Celebrities Aim To Put Name To Evil Face In Myanmar

"HITLER is alive in Burma" reads the words scrawled on a cardboard sign, held aloft by a sweet-faced Ellen Page, the "Juno" star, in a 90-second human-rights public awareness message that began showing on video-sharing Web sites last week.

The spot is one of 30 produced for U.S. Campaign for Burma, starring celebrities like Will Ferrell and Jennifer Aniston. They will be distributed on Fanista.com, a social-networking and entertainment retail site, then passed along to sites like YouTube and Google Video every day for the next month. The goal of the campaign is to thrust the cause of human rights in Burma -- now known as Myanmar -- into the orbit of A-list activist causes, along with Tibet and Darfur, and to encourage international pressure on a government that activists say is one of the world's most oppressive.

Attention will not be easy to gain, never mind actually pressuring the government. As with other global campaigns, activists must figure out how to make Americans care about a distant crisis with complex causes involving relatively unknown players. And they must also make themselves heard in the glut of worthy causes, all with a chorus of earnest celebrities crying "Urgent!"

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Comments

[Puller58]

Uh, haven't celebs gotten the memo? No one gives a rat's ass about protests about some third world country. Before all the howling starts, what do you want to do? We go into Iraq and whatever suffering the people went through under Saddam pales in comparison to what they're going through now. I know, lets disinvest from this terrible country. Eh, we have so much debt, they probably could disinvest our country. Oh but those poor people! And your plan is? Oh, you're so mean! Look, the world is a rotten place, and things ain't getting any better. It might just be that somethings just can't be helped. Why not just let celebs either donate all their moolah toward their pet cause or shut the F up? Thank you.

[protagonia]

Celebrities use the camera time to get messages out to those who might not know enough about the subject. It might be helpful. Telling them to shut up helps nobody. They are brave to do it. Attacking them for doing so is not brave, but the contrary.

[recless]

I soooooo hate to agree with Puller58, but...

Burma? They are black and they don't have oil. Sadly, they are doubly screwed.

[SamEllison]

Burma is located between India, China and Thailand in southeast Asia.
Maybe you have heard of the Burma Road or saw the movie?
Natural gas?
Read up, then come back and we will talk.

[robXdion]

Now if they could do that in their OWN country, that would be something.

[tkondaks]

You mean, if Ellen Page could do that in Canada?
That evil Canuck regime, as I understand it, is really suppressing their people. They should be released from the shackles of Canada's universal health care plan and, according to the U.N., the highest standard of living in the world.
Bastard Canadians!

[robXdion]

Yeah, actually since the Canadian gov't is trying to undermine our presidential election, that's correct!!!

[helen]

Now, if WE could do that in our OWN country, that would be something too...

[garbovatwins]

The artists of your world have it in their power to reshape humanity. Your world and your species is screaming for change, screaming for love and compassion, begging to be released from the grip of its self imposed greed and the horrors that inevitably ensue. Heal yourselves and your world. The universe is watching.