Leonardo DiCaprio Uses Oscar Win Speech To Call Out Corporate Greed. And He Has A Message For You

March 1st, 2016

Awake Goy

Leonardo DiCaprio was finally given an Oscar for his achievements in the film industry last night. It’s not secret that many believe he earned an Oscar well before his recent role in The Revenant, but now he’s given us even more to talk about than this well-deserved honour: his opinion about corporate greed and politics.

I see Leo’s recent work in activism in the same way I see Bernie Sanders’ campaign for president: it doesn’t really matter what the motivation behind it is or what actions it inspires. What matters is the mere fact that people are being exposed to a new message. They are hearing something they need to hear and now is a crucial time for that.

Amongst all the candidates whining, name calling, and bickering back and forth during their bid for presidency, Sanders sticks out as a real, down-to-earth, truth spitting individual. Even if you don’t agree with all of what he says or if you have been misled by the US’ bashing of ‘socialism,’ you have to admit that Bernie is the type of person you can appreciate for not being a fake, calculated, robotic politician like we’ve seen for so many years.

Perhaps it’s just the younger generation who appreciates that, but then again, I think older generations are fed up and ready for change too. After all, how long can you really go seeing the same thing happen over and over again and still think we’re doing it optimally?

DiCaprio’s version of activism has come under fire because it is bringing light to a hotly debated issue — climate change. While it may be true that we can’t quantify the precise extent to which man is contributing to climate change, we do know that we are not taking care of our environment, and the levels of pollution and degradation we are seeing as a result are astounding.

I don’t think it’s important necessarily to argue over how much we are affecting climate change, because the essential question we should be focusing on is why we are destroying this place for the sake of greed and power.

When, as a people, are we going to stand up to this corruption and use our own choices and dollars to bring about change through who we decide to support as consumers and when we go to the voting polls?

Below is last night’s speech from DiCaprio after he accepted his Oscar for best actor. He draws attention to some very important themes that I truly believe people need to not just hear but actually act on. I do not want to see this as something that we talk about for 2 days and then forget about.

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Vote with your dollar! Choose who you support and make sure that, as much as you can, you are choosing to make the world a better place. I know it’s not possible with every purchase or every choice, but the majority of the time it is and it’s up to us to decide.

People like to say that if you don’t vote at the polls you can’t complain about the system. I disagree immensely with that, as we all have seen for years that voting doesn’t help change our system. What does is our actions and where we choose to spend money. So if you choose not to support change or a better world, it’s difficult to ask for them.