| Powerful Ideas, Practical Actions |
July 2011 |
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5 Protests That Shook the World
(With Laughter)
Great moments in “laughtivism” from Yes Men Andy Bichlbaum and Mike Bonanno, the guys who DUPED the BBC, EMBARRASSED Dow Chemical, and MOCKED Halliburton.
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Some say that laughter helped bring down the Soviet Union, by making “Brezhnev” rhyme with “ridiculous.” At the Yes Lab, we help activists cook up funny antics and escapades to change public opinion—with laughter. We’ve used humor as a weapon to avenge corporate wrongdoing for more than a decade, ever since we started dressing up as phony PR men, comic strip heroes, and government officials.
That’s because we know humor is powerful: people have used jokes and hoaxes for centuries to humble the bad guys and inspire the good ones. Here are some of our favorite moments in “laughtivism.”
READ THE YES MEN’S 5 TOP PROTESTS
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| More from the Summer Issue of YES! Magazine… |
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Restoring Lives: Now That’s Justice
It was the summer of 2009. I was on my second day of work for the U.S. Census Bureau, knocking on doors in rural South Carolina. My cell phone rang. It was my supervisor: “Patrice, headquarters called me and told me to send you home immediately,” she said. “I don’t know why.”
She knew me as a 61-year-old gray-haired mother, a former Washington Post reporter, an author and motivational speaker. She knew nothing about me 40 years ago, when I was a 21-year-old heroin user. I knew exactly why they were sending me home: I am a convicted felon.
LEARN MORE ABOUT WHY, 40 YEARS SINCE PRISON, PATRICE GAINES STILL FIGHTS TO GET FREE …
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Toward a Post-Growth Society
by James Gustave Speth
It’s business as usual that’s the utopian fantasy, while creating something very new and different is the pragmatic way forward.
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To Save Our Cities, Put Children First
by Jason McLennan
What’s the universal design principle that can make our cities great? Kid-friendliness, says architect Jason McLennan.
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The Story of a New Economy
by David Korten
We’re in the midst of a contest of competing stories—one fabricated to serve the interests of Empire; the other an authentic story born of the experience and aspirations of ordinary people.
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Can You Be a Radical Homemaker With an Unsupportive Partner?
by Shannon Hayes
What happens when one member of a couple wants to live a new kind of life—but the other doesn’t?
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| The Commons: A New Story for the Future … |
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An introduction to Jay Walljasper's new book, All That We Share
Rewriting the “Tragedy of the Commons”
by Bill McKibben
“I’ve spent most of my life as a writer—and one of the sweetest parts of that job is knowing that whatever I produce ends up in a library, an institution dedicated to the idea that we can share things easily. There are innumerable other examples—and they are the parts of our lives that we usually care most about. They don’t show up on balance sheets because they’re not producing profit—but they are producing satisfaction.”
MORE …
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Highlights from the last newsletter:
:: A Quieter Life Now
In an exchange of letters with a dear friend, Wendell Berry explains why his writing is only a small part of the movement against greed and waste.
:: Recipes for Recovery
Ex-cons show each other the way out at San Francisco’s Delancey Street.
:: Life in a Local Living Economy
How Bellingham, Wash., keeps it local.
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After four and a half years as newsletter editor at YES! I am bidding a fond farewell as my family is moving down to Santa Rosa, Calif., where Kibby, my wife, has gotten her dream job, teaching at Summerfield Waldorf School.
I've greatly enjoyed editing and publishing our suite of email newsletters. And I've appreciated the thoughtful feedback many of you have provided. Your support has helped us to grow our online audience to the current level of more than 2 million a year, and brought record numbers of subscribers to our magazine.
I'm delighted to hand over the reins to Derek Hoshiko, the new online marketing manager at YES!
Thank you for reading and following our work.
Adam MacKinnon
Newsletter Editor
YES! Magazine
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Just right for the Farmers Market.
Show the world your positive attitude.
GREETING CARDS
from the Americans Who Tell the Truth series.
Set of 8 beautiful cards highlighting Americans past and present whose dignity, courage, and honesty have shaped this country.
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Composting Toilets
“I’ve read that composting human waste is much more environmentally friendly than disposing of it in water-based sewage systems. Could I install a composting toilet in my home?”
:: MORE GREEN LIVING TIPS
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