The Yes Men revolt against the status quo of corporate antipathy and civilian complacency with Swiftian public displays. In their traditional approach, Andy and Mike portray themselves as corporate executives and deliver presentations, awards or speeches that satirically out the inhuman nature of the company they purport to represent (think Jonathan Swift's A Modest Proposal using modern modes of dissemination).  If the fate of the world is played on a corporate stage, the Yes Men are playing the role of the fool.

It was certainly far from being a revolution; it looked more like a collective revulsion at the wealthiest Americans, as the middle class watches its assets dwindle along with its fantasy of ever joining the ranks of the 1 percent. What did they want? Their fair share, more regulation on a system that's seemingly rigged to benefit the uber-rich, a crash diet for the fat cats who own Washington and leave the rest far, far behind. They want the promise of opportunities and upward mobility, which now seem to have faded to the far side of the moon. 

There is, perhaps, no greater venue for illustrating exactly how vast a disparity exists between the haves and have-nots right now than at the sale of million-dollar artworks. Lending support to the gathering of disgruntled art handlers who have been locked out of Sotheby’s auction house in New York since August, Occupy Wall Street protestors have made things very uncomfortable for the auction house and its clients during the two biggest sales weeks of the year.

Seven weeks ago, protesters gathered in Zucotti Park in Manhattan to fight against “the corrosive power of major banks and multinational corporations over the democratic process, and the role of Wall Street in creating an economic collapse that has caused the greatest recession in generations”. The movement  has swelled since then, with as many as 15,000 people involved in an October 5^th  demonstration, in addition to protests occurring in Madrid, Rome, and Berlin. But what do the protests really offer?