Tuesday, October 20, 2009

Yes.. Yes... Yessss!


We all love a good prank. Especially this time of year. Halloween tricks are not as prevalent as treats, but when done well, they're great. Ashton Kutcher won over a generation with Punked, and those of us who are a little older remember the great pranks in the original Candid Camera.

But when you combine the absolute genius of a perfect ruse with social activism, you get the Yes Men!

I reached out to one of the men-Andy Bichlbaum-last month, when they published an exact replica of the NY Post, except that this one dealt entirely with climate change, and everything in it was factually correct!

Today, I caught up with Andy once again, this time to talk about their Washington DC press conference, in which Andy posed as the assistant to the president of the US Chamber of Commerce, claiming that they had changed their stance on climate change.

They issued a fake press release, and posted the text of the remarks that he would deliver on a mock-up of the chamber website, at a reasonable sounding URL.

The video of part of the presser, and the appearance by an actual Chamber employee is priceless:

The Yes Men have a movie out, The Yes Men Fix the World. Click on the link to find out when and where it will be playing near you. And keep an eye out for the next Yes Man action! Perhaps you'll get motivated to do one yourself... Visit BeyondTalk.net for ideas!

In the first hour of tonight's show, we'll explore the idea of corporate person hood. It's truly absurd, but even crazier than the idea of it is the reality of how it came to be. To explain it to us, Thom Hartmann will join me.

Thom is the smartest guy I know and somehow, in addition to his daily radio program, he finds the time to be a prolific author. One of his many books is entitled "Unequal Protection: The Rise of Corporate Dominance and the Theft of Human Rights," which details the story. It also brings us right up to today, when any time now the Supreme Court will rule on Citizens United vs. the Federal Elections Committee, to decide whether federal campaign finance laws apply to a film about Hillary Clinton, and the bigger question about the constitutionality of limiting corporations' independent spending during campaigns for the Presidency and Congress.

Listen live here from 11pm-1am ET, and join us in the chat (right below the player). As always, I hope you'll join in the conversation on air too, by calling 866-303-2270.

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