While cities all over the country are clashing with Occupy Wall
Street protestors to evict campers from public places, Sebastopol
is looking for ways to continue the peaceful protests in the hope
of creating a new phase of “Occupy.”
“I have ideas and thought we could host a town hall meeting,”
former Sebastopol 12-year councilmember Larry Robinson said.
“Hopefully, we can bring a lot more voices into the
conversation.”
To that end, Robinson has enlisted the backing of the Leadership
Institute for Ecology and the Economy – Robinson is a 2010 Fellow –
and WaccoBB.net, a Sebastopol-based online community that serves
Sonoma County and boasts more than 10,000 members.
The group will host a town hall meeting at Sebastopol’s United
Methodist Church from 7 to 9 p.m. on Dec. 8.
The meeting will be facilitated by Robinson in a “World Café”
style discussion around questions such as “What are the next steps
for taking back our country from Wall Street?”
The World Café format involves groups of four participants
meeting to discuss one question and then regrouping to discuss
another. At the end, the whole group meets for a report on the
information gathered. The questions are still being formulated.
Robinson believes the “camping” portion of the Occupy movement
is over and is seeking input, as well as offering education and
suggestions, for continued mass protests against what he sees as
the continuing and growing economic disparity between the “1
percent” and the “99 percent.”
He also thinks the movement needs to focus on that particular
message.
“I understand the ‘don’t shop’ movement. It’s a reaction to
profligate consumerism,” he said. “That’s not a message the
majority of Americans are receptive to at this point. We don’t want
to alienate ‘Main Street.'”
Robinson added that although there have been “missteps” by the
police, “Main Street and the police are natural allies.”
“Rank and file police are in the same boat we are in,” he said.
“Local government is not the enemy; it’s the hand of the people.
Let’s keep trying to find common ground and focus on who the real
enemy is.”
Robinson added that historically, “corporations and the
acquisition class have pitted people against each other” and that
the success of the Occupy Wall Street movement has been to bring
that to the attention of the public.
Occupy Wall Street is a “people-powered movement” that began on
Sept. 17 in Liberty Square in Manhattan’s Financial District as a
way to draw attention to the role international financial
institutions have played in the recent economic problems the
country faces.
The movement spread to more than 100 cities in the U.S. and more
that 1,500 cities globally, according to occupywallstreet.org. The
protests saw campsites erected in several major cities, which have
been broken up by police in several high-profile actions – campus
police and the chancellor of UC Davis have come under fire for
spraying heavy doses of pepper spray at protesting students –
including Tuesday night’s dismantling of Occupy Los Angeles, which
was the largest encampment in the country and had the blessings of
the city until recently.
On Oct. 15, Occupy Santa Rosa saw 2,500 to 4,000 protestors,
depending on whose report one believes, the largest protest per
capita in the U.S.
Occupy Sebastopol began in the rain on Nov. 5 and has been
involved in an ongoing conversation with city officials. The
Downtown Plaza was briefly occupied with several tents, but they
were removed prior to Thanksgiving, replaced by an information tent
that is manned during the official opening hours of the Plaza.
During the occupation, relations between occupiers, police and
the general public were genial with city officials praising
occupiers for their behavior, despite a small handful of arrests,
mainly for outstanding warrants for individuals from outside the
area.
Jim Corbett, aka Mr. Music, has conducted “Solidarity Saturdays”
in order to keep it going, but the planned town hall, along with
the proposed resolution by Councilmember Sarah Gurney, appears to
be the next step.
“I hooked up with Larry to talk about a community meeting and
have a discussion beyond the camping,” WaccoBB proprietor Barry
Chertov said. “We need to establish a focus. Now is the time to
move on to further action.”
Chertov participated in the original Occupy Santa Rosa event and
was impressed by seeing “direct Democracy first hand.”
He was also impressed with the way the city of Sebastopol has
handled and even supported the movement.
“The Dec. 2 (city council) meeting was a unique meeting,” he
said. “A veil came down and it turned into a conversation … a
give-and-take.”
He was also “delighted to see council shift positions” and
initially allow camping in the Plaza.
But now, he wants to join in with other activists and take it to
another level.
Next Tuesday (Dec. 6) Gurney will bring forth her resolution
that states in part that “the City of Sebastopol wants an end to
the concentration of wealth and power in the hands of the top one
percent of the American people, an end to austerity measures that
widen this gap, and an end to systems that further impoverish
working people and harm the environment; … the Occupy Movement
wants to end this growing inequality; … the Occupy Movement has
become exemplary in its demonstration of true democracy, the voice
of the people, through its General Assemblies; … The Occupy
Movement has changed the national dialogue and garnered enormous
public support across the Nation … Be it resolved that the City
Council of the City of Sebastopol issues this statement of
solidarity with the Occupy Movement.”
Organizers of the Dec. 8 forum hope to bring more of that
solidarity to Sebastopol, and to garner ideas from the “99
percent.”
“The World Café is the kind of thing that will give everybody’s
voice a chance to be heard,” Robinson said. “We are going to
encourage active listening.”
