While we are focused with heads snapping back left and right as watching a tennis match stuck in the media's paralysis of analysis. Every now and then we see the sporadic interjection of what they have trained us to believe is our biggest threat, the thief at the corner store in the ghetto with a gun and gang violence. Essential to democracy, the Fourth Estate has yet to consistently and adequately cover the killings and robberies of the U.S. and world banking system.

Wells Fargo Bank, has the largest amount of foreclosed homes in California and the nation according to ACCE, Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment. As a result ACCE has pinpointed a great deal of its work on fighting the mortgage giant. See the report on the ACCE website released in March that states Wells Fargo's Foreclosures could cost California over $3 billion :

http://www.calorganize.org/node/1211

Wells Fargo Bank spends millions of dollars on advertising that lulls the majority into believing it's a good corporate neighbor including images and advertising sound bites of how Wells Fargo helps veterans.

The Fact that Wells Fargo through its purchase of Wachovia has ill-gotten gains from the U.S. Slave Trade is ignored. Wells Fargo's $15.1 billion purchase of Wachovia results in the company benefiting from Wachovia Bank's Slave Trade: http://money.cnn.com/2005/06/02/news/fortune500/wachovia_slavery/)

The Fact that Wells Fargo Banks coffers were enlarged due to drug money laundering.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-06-29/banks-financing-mexico-s-drug-cartels-admitted-in-wells-fargo-s-u-s-deal.html

Slavery and drug trade, two areas that have hit Blacks hard, not to mention being kept out of economic money posperity by being last hired and first fired and suffering from past "bank red lining," and yet Wells Fargo moves with its policies and procedures that are void of moral responsibility in this created crisis.

If the core of a tree or system is rotten, how can it produce good fruit? No matter how much money is sent to perpetuate Wells Fargo's lovely images of helping young couples buy homes when there is the "Matrix" reality of a wake of eroded neighborhoods, broken homes, broken marriages, broken lives and even a trail of deaths, the banks hands are dirty. Underneath the foreclosure crisis that the media spin as "gone away" due to the increase of housing starts, is a trail of unnecessary misery created by unrestrained greed.

Why is JP Morgan Chase now trying to cut a deal with the Department of Justice with $11 Billion offered to stop its probes?

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/09/26/us-jpmorgan-probes-idUSBRE98O12O20130926

Will they, will we finally discover that the banks are not too big to jail?

After years of paying a mortgage on time, one little problem can result in a homeowner losing his/her home within 30-90 days or less. California which has non-judicial foreclosures, has many people running away and frightened from their homes after the posting of a three-day notice that has been generated in some lawyer's or cottage foreclosure industry worker's office.

The Fact is there is no substantive protection for the homeowner. Even bankruptcy has been gutted of the strength it once had to protect a person's homestead. All the systems are in place to protectthe corporate banks and the homeowner is faced oftentimes with hostility if they try to find out what's going on through the judicial system and their city governments.

When governments, like Richmond, are responsive what happens? Wells Fargo takes them to court for trying to help their people. A judge dismissed Wells Fargo's suit against the City of Richmond. Do understand this battle is not over because there are too many potential profits of the 99% left on the table.

Do the right thing? Banks!?

In the fight of foreclosures, there is always the unseen undertow. Some spiritual leaders may have a eye for this because they have read Ephesians 6..."We wrestle not against flesh and blood but spiritual wickedness in high places."

 How that (fighting unseen wickedness) played out for me is up close and personal. Being the daughter of Sp5 Wyley Wright, who died in the jungles of Viet Nam March 9, 1964 for this country, taught well by my Momma Nora, my Dad's grandmother, "right is right and right don't wrong nobody"--- I have personally found out that "Freedom of Speech" is not free.

Soon after I stood on MLK Day 2013 at a news conference

(http://www.wrightnow.biz/apps/articles/default.asp?articleid=78125&columnid=) In front of the Museum of the African Diaspora demanding justice for Tuskegee Airmen Ben Reed whose home was to be auctioned two days later, I was verbally and financially attacked for daring to speak about the case and especially for calling out Wells Fargo Executives which included but not limited to Brenda Wright, (no relation, plus Wright is my family name by birth, whereas she married into a Wright family).

It was totally incredulous to me as one of the most powerful Black people in San Francisco and the nation came up to me after the San Francisco City Hall 2013 Celebration of Black History Month and demanded " What do you think are doing talking about Brenda Wright?" and further it was expressed I better know that Brenda Wright is protected by a group of well-connected Black Women.  All of that translated into "you better watch your back." It was one of those "out of body experiences." I stepped back as this person was pressed into my personal space and I quietly asked "Heaven are you listening to this?"

I calmly smiled and responded, "I have nothing but love for you and Brenda Wright." "'Nothing personal' (could have gagged at that phrase which bankers often use when stripping people of their homes. Wish I had had the presence of mind to come up with something else). "The reality is that millions of people are being unjustly pushed out of their homes including myself and Brenda Wright is an officer of a bank that has policies that had Wells Fargo settled with the Department of Justice for its predatory lending. They paid pennies for a fine that does not make up for their billions of unjust gain. She's an officer and she along with John Stumpf, Tracy Curtis, and other officers are responsible for making or influencing Wells Fargo policy along with their board of directors.

I believe they can come up with humanitarian solutions and since 2010 I have presented the WellsFargo leadership with just one suggestion to which they have yet to respond. If demanding justice for a Tuskegee Airman and others has us on different sides, I'm standing with an elderly man that has given to this country and the many other seniors being forced out of homes." It was only natural for me to stand up for a serviceman being from a military family.   Frankly, I couldn't believe Brenda Wright, responsible for community affairs didn't work with her colleagues to keep the Reed case from getting to that point especially with all the ads on serving the Veterans. As I recall, she was quoted in one ad about Wells Fargo's great service to veterans.

Just a couple of days after that encounter, I get a 6 a.m. call stripping me of a media relations contract because I had publically criticized Wells Fargo Bank and Brenda Wright. My boss said they were up for a grant from Wells Fargo and that I was fired for my public advocacy, "nothing personal of course." Wow! I laugh even now when I recall that moment. I laugh because I'm thinking, I am in San Francisco where everything is a protest, a festival, or a party. Isn't protesting part of the San Francisco social justice fabric or have I been reverted back to my roots of the 1960's Georgia where I grew up about an hour and half from Montgomery, Alabama. I have often said that I have endured more intense racism in progressive San Francisco than I ever did in the South.

My experiences are indicative of the under current, the undertow, unseen but strong. That MoAD news conference on MLK Day that I managed because none of the people who said they would be there showed up, was not as incredulous to me as the fact that Wells Fargo Bank was the sponsor of the MoAD's Emancipation Proclamation presentation. The fact that Brenda Wright, a Black woman is on the board of MoAD does not shut out the cries of Black people who suffered past racism through slavery and the present racism of the banking system as they were targeted for predatory loans and chained in financial bondage. How do you spell "sell out," Stephen? (Character in "Django Unchained"). Sell-out is spelled "Wells Fargo Bank."

At an ACCE Meeting, I shared my experience with Wells Fargo impacting my income and the warning I had received from a civic leader. Ed Donaldson, a candidate for District 11 Supervisor in the recent race, who is a mortgage expert and former certified HUD Counselor who was heavily involved with a community nonprofit trying to avert the foreclosure crisis before it came to a head, responded. He talked about his many meetings with the City and that Brenda Wright of Wells FargoBank called his then boss to try to get him fired because he was presenting ideas that were resistant to Wells Fargo's plans. So there it was in an open meeting an example of Ms. Wright upholding the policies of the bank at the expense of a champion for everyday hardworking people. So it should not have been a surprise to me that I was accosted and lost a contract. It also affirmed that ACCE was on the right track to request the Mayor remove Wells Fargo, represented by Brenda Wright from San Francisco's Employee and Retirement System.

http://www.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/blog/2013/01/wells-fargo-bank-of-america-foreclosures.html?page=all

At the same time that ACCE protested at the SFER's meeting, nonprofits that Wells Fargo had given money to were told to contact ACCE and demand the organization stop speaking the truth about Brenda Wright's role in the community. With the possibility of a demonstration in front of her home, the phone calls and emails came glorifying Wright and asking that the group not protest in front of her home as it had demonstrations in front of the CEO John Stumpf's home in Pacific Heights. It is a great irony that these public service groups that are receiving pennies compared to the company's billions in profits overlook their responsibility to their neighbors in need. It is ok for families to be dragged from their homes with children in tow and yet foreclosure fighters are criticized for assembling lawfully in front of bank officers' home to protest this great unarticulated injustice. They can use paper and their emissaries to take homes affecting millions for generations and yet it's an outrage to bring the truth to the doors of bank officers' homes.  These nonprofits and their supporters limiting peaceful discourse are tantamount to a molester whispering in the ears of the abused "you better not tell or else."

There is so much to be added to the chronicles of bank bullying.  But in all of the discourse of heaven and earth....heaven trumps everything as we read in James 5

Warning to Rich Oppressors

http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=James+5&version=NIV

5 Now listen, you rich people, weep and wail because of the misery that is coming onwealth has rotted, and moths have eaten your clothes. 3 Your gold and silver are corroded. Their corrosion will testify against you and eat your flesh like fire. You have hoarded wealth in the last days. 4 Look! The wages you failed to pay the workers who mowed your fields are crying out against you. The cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord Almighty. 5 You have lived on earth in luxury and self-indulgence. You have fattened yourselves in the day of slaughter.6 You have condemned and murdered the innocent one, who was not opposing you. 

You've seen some of the article links here and you may take a moment to see some of the frontline street actions included. Hopefully, you'll see the preponderance of articles and other evidence that the banks have lost their moral center. The impact of the foreclosures impacts renters as well. As people are pushed out of their homes, there is no affordable housing in San Francisco. A studio now goes for $2,700 even in the Tenderloin. Those BMR's (Below Market Rate) are nearly non-existent. Many of the new luxury apartments were not required to provide a small number. The lists are closed for most BMR. The public housing and section 8 lists are closed for years. San Francisco is becoming a dwelling place where only the rich can survive.

With Wells Fargo getting away with its corporate practices, is there a message in the fact that the candy they give out in little buckets at the teller windows are called "Dum Dums"?

While the government is shutdown, let's not shutdown our common sense and our personal strength.

Outline of numbers and emails to contact Wells Fargo executives can be found atwww.occupytheauctions.org  and www.occupybernal.org

.

Other Links to consider:

Wells Fargo to be Sued for Violating National Mortgage Settlement

http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2013/05/06/new-york-to-sue-bank-of-america-and-wells-fargo-over-settlement-violations/?_r=0:

http://www.nbc12.com/story/23587097/ny-suing-wells-fargo-in-mortgage-crisis-settlement

Benjamin Reed Jr. Stands Up to Wells Fargo Bank for His Tuskegee Airman Father and other Foreclosure Fighters:

Tuskegee Airman's Son Speaks Out About Banks at ACCE News Conference @Wells Fargo San Francisco

Humanitarian Solution to Foreclosure

http://www.wrightnow.biz/articles_view.asp?columnid=2898&articleid=77786

KALW podcast of Hedrick Smith Interview. "Who Stole the American Dream."

http://kalw.org/post/today-your-call-who-stole-american-dream

Make Wells Fargo Accountable : Jackie Wright's 2010 Experience with the Mortgage Giant

http://makewellsfargoaccountable.blogspot.com/