When enough people see things like this with their own eyes, I suppose that's when we'll have a democratic revolution in this country:

Last week, a SWAT team forcefully evicted Rochester resident Catherine Lennon from her New York home, arresting at least six protestors and neighbors in the process, according to MSNBC.com.

The federal debate over the foreclosure process has heated up in recent weeks, with the Obama administration backtracking on an earlier, more dramatic proposition that would have required mortgage lenders to reduce monthly payments for millions of homeowners like Lennon.

Lennon, a grandmother living with her children and grandchildren, says she was willing to make mortgage payments to government-sponsored mortgage insurance firm Fannie Mae, but that the bank refused to accept her checks because the property was not in her name. Her husband -- the official homeowner -- died in 2008 without writing a will, leading to a legal battle between Lennon and her bank.

Take Back The Land-Rochester, a group dedicated to defending community housing and now supporting Lennon, staged an eviction in the weeks leading up to the altercation. The day of the confrontation, police arrested protestors for attempting to block entrance to the house.

"This is not America," a neighbor told a local television crew. "This is not what America should be."

Bank of America released a statement in response to the controversy saying Lennon had fallen behind on her payments, becoming delinquent. In turn, TBLT's Ryan Acuff said that while Lennon was delinquent on payments to Countrywide and Bank of America, she had "not only met with the Housing Council, the local HUD approved mortgage counselors, but attempted to engage with Bank of America."

"[T]he fact remains," Acuff continued, "that Bank of America refused her attempts to pay and efforts to negotiate modifications to her mortgage for the reasons stated above."

Rep. Louise Slaughter (NY-28) has reached out to Fannie Mae to re-review Lennon's case. After speaking with high-level representatives, Lennon says she is "very positive" about the prospect of her house being returned to her.

The difference is, during the Great Depression, hundreds of people would have shown up to stop this, not fewer than a dozen.

Before I get into the update on the financial industry's massive swindling of the world, I'd like to encourage you all to give money to Alan Grayson, one of the few Congressmen who has been making a stink about the enormous fraud that the financial industry has been unleashing on the American people. I shudder to think what will happen to this Congress if we lose one of its few courageous voices and get more shills for the financial services industry. So give to Grayson. Give, give, give.

So now, back to Wall Street's continuing quest to loot America. BoA has become the latest pack of scumbags to realize that they didn't do a good enough job of forging documents to evict people from their homes and that they'll have to backtrack a bit:

Bank of America said Friday it is halting all foreclosure sales and foreclosure proceedings nationwide while it reviews the documents being used to justify homeowner evictions.

It is the first bank to put a moratorium on foreclosures in all 50 states. Previously, Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase and others were only pausing foreclosures in states where a court has to participate in foreclosure proceedings.

To review how we got to this point, click here. It basically boils down this: After the securitization process the banks had no idea what mortgages were and were not on their books. So they started making stuff up to compensate. This is theft, pure and simple.

Megan McArdle predictably comes leaping to the poor banks' defense, saying they may have made a few oopsies but are overall swell people:

The story on the foreclosure mess has become a bit overblown in some tellings. It's clear that banks have been taking some shortcuts in preparing their foreclosure documents. The banks are obviously overwhelmed with the volume of foreclosures, and the (apparently) many instances in which sloppy securitization has resulted in lost paper trails, obscuring who, exactly has a right to foreclose. Rather than seeking legislative or judicial clarification, they've resorted to dubious practices that seem (to my non-legally-trained eye) illegal.

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I assume the administration thinks they're doing the right thing by pouring billions into the banks, but things seem to be getting worse for everyone else, don't they?

A registered nurse came close to losing her $1,550-a-month apartment on the Upper East Side after being let go from two jobs in three months. A woman found herself dipping into a 401(k) to keep her $3,375 unit in Peter Cooper Village after her husband was laid off in February from his six-figure marketing job. A father of two with an M.B.A. and a law degree owed $5,400 in back rent in Stuyvesant Town after he struggled to find steady work and lent money to his wife’s family.

Lawyers, judges and tenant advocates say the staggering economy has sent an increasing number of middle-class renters across New York City to the brink of eviction, straining the legal and financial services of city agencies and charities. Suddenly, residents of middle-class havens like Rego Park in Queens and Riverdale in the Bronx are crowding into the city’s already burdened housing courts, long known as poor people’s court.

Even some affluent people in high-end places are finding themselves facing off with landlords. One man, laid off by Merrill Lynch, was forced to move out of his $5,700 apartment in TriBeCa, owing $20,000 in back rent. Todd Nahins, a lawyer who represents owners of luxury residential buildings, has been busy negotiating payment plans for tenants in arrears.

“There’s definitely an uptick of people who were basically very good rent payers until the economic downturn,” Mr. Nahins said. “There’s so many of them. People who at one point had made money are now not earning enough to pay their rent.”