"The Venice General Assembly states its opposition to any city council decision or resolution that would dispense with a ballot referendum under the justification that democracy is too messy or expensive. This declaration does not express any support for any position from OccupyVenice on issues being considered by the LA City Council"
This resolution was adopted last night, and you can see the discussion on the proposal in a uStream clip recorded by OccupyFreedomLA beginning at 31:30.
Support was evident for an amendment heard at 45:00 on slippery slope language: "While not taking a specific position on the issue currently before the City Council - the Venice General Assembly unequivocally disapproves of any attempt of any governmental body to take away our right to ballot initiatives - and rather than moving in the direction of eliminating them, we need to encourage more ballot-based democracy in the City of Los Angeles"
LA City Council is expected to decide soon to adopt an ordinance proposed by AHF requiring condom use in porn that garnered enough signatures to be a ballot initiative. The ballot measure may be a cynical ploy to motivate more social conservatives to vote in the CA Primary, and LA City Council maybe moving to stop that in an undemocratic way, that also forces the adult industry to relocate and accomplishes AHF's work while setting a very bad precident
A 1/3/2012 letter from City Clerk June Lagmay to Los Angeles City Council members, gave the City Council three options:
1) Adopt the proposed ordinance, without alteration;
2) Call a special election; or
3) Submit proposed ordinance, without alteration, to City voters...during the next regular City election or the next election conducted by the County of Los Angeles.
The next election is the CA primary on Tuesday 5 June 2012.
Undemocratic justifications by LA City Council members include this gem attributed to Councilman Paul Koretz in an article by The City Maven
“We can spend literally millions of dollars on an unnecessary election or we can do the right thing for free,”
The principles of solidarity of the Occupy Wall Street Movement contain these solutions for all that ails society, on messy issues of condoms in porn and necessary elections:
■ Engaging in direct and transparent participatory democracy;
■ Exercising personal and collective responsibility;
■ Recognizing individuals’ inherent privilege and the influence it has on all interactions;
■ Empowering one another against all forms of oppression;
■ Redefining how labor is valued;
■ The sanctity of individual privacy;
■ The belief that education is human right; and
■ Endeavoring to practice and support wide application of open source.
If we could see a little more support for democracy from the LA City Council, and a little more exercise of personal and collective responsibility from the adult entertainment industry, right wingers in gay-bashing AHF would not be able to play the media with shock and fear over the icky, sticky issues of free speech, artistic expression, sex and privacy.
The cost of the AHF manuever will be the same to the taxpayers of Los Angeles, whether there is an election or not - expect lawsuits over the 1st and 4th Amendment issues that the AHF ballot measure or ordinance obviously infringes. AHF probably will cost the City much more than Occupy ever has or would...
Follow me on twitter to see how this plays out in real time: @seksi