Yesterday Occupy Santa Rosa took off with a roaring start. About 4000 people showed up for a rally and march. That's a very good turnout for an area of 200K people. There are now some 200 people conducting an ongoing occupation at City Hall. I was involved with some of the planning and showed up early to help with the preparation and be a crowd monitor.
Here I am in my monitor drag.
I would like to introduce you to someone who I find to be a great inspiration. Her name is Mary Moore. She is a local movement godmother who has been at it for 50 years. For the past 30 years she has been making life a bit more difficult for the world's leading fat cats who show up at Bohemian Grove every summer.
Here we are at 10:00 AM wondering if people would really show up for the rally.
The numbers started to grow after noon.
They began to swell.
Then the band marched in.
This is about the point where I choked up and got a bit weepy.
After listening to some speeches we took to the streets and marched around the banks. Keeping people on the sidewalk and out of traffic was the task at hand.
Now comes the really hard work of people sticking it out and refusing to give up. I am a bit too old to sleep on the ground. However, I'm looking for ways that I can support the people who are making that commitment. I'm going over this afternoon to take some food and find out more about what kind of help they need. From what I've been able to pick up on Twitter this morning, so far there haven't been any confrontations with the police.