A Collection of Moving #Occupy Videos – Random Communications from an Evolutionary Edge

Most of the Occupy videos circulating lately are of massive demonstrations, police abuse of protesters, and various Occupy encampments being removed or resisting removal. For this remarkable visibility we can thank cell phones, powerful cheap video cameras, and the Web – from YouTube to live feeds.

There have been earlier periods of video visibility in the US – for example, TV coverage of the Vietnam War helped stimulate rising public resistance and a bystander’s video of Rodney King being beaten by LA police in 1991 had a profound impact on the country. But for the last decade or so, images of our wars have been more thoroughly controlled by the government and mass media have often ignored major demonstrations, so today’s renewed video visibility is refreshing. The effort to prevent video and other press coverage of the recent trashing of the Zuccotti Park encampment was so unusual and broadly offensive that it incited widespread comment.

One of the videos of this type that most impressed me recently showed the silent vigil that met University of California Davis chancellor Linda Katehi as she walked to her car. I don’t know who thought of it, but I see this response by UC Davis students to the brutal pepper-spraying of peaceful student demonstrators on the ground as a profoundly important development in the Occupy movement’s evolution. A small group of Great Peace Marchers in 1986 passed out tiny cards to their fellow marchers saying “We are walking in silence on behalf of the silent dead of Hiroshima and the silent unborn future” and silence spread through the crowd of over 1000 as we entered Washington DC, with comparable powerful effect. I hope the use of moral silence as a tactic spreads in Occupy. Here’s the video:
http://www.care2.com/causes/students-shame-uc-davis-chancellor-with-silent-pr…

However, I want to mainly use this message to highlight another type of OWS videos showing up in my emails – the ones made to inspire us.

Consider the moving videos below – and enjoy them.

Coheartedly,
Tom

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http://occupylove.org and http://occupylove.org/videos
Both pages offer a series of upbeat, heartfelt, substantive videos about the Occupy movement, from within it
(includes a five minute video from Charles Eisenstein, author of Sacred Economics)
(If you want to hear the whole “We are the Many” anthem by Makana, described by Makana in one of the videos, you can hear it all here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xq3BYw4xjxE )

http://www.thenation.com/video/164158/occupy-wall-street-envisioning-victory
A short video of OWS participants sharing their views of the vision of the movement and what victory would look like to them

Former Black Panther Malik Rahim spoke to a spirited Occupy Eugene crowd of 2000
http://www.youtube.com/user/GordonSturrock/#p/a/u/1/B4XsO5gbh8A

http://www.moveon.org/r?r=267998&id=33072-1485063-Oyswt2x&t=2
Occupy the Highway – a march which started from OWS in NYC with a few people determined to go to Washington DC to publicize the Super Committee’s potential slashing of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid instead of raising taxes on the wealthy. They’ve grown to about 50 marchers, moving ahead through all kinds of weather.

Five interactive panorama photos of Occupy LA
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-occupy-la-pano,0,5615506.htmlstory
(move around in the panorama using the arrows on your computer keyboard)

MUSIC

In addition to the Makana anthem above, Roger Waters has made his “The Tide Is Turning” song into an #OccupyWallStreet music video
http://owsnews.org/roger-waters-the-tide-is-turning-occupywallstreet-music-vi…

HUMOR

A great example of Steven Cobert’s educational humor, in which he engages two articulate OWS occupiers in a spoof offer to take control of their movement as part of his “SuperPAC”. He uses this bizarre plot line as a hilarious stimulant to bring out the unusual nature of the movement, in the words of its participants.

http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/401092/october-31-2011…
Short URL:

http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/401261/november-01-201…
Short URL:

VOICES FROM THE SAME “SPIRIT OF THE TIMES”

Charlie Chaplin’s great OWS speech: