Jacques Servin - The Art of the Prank

Meet the Yes Men, the Political Satirists Who Punked GE
The Atlantic
April 22, 2011

A conversation with the more than decade old group that delights in mocking the powerful by pretending to be them

General Electric likes their tax rate low, according to CEO Jeffrey Immelt. Very low. Despite $5 billion in profit last year the company paid no income tax and received a $3.2 billion tax benefit, according to The New York Times. Which is less than low: It’s taxpayer padded.

Then Immelt was tapped to be an outside economic adviser to the Obama administration, which has been decrying low tax rates for companies and the rich.

Very embarrassing. Continue reading “The Yes Men Interviewed”

Political Pranksters Say Latest Climate Venture Is Not Hot Air
by Joshua Rhett Miller
FoxNews.com
July 16, 2009

An Internet-based group of activists who specialize in political pranks say they”™re seriously determined to expel all the hot air surrounding the highly combustible issue of climate change.

0_61_climate_200 Igor Vamos, aka Mike Bonanno, says The Yes Men’s latest venture, beyondtalk.net, is the real deal. But can the Yes Men — a group that has previously lampooned former President George W. Bush and impersonated officials from Dow Chemical and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development — be taken seriously?

Igor Vamos, one of the Yes Men’s founders, claims the Yes Men’s latest venture, beyondtalk.net, is completely authentic. The group is seeking “like-minded people” to participate in non-violent acts of civil disobedience to coincide with the U.N.-hosted Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen in December. Continue reading “Yes Men Go BeyondTalk.net”