Last week, Nina Easton, Fortune Magazine's Washington Bureau Chief, described an apparent traumatic event on her blog: "Last Sunday, on a peaceful, sun-crisp afternoon, our toddler finally napping upstairs, my front yard exploded with 500 screaming, placard-waving strangers on a mission to intimidate my neighbor, Greg Baer."
The protest was organized by Chicago-based grassroots organization National People's Action, in coordination with the SEIU who bused more than 700 workers from 20 states to Easton's neighborhood -- one of Washington's wealthiest neighborhoods.
The event kicked off several days of protests targeting K Street for lobbyists' role in financial reform. The protesters, representing millions of people in this country who have either lost, are in the process of losing, or will inevitably lose their home as a result of the continued refusal by banks to work with homeowners, were there to picket in front of Gregory Baer's house. Baer is deputy general counsel for Bank of America, the bank with the worst record of loan modifications according to treasury reports.
Easton, who worked as a lead editor during her eight years at the Boston Globe goes on to say:
Now this event would accurately be called a "protest"; if it were taking place at, say, a bank or the U.S. Capitol. But when hundreds of loud and angry strangers are descending on your family, your children, and your home, a more apt description of this assemblage would be 'mob.'
The irony of her statement is that Delaney, along with Shahien Nasiripour also of HuffPost, are among the few reporters covering this issue with accuracy and objectivity. Many homeowners on shamethebanks.org are thankful to both of these reporters and the continued coverage of this topic.
Maybe the four years at Fortune Magazine, rubbing elbows with and covering the lives of the top one percent have resulted in Easton's myopic view. Or maybe her marriage to Russell Schriefer has affected her in some way.  Schriefer's  PR firm, SSG, claims the Chamber of Commerce and the Business Roundtable as clients. Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan is a member of the Business Roundtable, according to SEIU's own post.
Easton also downplays the role of the banks in all of this. She writes, "Waving signs denouncing bank 'greed,' hordes of invaders poured out of 14 school buses," childishly putting "greed" in quotes as if referring to unicorns, hobbits, or some other imaginary entity.
Astoundingly she manages to insinuate that we, at the bottom, are fabricating an imaginary syndrome targeting her audience, neighbors, and subject matter of her magazine.
It exists. Leo Hindery Jr. described the industry in his recent post as a:
profit-driven, greedy, selfish institution that, with its unbridled compensation practices and current light-touch regulatory regime is, I truly believe, behind almost every major societal and economic ill that has befallen the United States since 1980.
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How can anyone live in a cocoon like that?
If you ignore a Kaptur, you'll get Robespierre and Danton, too.
D.C.'s water system has been discovered to have too much lead in it. Lead poisoning results in stupidity and violence ... it had a role in Rome's elites becoming unable to effectively govern. I'm just sayin'...
There isn't a lending practice that has been instituted that could not have been fairly modified so the economy would jolt to a halt. But then who would have had the guts to actually modifiy something for the benefit of all if the benefit of all really means the bankers get anything less than what they are accustomed to getting.
http://www.swarmthebanks.com
Maybe it is in the courts. But oh wait - I forgot - the banksters have the money to hire high-powered attorneys. And then there is the little problem of so many states being non-judicial foreclosure states, where fraudulent foreclosures happen every day outside of the eyes and rule of law and most attorneys know diddly squat about PSA's or MERS or the myriad of terms that come up when a really savvy lawyer can try a case.
Did you know there are millions of mortgages that are not recorded in our county recorders' offices across the nation, and that this is because of the handy dandy little electronic system created by the banksters called MERS? This robs you and me of millions of dollars that could go towards saving school programs and teachers and police and fire jobs. Did you know that the banksters are affecting your family and neighborhood every day by not having to pay these fees?
So tell me oh skeptic - what is YOUR remedy?
We form our opinions based on what we read on the internet, the tv, and newspapers.
This is a perfect example of how disconnected some people are from reality.
Although I do realize it would be disturbing to have a demonstration in my neighborhood, if it were to happen I hope that I would be open minded enough to educate myself and my child as to why the demonstration was taking place.
Perhaps if Nina witnessed the thousands of foreclosures taking place every day, she would have a different opinion of what is really happening on Main Street. She may get to witness such an occurrence since the housing crisis is not discriminating: it effects people who were accustomed to earning six plus figure salaries to the person who barely made enough to survive.
If Greg Baer was being evicted from his home and Nina watched as a sheriff physically removed the contents of his household and placed it on the curb, I wonder if that would be a scene that would warrant an interruption of a peaceful, sun-crisp Sunday afternoon.
Now I must go. My limo is waiting to take me to my private jet where we will stage a demonstration, join an angry mob, and protest at the home of a bankster since the demonstrations at the bank or the capitol are not working.
http://thyhum.wordpress.com