Jeez, this is terrible.
It's the stupidest. I can't...
It's an hour's difference. The time zone is different here.
Fuck. It's unbelievable. How the fuck can that happen?
Okay. Here.
Okay, there. That's done. Now what?
Okay. Got it. Okay.
Pull it up.
Okay, now let's get your...
A few years ago, we wanted to...
try to help out with some activist's anti-corporate activities.
And we heard about this website called rtmark.com.
And we went there, and they...
they handed us a domain name- gwbush.com...
and asked us if we might like to make a website
that was critical of George Bush.
Because George Bush's real domain name was georgewbush.com.
And this was 1999, so it was just during the campaign
when he was beginning to run for president.
And we didn't really know quite what to do,
so we went to Bush's website and looked at it.
And it turned out to be full of strange hypocrisies, like,
for example, he called himself "The environmental governor of Texas,"
but we looked a little closer at his record and found out
that he had actually created the most polluted state in the country
because he dismantled the Clean Air Laws while he was there.
And, actually, that's, I guess, what he's doing now nationally.
So we thought, "Well, this kind of hypocrisy
we can easily poke fun at by making a satire website."
And we made this satire website that looked exactly like Bush's
except for a few key differences.
Like there was a photo on the banner...
instead of him and his wife in front of the capitol building in Texas,
we showed him pointing the finger at black people.
And this seemed to get him a little bit angry.
So the Bush campaign tried to shut us down
by sending us a cease and desist letter
and by complaining to the Federal Election Commission.
But we were able to just take those threats
and send them to the media.
And immediately the New York Times wrote an article,
and there were a whole bunch of other articles.
In fact, one reporter read these articles and,
at a press conference, asked Bush,
"So, what about this website- gwbush.com-what do you think of that?"
So it was all over the place.
A lot of people read about it,
including a guy who had another domain name called gatt.org.
And, of course, GATT is the Global Agreement on Tariffs and Trade,
and it's the predecessor agreement to the World Trade Organization.
And he said, "If you could do this for Bush,
then maybe you can also do this for the WTO."
The WTO is supposed to be sort of a United Nations of commerce,
a conglomeration of all these countries in the world...
that get together every now and then to discuss trade policies
in how exactly goods will be bought and sold throughout the world.
I'm sure, originally, the stated purpose of the WTO
was to help these countries who are developing
so that, you know, the world community can help raise them out of poverty.
In fact, what it's done is it's allowed large corporations
to go in and exploit these people even further
so that Americans become even wealthier
and the people in these countries continue to struggle to get by.
And I think that's- at this point it's upset quite a few people.
So I gotta try and remember where Sal lives.
It's a little bit complicated. There's, like, this snaking road up over the hills.
And who is Sal?
Sal is a friend who I met in San Diego,
and he moved to L.A. to work in the movie industry,
and that's why now he does, actually, costuming professionally.
He builds, like, weird suits
out of pretty much any material you can imagine.
And so, when we needed a costume, I knew who to call.
Yeah, this is it. Yeah.
I'll maybe bring him his mail, actually, as long as we're at it here.
- Yeah-I don't like it. - Okay.
It looks too much like sex stuff instead of-it's not very modern-looking.
Remember, this is the future. This isn't about, like, straps and stuff.
That's like dungeons and torture in the past.
The costume is a manager's leisure suit.
And the idea is that Hank Hardy Unruh,
the representative from the World Trade Organization,
is going to go and wear this breakaway business suit
that's gonna be pulled off of him
during the middle of the keynote address to the conference.
And then a big inflatable phallus is going to emerge from this golden suit,
and on the end of it is a TV screen
that he uses to manage sweatshops remotely.
The reason we got invited to these things
is we have a website called gatt.org.
The gatt.org website looks a lot like the WTO website,
but it is critical of the WTO.
Most people, though, who find gatt.org
by searching for the World Trade Organization...
will go without reading it and will send us e-mail directly.
So a lot of people ask us weird questions about tariffs and trade,
and we try to answer as accurately as we can.
And occasionally invitations come in
from official or quasi-official organizations
asking for opinions or asking us to attend a conference.
And so, when they ask, they really think they're talking to the WTO,
and we respond by giving them what we think they want...
which is the opinions of the WTO...
as accurately as we can represent them.
You know what I'm thinking, actually, looking at this...
is that maybe this is a zipper.
Yeah! Yeah, yeah.
Then he just unzips it and pulls the thing at the same time.
- That could be really good. - Because...
to have it burst out of the Velcro, it might not be strong enough to burst out,
and then he'd have to pull it.
Part of the thing that gives us the courage
to go to Tampere... with this really absurd suit
is that we already went to Salzburg, Austria, to represent
the World Trade Organization at a conference on tariffs and trade.
There, our representative-the same guy who is Hank Hardy Unruh here...
was Dr, andreas Bichlbauer there.
And he gave a lecture that focused
on basically doing away with all customs in the name of free trade,
like getting rid of the siesta in Spain and Italy
so that business hours could be the same.
In Italy, on the other hand, you have a totally different situation,
in which sleep is...done during the day as much as at night almost.
And allowing people to sell their votes over the Internet to the highest bidder
so that the barriers to free trade and things like votes were out of the way.
One possible solution is being tested in the field of American politics
to streamline the grotesquely inefficient system of elections.
Vote-auction.com, in turn, employs only four people
to transmit not merely information,
but actual money directly to the consuming voter.
It's a-a forum for people voluntarily to offer their vote to the highest bidder.
And despite giving what we thought
was a lecture that would immediately get us booed off stage
or get Bichlbauer maybe even thrown in jail
because people would figure out he was an impostor,
the exact opposite happened.
Everybody was super polite.
It didn't seem like everybody even noticed that what he said was so absurd.
Well, so far...
...we thought Bichlbauer would be very extreme
and people would react to it and we'd get shut down,
and nothing of the sort happened.
So...this time we just have to really push it and make it totally extreme.
I mean, we keep trying to push things further
to try to really clarify the positions of the WTO to make them very legible.
It's one back, but this-this is good.
Andy.
It has a terrible siren.
I have to check the Web when we get upstairs.
Oh, my God. What are we gonna do about this...
we gotta watch the Patrick video.
It's weird stuff, isn't it?
That's one way of putting it.
It's really a problem.
It seems about the weirdest I've seen from him ever, I think.
It looks pretty good on this.
Yeah, it's all right.
What we have here is that we have our cyber Andy here
who's going to be wearing the suit.
And I'm going to be showing all the different ways
in which the Management Leisure Suit can be useful in industry today
and maximize leisure potential.
Sometimes I don't think they know what the hell to expect out of me.
What I'll come up with...
is frequently not exactly what they had in mind,
but it's...you know,
it fits in perfectly with what they're- what they're going to do.
Well, I came out of a corporate environment
and a company that I really gave, you know, a good bit of my soul to
over a long period of time progressively.
And there were a lot of downsizings and, of course,
the company I was with I thought was gonna take care of me.
And I realized that the bottom line is the bottom line,
and there really isn't any humanity in corporate structures,
so therefore I hope that maybe being part of the Yes Men
might, in some way, help raise issues about global work issues
and social issues that are being brought about by globalization, etcetera.
I grew up in the suburbs here,
and then I moved to Troy six years ago for a job at the university.
There's a place there called Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, and I teach there.
I was moving back home, really, because I'd been away...
I'd been on the West Coast for about 12 years.
Wait, what is this?
This is-it's this...
...SimCopter hack. Here it is.
I wanted to watch this tape 'cause this is the tape...
I've been cleaning out the archives, and I found this tape in there.
I met Andy through a friend, actually. A mutual friend.
Actually, two people that we both knew
suggested that me and Andy get in contact with one another
because we'd both done similar projects.
One of the jobs that I had was at this games company called Maxis
that makes SimCity.
One of the games they were making at the time was SimCopter.
I was in charge of the little people that run around in the game.
And I made them wearing nothing but swim trunks.
They'd all be boys, and they'd be running around kissing each other.
So all the people who ordered this very popular video game
suddenly were treated to a completely different spectacle.
So he got a lot of press attention for it,
and it was seen as a kind of- an activist kind of statement
about video games and the sort of macho nature of them.
It all involves the unexpected appearance
of some gay, kissing muscle men every Friday the 13th.
He's becoming a celebrity of sorts in the computer world...
especially the gay computer world.
And then I had done a project using Barbie dolls,
where we switched the voice boxes of Barbie dolls and G.I. Joes.
Troops Attack that Cobra jet with heavy firepower!
And that ended up in G.I. Joes that said things like, "I love to shop with you,"
and Barbie dolls that said things like, "Dead men tell no lies."
And we got them back on store shelves
all over the country in what we called our "Shop Giving Program."
We're like Santa Claus, only less radical,
because Santa Claus breaks into people's houses. We don't.
So that when kids got them at Christmas,
they were surprised to find their doll
saying something other than what they expected.
And the kids thought it was hilarious. They loved having these crazy dolls.
We sent out press releases,
so it was in the news on Christmas Day and for the week following.
It just went through every kind of media channel imaginable.
- The B.L. O... - The Mission of the B.L. O...
The Barbie Liberation Organization- the B.L. O...
It was real funny 'cause it looks like. "Come on, fight me. Fight me!"
- Except it says... - I love school. Don't you?
Let's sing with the band tonight!
Now we're-with the Yes Men,
we're calling that sort of basic idea "Identity Correction,"
like saying, these things...
these things that are not really presenting themselves honestly
or that hide something about their nature that's really scary,
we want to bring that out.
We want to show that. We want to demonstrate that.
And so, like for the WTO...
we think that the WTO
is doing all these terrible things that are hurting people
and they're saying the exact opposite.
And so we're interested in correcting their identity.
In the same way that an identity thief steals somebody's identity
in order to basically just engage in criminal practices,
we target people we see as criminals,
and we steal their identity to try to make them honest
or to try to present a more honest face.
And so...you know, I guess this whole thing
has its roots for both me and Andy
in stuff that we've been doing for a long time,
which is trying to create public spectacles that, in some kind of poetic way,
reveal something about our culture that's profoundly a problem.
That must be Sal.
- Oh, dude. - Are you okay?
I got fuckin' lost on that...
Oh, no.
It's been a long day.
Holy shit!
Well, I probably started it in June or July.
So, on and off for a good two to three months.
Just a couple more pieces of Velcro, and that'll really be it.
And, yeah, we're... at the end of the line.
Okay, look. So we're making a list here.
Wednesday we leave for Finland early,
so, Sunday...
make lecture.
Bigger? Oh, no. That's a big one.
PowerPoint... and then speech.
Finish.
It's 4:03 a.m., and I guess I'll just keep working until morning.
I feel...somewhat awake.
And then Andy can take over again.
We can do around-the-clock shifts, I guess.
I'm just trying to add a few slides into the PowerPoint here.
Because, actually, a lot of the things that business leaders of the world
say in relation to these issues are actually sort of very similar
to what Unruh Hank Hardy says,
even though maybe Unruh Hank Hardy is a little bit more frank about it.
And, in fact, when he talked to CNBC,
when he was debating,
an activist, Barry Coates, just sort of agreed with what he said
when he said that this is what the WTO does, and this is our position.
And Barry Coates said, "Well, that's funny. That's exactly right."
So...after Salzburg, we got an e-mail asking a representative of the WTO
to appear on CNBC MarketWrap Europe.
And the producer apparently didn't notice that gatt.org was not the WTO site.
And Granwyth Hulatberi, which is another name that Andy just came up with,
responded and, of course, said,
"Well, I'd be happy to go on CNBC MarketWrap."
And the producer wanted him to debate an anti-globalization protester.
If the WTO is serious about addressing the issues of world poverty,
it would do things completely differently than it is now.
Let me bring in Granwyth on that. Is that a fair point?
Well, of course it is, but I think Barry, as well as all the other protesters,
are simply, in a word, focused too much on reality and on facts and figures.
And I think I would have to say that this is a long-term problem
that comes down to a problem of education.
We have to find a way to convince perhaps not the protesters
but the protesters' children
to follow thinkers like Milton Friedman and Darwin and-and so on,
rather than what the protesters have been reared on...
Trotsky and Robespierre and Abbie Hoffman.
And I think that putting the direction of education,
being put into private hands...
a concentration of resources in the private sector...
will naturally lead to this result,
and we'll see the protesters' children being reared
with an entirely different set of concerns.
Let me bring you in on that, Barry.
Can-can I just say
that these kind of simplistic arguments
are really, I mean, too insulting to most people to believe.
The fact that we have a choice between Milton Friedman or Abbie Hoffman
for where we get our source of economic history and philosophy.
There are many, many thinkers from around the world...
just not those ones employed by the WTO...
that think the World Trade Organization policies are deeply damaging
for the development prospects of the poorest countries.
Let me go out to Granwyth.
Yes. Well, I wanted to speak to Granwyth-sorry-to Barry's point
that there are other thinkers.
Well, who actually has the power in the world, and so who is correct
in this kind of world view?
I mean, I think the answer is easy.
And if you look at the views held by myself, my organization,
and many, many of the decision-makers in the world...
the powerful people-they happen to coincide with what I'm explaining.
And I think this is enough in this sort of view.
Briefly, Barry.
So, I mean-what we have here
is a picture of the rich and powerful people believe a certain philosophy
which they then propound through the institutions
in which they have a powerful voice.
And I think this is exactly the model that is being questioned.
And, increasingly, what there is is a very large body
of people who are concerned about these rules.
The people on the streets of Genoa and Seattle
are not representative of the overall movement.
They are the tip of the iceberg.
We did a study last year that looked across developing countries
and found that in the space of one year, in 50 protests,
more than a million people from developing countries
were out trying to change the rules
that were being imposed on them by the World Bank and the IMF
and locked down through the World Trade Organization.
Thank you. We must finish. Barry Coates, thank you for joining us.
And also Granwyth Hulatberi and Vernon Ellis on the line from New York.
Section three?
Well...
It's not exactly a garment bag, but it's, uh...
...it'll work.
Yeah? You think this is very business-like?
It's like very official?
Very...very big money.
Okay, good. That's what I need. I need a big money watch.
So are you as nervous as you were for Salzburg?
The thing is, like, even with the Salzburg thing,
we went into it, like...
sort of-we went there really nervous, but the whole time kind of...
it doesn't really sink in till you're actually there.
Right.
Well, I think it's good you guys, from what I've seen of the speech,
it kind of starts out the most normal that it is,
so that he can get comfortable, and people...
he can sort of slowly work his way up into it.
Son of a fucking bitch.
Shit.
Yeah, do you have a rag? Fuck.
Shit. I have one that has shoe polish on it, but that's not right, right?
- The screen get a little paint on it? - Yeah.
- It sounds like a lawn mower. - It's a little loud, yeah.
- That's not good. - Forget it.
Look, it made a new noise. Good. Good. Good. Great.
- Is it great? - Try it.
It doesn't work now.
- Oh, listen! Yeah. - There it goes!
Gotta hurry!
Okay, ten minutes. They're both here.
Hey, Sal.
Thanks.
Good luck.
- We'll see how it goes. - Thanks for everything.
Yeah, sleep good. Have a good time here.
- Enjoy. - See you soon.
Move into my room. Have enjoyment.
Okay.
Is this everything? Wow. Look how efficient.
Okay.
Efficient. A model of efficiency right here.
You have some crap on your face right here. No, over here.
Much better.
We arrived last night.
You had to take a nap. You had to get some sleep.
I just crashed, yeah.
And I went and basically scoped out the lecture site.
There was a sign on the door that said, "Textiles of the Future,"
Unruh Hank Hardy was the first speaker-Hank Hardy Unruh.
And, you know, it all looked sort of official.
The coffee cups were out for the morning.
So I thought, "This is great. I'm all ready.
I know exactly where it is. We can go there."
I had a time- I set up a little timetable,
I got maps of the thing and all the updated conference information.
Came back here. Then we went to sleep early.
Hank was snoring immediately, but I wasn't able to sleep at all, really.
I just stayed there awake in bed
and occasionally I'd go in the bathroom and turn on the light and read brochures
because I was, like, just unable to sleep.
And eventually I think I fell asleep just before waking up.
Great.
So I'm leaving my wallet here.
Okay, let's go.
- Wait. - It's 8:00.
I think I really will leave it here.
Are you coming?
Hank, this is a little early to get up.
- It's all right. - I mean, I thought this was a vacation.
- Like what? - A vacation.
I know.
- I wanna go on a vacation. - They take me to Finland...
Let me take care of this egg for you. I'll just peel it.
That'll be nice. Thank you.
- But we're behind schedule. - Are we?
A little bit. It's after 8:00, and I really wanted to be at the venue at 8:00.
- Okay. - But we're doing fine.
- Is it after 8:00? - It is after 8:00.
Yeah.
You know, pretend like...
Great. We're early.
Oh, good.
Hello, I'm Hank Hardy Unruh. I'm from the...
- Oh, right. Nice to meet you. - Nice to meet you.
- We were expecting you. - Oh, good.
It's not 9:30-no. It's 8:30, right?
- But you will have a... - It's 8:30 now...is it?
It...is...it's 9:30, yes.
- Now? - Yes.
- Yeah. - The time is 9:30?
- Yes. - Yeah, almost.
- I'm on at... - It's 27 past 9:00 at the moment.
Oh, my God. We're an hour off.
- Oh, my God. Thank you. - You're welcome.
- Well, we have to-we start in three- - Anyhow, it was nice to see you.
Do they know that he's going on now?
Yeah-well, ...was expecting you.
- Oh, jeez. Okay. - Okay, we...
Are you coming, too? Have you registered?
I'm his assistant. We're both working with him.
We have to go take care of a few things now.
- Here it is. - Okay.
- Would you like to join the dinner? - Yes, please.
- Is there a fee, or... - No, it's included.
Okay. Yes, we'll- we'll join the dinner. That's great.
- Wow. - We must hurry, I guess.
- Yes. I will accompany you. - Please. Yes.
Actually, no, you can't go in now
'cause you first have to take care of that business.
We're an hour-we're... we had an hour off.
- I have to do something. - Yes.
He has to make a very important phone call right now.
- It'll take me five minutes. - Right now?
I'm sorry.
But you will have your presentation starting after two minutes.
Please tell them that I'll be three minutes late.
Well, there's a detail.
Jesus. Fuck. How come we didn't know that?
I don't know. That's really incredible.
- Come on. - Okay. Pick up.
Jeez, this is terrible.
It's the stupidest- I can't...
There's-it's an hour's difference. The time zone is different here.
It's unbelievable. How the fuck can that happen?
- Okay, there. That's done now. - Ladies and gentlemen...
Okay, quick, that shirt-the underwear.
The gold underwear.
Okay...
Do I have to put something through here?
- No. - Okay.
Need help?
- Your testicles hanging out? - Uh, yeah.
Okay.
Here you go.
Okay. Great.
Oh, God. Okay...great.
- It's got a little air in it. - Okay, now the pants.
Hurry.
Oh, hi. Nice to meet you. I'm so sorry.
Thank you. I'm terribly sorry...
Yes, I have my presentation.
Terribly sorry.
I think the World Trade Organization is supposed to know about time zones, but...
Somebody said, "Isn't there a time difference?"
And I said, "Nope. All of Europe, same time zone."
- So that convinced us all. - Me too.
We were convinced that it was the right time, and we woke up this morning...
And we were running five or ten minutes late,
and then figured out that the laptop wasn't working.
No, maybe we could switch the order.
Could we have somebody else go, and then I go later?
They said, "I think we can do that."
Then they called the coffee people and talked to the coffee people
to see if the coffee was possible.
That was it.
Thank you very much.
This one...
It's quite an honor to be here in Tampere addressing this audience
of the most outstanding textile workers in the world today.
I see on all the faces here today a touching childlike eagerness
to tackle the biggest textiles questions in the world.
How do we at the WTO fit in?
What we want to do at the WTO is help you achieve your dollar results.
And in just 20 minutes from now,
I'm going to show you the WTO's very own solution
to two of the very biggest problems in management.
One-maintaining rapport with distant workforce,
and two-maintaining healthful amounts of leisure.
This solution, appropriately enough, is based in textiles.
But how did workers ever get to be a problem?
Before unveiling our solution,
I'd like to talk a bit about the history of the worker management problem.
We all know about the American Civil War-at least in the U.S.
It was the bloodiest, least-profitable war in the history of our country.
A war in which unbelievably huge amounts of money
went right down the drain- and all for textiles.
By the 1860s, the South was utterly flush with cash.
It had recently benefited from the cotton gin...
an invention that took the seeds out of cotton
and the South out of its pre-industrial past.
Hundreds of thousands ofworkers
previously unemployed in their countries of origin
were given useful jobs in textiles.
Into this rosy picture of freedom and boom stepped-you guessed it...
the North.
Now, some Civil War apologists have said that the Civil War, for all its faults,
at least had the effect of outlawing
an involuntarily imported workforce model of work.
Now, this model is, of course, a terrible thing.
I myself am an abolitionist.
But, in fact, there is no doubt that, left to their own devices,
markets would've eventually replaced slavery with cleaner sources of labor.
To prove my point, please join me
on what Albert Einstein used to call a thought experiment.
Suppose involuntarily imported labor had never been outlawed.
That slaves still existed, and that it were easy to own one.
What do you think it would cost today to profitably maintain a slave,
say, here in Tampere?
Let's see...a finished clothing set costs $50 at the very least.
Two meals from McDonald's cost about $10.00.
The cheapest small room probably runs for about $250 a month.
To function well, you have to pay for your slave's health care.
If its country of origin was polluted, for example, that might run expensively.
And, of course, what with child labor laws here in Finland,
much of the youth market is simply not available.
Now leave the same slave back at home. Let's say Gabon.
In Gabon, $10 pays for two weeks of food.
$250 pays for two years of housing, not a month, at best.
$50 pays for a lifetime of budget clothing.
And health care is, of course, cheaper.
On top of it all...youth can be gainfully employed without restriction.
The biggest benefit of the remote labor system, though,
is to the slave him or herself,
because in Gabon there is no need for the slave not to be free.
This is primarily because
there are no one-time slave transport costs to recoup
and so the potential losses from fleeing
are limited to the slave's rudimentary training.
Since the slave can be free,
he or she suddenly becomes a worker rather than a slave.
Also terrific for morale is that slaves-workers...
have the luxury of remaining in their native habitat
and don't have to relocate to places where they would be subject
to such unpleasantries as homesickness and racism.
I think it's clear from our little thought experiment
that if the North and South had simply let the market sort it out
without protectionist tariffs,
they would've quickly given up slavery for something more efficient anyhow.
By forcing the issue,
the North not only committed a terrible injustice against the freedom of the South,
but also deprived slavery
of its natural development into remote labor.
Had the leaders of the 1860s United States
understood what our leaders understand today,
the Civil War would never have happened.
In a world where the headquarters of a company might be in New York,
Hong Kong, or Espoo, Finland,
and the workers are in Gabon, Rangoon, or Estonia,
how does a manager maintain proper rapport with the workers,
and how does he or she ensure from a distance
that workers perform their work in an ethical fashion?
I'm about to show you an actual prototype
of the WTO's solution to two major management problems of today.
Now, we all know that not even the best workplace design
can help even the most astute manager keep track of workers.
What you need is a solution that enables complete rapport with workers...
especially when they're located far away.
Mike, would you help me a moment?
Thank you.
This is much better. Much more comfortable.
This is the WTO's answer to two of the major management problems,
and we're calling it the Management Leisure Suit.
It's-the two problems again...
how to maintain close rapport with distant workers
and how to remain comfortable and increase leisure activities.
How does the Management Leisure Suit work?
Besides being extremely comfortable, as I can guarantee you.
Well, allow me to describe the suit's core features.
This...
This is the E.V.A....
the Employee Visualization Appendage.
It's an instantly deployable, hip-mounted device
with totally hands-free operation...
that allows the manager to see his employees directly right here.
Signals communicating the exact amounts and quality of physical work
are transmitted not only visually right here,
but directly through electric channels implanted directly into the manager.
The workers, for their part, are fitted with corresponding transmitting chips
that are implanted humanely directly into the shoulder.
But the other equally important achievement of the MLS
has to do with leisure.
In the United States, leisure- another word for freedom, really...
has been decreasing steadily since the 1970s.
The Management Leisure Suit permits the manager to reverse this trend
by letting him do his work anywhere
while remaining in complete touch with the workers,
physically sensing what's going on in the workforce, on the floor,
through channels implanted directly into the manager.
Again, the manager sees the employees,
but also feels what they're feeling
and can select where to focus in the workplace environment.
So, in conclusion,
I'd like to ask, is this a science-fiction scenario?
The answer is no.
Everything we've seen here, everything we've been talking about
is entirely possible today.
We can always look forward on the highways of progress
towards ever-new horizons
with cooperation and mutual delight in the fruits of prosperity.
I'm very excited to be here. Thank you very much.
Something we're trying to do more and more as...
I wasn't depressed by people not reacting,
I wasn't depressed by people just swallowing it and not asking questions
because I thought, "Well, that shows that you need some sort of control,"
because the WTO-me- can come in
and say these amazingly hideous things to this group of the most educated people,
like the top.1% education-wise people in the entire world
in a developed country like Finland...
these people all have PhDs or advanced degrees...
and you can say the most atrocious things
and nobody will really react and nobody will really care.
It's like, you know, what can't corporations get away with?
So, where are we?
Well, we're arriving in Helsinki right now.
We left the conference this morning.
It was just-it had driven us completely mad after dinner last night.
I thinkwe had our fill with dinner.
I had to actually leave a little bit early.
I went over to the table where Unruh...
Hank Hardy had to sit with the big men and eat,
and I told him that we needed to leave
because we had a telephone meeting with Mobutu Oblongatu immediately.
- Great. - Hi.
Sorry to butt in a minute,
but we're supposed to meet Manduka Djubango...
- Oh, God. - ...at 10:00.
And then we both started laughing,
which was really not convenient for the context.
So we left, and we just decided that, basically,
we couldn't figure out what else we could possibly do at this conference,
so we just thought, "Well, let's go to Helsinki instead."
So, this is the paper.
On the front page- I just discovered it...
it says there's a seminar at the university
and that somebody talked about controlling remote workers
with electrical impulsions.
And then you turn to the page, and...
...and that's what you get.
And this right here represents the World Trade Organization.
This...is the World Trade Organization.
I went down to these Mexican border towns in the mid '80s.
They were called "Maquilladoras"
when they had the first trade agreements
between Mexico and the United States.
And everyone was saying, "This is gonna raise Mexico out of poverty,"
and things were gonna be so great, and within ten years,
they'd all be driving shiny new cars in Mexico.
And I went down there and saw this...
the incredible poverty in these Mexican border towns.
Fifteen years later, I went back. Not a damn thing had changed.
Here's all these workers working for all these American corporations,
and you just go across the street
and you found people living in the same horrid conditions,
the same poverty existing.
And you had to ask, "Well, who's benefiting from this?"
Who benefited were these American corporations.
During the 1990s, they became even more wealthy,
they posted record profits- larger record profits,
and the people in Mexico just continued to suffer.
It was all a big scam.
Is this the one?
No. You got the wrong one.
Shit.
"Will WTO stand up?"
Oh, my God. It's got pictures. They're nice, too.
Yeah, they actually look okay at that size.
"Bichlbaum isn't... but he plays one on TV."
This is basically the core of what we do.
All of these newspapers and magazines have articles
on the Yes Men,
and this is why we are doing these things.
This is why we go and do these conferences.
It's not for the 200 people or the hundred people
that might see us give the lecture.
Although we'd like them to come away
with an interesting experience from the lecture,
the reason we do it is so that people who read Bizarre magazine
or the New York Times or Fortune or Harper's
can read about it in the mainstream press.
This is how millions of people could read about it
and potentially get turned on to some of the ideas of anti-globalization.
One of the problems with the Fortune thing
is that it's in this- well, Fortune...
it's read by business people and accountants and that kind of thing.
And that's exactly who we're supposed to be talking to in Australia in May.
It's an accounting conference.
It's a little... a little worrisome.
You need a new shirt? One that's not wrinkled?
Yeah.
Will that be good with your thing?
Do you think it'll work with your suit?
This one's extra large. Yeah, they'll all work with my suit. It's terrible.
- It's striped, though. Is that okay? - Yeah.
- Sure it's okay. - Why don't you go get a shirt, then?
I'll just get this. Wait. Oh, it's not very much cotton.
- How much is it? - I hate that.
- 35%? - It's 35%. It's like...
No, it's fine for...
It doesn't wrinkle much- that's nice about that.
I'll just wear it, all right.
The thing is, there's a question of whether he's...
at what point he recognizes you doesn't really matter.
What we want is that moment when he does recognize you.
So if he recognizes you here and sees that you're in the room,
then he'll be looking back and forth at you, at the screen.
At that point, if he recognizes you, we better say something.
No, I think it's down here, but I don't know.
It must be right down Morris.
Remember we walked...
It's on the end of this line here.
Thanks.
- Andy, hi. How're you doing? - Barry. Nice to meet you.
- Good to meet you. - Good. Great.
We're in London,
and we were just at the offices of the World Development Movement
where we talked to Barry Coates,
who's the director of the World Development Movement
and who showed up on CNBC MarketWrap Europe
debating our friend here- Granwyth Hulatberi...
about the prospects of WTO and globalization.
We kind of expected him maybe to have a glimmer of recognition immediately,
and he didn't-okay.
Then we put on the tape and...
he laughed at how horribly stupid it was,
but he never realized
that this wasn't really a representative of the WTO.
Even when he saw me like this right next to him,
and then we switched seats and he still didn't notice.
Then I had to put my face next to the thing and go...
Yeah, let's just pause it here.
- Okay. Hit stop. - Is there a pause?
- Stop button. - There's no pause.
I don't know what I could've said after that clip.
I mean...really...
"Where did they get this guy from?" might've been my first comment.
So did you ever figure out where they got the guy from?
I understood that he was in the External Relations Department for the WTO.
- That's what they thought, too. - That's what they thought, as well.
- But... - But...
- ...as it happens, he wasn't. - Yeah.
- In fact- - Just take one more close look.
Wait, can we-is this reverse?
No!
I wasn't gonna mention the likeness.
You were being very polite, weren't you? Yeah.
- Yeah. - You did it as a spoof?
- Yeah. - Yeah. Basically...
That's good. We weren't sure how you would react.
We were really hoping you wouldn't be too offended. We were like, "Oh, no!"
Hell, no. That's great. That's really...
I was wondering, 'cause I hadn't seen that guy before,
and I did know some of the WTO External Relations people,
and I was thinking, "My God, they really put up a right one this time."
We wanted to talk to Barry Coates as well
because he has a lot of statistics and information about globalization
that we thought would be useful for the lecture in Australia.
All of the WTO agreements bar one
are all about restricting what governments can do.
And so, essentially, the whole trading system is built on the premise
that the companies trading internationally, investing internationally,
are going to be preyed upon by nasty governments.
And, really, what we have
is an international system that is entirely the reverse.
What's got squeezed out of the system
is democracy, is development, is environment,
is the kind of human values
which really ought to be the center of what we're trying to do.
We don't live to trade, you know.
We live to have decent lives.
And that ought to be the goal of our trade policy,
not maximizing trade or getting rid of any impediments to it.
Looks good. I've got that.
Need to get the video...
...and we'll be off.
Let's see...
One of the big reasons why I'm up here
is that we have the Australia gig for the Yes Men.
I did an animation about the recycling of post-consumer waste
into hamburgers and fast food.
So...here we go.
The answer to the world's sustainable food future is in recycling.
Since over half our nutrients taken in are eliminated,
valuable resources are at risk.
By using post-consumer waste, reBurger allows essential nutrients
to be offered to developing countries for greatly reduced cost.
Okay...
It gets better.
- Wait. - What was that?
- Was that in outer space? - What the hell was that?
I think it does the job. I think it does the job.
We're here in New York because Herb Alpert,
of Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass,
gave us this award.
A bunch of money to do the kind of stuff that we do.
So we had to come here and have dinner with him
and get the money and thank everybody.
It was very nice and very surprising.
But we're very pleased. I think we can say we're very pleased.
Yeah, it was a big chunk of money.
It's gonna bankroll a lot of future activities like going to Australia.
Yeah, so we got this chunk of money but,
of course, now we're also using this opportunity
and this hotel room here in New York to meet up with Matt
who's been working on the PowerPoint presentation for Australia,
and to meet up with Patrick
who's been working on animations for Australia as well.
Fortunately we were lucky, too, because Snafu was in town.
He's sort of a European Yes Man.
He's been circulating in the European scene
doing Yes Men-type activities.
But it's a good thing he's here in the States
so he could go to Plattsburgh with us.
Yes, trade liberalization is a religious undertaking.
A project of faith, a crusade of sorts, and it has been
ever since its founders declared that financial success comes from God
and that wealth is a sign of divine favor.
Now, why is starvation a problem? First, the facts.
As we all know, investment and exports have been on the rise...
There's some bad news.
There's some really bad news that came down in the last two days.
The conference in Australia...
the people from the conference in Australia wrote an e-mail
saying that the conference has been canceled because of low enrollment.
In some ways it's really kind of, I guess,
a nice thing that there was underenrollment
because it was really a hideous conference
and it seemed like a really dire thing
that people would actually want to go to that thing.
And so, it's really encouraging for humanity
that the conference actually has been canceled.
But at the same time, it's really made things difficult for us.
So I wrote back to them as Hildegard West
and I asked them if they would please set up another venue
because Kinnithrung Sprat is already en route to Australia.
So right now I'm waiting to see if they come back to us
with a suggestion that they'll actually have a public presentation,
but since the conference has been canceled,
now the event in Plattsburgh might be the only venue we have for this lecture.
So it's really important now that we get the lecture done and sort of together.
So it's no longer a dress rehearsal. It's actually, like, the final production.
It's about time.
I was so worried about your shoes.
This guy brought real shoes for you. Look.
Do we have the hamburgers yet?
- We have to pick them up. - You mentioned...
They're ordered. Richard ordered them already.
- That's fantastic. - We pick them up?
Basically, there's this guy named Richard Robbins who I met
at a conference about a month ago,
and he has written several books on globalization.
He was interested in having the WTO
come speak at the Economics Department.
Only he really knows that this isn't really the WTO.
Everybody else will think that it's the WTO.
But another good thing is that it will be a hungry audience,
so there's a good chance they are going to eat those hamburgers,
which we weren't sure was actually gonna happen
with the accountants in Australia.
I think, for look, I should probably carry these in.
Okay. Can you do it?
I'm thinking that you probably shouldn't be associated with the hamburgers.
Okay.
I'd like to thank everybody for coming.
You have many education choices, and we're all grateful at the WTO
that you have chosen to listen to us for an hour
and to our messages about things that will impact everyone.
I'd like to say that, by joining us here,
you're essentially embarking with us on a mission.
I'd like to start right at the beginning.
As I was saying,
trade liberalization is a project of faith; it's a crusade.
And in any crusade, there are problems.
There are invading armies, there are big blockades.
And one of the problems that we run into in this crusade
is starvation in the Third World.
You may recognize that symbol from those green bins you see...
where cans, bottles, blah, blah.
The kind of recycling I'm talking about that we have developed at the WTO
is...not-not really this irrelevant kind of recycling
where the target- individual consumers like you and me
or of non-edible industrial products- is such a tiny part of the problem.
Rather, we're talking about really recycling what counts where it counts.
To begin to understand the theory behind this,
you must first realize that the human body is not really very efficient.
When ingesting heavy foods, only about 20% of the nutrients
are absorbed by the alimentary passageway
while the other 80% finds itself expelled in post-consumer byproducts.
Already 20 years ago,
NASA scientists began to tap into this nutritional gold mine
by developing filters that could transform their astronauts' waste
into healthy, hygienic, and even delicious food once again.
With the use of this technology,
a single hamburger, for example, can be eaten more than ten times,
providing a cumulative total of three times the nutritional value
of the original fresh hamburger.
Now, again, a certain amount of cultural openness is required
as we investigate solutions.
And I'd love to take any questions.
Yes, you've been...
Coming from a Third World country,
I found most of what you said pretty offensive.
It's as if everyone is equal, but some are more equal than others.
And...who is to say
whether people in the Third World want a burger?
You know, I, in my heart, sometimes find it to agree
that cultures deserve an equal consideration
perhaps to develop on their own terms,
but we're different.
We're culturally different. We're rich, they're poor.
This is the most humane solution we can come up with
that stays within the market logic.
If it's all right, I could answer a portion of that question, as well.
And this answers the question about desire for the product
because the biggest growth areas are the developing world.
And so, in fact, people do want the product.
We do have a kind of video presentation about this that I came prepared to show.
It's not-the program isn't actually completely ready yet.
So, as you can see here, there's a consumer in the First World
entering McDonald's and consuming a hamburger.
And, afterward, this is the process we're all familiar with.
I don't need to explain it to anyone.
But...
You see, it's rendered out in this style
because studies have shown that consumers are most responsive
to 3-D animation right now, particularly in developing cultures.
So, as you can see, it goes through a piping system,
and this isn't unusual.
We do this for oil. We could do this for food, as well.
And, as you can see, it goes back up through the plumbing...
and emerges in a McDonald's.
Now, the part of this video that isn't completed yet is the filtering process.
There will be a very well-rendered filtering...
As you can see-this might answer somebody's question from before,
but at the McDonald's in a developing country
and, in fact, in this country as well,
you would be able to choose- the number one, number two,
number three, number four, number five
would no longer refer to combinations of food,
but rather just the number of times the product had been recycled.
We're lucky to be able to partner with the World Trade Organization which,
you know, has slightly different goals.
Of course, McDonald's goals are to profit and grow,
and we hope that we can provide
a nutritious and tasty product in the process.
Our goals are to help McDonald's profit and grow, and all other corporations.
I think you guys- like, the WTO...
is kind of lacking kind of, like, a human element, you know?
Like...if you saw- have you ever seen starving people?
In pictures. Yes.
So, tell me, if you saw somebody starving to death,
you would probably think a lot...
like, that would kind of hit you in a sensitive place to say,
"Oh, maybe markets and money and this and that don't really mean as much,
and, actually, feeding people means a little bit more."
Well, it is true that there's a personal side of it that...
I have to say, in the WTO
there are questions that we have about this as human beings,
but we're not as subject...
we have a kind of firmer grasp on theory.
We are able, fortunately,
to simply direct world trade in a much more theoretical way...
in collaboration with our colleagues at the largest corporations.
So...you know. Yes, probably, if I went to these countries,
I'd feel...I'd think about things a little differently, perhaps.
But, at the same time, I don't think I would forget all my schooling.
I don't think I would forget all these theories and so on.
So, perhaps one day I'll do that.
This is a money-maker, correct?
Yes. Well, it's a money-maker, starvation-solver, sure.
How much did McDonald's pay you to come here and speak this garbage to us?
Did I see a mouse with an ear growing out of its back?
How are you going to get around the cultural and legal implications
of cannibalism and basically asking us to recycle shit?
The reality is that we already treat people in the Third World
far worse than we treat our domestic animals.
That's-that's not saying it's right. It's just saying that's the reality.
Well, after thinking about it for a little while,
it seems the Plattsburgh lecture just went great,
and it went exactly the way we originally expected these lectures to work,
which is that, at a certain point, it was like a light bulb's going off
in the heads of the different people in the audience,
and they were realizing that it was just too crazy to be real,
and yet it was sort of based in reality.
So, you know, they started throwing globes at us,
they got angry, they got frustrated.
It worked exactly like we thought it would.
They don't ask if you believe in it.
You don't get to vote on World Trade Organization treaties.
They don't let you vote on it. They don't give you a say.
They let you listen to the one-sided propaganda.
Name me a single columnist in America who doesn't stand up and cheer
under the banner of so-called free trade.
There's no public discussion,
there's no dissent in any of the political parties.
There's no debate, there's no discussion, there's no vote.
In fact, the only nation which has called for a vote is Brazil,
which is saying that it will not sign any more trade treaties
without a plebiscite of its people.
And the world trade barons are losing their damn minds
trying to prevent this type of democracy from spreading planet-wide,
'cause once people know what this stuff is about and get to vote on it,
no one's gonna vote themselves into poverty.
Here we go. "Australia country code."
Australia, 61. It's 61.
Sixty-one.
Hi, this is Kinnithrung Sprat from the WTO.
- Hello, how are you? - Good, thanks. How are you?
- Where are you now? - I'm in New York at the moment.
- In New York, are you? - Yes.
Kinnithrung Sprat just called the person who's coordinating Sprat's visit.
I'm due in Hong Kong the week after this,
and that date is firm,
but my travel to Australia is as yet not firm. Yeah.
She's actually, it turns out, been e-mailing all these people
and basically calling journalists
and getting people to attend his lecture.
She fully expects him to attend because she had spoken to Hildegard West,
Sprat's assistant, and Hildegard West had told her
that everything was on and Sprat was definitely going.
So now we've just decided we really have to go
to honor this arrangement with Australia.
So it's back on now after we totally thought it was off.
And instead of giving this lecture that we've been planning for, like, nine months,
we're gonna, like, you know, just disband the WTO.
Shouldn't we get you a pair of shoes that actually are reasonable?
They just don't look like dress shoes. They look like wrestling shoes.
There are no shoes here for you. Never mind.
No. Shoes are out.
A tie.
Around, then...
Wait-did you try this?
Yeah.
I did a set of these with inkjet, and they just don't look as real.
Something about them. They look...
- These look perfect. - ...kind of handmade.
I printed off some letterhead for you.
- Nice. - You guys already saw that.
- And I just kept it real simple... - It's perfect.
...so that it would show up well on the fax.
That is the most ridiculous photo.
There's something really weird about this maniacal public relations guy.
- A little magnetic strip on the back. - A logo of the WTO.
Really beautiful.
You know what I did? I went to Google...
and I went to Google image search and I typed in, "I.D, card."
And you wouldn't believe the number of pictures of I.D, cards
that show up on the Web.
And I just went through and took a little bit from each one.
I said, "All right, this one's got a little bar code at the bottom,
and this one uses the logo over here."
That is so nice.
- I know. - Wow, airplane.
Where's the rental car area?
No, I don't know. I'm just really nervous
'cause this feels different from all the other things that we've done.
It's not like the same kind of play, fun, crazy, weird, impossible stuff.
This is sincere, you know.
It's about replacing the WTO with something better.
- Do you think that satire is more fun? - Yeah, definitely.
I got this feeling that it's- for some reason...
maybe it's less fun to be sincere.
But it is less fun, isn't it?
In a way, yeah.
Maybe it's more fun to be satirical than serious.
Yeah.
It's about 9:00 in the morning,
and this is the big day for Kinnithrung Sprat
to go talk to CPA Australia
and close down the WTO.
It's kind of an exciting day for us 'cause we finally get to shut it down.
I'm writing the local phone number for this cell phone on the business cards.
So if we give these to journalists or anybody else
who wants to contact Mr. Sprat-they'll be able to do it in the next couple days.
We have to leave in ten minutes, though.
I know.
I'm just gonna do as little as possible.
Okay, let's just go by there. We have some time yet.
Let's just keep walking. Just walk straight.
Don't look. Don't turn left. Don't...
Hey, no. Don't. Don't do that.
Answer it.
Hello, Michael Bonanno here.
Hi, Jane. How are you?
All right, then. I guess we'll see you in just a few minutes.
And we just come up to level three, then?
Great. Thank you very much. All right. Bye-bye.
Run!
Oh, wait. Shit! This is the building!
- Thank you for coming. - Thank you for having us.
Sorry for the confusion and problems and everything else.
It's to be expected these days, I think.
No. Thanks for going out of your way to arrange this. This is really terrific.
Thank you all for coming. I'd like to...
I'd like to thank the organizers for going out of their way
to create this panel, this luncheon,
in the face of some odds-the conference having been canceled, of course.
And I'd especially like to begin
by apologizing for a rather sudden change in the program,
consequent upon a rather dramatic development in Geneva yesterday.
I originally intended to transmit today an upbeat report
on some new technologies that affect agribusiness in a global sense.
Instead, I find myself the messenger of some rather disturbing news.
The WTO will be issuing a public statement
in detail by the end of the week.
But the die has been cast.
As of September 2002,
having seen the effects of policies
whose only intent was to bring greater prosperity and peace,
the World Trade Organization, in its present form, will cease to exist.
Over the next two years,
we at the WTO will endeavor to re-found our organization along different lines,
based in a different understanding of the purposes of world trade.
The new organization will have as its foundation and basis
the United Nations' Universal Declaration of Human Rights,
upon which we feel we can make a good foundation
to ensuring that the organization will have human
rather than business interests as its bottom line.
My reaction was one of total surprise.
We were expecting a speech more based
on what the World Trade Organization does in its relation to Australian trade.
It sort of blew me out of the water when the announcement was made
that the World Trade Organization is significantly reinventing itself
to focus on issues relating to people as opposed to economics...
something that hopefully could be of significant benefit
to the poor and needy throughout the world in all developing countries.
The U.N, estimates that poor countries- the poorest countries in the world...
lose approximately $2 billion a day because of unjust trade rules,
many of them instituted by our own organization.
And this is 14 times the amount
that they receive in aid from developed countries.
I thought the speech itself was compelling in terms of its information.
I was astounded to find that they're actually gonna dismantle the WTO.
I was also amazed to see that there was a mission that perhaps had failed.
It's gonna have a huge effect on international business
and particularly for us as an organization, I feel.
The hardest thing, I find, will be the balance that, let's say,
the U.S., E.U., and Japan...
in terms of being major components of the world economy...
the effect-will they really change in terms of this new organization,
and will there actually be genuine change
and perhaps a benefit to the world's poorest countries?
I must admit I'm a cynic with regards to that occurring.
Liberalization- the process of liberalization
often enables the knowledge of the poor
to be converted into the property of global corporations.
Specific statistics are rather shocking.
Out of 26,000 patents applied for in Africa in 2000 and 2001,
only 31 were from residents of Africa.
The rest were from residents of first world countries.
31 out of 26,000 patent applications.
It wasn't what I was expecting.
I was expecting something on agribusiness
and what the World Trade Organization does.
But I'd have to say I believe it's fairly positive
because I think that, as the gentleman said,
the strong are getting stronger, and the weak are getting weaker.
And you can't let that keep on going.
Even we notice it here in Australia
with some of the trade arrangements that are made.
If you're powerful, you can get whatever you like,
and if you're not, you can't.
The world, with the population we've got, can't keep going that way.
So I think it was fairly positive,
and I think it's a very brave decision by an organization
to admit that they've been going down the wrong track and dissolve themselves
and start to look for something different. And I think it's fantastic.
Disparity is growing between rich and poor.
The richest fifth have 80% of the world's income,
and the poorest fifth have 1 %.
This gap-we all know this figure,
but we don't always remember that this gap has actually doubled since 1960.
More and more thinkers are therefore noting
that there is no evidence that liberalization favors growth
or benefits the poor.
I think we're all generally aware of increases in poverty
and low living standards and issues faced by developing countries.
And what Mr. Sprat had to say today really is a terrific sign of hope
for what I think we all aspire to,
and that's a global economy that benefits all people.
Now, after protected, protracted, and detailed review
of current trade policy, the World Trade Organization has decided
to affect a cessation of all operations
to be accomplished over the next four months
culminating by the end of September...
Well, I think that the Yes Men
have kind of played out their course
in relation to the World Trade Organization for the moment.
You never know when we might get another invitation.
We were lucky to be able to provide a sort of sense of closure by ending the WTO.
We also hope that other people will just start doing the same things
in all kinds of different contexts...
impersonating whoever holds power that needs to be criticized.
So if the opportunity arises, we're just gonna keep doing it.
We're gonna go and... be the Yes Men again,
or I should say, be the WTO again in another event.
The future's bright for the Yes Men.
The future of the world is a different story.
No, this isn't the way he usually dresses.
He works for the World Trade Organization-you know, the WTO.
He works- see, we're at a conference,
and he's demonstrating a new kind of technology.
This is-well, it's a device to measure employee working
in less developed countries.
There's a thing here where...
on this screen I can see...
See, he watches people working there.
And they have little devices that give them shocks.
It's just regular fabric.
In the future, it'll be sensitive-smart fabric.
It's a little hot, but...
That one looks better.