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#ThisIsWhyWeOccupy
Nov. 15th, 2012 09:10 pmSeriously, I love so many things to come out of Occupy Wall Street. Even if you're not an anarchist or a pot smoker or would never sleep outside in the cold or stand in front of pepper spray, these are my 3 favorite things to come out of the Occupy movement lately:
1. #OccupySandy, which is providing real, immediate assistance on the ground in Staten Island and other affected areas and has been doing so since before the storm even hit. If you've got a few dollars and want to send them some much-needed supplies, some people started an Amazon registry and are driving them every day to places displaced survivors need them most: Couple's Style: Warm and Non-Perishable.
2. Rolling Jubilee - The People's Bailout, part of #StrikeDebt. This is awesome practically for those it will help and symbolically for everyone. Random people donate money - a dollar, $20, whatever. Rolling Jubilee pools it together and buys distressed debt on the credit resale market (largely medical debt, which causes 60% of bankruptcies). This is the debt that lenders resell to predatory collection agencies for pennies on the dollar. Instead, Rolling Jubilee buys as much debt as it can (for 5 cents per dollar) and just forgives the debt completely. Random strangers = freed from part or all of their debt! I donated my coffee money for the week, which will free somebody of $400 of debt - I couldn't make $400 of difference on my own, but through this, I can! Tonight was their official launch, and they got $250K in donations already, which will take OVER FIVE MILLION DOLLARS off the backs of struggling Americans! (International people: I imagine that either somebody in your home country will be on this by the end of the week, or your tax and lending codes don't allow predatory debt resale which means your society on the whole is probably better off.)
3. Me, having hope for humanity and the future. :) #Occupy isn't a monolithic entity. People and groups claiming that name do a lot of things in a lot of places, only some of which I agree with (ballot burners, I'm looking at you) - but that's what happens with a leaderless, stockholder-less movement. The part that warms my heart and makes me happy-cry is that people who don't have to, who aren't getting credit or being paid or being told to do it, are grouping together wherever they are and using what they have to stand with the weak against the strong. Even in our consumerist culture, we haven't completely forgotten. <3
1. #OccupySandy, which is providing real, immediate assistance on the ground in Staten Island and other affected areas and has been doing so since before the storm even hit. If you've got a few dollars and want to send them some much-needed supplies, some people started an Amazon registry and are driving them every day to places displaced survivors need them most: Couple's Style: Warm and Non-Perishable.
2. Rolling Jubilee - The People's Bailout, part of #StrikeDebt. This is awesome practically for those it will help and symbolically for everyone. Random people donate money - a dollar, $20, whatever. Rolling Jubilee pools it together and buys distressed debt on the credit resale market (largely medical debt, which causes 60% of bankruptcies). This is the debt that lenders resell to predatory collection agencies for pennies on the dollar. Instead, Rolling Jubilee buys as much debt as it can (for 5 cents per dollar) and just forgives the debt completely. Random strangers = freed from part or all of their debt! I donated my coffee money for the week, which will free somebody of $400 of debt - I couldn't make $400 of difference on my own, but through this, I can! Tonight was their official launch, and they got $250K in donations already, which will take OVER FIVE MILLION DOLLARS off the backs of struggling Americans! (International people: I imagine that either somebody in your home country will be on this by the end of the week, or your tax and lending codes don't allow predatory debt resale which means your society on the whole is probably better off.)
3. Me, having hope for humanity and the future. :) #Occupy isn't a monolithic entity. People and groups claiming that name do a lot of things in a lot of places, only some of which I agree with (ballot burners, I'm looking at you) - but that's what happens with a leaderless, stockholder-less movement. The part that warms my heart and makes me happy-cry is that people who don't have to, who aren't getting credit or being paid or being told to do it, are grouping together wherever they are and using what they have to stand with the weak against the strong. Even in our consumerist culture, we haven't completely forgotten. <3
