Heh. After so many sarcastic comments about
unclear or ambiguous posts, I make one myself, as this could really be more
explicit as to what it is linking to. My bad. posted by
luke at 7:02 PM PST on
January 7
Ahhh....brings a tear to my eye. THAT'S how you make a
political statement, m'friends. Make your point while giving the ghosts of the
Three Stooges something to smile about. posted by Optamystic at 7:47 PM PST on
January 7
Yeah, I gotta say, even though I'm not sure I agree with the
ideology that prompted the hoax, it's the sort of thing that's likely to
actually be effective, and it was an extremely clever action. If every political
statement was this clever, I'd be complaining a lot less about 'em. posted by kindall at 9:37 PM PST on
January 7
Hey Kindall... You call that clever? How about calling it
what it reall is: just plain old lying! While I can't fault The Yes Men for
trying new ways to get their agenda across, at least they could be honest
about what they are doing and how they going about doing it. posted by Bag
Man at 11:37
PM PST on January 7
I don't mind the lying/deception part... A good con can be a
fine thing.
What I find disheartening is that The Yes Men went to all
that trouble, and came up with something so... lame. I guess the humor is
supposed to be found in the fact that they could pull off the hoax at all, but
I'd be more impressed if any of the "jokes" had actually been funny.
{shrug}
As a fan of Joey Skaggs I can appreciate the value of a
prank for its own sake.
What I am struggling to figure out here is
whether or not the Doctor's speech did in fact ever take place. Is the whole
thing a web hoax or did the character turn up and give the original
presentation? posted by tobyslater at 3:13 AM PST on
January 8
I thought it was very clever the way they tested the
conference-goers by bringing up two very offensive issues: the laziness of
Italians and the best way for corporations to buy elections. The
conference-goers failed by not even objecting to the notion of vote
auctions.
Not all humor is knock-knock and fart jokes. posted by luke at 7:27 AM PST on
January 8
I call it clever because it plays on people's tendency to
believe everything they read, especially on the Net. Also, it goes all the way,
rather than just stopping with the site. I appreciate this. posted by kindall at 8:37 AM PST on
January 8
The power of academic discourse can be deadening.
So
is "Mike Moore" Michael M. Moore of Flint, Michigan fame? posted by mecran01 at 9:10 AM PST on
January 8
I was about to ask if that was "the" Mike Moore, myself. I
assume though, that we would have heard about it. He tends to publicize his
missions quite well. That, and it seems a bit heady for him.. posted by fnirt at 11:36 AM PST on
January 8
Um, no. This would be Michael Moore, the director general of
the WTO and the former prime minister of New Zealand. posted by luke at 1:40 PM PST on
January 8
Not all humor is knock-knock and fart
jokes.
Oh, agreed. But it's just... to give you something to
calibrate against, when it comes to political stuff, I find PJ O'Rourke to be
funny. Adam Gopnik, covering the French. Paul Fussell on the class system in the
US. Molly Ivins, even. Paul Krugman, on the economy. Billy Connolly or Bill
Bailey in the UK ("You can just tell that Wittgenstein had no mates!"). Midnight
Oil or Bruce Cockburn, musically. You'll notice this bunch is a fairly mixed
bag, ideologically.
My complaint about this thing is that these guys went
to all the trouble of infiltrating the conference, and getting the attendees to
believe that they really were from the WTO... and then, instead of something
outrageous, the best they can come up with is a mildly wacked-out
absent-minded professor. It's like those times during the Olympics, when they go
out among the crowd, and say, "You're now talking to 2 billion people -- what do
you have to say?" "Uhhhhhhhh... Hi, Ma!" It seems remarkably tame, trite, and,
well, unfunny.
YMMV, obviously, but this really does seem to me to be all
setup, and no punch line. I guess you can say it's post-modern that way, but
still... :)
posted by luke at 7:02 PM PST on January 7