Advertisement

    Andy Bichlbaum and Mike Bonanno, also known as The Yes Men, have outraged President Bush, frazzled the World Trade Organization and frustrated Midland's hometown chemical company with performances and impersonations.

    They've played Bush campaign workers with non-flattering representation, spread the news that the WTO had planned a shutdown, and pretended to be a Dow spokesperson, first broadcasting live an announcement that Dow planned to take responsibility for the decades-old industrial disaster in Bhopal, then attending a London conference to say Dow had formulated a way to measure risk of life versus financial benefit.

    At Dow's annual shareholder meeting earlier this month, the two came face to face with board chairman Bill Stavropoulos, asking if he'd found the hoaxsters who had been haunting the company.

    Victims of the antics, including Dow, are not amused.

    "Their most recent antics didn't appear to fool anyone, and certainly didn't fool us," said Dow spokeswoman Terri McNeill.

    Phony Web sites that bear striking a resemblance to legitimate ones are access keys for the two, who accept invitations from well-intentioned event organizers seeking speakers from organizations such as WTO and Dow, their primary targets.

    Bichlbaum and Bonanno gladly appear with outrageous commentary and sometimes with props, exaggerating perceived corporate and political positions in hope of rejection.

    Their voices of pseudoauthority, business suits and the off-the wall suggestions sometimes are accepted with blank stares and sometimes with applause -- either listeners aren't listening, don't understand or are too willing to accept.

    For Bichlbaum and Bonanno, the goal is to entertain and to garner media attention. When newspapers and television stations out their acts, it's not just the Yes Men who get attention, but also the issues they address.

    The impersonations, which the two call identity corrections, are intended to show, in a colorful and humorous way, what they say are errors of corporate and government ways.

    Officials at the Dow Chemical Company hesitate to talk about the Yes Men, preferring to give them and their antics as little attention as possible. "While some may find their tactics amusing, their actions and comments are attempts to deceive the public, the media and our stakeholders," said Dow spokeswoman Terri McNeill. "They demonstrate a lack of understanding of our company, our products and technology. We are proud of the positive contributions Dow and our people make to society."

    Company board chairman Bill Stavropoulos was well aware of their presence at the annual meeting earlier this month, and met their most recent challenge with indifference and returned sarcasm.

    Andy Bichlbaum, who registered to attend the meeting with his real name, filled out a speaker request card with the name "Jude Finisterra," and said he would address the topic of "windfall profits." The name, a take on the name of the patron saint of impossible causes and the words "finis," for "end" and "terra," for "earth," is the same one he used in December when he posed as a Dow employee and told the British Broadcasting Corporation that Dow planned to liquidate Union Carbide and use $12 billion to compensate victims of the Bhopal industrial disaster and clean-up remaining contamination.

    "We made an incredible $1.35 billion this quarter," Bichlbaum said at the meeting. "That's really terrific. But you know, for most of us, that'll just mean a new set of golf clubs. I for one would forego my golf clubs this year to do something useful instead -- like finally cleaning up the Bhopal plant site... Bill, will you use Dow's first-quarter profits to finally clean up Bhopal?"

    Having just reviewed the company's position on Bhopal, Stavropoulos did not respond to the question.

    Next, Bichlbaum's partner, Mike Bonanno appeared at the microphone donning a neck brace, which, before he passed through security, had contained a hidden camera. He removed the camera at the door, but decided to keep the brace on.

    "Great job on the profits! I applaud your efforts," he said, clapping. "Great profits. Now I wanna see you use them to go after some of the creeps who are tarnishing Dow's good name! I'm looking around and most of the questions are from people who don't like Dow. Let's do something about that. We need to get aggressive! Of course you can't exactly broadside a bunch of nuns with a twenty gun shoot, and you can't just kick a disabled kid in the head -- but at least you could take care of hooligans, like that guy who went on the TV news to announce that Dow was liquidating Union Carbide. So, Mr. Stavropoulos, are you going about that criminal? And if not, why not?"

    "Maybe you can tell us who that guy is," Stavropoulos said before moving to the next question.

    Bichlbaum said he doesn't necessarily consider the Yes Men's appearance at the shareholder meeting a success. While Stavropoulos and other Dow employees knew they were being taunted, shareholders likely did not.

Dow a target since 2002

    Dow first became victim to Yes Men antics in 2002, when the duo launched the now-defunct Web site, www.dow-chemical.com. Bichlbaum obtained the similar address -- Dow's official site is www.dow.com -- and proceeded to replicate graphics, fonts and photos. He emulated Dow's corporate tone and used its jargon, though the content was vastly different, including items such as false statements from Dow management.

    Dow promptly threatened legal action against the Web host, Colorado-based Verio, Inc., effectively shutting down the site with a letter stating the Web site violated its intellectual property rights, copyrights and trademark rights.

    But it didn't take long for The Yes Men to restart, this time with the address www.dowethics.com, which is posted today and hosted by a service in Australia. Like the previous site, it is nearly identical to the authentic Dow site, except for its sarcasm and false information.

    This time, Dow hasn't taken any action to interrupt the online publication. "We think any visitors to this Web site will readily notice that it is bogus," said McNeill.

    But some people apparently are fooled. Bichlbaum claims that organizers of a recent international banking technology conference didn't notice that www.dowethics.com wasn't a valid Web site, and inadvertently contacted him via its e-mail address to request that a Dow representative speak at an upcoming symposium.

    "They said: 'We'd love to have someone from Dow.'" Bichlbaum said. "We, of course, said yes. We'd love to." He was surprised at the mistaken request, particularly since it came just months after the BBC and other news organizations aired the Yes Men's Dow/Bhopal hoax -- and his face and falsified remarks -- on televisions across the globe.

    Informa, which sponsored the conference, did not return calls to the Daily News to confirm or deny they were fooled, but apparently arranged and confirmed what they thought would be a Dow presentation via e-mail to Bichlbaum.

A ridiculous suggestion

    On April 28, Bichlbaum posed as Dow's "Senior External Managing Consultant" at Informa's International Payments 2005 Conference.

    Calling himself "Erastus Hamm," he joined presenters from companies such as IBM, General Electric, JP Morgan, Citigroup, Barclays and Microsoft, speaking to a crowd of about 70 bankers.

    In a 30-minute presentation titled "Facilitating End to End Corporate Payments." "Hamm" spoke about risk versus benefit and said that while some risky initiatives can become skeletons in the closet of a company, there is a way to ensure that skeletons are golden; that is, that profit outweighs losses, human or otherwise.

    Wearing a Dow signature red diamond on his nametag, Bichlbaum announced that the company had developed what it calls an "Acceptable Risk Calculator." The new tool, available to the business world on May 1, would allow companies to scientifically determine the point where casualties or the potential for lawsuits cut into profit. It also suggests the best regions to locate dangerous ventures, based on things like likelihood of litigation and resident income. He unveiled a mascot for the initiative -- a life-size golden skeleton named Gilda. He also handed out golden skeleton keychains to potential subscribers.

    According to Bichlbaum, about a dozen attendees requested more information on the product and were given the web address (www.dowethics.com) Even more surprising to him than the genuine interest, he said, was the fact that despite his bold and distasteful suggestions, he was not stopped midstream. "Obviously none of the bankers knew (they were witnessing a hoax). In a way, that was a failure."

    The Yes Men had hoped to make a statement about what they believe is an industry-wide drive for revenue, regardless of potential harm to people or to the environment. "We presented that in the most brutal terms possible," Bichlbaum said. "We though they would react badly. We thought they would boo us. It turned out they ate it all up."

    Authentic Dow representatives don't believe that bankers were unaware of the farce, but said no one at the company has received comment or criticism about the presentation. "We didn't have anyone at the conference. We don't know what people thought who attended the conference," McNeill said.

A history of impersonation

    Bonanno and Bichlbaum call their impersonation tactics "identity corrections," explaining that they take it upon themselves to assume role of corporate or governmental leaders and put into their mouths what they believe are the right answers -- for example, the Dow/Bhopal hoax.

    "We said we're going to deal with this. It's the right thing to do. No one was against it, except Dow," Bichlbaum said.

    They compare their work to that of a "funhouse mirror" -- exaggerating hideous features. "We do that kind of exaggeration operation, but with ideas. We agree with people -- turning up the volume on their ideas as we talk, until they can see their ideas distorted in our funhouse mirror. Or that's what we try to do anyhow. As it turns out, the image always seems to look normal to them," Bichlbaum said.

    The impersonators claim to get invitations to speak -- or perform --in a way similar to how they ended up at the banking event in London where they impersonated Dow representatives -- by default.

Other targets

    Like the bogus Dow Web site, they have set up Web sites mimicking the official sites of the World Trade Organization, and of President Bush.

    Invitations to speak at conferences, appear on television and debates flooded www.GATT.org, and the Yes Men gladly accepted. Event organizers apparently mistook the address as an official WTO site because of the organization's association with the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade.

    At a textile conference in Finland, Bichlbaum, posed as WTO representative "Granwyth Hulatberi" and told industry engineers and managers in a keynote address that the Civil War was a waste of money. "Slavery would have been replaced by its infinitely more efficient version: Remote sweatshop labor, such as we have today," he said. "The only problem still remaining with the efficiency of today's sweatshops is a lack of control over workers. A manager in New York cannot constantly monitor workers in Rangoon. But there is a technological answer."

     He continued, spreading his arms as Bonanno removed his "business suit" to reveal a three-foot long golden penis. He called it an "Employee Visualization Appendage," which, equipped with a video screen, would allow managers "to watch and control far-off workers while engaging in healthful leisure activities."

    Expecting the ridiculous suggestion would get them tossed out, they instead got polite listeners with blank faces, then applause, photos, thanks and a seat at the front dinner table.

    At another event, this time in Australia, they convinced a group of accountants and a Canadian government official that the WTO had reconsidered its positions and was planning to shutdown and reorganize.

    During his 1999 campaign, the Yes Men struck out at President Bush.

    Their antics drew a comment that a person running for president of these United States should never say.

    The incident, televised and printed in news reports across the nation, including in Newsweek, was a result of the Yes Men's Web site, www.GWBush.com. While it appeared much like Bush's real Web site, www.GeorgeWBush.com, the content was drastically different. It included what Bichlbaum and Bonanno considered a more honest version of why Bush was campaigning for president: To help the rich at the expense of the poor and the environment, etc.

    When a reporter asked Bush about the fake Web site at a televised press conference, he declared: "There ought to be limits to freedom."

Why Dow?

    The Yes Men said they became interested in Dow as a target after a friend told them about campaigns to get the company to take responsibility for the Bhopal tragedy.

    Since they believe that large corporations contribute to the political trends they abhor, Dow, with its size, scope and presence, seemed a good poster child.

    "It's a good symbol that most people know about," Bichlbaum said.

    The duo had launched the first fake Dow Web site on the 18th anniversary of the Bhopal tragedy, and performed in the BBC hoax falsely stating that Dow planned to pay for cleanup on the 20th.

    Getting media attention helped them achieve their goal: To increase awareness on the issue.

    "Each of those articles had to talk about Bhopal," Bichlbaum said.

    On the other hand, the group took some criticism after the BBC stunt for giving false hope to Bhopalis who, for about an hour, believed they would be getting compensation. Nonetheless, Bichlbaum said the hoax was a success.

    "We went thorough a couple of days of agony," he said. "We thought 'oh no, did we really screw up.' We've been quite relieved. People in Bhopal were really happy about what we did. Compare 20 years of agony to one hour of false hope."

Who are the Yes Men?

    He first gained fame and media attention in the 1990s for a prank he pulled on his then-employer, California-based Maxis. Working as a computer programmer, he programmed 50,000 copies of a flight simulation video game "SimCopter" to include kissing men clad in skimpy swim suits. He was fired.

    Mike Bonanno, 36, is a multi-disciplinary artist and assistant Professor of Integrated Electronic Arts at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, N.Y. Currently on sabbatical, he is living on Scotland.

    He first won prankster fame in the 1990s for his "Barbie Liberation Organization" project, for which he swapped electronic voice boxes in hundreds of Barbie dolls and GI Joe action figures. Barbie said: "Dead men tell no lies," in a gruff man's voice. The altered GI Joe figures said: "Math is hard," in a high, female pitch. The Barbie Liberation Organization was a featured in newspapers and television programs worldwide.
    Their website is www.theyesmen.org