Surviving Capitalism (Not) : How the banks got us coming and going

We’ve lived so long under the spell of hierarchy—from god-kings to feudal lords to party bosses—that only recently have we awakened to see not only that “regular” citizens have the capacity for self-governance, but that without their engagement our huge global crises cannot be addressed. The changes needed for human society simply to survive, let alone thrive, are so profound that the only way we will move toward them is if we ourselves, regular citizens, feel meaningful ownership of solutions through direct engagement. Our problems are too big, interrelated, and pervasive to yield to directives from on high.
—Frances Moore Lappé, excerpt from Time for Progressives to Grow Up

Tuesday, October 12, 2010

How the banks got us coming and going

by Lee Sustar from Socialist Worker.

This is an excellent followup of the article I posted yesterday entitled, "ForclosureGate and Real Estate Armageddon.

Now that the same predators who pushed people into self-destructing mortgages have been caught carrying out fraudulent foreclosures, will hard-pressed homeowners finally get permanent relief?

If they organize and fight back, yes. But the banks and their political front-men and -women will do anything they can to prevent that.

Read here how one family took direct action to reclaim their home. But organized action is much better.

The author rightly advises the reader not to forget the central truth of the banking/financial scam:

...the question of whether the banks' paperwork is in order or not is irrelevant from the standpoint of justice. The banks pumped up the housing market to make huge profits, crashed the economy in the process and now seek to foist the costs onto working people. Just as the banks didn't care who bought the mortgages they bundled together, they don't care how many lives they wreck by throwing people out of their homes.