Occupy, Resist, Produce
| Homeless protest, then occupy empty Lesile Residential Hotel in San Francisco Tenderloin. The police say this is nothing more than a routine event that "happens all the time", but if that's true then why does it never make the local papers? |
By Jim Kirwan
10-12-10
Protesters take over empty Tenderloin building, in San Francisco.
By Mike Aldax
October 11, 2010
"Protesters squatting in a vacant Tenderloin residential hotel may have set up blockades to thwart invading cops, police said.
More than a dozen police officers stormed the building at 587 Eddy St. Monday in an attempt to flush out an unknown number of homeless advocates who broke into the building Sunday and have refused to leave.
But as of noon, cops said they struggled to make contact with the protesters. Officers dealt with a number of obstacles and blockades that may have been intentionally placed inside the building, police spokesman Sgt. Mike Andraychak said.
The activists occupied the building, formerly the Leslie Hotel, as part of the firstWorld Homeless Day. A rally for World Homeless Day was held in Civic CenterSunday.
Miguel Carrera, a spokesman for the activist group, Creative Housing Liberation, said there were 18 people inside the building, and that they would remain there until police remove them.
Officers planned to go room-to-room in all six floors of the building. They hoped to boot out trespassers and also scan for any damage the activists may have caused, Andraychak said.
Police shut down streets surrounding the building due to the operation. Muni had to reroute the 31-Balboa bus line due to the street closure. (And the 19 Polk).
Cops have been on scene since Sunday around 5 p.m., after a citizen called 911 to report that around 50 people were blocking traffic in front of the vacant building.
The activists say it is a crime that there are more vacant housing units in San Francisco than homeless people. They claimed in a press release that there were between 6,000 and 15,000 homeless people in The City last year, and that more than 36,000 units are currently vacant.
The activists colored the run-down building with several protest signs, one reading "Empty homes are for people too" and "Affordable housing RIP." Officers camped out in front of the building overnight." (1)
The police say this is nothing more than a routine event that "happens all the time", but if that's true then why does it never make the local papers? The homeless, the sick and the jobless are everywhere on the streets here; yet absolutely nothing is being done about it. Meanwhile a program to install two handicapped ramps on each corner of the neighborhoods (where there was already one ramp) is moving ahead at a cost that is surreal. Thousands have nothing to eat, no medical care and nowhere to sleep, so where does the City of San Francisco choose to spend millions of what little money they do have: Not on creating more jobs or on providing more food! No they chose instead to build more convenient ramps for the handicapped: Because there's money to be made in the kick-backs for the concrete that's required. So the Depression continues unabated; and the rich get richer while the poor and the disenfranchised are left to starve.
It's the same story nationally with the FORECLOSURE-CRISIS that is not being treated like the death blow to millions which it is. When the Savings & Loan Scandal happened that too was ignored until it became apparent that the only way to end it was to federally control and to eliminate the S&L's if there was to be a future for that aspect of banking. The massive criminal-fraud inside the Home Loan Foreclosure scandals makes the S&L debacle look like child's play: Yet Obama and his Czar's who are ultimately in charge of this nightmare are refusing to sanction a nationwide-moratorium on FORECLOSURES, until "the facts" can be clearly understood and corrected.
Incidentally where is Nancy Pelosi, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, on this flashpoint where criminal-behavior has apparently replaced the legal procedures that were supposed to protect us all against what has become common practice in the banking world. Obama and his cabinet appointees are standing against the moratorium while my representative Nancy Pelosi, remains mute!
The banks are making millions, if not billions more on the foreclosure process through the fraudulent sales of these illegally-foreclosed properties, from checks written by the feds to the banks that do not reflect the devalued prices that the properties-in-foreclosure have become. It's a huge scam. Watch this four minute video which explains it all. (2)
What is needed is a nationwide moratorium in all fifty states because the current moratorium in just 23 states allows the banks to file in any of the other 27 states; to do what they cannot do in the 23 affected states. Bank of America has announced that they are declaring a moratorium on all of their foreclosures in all 50 states: So far they are the only bank complying with what must happen if we are to ever untangle this Gordian knot.
Another cruel irony is that Fannie-Mae and Freddie-Mac, two federal institutions that are supposedly there to help people in trouble ¬ are still actively foreclosing on these same contested properties without clear lines of ownership that are required before foreclosure can even be entered into. This is where the problem becomes nightmarish.
The mortgages themselves were subdivided and re-sold; becoming in that process a small part in many different "real-estate-packages" that were then used as collateral for even more loans. So when the banks began to try to foreclose upon an individual mortgage, they could not clearly establish who actually owns the mortgage on any particular piece of property; because of all the subdividing of the property as collateral for other scams. The legal problem comes when a lender tries to foreclose on a property which they cannot prove they own outright. That transaction, when it is carried out is criminal-fraud and it has happened to millions of Americans. A moratorium on foreclosures would allow the necessary time for the banks to correct this practice and clear the records; and to compensate those that have lost everything in this massively fraudulent scam. This cannot go unanswered because it is the very basis for the housing bubble and for the crash that followed its collapse. So where the hell is Pelosi on any of this stuff?
The criminal institutions have already bailed themselves out, time after time, using our money to enrich their own bottom lines. Now its time for us to hold these so-called pillars of the corporate world to account-all the way down to stripping them of all their assets and sending to them to federal prison.
The conversations that are taking place today, around these topics, make it sound like these criminals are guilty of only having "misspoken during some cocktail conversation" ¬ when the truth is everything they've been doing since derivatives and hedge funds first made their appearance on Wall Street has been illegal. Now instead of facing the facts they want this entire shell-game to go on uninterrupted.
These outrageously criminal-insiders need to pay in direct proportion to the damage they have done to so many millions of people: And the politicians that gave them the cover they needed to do this must pay the same way ordinary people would have to pay for any of the thousands of infractions that we are subject-to everyday and in every way. Either there are laws for all of us to follow or there is no law for anyone ¬ only payoffs, kick-backs and illegal schemes that always seem to go unnoticed!
kirwanstudios@sbcglobal.net 1) Protestors takeover empty Tenderloin Building
http://www.sfexaminer.com/local/Protesters-take-over- empty-Tenderloin-building-104707089.html
2) Indymac boys get sweetheart deal
http://www.youtube.com/user/fiercefreeleancer From:
http://www.rense.com/general92/pelo.htm
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