Occupy Movement and Ocupemos el Barrio Outreach on Foreclosure Crisis in 2012

Perspective:
By John B. Kenney 

“You are! The 99%!”

In four short months the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) and its local Occupy San Diego (OSD) Movements have galvanized the voices of Democracy and peaceful protesters as we have never seen before.

The local OSD movement has been raided, assaulted, pepper-sprayed and arrested en mass by SDPD and the original OWS occupation in Zuccotti Park in New York City has been evicted.

On Oct. 28, local police claimed -after their 2nd of four raids on OSD in Civic Center- that the local movement was “defeated”. Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly has declared that “The Occupiers are dead. Politically finished. Stick a fork in ‘em, they’re done.” But the fact is the movement just won’t go away, having already changed the political culture and moved the social dialogue to a place it hasn’t been since the 60s. Time magazine made the American Occupiers, the peoples of Greece, Egypt and the rest of the Arab Spring “Protesters”- the “Persons Of The Year.” “Occupy” will forever be synonymous with the widening gap between the very, very few- the “Richer Than God” 1%, and the increasingly poverty-driven 99%, as well as the destruction of the middle class, and the threat of the end of the American Dream as we know it.

Recently, Occupy pointed out the declining nature of labor wages, working conditions and benefits, the erosion of U.S. jobs, and wholesale outsourcing of entire industries overseas. The interests of the grotesquely wealthy few are prioritized -the richest 1% owning 43% of American assets, and 80% globally, with which they buy all aspects of every election and legislative action- at the expense of the many. According to the latest Census data, 14% of Americans are in poverty by 1970s standards, and over 50% in “near poverty” status, including over 40% of our children.

Occupy SD & Ocupemos El Barrio Outreach Together

On December 17, members of Occupy San Diego (OSD) and Ocupemos el Barrio/Occupy the Hood gathered together at Chicano Park.

The Occupy movement’s global mission is to create “a truly democratic dialogue” that involves the grievances and the opinions of the 99%, “including the most marginalized people” and communities of lower resources, and then create solutions and actions for our broken, corrupted system. All at Ocupemos el Barrio agree, it is an integral part of the larger global movement- “The basic idea behind Occupy the Hood is that we want to [discuss] the issues of Occupy about economic inequality, and include issues that also affect people of color.”

Equally, an Occupy SD member said, “It is important that we find ways to bring people of color into this Occupy Movement,” as people of the Barrio we have been fighting battles related to the goals of Occupy. 

Foreclosure Crisis in American

To be sure, the Occupy Movement, globally, locally and across the nation, has moved onto a “new phase”, of concentrating, not on tents, police brutality working at the beck and call of the 1%, and “occupations” per se, but on making focused efforts to bring to light all of the injustices in modern, corporate dominated society.

In Chicano Park, Occupy/Ocupemos voices rose up, “Here in the Barrio foreclosures have a harsher effect on an already low income community. The Barrio as a whole cannot just bounce back as the communities of Vista, Mira Mesa and Rancho Bernardo can. When low income families lose their homes, the Barrio loses out on the stability of those families and the neighborhood connections that make for a living culture [of] Latinos… [which] is destroyed by foreclosures…”

All of this must finally stop…

While it has been noted that, “There are a lot of people who are part of the Occupy Movement who do not understand how race and ethnicity affects the 99%…” it is more important that, “People of color have been fighting against oppression for a long time. The Occupy Movement is fighting against oppression, against exploitation, against corruption. It’s about time we bring these two movements together!”

Carlos Pelayo, President of the San Diego/Imperial Counties Chapter Labor Council for Latin American Advancement (LCLAA) says, “This foreclosure crisis was a wake-up call for many in my community… [and] really are making people aware of their 99% consciousness, and making them wake up to the actions of the 1%. This crisis will serve to get our communities together and activated to fight this travesty.”

“The Occupy movement can help stop foreclosures,” said Ray Lutz, former Congressional candidate for the 52nd district in East San Diego County. “Banks hate bad publicity. If you have 100 people with candles surrounding the house, no banker will get near it. We have strength in numbers; by helping our neighbors, we can win.”

As early as 2010, this Occupier, joined with Congressman Bob Filner at the home of a Chula Vista resident’s home that was in the final day of foreclosure and eviction. Just the presence of several hundred supporters and the local press, made the Bank in question that day call off the Sheriffs charged to evict the home owner, and reset the entire foreclosure process. 

Save Our Homes

To redress these gross disparities in wealth, local OSD has presented several Resolutions which were presented to the City Council on 12/6/2011: 1.) Get Money Out of Politics; 2) Amend the Constitution to end and regulate Corporate “personhood”, and most notably; 3) A six (6) month moratorium on all California/San Diego County foreclosures; Debt forgiveness on mortgages to 80% of current market values, and re-mods, and; Divestment of all City monies from large banking &/or financial corporations, and reinvestment in small to medium businesses, or individuals.

Nearly 60,000 foreclosures happened in San Diego County in the past year, with over 200,000 in the pipeline for next year. OSD/Ocupemos are reaching out to some of the local communities of color which were targeted during the sub-prime buildup, and are now disproportionately devastated by sometime illegal foreclosure efforts. The Banks received over $700 billion no-string-attached TARP guarantees, moreover, Bloomberg reported, “Wall Street Aristocracy Got $1.2 Trillion in Fed’s Secret Loans.”

Thus the obvious cry from the Occupy Movement, “Banks got bailed out! We got sold Out!”

Our strength is in our numbers and our unity.

If you have any information on some one in trouble with their property about to or just foreclosed on, please contact us at OccupSD.jbk@gmail.com, or (619) 674-1858.

The Voice of a Local Latina Social Worker: Catherine Mendonça

To most in Ocupemos El Barrio/Occupy The Hood, (i.e., the communities of Sherman, City Heights, Barrio Logan, etc.) the struggles Occupy speaks of now, were always there in neighborhoods of color and in low income. The Barrios are communities that the Occupy movement can and must learn from.

The actions taken by Ocupemos El Barrio/Occupy The Hood may be different: Beyond someone’s first amendment rights to tents, the residents of the barrios could unite with new allies in the Occupy movement to prevent another home from being foreclosed on.

In the past, when margina-lized groups had mobilized, they rightfully reclaimed the culture of their city and took back land that was stolen. They occupied space for themselves in order to de-colonize (or withdraw) the efforts of the 1% of that time. These occupation actions by the oppressed give a strong yet peaceful message to the 1%, letting them know their attempts to gentrify or harass the barrios out of existence will fail.

It is time to bring in the global Occupy movement to help our lower income communities of San Diego and across the US.

Let us all as Chicanos, Filipinos, Immigrants, Refugees, African Americans, and White working class brothers and sisters be as one voice through Ocupemos El Barrio/Occupy the Hood in San Diego. As one voice, we are far from being a minority.

Please join us now. “You are! The 99%!”