Who is the most effective celebrity "activist"?

[caulfield12]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...id=opinionsbox1

 

 

I thought of another one....Wyclef Jean.

 

Mark Zuckerberg, not sure if he counts as an activist or how to classify him.

 

Buffett and Gates? Ted Turner?

 

The point of the Washington Post article was that John Lennon directly confronted "power/government" instead of being "captured" by it....even putting himself under FBI monitoring and being threatened with having his visa revoked because of his Vietnam War stance.

 

 

Bono is not the only well-intentioned celebrity wonk of our age - the impulse is ubiquitous. Angelina Jolie, for instance, is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations (seriously) in addition to serving as a U.N. goodwill ambassador. Ben Affleck has become an expert on the war in Congo. George Clooney has Sudan covered, while Leonardo DiCaprio hobnobs with Russian President Vladimir Putin and other leaders at a summit to protect tigers; both actors have written opinion essays on those subjects in these pages, further solidifying their expert bona fides.

 

But why should we pay attention to Bono's or Jolie's expertise on Africa, any more than we would ask them for guidance on the proper monetary policy for the Federal Reserve?

 

True dissidents - celebrity or not - play a vital role in democracy. But the celebrity desire to gain political power and social approval breeds intellectual conformity, precisely the opposite of what we need to achieve real changes. Politicians, intellectuals and the public can fall prey to groupthink (We must invade Vietnam to keep the dominoes from falling!) and need dissidents to shake them out of it.

 

True dissidents claim no expertise; they offer no 10-point plans to fix a problem. They are most effective when they simply assert that the status quo is morally wrong. Of course, they need to be noticed to have an impact, hence the historical role of dissidents.

Edited December 12, 2010 by caulfield12

[HuskyCaucasian]

If anyone writes in Jenny McCarthy I will smack you

[BigSqwert]

I think people will answer this according to who has been in the headlines more recently. I picked Clooney since I just watched a dateline special about the work he's doing in the Sudan. I'm sure my answer would change 2 weeks later based on what I'm reading at the time.

[Balta1701]

Bill Gates. Because he's the only one with the money to back up anything, and money is all that counts.

[clyons]

Clooney has done a lot of good work with Darfur, and IIRC has testified before Congress and maybe the UN on the issue. I think its hard for good looking movie stars to be taken seriously on important topics, and he's more than overcome that "handicap."

Edited December 12, 2010 by PlaySumFnJurny

[Balta1701]

Clooney has done a lot of good work with Darfur, and IIRC has testified before Congress and maybe the UN on the issue. I think its hard for good looking movie stars to be taken seriously on important topics, and he's more than overcome that "handicap."

How much difference has any of it made? Everyone has vaguely heard of bad things happening in Darfur, but nothing ever happened about it.

[knightni]

Oprah does quite a bit and can convince a lot of people of just about anything.

[Balta1701]

Oprah does quite a bit and can convince a lot of people of just about anything.

ANd sometimes...what she chooses to use her power for winds up killing people.

[knightni]

ANd sometimes...what she chooses to use her power for winds up killing people.

Well, she was effective. You never specified good or evil.

[Balta1701]

Well, she was effective. You never specified good or evil.

In that case, Usama Bin Laden is clearly the most effective celebrity activist in the world.

[Reddy]

Warren Buffett

[SouthsideDon48]

I'd have to say Kevin Costner because of how he built those machines to separate oil from water and offered the machines for cleaning up the gulf oil spill.

 

 

[Texsox]

Palin

[knightni]

Palin

Just imagine all the children that she feeds with all the moose that she barely kills!

[ChiSox_Sonix]

Gates or Buffet because as someone else has said, money talks and money gets stuff done and they have a lot of it and donate a lot of it.

[clyons]

How much difference has any of it made? Everyone has vaguely heard of bad things happening in Darfur, but nothing ever happened about it.

 

My sister-in-law who works for Catholic relief services and his been on panels with Clooney's dad tells me he has made a signifcant difference in terms of their fund raising, and that the increased publicity he has brought to the issue has directly resulted in more aid. As for quantities and specifics, I don't have any.