Sunday: Occupy Petaluma’s Birthday Party in Penry Park

On October 29, 2011, 200 people gathered in Penry Park on Kentucky Street. This Sunday, October 28, a public party will be held to celebrate the one year anniversary.

Occupy Petaluma began as a natural outpouring of rage about the concentration of great wealth (40 percent) in the hands of the few (1 percent). The original encampment turned into a movement with serious working groups and solid goals. Every week for a year, OP members have attended at least one, but more often two, General Assemblies. Anyone invested in any group, nonprofit, governmental, or even social, can understand the depth and breadth of these individuals’ commitment.

“Commitment to what?” is the question I hear most.

Tim Nonn, of the GMO working group, puts it this way, “What Occupy really represents is a nonviolent rebellion against the corporate state. Ninety percent of Occupy groups are in small or moderate-sized towns. It all boils down to defending our local communities against the greed of the corporate state, with its tentacles in every aspect of our lives: education, environment, people’s basic rights.”

Nonn orchestrates chalk-drawn Sidewalk Storybooks. This Sunday’s subject is the true story of a heroic effort by a Japanese grandmother to organize a grassroots response to the Fukushima disaster.

John Bertucci, active in Fukushima Response, a concomitant campaign bringing awareness to the nuclear issue and mobilizing a regional voice to demand action, will give out information Sunday.

Amy Hanks, of the Occupy Democracy working group, focusing effort on “getting big money out of politics so that our representatives begin to represent us,” says her group has met twice a month for a year and gathered signatures for Move To Amend, a nationwide group pushing for a constitutional amendment “to firmly establish that money is not speech, and that human beings, not corporations, are persons entitled to constitutional rights”.

Occupy’s theater troupe, The Really Big Bucks Brigade, will perform a new skit Sunday. “The vibe in the working group is overwhelmingly positive," says Hanks. "We talk about a lot of serious stuff, but we also laugh a fair amount.”

OD invites the public to participate in MTA’s Stamp Stampede too. Bring some bucks to stamp! (“Not to be used for bribing politicians”) Also on the slate: The Really Really Free Market, musicians like Larry Potts, community potluck (bring silverware and a plate, and something to share if you like), and even a film and video festival. This promises to be a well-rounded community gathering with meaning and joy—in other words, a quintessential Petaluma event.