Occupy Venice Organizes Demonstration Near Santa Monica Pier

The Occupy Venice movement, having abandoned its in lieu of more stable environments to organize, hosted an event on Saturday afternoon at Palisades Park near the Santa Monica Pier as a sign of solidarity with occupy movements around the country, including Occupy Culver City and Occupy Santa Monica.

At the event Saturday afternoon, former Santa Monica mayor and spokesperson for the Green Party, Michael Feinstein, noted that because physical space is being occupied elsewhere at Los Angeles City Hall and in New York City the Occupy Venice movement is free to work as a mobile entity.

"I think it is really critical to hold on to City Hall in L.A. So much of activism you are always struggling to organize a single event, that something exists – that is ongoing – it changes the amount of energy you need to put in," Feinstein said.

Members of the Occupy Venice group asked Feinstein about occupying Santa Monica City Hall, which he said could have unintended consequences on city ordinances that permit the homeless to sleep. If the occupation took over the City Hall lawn, legislators make craft policy that would prohibit overnight sleeping and, in turn, alienate the homeless community.

Feinstein says that on average about 250 to 300 thousand people come through Santa Monica on a given weekday – that number jumps to nearly half a million on a nice weekend.

"We don’t need to be on City Hall’s lawn, we are going to get more people here," Feinstein said. "This reminds them of what they see on the news and that, yeah, it is everywhere."

Vietnam Veteran Michael Lindley of Veterans for Peace, joined the group that at one point amassed more than 20 active participants in demonstration. Many people stopped to observe the occupiers actions and listened as Feinstein and progressive comedian Rick Overton addressed the group.

"This occupy movement hasn’t really settled down yet, and it has a lot to learn yet," Lindley said. But the Veterans for Peace support Occupy Venice and both entities have similar goals of holding the government accountable.

"We need to get some sanity in our country," Lindley said.

Other movements have been characterized as violent and out of control at times because of sometimes violent expressions of frustration that have resulted in property destruction.

Progressive comedian Rick Overton said that they used to call those anarchists "new shoes" because they weren’t apart of your group, they were "new" and sent in to cause havoc.

"This movement is different from any other movement in all of history, but I am not going to use any sort of authoritarian blueprint on this, World War II was an improvisation as well," Overton said. "And this is a war where we don’t want to fight.  If you want to come beat us up for that, that’s your prerogative, but you’re not doing yourself any favors when you do."

"You accidentally woke everyone up," Overton said of the government and attempts to quell the occupy protests.

The Occupy Venice General Assembly meets on Monday, Wednesday and Friday behind Ananda 1354 Abbot Kinney Blvd at 7 p.m.