Stefan, I think the point is that the attendees were duped--that they were more or less in agreement with the ideas presented in the speech, as hard as that may be to believe. Check out these three Finn newspaper articles on the event:

http://www.quicktopic.com/cgi-bin/link.cgi?link=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.helsinki-hs.net%2Fnews.asp%3Fid%3D20010828IE2%26pvm%3D20010828

http://www.quicktopic.com/cgi-bin/link.cgi?link=http%3A%2F%2Ftheyesmen.org%2Ffinland%2Fdigitodayenglish.html

http://www.quicktopic.com/cgi-bin/link.cgi?link=http%3A%2F%2Ftheyesmen.org%2Ffinland%2Ftampereaamulehtienglish.html

Surely, there wasn’t much sleep lost over their infiltration, but I can't imagine a well-attended picket or a stern letter to the textile union chief would do much better. And would news of a circling band of picketers outside a textile conference start a discussion on any message board you read? These guys have a different take on social/corporate disobedience - an alternate vision. And it seems as though they're out to bring attention to the topic and embarrass those in attendance. I'd say they're at least halfway there.

Not to dump a bucket of cold polluted seawater with drowned sea turtle chunks on the Yes Men, but I'd really like to hear from the _attendees_ what they thought of the performance. I mean, are we talking:

"This stirring performance made us so ashamed by our conduct that we've all been radicalized, and when we get back home we're going to start unionizing our employees!"

or

"Oh, yeah, that guy. Gave this totally embarassing simplistic speech and tried to shock us with this metallic gold suit. Sure we applauded; if this is the best the opposition can come up with, we've got it made!"