Tonight at Occupy Fort Worth...

[McCamy Taylor]

A man was arrested for setting up a tent on the sidewalk next to the park across from Bank of America. "Criminal trespass" was the charge. According to people who were there at the time, the police were polite, maybe even a bit reluctant. There has been no violence, no confrontation between police and protesters in Fort Worth. Police are public employees. I think they see what has happened to the teachers, and they know that they may be next. If the nation applied a retroactive tax on corporations, there were would be shouts of "Unfair! You didn't warn us!" And yet, it is supposed to be ok to cut people's pensions, retirement money that was promised to them when they decided to become public servants.

On Monday, day one of the occupation, about 20-30 people gathered. Tonight there were around 80, maybe more. Folks kept coming and going. The sounds of drums and guitars filled the air. The faces were younger, a little less desperate, a little more optimistic---might have been the music, and the kids playing, and the women passing out soft drinks and the "communal smokes" and the warm Indian summer air and the signs everywhere, many of them taped to trees, so that the earth itself seemed to be part of the protest, live oaks declaring "We will not be moved".