There's A Reason I'm Posting Two Doobie Brothers Videos On My Blog

The videos below are the title track and a new single, "Far From Home," from the newest Doobie Brother's album, World Gone Crazy and the two songs, taken together, pay respect to everyone trying to make their home payments and rent against all odds and predatory Wall Street's Banksters-- particularly military families. The Doobie Brothers aren't especially well known in liberal political circles as activists. If they have a cause they're front and center for, it's military families, not the military per se, but the families of our men and women struggling to keep it together while service members are away protecting the country's security. The fact that the struggle for those families has recently gotten much tougher through the machinations of greed-obsessed, out-of-control banksters has pissed off a lot of Americans, including the Doobies. More than 28% of U.S. homeowners owe more than their properties were worth and banksters have been illegally starting to foreclose of the homes of active duty servicemembers.

In the 1930s J.P. Morgan was a violent union-busting fascist with pro-Nazi sympathies and no one paying attention could have ever accused him of being a patriotic American. In 1933, along with fellow fascist Irénée du Pont, he helped finance an unsuccessful coup d'etat against Franklin Roosevelt. Today the bank named for him is one that routinely violates the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act, which made it illegal to foreclose on properties owned by active-duty military personnel. It's gotten worse since then but back in January it first started coming out that Wall Street banksters were looking at military families as potential prey.

JP Morgan Chase overcharged roughly 4,000 troops on their mortgage and improperly foreclosed on 14 of the families, a spokesperson for the bank said Monday.

Under the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act last amended in 2003, lenders can be required to lower mortgage rates for active-duty military personnel to 6% and cannot pursue a foreclosure, but according to the report, Chase was slow to make the change for many of the families, charging Marine Capt. Jonathan Rowles as much as 10% and hounding him with debt collection calls for as much as $15,000 in arrears, according to NBC news.

Last month USAToday made it clear that servicemembers deployed overseas are coming under increasing pressure from banksters trying to illegally foreclose on their homes. In March the NY Times reported on an inquiry into the scandal, which has been kept hush-hush to prevent Americans from lynching prominent Wall Street banksters.

The Justice Department is investigating allegations that a mortgage subsidiary of Morgan Stanley foreclosed on almost two dozen military families from 2006 to 2008 in violation of a longstanding law aimed at preventing such action.

A department spokeswoman confirmed on Friday that the Morgan Stanley unit, Saxon Mortgage Services, is one of several mortgage and lending companies being investigated by its civil rights division. The inquiry is focused on possible violations of a federal law that bars lenders from foreclosing on active-duty service members without a court hearing.

...Sergeant Hurley was one of the service members affected by a violation of the act. He returned from duty as a power generator mechanic in Iraq in December 2005 to find that Saxon had foreclosed on his riverside home outside Hartford, Mich., and sold it to someone else. He sued Saxon and two co-defendants, Orlans Associates, the law firm in Troy, Mich., that handled the foreclosure paperwork, and Deutsche Bank Trust Company Americas, the trustee for the mortgage involved in the foreclosure.

That the systematic fraud that banks and mortgage companies have subjected American homeowners to, has spared military families caught the attention of one of America's most classic rock'n'roll bands who have made the well-being of the country's military families their shared cause.

Tom Johnston, singer, guitarist and co-founder of the band, wrote "World Gone Crazy." He says "it's a story about a guy who grew up in the streets, pulled himself up and now has a government job. The place is New Orleans, the time is post Katrina and the lament is that he's hoping to make enough money to pay the rent so that the same government doesn't let his house get taken away. When you hear this song you hear a feel good tune but the lyrics are kind of dark and somehow the juxtaposition works. The message from this man's point of view is that although this is a world gone crazy, somehow I am going to win and make a living and the hope is that life will be good again."