I spent several hours driving this morning and while I was driving I stumbled on an old favorite song of mine, Arlo Guthrie’s Alice’s Restaurant. I remember how much I liked the song and as I spent hours in the hot fields working the crops and getting down in the dirt, I realized how appropriate the song, in the middle of all this insanity and absurdity that is Fraudclosuregate, really is.
Now, I really love the rich description of the song that appears here (Alice’s Restaurant-Wikipedia), but before you go there for all the rich and deep background, the quick and dirty version is that Alice’s Restaurant is a brilliant Vietnam-era protest song. There was a time when principled protest, free speech and thoughtful and reasoned dispute over major social and political issues was celebrated in this country. In the song, Arlo was prevented from being drafted into Vietnam because he had been charged with littering. How absurd, but listen to Arlo explain it:
I’m sittin’ here on the Group W bench ’cause you want to know if I’m moral enough to join the army, burn women, kids, houses and villages after bein’ a litterbug.
The song paints an absolutely absurd and maddeningly insane conflict he and others found in fighting a morally bankrupt and systemically corrupt system. And today, we face the same challenges. Homeowners and attorneys defending themselves and fighting desperate and life-altering fights against banks and institutions that have engaged in gross and systemic wrongdoing.
Remember no one of any consequence has been punished or sent to jail while millions of Americans and most of those advocates who fight for them suffer every single day. The banks steal billions and nothing happens. The banks kick down doors, change locks and in some cases steal property, and nothing happens. The banks break laws and then work to hinder and impede investigations and nothing happens. And yet here we all are suffering together…..on the Group W Bench….listen to the song and enjoy….