We’ve done our share of covering the activism that has recently become fashionable in this 21st Century, from reacting to continued inequality with a marathon walk through San Francisco to setting up camp in front of the Icelandic capital as a day-job.  It seems public demonstration is back in style in a way that hasn’t vogue since the Sixties and folks of every political stripe are joining the fun.  And, at long last, tea-bagging in the billy-infested hills of Kentucky and Rick-rolling dance parties with Anonymous finally have a competitor for the hippest peaceful assembly to further a political cause this year.

Photo by Jens Jockey

Ahead of Halloween this weekend, Santa Rosa, California -- a red town in a blue state -- will be host to a horde of zombies demonstrating in support healthcare reform.  Part public dissent in a West Coast Republican outpost, part performance art, all undead dance party, “Zombie Action” seems to be the latest attempt by the largely silent center-left to introduce some levity to the exhaustingly hyped healthcare debate:

Zombie Action!!! is a day of serious fun about a heartbreakingly serious issue. We are not down-playing the tragedy, but rather than protest AGAINST, we choose to protest FOR. We are FOR health care for everyone. We are FOR fun. The pursuit of happiness can’t happen without health.

Dressing up like zombies is unlikely to become common in the mainstream political theatre outside of California (even here less than 200 Facebook profiles have registered as attending), but events like “Zombie Action” do suggest a growing fatigue for the deadly serious and largely manufactured “grassroots” political game, particularly among young people.  The swastikas, the devil posters, the claims of socialism sound shrill even by the standards of an American generation whose politics has been defined on television.  Protests like this weekend’s faux-undead horde are a direct reaction of the young to that disintegration of political civility.

What does it say for the condition of the American healthcare debate that dressing up like zombies seems more sane?

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