Healthcare Rally

My wife forwarded me an email notice about a rally in front of ABC studios in Manhattan to voice concern about Obama’s Health Care plan. Sounds like something that I should do. I’ve been stewing in my own brew for too long. Every night I commiserate with some talk show host about how the country is going down the tubes. I keep getting more depressed and more anxious. Well, this time I’m going to do more than just listen to bad news – I will do something about the situation. Yes, that’s what I will do.

I arrived at West 67th Street just outside of ABC Studios at the appointed time expecting hundreds of cheering, chanting people. After I got over my initial disappointment, I realized, “Hey, this is really good. There are 5 other people here, they all think the same way that I do, and they even brought their own homemade posters. We got a great rally going here.” This is exactly what I told the other people and they cheered up quite a bit. We talked for a while and everyone told of his/her take of what was going on politically. We then decided to move our rally down to the corner of Columbus & 67th Street. This corner is the main entrance to ABC Studios and sports a much larger volume of pedestrian traffic.

Moving over to the main entrance was a really good idea. A few more folks who couldn’t find us at the side entrance joined the rally – the rally became large – we were 12 strong. People walking up and down Columbus stopped to look at our posters.
All wasn’t well though. Some people hurled pretty flagrant insults at us. Other people were offended, and, I may add, rightfully so, at some of the more negative posters. We all quickly decided to ditch the bad posters because this was conveying the wrong message. Someone had some markers and poster paper and we put together a much less offensive message. Obviously, the rally proceeded with a more civil demeanor. Yet, there was still something nagging me about all this.

We were all standing there like a bunch of cigar store dummies holding those silly posters. I didn’t travel to Manhattan to be a poster boy. Not that I minded – I would do anything if it helped the cause. But, we are here to get our message across to people – we’re certainly not accomplishing that very well. I got the flash that this group, myself included, is just a bunch of shy folk and we’re afraid to talk to people. Well, now is not the time to be shy. There’s too much at stake. So, I decided that I would do whatever it takes, shy or no shy. I started to smile politely at the people who were slowing down to look at our posters. I engaged some of these people in conversation. And I didn’t talk at these people; I asked them what they thought and what were their concerns. I asked them about their ideas about health care. Some people agreed strongly with Obama’s plan and chided me for not doing the same. That’s OK; at least we were communicating; we were having a dialog.

A few others in our group picked up on what I was doing, and, overall, our rally turned out to be real success. The biggest take-away from this story is that people are interested in what you have to say; just, don’t bang them over the head with it.