Yes Lab Gives US Trade Negotiators “Corporate Power Tool” Award

Posted: 12 May 2012 09:10 PM PDT

The Yes Lab is a is brainstorming/training effort associated with the Yes Men to help activists subject people in positions of influence to well deserved ridicule. Aquifer highlighted their latest project, which was infiltrating an award ceremony for a trade group in Dallas and bestowing their own prize.
Unfortunately, it looks like the police intervention interfered with the best parts being captured on tape.
This part (from in the press release) describes the part not recorded (with some overlap for continuity):

The crowd of negotiators and corporate representatives applauded, and “Haversall” continued: “I’d like to personally thank the negotiators for their relentless efforts. The TPP agreement is shaping up to be a fantastic way for us to maximize profits, regardless of what the public of this nation—or any other nation—thinks is right.”
At that point, the host of the reception took the microphone back and announced that the evening’s formal programming had concluded. But Mr. Haversall confidently re-took the microphone and warmly invited Kirk to accept the award.
Kirk moved towards the stage, but federal agents blocked his path to protect him from further embarrassment. At that point, a dozen well-dressed “delegates” (local activists, some from Occupy Dallas) broke into ecstatic dance and chanted “TPP! TPP! TPP!” for several minutes until Dallas police arrived.
Fifteen minutes later, another dozen interlopers from Occupy Dallas interrupted the reception with a spirited “mic-check.” Outside, activists projected a message on the hotel, and throughout the night, delegates discovered that hundreds of rolls of custom toilet paper had been installed in the conference venue.

And this was the objective:

The activists disrupted the gala to protest the hijacking of trade negotiations by an extreme pro-corporate agenda. “The public and the media are locked out of these meetings,” said Kristi Lara from Occupy Dallas, one of the infiltrators. “We can’t let U.S. trade officials get away with secretly limiting Internet freedoms, restricting financial regulation, extending medicine patents, and giving corporations other a whole host of other powers allowing them to quash the rights of people and democracies, for example by offshoring jobs in ever new ways. Trade officials know the public won’t stand for this, which is why they try to keep their work secret—and that’s why we had to crash their party.”

Frankly, so many corporate events are boring, self-important, and in thrall to bad ideas or narrow interests that the more derision, the better. I hope we see a lot more of this sort of thing.