> http://occupywallst.org/article/so-called-demands-working-group/
If the Left, the consciously socialist caucus of the workers' movement, wants to advance, then it needs to engage each given popular eruption -- and that is what OWS is -- in its own terms, respect its inner dynamics. In the context of popular eruptions *informed by the tradition of the French revolution*, here's from the Communist Manifesto, the statement of intent by Marx, Engels, and comrades:
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/communist-manifesto/ch02.htm
By the way, when in this document Marx and Engels write "The Communists are..." this or that, they mean that they intend to do what they can for that to be the case, not that by some miracle they already *are* what they intend to be.
IMO, the issue is not whether we need political focus and some permanent apparatus to ensure that focus -- a party! Of course activistism, disposition to fight, unity, and organization are not ends, but means to rebuild our social life. Of course we need a party. Of course we need direction. Of course, no matter how much people may feel otherwise, prefiguring a free society now can only be a microscopic zygote, not an actual cell -- let alone a tissue -- in a developed free social organism. Of course we need to work on dispelling facile illusions and conformity with the OWS status quo.
The question is *how*. Not by trying to mold the movement in accordance with some superimposed principle, e.g. that the movement needs "demands" now now now. If something feels like an attempt to hijack the representation of OWS in the direction of "demands," then it is so. The effect is that of fragmenting the movement. Socialists, Marxists, etc. can do a lot within the movement as is, without pulling it apart. When it became sufficiently clear that the 1917 February revolution was reviving the soviets in Russia, the Bolshevik directives as formulated by Lenin were (1) "explain patiently" within the soviets and (2) expand the soviets' reach to resolve the "dual power" crisis in favor of the soviets. In State and Revolution, the soviets are viewed as the embryo of the new state, and they came to be. Of course, that was in 1917. Insofar as this analogy makes any sense, we're not even near Russia's 1905.
So, do not view anarchism as the cause of the problem. View it as the symptom. The urgent problem is lack of raw disposition to fight collectively, lack of unity, lack of self-education in the struggle, and lack of organization. Work on these fronts and anarchism will become unnecessary in due time. What is the urgency of demands now now now? What will be lost (compared to the feasible alternative) if OWS doesn't make a pronouncement on full employment or monetary policy or what-have-you now now now?
Work to expand the movement *within* the movement, respecting its ways, make it more resilient in the face of repression, help it hold the moral high ground, be the best Occupier you can be, do not try to mold OWS along some sectarian principle (e.g. "demands now" or, worse, particular demands). Instead strengthen the unity of the movement, "point out and bring to the front" the common interests and needs of working people, regardless of background; emphasize the thrust of the movement as a whole.