Occupy Wall Street: News Round-Up

Photo by James Guppy, October 17, 2011, Cheapside, London.
Here's some of what I've been reading this morning...

Some interesting pop culture co-options of the Occupy Movement: MTV Issues Casting Call for Protesters and Batman to Occupy Wall Street.

A follow-up to a story from early in the Occupation: Occupy Wall St. pepper-spray cop Anthony Bologna loses 10 vacation days for violating NYPD rules. Ooh, ten days. I'm sure we're all convinced that you're serious about discouraging police brutality.

Meanwhile, back in DC, Democrats are reportedly starting to reap the consequences of trying to play it both ways, giving lip service to championing the 99% while doing the bidding of the 1%:

After the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee sent a recent email urging supporters to sign a petition backing the wave of Occupy Wall Street protests, phones at the party committee started ringing.

Banking executives personally called the offices of DCCC Chairman Steve Israel (D-N.Y.) and DCCC Finance Chairman Joe Crowley (D-N.Y.) last week demanding answers, three financial services lobbyists told POLITICO.

"They were livid," said one Democratic lobbyist with banking clients. ... Democrats' friends on Wall Street have a message for them: you can't have it both ways.

President Barack Obama and other top Democrats are parroting the anti-corporate rhetoric running through the Occupy Wall Street protests, trying to tap into the movement's energy but keep the protesters at arms' length.

But many bankers aren't buying the distinction.

And, hey, guess what? Neither are the protesting 99 percenters. The fact is that the Democrats can't straddle the fence forever: They're either corporate shills, or they're representatives of the people. For a long time, they continued the charade of populist rhetoric while selling out the soul of FDR's party to corporations, and they tried to maintain that they could somehow do both and everything would be okay. But things aren't okay. And it's time to pick a side.

Speaking of mendacity: Doug Schoen Grossly Misrepresents His Own Poll Results to Smear Occupy Wall Street.

Oh, and while we're on the subject of epic dipshits, here's Charlie Pierce destroying David Brooks.

And concluding on the subject of interesting stuff...

Michelle Goldberg writes about anti-Semitism and Jewish identity in the Occupy Movement here.

Nona Willis Aronowitz writes about Occupy Design, "a new website that gives a 'visual language' to protesters across the country," here.