Occupy’s New Offshoot Set to Cancel Millions in Medical Debts

On the first anniversary of Occupy Wall Street's eviction from Zuccotti Park, celebrity and local performers donated their time for a "post-modern variety show" last night at Manhattan's Le Poisson Rouge nightclub. They were there to raise money for what may be the most far-reaching project to grow out of the Occupy movement so far: a "bailout for the 99 percent" called Rolling Jubilee. Launched by Strike Debt, an offshoot of OWS, the Jubilee has begun erasing people's medical debt by infiltrating the debt-collection industry.

The tactic is to buy private debt the same way collection companies do—on the debt market, at tiny fractions of its original worth—and then cancel it in hopes of freeing debtors from their piled-up medical bills. It is hoped that the action will bring debt servitude to the forefront of our national conversation.

As donations surged past the $250,000 mark—five times Strike Debt’s stated goal for the evening—the soirée took on the bubbly energy of a victory rally.

Last night's live-streamed spectacle, billed as the People's Bailout Telethon, featured comedienne Janeane Garofalo, musicians Lee Ranaldo of Sonic Youth and Jeff Mangum of Neutral Milk Hotel, and a three-hour-long vaudevillian line-up of mariachi and magic, gospel and hip-hop, striptease and performance art. Comedy writer Lizz Winstead and cartoonist David Rees emceed the event, badgering a fluctuating online audience to donate money. With local Strike Debt chapters holding viewing parties across the country, there may have been close to 2,000 online viewers.

The event had been planned as a launch party for Rolling Jubilee, which opened its bank account on Friday, November 9. But as donations surged past the $250,000 mark—five times Strike Debt’s stated goal for the evening—the soirée took on the bubbly energy of a victory rally. Organizers say these donations could buy 20 times their amount in debt, since distressed medical debts (that is, debts seen as unlikely to be paid) can sell for as little as five cents to the dollar. In other words, a collection company might pay a hospital $10 for the right to chase down a patient's $200 debt. Or, in the case of Rolling Jubilee, a $10 donation could cancel a $200 debt. According to Yates McKee, a Strike Debt organizer, the group has "friends in the industry" with debt-purchasing experience who are bidding discreetly on the group's behalf.

According to the federal Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, about 30 million Americans have debts in collection.

Of the money raised this week, Strike Debt has already spent $5,000 on purchasing medical debt. Sometime soon, the first households will receive letters informing them that their debt has been cancelled, along with copies of a "Debt Resistor's Operation Manual.”

According to the federal Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, about 30 million Americans have debts in collection—with tabs averaging $1,500. So, if the roughly $293,000 raised this week can indeed purchase $5.9 million of debt, this phase of the bail-out could help about 3900 families.

McKee emphasizes that the campaign is not about charity, but "solidarity and mutual aid." Nor is the campaign calling for debt "forgiveness," which reinforces the notion that debtors are guilty of moral failures. Instead, it encourages debt resistance. After all, "We're calling for this to be a political act of economic non-compliance,” he told me. “We are intentionally withdrawing our consent from this system."

Strike Debt says medical debt directly causes 62 percent of all bankruptcies.

It may sound like a stretch to call this form of activism "resistance." A few online commenters have suggested that it validates the debt collection system by using its channels. But Strike Debt views the Rolling Jubilee as just one tactic in a long-term strategy to empower debtors. Others include the creation of a Debt Resistors Organizing Kit, and debt-resisting acts of civil disobedience. "We realized that debt was really the tie that binds the 99 percent," said Pamela Brown, an organizer with the Occupy Student Debt campaign. "It's the intersection of Wall Street and our lives."

While the campaign is focused on the problem of the personal debts many of us rack up in pursuit of education, health care, and housing, Strike Debt activists have only been able to purchase medical debt at this point. It’s a worthy focus—Strike Debt says medical debt directly causes 62 percent of all bankruptcies. Student debt, which in the U.S. amounts to a staggering $1 trillion, has proven a difficult target because federally backed student loans cannot be bought (though McKee says the campaign may find ways to buy up private college loans or for-profit school loans). Strike Debt cannot seek out and buy defaulted debt from specific people, since anonymous accounts are sold in bundles. "With 15 percent of Americans currently being pursued by a debt collector, looking for one person’s debt would be like looking for a needle in a haystack," their website says.

Strike Debt is hoping that lessons from last fall's occupations will help promote common cause among the 99 percent. McKee wants to see an existing "invisible army of defaulters" recognize each other as co-combatants and engage the debt system together. Perhaps that will happen when Jubilee’s good-news envelopes start landing in mailboxes.

http://www.yesmagazine.org/people-power/offshoot-occupy-set-to-cancel-millions-in-medical-debts?utm_source=november12&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=CancelMillionsMedicalDebts

Bankster Fraud Has Driven 100 Million Into Poverty, Killing Many

Fraud caused the Great Depression and the current financial crisis, and the economy will never recover until fraud is prosecuted.

Fraud is the business model adopted by the giant banks. See this.

The Obama administration has made it official policy not to prosecute fraud.  Indeed, the “watchdogs” in D.C. are so corrupt that they are as easily bribed as a policeman in a third world banana republic.

The mouthpieces in Wall Street and D.C.  pretend that financial  fraud (like Libor) is a “victimless crime“.

But the World Bank notes that the financial crisis  – you know, the one caused by financial fraud – has driven between 64 and  100 million people into destitution.

Some estimate the figure to be much higher. For example, one 2009 study estimated that 140 million people would be driven into poverty in Asia alone.

This is not just a matter of having less money for entertainment or luxury goods.  Increased poverty leads to earlier deaths.

As the Los Angeles times notes:

Poverty appears to trump smoking, obesity and education as a health burden, potentially causing a loss of 8.2 years of perfect health.

This is not an abstract concept. A lot of kids will die due to Wall Street fraud:

The global financial crisis sweeping through Wall Street and the European banking sector will touch the lives of the world’s most vulnerable, pushing millions into deeper poverty and leading to the deaths of thousands of children, according to a new United Nations study.

Read More:

http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2012/08/bankster-fraud-is-not-a-victimless-crime-it-has-driven-100-million-into-poverty-killing-millions.html

Is Occupy Wall Street Dead?

"Most of the social scientists who are at all like me - unsentimental leftists - ... think this movement is over," says Harvard University professor Theda Skocpol, speaking to Reuters about the grassroots 'Occupy' movement that began in Manhattan last fall and sparked nationwide encampments of public spaces and opened a long-ignored dialogue about income inequality and unaddressed Wall Street malfeasance.

The guffaws of OWS activists and organizers can already be heard as the news that a Harvard professor has called the movement null and void.

But even Adbusters, the 'culture-jamming' magazine that help spawn the original Wall Street occupation, says that things have changed dramatically for the movement. "Our movement is living through a painful rebirth..." began its frontpage essay this week, and then quoted a Zuccoti park regular who declared, "We are facing a nauseating poverty of ideas.”

Bill Dobbs, a member of Occupy New York's press team, challenged Skocpol's view, explaining to Reuters that he compares the OWS struggle to that of America's civil rights movement - long and uphill, with broad goals to radically alter American society. The first step, he said, has been to re-animate America's long-dormant spirit of social activism.

Read More:

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2012/06/07

Ben and Jerry’s Co-founder: Time to Occupy Dollar Bills

Yahoo! News reports that Ben Cohen, co-founder of Ben and Jerry’s Ice Cream, is teaming up with Move to Amend to “distribute rubber stamps with anti-corporate election spending messages so that the politically-minded can mark their dollar bills.”

Cohen plans to put a giant stamping machine on a national tour in August to encourage "thousands of people to buy rubber stamps and stamp any currency that comes into their possession."

Slogans like “Corporations are not people,” “Money is not speech” and “Not to be used for bribing politicians,” will now adorn currency in an Occupy cash campaign.

The goal of Move to Amend is to secure a constitutional amendment that says “corporations do not enjoy the same protected rights as individuals and that money is not a form of speech.”

Cohen’s attorney says that as long as the bills are still legible, it is legal to put the stamps on them.

Yahoo! News' Lookout reports:

Ben Cohen, co-founder of Ben & Jerry's ice cream and one of the deep pockets behind the Occupy movement, says he is helping launch a campaign this summer to highlight the influence of corporate money in American politics.

Read More:

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2012/06/04-3

Mike Feder - Memorial Day in The Rear View Mirror (Video)

To read the great article associated with his video, Click here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mike-feder/memorial-dayin-the-rear-v_b_1563189.html 

When was the last time--as a nation--that we observed or celebrated a national holiday without getting drunk, or fatter, or blow money we couldn't afford on some useless junk?

Now we have become the new Roman Empire--we (The President/Emperor and The Military) invade, occupy, corrupt and steal just as we please. And at home the cops beat non-violent protesters in the streets and the government spies on all of us.

So, I ask the question again: Just why did our soldiers die in The Revolutionary War, The Civil War and in World War II? I thought it was for Freedom, Equality and Justice. Maybe I got it wrong.

written and narrated by Mike Feder

video conception and creation by Todd Mathews

Listen to Mike Feder every Saturday from 5-8PM Eastern time on Sirius XM Left Channel 127 and also on Progressive Radio Network (PRN.FM): Occupied Territory (Thursdays @ 1PM ET) and The Turning Point (Mondays at 4pm ET); both shows available on podcast and Stitcher.

Mike's website is http://www.federfiles.com

Ann Robertson and Bill Leumer - How the Democrats Exploit Occupy

There has been much talk about attempts by various organizations such as the Democratic Party and some top officials in organized labor to co-opt Occupy in order to steer this movement in directions beneficial to themselves. Such attempts can hardly be surprising, given the use that many in the Republican Party made of the Tea Party people. 

 

The 99% Spring is the latest effort by those close to the Democrats to take advantage of Occupy, but the results were less than spectacular. While they trumpeted attracting somewhere in the order of 100,000 activists to participate, the resulting demonstrations in various cities numbered only in the range of several thousand people.

 

But the Democrats and their operatives in Occupy have nevertheless had an impact. In particular, they have argued that demonstrations target banks first and foremost, not the government. Of course, sometimes targeting banks is appropriate.

 

However, there are times when the goals that Occupy has embraced would indicate that the most appropriate target would be the government and politicians, not the banks. Still, the Democratic Party operatives within Occupy push for demonstrations exclusively at banks.

Read More:

http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=31190

John Cavanagh and Robin Broad - What Comes Next?: Building on Occupy and the 99% Spring

Where does the Occupy movement turn next? Can social movements build on its momentum? Will protest and new forms of mobilization create change to transform the economy to one that works for people and the planet?

When would-be Occupiers pitched the first tents in New York’s Zuccotti Park eight months ago, hand-written signs declaring “we are the 99%” grabbed the public imagination. This 99 percent reality—millions of young people saddled with student debt joining the jobless and homeless to confront an increasingly vulnerable and bleak future—suddenly had a face and a voice that resonated across the nation and around the world. 

So too were observers struck by the novelty and creativity of Occupiers able to make decisions by consensus, posing a stark contrast to a U.S. Congress where decisions seemed increasingly to be bought and sold by and for the one percent. Across the United States, thousands of encampments echoed the core message: a healthy society was a more equal society and Wall Street’s lock on our economy and our politics had to be broken. 

In dozens of cities, actions reinforced this message as the victims of this unjust system started to fight back with verve and effectiveness. In some cities, occupiers stood guard in front of foreclosed homes to block banks from evicting inhabitants. In others, occupiers urged people to “move their money” from Wall Street banks to locally-rooted credit unions and community development financial institutions. From Washington, D.C., a 22-year-old, indebted college graduate named Molly Katchpole catalyzed such an outcry against outrageous bank fees that some banks retreated and cancelled the fees. Even as mayors and university administrators closed down encampments, Occupiers found new spaces to continue their general assemblies and plan local actions.

Read More:

http://www.yesmagazine.org/blogs/john-cavanagh-and-robin-broad/what-comes-next-building-on-occupy-and-99-spring?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+yes%2Fmost-recent-articles+%28Most+Recent+Articles+and+Blogs+-+YES%21+magazine%29

Mehdi Hasan - Sadly Barack Obama, like Mitt Romney, is an apologist for the 1%

Poor Mitt Romney. Despite defeating a weird and wacky line-up of candidates in a gruelling Republican primary race, and despite selling himself as "the CEO president", he can't seem to shake off his image as a slash-and-burn private equity boss, a modern-day incarnation of Gordon Gekko.

It hasn't escaped his opponents' attention. In 2008, Romney's then rival for the nomination, Mike Huckabee, mocked him for looking like "the guy who laid you off". Last year, during his own brief and bizarre bid for the presidency, the billionaire entrepreneur Donald Trump ridiculed Romney as "a funds guy" who would "buy companies … close companies [and] get rid of the jobs". And, last week, Team Obama released a campaign ad attacking Romney's private equity firm, Bain Capital, and referring to the Republican candidate as a "vampire".

In a show of co-ordinated faux outrage, Republicans have since called on the president to disown such attack ads. But drawing attention to Romney's record as a corporate raider is fair game. As co-founder and chief executive of Bain Capital, Romney did make hundreds of millions of dollars from private equity deals, and did lay off hundreds of workers in the process.

Read More:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2012/may/24/barack-obama-mitt-romney-apologist

Arun Gupta - Has the FBI Launched a War of Entrapment Against the Occupy Movement?

With the high-profile arrest of activists on terrorism charges in Cleveland on May Day and in Chicago during the NATO summit there, evidence is mounting that the FBI is unleashing the same methods of entrapment against the Occupy Wall Street movement that it has used against left movements and Muslim-Americans for the last decade.

In Cleveland the FBI announced on May 1 that “five self-proclaimed anarchists conspired to develop multiple terror plots designed to negatively impact the greater Cleveland metropolitan area.” The FBI claimed the five were nabbed as they attempted to blow up a bridge the night before using “inoperable” explosives supplied to them by an undercover FBI employee.

Then on May 19, the day before thousands marched peacefully in Chicago to protest NATO-led wars, the Illinois State Attorney hit three men with charges of terrorism for allegedly plotting to use “destructive devices” against targets ranging from Chicago police stations to the home of Mayor Rahm Emanuel. Defense attorneys for the Chicago activists claim their clients, like the Cleveland activists, were provided with supplies for making Molotov cocktails by undercover agents in an operation that included the participation of the FBI and Secret Service. This was followed up on May 20 by the arrest of two other men on terrorism charges in Chicago for statements they made, which critics say amount to thought crimes. The Chicago cases are also reportedly the first time the state of Illinois is charging individuals under its post-September 11 terrorism law.

Read More:

http://www.alternet.org/story/155581/has_the_fbi_launched_a_war_of_entrapment_against_the_occupy_movement

The 'GlobalMay manifesto' of the Occupy movement

We are living in a world controlled by forces incapable of giving freedom and dignity to the world's population. A world where we are told "there is no alternative" to the loss of rights gained through the long, hard struggles of our ancestors, and where success is defined in opposition to the most fundamental values of humanity, such as solidarity and mutual support. Moreover, anything that does not promote competitiveness, selfishness and greed is seen as dysfunctional.

But we have not remained silent! From Tunisia to Tahrir Square, Madrid to Reykjavik, New York to Brussels, people are rising up to denounce the status quo. Our effort states "enough!", and has begun to push changes forward, worldwide.

This is why we are uniting once again to make our voices heard all over the world this 12 May.

We condemn the current distribution of economic resources whereby only a tiny minority escape poverty and insecurity, and future generations are condemned to a poisoned legacy thanks to the environmental crimes of the rich and powerful. "Democratic" political systems, where they exist, have been emptied of meaning, put to the service of those few interested in increasing the power of corporations and financial institutions.

Read More:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/may/11/occupy-globalmay-manifesto