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The Yes Men in Finland
WTO INTRODUCES NEW MEMBER
Anti-WTO impostors have struck again, delivering a lecture about the
rights of slavery, the stupidity of Gandhi, and the supremacy of free
trade to an enthusiastic crowd of scientists, engineers, and marketing
professionals--all of whom thought they were watching an official WTO
representative.
The 150 experts at the "Textiles of the Future" conference in Tampere,
Finland heard one Hank Hardy Unruh explain that Gandhi's "self-
sufficiency" movement was entirely misguided, because it centered
around protectionism, and that Lincoln, by outlawing slavery, had
criminally interfered with the trade freedom of the South, as well as
with slavery's own freedom to develop naturally. Had slavery never
been abolished, Unruh said, today's much cheaper system of sweatshops
would have eventually replaced it anyhow; following this free-market
logic to the end, Unruh declared the Civil War just a big waste of
money.
Finally, to applause from the highly educated audience, Unruh's
business suit was ripped off to reveal a golden leotard with a
three-foot-long phallus. The purpose of the "Management Leisure Suit",
he explained, was to allow managers, no matter where they were, to
monitor their distant, impoverished workforces and to administer
shocks to encourage productivity--assuring that no "Gandhi-type
situation" develop again.
"If a group of Ph.D.s cheers at such crudely crazy things, just
because it's the WTO saying them, what else can the WTO get away
with?" said Andy Bichlbaum of the Yes Men, the impostors' umbrella
group. (The entire PowerPoint lecture is available at
www.theyesmen.org/finland/, along with some shots captured by
a video crew preparing a film on the Yes Men's activities.)
The Yes Men had a similar experience last October with a group of
international trade lawyers (www.theyesmen.org/wto/). And in
July, a member of the group, again passing as a representative of the
WTO, appeared on a major television network show about protest's
effect on the market (www.theyesmen.org/tv.html); among other
things, he spoke about how the privatization of education will
naturally eliminate "unproductive" thinkers from the high-school
classroom, a long-term solution to the problem of protest. (Because
the imposture was not noticed and the Yes Men hope for further
appearances, the show's name is being withheld.)
In other quarterly developments:
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Last updated: 10 February 2001 |
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