A Planet Waves reader wrote to me and said a guy named Bob Herbert wrote an op-ed in the New York Times today, calling for people to protest the economic crisis. Modest at first, nothing too outrageous or dangerous. We are polite folk after all and those German shepherds, teargas and fire hoses are such a drag.
“It can start with just a few small steps,” he wrote. “[Rosa] Parks helped transform a nation by refusing to budge from her seat [on a segregated city bus]. Maybe you want to speak up publicly about an important issue, or host a house party, or perhaps arrange a meeting of soon-to-be dismissed employees, or parents at a troubled school.”
He continues, “This passivity and sense of helplessness most likely stems from the refusal of so many Americans over the past few decades to acknowledge any sense of personal responsibility for the policies and choices that have led the country into such a dismal state of affairs, and to turn their backs on any real obligation to help others who were struggling.”
Ok. People are struggling — but the “struggle” version of protest is not exactly happening now. The Yes Men have demonstrated something else — that humor and bringing your body into the satire is the way to go. You do something subtle and work on the level of individual minds.
Here is my plan. Take a pile of Monopoly money, or if you don’t want to part with that, fake money purchased at the Dollar Store. Make sure it’s goofy looking, so if anyone decides you’re serious, they will look like a fool. Don’t let on that you’re kidding.
Go to your bank, make out a deposit slip for however much it is, you know, tens of thousands of dollars, and attempt to deposit it into your account. Keep a straight face. Don’t break irony. If they won’t take the money, politely ask for the manager.
Don’t make a fuss; end the event by telling them you will call the bank and try to work it out, and then leave. Don’t say it’s a protest! Just let it be something weird. Imagine the dinner time conversation between bank manager and spouse, “A normal looking person, Mrs. Smith, in fact, came into the bank and tried to deposit all this fake money. I don’t get it.”
Write back to this page and tell us what happened.
fluidity – it was tongue in cheek and why i put quotations around the ‘illegal’. But oh yes we taxpayers do pay for it all, one way or another.
Hey, Fluid.. I’m alone on this shit. I’m the only one in my reality who gives a shit. It’s just me. There’s noone too organize with, there’s noone to ride this through with me. Just me, man. But, you know what?, I do as I see fit with this world. I don’t stress the b.s. goin. down in Washington, or anywhere for that matter. The way I live my life (whether others do or not) is true to my perception. (It’s odd too see but, the life you personally live will travel through lifetimes and you will eventually get to the reality that you perceive.)
And hey, I’m with ya on the connection realm.. ’tis true. BUT, until each one of us comes to our OWN senses, and the knowledge, as well as Understanding that EVERYTHING’S (alright, there’s limited coolness) FUCKED UP!!, We ain’t gonna get it.
Don’t stress the ‘fucked up’. Live Your ideal. (You know, the shit you were made to do. The shit that makes you feel {if I dare say} proud too be you. Ignore the crap, there’s too much of it in this world. Get on with your own expression. (Look man, if the world collapses tomorrow, fuck it, there was nothing you could have done anyway. Let it go. ..This, is the way we find each other, and the methodology to alter human existence.))
..And then… HAVE FUN!! (Hard shit, but it’s the only thing we’ve got!)
Love ya Love,
Jere
‘we pay’ for ‘illegal’ immigrants?
first off, try the concept of ‘no one is illegal’
second, we ‘don’t pay’, we actually save money, because the costs stay down because corporations don’t pay living wages to people, the savings get passed off to you in the grocery store etc
and with slavery, i have read/heard analysis where it looks at how ‘real’ slaves are actually better off than ‘wage slaves’ since if someone owns a slave it pays for them to look after them, keep them healthy, etc, whereas if there is simply a pool of labour, then if your worker gets sick, dies, can’t work anymore, it’s no loss because there’s always someone else you can replace them with, at no cost to you the employer …. so it’s not just ‘illegals’ it’s everyone who’s forced to get caught up in the wage slave system
…
and then to eric, yes perhaps depositing monopoly money in banks is better than throwing a rock through a window, but that is not what i was advocating, i was saying that we need to organize, ie connect with other people and create movements that take action to create change
as valuable as understanding the situation is, which is something the Yes Men may be contributing to, there are a lot of people out there who understand the system…. understanding it, unfortunately, is not going to change it. … the emperor is naked and people realize that, however it takes coordinated effort and pressure to actually effect any sort of change, they don’t care if people can see that what they are doing is immoral / illegal / etc, so long as they are getting away with it …. and movies don’t stop them from getting away with anything … yes perhaps people will go to a movie and then go and take some form of action, but i would guess that most of it ends there, after a one-off action … we need sustained effort and pressure, and that is only going to come from people getting organized and working together
that is my point
what i’m saying is, the powers behind the thrones so to speak have figured out how to keep slavery, and make the people pay for it instead of the business owners. We have federal agencies that pick up people here and there, but they can’t stop something that we don’t really want them to stop.
confederaate money would not be too hard to copy on the copy machine. Also, the civil war didn’t have anything to do with slavery. It was ever ONLY about states rights, which have been all but abolished.
Slavery never went away – how many ‘illegal immigrants’ have been in this country since 1865? Who pays for them? We do! Those employers that use illegals always knew what they were doing – someone gets sick, we pay. Someone needs to go to jail, we pay. Someone needs a ride to Mexico, we pay. It is way easier than slavery, to just hire out a work crew for a week or two. You aren’t responsible for their housing, clothing, food, or medical care. You could basically say the same about the minimum wage legal workers too.
I know a Mexican worker (illegal) who worked in a local restaurant. None of the workers collected their wages – the owner just gave them what he wanted and kept the rest – no tax reporting, no bookkeeping. I think the tips may be all they live on in the Mexican restaurants. Just be aware of what you buy, and where you buy it. I interviewed my bank last year – a locally owned bank. They said they didn’t expect to have any problems because they never got into the money markets – switching loans and investing. hmmm. There are reputable businesses around, you just have to do a little homework. I try to buy local even if it costs a little more, and if not from a business, then from a local garage sale and the goodwill. Keeps my conscience clean.
you know, fluidity, you remind me maybe I have missed a point.
The thing about the Yes Men is how much actual information they convey, how fast, to how many people. There is nothing cool about them. Just competent and speaking on the issues from inside. I’ll give examples another time, but one is: I saw the film for the second time the other night. And I finally got as in GOT the web of lobbyists, government, corporations and how the people are entirely looped out of the deal. Now this is interesting because I’ve been studying and partaking in structuralist and poststructuralist activist theories for decades, from Noam Chomsky to the Onion. I was contacted to submit documents to the film “the corporation.” Supposedly I know my stuff.
I did not GET the link in a visceral way till seeing the yes men fix the world a second time.
Now, this bank plan is more silly than something like going on BBC as Dow Chemical, but the impact it could have in terms of awareness raising is significant. We do indeed need to start with bank employees or they are a logical starting point. Who do you want to educate? The Board of Directors? They already know everything. A dollar really is worth just 4 cents, compered to when the Federal Reserve Bank took it over. Interest has fluctuated from arguably reasonable to nothing to 25%+.
This is precisely the ripoff that trying to deposit confederate money conveys.
I also think this is more ethical than putting a brick through a bank window, a typical homespun form of activism against banks; which accomplishes nothing positive except a gig for the local glass guy.
ps the ‘struggle’ form of protest?
how about actions in over 150 countries around the world last saturday, for ‘350’ – ie parts per million of carbon in the atmosphere (we’re currently at around 390 and still climbing)
or where i live, there were just 1000 young people from across the country who met for four days to work on climate change and green economy issues, and to cap it off 150 of them were in the public gallery during question period in the house of commons (national parliament) and they started shouting out things like ‘Climate, Justice!’ and ‘Indigenous, Rights!’, and ‘Whose house, Our house!’ until they got taken out by security (5 got arrested, one got his face smashed into the floor) – it was the largest protest in parliament in the history of our country
but no, let’s just be all individual and clever and satirical and ‘cool’ and i’m sure that will create the change we want (?)
yes it’s good to mess with people, upset their status quo
but please don’t use Rosa Parks as an example for this
… she wasn’t just some random person who decided on the spur of the moment to not give up her seat
she was part of a broad movement that was years in the making that strategically decided to start the bus boycott at that time and place
so if you’re going to use her as an example, please do something that is in line with what she represents … organize! build community power, people power, and change things that matter to you!
Robert Dentan wrote to me, actually – I will post his letters below.
How is the United States in this mess? He said the south won the Civil War.
you can still find genuine confederate notes on ebay and in the antique stores. It would be a good laugh.
Oh, how I would have loved to have paid off my credit card last night with a fake check!
Yes, I too have now received the “we all know times are tough so we’re raising your annual APR to 25.99%” letter from our beloved citibank. (Why 25.99% Because 26% is *usery*??) I’ve been a pretty respectable customer, so I reject this as any legitimate judgment of my credit history; I know and have heard similar stories from other credit card holds.
Absolutely, I’m opting out.
But here’s the tricky bit: the new interest rate kicks in on December 5th, but you can’t inform them you want to opt out *until* then –and you have only twenty days (by Christmas! ha.) to inform them of your decision.
What clever, clever trolls…