DC Demo Next Week on Medicare...?

It's time to start organizing a demo outside the Capitol for next week,
perhaps
even sooner if the House votes yet this week.

But from what I'm now reading, the Senate will not get around to it until
next week.

Important first principles (which those of you in the DC region should start
looking
into right now):

First, try to hold the demo as close to the Capitol building as current
security
regulations will permit.

Second, obtain all necessary permissions from the DC police in advance.  Be
abundantly polite to them in doing so.  Make it clear to them why you will
be
demonstrating, and if possible let them know the precise time and the
desired
location for your demo.  Even if you don't precisely know this right now,
get
in touch with them and tell them what you are planning.

Third, assure them that from your perspective you intend this demonstration
to
be entirely peaceful and orderly.  Be prepared for Novelli and his crew to
have
prepped his pals into holding a counter-demo.  Make sure you stay well away
from them.

Fourth (or perhaps FIRST!), make sure the press knows well in advance
precisely
when and where the demonstration will take place.

Fifth, have lots of signs made well ahead of time.

Sixth, provide lots of photo ops.  You may remember back in 1998 that a
group
of fat-cat neocon seniors killed a catastrophic health-care bill they felt
they didn't
need by stopping traffic and ranting against the law.

Ordinarily I would say they are beneath consideration.  But in this case
don't
be afraid to take a page from their book.

Make sure you have towards the front of your ranks patients in wheelchairs,
on stretchers or gurneys, perhaps even in hospital beds.  Have some doctors
around sporting stethoscopes, dressed in white or blue fatigues.  And some
nurses
too.

Finally, have some simple, pointed, well-prepared literature to hand out to
press and the public.

Also, make sure you post here and elsewhere (on the Internet health-related
news-groups, for example) precisely when and where the demo will take
place.  And how those coming in from out of town can most easily find you.

That's at least a beginning.  I'm not in DC or I would probably have some
further suggestions.