Lithwick: It’s Not Us. It’s You.


For the past several years, while the mainstream media was dutifully reporting on all things Kardashian or (more recently) a wholly manufactured debt-ceiling crisis, ordinary people were losing their health care, their homes, their jobs, and their savings.

For the benefit of the willfully dense — i.e. all the telegenic denizens of the Village — Slate‘s Dahlia Lithwick explains the basic meaning behind Occupy Wall Street: “They are holding up signs that are perfectly and intrinsically clear: They want accountability for the banks that took their money, they want to end corporate control of government. They want their jobs back. They would like to feed their children. They want–wait, no, we want– to be heard by a media that has devoted four mind-numbing years to channeling and interpreting every word uttered by a member of the Palin family while ignoring the voices of everyone else.

Why does #OWS hate the kittehs?

Everything you need to know about today’s Washington Post. Here is what happened in Oakland yesterday and today at the Occupy Wall Street protests:


The protests in the evening were characterized by increasingly violent encounters between protesters and law enforcement officers. Police officers launched canisters of tear gas into crowds of protesters on Broadway at 14th Street in front of Frank Ogawa Plaza at least four times Tuesday night, sending hundreds of people scattering down Broadway.

And here, via Shani O’Hilton of City Paper, is how the WP covered the #OccupyOakland clash:


Awww, a peace officer patting a kitteh! A kitteh left behind by evil protestors! And note the headline below-the-pic: “Protestors Wearing Out Their Welcome Nationwide.” Fair and balanced. (To be fair, the online coverage is better.)

Update: In the wake of the head injury that has put Iraq War vet Scott Olsen in critical condition, the WP‘s photo editor explains the kitteh decision.

We’re the 99% (except Bruce Wayne).


Although, let’s be honest: Rorschach is more like the original Tea Partier, no? Anyway, it’s not just Calvin. By way of Mary Sue, comic book characters weigh in on Occupy Wall Street. Speaking for the 1%: Lex Luthor, Uncle Scrooge, Victor Von Doom, and, my evening alter-ego these days, Bruce Wayne…but he’s cool.

Just a Bunch of Guys.


‘”The Guy Fawkes mask has now become a common brand and a convenient placard to use in protest against tyranny – and I’m happy with people using it, it seems quite unique, an icon of popular culture being used this way.

People should not be afraid of their governments…Speaking of Alan Moore iconography and #OWS, BBC News surveys the subversive popularity of the V for Vendetta Guy Fawkes mask. “[Vendetta artist David] Lloyd says he has already heard anecdotes about police in the US searching for the masks in people’s houses to be used as evidence of involvement with Anonymous hacker attacks, ‘which is scary but also ridiculous – you wouldn’t prosecute someone for having a t-shirt with Che or CND on it.’” (via LinkMachineGo.)