#rolling jubilee

[sataniccapitalist]

Originally posted on teh Strike Debt blog here: http://strikedebt.org/debtbuy4/ Strike Debt’s Rolling Jubilee project has abolished $3,856,866 in private student loans for a little over $100,000. These debts were held by students who...

[nopressurejohn]

Today In Blowback

The short version: Debt Collective feels a bit put out by not being acknowledged in this week’s top story after talking about their Rolling Jubilee project with a LWT researcher. It’s obvious why that would get them a little bent, especially since the national narrative has embraced the idea that Occupy Wall Street was a burnout movement created by burnouts, and any evidence to the contrary tends to get ignored by the media noise machines.

I’d like to think this is just a cross-up of agendas, and nothing more sinister than that. However, good people should be encouraged in doing decent things, so attention should be paid.

[sataniccapitalist]

[tnelms]

Read the story behind John Oliver’s episode on debt and his efforts to buy and forgive $15 million in medical debt.

SUPPORT THE DEBT COLLECTIVE.

[the-direction-of]

(davidcnswanson)

STRIKE DEBT

[zachariahthelastmanstanding]

A bailout of the people, by the people. We legally buy debt for pennies on the dollar, but instead of collecting it, we abolish it.

Here’s an earlier one that started around the time of the occupy movement.

“A bailout of the people by the people Rolling Jubilee is a Strike Debt project that buys debt for pennies on the dollar, but instead of collecting it, abolishes it. Together we can liberate debtors at random through a campaign of mutual support, good will, and collective refusal. Our latest project The Debt Collective aims to build collective power to challenge the way we finance and access basic necessities such as housing, medical care and education. Join us as we imagine and create a new world based on the common good, not Wall Street profits.”

[hypocrite-lecteur]

A New Way to Stop Student Debt: Refuse to Pay

Today, Debt Collective—an offshoot of an organization known as Rolling Jubilee—is calling a student "debt strike," the first of its kind in U.S. history, according to its organizers. The strike is being carried out by the "Corinthian 15," a group of students from across the country who are refusing to repay their loans and demanding that the Department of Education cancel their debts. Additionally, Rolling Jubilee—which has already purchased over $14 million in debt from the secondary market—is erasing another $13 million in college debt owed by 9,438 people across the United States. Before a stampede of students crashes its website, it’s important to explain what these two initiatives are and how they work together. Rolling Jubilee is a project that was founded by Strike Debt, a group that sprung out of the Occupy protests in 2011. At first, the group targeted the health-care sector, but it quickly expanded to target private student debt, too. Rolling Jubilee created a donation page and set an initial goal of $50,000; within a few weeks the group had raised 10 times that amount, according to Ann Larson, one of the project’s organizers. "In December we said we were closing donations, but we still had money left over," Larson said. The group has since decided to use the leftover money to alleviate that $13 million in debt, a decision it made public today. But Monday’s announcement also signifies the culmination of the Rolling Jubilee debt-elimination initiative, as it shifts its focus to the loan strikes. "We knew that Rolling Jubilee was simply a tactic," Larson said. "We wanted to get past the donate button and build a membership organization—something that people can actually join and provide a platform of political engagement that would unite people across party lines." The idea behind Debt Collective, which officially launches today, is simple: to create an organization that brings together people with massive student debt so that they can force change. "If you owe the bank thousands of dollars, then the bank owns you. But if you owe the bank millions, then you own the bank," its website says. "Collectively, we own the bank." Terrance F. Ross, from "The Guardian Angels of Student Debt"

[flopajake]

occupy-wall-street-offshoot-rolling-jubilee-wants to pay off your student loan debt