Small Town Sebastopol Contributes to Occupy Movement
By Shepherd Bliss
Good things can come in small packages. Sebastopol in semi-agrarian Sonoma County, Northern California, has a population under 8000. Occupy Sebastopol (OS) recently has been home to a bee-hive of activity in this town’s square that describes itself as “Peacetown, USA.”
Sonoma County is best known for its fine wines. It has the most lucrative wine industry in the U.S. The first wine billionaire, Jess Jackson, has his wineries and vineyards here, as does the giant Gallo Corporation. Most locals, however, still tend to think of this region as the nature-based Redwood Empire, rather than the commercial Wine Country.

Occupy events in big cities like New York, Oakland, and Los Angeles receive considerable coverage in the corporate media, especially when police react. Yet in small towns and mid-size cities throughout America, peaceful occupations occur that engage people in conversations and education in public spaces and beyond.
On Veteran’s Day, for example, the uniformed police chief Jeff Weaver walked toward OS’s decision-making General Assembly (GA). Occupiers in larger cities might have been nervous. But the Chief carried a plate of brownies and said, “These are from the Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW).” Praise followed him as he left. Many vets, some of them homeless, have been on the frontlines of Occupy gatherings around the nation.