No
joke: Lawyers acting on behalf of Dow Chemicals have shut down
the Dow
Toxic spoof site set up to commemorate the 18th anniversary of
the Bhopal gas accident.
Verio, the site's ISP, received a
note from Dow's lawyers citing the Digital Millennium Copyright Act
(DMCA).
Verio pulled the plug late Wednesday evening.
The Yes Men,
the politico pranksters behind the site, say they wish Dow would put
as much energy into cleaning up the mess in Bhopal as it's spent on
closing down their site.
'It's really funny, but also really awful
how Dow. . . and Verio can just put sooooo much energy and
creativity into making sure this little image problem gets
minimized, whereas they can't possibly be bothered to do something
about the basic problem they're faced with: DEAD PEOPLE. SICK
PEOPLE. TOXIC MESS.' [Yes
Men].
It's not only Dow that doesn't get the joke. The Yes Men's spoof
sites specialise in stretching free trade logic until it reaches breaking point. But, mistaken for the real WTO, they regularly get
invitations to give speeches at business conferences.
Even
when they turn up and deliver their extreme trade-uber-alles
message, the Yes Men don't always get rumbled.
The US
civil war was a bad idea because the market would eventually have
cleaned up slavery; Gandhi's ideal of village self-sufficiency was
an inefficient protectionist measure; the Italian siesta is an
unfair barrier to trade; Hitler's economic model had a lot going for
it. . .
Mike Yes Man explains: 'The idea is that at some stage among
your audience there’ll be some moment of realisation.
'Trouble is, there isn’t always. That’s
what we’re realising – how much crap people will take if it comes
from a person in a suit representing something official like the
WTO.' [Ecologist].
