Anti-government protests are picking up and have become the rage. In Ashland a modest group staged a demonstration focusing not on the government as such but a new target – the bankers and Wall Street. They were angry that the banking lobby had been treated to bailout funds while millions faced foreclosures. The protestors picketed and distributed leaflets in front of the banks and the post office of Ashland. Their aim was to create public support for making the government spend more on generating jobs and undertaking mortgage rescue actions.

The protestors were pushed off post office premises and were prevented from going inside Wells Fargo Bank. But this did not deter them. They read out their statements loudly giving details of how much the banks had taken from the bailout and what were their latest quarterly profits. Their message to passers bye was to put their dollars into the local banks to finance local mortgages.

Jason Houk of Jobs for Justice from Southern Oregon said, “I’d like to see banks step up and pay their fare share of this financial crisis, so we can bail out the common man, the homeowner – and create jobs.”

Although the protestors were about six in number, they collected an appreciative audience around them – folks going to the post office to submit their tax return. Chars were handed out to them showing the mega banks like Wells Fargo, Bank of America and Washington Mutual as well as Chase as the “bottom dwellers”. This was a term used by Wes Brain, a protestor, to dub them. There were cheers when many of those walking past said they were banking with the local bodies.

One of the protestors Vanessa Houk held up the page of a newspaper choc-a-bloc with foreclosure insertions. Scrawled across the paper were the words “Tired of Broken Dreams.” A couple of junior children held aloft a sign that read “No More Banksters.” Houk said, “I hope people wake up and stand up for what they believe in. The greed of the banking industry has to stop.”

Leah Ireland is a resident of Ashland. She picked up a pamphlet and said, “I hope Obama makes good on his promise to put huge restrictions on large banks and stop them from ruling the world. I’m anxious for that and I think everyone in America is — especially on the banks who’ve done the wholesale foreclosures after helping (buyers) take out loans they couldn’t possibly afford.”

Related tags

Nobody landed on this page from a search engine, yet!

We suggest you to read about: