Jason Russell gone Nuts

Jason Russell, age 33, was arrested this past weekend for disturbing the peace and public intoxication.  Jason Russell is the co-founder of Invisible Children and the creator of recent internet video “Kony 2012”.  Mr. Russell’s group aims towards stopping an African Warlord named Joseph Kony from kidnapping and enslaving young children for his personal army.  The 30 minute video about the Warlord and the movement to stop him was aired online and reached over 80 million viewers.  Many viewers responded in a negative way towards the video which apparently upset Jason Russell.  Jason Russell was reported to have been running through the streets in his underwear and banging on the sidewalks causing all kind of disturbance.  Police reported that he was extremely dehydrated and malnourished, there was no evidence of drugs or alcohol.  Russell’s wife stated he was very stressed out over the negative feedback to a matter that was very personal and endearing to him.  His stress was supposedly what caused him to “breakdown” and resulted in these unfortunate actions.  Russell had been sent to receive help from a mental center and is to be released this week.  The film maker had sought to reach the public on a very tragic event that he takes personal because of a friend he made in Africa who lived first hand under Joseph Kony.  The video seeks to make Kony the most widely known man in hopes to convince the U.S. government to send aid to Africa in finding and stopping the Warlord.  Russell’s organization has been running for several years and the “Kony 2012” video recently was published and quickly spread via internet social connections such as Facebook.  The video almost backfired in that many viewers felt it diminished the true facts of Kony’s reign and that many viewers just didn’t seem it be very factual.  The video is on a very touchy subject which causes a lot of controversy.  The outburst of negative comments is something that Russell will need to learn to accept and deal with if that is truly what caused his outburst.  He can not expect to persuade everyone nor can he expect to receive all positive feedback.  The filmmaker’s actions were very unfortunate and may hurt his cause.