The secret lives of banks and mortgage companies, pt. 2

In my last post on this subject, I mentioned that banks and mortgage companies almost always choose to kick families out of their homes after foreclosure - even if they are paying tenants. Having knocked on many doors with a fellow organizer since my last update, I cannot begin to relate the amount of situations we've run into with people facing eviction from their homes. For the purposes of this post, however, I will say that those directly impacted by foreclosure in Providence (and elsewhere, I would venture) are predominantly Hispanic people with low incomes. Neighborhoods which fit this demographic - among them the West End, Olneyville, Silver Lake, Upper and Lower South Providence - also tend to be highest in foreclosures. Decimated streets such as Hanover and Ford, rife with destroyed, empty three-family homes are a monument to the War on the Poor and the War on poor people of color in particular.

As with so many other things, undocumented people are particularly oppressed by post-foreclosure evictions. It seems to me reasonable to assume that all the confusion and distortion that surrounds tenant rights after foreclosure among documented people is also found among people who lack papers. However, there is also a strong and understandable fear of both seeking help from groups outside of the community confrontation with authorities such as the bank or the government. Rhode Island's racist governor, with support from the overwhelmingly Democratic General Assembly, has issued an executive order stepping up police actions against suspected undocumented people (read: cops harassing and detaining brown people). Documents from mortgage servicers are intimidating and almost always in English. And even if an undocumented person wanted to move out, money received through cash-for-keys is counted as taxable income and thus requires either a Social Security number or Individual Taxpayer Identification Number (ITIN). Given all of this it is easy to imagine that many people say nothing and continue to be exploited by landlords who collect rent after foreclosure and simply pack up and leave once they receive an eviction notice (if not before).

How is it possible for people to get organized in such a climate? This goes beyond systems of support - we're talking standing up and fighting back. I can't answer this question, because in part it's not mine to answer. I will say that until people start taking direct action, the racist power structure in Rhode Island will continue to tyrannize the people of this state. This is a struggle that's beyond fighting for a place to live - this is about living with dignity and safety wherever you choose to.

On Gaza

To be honest, I haven't been following the news coming from occupied Palestine in the past week too closely. I will scan a few of the lead articles on Yahoo! News and Al Jazeera to hear the new round-up of Zionist brutalities - how many people slaughtered, how many mosques destroyed, and so forth. While the latest horrors are worse than normal, Zionist aggression against the Palestinian people is nothing out of the ordinary. Palestinians will endure. That being said, the fact that so many are standing by and letting this crime against humanity continue is shameful to say the least. It is imperative that all those who stand for human rights, especially those of us in the belly of the beast, must mobilize in a meaningful way.

Some quick thoughts:
- There's a lot of talk in the news about Hamas breaking the cease-fire with Israel, to which Israel responded with this overwhelming aggression. This is straight-up not true. Israel broke the cease-fire with Hamas on November 4th, as reported in the Guardian. Furthermore, there has been a shocking, possibly willful silence about the fact that Israel has been depriving the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip of food, fuel, medical supplies and other essentials since the democratically-elected Hamas averted a (U.S. supported) Fatah coup in Gaza. Palestinians have been under extreme pressure since they voted overwhelmingly for Hamas in 2006 elections, and this crushing weight extended into the latest cease-fire. Even if it was Hamas that launched the first rockets, they would certainly have been justified given the kind of treatment their people have received.

- Obama has said nothing about the Zionist massacres in Gaza, even though he had plenty to say about the attacks in Mumbai. Even though the new administration's position on Palestine is quite clear (Obama loves it, Biden loves it, Clinton loves it, and so forth) his entourage of liberal apologists are already cutting their teeth with insightful back-and-forths like this one from The Nation:

Will people understand that Obama seems silent now it is because he does not want to pronounce on foreign policy while the Bush administration is still in office?
As a government bureaucrat myself, I understand that. Whether the common people understand why you don't do anything in a case where humanitarian law and international law is ignored and broken in such a brutal manner, I'm not sure.

Perhaps the Obamanation's escape to a pricey getaway in Hawai'i was in fact just a clever way to escape all those prying reporters asking him to expand upon statements like the one he made when visiting Sderot last July, where he said "If somebody was sending rockets into my house where my two daughters sleep at night, I'm going to do everything in my power to stop that. I would expect Israelis to do the same thing". One could very well ask why the very same mentality should not apply the Palestinian reaction to Zionist terror. But maybe this logic is too complex for the "common people" in the United States. We are so deluged with propaganda from our militantly pro-Zionist, anti-Arab/Muslim political and media establishment that that may even be true - common sense escapes us when we consider this bloody imperialist bootprint in the region. Regardless, Obama's silence is not surprising given his oft-stated love affair with the Monster of the Middle East. YES WE CAN - PERPETUATE THE RACIST STATE!

- The liberal establishment is shaking in its shoes at the prospect of an even more popular Hamas that is expected to emerge from the blood of the martyred Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. I dug this gem up from another blog on The Nation's website:

Over the past two years, Kuttab notes, Palestinian support for Hamas -- an ultrareligious, terrorist-inclined wing of the fanatical Muslim Brotherhood movement -- has declined sharply, from a 30 percent in 2006 to 22 percent in August, 2007, to just 17 percent in 2008 -- compared to 40 percent for Fatah, the mainstream, secular nationalist wing of the Palestinian body politic. Kuttab points out that Hamas has "turned down every legitimate offer from its nationalist PLO rivals and Egyptian mediators." Now, he says, the attacks are a "bonanza for Hamas" and says that Israel's assault will achieve "results exactly the opposite of its publicly proclaimed purposes."

This paragraph is more problematic than I care to go into at the moment - the statistics, for example, are cited selectively to make the decline in support shown in the data appear more dramatic than it was originally reported. The description of Hamas is oversimplified and skewed, and why you would venerate the corrupt, colluding and underhanded Fatah party is beyond me. Given the rhetoric, my suspicion is that it reflects the traditional leftist bias towards "right-thinking" secular parties no matter how terribly they treat the people they supposedly represent.

- As for the idea that Hamas attacked Israel in some sort of selfish bid to gain popularity, let's read from a summary of the same report that Kuttab/Dreyfuss cite.

The percentage of Palestinians who support "resistance operations" against Israeli targets rose from 43.1 percent in September 2006 to 49.5% at present. Support for this option was highest in the Gaza Strip, at 58.1%, with 24.5% in the West Bank agreeing.

Palestinians who support bombing attacks against Israeli civilians rose from 44.8% in June 2006 to 48% in September 2006 and to 50.7% now.

Again, more Gazans support these operations (65.1%), compared with 42.3% of Palestinians in the West Bank.

The Palestinian public is divided on the rocket attacks on Israel: 39.3% said the firing of these rockets was "useful" to Palestinian national interests, while 35.7% said they were harmful.

This was as of April of 2008. I would also add that a more recent poll by the same people in October found that the vast majority of Palestinians felt that the truce between Hamas and Israel either made no difference or made things worse.


Here's to the Islamic resistance in Palestine. From the river to the sea - Palestine will be free!