Almost two years ago Hannel Appel, Bay Area native and Occupy Wall Street veteran, came back to the Bay Area, came to a General Assembly of Occupy Oakland and called on people to form Strike Debt Bay Area (SDBA) in light of Strike Debt New York City's newly announced and amazing Rolling Jubilee project.
Two years later, and in the spare time she had not fighting unjust debt with SDBA, she made ere way from a post doc position at UC Berkeley to a professorship at UCLA. With other Strike Debters, she began working on a new Strike Debt project even as she took up her professorial duties. It's called the Debt Collective. It's an effort to organize student debtors so that collective action against lenders is possible. It rolled out on the wave of the latest big Rolling Jubilee announcement which abolished $4M in student debt at pennies on the dollar.
A week ago Hannah found herself being interviewed about the project on the Tavis Smiley show, a nationally syndicated PBS production.
I can't embed the interview, but it is amazing, and you must go listen to it.
Here.
I mean it. Don't be lazy and not follow the link like most people.
Click here and listen.
Really. The exhortations will continue until you
Follow the link!.
Sigh.
You didn't click.
Okay, I lied. You win.
I'll provide some excerpts. (A full transcript is also available. Click the link below the video.)
"What if debt wasn't about individual isolation, shame, and fear, what if debt was a platform for collective action?"
"The Rolling Jubilee ... bought up debt for pennies on the dollar... sent a letter to the debtor saying 'We have forgiven this debt...' We didn't try to collect it, we abolished it... It asked people to rethink debt, to look at it and say "Wait a minute! ... you can buy debt for pennies on the dollar... to rethink debt as a systemic problem, and not as a failure of individuals... To ask the entire nation to rethink debt as a political platform."
"When was it that people had to start going into crippling debt to provide for the basic things in life? When did education, health care explode in price? Over the last three decades, when there hasn't been as much public funding..."
"If I owe the bank $25,000, then the bank owns me. But if we, as student debtors, owe the banks $1.2 TRILLION, then we have a tremendous amount of power, untapped power... Millions of students are defaulting on their loans every year, but we're not doing so in an organized fashion."
"The Debt Collective is the new factory floor, where student debtors can come together, act together, actually make demands."
"We got 3000 people who put their debt on a map, who signed up within two days... from ((for-profit)) Everest College ((now in backrupcty and being sued by the DOE))... We have a legal team... we don't want each of you to go through this tortured bureaucratic process, we think that you all deserve a debt waiver, and that there should be a simplified process..."
"The idea of a Debt Collective is not in the interests of the banks... but, given how many people are in debt, given where public opinion is in this country about the banks... we can get legal decisions on our side, public pressure to get us out of what we might call 'odious debt' and into how we fund social services in ths country."
"...Kids should not graduate from 'public' schools with $30,000 worth of debt. I think the vast majority of this country, across the political spectrum, would agree with that. And that unity is not something the banking lobby can fight easily."
Now go listen to the whole thing anyway.
Radio.
Strike Debt Bay Area doesn't just do television. In fact, Strike Debt Radio, a project of SDBA, has produced eight radio segments about money and debt, many of which have been aired on local progressive radio station KPFA.
Here's the latest, on using Eminent Domain to help underwater homeowners restructure their mortgages. (Sigh. Apparently Soundcloud clips won't embed on DKos. They embed fine on Wordpress. Anyone know how to do it?)
Below's a listing of all the segments, and the long version of the Strike Debt Radio theme song, in chronological order.
First segment. Interviews on the street.
Strike Debt Radio Theme song.
Student Debt Episode 1.
Student Debt Episode 2.
Student Debt Episode 3: 'How Far to Free?'
What is Money?
What is the Federal Reserve?
The Credit Rating Industry.
Reclaiming Underwater Mortages in Richmond, CA.
And the Big Screen.
(Well, assuming you have a big enough monitor, and go full screen on the video...)
Neither has the rest of Strike Debt Bay Area been idle in the quest to produce content...
On September 20th, 2014, Occupy San Francisco celebrated its 3rd Anniversary with a Convergence, and Strike Debt Bay Area was there to help celebrate. We created a short, hopefully amusing but serious skit on Pay Day Loan operators, their Wall Street backers, and the promise of Post Office banking. And we got video.
This one's short, AND it's embeddable!
"Riveting! The Bay Bridge put in a solid performance." - Eggbert
"Shakespeare could not have written such a piece!" - LeSalle
"A Tragedy that only Elizabeth Warren could appreciate!" - A.O Francis Scott Key
Starring:
- Susan H as... the Announcer
- Debbie (kith) as... the Mark
- JP (jpmassar) as... Jamie Dimon
- Spencer as... The Payday Loanshark
- Bill as... Mr. Postman!
- Greg in a supporting role aiding... The Sign.
Captured on film and tamed by Susan M.
-----
Strike Debt Bay Area has other projects as well.
Follow Strike Debt Bay Area on twitter: @StrikeDebtBA, and Facebook. Follow Strike Debt on Twitter: (@StrikeDebt).