The first thought I had was: Why doesn't someone organize an "Occupy Malibu"? Hundreds or thousands of people peacefully (and cleanly) making use of the public beaches in these "exclusive" areas for the entire summer. Keep it clean, civilized, respectable, don't leave trash behind and be considerate. In other words, give absolutely no reason to label you negatively in any way.
> "Hundreds or thousands of people peacefully (and cleanly) making use of the public beaches in these "exclusive" areas for the entire summer. Keep it clean, civilized, respectable, don't leave trash behind and be considerate."
This is a nice idea, but I don't think it's at all possible. Looking at Occupy and other large protest movements in recent memory, none of them were really above reproach to this degree, at least not once they reached scale.
I still remember the SF Occupy camp. Civilized, respectable, clean, and considerate lasted about two days. You put 500 modern, young protesters on a beach and "clean, civilized, respectable, considerate" will be a distant memory.
Not to mention, even if it is actually that respectable, the FBI really doesn't like hippie protests and have a history of making sure that they don't stay respectable.
Yes, but doesn't this just feel deliciously like "sticking it to the man?" These are public beaches that the most well-off among us would like to keep for themselves. Not only that, they use extremely underhanded tactics to do so.
An "Occupy Malibu" protest needn't suck resources from cancer research. A few hundred (thousand) people are going to be visiting beaches in the general area of Malibu anyway. A concerted effort by beach-goers to find and use the most egregiously obstructed public beaches (for instance, using this app) could be both satisfying and low-cost.
About 20 years(?) ago Michael Moore did this in Greenwich, CT. Same deal: in CT, all beaches are public from the water to the high-tide mark. Greenwich imposes ridiculous parking/beach entry fees ($100+ IIRC) for non-residents so the only access is often from the water. He took a bunch of people and a film crew and hung out below the high-tide mark while the Greenwich cops hung out above it to make sure no-one crossed.
Not sure what the point of it all was, since there are many other nice public beaches. Maybe it was worth it just pissing off a bunch of people with sticks up their collective asses?
