I like this idea for reaching out, and educating. I would like to know if everyone is ok with this, but someone has put some work into this, and I want to thank them for that, and it was very nicely done. Great job.

I support this video. Please everyone pass it around. It is the best general description of what the movement is all about that I have seen so far.

@typicalowsguy
I support this. I support every part of it. I'm for it.

Thank you all very much. When I told a friend I was behind OWS, he said "But Fred, you're not some homeless Socialist!". So I thought it might be a good idea to make something showing people that's not all OWS is.
I made the video after I took my daughter (the blonde girl doing the interviews) down to see the difference between what the media shows and what the movement is really like. I was really tired by then or my energy level would have been higher. The next vids should be better.
I'm making a couple more (much shorter!) videos about OWS and also on subjects like how to protect yourself from banks (Monthly fees, NSF charges, Remodifications etc...) and big companies in general (Cable, Phone, Power etc...).
I appreciate the nice comments.
If you want to share it with your friends, you can guide them to http://lasvegastimes.info/OWS_Video.html
There's also a written version of it there. It's not great but I wanted to help however I could. I do not pretend to speak for the movement and hope I have not offended anyone or been presumptuous in what I said. I know there are a LOT of other concerns, I just wanted to identify the ones that would be almost impossible to argue against.
Cheers,
Fred

Actually I was just having a conversation about something like this. I do not speak for the movement either. We all do though if you want to be involved, and that is great about this. My only concerns that it would not go over with some of the much needed free thinkers here, and I think we are for now keeping a real broad outline. I think we can do that and specify here also to maximize potential on many issues, but that is just my opinion . Your work is welcome here, and very much appreciated. Well at least by me, I don't speak for anyone else. Great work, and I would like to see your others, so please post them here.

The content of the video is spot on, but the information is a bit dry in its presentation and it runs long due to the repetition of similar concepts. I found myself paying too much attention to the individual speaker over focusing on his message. By constantly shifting his head from side to side and generally not looking into the camera (at the viewer), the overall effect is disconnecting and undermines building a sympathetic trust in the viewer.

Rather then competing with the unnaturally perfect talking-heads the news media employs, I would suggest using written slides with narration. This way people who don't/can't use sound still get the information, and there is no distraction from the speakers technique. You could also accompany particular bits of data presented with graphs and charts or other visual cues to help communicate the facts.

Overall a great start! Hope that feedback helps.

Thank you marchelo, those are good suggestions, if it is possible yes either vary the background a little with some good information, or while your talking switch to a to a partial slide show of info or people a bit more, to give it some variation. Over all I think for what you are trying to accomplish the presentation will work. Don't change it too much, maybe just add to it.

Thanks guys. Like I said, I just put it together after spending the day talking with people in the local camp. So I get it.
Energy level is too low.
I kept looking at my notes from the interviews (on the side).
Too long.
Needs more slides.
Maybe low music in background.
I am not going to dance though!

I'll try to do better next time.

@typicalowsguy

And good luck to you, I'm looking forward to viewing your finished piece.

typicalowsguy,

This is a great start. However, I don't agree with some of the solutions that you propose here.

There are fundamental flaws in the system(s) that need to be addressed. Debt and inflation are inescapable characteristics of our monetary system. Spendthrift consumerism is an inherent component of our economic system. Mindless conformity is a major goal of our educational system. Pandering to aggregations of power is an inevitable outcome of our political system. Capture of our governmen by powerful interests is inherent in our current approach to government.

If we just try to tweak the current systems we are doomed to fail as we have not addressed the fundamental flaws in the system. Tweaking the system (campaign reform, new laws governing lobbyists etc) has be tried numerous times in the past to no good effect (for us the people that is; the 1% always seem to come out better).

We need to discuss the this fundamental flaws and evolve approaches to address them. This will not be a simple discussion and it will not be a quick discussion. I believe that we are at a pivotal point in history where we can effect momentous change. If we are to do so, we need to take the time to spell things out and think things through. I we don't take the time, we run a significant risk of being co-opted just like moveon.org (a democrat by another name) and the tea party (a republican by another name).

Again, I applaud your effort. It puts a face on the movement and demonstrates that we are not all wild eyed, ill-behaved revolutionaries devoted to the overthrow of the government. What we need to do now is view your video as the first round of a long running discussion.

Jim
http://justjimscorner.blogspot.com/

Okay. I'm all ears.
How do we achieve all that without ownership of companies or representation in government?

In part I am a philosopher and sometimes the question is more important then the answer :)

As you may have noticed I have a blog where I try to pull these ideas together in a much more cohesive manner. That being said, there is an element of timeliness that is present on these discussion forums that precludes this. Let's take just one aspect of the above and do a bit of a deep dive. Corporate responsibility.

Have you been a CEO of a corporation? I have. I was the CEO of a small corporation employing 250 people. Believe it or not, a CEO is not free to do as he pleases. He is constrained by many things, not the least of which are laws and regulations. There is a principle called fiduciary responsibility ("An obligation to act in the best interest of another party. This type of obligation typically exists when one person places special trust and confidence in another person and that responsibility is accepted.")

Currently for a CEO the shareholders are the only parties that he acts in the best interests of. Not the employees, not the public a large, not the government. So, consider the following:

A share holder is faced with taking some action that is legal yet morally repugnant or not taking the action, incur some reduction of profit. The CEO has no choice in the matter, he must take the morally repugnant action or he will be in breach of his fiduciary responsibility.

This situation brings to mind the Nuremberg trials after WW2. A common defense that was offered by many of the military defendants was the they were simply following orders. This gave rise to the Nuremberg principle in that with respect to illegal orders, this was not a valid defense.

Maybe what we need is the equivalent principle with regards to fiduciary responsibility. When a corporation acts in such a fashion that results in damage to the public good, the principle of fiduciary responsibility is not a valid defense.

This is just one approach to the issue of corporate responsibility. Another might be changing the way in which we measure a corporation's success. Instead of merely measuring the growth in profits and the return on investment to the shareholders, we might rather couch this in terms of increase or decrease in their contribution to the public good.

This is a second way we can address the issue of corporate responsibility and I am sure that there are many others.

My point here is that the issues I raised in my earlier post are fundamental issues and changes in these issues or in our basic approaches to them are necessary. The thing is that any changes we make will have far ranging and significant impacts. We need to take the time to have meaningful discourse and reach a consensus and not just rush in and try for the quick fix. In part, it is the rush to the quick fix that got us here in the first place.

Jim
http://justjimscorner.blogspot.com/

@Justjim That was deep insightful and duly noted. Bringing up the Nuremberg Principe, very nice and relevant, and not brought up enough. Your first post was insightful to from an different perspective. Philosophical enough to think on for a while. I always view experience and excuse me, but age as wisdom. Not all the time, but those two things grab my attention to look and listen all the time. I do agree with the discussion will not be easy or quick, but I'm not so sure getting money out of politics is not a real good place to start, that most can agree on.

The rest of your first post I agree with, and I like the approach idea to your second post also. Trying to convince powerful multi national conglomerates to consider the public good right now? I think they have a name and use for that, it's called externalizing. They are not just gonna hand anything over, and we have to consider most all are global with no loyalty to us, only profit, but if we could get that to happen. Wow, would take care of much.

I do think this conversation is more in the context of offering good solutions, rather than more reaching out and unifying. Which is where I think he is going with this, though far from totally irrelevant or off topic. We can still discuss it here if you like I just wanted to express that.

gavemehope - just finished a blog post that lays out my thoughts on corps a little better:

http://occupytogether.com/forum/profile/944/gavemehope

Well Jim, I've been there done that with a big company and now own my own firm. SO I have had to consider things like Sarbanes-Oxley on the culpability of executive actions.
While I admire your idealism, we both know that investors don't buy stocks because they produce a "public good". It's about ROI, period. If you don't produce the return, there will come a quarterly meeting when you discover you've been replaced by someone who will.
As far as forcing C-Level execs to adhere to avoid damaging the public good, we already have tons of regs at both the state and federal level. How much more would you define it? And if you did define it personally, what good would that do? Demands are not enforceable, laws are. So it doesn't matter how you feel a company should behave, unless you have a representive who can introduce legislation that will make it enforceable, your feelings don't mean much. That's why we need to take back our government. Why we need to get people in office.

@Justjim I stand corrected this typical guy is ready for some conversation on that. I wasn't trying to discourage that, so fire away big guy.

@typicalowsguy .Sorry I just was projecting. I thought your idea was great and we need something on that end of the spectrum bad, I think you should keep that theme and would like to see your next video. The few people I talk to on here liked it and said get it out there. I will let you and Jim hammer this stuff out.

@ gavemehope

No worries. Look, I love idealism and especially dreamers. Without them, blacks would still not be able to vote and man wouldn't fly. So while I am a bit of both, I am also an intellectual, and analyst and a pragmastist. A chess player, if you will.
This is just like a game of chess. They have the queens but we have put so many pawns on the board, it has become a stronger superior force - as long as we appreciate the value of every piece and make our moves wisely.
What that boils down to is that we have to find a way to take some of their power away from the 1%. They control companies, incomes and make us slaves because we can't even get health care without submitting to them. They also control the government which legislates whether it will take care of people or companies (btw, contrary to what Mr. Romney and "Citizens United" says, they are NOT one and the same).
We can't take their companies from them, nor should that be our goal. But we CAN take our government back. To do so requires intelligent thought and planning, followed by carefully orchestrated action. Random acts without purpose, will get us press but not much more. We have become a team that can achieve great victory. It is time to find the coaches who will lead us there.
Of course, that's just my opinion.

Oh, I made a new video. I'll post it on a new thread. I think this one is getting long. I'll have 2 - 3 more videos up this week. Please share them with everyone. If you can, get them on blogs like MSNBC, Rachel Maddow etc... and maybe, we can show a side of OWS that the Mainstream Media has been intentionally ignoring.

the new video is on the thread "Suggestions for Occupiers".

@typicalowsguy I agree so much with what you said up there. I think you should just send them there big guy, and other places to. We want to reach a broad audience which is what attracted me to this video.

Thank you so much. If you know other sites I could post on, please let me know. So far, I'm on occupywallstreetforum.com, occupywallstreet.org and occupywallstreet.org. Any others you can think of?
Also, please let me know what you think of the thread "Suggestions for Occupiers" and if you have anything you could add.
Cheers,
Fred

I have actively been involved in the movement, taking the train from my home in Clinton NJ to OWS, every week. I wish to express my solidarity by camping through the winter on public park land in my town. However, overnight use of public land is prohibited unless granted by the mayor and board. And I dont have enough people on board to feel like i could get away with locking arms and keeping ground. Any advice?

Well obviously I don't speak for the movement but I have begun to feel it's time for Occupy From Home. Seriously, how much are we going to accomplish, if we limit ourselves to only those willing and ABLE to live in tents? I have a wife and a daughter who is carrying a 3.7 in high school AND varsity tennis at the age of 14. I want a good future for her - which is WHY I'm part of OWS. I don't think living at home shows less commitment to our cause. As a matter of fact, I've been able to call and e-mail every one of my elected officials, every week, becaue I have access to phone and internet. I've been able to get other business owners to take the movement seriously, because they see I'm not some "homeless hippie college puke" who just wants a bunch of handouts and a socialist government. So work. Educate the people around you. Dress well, speak intelligently and make our points. If you want some ideas of what to talk about, I've put up two videos so far and will be adding another 2 - 3 within the next day or so at: www.lasvegastimes.info

Cheers,
FS

@ typicalowsguy Agreed, though I think you may be missing something.

All that you call for others to start doing (working, educating, speaking intelligently) is already well underway.
http://www.dangerousminds.net/images/uploads/afiles/OWSvsTeaParty.jpg

I also have a job, a wife, and a life I wish desperately to preserve. Yet here we are, emphatically supportive of a revolutionary movement. Occupying our time online, discussing what we wish we could do by suggesting it to others. Sure, we help out in the best way we can, donating our time and lending our talents, but we can't forget that our actions are only important because of the people who "live in tents". They ARE the Occupiers. Without their continued public, peaceful assembly, our musings would slide back into the unnoticed margins of public discourse.


@EVOLVE
This is what the early stages of a purposefully leaderless movement look like.
Its a bunch of otherwise disconnected individuals uniting to solve the big problems. One of those big problems is a misinformed public and our primary weapon against the misinformation machine is confrontation. It took 700 people getting arrested on Brooklyn Bridge to crack into the mainstream headlines, but now each and every occupation around the globe has the attention of millions around the world.

I would advise working within the confines of the law until you have a group of 20 or more people who are willing and able to Occupy the public land and hold open General Assemblies for as long as it takes.
Until then, Occupy Clinton NJ every second you are legally able! Your continued presence will encourage others to support and join you. There is plenty of material around to help inform the public and this should be your top priority. Have handouts, or a fact sheet you can reference in conversations. Here are some good ones for example: http://wedontmakedemands.org/posters.php

It is better if you have material that is locally relevant (for example, I live in Fort Bragg CA and I found out some Republicans had blocked a bill that would have forced transparency on the Banks involved in the foreclosure fraud crisis, which is ongoing. Turns out they had fancy lunch with a Bank of America representative immediately prior to the vote to block the legislation. Well, there is a Bank of America in our tiny town of 7000, so that's where we protest :)

Okay, for some reason I'm unable to access the video. I keep getting 'Page not found'. Perhaps a working link will be pointed out to me.

A minor idea I've had that I've recently posted in another discussion is a suggestion for OWS gatherings to have a moment of recognition for anyone who has recently closed their bank account and opened a credit union account. Make a big deal of it and keep track of how many are acknowledged so that people are encouraged by the growing progress of making change collectively at the individual level. Maybe even make a local community pride issue out of it through friendly competition with all other OWS groups.

Other than calling Obama a failed President this video said nothing. Voting is the answer to all problems. Vote or shut up 50%c turn out.......what do you expect.
Right I bet the guy in this video lives in poverty.

empty

@ Leo: You can find all the videos at www.lasvegastimes.info ot by searching for typicalowsguy on youtube.

@ Durandus Re: Gott. Yes he's obviously an angry little man who is feeling impotent. Happens. But even with his trolling, he's got a point. It's time to take it political.

emptor

I'll clap thrice, but not applaud...Elvis has truly left the building before the curtain clothes...a mouth so full of peanut-butter to barely swallow...a very weak digestion...but what are peanuts for, if not for the Elephant in the room...crunch, crunch, crunch...where the hell do you think you're going?...the circus is over there!

Great video, thank you for posting.