A Time to Pause and Look Around

Kony 2012 is an amazing phenomenon and a heartwarming one. The criticisms have started and my reading of it seems to indicate much of the criticism is unfounded, well answered and mean spirited.

Over the last couple of years we have seen people take to the streets with the assistance of Twitter and Fakebook, although not because of as sometimes reported. The ‘Occupy’ movement grew out of outrage and on line connections. It grew most out of people becoming sick of waiting for governments to take action on things that the electorate said mattered to them. In my book that's not a bad thing, we can't expect or rely on governments to do EVERYTHING, we do have some responsibility to make things happen as well and then governments can follow with whatever needs to be done legislatively to support us. It is interesting to ponder upon how any of these historic achievements would have happened if not for social networking. Well, I guess the Vietnam protests of the 60’s did pretty well but perhaps not as efficiently organized.

In New York the headline stories in the news were a New York ‘madam’ with an appointment book which might have some interesting names and her ‘protection’ by the New York Cops. Followed quickly and breathlessly the next story was often something as salacious. We live in the time of the Kardashians having more pulling power than the displaced of Somalia. When the editors (and sadly the readers) find that more space worthy or valuable then is it any wonder ‘movements’ of the day turn to rather facile means of promulgating their messages?

I am thrilled that people are finding a voice and taking it to the streets in whatever form that takes. I don’t actually care which side of the political spectrum they come from, it’s important that people protest and speak out. We went for so long it seems to me, where the young particularly fell silent and the Baby Boomers became ‘too busy’ or too disinterested to actually look beyond themselves.

Imagine, just imagine if the man who is number one on the International Court of Justice ‘most wanted’ list is brought to answer the charges in Kony 2012 and simply because over SIX MILLION (as of yesterday) people took thirty minutes to stop and think about an issue.

Maybe there is a way, a new way to speak up. As long as something does it, as I always  say as long as we are having the conversations, that’s what will keep us going...together.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4MnpzG5Sqc