Subscribe to Dollars & Sense magazine. Recent articles related to the financial crisis. Scurrilous Videos Besmirch Davos ForumFrom the hilarious Yes Men. Coincidence: the last time I saw Howard Zinn was at a screening of their film The Yes Men Change the World. He was a fan.FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE January 28, 2010 Scurrilous Videos Besmirch, Enrage Forum, Leaders, World Videos threaten very existence of WEF * Close examination of fake website reveals outrageous, elaborate subterfuge * Videos may be viewed here or downloaded * Lefty filmmakers mainly to blame * Contacts: scurrilous@theyesmen.org, 310-780-4008 In a series of diabolically stupid video manipulations, a cabal of anti-poverty filmmakers have performed an elaborate slander of the World Economic Forum, showing its "leading lights" taking a dramatic departure from the litany of meaningless pledges they usually make at the annual gathering in the Swiss resort town. In response, WEF spokesperson Adrian Monck could barely contain himself. "The only defense to satire is common sense!" he sputtered, before racing back into the WEF war room to deal with the burgeoning crisis. Fortunately for the WEF, few media outlets picked up on the WEF's fantastic but fictional approach to world poverty ("World Leaders Pledge Strategy to End Poverty Now"). Instead, the media was dominated by coverage of a real WEF press release warning of "Over Regulation of the Financial Sector" (sic). The forged videos showed eight of "leading lights of Davos" outlining a few clear strategies to end poverty. The CEO of Archer Daniels Midland, the world's largest agribusiness conglomerate, spoke of "agriculture's role in today's economic savagery, and the broader long-term issues of robbing whole groups for the greed of the food industry," before calling for "universal justice and agriculture's reform" via Food Sovereignty. "We want to undo the injuries of global capitalism," added a much-improved "Klaus Schwab," founder and executive chairman of the World Economic Forum. "The source of our financial treasure was violence towards the colonies of the global South," admitted "Queen Elizabeth II" most refreshingly, before pledging to sell her lands and use the proceeds to improve the lot of the world's poor. "We have caused this disaster," added "Prince Harry" with a stalwart giggle. "Nobody wants a catastrophe," Canadian Prime Minister "Stephen Harper" chimed in most helpfully. "Haiti was a house of cards that we built through a history of exploitative economic policies," said a tired-looking "Bill Clinton." Now we have a chance to rebuild a more independent society by ending exploitation, forgiving their debt and bringing back real sustainability." The perpetrators included a prominent film director, several Hollywood voice actors, at least one disaffected member of the World Economic Forum itself, and thirty-four of the Yes Men. "Yes, these are real talking heads," explained Robert Diaz Leroy, a Hollywood film producer who was one of those behind the action. Another co-conspirator, film director Philippe Diaz, went into greater detail. "We did this out of frustration with the fact that each year in Davos, the wealthy and powerful figure out ways the global economy can continue to benefit them," said Diaz, who directed The End of Poverty?, which opens this Friday in New York. "Even this year, they're still talking about economic growth and de-regulation as the solution to poverty. That's especially obscene in light of this year's economic crisis, which resulted from those exact policies and has disproportionately affected the poor." Despite the WEF's annual posturing, neoliberal policies have proven to be a massive failure for the vast majority of the poor, said Diaz. "When a disaster strikes a poor country like Haiti, our culpability becomes graphically clear." Diaz explained that growth has by and large benefited only the wealthiest fraction of the population. "Our economic system depends on the resources of the global South that we have plundered since 1492. Only the tools have changed: nowadays we rarely use guns or armies, we mainly use economic instruments. But the damage is just as real." (See the fake press release for some real statistics to that effect.) "What you won't hear in Davos is anything about the structural factors at the root of global poverty," said Beth Portello, who produced The End of Poverty?. "Poverty is created: it's the byproduct of centuries of exploitation of human and natural resources maintained into modern times by unfair trade, tax and land policies, and odious debt." "Unlike the lip-service solutions from Davos, the proposals on our fake WEF site would actually end poverty," said Diaz. "We're going to do everything we can to make them happen. The film is just the beginning." "Poverty isn't an accident, and it won't end by accident, either," added Portello. In a dramatic bit of irony, it was revealed that the fake Queen Elizabeth II was played by boy actor James O'Keefe, who was recently arrested for feloniously attempting to tamper with the phone line of U.S. Senator Mary Landrieu, not long after being honored by House Republicans for his "ACORN pimp" role last year. "Oh that queen," said Andy Bichlbaum of the Yes Men. "Who knows what trouble she'll get into next." Labels: Davos, Elizabeth Windsor, Howard Zinn, The Yes Men, World Economic Forum Please consider donating to Dollars & Sense and/or subscribing to the magazine (both print and e-subscriptions now available!). The Yes Men and the U.S. Chamber of CommerceSome of us are going to the Yes Men's new movie, The Yes Men Change the World, tomorrow night. The Yes Men themselves will be there, as will our pal Marilyn Frankenstein, radical math professor, who wrote a study guide for the movie. You can watch the official trailer for the movie here.If you haven't heard of the Yes Men, they are anti-corporate pranksters who have been described as "Borat meets Michael Moore." One of their more recent pranks involved a press release claiming to be from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce announcing that the business-friendly group had reversed its position on tough climate-change legislation. In his column in Sunday's New York Times, Frank Rich compared the prank favorably to the "balloon boy" prank that got so much media attention. Find the fake Chamber of Commerce press release here; here's Politico's report on the hoax: In a dramatic shift, the Chamber of Commerce announced Monday that it is throwing its support behind climate change legislation making its way through the U.S. Senate. Labels: Frank Rich, The Yes Men, U.S. Chamber of Commerce Please consider donating to Dollars & Sense and/or subscribing to the magazine (both print and e-subscriptions now available!). Two Takes on AcornHere are two takes on the Acorn scandal/bashing—from the Yes Men (in the Washington Post) and from Bill Fletcher, Jr. (at Black Commentator).Congress Went After ACORN. Big Business Must Be Next! By Jacques Servin and Igor Vamos Sunday, September 27, 2009 We are the Yes Men, two guys who dress up as powerful businessmen, propose horrible things to audiences of actual powerful businesspeople and film them cheerfully applauding our most outrageous—and often illegal—ideas. In our new film "The Yes Men Fix the World," we posed as Dow Chemical representatives at a big 2005 banking conference where we said that, clearly, any number of human deaths is acceptable as long as a project is extremely profitable. A life-size golden skeleton made sure the message hit home. Instead of recoiling in horror, most of the bankers simply applauded. One chief executive said he was interested in working with us, and a senior manager at a financial technology firm said he found the idea "refreshing." In 2006, we posed as Halliburton reps at an insurance conference on Amelia Island, Fla. There we unveiled the "SurvivaBall," a grotesque suit six feet in diameter, made of nylon and inflated by two small computer fans, which we said would keep corporate managers safe from the climate calamities that they had helped cause. Lawyers at the conference, who represented some of the most powerful American companies, had a few questions: How much would it cost? Could it be made more comfortable? Might it work in a terrorist attack? The art of impersonation for political purposes is catching on. Recently, a couple of conservative provocateurs dressed up as a low-rent prostitute and a pimp and visited the offices of the community organizing group ACORN (an organization we briefly featured in our film), where they got some advice about how to buy a house and start a brothel. Like ours, those antics were widely covered in the mainstream media. But in a new twist, Congress got involved, voting to cut off ACORN's federal funding. In an even more exciting turn of events, the House legislation intended to defund ACORN is written so broadly that it would similarly cut off money to "any organization" indicted for various forms of lawbreaking, and any organization with employees or contractors who have been indicted on certain charges. This gives us great hope. Our corporate targets, unlike ACORN, have not yet been punished. If we had known that all it takes is pimp and hooker outfits to spur such ambitious legislation, we would have bought some ages ago! Now, thanks to this case, perhaps the many companies whose reps we've filmed vigorously nodding their heads at and asking for more details about our immoral and criminal proposals will finally see justice. If the idiocy of a few ACORN workers can lead Congress to defund that organization, surely lawmakers will move to rescind the bailout cash given to the banks whose employees seemed ready to go along with our depraved schemes, and whose reckless gambling with other people's money helped create the foreclosure crisis—precisely the crisis that ACORN and other agencies are trying to help poor and working-class Americans cope with. Surely such action will set a shining example for years to come and will save society from the most criminal tendencies in our midst. Won't it? Jacques Servin and Igor Vamos, also known as Andy Bichlbaum and Mike Bonanno, respectively, are the Yes Men, a culture-jamming activist group. Their new documentary, "The Yes Men Fix the World," opens next month in the United States. Whither ACORN? By Bill Fletcher, Jr. Sometimes an organization is faced with a crisis of such proportions that it calls into question its integrity and relationship with the public. In the corporate world, one can think of the airline ValuJet which, after the disastrous crash into the Everglades of one of its planes, so lost the confidence of the public that it had to shut down; remake itself; and brand itself with a new name: AirTran. It is important to separate the attacks on ACORN which it is receiving from the political Right from the actual content of the organization?s problems. Let?s face it: any progressive organization, particularly one as significant as ACORN, must assume that it will be attacked by the political Right. In fact, the Right is very clear about that. So, the fact of an attack from the Right should come as no surprise. Something is very wrong in ACORN and, unfortunately, the leadership of the organization does not seem to recognize the depth of the problem. The alleged embezzlement of nearly one million dollars by Dale Rathke, the brother of ACORN founder and long-time chief organizer, Wade Rathke, sent shockwaves throughout the progressive movement and foundation community. It was not simply the fact of the alleged theft, but the reported manner in which this had been covered up such that much of the leadership, not to mention the membership, apparently had no knowledge of the circumstances. The matter was handled much like a family embarrassment rather than as a legal and ethical challenge. Now we are made witness to one of the most bizarre circumstances I can remember. Right-wingers, with a clear objective of discrediting ACORN largely due to its voter registration work among people of color, undertook a mission to display ACORN?s alleged corruption to the world. It does not matter, to a great degree, that in many places that these right-wingers showed up that they were thrown out. What matters is that they captured on camera ACORN employees allegedly offering to assist undercover personnel in the establishment of a BROTHEL!!! Unless those ACORN employees were plants within ACORN, there is an obvious question: what could those employees possibly have been thinking about? What level of training and supervision, not to mention ethics, were they guided by such that they would think that this was permissible? On top of all of this, what sort of basic common sense did they lack that they would not GUESS that this might have been a set up? The response from the ACORN leadership to this latest incident has been to terminate the employees and insist that this is unrepresentative of the work of ACORN. While I know that this is not representative of the work of ACORN, such an answer is insufficient at best. Leaving aside other allegations targeted at ACORN, the question is what is going on in the leadership such that such actions can unfold? From the outside it appears that at least two things are operating within ACORN. The first is arrogance within a part of the leadership. That fact that a clique within the leadership would attempt to shroud an alleged theft and treat it as if it were a personal matter displays a significant level of lack of accountability. The extent of the alleged embezzlement was such that criminal prosecution should have been entertained immediately. Yet this clique kept this silent and did not discuss the ramifications for the entire organization. The second thing that appears to be operating is that the organization is not operating, at least in a functional manner. In other words, there is a systemic lack of accountability and training. On the one hand, in the face of the right-wing provocation, some cities immediately recognized that something was up, but, for reasons unknown, this was not communicated to the entire organization. Worse, that some employees when actually confronted with an illegal business proposition did not have the proper awareness of the consequences of giving advice on an illegal matter shows, at a minimum, poor judgment. The subsequent attacks on ACORN by the Right, therefore, have been entirely predictable. ACORN has opened itself up and invited the enemy in. Yet they now wish for all liberals and progressives to rally around them in their defense yet their leadership only offers an anemic explanation of the depths of this crisis. Should ACORN dissolve? Absolutely not. ACORN has been an essential part of the progressive movement for nearly forty years. That said, neither should progressives act as if the extent of the crisis in ACORN can be ignored. Certainly the attacks on ACORN by the Right are both politically and racially motivated. But that does not mean that ACORN can afford to act as if nothing is new under the Sun. In many other countries, in the face of such scandals the entire leadership would resign without a moment?s second thought. Yet here, in the face of repeated, humiliating mistakes, the leadership seems to think that relatively minor changes can remedy the extent of the problem. What can ACORN do? 1. Bring in a crisis management team to take over the day-to-day operations of ACORN: The current managing leadership should be either suspended or given other duties while a new management team is brought into ACORN to assess the extent of the organization?s problems and INTRODUCE changes in the day-to-day operations of the organization. This should include an evaluation of current staff and supervisors, financial accountability, ethics and other aspects of organization. A new organization operating system needs to be put into place to ensure staff accountability, including in the hiring process. Such a team would be on temporary assignment to ACORN to assist in the rebuilding of the organization. 2. Leadership retreat: One part of the work of the crisis management team should be the organizing of a leadership retreat of the current national leadership plus any additional key leaders from chapters around the country. Such a retreat should aim at evaluating the nature of the current crisis in the organization; what has worked; what has failed; and new strategic directions. New leadership elections should be organized. 3. An apology to the friends, supporters and members of ACORN: To be honest, I do not want to hear anything more about how the Right is attacking ACORN. What I do want to hear is how sorry and self-critical the ACORN leadership is about the current state of affairs and how they, in fact, let down the members, supporters and friends of the organization. I know what the objectives of the Right are: they want to eliminate any and all evidence of a progressive movement in the USA. What we do not have to do is make their job any easier. BlackCommentator.com Executive Editor, Bill Fletcher, Jr., is a Senior Scholar with the Institute for Policy Studies, the immediate past president of TransAfrica Forum and co-author of, Solidarity Divided: The Crisis in Organized Labor and a New Path toward Social Justice (University of California Press), which examines the crisis of organized labor in the USA. Labels: Acorn, Bill Fletcher Jr., The Yes Men Please consider donating to Dollars & Sense and/or subscribing to the magazine (both print and e-subscriptions now available!). What Are You Drinking?There's a new brand of bottled water, and unlike the others, it's 100% politically correct. But you wouldn't want to drink it. "B'eau-Pal Bottled Water" was launched yesterday in London. In beautifully designed bottles, it is authentic water from Bhopal, India.B'eau-Pal is the inspired concoction of The Yes Men, a group of culture-jammers who define their work as "Identity Correction -- Impersonating big-time criminals in order to publicly humiliate them. Targets are leaders and big corporations who put profits ahead of everything else." Here's how The Yes Men describe their new brew: "The unique qualities of our water come from 25 years of slow-leaching toxins at the site of the world's largest industrial accident. To this day, Dow Chemical (who bought Union Carbide) has refused to clean up, and whole new generations have been poisoned." The Yes Men brought their new product to Dow's UK headquarters yesterday -- but no one was home. It seems Dow's corporate honchos got (toxic) wind of The Yes Men's impending visit, according to their press release: Twenty Bhopal activists, including Sathyu Sarangi of the Sambhavna Clinic in Bhopal, showed up at Dow headquarters near London to find that the entire building had been vacated.Guess they all went out for drinks? Almost 25 years after the Bhopal catastrophe, a new report by the Sambhavna Trust shows that local groundwater, vegetables, and breast milk are contaminated by toxic quantities of nickel, chromium, mercury, lead, and volatile organic compounds. Read more facts about Bhopal's poisoned water from the Bhopal Medical Appeal, or get some quick facts from B'eau-Pal's label. And check out The Yes Men's new movie, for more confrontations with scary corporate criminals. Labels: B'eau-Pal, Bhopal, Dow Chemical, The Yes Men, Union Carbide Please consider donating to Dollars & Sense and/or subscribing to the magazine (both print and e-subscriptions now available!). |
