Watched a great Doc on HBO last night: The Yes Men Fix The World (Andy Bichlbaum & Mike Bonanno.) Their methods are similar to Sascha Baron Cohen’s, only their pranks are done in the Corporate world; they target the companies they “hate.” Their biggest known prank is when Andy posed as a Dow Chemical spokesperson and went on one of the biggest news networks, BBC Worldwide, with a big announcement: Dow would finally take responsibility and clean up the mess from the largest industrial accident in history,  the Bhopal catastrophe. The result: Dow’s stock lost 2 billion dollars. The bottom line, people want Dow to do the right thing, but the market decides that it can’t. Which leads us to the whole Free Market concept – - that’s another post. I’ll sum it up right quick though: it will never work. And another little summary: oil is CRACK.

I was on the edge of my couch for a hour and a half. I lost it when the actual Dow spokesperson jumped on the news to settle the aftershock from the prank. Poor dear, her voice was shaking she was so nervous. Part of me was like, ‘OK dudes, I see what you’re doing here but did you think about the people in Bhopal? You got their hopes up! But right after I thought that, a BBC reporter asked them the same question. They stumbled a little, but replied: ..” the victims of Bhopal falsely hoped that Dow and Union Carbide would do something to ease the suffering that they’d caused: a hope that was, apparently, completely false and unreasonable. What we did on December 3 was create false certainties: those who heard our announcement didn’t falsely hope, they were falsely certain that their suffering was at long last over.” Hmmm…either way, it got people to think. The also went and visited the victims of Bhopal and they were greeted with such warmth, they know Andy & Mike are at least trying to make a difference.

…At conference after conference, the Yes Men try to wake up their corporate audiences to this frightening prospect, in the process taking on some of the world’s biggest and baddest corporations. Just one example: as Exxon, Andy and Mike demonstrate a new biofuel made from climate-change victims. It’s a gut-busting laugh riot – one of several in the film – to see the unsuspecting audience learn that the lit candles they hold are made out of dead people…

I can’t wait to see the movie!

To learn more about Bhopal and what we can do to help, visit Bhopal.net

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QnQX09DZLYE