Photo: Stacy Lanyon
From a really, really young age, I felt like
something wasn’t right in the world, so when Occupy started, I had
participated in other kinds of protests, specifically around the Iraq
war. My husband and I were real involved in protesting the war, and that was a
real disappointment. When Occupy started, it seemed like something to
get involved in, so I went down to the park. I think it was probably the first
week in October. It was already bustling and booming. They had a list of working groups, and I ended up
getting involved with the Empowerment and Education Working Group, and that was
pretty much where I spent my time. At the time I first went down, the park was
really an exciting space because it was people from all walks of life
occupying this one space and really trying something new. I remember that there
was a big snow storm, and it was amazing because everyone got together and gave
tons of clothes and blankets and everything everyone would need to stay in that
storm. When I first went down there, I remember the drum circle and dancing at
the drum circle. It was really a fun space, and it seemed like the action was
all focused on occupying the park and making the statement against inequality
and against Wall Street greed.
When I started in the Empowerment and Education Working Group,
we almost immediately had to start meeting at 60
Wall Street. It was on Friday nights, and it was just an incredibly dynamic space,
and a lot of projects came out of that, and one of them was the Occupy student
debt campaign. We went off and started really, really working on drafting our
principles and our pledge of refusal because, at the time, we realized that the
only real way to change this economic system was through taking action, and
that could be difficult, not necessarily the easy kinds of actions like signing
petitions online. That obviously wasn’t working. We came up with the Occupy Student Debt Campaign. There were four basic principles. We felt that public education
should be free, private schools should be transparent on where they spend all
of this public money. If there are student loans, we felt there should be zero
interest. It’s a public good, so everyone should have access to education, and if you choose to go to private school, why should students pay interest on
that? Then, the fourth principle is that all student loan debt is not
legitimate, and it should be written off. So we set off on a pledge of refusal
where if we got a million people to sign it, then we would all refuse to pay
and make a big, big statement, although that would only be a small dent in
the system, ultimately, believe it or not.
Out of that, we organized an event last spring called 1T Day, which was to hightlight that we actually passed 1 trillion dollars in student debt. We only had about 5,000 people signing. It then seemed like Occupy Wall Street’s organizational structures had fallen apart. Then, several working groups started to meet in Washington Square Park on Mondays to talk about what it would take to build a political movement, and what we came up with from Occupy Student Debt, Free University and Occupy Theory was that debt is a real point for resistance. It’s probably the only point that we have to really resist the system economically. It is a tie that binds the 99%. There are those in this country that are deeply in debt. About 46% of people making under 10,000 a year have 40% or more in debt. That’s an unbearable debt load. It’s impossible to pay. We know that students are deeply in debt, and we know about the whole foreclosure crisis. We have a real problem in this country with debt, and we really thought that we would try to push that button and see if we could try and spark something.
Out of that, we organized an event last spring called 1T Day, which was to hightlight that we actually passed 1 trillion dollars in student debt. We only had about 5,000 people signing. It then seemed like Occupy Wall Street’s organizational structures had fallen apart. Then, several working groups started to meet in Washington Square Park on Mondays to talk about what it would take to build a political movement, and what we came up with from Occupy Student Debt, Free University and Occupy Theory was that debt is a real point for resistance. It’s probably the only point that we have to really resist the system economically. It is a tie that binds the 99%. There are those in this country that are deeply in debt. About 46% of people making under 10,000 a year have 40% or more in debt. That’s an unbearable debt load. It’s impossible to pay. We know that students are deeply in debt, and we know about the whole foreclosure crisis. We have a real problem in this country with debt, and we really thought that we would try to push that button and see if we could try and spark something.
I think that Occupy was really important as a first step to
a social movement that we really needed. I’m not sure exactly what shape that
will take. I’m sure no one is sure, but I think that people really understood
for the first time that there was a real resistance in the United States.
People globally didn’t really understand that, and now they know that for sure.
I think that that is super important. I think Occupy was really important for
that. I think Occupy was less important for coming up with an organizational
structure that could really build a movement. There is too much conflict and
too much tension, and a lot of that is really ideological because it did have
enormous success at bringing awareness to this theme of inequality, economic
justice, and in doing that, you ended up with different strands of ideas about
how things could be changed. There are some people who say we don’t need any
state at all, and other people say, “No. We want to have a state. We want a
state that can spread more equitably.” So you have those two really contentious
strains within Occupy, but I think that was problematic in terms of the
organizational form. We have to think through what another organizational form
could look like that could retain perhaps both of these ideas.
I’m not really sure that we’re going to have a revolution like we think of revolutions of the past. I think that it’s going to probably be about building new things in this world, finding those spaces where we can actually create something new, new relationships. I think a primary place for this will be housing, like new housing, new ways of living. Many people don’t care about buying property anymore because they have seen the downside of that. They have experienced friends, parents, family who have been in foreclosure. Everyone knows someone who has lost a home and lost their investment, lost all of their effort along with it. There are studies that show this. Pew did a study fairly recently that showed that people are no longer buying property and that there are fewer sales ever, since they’ve been tracking it, were made to the under 35 group of people in recent history. It wasn’t just that people couldn’t afford it. It was also that people didn’t care for it anymore, so I think that we need to figure out some new ideas in terms of how people live. I think that we need to think through things along the lines of limited profit. Cooperatives are really popular right now, and that’s something that unions did, so we have to figure out what kind of organizational collective, what kind of cohesive organization can have the power to implement some ideas like that.
I think education is another important site that inequality is deeply being created because we have inequality, and then we also have inequality inside of the inequality, so we have almost 60% of students now graduating with around 25,000 worth of debt, but then within that category, we have 81% of African American students graduating with about 30,000 worth of student debt, so we have enormous inequality. There are certain sites for that. One site that I mentioned is housing. Another site is student debt. We need to figure out how we are going to create public institutions that are not only going to educate people on the facts, the truths that we’re all supposed to know, but also are critical of the truths that we have been taught and also offer some kind of education that also gives people the tools to understands society in some newer ways.
Then, in terms of resistance, I think that we need to look at economic resistance through debt, and we need to figure out much more clearly how we can ignite all of the 99%. We have an enormous amount of people who are poor in this country, and those people have an enormous amounts of debt. Occupy faith has been working on a project called The People’s Investigation of Wall Street - money, debt and power. It think it’s a really great idea, and I’m sure that it’s going to be building out with a coalition and hopefully moving somewhat beyond Occupy and into a human rights kind of a framework. Another area that we really need to look at in terms of change is how can we change our constitution, so that we don’t have corporations equal to people? Amoral corporations that just seek financial interests are equivalent in our country to actual living, breathing human beings, and this is an actual real problem because we empower corporations in this way. Hopefully, we can build movements on all fronts, movements that focus on debt, specifically on debt refusal , some kind of umbrella and some kind of way to move, to bring these issues together in a coherent form.
I’m not really sure that we’re going to have a revolution like we think of revolutions of the past. I think that it’s going to probably be about building new things in this world, finding those spaces where we can actually create something new, new relationships. I think a primary place for this will be housing, like new housing, new ways of living. Many people don’t care about buying property anymore because they have seen the downside of that. They have experienced friends, parents, family who have been in foreclosure. Everyone knows someone who has lost a home and lost their investment, lost all of their effort along with it. There are studies that show this. Pew did a study fairly recently that showed that people are no longer buying property and that there are fewer sales ever, since they’ve been tracking it, were made to the under 35 group of people in recent history. It wasn’t just that people couldn’t afford it. It was also that people didn’t care for it anymore, so I think that we need to figure out some new ideas in terms of how people live. I think that we need to think through things along the lines of limited profit. Cooperatives are really popular right now, and that’s something that unions did, so we have to figure out what kind of organizational collective, what kind of cohesive organization can have the power to implement some ideas like that.
I think education is another important site that inequality is deeply being created because we have inequality, and then we also have inequality inside of the inequality, so we have almost 60% of students now graduating with around 25,000 worth of debt, but then within that category, we have 81% of African American students graduating with about 30,000 worth of student debt, so we have enormous inequality. There are certain sites for that. One site that I mentioned is housing. Another site is student debt. We need to figure out how we are going to create public institutions that are not only going to educate people on the facts, the truths that we’re all supposed to know, but also are critical of the truths that we have been taught and also offer some kind of education that also gives people the tools to understands society in some newer ways.
Then, in terms of resistance, I think that we need to look at economic resistance through debt, and we need to figure out much more clearly how we can ignite all of the 99%. We have an enormous amount of people who are poor in this country, and those people have an enormous amounts of debt. Occupy faith has been working on a project called The People’s Investigation of Wall Street - money, debt and power. It think it’s a really great idea, and I’m sure that it’s going to be building out with a coalition and hopefully moving somewhat beyond Occupy and into a human rights kind of a framework. Another area that we really need to look at in terms of change is how can we change our constitution, so that we don’t have corporations equal to people? Amoral corporations that just seek financial interests are equivalent in our country to actual living, breathing human beings, and this is an actual real problem because we empower corporations in this way. Hopefully, we can build movements on all fronts, movements that focus on debt, specifically on debt refusal , some kind of umbrella and some kind of way to move, to bring these issues together in a coherent form.
It's really hard to figure out what kind of world that we
want. I know the things that I really want first and foremost. I want a world
that’s fair, and I really don’t think that’s what we have now. I really want
economic justice. I really want racial justice within that economic justice,
and I see that happening on a global scale. I don’t see that happening just
within the United States because of course we are the 1% of the world, so we
have to look beyond that. I think that we have to understand history. I think
that the only real solution that would not just reinstate the current border
but would actually uproot the current border is going to have to involve a
massive redistribution of the world’s wealth, and it’s going to have to come
from the people as a demand. I think that’s what I would like to see.
Then, moving forward, once we can even the playing field, I would like to see something that’s much more socialistic, where we do have the ability to distribute wealth and distribute it in a much more equitable way, but where we also are able to manage difference within that and also where we have a real democracy. I’m not really sure that means that we have a direct democracy. I’m skeptical of that idea. I think that we need to change the way in which we have leaders who are in office as a constant career. I don’t think that’s the way to go. I think we would be much better off with regular people doing that job and have it be something that’s a voluntary job, that’s not compensated, certainly no campaign donations. Everyone should just start with the same amount of media, so I think it’s increasingly modernizing to be able to address the environmental crisis that we’re living in. I think that as human beings we’ve been trained within capitalism to seek profit. Winning the game is how much money you have, and I think that if we raise the bottom then we don’t have to play that game anymore, and I think that would be pretty amazing.
Then, moving forward, once we can even the playing field, I would like to see something that’s much more socialistic, where we do have the ability to distribute wealth and distribute it in a much more equitable way, but where we also are able to manage difference within that and also where we have a real democracy. I’m not really sure that means that we have a direct democracy. I’m skeptical of that idea. I think that we need to change the way in which we have leaders who are in office as a constant career. I don’t think that’s the way to go. I think we would be much better off with regular people doing that job and have it be something that’s a voluntary job, that’s not compensated, certainly no campaign donations. Everyone should just start with the same amount of media, so I think it’s increasingly modernizing to be able to address the environmental crisis that we’re living in. I think that as human beings we’ve been trained within capitalism to seek profit. Winning the game is how much money you have, and I think that if we raise the bottom then we don’t have to play that game anymore, and I think that would be pretty amazing.
One of the things that
we really have to realize is that we need to have world peace, so I think that
if we can have economic justice, racial justice, social justice more generally,
then I think that we are going to have, hopefully, world peace. I actually
think that it’s not only about the systems around us. The systems around us we
have to create based on where we are as humanity, and we have to do the work
also to be able to move humanity in a positive direction in spite of the
inherent negativity within life. We have to do a much better job as
individuals as well as collectively at overcoming the inherent negativities
that divide us, that make us think that we’re separate when we’re all really interconnected. Part of it is going to be about mastering the self, and
I think that the problem that we constantly face as human beings is that we
have to set-up structures around us to manage negativity, to manage the basest
most negative desires that we all somehow have turning about within our lives, and
those systems have to constantly be able to change as human beings and as
humanity as a collection, develop, expand.
I think that world that we're trying to get to is unimaginable. I mean we can have ideals. That’s great, but we need to deal with reality and ideals at the same time. It’s this constant balancing between the two. For me, I don’t think that capitalism has ever been that. To me, capitalism is saying that we are all greedy bastards. Therefore, this is the system we have to have, and it doesn’t allow people to operate from the place of benevolence that everyone really does have as well. The fact that we see that so clearly right now, it just shows that we need to change the system to another system, a system that is not going to be a permanent system unless we cause ourselves to go extinct, which we could do with the climate crisis, so hopefully we will be able to continue to evolve as a species into other systems that probably go more and more toward the ideal where we could have a stateless society, where everyone could interrelate meaningfully without having any restrictions upon them.
For me, the ideal that we really have to balance right now is the inequality, and I think what we are faced with within this capitalist society today is just incredible, incredible inequality. The vast majority of people are basically just working to funnel money up to these super, super, super rich who have no need for all this money. It’s unfathomable what you could do with all of this money. I feel like in terms of what the next step looks like, it’s an incremental step for humankind. It’s not necessarily the final step. I feel really strongly that we should look at it that way. We should look at these ideals that we have and definitely strive for them, but we should be very practical and realistic as well and understand the time that we’re living in really specifically because, in this time, what would it really look like if we had no state? It doesn’t look to me like a pretty situation right now, but I understand how that could be an ideal if we were just all better people. Maybe we can get there incrementally.
Interview by Stacy Lanyon
http://buildingcompassionthroughaction.blogspot.com/
https://www.facebook.com/stacylanyon
https://instagram.com/stacylanyon/
https://twitter.com/StacyLanyon
http://stacylanyon.com/
I think that world that we're trying to get to is unimaginable. I mean we can have ideals. That’s great, but we need to deal with reality and ideals at the same time. It’s this constant balancing between the two. For me, I don’t think that capitalism has ever been that. To me, capitalism is saying that we are all greedy bastards. Therefore, this is the system we have to have, and it doesn’t allow people to operate from the place of benevolence that everyone really does have as well. The fact that we see that so clearly right now, it just shows that we need to change the system to another system, a system that is not going to be a permanent system unless we cause ourselves to go extinct, which we could do with the climate crisis, so hopefully we will be able to continue to evolve as a species into other systems that probably go more and more toward the ideal where we could have a stateless society, where everyone could interrelate meaningfully without having any restrictions upon them.
For me, the ideal that we really have to balance right now is the inequality, and I think what we are faced with within this capitalist society today is just incredible, incredible inequality. The vast majority of people are basically just working to funnel money up to these super, super, super rich who have no need for all this money. It’s unfathomable what you could do with all of this money. I feel like in terms of what the next step looks like, it’s an incremental step for humankind. It’s not necessarily the final step. I feel really strongly that we should look at it that way. We should look at these ideals that we have and definitely strive for them, but we should be very practical and realistic as well and understand the time that we’re living in really specifically because, in this time, what would it really look like if we had no state? It doesn’t look to me like a pretty situation right now, but I understand how that could be an ideal if we were just all better people. Maybe we can get there incrementally.
Interview by Stacy Lanyon
http://buildingcompassionthroughaction.blogspot.com/
https://www.facebook.com/stacylanyon
https://instagram.com/stacylanyon/
https://twitter.com/StacyLanyon
http://stacylanyon.com/