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“But eventually, the greater danger to the movement is that it may dovetail into the presidential election campaign that’s coming up. I’ve seen that happen before in the antiwar movement here, and I see it happening all the time in India. Eventually, all the energy goes into trying to campaign for the “better guy,” in this case Barack Obama, who’s actually expanding wars all over the world. Election campaigns seem to siphon away political anger and even basic political intelligence into this great vaudeville, after which we all end up in exactly the same place.”

-Arundhati Roy,  http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/nov/30/arundhati-roy-interview

Over the last couple of weeks I’ve seen a number of articles about what the Occupy movement/the progressive movement/the climate movement should do about the 2012 Presidential election. Here’s my view:

I see virtually no chance that a broadly-based and powerful progressive alliance is going to emerge to run either a credible third party Presidential campaign or an anti-corporate insurgent Presidential campaign within the Democratic Party. Either one of those developments would make possible a significant political realignment in 2012 given the emergence of the Occupy movement and other important developments, especially what is happening within the labor movement [Wisconsin and Ohio as the two best examples] and the ascendant climate/no tar sands-fracking-mountaintop removal-deep ocean offshore drilling-etc. movement.