What now?

                                                                                (photo from FB...)

Amen.  (Have you seen the movie Margin Call?  Decent movie.  Have you read the book The Big Short?  Good book.)

I just watched a YouTube video of the Occupy Santa Rosa folks being "evicted" from the City Hall lawn.  Lots of police in riot helmets lined the entire block - close enough they could link arms, if need be.  Shields nearby, billy clubs in belts.  Many looked tense, a few looked bored.  They barricaded the surrounding streets, too...just in case.

Just in case....what?  The only folks left in those tents were a few lucky(?) homeless people who had managed to ride the protest movement into a 15-day camping permit.  Active protestors left days ago.  Even I knew that, and I don't keep up with this stuff much. 

During the video, I could hear the cameraman's footfalls, and he made a couple of remarks to the police (in an ordinary speaking voice), but that was all I heard.  Quiet conversations among the police.  A couple of cars driving by.  No crowd noise at all.  No yelling.  No one was in the video except the police and a very few passers-by.  

The Occupy encampment looked like a small, sad ghost town of 15 or 20(?) poorly-constructed tents, sitting in the dark, surrounded by troops with billy clubs and security vehicles with mobile spotlights.  Absurd.  What made the police force act like this?  Why was this kind of major "eviction" action taken?  Who paid for it?

There is also a compilation video of the kinds of police actions that have been taken, all around the country, against peaceful Occupiers.  The pepper-spray incident at UC Davis, for instance.  Several columnists claim (some with pride, some with disdain, some with understandable fear) that those actions were orchestrated/coordinated by Homeland Security, during a Multi-City Mayors Meeting some weeks ago.  Wow.  Did all the city mayors get a memo, or something?   

Hmmmmm......

And:  Where did the Occupiers go?

And:  I wonder how can we support and protect our young people, who are trying so hard to CHANGE the blatant inequalities they see all around them? 

I tend to bury my head in dog agility activities, family gatherings, arts & crafts projects, gardening, work, reading books, even housekeeping.  Politics is waa-a-ay off my radar.  But every once in a while I  lift my head and look around, and listen...and I begin to wonder....

What next?  What now?  What can I do?  Anything??