Updates on West Oakland foreclosure

Went with Anne and Ian to the July 30 demonstration on the foreclosure of Tosha Alberty's home in West Oakland. About 120+ people attended, the ACORN organizer told us as we were leaving, about 2 hours into the protest. Most were ACORN members, mobilized through the Home Defender campaign, members of the press, neighbors, and curious onlookers. The Revolution Brass Orchestra cheered protesters on with merry but melancholic strains and wiggly dances. Anne surveyed the police situation and noted at least 4 police cars effectively circumscribed the block, ready to close in on the crowd, as a strategy for arrest. We quietly plotted out our exit strategy should anything happen and vowed to ourselves, "We don't want to get arrested." Note the police presence in the pics below.

Having studied civic participation from a rather academic point of view, it was fascinating for me to observe firsthand the ACORN model of community organizing. Civil disobedience usually accompanies their days of action; this day a group of 6 symbolically broke the padlock, circled the house, and negotiated with the police to sit on the stoops without getting arrested. (The protesters on the stoops ended up getting arrested after we left.)

"When rules of law are not just, we have the moral obligation to disobey it" - the organizers proclaimed, echoing Alinsky, or was it Dr. King? English and Spanish interspersed, helping ensure inclusiveness. There wasn't Mandarin or Cantonese interpretation, nor were there many people of Asian ethnicities. I wonder if there may be some facing foreclosures who could use ACORN's services, or who might wish to participate in their days of action.
































David Bacon's article published in the Berkeley Daily Planet and SF Chronicle, highlighting the injustice,

"Despite promises that huge bank bailouts would keep people in their homes, they gave no help to people like Alberty. But they did make some people rich.

First Franklin's Web site offered "flexible, hassle-free home loan solutions" to mortgage brokers. Merrill Lynch bought the lender in 2006, and was then itself bought for $50 billion by Bank of America. Last week Bank of America reported second-quarter profits of $2.4 billion, its second straight profitable quarter since the mortgage crisis started. The bank received $45 billion from the Troubled Asset Relief Program, and spent $2.3 million in the first half of 2008 on lobbying Congress and another $1.5 million this year.

Last week, New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo reported that Bank of America paid $3.3 billion in bonuses to its executives, 172 of whom received more than $1 million apiece. Merrill Lynch, which lost $27 billion in 2008, paid $3.6 billion in bonuses - 696 execs received more than $1 million, and 14 got more than $10 million.

None of that money went to the Albertys. Instead, First Franklin's "hassle-free solution" became Tosha Alberty's eviction."

I hissed angrily to Anne, "God I wish they hadn't bailed out AIG and all the banks. They should have let it all crash. Why are we supporting systems that we know are failures?!" Anne concurred, "Yeah, practice what they preach - the free market, right?"