Occupy Offshoot Group Brainstorms New Ways to Eliminate Americans’ Debt

Strike Debt, an offshoot Occupy Wall Street group, created a project called Rolling Jubilee, which is dedicated to helping people pay their debts. The organization said it has bought approximately $15 million worth of personal debt since it started the initiative last year, and now Strike Debt organizers are beginning to brainstorm alternative methods of combatting debt.

Earlier this month, Strike Debt and other chapters held events in several cities across the country celebrating their accomplishments and the one-year anniversary of the People’s Bailout telethon that launched the Rolling Jubilee.

In New York, Strike Debt NYC gathered at The Church of St. Luke and St. Matthew in Brooklyn, where they discussed and organized the next stages for the movement. This included a discussion on the possibility of battling student debt and possibly creating debtors unions.

Jerry Goralnich, a Strike Debt NYC member, discuss battling student debt.
Jerry Goralnich, a Strike Debt NYC member, discuss battling student debt.

“I think we are all excited to talk about different ways debtors can come together and organize,” Chris “Winter” Casuccio, a Strike Debt member and Rolling Jubilee treasurer said, “Whether it is like some kind of union or direct action campaigns where we can find people who owe money to Sally Mae or a bunch of people who have credit card debt and see if we can either refuse it or try to get a write-down.”

The Rolling Jubilee project successfully purchased debt (mostly medical) on the secondary market, but Strike Debt may face more challenges as it tries to tackle student debt.

“Government [loans] cannot be traded on a secondary market so we can’t get our hands on that in the same way we did with the medical debt,” Ohyoon Kim, a Strike Debt NYC member and lawyer said.

In order to confront debt in the future, Strike Debt is also discussing alternative ways to make changes besides raising money and buying debt on the secondary market.

“We’ve also talked about doing more educational things locally,” Casuccio said. “We’ve talked about giving a series of classes or opening up debtors clinics where we could give advice but also put on classes and reach out to the community.”

“It’s important that the actions that we try to do are actions that are small scale but are actions that inspire others to do similar actions,” Luke Herrine, a Strike Debt member said. “It’s important that people not only learn about the debt system but are inspired to do something to resist it, even if it doesn’t mean joining Strike Debt directly.”

 

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Francia is currently a Culture & Media major student about to graduate. She hopes to write for a cheesy sitcom or television series one day. Her hobbies include binge watching shows on Netflix and drinking wine.

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