The
writer traveled to Columbus, Ohio, from St. Louis, Mo., to
participate in the showdown in Ohio. He filed the following report.
In
Columbus, Ohio, on May 16 and 17, thousands came out to express their
anger at JP Morgan Chase —a Wall Street bank that has committed
countless crimes against the U.S. working class, including predatory
home loans that have destroyed entire communities. The bank’s
representatives were in Columbus for its annual shareholders
meeting.
The
main targets of Wall Street’s predatory loans are African Americans
and Latinos.
According to Home Mortgage Disclosure Act data, mortgage lending from
2006 to 2009 dropped only 11 percent for white borrowers while
dropping 51 percent for African-Americans and 63 percent for Latinos.
(Color Lines, May 18)
While
millions of poor and working people are suffering from the economic
crisis created by Chase CEO Jaime Dimon and others on Wall Street,
the billionaires are laughing all the way to the bank with huge
bonuses paid for by trillions of dollars in bailout money. They think
they are going to get away with these crimes. They are wrong.
Here
is the rundown on how much these parasites of society make off the
suffering of whole communities:
Wall
Street banks issued over $295.3 billion in sub-prime loan schemes
from 2005 to 2007. Then they received government handouts when the
schemes went bust. Chase bank made off with over $100 billion of
working people’s tax money from the government bailout.
Chase’s
profits since getting bailed out by the government? Over $29 billion!
CEO Dimon’s total pay: nearly $21 million in 2010. And his bonus
for last year alone: $17 million!
The
facts are stomach turning. Chase fraudulently foreclosed on 18
military families before they got caught. They have rejected more
than 354,000 families for loan modifications.
On
top of all that, Chase does not pay its share of taxes. The bank has
over 50 overseas tax shelters.
But
guess what? On May 16 and 17 the people said, “Enough is enough.”
Led by the National People’s Action, and many other grassroots
progressive community organizations, people stormed the annual
shareholder’s meeting at Chase to demand that they stop foreclosing
on working families and give their hard-earned money back.
Showdown:
Round 1
First,
we staged a protest at a busy intersection in Columbus at Chase Bank
on May 16 and demanded that they give us our money back. Many drivers
honked in support. There were painful testimonies from the victims of
Chase. One organizer talked about her experiences with the banks. Due
to their greed, she ended up as a homeless teenager after her mother
died.
Later
that day, protesters descended on the Hilton where Chase board
members Crandall Bowles and William Weldon were staying. A protest
was held right in front of the windows of their suites. Slogans
chanted included: “Jump down Crandall” and “Jump down Weldon
and explain yourselves to the people!”
Round
2
On
May 17, we continued the actions at the shareholders’ meeting. We
split into different groups and spread out into every area around and
inside the meeting. In the group I was in, we blocked the main entry
with a human chain, preventing the shareholders from entering. In
response, police mounted on horses were called in to disperse us.
When they left, however, we retook the streets two more times, only
to be dispersed each time by mounted police.
Later
that day, after hearing news that others had burst inside the
meeting and disrupted it, we all united together as a crowd of
thousands outside the gates of the meeting.
One
person was arrested and many were maced during the days of action.
But in a victory, CEO Dimon was forced to direct bank staff to assist
some of the homeowners in foreclosure who had taken over the
shareholder meeting and testified about their situations.
We
must continue fighting the capitalist banks until we win. “Ain’t no
power like the power of the people because the power of the people
don’t stop!”
