I won't tell you that you lack sympathy. Promised. I agree with you. But a question. What was the racial makeup? It seems to me we cannot have a discussion of strategy wearing "colorblind" glasses. Healthcare is also a race issue. Although everybody suffers, not everybody suffers in the same way or at the same level.

A nurse in a NYC hospital described to me how she timed the amount of time doctors at her hospital stood near the bed of a white patient compared to a black patient. I don't remember if she said it was 1:9 or 1:20. But you get the picture. She often received orders to deny care or provide it based on race.

An outraged citizenry has difficulties being effective unless it recognizes the internal divisions and inequalities within it. A struggle for helathcare won't be effective and won't stand up to the insurance companies if it is led by and appeals to only the upper crust of the system's victims.

I contacted both DFA and moveon to express my feelings about the use of the word 'vigil', really pathetic framing. Democrats seem to fail consistently through poor framing and weak messages, it is highly frustrating.

The pathetic "vigils" are characteristic of what cringing, reactionary liberals do under the influence of pimp-consultants and campaign-finance mercenaries. These and the usual party suttlers and camp-followers from both parties are now staging and financing (a) the predictable GOP counter-attack in the style of their national 1994 mid-term campaign and (b) the habitual "all politics is local" rout of only marginally less corrupt and slightly more disciplined Democratic office-squatters.

It's August! This is what they do.

So, formulaic rituals in support of empty-suit "lifestyle" politicians is what politicos do with their little phone-lists and three-ring binders of proprietary political methodism, absent strong or, in the case of Democrats, even real parties.

Aux armes, citoyens,
Formez vos bataillons!

Not a chance!

The gun-toting right-wing is scary, sure, but the candle-wielding soft-center is just a ridiculous back-drop for them and the self-perpetuating Democratic establishment of bi-partisan concession-tenders who still do not understand they are not in a coalition of Moderate Republicans and Southern Democrats any more.

We are at a real crossroads here. 2/3 of Americans want some sort of single payer system so 'public option' is already a compromise!

Even so, it looks like corporate interest is set to overcome even that compromise. The carrot(campaign contributions) and the sticks(contributions for your next opponent and smear ads in your district) seem to far outweigh quaint ideas like 'will of the people' or 'the right thing to do'.

On every major policy there will be a lobbyist-enacted campaign vs. the will of the people. If we lose on this one we'll lose on the rest.

The system is broken. We face a future of slavery.

First, full disclosure: I was one of the organizers of the vigil last night.

I sincerely appreciate your feedback, and that offered by the many people who posted comments. I also appreciated amike’s defense of our efforts. Although I thought the event was much more successful than you did, I agree that we might have struck a better balance between stories of hardship and stories and speakers that evoked the larger political narrative -- still being written -- about how we are going to redress the current situation and bring about real health care reform. I tried to do this some when I spoke to close out the event.

I think that you are probably right about MoveOn's thinking in calling for vigils, rather than rallies. It was an attempt to circumvent, or at least minimize, the clash between the tea-bag counter-protesters and those of us calling for reform. I don’t think this decision was made out of timidity, but rather the pragmatic realization that any outbreak of violence would dominate the news, drowning out any other story or idea. Indeed a google search of today’s news shows that by far the most popular vigil story is of a particularly grisly clash between vigil-goers and counter-protesters in Southern California. If this is what happened at a candlelit vigil, I shudder to think what might have happened had MoveOn decided on the rally route.

My interest in helping to set up the vigil was simple -- I'm looking for ways to engage more people in this political movement. My fellow volunteers and I have put on dozens of events this year, focusing on clean energy, climate change, the economy, and health care. All of our other events were much closer to what you call for -- a call to arms, a clear articulation of what we pushing for and why, an attempt to channel public anger into an impassioned demand. That kind of event is quite frankly more up my alley as well, but I can tell you that last night's vigil had the largest turnout we have attracted all year. Our rough count of the crowd at its peak was closer to a thousand. Hundreds of these people signed in, many pledging to help us plan our next event. Not all of them will necessarily follow through, but some will, and I think that will make a huge difference. On that basis alone, the vigil was hugely successful, from my point of view.

I work with an amazing network of fellow volunteers, all of whom do the necessary planning and preparation that go into pulling off a public event in their spare time, mostly on weekends and evenings. We are supported by the very hardworking and passionate, but rather skeletal, MoveOn staff. I have also had contact with the members of other groups that we have partnered with -- from Health Care for America Now (HCAN) and Democracy for America and a host of others – and found them to be equally well-intentioned and committed. It's both a privilege and a pleasure to work alongside such enthusiastic and diligent people.

But the truth is that there are still too few of us. What will it take to spark the millions of people on the left who are too cynical or disillusioned to get involved? I don't mean this as a rhetorical question, nor as a jab. I've certainly been in that place myself. I decided to increase my own involvement this year because I knew that this year promised the first real chance for progressive legislation in my whole adult lifetime. But I also knew that it was only a chance, far from a fait accompli. It would take tens of thousands of us, spilling off the sidewalks and into the streets, for our government to actually listen to us. That hasn’t happened yet. We did have over 3000 people at the health care rally organized last weekend by Health Care for America and Organizing for America (with dozens of co-sponsors, including MoveOn). But I remember the anti-nuclear rallies I went to as a teenager, and the stories of the civil rights marches my parents went to before I was born. Why weren’t there 300,000 people at the health care rally last week?

When I ask people why there isn’t a bigger and more active progressive movement in this country right now, especially when I ask those who haven’t been moved to take part, they typically cite dissatisfaction with the strategy, tactics, or messaging of those of us who are taking action. We aren’t addressing the right problems or the real problems; our goals are too meek or unclear; our tactics are not creative or compelling enough.

I obviously don’t agree with these folks, but I often think they have a point, and try to find the value in their critique. I do agree that our efforts have been limited in many ways. That’s why we need your help, I’ll tell them. If our local MoveOn Councils had ten or twenty core members, who worked together consistently month in and month out, instead of five or six, we could significantly increase the caliber of our events and the impact of our actions. It’s the classic chicken and egg scenario. I ask what it would take to get more people involved, and the response is “Do more meaningful things,” to which I reply, “Join us and we can do more meaningful things.”

I reiterate what I said at the beginning: I appreciate and take value from the feedback. I wonder if you have any advice for how a robust, passionate progressive movement, one that took to the streets and demanded health care as a right, not a privilege, might be born. I don’t think it’s as simple as a change in the tone of the events that are planned – I’ve been to too many this year that had just the tone you described, but with far fewer participants.

Anonymous forums allow for painful honesty to find expression:

Given the age of the average person you described, I'd say the mood you described was about right. Protests are not made by the old (or near-old).

They are made by the young.

And for the young, health care is about as important issue as social security. This is one of the worse times to be young in this country since they lifted the deferments on the draft for Vietnam.

What's the biggest issue on the young's minds? Jobs. A stable future income of any kind. I can do without healthcare much longer than food and shelter. Especially if I'm young.

I think what you are seeing is the aging boomer generation again trying to rally it's faithful. Only this time they find that numbers alone aren't enough. Energy is.

Rallies should have a sense of excitement. All due respect to David Greenson (and I mean this sincerely): if you were worried about violence taking things over on TV, then would you have been against the violence that broke out during the Vietnam protests? During the 1968 Democrat Convention?

It's time for the older people to play the role of mentors. Older people don't make protests. They are supposed to be good at working the backdoors of power. They are supposed to help the younger people organize.

Rallies are about excitement and energizing. Rallies are about youthful indignation. They are about getting in your face. They are about screaming. They are about wanting to be at an event.

Now: if you can't recruit enough young people (and remember, Obama could!), then perhaps the issue isn't so compelling.

But if you can recruit enough young people, remember that a youthful mob will look scary to you.

Just as you looked scary to your parents.

I'm one of the multitude who don't show up at rigils and vallies (?). It just seems pointless, except for the fun of singing in and to the choir. Are we all so smart and critical that we interfere with each other and keep the wave from building? I'm so discouraged that Obama is probably giving away the public option and the right to bargain down drug prices that I ate a whole pizza (instead of joining a march). I have to go now and work it off.