Today, August 22nd was supposed to be the big day for the Teabaggers, their  "Recess Rallies" all across the nation but here in the Chicago burbs at Judy Biggert's office in Willowbrook it just didn't work out that way for them. According to the report I read at TPM yesterday they've been organizing these Recess Rallies with FreedomWorks and the other usual suspects for months now through conference calls to organizers etc.

Some activists on our side, and I'm proud to say I'm one of them,  beat them to the punch. We raised some money from like minded individuals and bought ourselves a big canvass banner, about 8' wide by 4' high that says "HONK FOR HEALTH CARE REFORM" in foot high letters.  On 8' tall galvanized pipes it stands up high enough so all 6 lanes of traffic can see it.

Starting bright and early at 6:30am Thursday morning we set it up on the public parkway on Rte. 83 right outside the bank building where Biggert has her office. The bank manager came out and barked at us but he knows better, we're perfectly within out rights to picket outside our congresswoman's office on public property. That didn't stop him from calling the cops who came by to tell us we needed a permit from the Village of Willowbrook to be there. We'd already looked at the Village code and found no such ordinance but we acquiesced and I went over to Village Hall when they opened up at 9 and filled out a form. We were back out there with our banner at 2pm.

We set up again yesterday for both rush hours and that set the stage for today. I wouldn't be surprised to find out Biggert herself called on the "Liberty Alliance" or whatever the astroturfers are calling themselves today to please, please, please send some counter protesters  to her office today. They showed up at noon and by the time we put up our banner there were about 10 of them including a couple of little kids who quickly got bored.  They had some hand made posters and signs, one with HR3200 on it, with a circle and line through it. The others were totally ineffective, too wordy with small fonts nobody zipping around the corner could read more than half of. Most of them stood on 63rd St., not wanting to be near us and our banner which meant only about a 1/4 of the drivers even saw them. One brave soul though stood about 50' in front of us on Rte 83 with his poster that started with "Health Care Reform Now" before trailing off into some nonsense about ACORN and tort reform. I told him as he was leaving that where he was standing, near the middle of the right turn lane, didn't afford drivers more than a quick glance of his sign and they probably weren't able to see more than the first line as they drove past, so they probably thought he was on our side. The rest of them, standing behind us, were treated to a barrage of honking horns as folks turning the corner really layed it on when they realized they were teabaggers. Yesterday we got a lot of shy little taps on the horn. Today with the wingnuts irritating people those little beeps turned into blaring symphonies.   

We get a lot of happy faces, a lot of thumbs up and I can tell a lot of people are just happy and relieved to see us out there doing something. Occasionally some dumbass will honk to get our attention just so he can flip us off. I just smile and give him a thumbs up too. After all he is helping us even if he's too stupid to figure it out.

We started out with just two of us but after a few phonecalls there were six of us holding up signs. After just an hour and twenty minutes the wingnuts gave up, threw their trash on the ground and drove away. Our folks stayed until 3:30. By then all the honking must have driven Biggert to distraction, she left about 3pm. 

We'll be back again at Rte. 83 and 63rd St. Monday morning at 7am. If we get enough volunteers we'll be there all day every day except Sundays until Labor Day when dear deaf Judy goes back to DC in need of a hearing specialist. If we don't get enough vols we stay til 10am and come back for the evening rush. It's a very busy corner, so midday works just as well. If you're in the area come join us, or at least drive by and honk your horn.

Volunteer here

If you're not feel free to make your own banner and let your House rep or senator hear just how many people support health care reform in your district. It cost us about $250 to have this banner printed up, another one of our guys spent about $100 to rig up the steel pipe poles when the original flimsy aluminum poles that came with it failed. I'm sure you can make one a lot cheaper with a can of spray paint and a sheet. Bring folding chairs, water, sunscreen, an umbrella if it looks like rain. Then be ready to be the life of the party in more ways than one.

The point is do something. We did today and it felt very, very good to leverage the good will of drivers honking their horns to send the wingnuts packing. And while Biggert isn't willing to listen to us she can't help but hear those horns up in her ivory tower.