You do know that you will have to demonstrate to get healthcare don't you?

[Voltaire]

It was nice for a time to think our party might help us get this. They won't. Money talks, not emails and phone calls. Certainly not polls. And the President seems to hold no sway over this filthy, recalcitrant lot.

No, we will have to demonstrate. That gets on television. That lets your neighbors see you, your city, state, and country see you. Just because over 70% of the people want some kind of public option doesn't mean that the politicans are going to believe that poll over their lying eyes. Not with the money they are paid not to see that or any other poll favoring such an option.

So we will have to demonstrate. Make no mistake about it. That's what Obama means by making him do it.

There can be no compromise. And we cannot wait for the politicians to give us what belongs to us by right of being human. We will have to demonstrate, and TAKE what belongs to us.

All else, as they say, is intrigue. . .

[Fovea]

1. Which model?

Silent non-violent or Watts style burn HMO, burn?

[nadinbrzezinski]

2. Silent and en-masse

[Voltaire]

15. I like yours

heavy on the mass. Hard to miss it when lots of downtowns are filled.

[nadinbrzezinski]

23. I just don't expect Muricans to do that

hell a national strike would work too. THe last one was in 1952 and that is no coincidence either

[Voltaire]

25. It would be difficult

jobs are scarce and if you have one you want to keep it.

So we shall have to be creative in our thinking then. Because cowering and not getting the healthcare we need is tantamount to death, and we don't want that do we?

[nadinbrzezinski]

28. It is no coincidence, but in a national strike

people IN GENERAL would not get fired. Why? If everybody is striking, or a great majority is... where are you gonna get your employees?

My exception to those participating would be public safety and hospitals. After that... everybody should consider it.

You seriously think that the Iranians are even thinking about that? It is a bloody national strike, effectively... their unemployment is higher than the US.

As I said, the last one was in 1952... and it is not a coincidence either.

[MNDemNY]

3. I prefer non-violent fiery, loud, glass breaking.

[Voltaire]

20. As much as I love violence applied judiciously

Violent protests play into the hands of the suits. The suits have a strong influence on the weak minded, so its best we don't give them any ammo.

[lob1]

4. Unfortunately, our media doesn't cover demonstrations

unless they're happening in another country.

[SammyWinstonJack]

5. So true. nt

[backscatter712]

7. or unless they're a couple hundred freepers with teabags... n/t

[Fovea]

13. Or unless property is destroyed.

n/t

[Voltaire]

32. Perhaps if we move the demonstrations under their noses eh?

Lots of people on the Plaza on the Today show every morning

[backscatter712]

6. Don't count on TV to cover you.

They brushed off million-person anti-war demonstrations - this is the corporatist cable news we're talking about.

We're gonna have to have big non-violent demonstrations. And we're gonna have to broadcast it ourselves.

Twitter it, Youtube it, Facebook it, blog it! When something like #healthcaredemos hits the top of Twitter's trending topics, and Youtube videos are proliferating and the buzz on the web is huge; and #CNNFail is lambasting CNN's attempts to squelch coverage in favor of the usual celebrity meltdowns and missing white girls, maybe they'll be shamed enough to start mentioning it.

[librechik]

8. I've been needing to say that we need to copy the Iran demonstrations

to get Universal healthcare.

Thanks for the opportunity

[Voltaire]

21. That's about the size I am thinking

and of longer duration, like until the proper health-care laws are passed.

[Auggie]

9. There's a RALLY In Washington D.C., June 25TH

www.health-justice.org

[Voltaire]

16. That is wonderful - truly

but we need more than that...it needs to be a continuous thing like the civil rights protests but larger in scale

[peace13]

10. We had 500,000 on the mall to try and stop the 'surge'.

90 minutes of coverage on C-SPAN tops. We rode on the bus 16 hours and paid good money for what? We need to reach Obama on this one. Use the travel money and launch an ad campaign. It is a much better use of time and money. The problem is that Obama is still fund raising with his machine. Maybe we should launch a 'not one more dime' campaign on the Obama machine until we get the health care coverage that we need. Obedient, law abiding demonstrations do nothing! The politicians leave town and that is that.

[cdsilv]

17. Not one more dime - for any DEM or GOP.....n/t

[Voltaire]

27. I like that in principle

But these bottom feeders would just get the money they crave from the suits, who are glad to pony it up for access and power.

[Cleita]

11. Yes, I have been thinking of creative ways, even performance art.

We need to go after our representatives but we also need to go after the insurance companies. One of the protests I envisioned was a row of wooden or cardboard tombstones (no crosses or any religious symbols) along a well traveled route that perhaps has a lot of health insurance headquarters lining it. People can come and put a name on the tombstone and put pictures of relatives, flowers and candles on each tombstone who died from being denied either insurance or a procedure by this companies. We can have areas like a Humana area, an Aetna area, a BC/BS area, etc., etc.. Maybe we could get a permit for this. A variation of this was done at Camp Casey with the boots of fallen soldiers.

Buckets of spattered blood(paint that can be removed, cause we don't want to do any destructive vandalism) on the sidewalks in front of insurance company buildings with those outlines that police use around murder victims. Put a slogan on it. "They Died Because You Denied.") This can be done ninja style in the middle of the night. Protesters, other than those of us who will be taking pictures of the reactions, can be gone when people arrive for work the next day.

I'm thinking of a few other things. The point is to get their attention, make them uncomfortable, disrupt business as usual without being destructive or violent. Let any violence come from them instead.

Since the laws are being made in Washington we have to start demonstrating there while Congress is in session, really large rallies, marches and if need be sit ins in the halls where the offices of the offending Representatives and Congressmen are as well as where the hearings are heard.

[Voltaire]

24. All those ideas are good ones

and the repetition of them could spread and sustain the protests as long as we would require. No violence or destruction. No need really. Most people are with us, they just don't have a venue to express it.

[Cleita]

26. All those can be done locally too. Not all of us can go to Washington for

every rally, but these can be done across the country and done on a regular basis, maybe hitting a different street or building each time, kind of like the freeway bloggers were doing.

[Voltaire]

30. YES!

All protest all the time. Everywhere. One message. Universal Health Care Now.

[Zodiak]

12. General strike

Kinda hard to ignore the fact that no one is working, and no one gets tased.

We are at that point because they have cut off every other avenue. Street protests are ignored or put down violently (see the Battle of Seattle, FTA protests, RNC protests of 2004 and 2008). Letters, emails, and calls are ignored. Our votes are taken for granted, and even if we fund their campaigns, they take our money and still respond more to lobbyist money.

General strike is all that is left, and americans are too cowardly for it.

So we are fucked. Don't have kids if you don't want to see the corporate state crush them into mewling lemmings as they scrabble for table scraps.

[Cleita]

14. We don't need no stinking media. We can demonstrate, take movies and

pictures, put them up on YouTube and spread them around the internet like the Iranians did their protests. We can send our videos and stills to Ed Schultz and other liberal media for them to put up on television as well. I don't care if Fox or CNN doesn't cover us. Also, get the local broadcast stations out there, they often cover local happenings and put them on TV that the national networks ignore.

[Voltaire]

19. Thats the spirit

We have to do stuff, no matter how small it may seem. We must always remember, as trite as it may sound in these cynical times that we ARE the people we've been waiting for. And that we cannot wait for our representatives to do anything for us, especially when they are paid handsomely to NOT do anything for us.

And there are more of us than there are of them. No jails big enough to lock us all up.

[Voltaire]

18. I love the idea of a general strike

We could actually start the chickenshit suits worrying by making a strike fund...of course, many of my countrymen would not have the foggiest what a strike fund is....shame

[natrat]

22. give up stupid fuckers-no way to beat these bastards

they are slowly boiling us
as dick cheney said"enjoy your lives"

[Cleita]

29. If the suffragettes hadn't put themselves on the line, women would still

not be able to vote and if Martin Luther King had not led the civil rights movement, we would not have Barack Obama for President today.

[Voltaire]

31. I often feel as you do, but if we don't push back

we get nothing. If we lose we lose, but if we don't even try we will never know how far we got. I think we can take the bastards if we play it right.

[HillbillyBob]

33. Demonstrations did not work for anti war.

Perhaps a complete shut down of everything a la France?
I mean EVERYTHING... does not do any good for me to do much i am too disabled and don't work. I have Medicaid and Medicare, and realize that we all deserve health care. If I had been able to get care when my insurance dumped me when I had pneumonia the bastards called it a pre existing condition, I might still be well enough to work. I lost my job and truck I only owed six more payments on a 5 year loan, then lost my home and was on the streets for almost 2 years. Until I got so sick again the hospital Had to take me.
The way things are set up now if I even took an odd job I would lose my medicaid and my meds alone are 3 1/2 times what my SSD add in my dr visits, and the femoral bypass surgery I had 3 weeks ago or the major dental work I m still in need of.

It is not fair that our congress critters get nice fat paychecks for being toadies to the corporates, yet our taxes pay their pay roll, health care and pensions when most of them are already well off.
I worked 2 and 3 jobs till I got sick and had paid in almost the total requirement.
I was homeless for almost 2 years and getting sicker, but could not get any help because I did not have a perm address.
I think it will have to be serious demonstrations in order to get attention, like others said bring the digicam and the phones and publish them on facebook, youtube , here and everywhere.

[BR_Parkway]

34. We pick a Dem who's selling us out and start primary now with small

internet funding to slam them a war chest together quickly. Let's put some fear in these corporate sell outs - if you won't vote for us, the corporations won't be enough to save you.

[Voltaire]

35. Please start with my senator Evan Bayh

I am already seeking ways to actively gundeck that son of a bitch's campaign next year. He is no Democrat. Very popular here, but wait till we tar him with the anti public option/single payer brush, especially with unemployment as high as it is in some Indiana towns and cities.