Coburn Say Yes!

So you may or may not have ever heard about Invisible Children. Regardless, here is the situation. The Invisible Children Movement is made up of Tens of Thousands of young people who have decided to take a stand in the longest running war in Africa. 24 years ago, Joseph Kony started a rebel group called the Lord’s Resistance Army (or LRA) in Northern Uganda. Joseph Kony thinks he is the Messiah, and is the most dangerous kind of revolutionary, wanting to completely overthrow the government to set up his own theocracy. And he will stop at nothing to get there. Since he started his army, they have abducted over 30,000 children and forced them to become soldiers. They have killed countless more. Those of us involved in this movement are lending our voices to those children. We want to give voices to the voiceless, hope to the hopeless, and show people the unseen.

For the past 7 years, Invisible Children has raised tens of thousands of dollars to rebuild schools in Uganda, helped to end the night commuting of children, helped to send people home from the displacement camps, raised the awareness of the situation massively, and put pressure on the American government to do what they can. At Invisible Children’s last big awareness-raising event last April, over 78,000 young people slept in city parks, on the streets or wherever, until someone of major influence came out and pledged to do whatever they could to help with the cause. The most poignant example, being Chicago, where they were not rescued for a week. The person who did finally “rescue” them was Oprah Winfrey, and allowed the group to have several minutes of airtime on her show that day. The result of that event was a follow up lobby day in Washington D.C. This lobby day is the biggest lobby day for Africa to date. The bill that was being lobbied for is now ridiculously close to being passed. With 217 members of the house, and 62 Senators all co-sponsoring the bill, it clearly has enough support to pass. Because of the intricacies of American Politics however, Congress has other priorities, and this bill will never be able to come to a full vote on the floor. That would normally be alright because this bill is very uncontroversial, but Senator Coburn, or “Dr. No” as he is often times nicknamed, from Oklahoma is blocking the bill from being passed since it appropriates some money. For more information on the technicalities of why Senator Coburn’s vote is so necessary you can go to http://www.coburnsayyes.com/faq

The bill is, as was previously stated, is very uncontroversial, containing a requirement for President Obama to come up with a strategy to apprehend Joseph Kony, and a very minute amount of money for programs already in place in Uganda, to help with the problems caused by Kony, and to help apprehend him. The Ugandan government, and those governments around the area where Jospeh Kony is hiding out, are strong enough to stop Kony, but they need the help of the USA to pinpoint his location and provide other intelligent/logistic based assistance. We are NOT trying to get a invasion force sent to Africa.

After all of the progress and headway we have made with this bill, ONE man, this Dr. No, is willing to keep the longest running war in Africa going. As citizens of the United States, we are coming together, and saying ENOUGH IS ENOUGH to Senator Coburn. What we need you to do is simply sign the petition here: http://www.coburnsayyes.com/sign-petition

You can learn more, or help out in other ways at these other websites as well if you have the time and are willing, but what is really important is that you sign the petition above.

http://www.coburnsayyes.com/take-action

http://www.invisiblechildren.com/home.php

Thank you for your time, and if you could simply sign the petition and spread the word a little bit, you would be doing me, Invisible Children, and the Children that have been affected by this situation a huge service.

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~ by perlj on February 12, 2010.