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MIKE BONANNO: 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.

Fuck. It's unbelievable.

How the fuck can that happen?

Okay. Here.

Okay, there. That's done. Now what?

Okay. Got it. Okay, next?

BONANNO: Pull it up. Okay.

A few years ago, we wanted to

try to help out with some activist anti-corporate activities.

And we heard about this website called rtmark.com.

And, um, we went there, and they, 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.

Um, 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.

BICHLBAUM: And 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?"

(JOURNALIST SPEAKING)

(BUSH SPEAKING)

(JOURNALIST SPEAKING)

(BUSH SPEAKING)

So it was all over the place. Yeah.

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."

MICHAEL MOORE: The WTO is supposed to be

sort of a United Nations of commerce,

a conglomeration of all these countries in the world

uh, that get together every now and then

to discuss trade policies,

and how exactly goods will be bought

and sold throughout the world.

Well, I'm sure, originally,

the stated purpose of the WTO, uh,

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, uh,

to go in and exploit these people even further

uh, 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.

Okay, so I gotta try and remember where Sal lives.

Um, it's a little bit complicated.

There's, like, this snaking road up over the hills.

BONANNO: And who is Sal?

Sal is a friend who I met in San Diego,

and, um, 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, you know, 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.

Okay. It's gotta look...

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 at 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, you know, 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, yeah.

Then he just unzips it and pulls the thing at the same time.

Oh, that could be really good. Because...

To have it burst out of the Velcro,

it might not be strong enough to... BOTH: 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.

And so, there, our representative,

the same guy who is Hank Hardy Unruh here

was Dr. Andreas Bichlbauer there.

And he gave a lecture, uh, 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,

um, 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, sort of, free trade

and things like votes were out of the way.

BICHLBAUER: One possible solution

is being tested in the field of American politics

to streamline the grotesquely inefficient system of elections.

And 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 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, you know, get Bichlbauer maybe even thrown in jail

because people would figure out he was an impostor,

the exact opposite happened.

Everybody was super polite. Nobody...

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 is good.

MAN: Yeah. So...

Andy.

Andy.

It has a terrible siren.

(SIREN WAILING)

BICHLBAUM: 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.

Um...

It's weird stuff, isn't it?

(BOTH CHUCKLING)

That's one way of putting it.

It's really a problem.

BICHLBAUM: It seems about the weirdest

I've seen from him ever, I think.

It looks pretty good on this.

Yeah, it's all right.

PATRICK LICHTY: 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.

(LAUGHS)

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 mean, 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,

you know, the company I was with

I thought was gonna take care of me, you know.

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, uh,

six years ago for a job at the university there, so...

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.

WOMAN: Wait, what is this?

BONANNO: This is, um, it's this...

SimCopter hack. Here it is.

I wanted to watch this tape 'cause I...

This is the tape... I've been cleaning out the archives,

you know, 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.

And so he got a lot of press attention for it,

and it was seen as a kind of,

an activist, you know, 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.

(RECORDED MALE VOICE) Troops, attack that Cobra jet

with heavy firepower!

(GUNFIRE)

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, um, "Dead men tell no lies."

And we got them back on store shelves,

um, 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 do that.

BONANNO: 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.

You know, they loved having these crazy dolls.

Uh, 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 BLO.

The mission of the BLO.

The Barbie Liberation Organization, the BLO.

It was real funny 'cause (MAN TRANSLATING IN FRENCH)

it was like "Come on, fight me. Fight me!"

Except it says. (RECORDED FEMALE VOICE) 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, okay, 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, we want to bring that out.

We want to show that. We want to demonstrate that.

And so, like for the WTO,

you know, 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 to...

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?

SAL: I got fuckin' lost on that...

Oh, no.

(LAUGHING)

It's been a long day.

Holy shit!

Oh!

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...

We're at the end of the line.

(BLOWING RASPBERRY)

Oh.

Okay, look. So here we're making a list here.

Wednesday we leave for Finland early,

so, Sunday...

Make lecture.

BICHLBAUM: Bigger? Oh, no. That's a big one.

PowerPoint.

And then speech.

Finish.

(KEYS CLACKING)

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 shift, I guess.

I'm just trying to add a few slides into the PowerPoint here.

Because, actually, a lot of the things

that, sort of, 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."

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 that 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, you know, 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, uh, 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.

I mean, can I just say

that these kind of simplistic arguments

are really, I mean, too insulting

to most people to believe.

You know, 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 one's 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, uh, to Granwyth.

Yes, um, well, I wanted to speak to Granwyth...

Sorry, to Barry's point that there are other thinkers.

Well, who... 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 oganization

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.

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 Janeiro or in Seattle

are not representative of the overall movement.

They are at the tip of the iceberg. We did the 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.

All right. Thank you. We must finish unfortunately.

Barry Coates thank you actually for joining us. Thank you.

And also Granwyth Hulatberi.

And also Vern and Alice on the line from New York.

(SPEAKING FRENCH)

Um, section three.

Well...

This isn't exactly a garbage bag but it's, uh...

It'll work.

Yeah? You think, this is very business-like?

It's like, it's very official...

(WOMAN TALKING INDISTINCTLY) Very big money.

Okay, good. That's what I need.

I need a big money watch.

SALMONE: So, are you as nervous as you were for, uh, Salzburg?

The thing is like, even with the Salzburg thing we went into it like...

Sort of, I mean we went there really nervous but the whole time kind of...

It doesn't... It doesn't really sink in till you're actually there.

Right.

SALMONE: Well, I think it's good you guys, like,

from what I've seen of the speech

it kind of starts out the most normal that is. BONANNO: Yeah.

So it'll help... He can get comfortable when people...

He can sort of like slowly work his way up into it.

You son of a fucking bitch.

(CLICKS TONGUE) Shit.

Do you have a rag?

BONANNO: Uh... Fuck.

Fuck, uh, shit, um...

I have one with that has shoe polish on it but that's not right, right?

The screen get a little paint on it?

Yeah.

Hmm.

(WHIRRING)

It sounds like a lawn mower.

It's a little loud, yeah.

Mmm. That's not good. Forget it.

(WHIRRING CONTINUES)

Uh-oh. Look, it made a new noise.

Good, good, good. Great.

Is that great? Try it.

And it doesn't work now.

Oh, listen. Yes.

Okay. (LAUGHS)

(LAUGHS)

(SPEAKING FRENCH)

Okay, 10 minutes. They're both here.

Phew.

Hey, Sal.

Thanks.

(LAUGHS)

We'll see how it goes. Thanks for everything.

Yeah. Sleep good and have a good time here.

Yeah. Enjoy.

See you soon.

Move into my room. Have enjoyment.

Okay. (LAUGHS)

Is this everything?

Wow. Look how efficient.

Okay.

(GRUNTS)

Efficient. A model of efficiency right here.

You have some crap on your face right here.

No, no, over here.

Looks better.

(TALKING INDISTINCTLY)

(MUSIC PLAYING ON STEREO)

BONANNO: We arrived last night,

you had to take a nap. You had to get some sleep.

BICHLBAUM: Oh, I just crashed, yeah.

And, uh, 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, um, 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...

Like set up a little time table and I got them, you know,

maps of the thing, and all the updated conference information.

Um, came back here,

then we went to sleep early,

but Hank was snoring immediately.

But I wasn't able to sleep at all, really.

I just like stayed there awake in bed

and occasionally going to 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.

It's 8:00.

I think I really will leave it here.

Aren't you coming?

Hank, it was a little early to get up.

It's all right.

I mean, I thought this was vacation.

(SNIFFS) Like, what?

Vacation. I know.

They take me to Finland...

Let me take care of this egg for you. I'll just peel it.

That would be nice, thank you.

Mmm-hmm.

Well, you know, we're a bit behind schedule.

Are we? Well, 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 anyway.

Is it after 8:00?

It is after 8:00. Yeah.

You know, pretend like...

Huh. Great.

We're early. Ah. Good.

Hello.

I'm Hank Hardy Unruh. I'm from the...

Oh, great.

Nice to meet you. Nice to meet you.

We were expecting you.

Oh, good. (LAUGHS)

It's not 9:30, no? It's 8:30, right?

Um. Uh, but you will have a...

It's 8:30 now. 8:30.

Is it? It...

It is... It's 9:30.

Now? Yes.

No. Yeah.

The time is 9:30?

Yes. Yeah. Almost.

I'm on at... Well, it's 9:27 at the moment.

Oh, my God. We're an hour off.

Oh, my God. Thank you.

Okay.

Well, we have to... Anyhow.

We're starting...

Do they know that he's going on now?

Uh, yeah. Well, perhaps he knows that and was expecting.

Oh, geez. Okay.

Okay, we...

Are you coming too? Have you registered?

Um, I'm his... I'm his assistant.

And this also. We're both working with him.

We have to go take care of a few things now.

BOTH: Okay.

Would you like to join the dinner?

Uh, yes, please.

Uh, or is there a fee or...

Uh, no, it's included.

Okay, yes. We'll... We'll join the dinner. That looks great.

Um... Uh...

Wow. Well, we must hurry, I guess.

So, please yes.

Um, actually no, you can't go in right now,

'cause you have to first take care of that business.

See we're an hour...

We did... We'll be five...

We had an hour off so...

I have to do something, um... Yes.

He has to make a very important phone call right now.

It'll take five minutes.

Five minutes? Yes.

But, uh... But you will have your presentation

starting off in two minutes.

Yes, please tell him that I'll be three minutes late.

There is a detail.

Jesus. Fuck.

How come we didn't know that?

That's really incredible.

Come on.

Okay. Now.

UNRUH: Jesus. This is terrible.

This is the stupidest. I can't...

It's an hour's difference. The time zone is different here.

(AUDIENCE APPLAUDS)

Unbelievable.

How the fuck can that happen?

BONANNO: Okay. Here. That's done. Now, you tape them in.

Okay. Now quick. The shirt. The underwear.

Gold underwear.

Okay.

BONANNO: Does that... Do I have to put something through this?

No. Okay, uh...

Mmm-hmm.

Your testicles hanging out?

Uh, yeah.

Okay.

Okay.

Okay, great.

Oh, God.

Okay. Great.

Let's go. Now air in it.

Okay, now the pants.

Oh, hi. Nice to meet you. I'm so sorry.

(SPEAKING ENGLISH)

Thank you. (LAUGHS)

I'm terribly... What?

Yes. I have a presentation.

I'm terribly sorry.

Uh, 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, "No. All of Europe, same time zone."

(LAUGHS) So, that convinced us all.

And we were convinced, that it was Me too.

the right time when we woke up this morning.

And we were running... We were running five or 10 minutes late.

And then figured out that, you know, the laptop wasn't working.

UNRUH: No, maybe we could switch the order.

Can we have somebody else go and then I go later?

And they said, "Okay, I think we can do that."

And then they called the coffee people

and they talked to the coffee people to see if the coffee was possible.

BICHLBAUM: That was it.

Thank you very much.

It's this one.

Um, 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 helpful amounts of leisure.

This solution appropriately enough is based in textiles.

Uh, but how did workers ever get to be a problem?

Before unveiling our solution, I'd like to talk about a bit of history

of the worker management problem.

Uh, we all know about the American Civil War at least in the US.

Uh, 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'd recently benefited from the cotton gin.

An invention that took the seeds out of cotton

and the South out of its preindustrial past.

Hundreds of thousands of workers

previously unemployed in their countries of origin

were given useful jobs in textiles.

Into this rosy picture of freedom and boon 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, uh, in fact, there is no doubt, that left to their own devices,

markets would have 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.

Uh, two meals from McDonalds, uh, costs about $10.

The cheapest small room probably runs for about $250 a month.

To function well, you have to pay for your slaves health care.

If its country of origin was polluted for example

that might run very expensively.

And of course, with child labor laws here in Finland,

uh, much of the youth market is simply not available.

Now leave the, uh, same slave back at home, let's say, Gabon.

In Gabon $10 pays for two weeks of food.

Two hundred and fifty dollars pays for two years of housing not a month at best.

Uh, $50 pays for a lifetime of budget clothing

and health care is, of course, cheaper and 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.

So, 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 home sickness and racism.

I think it's clear from our little thought experiment

that if the North and South had let the market sort it out

without protectionist tariffs

they would have 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 have never happened.

In a world where the headquarters of a company

might be in New York, Honk Kong, or Espoo Finland

and the workers are in Gabon, Rangoon, or Estonia.

How does the 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 are located far away.

Mike, would you help me a moment?

(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)

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 a... The two problems again,

how to maintain close rapport with distant workers

and how to remain comfortable and increase leisure activities.

How does the, uh, Management Leisure Suit work?

Besides being extremely comfortable, as I can guarantee you.

Well, allow me to describe the Suit's core features.

(AIR HISSING)

(AUDIENCE LAUGHS)

(AIR HISSING)

This... This...

Is the EVA.

The Employee Visualization Appendage.

It's an instantly deployable hip-mounted device with totally handsfree operation

that allows the manager to see his employees directly right here.

Signals communicating the exact amount and quality of physical work

are transmitted not only visually right here

but directly through electric channels

implanted directly into the manager.

Uh, 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, uh, 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?"

(CHUCKLING)

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.

(AUDIENCE CLAPPING)

Something we're trying to do more and more as... Yeah.

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 here you can, you know,

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...

What can't corporations get away with?

(BELL DINGING)

(WOMAN ANNOUNCING IN SWEDISH)

Mmm.

MAN: So, where are we?

Well, we're arriving in Helsinki right now.

Um, we left the conference this morning.

It was just, um...

It had just driven us completely mad.

(CHUCKLING) After dinner last night we...

I think we had had our fill at dinner.

I had to actually leave a little bit early.

I went over to the table where Unruh...

Where Hanky Hardy had to sit with the big man and eat.

And I told them that we needed to leave

because we had a telephone meeting

with Mobutu Oblongatu immediately.

(ALL LAUGHING)

Great. Hi!

Sorry, but in a minute

we're supposed to meet Manduka Javango.

Oh, God! At 10:00.

And then we both started laughing

which is really not convenient for the context.

So, we left and then we just decided that basically like...

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, uh...

Just discovered it.

It says "There's a seminar at the university

"and, um, that somebody talked about controlling remote workers

"with electrical impulsions."

Impulse, yeah.

And then you turn to the page.

And that's what you get.

BONANNO: And this, right here represents

the World Trade Organization.

This...

This is This is

the World Trade Organization. the World Trade Organization.

MOORE: I went down to this Mexican border towns in the mid '80s.

They were called maquiladoras.

And when they first had, you know, this sort of

the first trade agreements between Mexico and the United States.

And everyone was saying "Oh, this is gonna raise Mexico out of poverty

"and things are gonna be so great

"and within 10 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.

15 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 have to ask "Well, who is benefiting from this?"

Well, who benefited were these American corporations.

During the 1990s they became even more wealthy.

They posted a record profit, larger record profits.

And the people of Mexico just continue to suffer.

It's all a big scam.

(RADIO PLAYING)

BONANNO: This is the one?

No. (EXHALING)

You got the wrong one.

Shit!

Will WTO stand up? BICHLBAUM: Oh, yeah.

Oh, my God! It's got pictures. They're nice.

You see... Yeah, they actually look okay.

at that size. Bichlbaum isn't an employee...

Wow, but he plays one on TV.

BONANNO: Yeah, 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.

This is not for the 200 people or the 100 people

that might see us give the lecture.

Although we like them

to come away with an interesting experience from the lecture.

The reason we do it

is so that people who read Bizzarre magazine

or the New York Times or Fortune or Harper's can read about it

in the mainstream press.

I mean this is how millions of people

can 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, this, uh...

Well, Fortune, it's like read by business people

and accountants and that kind of thing.

And that's exactly who we're um,

supposed to be talking to in Australia in May.

It's an accounting conference.

It's a little, little worrisome.

You need a new shirt.

And one that's not wrinkled. Yeah.

Will that be good with your, um, thing? Oh, yeah.

Do you think it'll work with your suit? Yeah.

This one's extra-large. Yeah, they'll all work with my suit.

It's terrible.

It's striped though. Is that okay? Yeah.

I'm sure it's okay. I mean, why don't you go get a shirt then?

I'll just get this. Wait. Yeah.

It's co... Oh, it's not very much cotton.

How much is that? I hate that.

35. It's 35%. It's like...

No, it's fine... It doesn't wrinkle much then.

That's nice about that.

I'll just wear it. Okay. You can pack it...

All right.

BONANNO: I mean, the thing is like...

There's a question of whether he is...

Like at what point he recognizes you doesn't really matter.

What we want is that... (CLEARING THROAT)

That moment. 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, he'll be looking back and forth at you, at the screen...

At that point if he recognizes you, we better say something.

BONANNO: Guess, no. I think it's down here but I don't know.

Thank you.

Barry, hi. How are you doing? Hi! Nice to meet you.

Good to meet you. Good. Great. Yeah.

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, um, our friend here Granwyth Hulatberi

about, uh, the prospects of WTO and globalization.

Um, 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 WTO.

Even when he saw me like this right next to him.

And then we switched seats and he still didn't notice.

And then I had to put my face next to the thing and like...

BONANNO: Yeah. Let's just pause it here.

Okay. Hit stop. Um, is there a pause?

Stop button. There's no pause.

I don't know what I could have said after that.

After that clip.

I mean, really...

(BOTH LAUGHING)

Where did they get this guy from?

Afterwards. Might have been my first comment.

So, did you ever figure out where they got the guy from?

I understood that he was

part of the external relations department of the WTO.

Right. That's what they thought.

That's what they thought as well too.

BOTH: But, as it happens...

BONANNO: He wasn't.

BICHLBAUM: Yeah. In fact...

BICHLBAUM: Just take one more close look.

Oh, wait! Can we... Is this reverse?

No! (BOTH LAUGHING)

I wasn't going to mention that. The likeness.

Are you serious? BONANNO: You were being very polite, weren't you?

Yeah. You did it as a spoof.

Yeah. Yeah, basically.

Good. We weren't sure how you'd...

We were really hoping you wouldn't be too offended, really. Oh no!

Oh, hell no! That's great!

(LAUGHING) 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 ripe 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,

I mean, 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 kind of live to trade. Yeah.

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.

(ELEVATOR DINGING)

Oh!

Okay.

That's good. Got that.

Need to get the video.

And we'll be off.

Let's see.

Uh, one of the big reasons why I'm up here is

that we have the Australia gig,

uh, for the Yes Men.

I did a animation

about, uh, you know the recycling of post-consumer waste

into, uh, hamburgers and fast food.

So, um...

BICHLBAUM: Here we go.

LICHTY: "The answer to the world's sustainable food future

"is in recycling.

"And 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."

Uh-huh. Oh! Okay.

(ALL LAUGHING)

Oh. It gets, it gets better.

Oh! Okay!

Wait! What was that!

Is that in outer space?

Yeah, I'm sorry!

(STAMMERING) I think it does the job. I think it does the job.

BICHLBAUM: We're here in New York because

Herb Alpert,

um, of Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass,

um, is, gave us this award.

Um, bunch of money

to do what, you know, the kind of stuff that we do.

Um, so we had to come here and have dinner with him.

And, and, you know, get the money

and, and thank everybody and it was very nice.

And it's very surprising.

But we're very pleased.

I think we can say that we're very pleased.

Yeah, it was a big chunk of money.

It's gonna bank roll a lot of future activities

like going to Australia.

Oh, yeah. Um...

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, uh,

Snafu was in town.

And he's sort of, uh, a European Yes Man.

Who's been sort of circulating in the European scene

doing Yes Man type activities.

But, uh, it's a good thing he's here, here in the States

so he can go to Plattsburg 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 has been on the rise..."

There's some bad news.

There's some really bad news that came down in the last two days.

Um, 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, uh, a nice thing

that there was under-enrollment

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, um,

made things difficult for us.

And 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 on 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 Plattsburg is kind of like...

It might be the only venue we have for this lecture.

And 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, you know, production.

It's about time.

What? I was so worried about your shoes.

About what... This guy brought shoes.

He brought real shoes for you. Look.

Do we have the hamburgers yet?

Uh, we have to pick them up.

But, you, you mentioned... They're ordered.

They're ordered. Yeah, Richard ordered them.

BICHLBAUM: That's fantastic.

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 sort of global... Globalization.

BICHLBAUM: He was interested in having the WTO

come speak at the Economics department.

And only he really knows that this isn't, um, 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.

You know, I think for a,

for look, I should probably carry these in.

Okay. Can you do it?

Yeah, I'm thinking that, uh

that you probably shouldn't be associated

with the hamburgers. Okay.

BICHLBAUM: I'd like to thank everybody for coming.

Um, you have many education choices.

And, uh, 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, 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, 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.

You know, 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, this irrelevant kind of recycling

where the target individual consumers

like you and me or

of, uh, 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 elementary passageway,

while the other 80% finds itself expelled in post-consumer by-products.

Already 20 years ago, NASA scientists

began to tap into this nutritional goldmine

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 10 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,

um, as we investigate solutions.

And I'd love to take any, uh, questions.

Yes, you've been...

Coming from a Third World country

I found most of what you said pretty offensive.

It's as if, uh... Everyone is equal

but some are more equal than others?

And, uh...

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...

That cultures deserve equal consideration

perhaps to develop on their own terms

but, you know, 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.

BONANNO: If it's all right, I could answer a portion of that,

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, uh, in fact people do want the product.

We do have a kind of video presentation about this that I...

I came prepared to show. It's not...

The program isn't actually completely ready yet.

BONANNO: So, as you can see here there's a consumer

uh, in the first world entering McDonalds and, uh...

Consuming a hamburger.

And afterward, this is a process we're all familiar with.

I don't need to explain it to anyone.

(AUDIENCE CHUCKLES) BONANNO: But...

You see, it's rendered out in this style because, uh,

studies have shown that consumers are most responsive

to 3D animation right now particularly in developing cultures.

(CLEARING THROAT) So, as you can see it goes through

a piping system, a kind of...

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 McDonalds.

Now the part of this video that isn't completed yet is the filtering process.

There will be a... A very well rendered

uh, filtering... (AUDIENCE GROANS)

(AUDIENCE CHUCKLES) (CLAPPING)

BONANNO: And, uh, as you can see,

this might answer somebody's question from before

but at the McDonalds in a developing country,

and in fact in this country as well,

you'd 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, uh, just the number of times a product had been recycled.

(AUDIENCE LAUGHS)

We were lucky to partner with the World Trade Organization

which, uh, you know, has slightly different goals.

Of course, McDonalds' goals are to profit and grow

and, uh, we hope that we can provide

a nutritious and tasty product in the process.

Our goals are to help McDonalds 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?

Uh, in pictures, yes. (AUDIENCE LAUGHS)

So tell me, if you saw somebody starving to death

you would probably think a lot, you know, like...

That would kind of hit you in a sensitive, you know, place to say, like...

Oh, well, you know, maybe markets and money

and this and that don't really mean as much.

And actually, like, feeding people means a little bit more.

Yeah, well, it is true that there is a personal side of it that, um...

I have to say, in the WTO there are questions that we...

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, um, fortunately,

to simply direct world trade in a much more theoretical way.

Um, in collaboration with our colleagues at the largest corporations.

So, uh, you know?

Yes, probably if I went to these countries

I'd be... I'd feel, um...

I'd think about things a little differently perhaps.

But, um, at the same time I don't think I would forget all my schooling.

I don't think I would forget you know, all these theories, and so on.

So, um, perhaps one day I'll do that.

This is a money maker. Correct?

Yes. Well, it's a money maker, starvation solver. Sure.

And how much does McDonalds pay you

to come here and speak this garbage?

Like this is a mouse with an ear growing out of its back.

How are you going to get around cultural and legal implications?

Cannibalism. They're basically asking us to recycle shit.

(AUDIENCE LAUGHS)

The reality is that we already

treat, um, people in the third world far worse than

we treat our domestic animals.

That's, that's... It's not saying it's right.

It's just saying that's the reality.

(AUDIENCE LAUGHS)

(CLEARING THROAT) 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. Yeah.

Which was that, at a certain point it's like light bulbs going off

in the heads of the different people in the audience.

And they're realizing that it was just too crazy to be real

and yet sort of it was based on reality and so...

BONANNO: 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 you if you believe in it.

You don't get to vote on the World Trade Organization treaties.

They don't let you vote on it.

They don't give you a say in it.

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 parties. 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.

And, already... 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.

Because once people know what this stuff is about

and get to vote on it,

no-one's going to vote themselves into poverty.

BONANNO: Here we go. Australia country code.

Oops.

BONANNO: Oh, Australia. 61. It's 61. Sixty one.

(DIAL TONE)

Hi, this is Kinnithrung Sprat from the WTO.

WOMAN: Hello, how are you?

Good, thanks. How are you?

Where are you now? I'm in New York at the moment.

New York, are you? Yeah.

Kinninthrung Sprat, just called a person

who's coordinating Sprat's visit.

I'm due in Hong Kong the week after, um, this.

And that date is firm

but my travel to Australia is as yet, um,

not, 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.

And she fully expects him to attend

because she had spoken to Hildegard West,

uh, Sprat's assistant

and Hildegard West had told her that everything was on

and Sprat was definitely going.

So now we just decided we really have to go

to honor this arrangement with, uh, Australia.

BONANNO: 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,

disband the WTO. (BOTH CHUCKLING)

BONANNO: Shouldn't we get you a pair of shoes that actually are reasonable?

I mean, they just don't look like dress shoes.

They look like wrestling shoes.

All right. There are no shoes here for you.

BONANNO: Never mind. No. Shoes are out.

BONANNO: I like that tie.

Uh-huh. Around...

Oh, wait. Did you try this?

Yeah.

I did a set of these with an ink-jet

and they just don't look as real.

Ah! Something about them. They look, um...

Kind of hand made. BICHLBAUM: These look perfect.

I printed off some letterhead for you.

BICHLBAUM: Nice. I guess you guys already saw that.

Yeah. And I just kept it real simple.

That's perfect. So that it would show up well on the fax.

BONANNO: That is the most ridiculous photo.

(CHUCKLING) It's like something really weird about this public...

Public relations guy. Wow! I love that.

A little magnetic strip on the back.

BONANNO: Wow! BICHLBAUM: Really beautiful.

You know what I did? I went to, uh, I went to Google.

(CHUCKLING) Uh-huh. And I went to Google image search

and I typed in ID card.

And you wouldn't believe the numbers of ID...

Pictures of ID cards that show up on the web. Wow.

And I just went through and took a little bit from each one.

You know, it said...

This one's got like a little bar code at the bottom.

And this one uses the logo over here.

BICHLBAUM: That is so nice.

(TALKING INDISTINCTLY)

No, I don't know. I'm just really nervous 'cause, um...

I don't know, 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 like, sincere, you know?

It's about like replacing the WTO with something better.

Do you think that satire is more fun?

BICHLBAUM: Yeah, definitely.

I got this feeling that it's less... For some reason, um...

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.

BICHLBAUM: Yeah.

BONANNO: 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.

You know, we finally get to shut it down.

(WHIRRING)

BONANNO: I'm writing a local phone number for this cell phone

on the business card so...

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 of days.

We have to leave in about 10 minutes though. I know.

BICHLBAUM: I'm just gonna do as little as possible.

Okay, let's just go by there.

We have some time yet. Yeah.

Let's just keep walking. Just walk straight.

Don't look. BONANNO: Don't look.

Don't turn left.

Don't... Okay, no. Oh...

Don't do that. (BEEPING)

Uh-oh.

(CHUCKLING) 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.

(BOTH CHUCKLING)

BONANNO: Oh wait, shit! This is the building.

MAN: Thank you for coming. Oh, thank you for having us.

MAN: Sorry for the confusion and problems and everything else.

Oh. It's to be expected these days, I think.

Um, no thanks for going out of your way to arrange this.

This is really terrific.

(CLAPPING)

Um, thank you all for coming.

I'd like to, um...

BICHLBAUM: Like to thank the organizers for

going out of their way to create this panel,

this luncheon, um... (CELL PHONE BEEPS)

In the face of some odds.

The conference having been canceled of course.

(CLEARS THROAT) And I'd especially like to begin

by apologizing for a rather sudden change in the program.

Uh, consequent upon a rather dramatic

development in Geneva, yesterday.

I originally intended to transmit today an upbeat report on

some new technologies that affect agro business in a global sense.

Instead, I find myself the messenger

of some rather disturbing news.

Um, 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 refound 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, uh, universal declaration of human rights.

Upon which we feel, uh, 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, uh, the announcement was made that

the World Trade Organization is significantly reinventing itself

to focus on issues relating to

um, people as opposed to economics.

Something that hopefully

could be of significant benefit

to, uh, the poor and needy throughout the world in all the developing countries.

The UN estimates that poor countries...

The poorest countries in the world lose

approximately two billion dollars 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, um, was compelling

in terms of its information.

It was... I was astounded to find

that they're actually going to dismantle the WTO.

I was also amazed to see that, um,

there was admission that perhaps it had failed.

Um, it's going to have a huge effect on international business.

And particularly for us as an organization, I feel.

Um, the hardest thing I find will be

the, um, the balance that, let's say the U.S. EU and Japan

in terms of being major components of the world economy.

The effect, you know, will they really change

in terms of this new organization?

And will there actually be genuine change?

And perhaps a benefit you know, 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.

BICHLBAUM: Specific statistics are rather shocking.

Out of 26,000 patents

um, applied for in Africa in 2000 and 2001,

only 31 were from residents of Africa.

The rest were from residents of first world countries.

Thirty one out of 26,000 patent applications.

Uh, it wasn't what I was expecting.

(CHUCKLING) I was expecting something on agro business

and what the World Trade Organization does.

But I have to say I believe it's fairly positive.

Um, because I think that, uh, this, as the gentleman said,

"The strong are getting stronger and the weak are getting weaker."

And you can't let that keep on going.

And even we know to sit here in Australia where 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. And it's just...

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.

I think it's, it's fantastic. Yeah.

Disparity is growing between the rich and poor.

The richest fifth have 80% of the world's income

and the poorest fifth have one percent.

Um, 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

uh, that there is no evidence that

liberalization favors growth or benefits the poor.

I think we are all generally aware of increases in poverty

and low living standards and issues faced by developing countries.

And what Mr. Sprat I think had to say today,

really gives out a terrific sign of hope

for what I think we all aspire to.

And as a global economy that benefits all people.

JOHN DUNCAN: Now, after protected, protracted and detailed review

of current trade policy, the World Trade Organization

has decided to effect a cessation of all operations

to be accomplished over the next four months

culminating by the end of September. The World...

BICHLBAUM: 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're 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.

You know, impersonating whoever holds power, that needs to be criticized.

So if the opportunity arises,

we're just going to keep doing it. We're going to go

and be the Yes Men again. Or I should say be the WTO again in another event.

The future is bright for the Yes Men.

The future of the world is a different story.

BONANNO: You know, this isn't, this isn't the way he usually dresses.

He works for the World Trade Organization.

You know, the WTO? Yes.

He works see... We're at a conference

and he's demonstrating a new kind of technology.

Uh, this is um... Well, it's a device to

measure employee working in less developed countries.

There's a thing here, where...

(THUDS)

(CHUCKLING) On this screen. I can see the...

BONANNO: So, he watches... He watches people working there.

And they have little devices that give them shocks.

Uh, it's just regular fabric.

In the future, it'll be sensitive, smart fabric.

It's a little hot. (ALL LAUGHING)

That one looks better.