“Thank you, thank you!” Luz Maria Villanueva’s voice was choked with emotion at a rally on her front lawn organized by Congressman Bob Filner (D-San Diego). Nearly 100 people turned out at 5:30 a.m. for a candlelight vigil to protest Union Bank’s announced plan to have the Sheriff’s department take Villanueva’s Bonita home. She has pleaded for a reprieve at least until her young son, who has cancer, completes chemotherapy treatments.
Filner was willing to risk arrest to halt the foreclosure. The Congressman knows first-hand the effectiveness of civil disobedience to right a wrong; in the1960s he rode the Freedom Train to Mississippi, where he was arrested in a Civil Rights protest and jailed for several weeks after standing up for rights of African-Americans.
Evictions of people like Naa-Anoror Okai and James Tillory. “I have proof that my bank changed my income, my marital status, and my ethnicity,” said Okai, who came out to show solidarity with Villanueva. After a Housing Commission worker found that the bank had falsified Fannie Mae documents before initiating foreclosure proceedings, Okai filed a lawsuit and sought help from Congresswoman Susan Davis (D-San Diego).
But when the Congresswoman contacted the bank, Okai said, “They wouldn’t return her calls…Instead of working with me, they sold our loan to another lender.” Okai wants to save her home, but also hopes to see her bank prosecuted by the federal government for fraud.
TVNL Comment: Is this the freedom that our troops protect? Is this the way police keep us safe from "terrorists?" Who are the terrorists? What freedom do you have? The freedom to lose your home? The freedom to be tossed to the street? The freedom to NOT be treated when you are ill? Who do the troops protect? The banks and corporations! Are police there to protect you or to protect the banks...who lend you money they don't have by simply creating it out of nothing...and then they force you to pay back what they never really lent you in the first place...and the cops enforce their tyranny! Wake up folks...the terrorists are here at home and they are Americans, through and through, practicing the American way!