Forum Post: OWS Candidates for November
Posted 12 years ago on March 28, 2012, 3:40 p.m. EST by jeremiah757
(9)
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Is the movement planning to put up any of its own candidates in this year's election?
Right on the home page of this web site it very clearly states that OWS is a social movement, not a political movement. I do not know of any local general assembly anywhere that has endorsed or advocated electoral action on the part of OWS. It is a direct action movement. While I personally believe that as OWS grows and matures it will probably have to consider electoral action. But right now IMHO it is too new and way too small to be of any consequence in the electoral arena. Right now all an electoral program for OWS would do is reveal its weaknesses, not its strengths.
By comparison the Nader campaign in 2000 had 130,000 volunteers. Right now the activist base of OWS is about one tenth that and even with that comparison, many people think the vote for Nader was trivial, so how much more trivial would an OWS electoral campaign be given how much smaller and weaker it is. As I said, I am not against electoral action in principle. I just think that right now OWS is too small and too weak and we would be too late out of the gate to do it effectively in 2012.
Right now we need to concentrate on direct action. Spring is here. Summer is coming. We are in a position to re-establish encampments and build new ones. There will be two big political conventions at which we will have a presence in the streets as well as many other mobilizations beginning with the May 1 general strike.
If not for president then start at state level
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