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 the yes men
 to access audio and video on collective you need real player.Anti-corporate activists say no. Young go-getting capitalists seeking information on the World Trade Organization (WTO), may be surprised by the website, www.gatt.org (the WTO replaced GATT - the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade). Here the WTO admits that its “policies have led to increased poverty and inequality” among the world’s poorest countries, and plans to disband. Surely news to WTO members, who know for a fact that no such plans exist - even if their disastrous Third World trade rules do.This is the type of “identity correction” practised by the Yes Men, a small group of prankster-activists led by Americans Andy Bichlbaum and Mike Bonanno. They take on corrupt corporations and institutions by impersonating them – often almost too accurately. “Andy very quickly set up the GATT site two weeks before the big WTO protest in Seattle,” reports Mike Bonanno. “People didn't really read the website carefully enough and started inviting us to conferences.”  New globetrotting documentary, The Yes Men, follows just where some of Bichlbaum and Bonanno’s invitations lead. It starts with a Finnish textile convention where WTO spokesman “Dr Andreas Bichlbauer” rejects slavery – too much hassle with homesickness and racism – in favour of outsourcing foreign labour. He rips off his business attire to reveal a golden corporate “leisure suit”, complete with inflatable phallus-mounted remote surveillance system to watch over your workers abroad. The conference folk accept it without comment. “We were definitely shocked,” relates Andy “Bichlbauer” of his apathetic audience’s lack of reaction. “Not so much about what we said, but rather by the suit itself. We really were expecting all hell to break loose.” And if it had? “Hmm. We never really had a plan B...”  It’s inspired and amusing (another scheme outlines Third World McDonald’s meals made from developed nations’ recycled excrement), but can their work really hurt such all-powerful targets? “I'm sure they just think ‘phhfft’,” says Bichlbaum, miming a dismissive hand gesture. “But it is incremental. I guess what we’re doing more than anything is trying to spread information.” And now Yes Men stunts have prompted numerous copycat admirers to get involved. So are they becoming rulers of their own little empire? “We’re not really a hierarchy,” attests Bonanno. “We don't have much of a structure. Eventually we want to be providing a kind of toolkit that people can use to do these kinds of things systematically.” Young go-getting anti-capitalists seeking information can tune in and sign up here.
Leigh Singer
The Yes Men, on selected release 18 February 05.
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 the yes mentinseltown #99  the corporationfeature  fahrenheit 9/11feature  supersize mefeature
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