frank1569:
"And what's today's lesson? Creative civil disobedience can be fun and enlightening!"

I agree absolutely Frank, it makes us happier, ~even as we make 'their' job of wrecking the planet more difficult!

A definite win / win situation; let's do lot's more of this stuff, it does us the power of good! :)

A cartoon series by Robert Crumb, from the late 70's had a revolutionary guru / nutter called 'Mr Natural' often saying, "And don't forget to have fun while you do the Revolution kids!"

~~ I like that!

This would be hilarous if it weren't so scary. This bonehead oil men took it all too seriously. Well, what else can one expect in Dallas North.

arbeitmacht frei wrote (quoting a CEO, not his own words ;)

"We won't have to worry about people in the Third World as they're all going to die from AIDS."

doesn't that about sum it all up?

how long do we get to sit on the sidelines and watch these greedy fucks shit the world to death? probably until we drown in it.

"What amazes me is that the people fooled by the yes men hold powerful positions that affect the lives of people everyday."

Several years ago, the BBC floated a news program featuring interviews with the world's "Movers & Shakers", i.e., corporate CEOs, mostly US CEOs.

During the only "Movers & Shakers" segment that I watched, the BBC interviewer asked a US CEO something about corporate responsibility for the world's poor.

The CEO responded: "We won't have to worry about people in the Third World as they're all going to die from AIDS."

These are the people who run everything and who we're obliged to hold up as paragons of virtue.

"These people are wrecking the Earth and they're quite conscious of it". Really? Sounds premeditated. Like murder, maybe? The Canadian Police nabbed the wrong guys. Their day must surely come.

Imagine, the sponsors searched for something that would bring up the bogus site. What could they have been searching for?

here's the biggest joke: a room full of criminals who are guilty of committing very serious crimes insisting that these two guys get fined for trespassing...and they actually do get fined! Sweet irony!

to render- cook down animal fat, whale blubber etc. and use for soapmaking, oil lamps and candles.

So what do you think "rendering" of suspected really terroists is?

Hey, man, so why not. It's one step beyond cannibalism....haven't you read Cormac McCarthy's "The Road"?

How do you know for a fact what those candles were REALLY made of? Do you bbelieve everything you read?

These guys are obviously gifted social satirists. And I think we can all do this, in little ways. There's the folklore motif of the laconic bullshitting mountain man, liar's club, etc. in which you tell a massive fib to pull one over on a gullible audience. When that audience is the rich and powerful, you've got them in your hands like putty. Even if you can't affect policy change this way, that moment is clearly priceless.

"What amazes me is that the people fooled by the yes men hold powerful positions that affect the lives of people everyday."

Capitalist CEO's don't achieve their positions of power because they are smart. Some, maybe most are fairly dumb. They got where they are because they have much more highly developed instincts for greed and power, combined with an underdeveloped conscience.

What amazes me is that the people fooled by the yes men hold powerful positions that affect the lives of people everyday. Reporters use them as pundits without question which is why the yes men have been able to go so far.

Love the "yes men" . . .!!!

As for the OILY people they are really smart about really stupid things and disgusting people at their core.

These are our capitalists, folks!

Fascism is on the rise in the US, if only because it is so profitable.

I used ponder the meaning Auschwitz. I used to assume that it was about the genocide of the Jews, which, of course, it was. But was more than that. At its core Auschwitz was about Profit. Auschwitz would not have happened if not for Profit. In fact, Himmler didn't show any interest in developing Auschwitz until the German corporation IG Faben took an interest in it.

The Jews were exterminated because they were relatively wealthy. The Nazis had to kill those that they robbed.

Auschwitz represents a mindset of practical materialism taken to the extreme—rationality gone insane. The people get off the trains. Those that are too young or too old to work are exterminated. Those that can work are worked to death. After they are dead, their gold fillings are pulled from their teeth. Every bit of profit is extracted at the lowest cost. Zyclon B is used to kill them since that is the most efficient and cheapest way to kill large numbers of people. The camp receives payments from the Nazi government for each person it kills.

This mindset exists today. For example, sweat shops are organized the way they are because that is the cheapest way to extract labour value from third world workers. They don't gas the workers as in Auschwitz because that wouldn't be cost effective or make sense as there's nothing to be stolen from impoverished third world workers except their labor. When the young girls can no longer work, they're put to work in brothels in order to extract more value. If the workers were wealthy, had gold fillings in their teeth, ownership received payments for killing workers, etc., then these work camps would also be organized along the lines of Auschwitz. But they're not, so they assume a different form. Nevertheless, their logic is the logic of Auschwitz.

Auschwitz still exists….

Weiji2001,

Yes, Auschwitz still exists, or at least the mindset that engendered Auschwitz.

A Princeton University professor recently wrote a book entitled "On Bullshit", which according to the author's preface is a reaction to all the bullshit in US society which has become endemic.

The sad Truth is that if the Yes Men went "straight" with their gag keeping it within socially acceptable boundaries, then they'd just be ordinary marketing people. In other words, it's all a gag anyway in this non-reality based world.

They were invited to this event because the organizers believed their website was real??? (((SHUDDER))))

I wanna be these guys when I grow up. Or at least have them over to the house and fix them a nice dinner.

God I love these guys. If humanity survives, hundreds of years from now their names will come adoringly off the lips of our offspring.

Cheers for the yes men!
:-) :-) :-)

Maybe our business leaders in the US can figure out a way to make a profit by selling equipment for folks perpetrating a genocide. Never mind, they alreay did that to facilitate the Nazi holocaust (IBM, the Bush family financiers, etc). How about selling arms to warlords so they can arm fourteen year old soldiers in a bush war? That's done routinely, I am too late. How about running some power plants that poison the population by polluting the fish in the waters with mercury and other heavy metals and PCBs? That's been done for several decades now, and many species of fish, which used to be among the healthiest "brain" foods, are now dangerous.

Prem wrote "But then, so was slavery." Just want to point out that slavery still continues. Some Chinese slaves have made something you consumed today - maybe even your computer.

Long live slavery! They produce the tastiest babies. ;)

And what's today's lesson? Creative civil disobedience can be fun and enlightening! Imagine if, say, thousands of progressive "yes men" set to infiltrating everything GOP - orgs, foundations, think tanks, conventions, even taking jobs for evil corporations - only to set to monkey wrenching from the inside. Here's an easy way to start: head over to some of the crazywing sites - Little Green Footballs, Townhall, etc., register, and start posting comments a la Steven Cobert: you sound like a nutwinger but it's all a slam sham. Go covert, act the part, and then push all the wrong buttons. And don't forget your cell camera for the YouTube gig.

Why it amazes me after the long sad history of capitalist culture I do not know, nonetheless, it amazes me that our beloved tricksters were invited to speak at the oily conference BECAUSE their web site spoke of HOW TO PROFIT FROM THE HUMAN DIE OFF triggered by climate change--THE ONLY RECYCLE LOOP THAT SEEMS TO HAVE EXCITED THE OILY INDUSTRY! Ghoulish indeed! But then, so was slavery. so was the genocide of the indigenous of these lands. In all cases, it takes the collusion of the "common" man for the ghoulish culture to thrive in the face of humane conscience!

I love these guys! They actually get themselves invited to these events!

The oil execs slavering over the thought of harvesting human remains must have been quite a sight. Too bad Michael Moore doesn't have a tape of it. Shades of Soylent Green!

How can someone be invited to speak at a conference and then be charged and convicted of trespass? I understand that the organizers were not pleased with the presentation but that hardly sounds like grounds for legal action. Maybe you had to be there.

This is a good example of the out of the box kind of action that we need more of. The old marching in circles (with pemits . . .) is not particularly effective as it is easily cubbyholed and no one realy pays much attention to it. The Yes Men, Billionaires for Bush, Michael Moore . . . are much more effective. Unannounced guerilla theater intended to make obvious the absurdity and criminality of ruling class events is vital -- and can be fun!

Somewhere Dick Tuck is smiling and having a good laugh. Tuck for those of you who do not know it was the personal nemisis of Richard Nixon.

After the first debate with JFK, he hired an elderly lady to wear a big Nixon button and place herself in the crowd upon Nixon's arrival in Memphis for a campaign event.

After deplaning as NIxon made his way to the terminal she gave him a big hug and loudly proclaimed,"It's alright honey , you may have lost last night, but you'll get him the next time."

During Nixon's failed campaign for California governor in '62, while he was making a whistle stop speech from the back of a train, Tuck came out drssed as a conductor and flagged the engineers to get the train rolling. NIxon got to see his crowd disaappear into the distance in mid speech.

Surely the antidote to bull shit is levity!