The techniques that have accompanied satire for a long time involve a little bit of mischief,

you know, so and if it doesn't have that, then it doesn't work.

Good afternoon, good morning, good evening, good night, wherever you are, whatever you're doing.

Thank you for letting me join you. This episode of Ten Gently Speaking is with someone I've

wanted to meet for a long time, probably, I don't know, 15, 20 years. I've known about this guy

and his partner in crime. Mike Bonanno is one of the yes men. Trichster, Trichster,

terrorist, informational terrorist, I guess, is what some people would call him. He and his partner

do things. They stage events pretending to be government officials or the officials of major

corporations. They make announcements of the sort that basically what they do is they get in

front of cameras and they present the world as it should be, which then has an incredibly

disruptive effect on the world as it is. So for example, I don't remember when I first saw this.

I think we might talk about it in the conversation, but I saw Mike's partner Jacques Serven, I think,

is how he pronounces his name. On the BBC world, I believe I was in Asia at the time and it was

the anniversary of the Bhopal disaster, which was most of you are too young to remember this,

but this was a major, major disaster in India in the probably late 80s, I think.

Chemical plant there released toxic gas that billowed out over the surrounding community

and immediately killed thousands of people and very badly hurt tens of thousands more.

The way the company responded to this was to deny any responsibility, even though it was their

chemical plant and the CEO fled the country before he could be arrested. The US refused to

extradite him back to India and the company just said, fuck y'all, not doing anything. It's not

our problem. We're out. You can clean up that mess yourself. You can take care of all those

dead and injured people yourselves. We're out and they wash their hands of any responsibility for

...