Forum Post: On OWS advantages, dis-advantages, misconceptions, and why it is being held back by many

OWS was started by anarchists and was designed as being based on solidarity and inclusiveness. As such, libertarians, socialists, anarchists, communists, etc... are all welcomed and invited to protest side by side.

Identifying a problem, then agreeing that it is real and deciding to rally in protest to point it out is easy enough. We all agree the current form of capitalism in US is broken and needs to be fixed somehow. This is why so many people from various ideologies march with OWS.

What's difficult, and I would even say near impossible, is agreeing on the right solution for said problem(s). An anarchist wants to solve the problem by overthrowing the government, a socialist wants a tighter form of capitalism, a communist wants to abandon capitalism and replace it with a scheme where everyone is economically equal, etc... Even anarchists are divided. Anarcho-syndicalism, anarcho-capitalism, anarcho-individualism, anarcho-primitivisim, etc... all propose different solutions for the same problem.

OWS was not meant to offer solution, it was meant as a protest against capitalism. The big advantage is that we can all protest together, the dis-advantage of bringing people of various ideologies together is that we cannot agree on a solution.

This is why OWS must remain apolitical. As soon as it becomes politicized and makes political demands, supports certain parties or candidates, or runs candidates of its own, it loses power as many won't (because they can't) agree on the solution proposed.

The anarchist know this and that is why they never made demands, or proposed their solution of overthrowing the government. They only wanted to protest together.

So, in view of this, I ask you to please keep OWS limited to protesting. This is where we are strong as a team. If you wish to promote a certain party or candidate, you should do it outside of OWS as to not break the protest apart. If you want to propose a solution such as RBE, overthrowing the government, etc... you should also do this apart from OWS. What we need is one protest, and many splinter groups offering solutions which are apart from OWS.

We can see the problem on this forum. When someone proposes a solution, it is usually the case that people do not agree. We should not be proposing solutions here. This forum should be used to promote new ideas for protesting. So much can be done on this front. But, honestly, this type of talk is so rare here. Nobody wants to talk about protesting, it seems everyone wants to talk about solutions, and this is why the solidarity and inclusiveness of the protest is suffering.

Your friend, Thrasymaque