Marco Bontempi
Roberto Burchielli
Giancarlo Cauteruccio
Live Your Life
Gianna Maschiti
Marco Scotini
Tiziana Villani

It was 1999 when Andy Bilchbaum and Mike Bonanno ("a couple of semi-employed, middle-class (at best) activists" as they define themselves), receive to their e-mail address an invitation addressed to the head of the World Trade Organization to take part to an international congress of lawyers in Salzburg. It was not a mistake. The organizers of the congress were getting in touch with the delegate of the WTO through what they believed to be the website of the organization but which, in point of fact, was a copy made straight by Andy and Mike. The two did not think too much of it and, in formal dress and with briefcase, took part to the congress as official delegates of the WTO.

This is how the incursions of The Yes Men begin in the lectures of those who they call "the most powerful criminals in the world", representing the WTO between 2000 and 2002 in front of international audiences of lawyers, economists and University students. The performances of the lecturers exalt and radicalize the neoliberist policies as far as proposing to include in the economic computation the risks of bloodsheds and of environmental disasters or up to exalt the virtues of slavery. "The incredible thing -Andy Bilchbaum explains - is that the audience welcomes almost always enthusiastically our thesis, it doesn't matter how much absurd, ruthless or offensive they can be".
The Yes Men will continue their work of "identity correction" with the cloning of several others websites, among which the Dow Chemical's one, one of the biggest and most criticized pharmaceutical multinationals. The clone website brought a pseudo-delegate of the company (alias Andy Bilchbaum) to announce to the English TV BBC the decision of Dow Chemical to indemnify the families of 20.000 victims of Bhopal. The share of Dow collapsed. It went up again only when, at the end of the day, BBC embarrassed denied the news. In 2003 in the U.s.a. the documentary-movie

The Yes Men was released by Dan Ollmann, Sarah Price, Chris Smith with the extraordinary participation of Michael Moore. The book The Yes Men - Il potere è nudo, ed. Sonda, was issued in Italian in 2007. www.theyesmen.org