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- Analysis
The fight after the vote
Starting November 4, we’ll need to be ready to defend the count, certification and the seating of the new House. Here’s how.
- Analysis
Will historic protests against ICE shape the midterms?
Protests can impact U.S. election outcomes, and data shows a massive number of pro-immigrant protests in Trump’s second term.
- Feature
A North Carolina movement asks voters to reject corporate tax breaks
As the cost of living rises and wages stagnate, a growing movement for people over profits is rallying against a set of exploitative ballot amendments.
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I admire and support peaceful civil disobedience. However, this protest appears to be counter-intuitive.
If the houses were already foreclosed, then they were owned by the lender and they were attempting to sell the properties like anyone has a right to do.
By stopping the sales, the only thing the protest did was stop the economy from rebounding. A home sale to owners who can afford the property means that taxes are paid to municipalities, which means government can run; schools can hire teachers, or first responders, or even website developers, etc.
While I think the issues of lack of control and oversight of the mortgage market got us into this mess (in part) – stopping the sales at this juncture for the sake of protest in this case really makes no logical sense except to those who made the protest.
The houses won’t be going back to their original note holders and most foreclosures take months or years to process – so it seems that by impeding the sales the protesters really are hurting not the banks, but everyday citizens who just want the economy to improve.
I see what you’re saying David, but as someone who has participated in these singing auction protests multiple times, I have to say that these protests transcend the mechanisms of how (we are told) the housing recovery works, and they are instead a protest against the idea that court systems should spend incredible amounts of energy facilitating the sale of families homes. If courts are supposed to engage in justice, what is just about this?
The way we understand housing in the U.S. is now so out-of-whack, both from a moral stance and from an economic incentives stance, and it takes protests at all levels of the machine to halt it.
These singing auction actions are part of a much larger housing justice movement that includes eviction blockades and home takeovers–direct actions at every human joint at this machine.
For more information, check out some of the articles I’ve been writing for WNV on this topic!
Foreclosure housing can be a good bargain or a financial nightmare. I admire them for this peaceful counter-intuitive.