The Showdown in Chicago is here and I wonder if it will live up to the hype that organizers have created around it. Certainly, there has been a lot of buzz and with the support of organizations like the National People's Action and the SEIU it seems like political momentum could potentially be created.

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Hundreds march over to the Sheraton Hotel to confront the American Bankers Association.

The Showdown in Chicago is here and I wonder if it will live up to the hype that organizers have created around it. Certainly, there has been a lot of buzz.

Michael Moore has been promoting it. Huffington Post is encouraging citizen journalists to sign up and write about the protests. And at a time when we are hearing about huge bonuses going to executives in bailed out banks, taking on the banksters has never been so imperative.

I showed up to the Hyatt Regency hotel in downtown Chicago for the opening round of the Showdown in Chicago at 4:15 pm ET. The event kicked off with a welcome and invocation from Rev. Eugene Barnes of the Central Illinois Organizing Project.

Larry Ginter of the Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement followed with a rousing speech on who has gathered here in Chicago to take on the banks.

“We're family farmers and laborers. We're preachers and teachers. We are the homeless and we are the jobless. We are African-American, Latino, Asian-American, Anglo, and Native American. That's who we are. And we came here to send a message---we're mad as hell and we ain't gonna take it no more.

Corporate abuse, corporate power ---they love to split us up. Pit worker against worker, race against race, farmer against farmer, nation against nation--- I say to hell with them.”

Ginter, who I profiled prior to the event, went through and described how the people present at this event had been victimized up to this point by banks who played fast and loose with Americans' money.

Tom Balanoff, president of the SEIU, stepped up to talk about why everyone was here:

“We're here to hold the bankers and the financers accountable and to make sure they start acting responsibly. There's not a single person in this room that caused the economic crisis that we're in. All we did is get up every day and go to work and try to build better lives for ourselves and our children, play by the rules, go by their rules, and what do they do? They robbed us.”

Sen. Dick Durbin then came up to speak and he provided insight into the situation Americans face, what he hopes the bankers would see in Chicago while they are here, and how corporate power has been diluting the reforms he has been fervently supporting for the past years.

He told a story about a woman who suffered from predatory lending and he talked about how Newt Gingrich and George Will would be speaking to the American Bankers Association.

Following those speakers, a People's Commission was held to allow several speakers the opportunity to detail what has happened to them as a result of the banks' greed. They all came from community action or people's action organizations (most of them affiliated with the National People's Action network).

Rickie Coleman from Sunflower Community Action in Kansas loudly and raucously led the audience through this People's Commission. The audience was the jury. The defendants were the banksters. The plaintiffs were the American taxpayers who had been defrauded. The banksters were not surprisingly found guilty and accountability was demanded.

Rev. Tony Pierce then stepped up to explain "there is cause for hope" despite all this. And he delivered a fiery speech that essentially laid out the reforms that the Showdown in Chicago will be pushing throughout the next couple of days.

Pierce explained “where there is a demand from the community for affordable financing, the banks must do it. We need at least $1 billion and we expect to cash that check.”

He continued, “When the American Bankers Association (ABA) is a roadblock they will need to get out of the way. And, the ABA must stop opposing the Consumer Financial Protection Agency.”

“When they are doing the wrong thing, they must stop,” Pierce said, “We need new regulations to make bank and capital work for us rather than the other way around.”

Finally, “We will see a stronger Community Reinvestment Act.” And, “our last achievement will be to break up the banks.”

A call to action was delivered and then a few individuals sang a gospel song as those who had been at the opening round marched out of the hotel and headed over to an ABA party being held at the Sheraton Hotel.

The banksters party was a Roaring Twenties Big Band gala. Either the American Bankers Association unintentionally made this tone deaf decision or they are completely insensitive to the plight of the common man.

That the banksters would evoke memories of a period when banks created an economic climate similar to the one we live in today shows that they see poor, lower class, and working class Americans as a bewildered herd of consumers that can be exploited however they choose to regardless of laws or regulations.

A small group crashed the party but, in an instance ripe for civil disobedience action, the group left the hotel after being confronted by police instead.

The Showdown continues tomorrow. I do not know what all of this will amount to. That's what interests me the most.

There is a possibility for this populism to turn into a rising tide. This will create a “Which Side Are You On?” moment like George Goehl wants as long as they do not let reform be determined by a bank-owned Congress.

Tomorrow, I will go out and speak with ordinary folks who have come in to Chicago for this event.

Stay tuned. I will have more for you from the Showdown in Chicago.

Authors Bio:
Kevin Gosztola is managing editor of Shadowproof Press. He also produces and co-hosts the weekly podcast, "Unauthorized Disclosure." He was an editor for OpEdNews.com