@politicalsentry: IMO, it's best that Occupy doesn't take any overt official position regarding the 2012 election. If we back any candidate, it ruins our integrity and will absolutely split the movement and lose support. If we back a third party, same result. Individuals within Occupy are going to vote and not vote as they please regardless of what any GA at any level tells them to do. We should make the obvious decision which allows them to do this and maintains the integrity of the movement. That is no decision whatsoever. This is a social movement, not an electoral campaign.
Also, given the recentlt discovered methane hydrate plumes in the Arctic ocean (http://updatednews.ca/2011/12/14/giant-plumes-of-methane-bubbling-to-surface-of-arctic-ocean/) I'm not so certain that we have 5 years. Electoral politics will not fix our environmental problems. Only massive and immediate habitual and institutional action can.
