Affordable Healthcare for ALL (Even Artists)

Sun., Oct. 25, 11 - 12:00: PAC-WE "flash mob" convenes at the Morton Meyerson Symphony Hall, Dallas, TX, under the Mark di Suvero sculpture (the big orange-ish - red, x-ish, pendulum thing).

Many if not most artists and art professionals are independent contractors who must either pay dearly for health insurance or go without. PAC-WE is being organized in order to demonstrate in support of the meaningful health insurance reform so many of us badly need. As I understand, yellow ponchos will be provided in return for a very small donation, for participants to wear. The organizers write,

PAC-WE: An ACTION by and for the North Texas Art Community calling for health care reform.

PAC – WHAT? The Professional Artist Coalition is a ‘flash mob action’ creating a bright public yellow signal for health care reform. A first for Dallas, and this cause.

PAC - WHO? The North Texas art community. This includes thousands of citizens daily engaged in the visual, performing, literary, media, and commercial arts.

PAC- WHERE? Morton Meyerson Symphony Hall- convene under the di Suvero Sculpture ‘Proverb/ Pendulum for preparation of happening.

PAC- HOW? Show up and bring your friends, your coffee and donuts.

PAC- WHY? Because artists of any kind stand with the American people to demand a change to the status quo of a broken health care system. Because artists are unique victims of the health care status quo. Most are independent contractors, uninsured or underinsured. Because artists are fed up with other PAC's (Political Action Committees) funded by insurance and drug companies that are fighting to care for profits instead of health. Because the North Texas art community realizes that at the very moment that Dallas is celebrating its new PAC (Performing Arts Center), with architects and programming imported from elsewhere, it has no plan to sustain its own creative community. Because artists have been silent and invisible for too long when it comes to the health and care of our society.

PAC WE - The Origin of the Concept. PAC MAN is a sign of consumption. We often consume health care and culture without thinking about its wider context. We don't ask why healthcare costs so much or why so many are left without it.

We also don't ask about the livelihoods and healthcare of the artists that are seen as culture providers. Since the cuts in arts funding on a national and local level (most notably during the culture wars of the 1990s) artists have been cultural workers who contribute to our communities with little or no support in return.

But PAC MAN is also a sign of the earliest glimmer of technology and its promise for the future. When it was invented in the 1980's we would never have guessed that the internet would create a world that was so connected and empowered by the access to information. These qualities drive this event by connecting us and empowering us, based on our access to information that is so condemning of the status quo. These qualities bring us together on this day for this action.

We use the yellow color of PAC MAN as a sign of wisdom, optimism, clarity and awareness.

At left is a map of the location/route (click on the image for a larger version). See PAC-WE's facebook page, and more details soon at PAC-WE.

ALSO, MoveOn is holding a "Whose side are you on?" rally at noon on Wed., Oct. 14, at Senator John Cornyn's Office in north Dallas at 5001 Spring Valley Rd., Dallas (map).