Say yes to change - Yes Men

A few weeks ago I was having a nice evening with a friend at my house. After enjoying a lovely home made dinner with local and fresh ingredients - obviously ;-) -  we decided to watch a documentary.
My friend was overenthusiast with a documentary made by 'The Yes Men'. I personally had never heard from them before, but when I heard they started the documentary by showing a video where they fool the WTO by holding a press conference in their name, I was totally convinced and ready to watch.

I'm not going to tell you all about it, I think you should see it for yourselves. But it's amazing what two people with a lot of bad-ass courage, intelligence, and will to make the world a little less unjust can do!
I was really fascinated and at the same time motivated by their extremely reckless and to the point actions.
They actually managed to expose the atrocities big companies such as DOW or banks actually commit and think of as 'normal' and 'collateral damage' if you want to make 'big' money...
One of the things that really stood out (apart from their actions) for me is how easily people can be deceived if you just wear the right suit, put enough wax in your hair and act important. It all instantly diminishes the importance of being 'important' or 'someone' in the corporate world.

Another nice thing about their documentaries it that you can watch them entirely free and problemless on the internet. I got to watch ' The Yes Men Fix the world' (see first link), but they have also produced another documentary called 'The Yes Men'. I'm pretty sure you can also find the whole movie online.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OazUh0Ym8rc

Apart from that, they also have two really interesting websites.
http://theyesmen.org/ is the website on what they do, how they did it, a link to the shop, if you want to support them, etc.

But what's even more interesting and inspiring is this one: http://www.yeslab.org/
Quoting: " The Yes Lab is a series of brainstorms and trainings to help activist groups carry out media-getting creative actions, focused on their own campaign goals. It's a way for social justice organizations to take advantage of all that we Yes Men have learned-not only about our own ways of doing things, but those we've come in contact with over the decade and a half we've been doing this sort of thing." 


So you can actually think about a plan yourself and ask for personal coaching. I'm not there yet, but I hope to be there one day...


Watch it and let's change the world, one action at the time!

*** Have a nice and shopless day everyone! Talk to a stranger! :-)***

Waste of ...energy?

For the past weeks/months I've been reading Annie Leonard's 'The Story of Stuff". I am slowly reading my way through the 264 pages about extraction, production, distribution, consumpition and disposal of 'stuff'.
It's well written and easy to understand, but sometimes I need some time to process what I've read.

It's pretty much unintelligible that we have evolved to human beings that produce more than we can use, throw away so many things and produce 'stuff' we use on daily basis composed of highly toxic ingredients! Unbelievable no?

One of the things that keeps flashing through my mind when I'm reading is: what would happen if more people were informed? Would they protest? Would they stand up and ask for changes? I hope so...

This is one of my favourite pieces so far, on these pages Annie is unraveling the process of producing 'cans'. Yes you know, the things you buy in the supermarket or the vending machine to immediately quench your thirst with a sugary drink (I prefer not to advertise for these products :-)).
Read it and think about it. I can say I banned them from my household (which wasn't that difficult but anyway)

Aluminum cans

"I saw a great depiction of the irrationality of aluminum beverage cans when I was working on waste issues in Budapest in 2007. HuMuSz, an organization there that raises awareness about waste, had made a series of short, entertaining films that play before feature films in Hungarian movie theaters. My favorite film took place in a WALL-E-like, totally trashed planet Earth of the future, where aliens arrive to conduct research. They find one remaining human being and grill him for answers about the incredibly valuable and widely dispersed pieces of aluminum strewn about the planet, convinced these were used for communications, military, or medical purposes. When the human replies that they were for single-use servings of sugary, carbonated drinks, the aliens berate him for lying: "No one would be so stupid, so irrational to use such a highly valuable energy-intensive metal to hold a simple beverage!". I'm with the aliens on this one."

Sun - Spring - Simple Things

And then there's this simple feeling of walking into your kitchen, looking outside the window and watching the sun play in your garden. Sigh. For a few seconds life was simple and happiness too. :-)