July/August 2004 Issue

The Yes Men

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News flash: Radical activism can be fun! This gut-busting documentary follows the
antics of two political performance artists who set up a website parody of the
World Trade Organization in 1999. To their delight, the site has often been
mistaken for the genuine article and has earned the faux free traders invitations
from around the world to speak on behalf of the WTO. The Yes Men documents the
hilarious results.

The duo promote ever more ludicrous ideas—auctioning votes to the highest bidder,
for instance—and are shocked to find that their proposals are met not with
outrage but applause. The only group to recoil in horror are students at
Plattsburgh University, where the “WTO reps” propose solving world hunger by
routing “recycled” food from sewer pipes in the First World to fast food
restaurants in the Third World.

How do these jokers get away with it? As the Yes Men offer on their website,
“Anytime anyone [in power] has done something about us—saying they ‘deplore’ us,
complaining we’re a political action committee, whatever—they’ve looked ri-
diculous to the press.” We’ll see what happens after The Yes Men is released
nationwide in August.

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WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

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Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

The upshot: Being able to rally $253,000 in donations over these next few weeks is vitally important simply because it is the number that keeps us right on track, helping make sure we don't end up with a bigger gap than can be filled again, helping us avoid any significant (and knowable) cash-flow crunches for now. We used to be more nonchalant about coming up short this time of year, thinking we can make it by the time June rolls around. Not anymore.

Because the in-depth journalism on underreported beats and unique perspectives on the daily news you turn to Mother Jones for is only possible because readers fund us. Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism we exist to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

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