and now for something completely different.

[Jim Devine <jdevine@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

forwarded from Mike Lebowitz (a pen-l alumnus):

> August 30, 2001
> FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
>
> WTO INTRODUCES NEW MEMBER
> Gold and one meter long, phallus is brand-new technology to control
> distant workers
>
> 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
> http://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 http://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 http://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.)
>
...
> RTMark's primary goal is to publicize corporate subversion of the
> democratic process. To this end it acts as a clearinghouse for
> anti-corporate projects. A list of just-added projects is maintained
> at http://rtmark.com/new.html .

> --------------------------------------------------------------------------
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> Mobilization for Global Justice Vancouver - working to expose and oppose
the FTAA.
> http://mobglobvan.tao.ca
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Jim Devine jdevine@xxxxxxx &  http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine