Moms Rising Organization

Help Daniel’s mom keep her home

Irene in Los Angeles

On Friday, we heard a story that we felt we had to share with you.  It’s about Daniel’s 84 year-old mom, Irene.  Her bank is selling the house she has lived in for 34 years.

Daniel explains:  “The unbelievable part of it is that OneWest — her bank — doesn’t even have to talk with my mom before selling her house right out from under her.  That’s because OneWest is among four big mortgage service companies that haven’t signed sign on to President Obama’s program to help stop foreclosures.  It’s the ‘Making Home Affordable’ plan, and even though OneWest is the recipient of federal bailout money, they are still taking my mom’s home away.”

Will you send a letter to the CEO of OneWest urging them to get on board with the ‘Making Home Affordable’ plan?

It’s time for banks like OneWest to stop sucking up government money while running over taxpayers like Daniel’s mom, Irene.

There are too many people in this same boat.  In fact, Irene isn’t the only mom who is facing foreclosure:  One out of fifty children are now homeless and these numbers are only expected to worsen as 2.4 million families are projected to lose their homes this year. Women, and particularly, women of color, are disproportionately affected by the sub-prime and housing crisis. The Consumer Federation of America found that women were 32 percent more likely to receive sub-prime loans than men, even though they had roughly the same credit scores. And this disparity rose with income level. Among high income earners, African American women were as much as five times more likely to receive sub-prime mortgages than white men.

Today, right now in fact, members of our partner organization, ACORN, are sitting-in at the offices of OneWest and the other three banks whose mortgage servicing companies won’t sign on to Obama’s Making Home Affordable plan (The other three are: Litton of Goldman Sachs, HomEq of Barclays, and American Home Mortgage Servicing Inc.).  They are doing this to put a spotlight on this issue because Daniel’s mom isn’t the only one who needs help right now.  In fact, these four mortgage companies are responsible for the mortgages of 2 million American families.

Don’t forget to make sure these companies get the point by emailing their CEOs today.

It might be surprising that a woman who has lived in her home for 34 years would be at risk of foreclosure — but Irene explains a situation that anyone could have encountered here:

“My husband was receiving dialysis three  times a week and suffering from chronic, congestive heart failure. He was vulnerable and realized he was on the verge of passing. He was worried that he’d leave me with $30,000 to $40,000 in credit card debt. With those concerns, we sought advice.

IndyMac advised us we would qualify for a loan based on our credit scores and the loan would “solve our problems.” They definitely preyed upon our vulnerability.

He died a month after we received the loan. Our fixed income was $2388.81 per month. With his passing, the income dropped to $1600.00 per month.  I continued to make payments, but they kept going up and up.  They went up so much that even if my husband was still alive, we would not have made them.”

We know that many of the people at risk of foreclosure are those bad situations because they were advised to take on loans that weren’t all they appeared to be.  The Making Home Affordable program will help to right this wrong — so thousands of people can stay in their homes. All the plan requires is that banks talk to homeowners to find a mutually agreeable solution — one that allows homeowners to keep their homes and make their monthly payments, and ensures that investors’ bottom lines are protected.

Huffington Post

Iraqis celebrate in Baghdad, Iraq, June 29, 2009, to mark the milestone of U.S. troops leaving Iraqi cities, fireworks colored Baghdad’s skyline and thousands of people attended a party in a city park late Monday where singers performed patriotic songs. The Pentagon did not offer any comment to mark the passing of the deadline.

Fireworks, not bombings, colored the Baghdad skyline late Monday, and thousands attended a party in a park where singers performed patriotic songs. Loudspeakers at police stations and military checkpoints played recordings of similar tunes throughout the day, as Iraqi military vehicles decorated with flowers and national flags patrolled the capital.

“All of us are happy _ Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds on this day,” Waleed al-Bahadili said as he celebrated at the park. “The Americans harmed and insulted us too much.”

Al-Maliki declared a public holiday and proclaimed June 30 as “National Sovereignty Day.”

Midnight’s handover to Iraqi forces filled many citizens with pride but also trepidation that government forces are not ready and that violence will rise. Shiites fear more bombings by Sunni militants; Sunnis fear that the Shiite-dominated Iraqi security forces will give them little protection.
Story continues below

If the Iraqis can hold down violence in the coming months, it will show the country is finally on the road to stability. If they fail, it will pose a challenge to President Barack Obama’s pledge to end an unpopular war that has claimed the lives of more than 4,300 U.S. troops and tens of thousands of Iraqis.

The gathering at the Baghdad park was unprecedented in size for such a postwar event in a city where people tend to avoid large gatherings for fear of suicide bombers. They ignored an appeal by Vice President Tariq al-Hashemi to stay away from crowded places during the U.S. pullback, which has seen more than 250 people killed in bombings over the past 10 days.

No outlet from the mainstream American media has ever broadcast these videos.

By Max Blumenthal, Senior Writer for The Daily Beast, The Huffington Post, June 30, 2009.

Article

For over a week, major American news outlets have broadcast on a virtual loop the video of the killing of Neda Agha-Soltan, an unarmed 26-year-old Iranian woman, by Iranian security services. The poignant footage of Neda dying before a throng of grief-stricken bystanders crystallized the vulnerability experienced by the millions of demonstrators who have filled cities across Iran to confront authoritarian forces determined to suppress their voice through brutal means. When the mainstream American press chose to broadcast the graphic video — as moving as the footage is, it is difficult to watch — it made a commendable decision that nonetheless highlighted its hypocritical attitude towards Palestinians who resist Israeli occupation on a daily basis, and who often meet the same fate as Neda.

Every week, in the Palestinian cities of Bi’lin and Ni’ilin, local residents demonstrate beside international and Israeli solidarity activists for their basic human rights. The Israeli separation wall has been constructed through the heart of their communities, cutting them off permanently from farmland they have worked for generations. The Israeli Supreme Court ruled that the path of the wall was illegal, but construction continued unabated. When the demonstrators mobilize non-violently to stop the wall’s construction — to demand that the rule of law be honored — the Israeli army has responded with massive force, killing, maiming, and brutalizing them on a consistent basis.

Video of the Israeli army’s shootings of Palestinians demonstrators are easily accessible through YouTube. The army’s unprovoked killing of Bassem Abu Rahem, a respected activist from Bi’lin affectionately nicknamed “The Elephant,” and  similarly, video of Yusuf Aqel Srur’s body being rushed into a Red Crescent ambulance after an Israeli sniper killed him with a .22 round to the chest (Srur was at the time attending the funeral of Ahmed Musa, an 11-year-old boy shot in the head by an Israeli soldier through a jeep’s rifle slit……..

Demonstrator Yusuf Akil Srur is shot to death by Israeli soldiers at 2:50 while attending a funeral for an 11-year-old neighbor also killed by the Israeli army

These videos are no less outrageous than the video of Neda’s death. However, to my knowledge, no outlet from the mainstream American media has ever broadcast them. And as far as I know, no cable news program, including liberal-leaning shows like Olbermann and Maddow, have never even mentioned the non-violent protests in Bi’lin and Ni’ilin, or Israel’s brutal response. The videos remain unseen by America eyes. The struggles of Bi’lin and Ni’lin do not even play in Peoria.

Direct action protest tactics only work if the brutal responses they provoke are recorded by influential media sources and projected to sympathetic audiences across the world. MLK’s tactics in Selma would not have succeeded had he not been accompanied by camera crews ready to broadcast images of racist savagery to outraged Northern white liberals. The outpouring of American public sympathy for Iranian demonstrators might never have occurred had cable news outlets not made the courageous decision to broadcast Neda’s killing vividly and repeatedly.

Yet when Palestinians employ direct action tactics to protest Israeli oppression, and when Israeli forces respond with wanton brutality, they are ignored by the US media, even when footage is already available through online sources. It seems they can only generate media when they resort to violence, a dynamic the Israeli government obviously welcomes. Perhaps it’s no wonder only 6% of Americans declared in a recent poll that the US should stand behind the Palestinians in Middle East peace talks. The legitimacy of their struggle is denied no matter how they conduct it.