Yesterday was our official Call-In Day with Resolve. If you have not made your calls yet, though, you are not out of time. Resolve wrote a blog post encouraging people to continue the calls of gratitude. We say, “ditto.” via Resolve. I think it’s safe to say that Members of Congress got a few more calls than normal yesterday! Thank you to everyone who participated! BUT, if you didn’t get a chance to call your senators and representative yesterday, it’s not too late! Go ahead and call them today. What matters is that they hear, from as many people as possible, the same message– a hearty “thank you” for supporting the LRA Disarmament and Northern Uganda Recovery Act and a strong show of constituent support for the President’s decision to send advisers to central Africa. If you’ve already called in your support, then take it to the next level and reach out to them via Facebook or Twitter. And don’t forget to encourage your family and friends to make calls, too. Gaby Peguero lives in Virginia, and she made a phone call yesterday to her member of Congressman, Rep. Bob Goodlatte. This is what she wrote to Resolve about her experience: In a call to the office of Representative Goodlatte, I shared my gratitude for his support of the LRA Disarmament and Northern Uganda Recovery Act. The staffer on the other line responded by saying, ‘Wow! Thank you so much for letting us know. I will be sure to pass that on to him. We hardly ever receive any thank you calls….This means so much.’ It sounded like she was shocked to receive such a call, and she continued to express her thankfulness for it. I let her know that I wasn’t the only one who was thankful. There are quite a few other VERY happy constituents” See? Your congressmen want to hear from you. And your “thank you” will be a welcome change from the usual calls they get. - Azy ________ You can look up your representatives’ phone numbers on our convenient site here.
Today at 5 PM PST, 8 EST, we will be taking to our Livestream page to discuss everything that has occurred since President Obama announced he was deploying 100 advisory troops to Central Africa to assist with the LRA situation. We will be talking about the announcement itself, Rush Limabugh’s and Michele Bachmann’s comments, the next steps for our supporters, the White Houses’ reaction to your photos of support, and more. As if that wasn’t enough, we are going to be calling the winning team for this week’s trip to Uganda. We showed you the leaderboard yesterday, but a lot can change in a day with a race that close. The submission period officially ended at noon PST, so we have our winner. We will be announcing it live at the end of the broadcast. Get your questions ready as well (we know you have them), and submit them in the “Facebook” tab on the Livestream chat function. We’ll be answering them throughout the show. Join us at 5 PST, 8 EST to. http://www.livestream.com/invisiblechildren Clear your schedule. Seriously. We’ll be premiering new videos, offering gems of wisdom, and discussing how we are going to move forward from here.
ABC News have posted an exclusive interview transcript with President Obama, where he talks about the sweeping bipartisan support of this issue and the efforts of everyone “from evangelical Christians to folks on the left and human rights organizations” that put an emphasis on the LRA conflict. – AN-H On Friday we learned that President Obama authorized the deployment of 100 Special Forces troops to Central Africa, to help regional armies remove from the battlefield senior leaders of the Lord’s Resistance Army, which is known for committing horrific crimes as well as using child soldiers. Today in our exclusive interview with President Obama, I asked about the “process of agreeing to deploy troops in a situation like this where you know that these Special Forces might have to return fire and they might be firing upon child soldiers. How difficult is that as a decision to make?” The president responded that “none of these decisions are easy. But those who are familiar with the Lord’s Resistance Army and their leader, Mr. Kony, know that these are some of the most vicious killers, they terrorize villages, they take children into custody and turn them into child soldiers, they engage in rape and slaughter in villages they go through. They have been a scourge on Uganda and that entire region, Eastern Africa. “So there has been strong bi-partisan support and a coalition — everything from evangelical Christians to folks on the left and human rights organizations — who have said it is an international obligation for us to try to take them on,” he continued. “And so given that bipartisan support across the board belief that we have to do something about this, what we’ve done is we’ve provided these advisers, they are not going to be in a situation where they are called upon to hunt down the Lord’s Resistance Army or actively fire on them, but they will be in a position to protect themselves. “What they can do is provide the logistical support that is needed, the advice, the training and the logistical support that hopefully will allow this kind of stuff to stop,” he said. – Jake Tapper
via ABC News
Thank you for all of your hard work to STOP the LRA! We will! My children are from Uganda and we did a little happy dance at the news. I even wrote the letter on the back windshield of my car, just to get the word out, and support Uganda and my kids.
Thanks again so much!
- Marty, Kathryn, Deken, Faith and Asher
I don’t very often stand with this president, but I do in this case because we passed it without a dissenting vote. Every member in here, there is not one that voted against it. So let’s keep that in mind that that’s the truth about what is happening right now with the LRA.
- Senator James Inhofe (R), U.S. Senate General Speeches, 10/17/11
If you have not watched this video yet, it is of the most importance. It is our video reaction to President Obama’s announcement that 100 U.S. advisory troops are being deployed to Central Africa to help combat the LRA and remove Joseph Kony from the battlefield.
Watch the video, make your sign, e-mail us at president@invisiblechildren.com, then see the support on our Flickr here : http://bit.ly/pgFxob
The work continues. Thanks for being a part of this movement.
Hundreds of Thousands of Young Americans Applaud Obama’s Actions to Stop The LRA The comprehensive strategy taken by the Obama Administration to stop the LRA violence has been thoughtfully planned for the last year and a half following the passing of the bill. The military deployment today is just one piece in the overall structure of disarming the LRA and stopping their 26 year-long reign of terror and destabilization in the region. We have seen first hand the need for greater action against the LRA, which is why we strongly applaud this deployment today. Invisible Children Founder Jason Russell, was invited into the LRA’s camp in Garamba National Forest in the D.R.C. This experience profoundly shaped our view of the LRA and our commitment to see the apprehension of the top leadership and the rehabilitation of the abducted child soldiers. Right now estimates show that the LRA numbers are between 250-400 individuals. They are responsible for the abduction and murder of thousands. Their victims have been some of the most ignored and under-protected individuals in modern history, and America’s lead in protecting them is a deeply moving statement to the world. Specific and confirmed reports of incidents involving LRA violence can be found at LRAcrisistracker.com and a short video explaining the LRA and their origins and tactics can be found here. Combining last year’s legislation and The President’s actions in support of peace in Central Africa, we see an America poised to be recognized as a supporter of lasting solutions and stability around the world. The youth of today understand that when we think of human beings first, the economic and security concerns naturally follow. When we focus only on power and force, we breed a global generation with distaste and distrust of our nation. This bi-partisan issue has gained the support of Americans on all sides of the political spectrum. A driving force behind the legislation, Republican Senator Jim Inhofe said today: “I applaud our nation’s military for making this a priority and taking the steps outlined in our legislation that will eventually protect the children and people from Joseph Kony’s reign of terror.” This is a well-reasoned step in the right direction, and Invisible Children’s base of hundreds of thousands of supporters are celebrating The President’s action today. -Invisible Children Invisible Children Phone Number for Press Inquiries: 619-562-2799 Ben Keesey, CEO, Invisible Children. ben@invisiblechildren.com Kimmy Vanidvort, Executive Assistant, Invisible Children. kimmy@invisiblechildren.com Jedidiah Jenkins, Director of Ideology, Invisible Children jedidiah@invisiblechildren.com
Today’s announcement from The White House is a huge victory for the hundreds of thousands of young Americans who have been lobbying Washington to take action against the LRA. Over 230,000 youth have rallied three times with Invisible Children demanding action. This culminated in the LRA Disarmament and Northern Uganda Recovery Act that was passed with overwhelming support last year by both houses. It was the most widely supported African issue legislation in modern American history.
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