Pulling pranks on the U.S. Chamber of Commerce is just too easy. The Yes Men held a press conference this week pretending to speak for the chamber and fooled the journalists in the room, because "We are no longer going to promote the destruction of the earth's climate" is such a compelling position that it's very tempting to imagine that any human being could adopt it.
But Tom Donohue and his chamber take the opposite position and have for years. William Kovacs, a senior vice president at the chamber, told the LA Times he'd like to stage a "Scopes monkey trial of the 21st century" to deny, not evolution, but human-made climate change.
In place of William Jennings Bryan arguing "Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I put it to you: if we were descended from monkeys, then why aren't I stupid, hirsute, and scratching my purple ass?" we would have a chamber lawyer advocating "My fellow believers in free enterprise, let me ask you: if liberal elites who claim we're heating up the planet are to be trusted, then I'm sure we'll all evolve into heat-loving lizards, so what's the worry?"
How does one mock the U.S. Chamber of Commerce? Only by announcing an outbreak of sanity. Here are some other similar announcements I can imagine being made at phony press conferences:
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce announces that minimum wage laws don't actually hurt workers.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce concludes that deregulating financial industries does not really create jobs.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce announces that the right to unionize is not, in truth, an infringement on workers' rights.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce announces that the Family and Medical Leave Act has not, as it turns out, destroyed families.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce announces its support for healthcare as a human right.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce concludes that the deregulation that allowed the collapse of Wall Street will not actually be best remedied by more of the same.
A U.S. Chamber of Commerce report finds that bailing out bankers is not, strictly speaking, free enterprise after all.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce now opposes tax breaks for the off-shoring of jobs as detrimental to local job creation.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is no longer proud of having gutted a legal settlement for tobacco victims.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce discovers that corporations are not homo sapiens.
A U.S. Chamber of Commerce study finds that restricting the bribing of political candidates does not infringe on our freedom of speech.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce announces that funding campaigns to defeat majority views in elections, courts, legislatures, and presidential actions does not actually advance democracy.
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