No joke

Lawyers acting on behalf of Dow Chemicals have shut down the Dow Toxic spoof site set up to commemorate the 18th anniversary of the Bhopal gas accident.

Verio, the site's ISP, received a note from Dow's lawyers citing the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). Verio pulled the plug late Wednesday evening.

The Yes Men, the politico pranksters behind the site, say they wish Dow would put as much energy into cleaning up the mess in Bhopal as it's spent on closing down their site.

'It's really funny, but also really awful how Dow. . . and Verio can just put sooooo much energy and creativity into making sure this little image problem gets minimized, whereas they can't possibly be bothered to do something about the basic problem they're faced with: DEAD PEOPLE. SICK PEOPLE. TOXIC MESS.' [Yes Men].

The Dow Toxic site is still being mirrored at:
bhopal.doesntexist.com
dow.is.dreaming.org
dow-chemical.va.com.au

It's not only Dow that doesn't get the joke. The Yes Men's spoof sites specialise in stretching free trade logic until it reaches breaking point. But, mistaken for the real WTO, they regularly get invitations to give speeches at business conferences.

Even when they turn up and deliver their extreme trade-uber-alles message, the Yes Men don't always get rumbled.

The US civil war was a bad idea because the market would eventually have cleaned up slavery; Gandhi's ideal of village self-sufficiency was an inefficient protectionist measure; the Italian siesta is an unfair barrier to trade; Hitler's economic model had a lot going for it. . .

Mike Yes Man explains: 'The idea is that at some stage among your audience there’ll be some moment of realisation.

'Trouble is, there isn’t always. That’s what we’re realising – how much crap people will take if it comes from a person in a suit representing something official like the WTO.' [Ecologist].