Memories and Misery in CNN Land While Homeowers Seek Mortgage Justice and Foreclosures Mount

ATLANTA -- Somehow, I can't
escape CNN. Last Saturday I joined Ted Turner, Wolf Blitzer and more
than 300 current and former CNN employees at a celebration of the
network's
30th anniversary at the National Press Club in Washington. I was there
as one of the "CNN Originals," the many staffers who helped
originate what was mocked as the Chicken Noodle Network in Atlanta back
in June 1980.

There was pride and sense of
achievement in the room by those who pioneered 24 Hour Cable News on
small budgets but with lots of heart, coffee and sleepless nights. Being

there was often thrilling and part of my personal learning curve on
how big media works, a story I tell in my book The More You Watch The
Less You Know. It was an unforgettable time, and, even though
I soon moved on to ABC News, I was pleased, even honored, to be part
of it.

As fate would have it, a day
after that CNN celebration, I was back in Atlanta at CNN Center,
actually,
across the street, at the Georgia World Congress Center where another
news-making network was holding forth.

Drawing tens of thousands of
people trying to save their homes, the Neighborhood Assistance
Corporation
of America (NACA) was holding its 19^th SAVE THE DREAM event,
this time in cooperation with the City of Atlanta.

Fox in Atlanta called it
"hugely
successful." CBS reported what I saw up close and personal:

"More than 25,000 people have
asked for help. NACA said so far it's their biggest event. They said
people were coming in from all over the country.

Judy Richmond from Lithonia
has waited more than 24 hours. She said, "We knew there would be
a lot of people, but we thought the process would be a lot smoother."

She said she was willing to
wait for help navigating the mortgage world.

Bruce Marks, CEO of NACA, said,

"When you have the opportunity to save thousands of dollars a month
people are willing to do that.

He said they have a thousand
volunteers working to keep things moving. He said there are also
thousands
working the phones.'"

In the giant hall designed
for trade shows, homeowners were getting up every few minutes to report
on how much they had had their payments cut. With every announcement,
those who were still waiting broke into cheers. For many, those cuts
represent a chance at economic survival in hard times. To them, these
are real "solutions" for very stressed lives.

I found it bizarre that outside

the Center, an outfit called Billboards for America was paying for a
huge sign proclaiming "GOD IS NOT A SOCIALIST." Inside, the
Federation of Retail Merchants was also holding a Loss Prevention Summit

in response to a spike in shoplifting blamed on the lousy economy.

Unfortunately, there had been
no loss prevention seminars for these homeowners who were talked into
taking mortgages they couldn't afford. They were there in droves to
receive free counseling and seek out mortgage modification in meetings
with representatives of lenders and banks. The Bank of America, which
just settled a major mortgage fraud case, was out in force reducing
mortgage payments for borrowers who qualified.

Another bank, JP Morgan Chase,
which has recently been targeted with protests by NACA members was not
taking part. Instead, they were cynically competing with NACA by running

their own home ownership event at a nearby hotel to demonstrate how
responsible they are. They sent a truck with a big sign promoting their
offering to drive around the Congress Center and taunt NACA which found
it amusing since their event was minuscule in comparison.

NACA's issue is getting some
national attention too, from of all quarters, the FBI, which is
reportedly
planning a national crackdown on mortgage fraud this week. The Financial

Times reported, "Hundreds of people are expected to be arrested in
the sweep, which will start as early as next week," citing
two people with knowledge of the operation. An F.B.I. spokesman declined

to comment to the newspaper.

"Charges are expected to be
leveled over offenses ranging from pushing borrowers to lie about their
income on mortgage applications to providing homeowners with false
information
about foreclosure rescue programs," the newspaper said.

The British newspaper is ahead
of the US press in stating that "it was mortgage fraud that led to
the expansion of the housing bubble and eventually accounted for its
catastrophic burst, as loans were handed out to borrowers with
unsubstantiated
incomes and low credit ratings."

These homeowners wait patiently

for help from a not for profit group, not their own government.
The basement of the Georgia conference center is packed with victims
of the financial crisis while the people who caused it operate freely
from their office towers and penthouses.

They are the mortgage industry
backed by their friends in the big banks who lent the money, and the
Wall Street firms that securitized and resold the mortgages at inflated
values with high ratings bought from rating agencies. (The "financial
reformers" in Congress have just dropped new rules for these agencies
from the "reform bill.") Also to blame are the insurance firms that
protected the lenders against defaults in an enterprise they knew was
fraudulent.

Unfortunately the FBI is not
going after this triad but only the lowest level violators. There should

be a RICO prosecution of the big guns in this avaricious cartel, not
just the small fry and street soldiers. If there ever was a organized
criminal enterprise this is it.

At least there is this force
fighting for justice. Arguably it is bigger than the Tea Party and its populism is just as angry even as its been overlooked on the
left. Can this anger be organized politically? There are those
in NACA who are thinking about mobilizing their many members to press
politicians to act and play a more political role.

If they go in that direction
they will be confronting the corporate goliaths who are very angry
them selves about all this anger and quite condescending. Listen to
GE's CEO Jeffrey R. Immelt: "People need to tone down the rhetoric
around financial services and stop the populism and be adults."

Excuse me, Mr. GE: The people
here are adults with a right to be pissed off.

This is part of the story I
tell in my film PLUNDER The Crime of Our Time
(Plunderthecrimeofourtime.com.)
Unfortunately, it's not just documenting a distant past but a still
ongoing tragedy. All you have to do is look in the faces and listen
to the stories of the homeowners still experiencing heartless
foreclosures
and you realize that the Administration, judicial, corporate and media
response has been pitiful.

Kudos to NACA for leading the
fight and offering practical services, and to those media outlets who
are finally waking up and telling the story even though most, including
CNN, don't yet see it as a crime story. Perhaps if there were A-List
celebrities there, it might have been carried as a telethon.