How To Do Cultural Journalism – Anthony Bourdain in Haiti

March 16, 2011

Have you ever read a gushing review of a travel show? Travel shows are utterly predictable. Host goes somewhere, has an effusive reaction, eats some local food, lingering b-roll of natural beauty, rinse, repeat. Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations is not that show. Season seven (!) opened with a trip to Haiti, and the episode received [...]

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