Zombie Action!!! for Healthcare Reform.

Huh? What are you talking about?

Zombie Action!!! for Healthcare Reform was held on Sunday, 10/25/09, in Santa Rosa, California.
Much fun was had on behalf of a serious issue.

Original Facebook events page:
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=179475693153&ref=ts

EVIDENCE:

Press Democrat article:
http://www.pressdemocrat.com/article/20091025/ARTICLES/910259978?
Title=Zombies-unite-for-health-care-overhaul

Bohemian "News Blast":>
http://www.bohemian.com/bohemian/10.21.09/blast-0942.html

Photos on Flickr:

or go here.

Legions of the Undead: March!!!

by Joshua Stithem

The heads of the multi-billion dollar industry that is health care in the United States should have known...
With reliable health care harder and harder to afford, with people being robbed of their insurance when they need it most...
The lines to the emergency room would not be the only things piling up...
So would the bodies of the citizens of this country, left to die without proper care.
And... as the bodies piled up...
The ZOMBIE infestation would come...

Yes, the undead, the unloving
Finally rising up to wreak havoc on the civilized world
...were they the restless bodies of the uninsured?
...were they the victims of some pharmaceutical accident?
...were they an army of vengeance, created by a voodoo curse?
The senators and insurance executives were too beholden to their greed to care.
To blind to realize...
The ZOMBIES were coming...

In a mad panic, our representatives made feeble attempts at reform...
The single payer system was dead on arrival, the public option slain and then laid back on the slab...
And millions of dollars were spent daily by greedy men and women who had spent their lives making fortunes from their neighbors' illnesses.
Our ears were filled with echoes...
"Well, this is just business as usual"
"We must be bi-partisan"
"That's just how Washington goes"
And, as they say, there are three things in this world that are so ugly, so terrifying, that you would never, ever, in your long life wish to see...
Number One: Sausages being made
Number Two: Laws being made
And Number Three: A flesh eating ZOMBIE horde!!!

And that is exactly what they got!
They tried to appease us, they tried to bargain...
But the ZOMBIES kept coming!
They tried to promise, they tried to lie...
But the ZOMBIES kept coming!
They threw every ad campaign they could at us...
But the ZOMBIES kept coming!
There is no escape! You can use flamethrowers, you can shoot for the head, you can board up the senate doors and turn the lights out, but the ZOMBIES are coming!!!

Today, ZOMBIES, we march.
For health care...
For brains...

For, as a wise zombie once said to the powers-that-be...
"USE YOUR BRAINS... OR WE WILL!!!"

Why Zombies?
(AKA: We're Spreading Our Message Virally)

by Michael Houghton

Quite a few people have asked me "Why zombies?" about this event. They all say "don't get me wrong - I love it, and I'm totally coming, but what's the connection between zombies and health care?", and to be honest, I wasn't really sure.

My answer has been quips like "we've been denied health care and we're coming back for revenge," or the more honest "well, it's a really good excuse for a zombie party."

But I thought about it more. Why is it that zombies are such a cultural meme right now? What is it about zombies that resonates with our culture in the same way that "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" resonated during the Communist scare? Or that giant, nuclear waste-fueled monsters resonated during our fear of nuclear annihilation?

I know there's been talk of "zombie banks", which should be dead, but were brought back from the grave by taxpayer money. But I don't think that's it. I kinda think the other cultural meme of vampires works a lot better to describe Wall Street right now...

And somewhere in my flu-addled brain, this morning, it hit me: it's about complacency.

I'm part of Generation X, a group supposedly composed of slackers, which critics have claimed has given the world no real meaning or definition of "what we are". We're considered to be do-nothing. The folks younger than me have been called things like "the Blank Generation", and are supposed to be nothing but nihilistic hedonists with no agenda and no connection to the world around them, playing videogames and texting instead of getting to know their neighbors. Some of that may have been true, or else it wouldn't have resonated, but maybe, just maybe, we're starting to wake up.

We've also just been through eight years of what happens when you live complacently, when you don't stand up and get involved. When we, and our elected representatives, stood by like zombies and let the other side try out their cockamamie social theories and lie us into wars and economic ruin. We all looked on with half-dead eyes while that happened, and then went back to what we were doing.

Fuck that. We know better now.

So maybe we take the symbol of zombies because we're tired of mindless consumption. Tired of being easily distracted by shiny objects and flesh. Tired of being the walking dead.

Time to wake up.

Remember to shoot for the head.