OWS is the domestic manifestation of the Arab Spring and of the London riots. It is the dissatisfaction of the majority with the influence of the minority. I think these two bookends are good to compare because, in my opinion, OWS is precisely between the two.

First, Arab Spring. The uprising of young Islam in many Arab states is a function of a young, internet-savvy electorate chafing under the rule of authoritarian regimes which they view as stifling their desired way of life. "What they wanted" and "how they were going to get it" were very clear - they wanted the governments that were oppressing them out of office and they were going to get it through any means necessary, even if that meant dying for it.

Compare and contrast with the London riots. The uprising of disaffected British youth in London, Birmingham and elsewhere wasn't a function of oppression, it was a function of diminished opportunity. Structural unemployment for youth in Britain is unacceptably high and when the spark of totalitarianism ignited the latent distrust of the ever-growing surveillance state of the UK, it went up like a bomb. However, the UK doubled down their authoritarian rule and basically jackbooted their way out of difficulty.

Unemployment and lack of opportunity in the Arab world is a very real problem, but it's not a new problem. The economies of Jordan, Egypt and elsewhere were certainly in a downswing but Libya wasn't. The drive there was political and focused. Unemployment and lack of opportunity in England, on the other hand, is a Blair-era problem. Deficit as a function of GDP in the UK is much higher than it is in the US and has been climbing even faster. The UK had its own mortgage crisis, had its own bank bailouts, and has its own (very serious) financial armageddon looming on the horizon.

Now, Occupy Wall Street. Clearly, OWS is born of unemployment. OWS is born of household financial instability. OWS is born of a sense that hard work is no longer rewarded. In that way, it has a lot in common with the London riots. And while OWS has a political element, the OWS movement has yet to gel around a concrete goal. That's not a "failure of leadership" or a "lack of vision" but more a function of "concrete goals" in this case being rather tumultuous and violent.

OWS could settle on something like "re-instate Glass-Steagall." They could be even more radical and rally around "restore the Gold Standard." They could go for something manageable like "restore taxation to 1992 brackets." None of these completely sensible, entirely reasonable demands is going to provide healthcare to the people who need it, however. It's not going to put the evicted back in their houses. It's not even going to "teach those Wall Street bastards a lesson" - not in the immediate observable future, anyway. Not only that but it's a hell of a lot harder to rally an angry mob around "restore Glass-Steagall" than "down with Mubarak."

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Which has little to do with an "independent candidate." However, neither did the arguments you put forth. The argument for an "independent candidate" would be someone who has the ability to right the wrongs put forth by OWS. That was kind of the sentiment behind Carter; what Carter discovered is that without the backing of the existing political elite, you can get exactly fuckall done regardless of how badly you want it. Carter won the Nobel Peace Prize 22 years after becoming a 1-term president.

What the Tea Party knew, what the Green Party knows, what the Libertarian Party knows is that the greatest strength and greatest weakness of the American political system is its bureaucracy. There's a reason we have two parties, slowly congealed out of the muck over the centuries. Building national influence is tough but once you have it, it's nearly impossible to kill . Orson Scott Card argued in "Songbird" that the greatest contribution the Roman Empire made to the world was the bureaucracy - because no matter how many places you attack it, its sheer redundancy keeps it stable. An Independent presidential candidate has to do more than win the popular vote. He has to win the popular vote in enough different cities, in enough different counties, in enough different states to win the Electoral College. Remember - Al Gore won 2000 by 2 million votes.

But, according to the official story, he lost Florida by 543.

The Steinbeck quote is questionably apocryphal. I'm fond of it, but there's a question as to whether or not he ever actually said it. Perhaps this Claire Wolfe quote, from 1995, is more apropos:

"America is at that awkward stage. It's too late to work within the system, but too early to shoot the bastards."