Who are some nonviolent political pranksters?

October 21, 2006 1:38 AM

Please tell me about some nonviolent political pranksters I might have missed.

This Salon article (ad view required) got me thinking about monkey wrenchers and pranksters. My own username comes from an impressively dopey movie in the same vein. The
Ebert review led me to The Fox, an environmentalist prankster active in Chicago in the 1960s and 70s. He doesn’t have a wikipedia page, but he did have Mike Royko. Maybe there are others who are only known regionally, or have otherwise been slighted by history. Any suggestions?

I’d like to learn more about nonviolent, ideological, political pranksters. I’ve seen this thread. N.B.: I’m not interested so much in college pranks, as there’s already a definitive—and unnecessarily beautifully written—book on the subject.

They don't have to be environmentalists, and I've seen the Yes Men.

posted by Phred182 to law & government (19 comments total)

Noël Godin
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 1:54 AM on October 21, 2006

Al Pieda
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 1:57 AM on October 21, 2006

The Biotic Baking Brigade. The Barbie Liberation Organisation. Plus some of the people listed on this page. Also: Negativland.
posted by Herr Fahrstuhl at 3:55 AM on October 21, 2006

The Diggers
posted by doctor_negative at 5:03 AM on October 21, 2006

Wavy Gravy
posted by adamvasco at 6:08 AM on October 21, 2006

Billionaires for Bush
posted by cushie at 7:56 AM on October 21, 2006

Banksy. (Scroll down to the heading "Confirmed art stunts.")
posted by lisaj32 at 8:44 AM on October 21, 2006

The classic: Veterans of Future Wars
posted by gsteff at 9:23 AM on October 21, 2006

Victoria's own Raging Grannies
posted by Rumple at 10:33 AM on October 21, 2006

Saul Alinsky
posted by dragonsi55 at 11:52 AM on October 21, 2006

Chris Morris/Brass Eye?
posted by selton at 2:19 PM on October 21, 2006

Wikipedia has an article on pieing. Awesome!
posted by Chuckles at 2:40 PM on October 21, 2006

Mark Thomas his latest action was to conduct 21 one man demonstrations in the resticted zone near parliament in 5 hours. Have a look at his somewhat incomplere wikipedia page and check out the links.
posted by invisible_al at 3:47 PM on October 21, 2006

All the guys who carry around Bush flags on toothpicks.
posted by trevyn at 4:40 PM on October 21, 2006

The Yippies in the 60s ran a pig (Pigasus) for president under the motto "they elect a president and he eats the people, we elect a president and the people eat him."

They also threw money off the NYSE balcony to watch the brokers scurry to get it, which is why it's glassed off now.
posted by nasreddin at 8:45 PM on October 21, 2006

The Freeway Blogger.
posted by soundslikeobiwan at 9:01 PM on October 21, 2006

Definitely second Mark Thomas - he's a great standup comedian as well. Here's another link with more info about and clips of him - not sure if the clips are any good, as I'm on dialup. There are also, last time I checked, clips of him on youtube as well.

(by the way, most of your links aren't working?)
posted by Ira.metafilter at 11:56 PM on October 21, 2006

Very topical: check out the Russian artists The Blue Noses

http://matthewbown.com/artists%26pages/bluenoses/index-pr.html
posted by londongeezer at 12:09 AM on October 22, 2006

I never would have found most of these. Thanks to each of you for these great answers.
posted by Phred182 at 12:36 PM on October 23, 2006