Danny Glover's Activism

Here's Danny Glover on activism. This article talks about his beginnings in activism in labor unions, his belief that young people are important to activism, and his idea that he wants people to make their own choices. He believes that if people get educated and get involved in the process, they create a world based on their vision.

Maybe, but will that world be a better world? I guess I'm more skeptical and pessimistic about human nature than he is. I'm not sure we can understand the issues or even when we understand the issues (global warming for example) we can get ourselves motivated and organized to do something good about it. Of course there are examples to prove me wrong (civil rights) but overall we seem to be on an irreversible downward trend.

Glover sees the big issues faces us to be inequality, exploitation, and global poverty.

Glover explained that he does not aim to use his celebrity status to encourage people to think and act as he does but to get people thinking for themselves.

"I want people to be thoughtful, intellectual and analytical about the decisions they make as citizens, informed citizens. And that is what I am here to talk about. What is the avenue? What is the journey we take to inform citizenry?"

"I happen to be, because of my background and because of my age, I happen to come up in a time when citizenry was taken very seriously. The citizens got up and did things, profound things," Glover commented. "Whether they were celebrities or whether they were just ordinary working people, men and women, children, young people too, got up and made a profound statement about how they wanted to be included in the process. That's all I want people to do."

Glover explained that once people get involved in the important issues of today's generation they begin to develop ideas about how to resolve the issues. As they grow more knowledgeable and formulate more solutions, change occurs.

"Once they are included in the process then they begin to have ideas on how they want to shape the process. And how they shape the process reflects on how they want to shape their lives or the vision in which they want to see the world, a vision of the world they want to create," Glover explained.