It had to happen. The Revolution had to come home.
The unquenched coals that remain of Occupy Wall Street evicted from Zuccotti Park was destined to search out the dry tinder of community disgust and outrage over the single issue that united them all -- the foreclosure of their neighbor's homes, the home across the street, the home of the retired and the invalid, even their own home.
And, when those embers and the people carrying them found this explosive environment in the East New York neighborhood of Brooklyn on December 6, not even intermittent sprinkles and overcast skies could dampen the angry heat of several hundred marchers who had converged to protest the heartlessness of the banks and the financial system.
Each home visited, with boarded windows and doors and festooned with yellow tape marked "foreclosure," had its own story. Once prosperous families, no longer -- first the job, then the home, lost. A mortgage "Re-Fi" and impossibly escalated payments moving a monthly payment from $1,200 to $4,300... and this for a woman who had never been late on a payment before and who was still grieving from the loss of her son to "friendly fire" in Iraq.
(Recently, a major news story was run nationwide in which a distraught broker described how Chase Bank pushed minorities into subprime loans -- paying pumped up commissions to motivate sales to accounts which they knew would end in foreclosure.)
Speaking into the Human Mic, each told their story of attempts to deal with their bank or mortgage holder. Each described similar tales of un-hearing, uncaring or incompetent bank employees who could not or would not help. And, the form letters that arrived with the same lie: "We are sorry..."
One woman, standing tall on the stoop of a boarded-up home, recounted of not weeks, nor months, but years of dealing with banks absorbed by other banks with the latest mortgage holder starting the eviction process for the second and third time. As for previous paperwork? No one could be bothered to research records showing agreements in process but never completed and/or prior bank promises broken.
"I am here to tell Jamie Dimon that I want him come here and talk to me," she shouted out to the applause of the marchers and supporters.
"I no longer am alone in my struggle" she said, each sentence echoing back even stronger from the crowd in the call-and-response now made famous by the Occupy movement.
"WE will not give up or give in, Mr. Dimon. Mr. Dimon, CAN YOU HEAR US NOW?"