Las Vegas Weekly

August 20, 2008 · 2:55 PM

Mortgage reapers protest McCain campaign with funeral

By Cydney Cappello

Sen. John McCain protesters held a mock funeral Wednesday for Nevada's foreclosed homes. The reapers, from the group Change to Win, are on a 10-state tour of dramatic protests in a campaign to reveal their grievances against a McCain presidency.

Photo: Cydney Cappello

Shrouded in black capes, wielding plastic sickles and concealed by Sen. John McCain masks, the McCain Mortgage Reapers paced back and forth to a funeral march.

The protest was a half-hour affair that took place in Henderson on Pebble Road across from Christ the Servant Lutheran Church. Other than the occasional car horns or requests to march in the other direction, the mortgage reapers and the two dozen union members participating were fairly solemn.

The pallbearers, holding a black cardboard coffin, were Change to Win members, an organization of seven unions formed in 2005 representing industry worker's views. The group's latest stop in Nevada was the beginning of a 10-state tour. From the desert to the East Coast, the Change to Win Truth Campaign will communicate their grievances against McCain in a series of dramatic demonstrations lead by the "Truth Squad." In this case the "truth" came from the reapers.

The demonstration halted briefly for culinary union member Judy Bagley, who took a leave of absence from her cashier job at Fitzgerald's to participate, to make a statement on Nevada's foreclosures.

"I was at a union meeting several months ago, there were over 200 people at that meeting, our secretary treasurer asked how many people were in danger or knew someone in danger of losing their home," she said. "Over half the people in that room raised their hands."

Bagley, wearing a black "www.worsethanbush.org" T-shirt, warned that a McCain presidency would lead to further struggles for the working class before introducing another member who is in the foreclosure process.

"I bought my house in 2001, but now my mortgage rate is bottomed up and now I can't pay my mortgage so I'm losing my mortgage, I'm losing my house…we need a change, we need a better administration, vote Obama!"

The participants were then asked to place their mortgage papers into the cardboard coffin to honor those in Nevada who have lost their homes. The reapers and union members paced the block one more time then crossed the road to catch their bus in the church parking lot.

The group will head to Pahrump tomorrow for another foreclosure funeral.

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