hi diddle dee dee, god damn, the pirate's life for me
Ok you guys, I know I normally try to keep my love life out of my journal, but I just can't contain myself: I am passionately in love with the Yes Men. It is a love that burns in a way that not even creams can soothe.

They traveled the country on a Yes Bush Can tour posing as Bush campaigners, getting Bush supporters to pledge to store nuclear waste in their backyards and sing the 'Smokey the Log' song (replacing Smokey the Bear--"We can't put a bear through a saw mill as we say"). They blasted hip remixes like Make Ya Booty Go Bush to the dancing delight of cheering audiences. All across America they were met with thumbs up, regardless (or because?) of the 30-foot oil-spewing rig on top of their bus and the giant inflatable missile reading "The End is Near". The power of satire didn't win the election, but it sure is fucking awesome. Oh, and they even did Republican Makeovers at the Republican National Convention to become special official delegate tour guides.

Other elaborate hoaxes of the Yes Men include giving keynote speeches as the WTO advocating one world culture in which the poor sacrifice for the greater good of corporations (to the applause of their audiences), 'Dow Chemical' on the 20th anniversary of the Bhopal disaster announcing on the BBC that it will take full responsibility for the 20,000 dead as well as the costs of health care for survivors and full clean-up (the most constructive hoax of all, in my opinion), and an older prank at a Bob Packwood fundraiser at which Dan Quayle was speaking involving a massive group vomit.

Smokey the Log!--"I say, let's go on into Yellowstone."


'Dow Chemical' takes full responsibility for Bhopal (and then 'Dow Chemical' quickly denies it saying their only responsibility is to their shareholders)


The 'WTO' on CNBC saying "might equals right" and advocating free market elections (buying and selling votes, yes!)


A golden leotard with a three-foot phallus, anyone?


Sweet.


I must say, I'm intrigued by the idea of wildly hilarious pranks that carry out sinister logic to its own extremes, thus revealing (hopefully) the absurdity of such logic when cloaked in slick/retarded rhetoric. I'd certainly be game for some pranks and shenanigans (my kind of social action). The only problem is, I'm not so sure what the funniest pranks accomplish (though I fully support nearly all forms of humor, even of varying degrees of redundancy). I'd be curious what you all think about this. Regarding the Bush and WTO pranks, it seems that only those agreeing with the pranksters 'got' the humor and its sentiment. Everyone else was just like, "Yeah! Using global warming as a weapon sounds good!" It also seems like their pranking is only effective when reported in the news as satire and explained--that the ideas of those engaged in person were only reinforced. Kind of problematic, nu? Then again, influencing the sway of public opinion on a large scale through media coverage (which the Yes Men say is very sympathetic to their cause) might be the best means. Anyway, the Dow prank is rather impressive because it both gooned Dow's despicable policy toward Bhopal AND presented a fully realizable course of action. Isn't public humiliation great?