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Speaker 1: Microphone. Chuck, you're listening to waiting on reparations and production

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Speaker 1: of I Heart Radio one to want to factor chandelier

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Speaker 1: on the beach. Oh yeah, uh yeah yo yo Yo,

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Speaker 1: I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, who the hell is

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Speaker 1: this calling me? A waken me up at night in

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Speaker 1: my slumber looking at my phone. I don't recognize this number, Yo,

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Speaker 1: I can't say it. I'm looking at that ship. I

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Speaker 1: think of Bill. They want me to pay it. I'm like,

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Speaker 1: funk that. I don't know who they're trying to find, yo,

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Speaker 1: because I don't even know nobody who live in Ohio.

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Speaker 1: So now I gotta ducking dodge you probably getting another

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Speaker 1: job that want to get my neck? No battle, what's

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Speaker 1: the cost? He collectors? I ain't paying you ship. Telly

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Speaker 1: May Yeah, she stay on my dick. These niggas be

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Speaker 1: up in my damns. She said. He trying to reap

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Speaker 1: hiss my priest. But I'd be sipping orange so that

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Speaker 1: like my name was Keenan. You have to notice how

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Speaker 1: everyone you used to vote, and all your family and

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Speaker 1: your friends where y'all got the student loans. Everybody shares

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Speaker 1: the pain. It's not just you a loan. That's while

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Speaker 1: we always write these robs and give you all this

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Speaker 1: moving pole. Imagine you're pulled over in the car for

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Speaker 1: the map. You're the curse of the police to get

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Speaker 1: fucking charged with the threat. You come the book and

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Speaker 1: swept inside the carseral net. So now you got this

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Speaker 1: lawyer fees and finds carsoral debt. But if we all

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Speaker 1: came together about the hundred thousands, we could get them

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Speaker 1: to cancel all the mortgages on the houses. But it's

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Speaker 1: only possible if you're willing to be loud and too

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Speaker 1: people know you're done with that, no longer allow it. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: fuck yeah, it's dope, knife, I'm legal, Francay. We are

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Speaker 1: waiting on reparations. That was that was fired that I

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Speaker 1: was still basking a little bit and forgot to say,

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Speaker 1: Harry up, it's all good. So how you been, man, Man,

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Speaker 1: I've been good. Yeah, just same. We'll keeping up on

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Speaker 1: this election fiasco while you know, trying to do my thing.

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Speaker 1: But geez, you know, it's almost like you can't even

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Speaker 1: really make any plans right now until the election gets resolved.

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Speaker 1: So that's kind of where I'm at right now. When's

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Speaker 1: that going to be I mean, I'm at least talking

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Speaker 1: about election night. I mean, who knows how long that

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Speaker 1: mess that old pipe dream which one election night? No,

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Speaker 1: I mean you know what, I don't know. I don't

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Speaker 1: know now with the with the new poll numbers, I

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Speaker 1: mean obviously none of this matters. Every you know, people

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Speaker 1: gotta vote, you know, so poll numbers don't mean ship.

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Speaker 1: But right now it's looking like he might not even

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Speaker 1: really be able to achieve. But you know he's gonna try.

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Speaker 1: But I'm just saying, and revised my previous statement in

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Speaker 1: that on election night, we should know who are new

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Speaker 1: d A is. We shouldn't know who our senators are

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Speaker 1: going to be, and that's definitely matters. Does stuff really

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Speaker 1: really matters to take back the Senate? We have somebody

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Speaker 1: who in Athens a least is going to be pushing

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Speaker 1: for a sort of justice practices and for you know,

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Speaker 1: not prosecuting like minor drug offenses and ship like that.

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Speaker 1: That's the ship y'all gotta get out and vote for.

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Speaker 1: It's like the down ballot races are the really important ones.

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Speaker 1: If you want to see, like you know what I'm saying,

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Speaker 1: the real change happened. Yeah, like your carseral debt. We're

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Speaker 1: talking about debt this week. If you're thinking about your

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Speaker 1: lawyer fees you gotta pay and the fines you still

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Speaker 1: owe the courts in the county and uh all that ship.

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Speaker 1: That ship is not determined by who your president is.

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Speaker 1: That's determined by who your d a ends up being,

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Speaker 1: whether or not you go to jail for smoking weed

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Speaker 1: or I don't know, doing doing a little math talking

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Speaker 1: about debt, I mean, even the president of debt. I

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Speaker 1: can't believe. I don't even know if we were prepared

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Speaker 1: to get into that in this episode, but we absolutely

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Speaker 1: should not much to get into. President owes hundreds of

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Speaker 1: millions of dollars and barely paid any taxes in the

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Speaker 1: last ten years. Not much more to it. I gotta

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Speaker 1: pay my I got six grand. I gotta pay my

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Speaker 1: payoff on my car. I know friends that are still

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Speaker 1: paying off on like d uys from almost a decade ago.

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Speaker 1: So and and here we have a president who just

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Speaker 1: received world class medical care, the best medical care you

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Speaker 1: can probably receive in the entire world, without having to

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Speaker 1: pay a single penny. Thinking about how many people go

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Speaker 1: into medical bankruptcy every year. You want to know what's

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Speaker 1: even more wild, think about this. He didn't even pay

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Speaker 1: for that ship. You did, like literally because this is

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Speaker 1: this is like like he just got government run healthcare,

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Speaker 1: not government run health insurance. He got government run healthcare.

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Speaker 1: Doctors are paid by the st the state. The lights

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Speaker 1: were kept on on the crystal chandelier and his executive

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Speaker 1: suite by the state, by us, by me, and you

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Speaker 1: damn sure wasn't eager to drop any ducats on that ship.

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Speaker 1: Then Nicka paid yeah, nothing, nothing. So all we're asking

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Speaker 1: for is for all of us to receive that. I mean,

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Speaker 1: I don't even need the chandelier, I don't even need

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Speaker 1: the sixth room suite and the best doctor. Give me

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Speaker 1: a decent doctor for free. Fucking I'm there, I'm in.

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Speaker 1: But that's what we're talking about this week, using our

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Speaker 1: debts to organize for a better world where we all

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Speaker 1: have access to free healthcare, we all have access to

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Speaker 1: free college and things like that. We are so this

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Speaker 1: week we speak with Astra Taylor and author, documentarian, organizer

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Speaker 1: with the decollective debt affects all of us, from those

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Speaker 1: who make it big and mismanage their money and lose

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Speaker 1: it all to those of us who've never had any

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Speaker 1: in the first place, and the decollective offers a radical

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Speaker 1: new organizing strategy for racing these that's and establishing a

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Speaker 1: new societal order where debt doesn't exist at all. So

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Speaker 1: before we talk with Astro, we're gonna go through a

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Speaker 1: couple of interesting stats and facts about debt in America

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Speaker 1: and this debt based economy and what hip hop has

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Speaker 1: had to say about it. All Right, So, per Business Insider,

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Speaker 1: the average American debt totals fifty one thousand, nine hundred dollars,

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Speaker 1: and that includes mortgage loans, home equity, lines of credit,

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Speaker 1: auto loans, credit card debts, student loans, and personal loans.

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Speaker 1: Student loan debt in is now about one point five

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Speaker 1: six trillion dollars. The latest student loan debt statistics from

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Speaker 1: show how serious the student loan debt crisis has become

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Speaker 1: for borrowers across all age demographics and age groups. Therefore

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Speaker 1: five million borrowers who collectively owe almost one point six

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Speaker 1: trillion dollars and student loan death in the US. Research

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Speaker 1: shows that about a hundred and thirty seven point one

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Speaker 1: million Americans have faced financial hardship because of medical costs.

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Speaker 1: According to a two thousand nineteen survey conducted by Gallup

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Speaker 1: in the nonprofit West Health, Americans borrowed and estimated eighty

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Speaker 1: eight billion dollars last year to pay for healthcare. In

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Speaker 1: two thousand seventeen, the United States spent about three point

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Speaker 1: five trillion dollars, or eighteen percent of the GDP, on

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Speaker 1: health expenditures, more than twice the average among developed countries.

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Speaker 1: Of that three point five trillion dollars, one point five

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Speaker 1: trillion is directly or indire actually financed by the federal government.

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Speaker 1: Prison parole and probation operations generate about eighty one billion

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Speaker 1: dollars in annual costs of the u S taxpayer, while

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Speaker 1: police court costs, bail bonds fee, and prison phone fees

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Speaker 1: generate another hundred billion dollars in court costs, and those

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Speaker 1: are paid by the individual. And so I've read a

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Speaker 1: lot about out the way that like there's private companies

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Speaker 1: that UH contract out to provision UH monitor ankle bracelets

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Speaker 1: to people on probation or house arrest, and they have

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Speaker 1: to then pay every month. And this is like an

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Speaker 1: extra bill if they if they fall behind on paying

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Speaker 1: the company for their ankle monitor they can get sent

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Speaker 1: back to jail. And so these cars rule forms of

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Speaker 1: debt the you know, in addition to bail bonds, fees

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Speaker 1: or court costs um but all of these things were

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Speaker 1: involved with like probation and house arrest and like being

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Speaker 1: on parole, like with like paying your roll officer and

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Speaker 1: things like that. Like in the fact that you can

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Speaker 1: get sent back to jail if you don't pay them

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Speaker 1: are like a really ominous and like a cruel form

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Speaker 1: of debt that we put people into a country like

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Speaker 1: that that it's like ship like that is why I'm

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Speaker 1: not overly harsh on people who believe like wild conspiracy

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Speaker 1: theories and ship like that, because the ship just seems deliberate.

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Speaker 1: You know what I'm saying. It feels like in this

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Speaker 1: net that it's just like layers upon layers of deliberate

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Speaker 1: fuckering to just make life as uncomfortable as it can

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Speaker 1: possibly be. Said, A chill go down my spine. But

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Speaker 1: do you likened like believing we live in this net

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Speaker 1: to like a conspiracy theory? I was like, this isn't

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Speaker 1: just what everyone believes. It's not everyone realized you live

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Speaker 1: in this net where they're trying to drag us down

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Speaker 1: deeper and deeper. Would you would you say, it's commonly

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Speaker 1: known that police, uh you utilize citations and the revenues

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Speaker 1: they generate from that, and a lot of money from

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Speaker 1: us and like little ways, not just from the president

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Speaker 1: industrial complex, but just general revenue from finals and fees

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Speaker 1: and uh forfeitures so a. Porting to a national database

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Speaker 1: compiled by Governing magazine, at least five hundred and eighty

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Speaker 1: three cities and towns have collected ten or more of

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Speaker 1: their general fund revenue from fines and forfeitures. Among those jurisdictions,

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Speaker 1: eighty relied on fines to generate over half their budget revenue.

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Speaker 1: Most of those municipalities came from just four states, Georgia, Texas, Louisiana,

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Speaker 1: and Oklahoma. Yeah. I mean, if if Athens were you

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Speaker 1: collect ten percent of our general fund revenue from fine

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Speaker 1: cent forfitures, that'd be about thirty million dollars. Not that

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Speaker 1: I I should know if that's true, but I don't

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Speaker 1: think it's that bad here um. According to the New

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Speaker 1: York FEDS Household Debt and Credit Report from the fourth

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Speaker 1: quarter of two thousand nineteen, Americans owed one point three

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Speaker 1: three trillion dollars in outstanding vehicle debt. So financing these cars,

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Speaker 1: I mean, not even these fancy cars. We live in

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Speaker 1: such a car centric like infrastructure spear that just to live,

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Speaker 1: you gotta go into debt to buy a car, just

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Speaker 1: to be able to get to work. Like your car

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Speaker 1: breaks down, you lose your job because you don't have

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Speaker 1: a stable form of transportation anymore. That means you can't

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Speaker 1: pay rent, which means you become homeless, which means then

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Speaker 1: you lose your kids, like you have, Like having a

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Speaker 1: car is so critical, and so many like having a car.

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Speaker 1: It's like how many Yeah, so you have to Like

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Speaker 1: you're you're paying your car off month after month, You've

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Speaker 1: got your monthly payment, and then all you accidentally, like

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Speaker 1: you get hit and then you've gotta and your insurance

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Speaker 1: won't cover it, and now you gotta pay five hundred

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Speaker 1: dollars and you already have like a three five car

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Speaker 1: payment every month, and your insurance costs every month, and

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Speaker 1: now you can't even use the car that you own,

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Speaker 1: but you still owe the fucking bank for it. That's

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Speaker 1: one of my worst fears, not the worst, but like

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Speaker 1: I think about it, So these are all topics I mean,

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Speaker 1: from financing cars to financings moans that many rappers have

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Speaker 1: touched on. And I just want to bring up how

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Speaker 1: uniquely touched by this the hip hop generation is because

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Speaker 1: older generations have, like I really feel like they have

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Speaker 1: no idea what it's like to be this and debt.

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Speaker 1: They grew up when they could get cheap loans for

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Speaker 1: houses to the Federal Housing Administration. College cost near to

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Speaker 1: nothing before Reagan us to be graduated thousands in debt

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Speaker 1: into her reception. For the love of God, the prison

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Speaker 1: industry didn't boom until then eight to the eighties and nineties,

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Speaker 1: So all these fucking boomers got to like do all

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Speaker 1: the drugs imaginable without being swept into the car sinoral

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Speaker 1: net and you know, saddle with all these fines and

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Speaker 1: fees and this debt, and then us we're just fucked spucks,

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Speaker 1: and so like, I feel like, why perhaps in our

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Speaker 1: investigation of like the lyric escape for this episode, there

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Speaker 1: wasn't as much reference to debt as I might have

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Speaker 1: imagined given these realities. I mean, I think it speaks

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Speaker 1: to hip hop somewhat as well, that like people don't

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Speaker 1: want to flosol, they don't got They don't want to

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Speaker 1: like flaunt what they lack, so like they're not I mean,

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Speaker 1: they might be talking about getting out of debt, but

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Speaker 1: they're not going to be like I gotta leave it

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Speaker 1: on my car. But it's kind of like when we

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Speaker 1: were talking about labor, you know, it's just it's just

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Speaker 1: one of those no one to the fact they work

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Speaker 1: at dairy queen exactly. It's not necessarily I guess trope

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Speaker 1: would be the right word to use for it. It's

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Speaker 1: not necessarily a trope that's used in hip hop, the

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Speaker 1: trope of like, um, well, maybe I should say mainstream

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Speaker 1: hip hop, because you know what they're you know, I do,

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Speaker 1: like you said, not necessarily rapping about being in But

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Speaker 1: I definitely used to know a lot of indiects used

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Speaker 1: to wrap about being broke. Yeah, and then we have

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Speaker 1: a good example today, life and debt from Seattle spreaders,

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Speaker 1: blue scholars. I mean, they're more conscious for apperis and

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Speaker 1: music and lyrics frequently focus on struggles with socioeconomic classes

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Speaker 1: challenging authority. UM often rooted in the MC geologic history

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Speaker 1: as an activist within the Filipino American community, dealing with

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Speaker 1: issues immigration, racism, US imperialism the Philippines. But in This

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Speaker 1: Life and Debt, they talk explicitly about working class struggles

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Speaker 1: like working a nine to five, eight hours a day,

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Speaker 1: coming home, your bills are late, your interest accumulates, collection agency,

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Speaker 1: waits paycheck to paycheck. Let's listen a little bit of

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Speaker 1: this time working five. Sometimes they also find it really

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Speaker 1: interesting that they have a subtle critique of like the

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Speaker 1: nonprofit industrial complex. At one point, he says, uh, five

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Speaker 1: oh one c three community plantations, non nonprofit sector propped

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Speaker 1: up to kill the movement for the changes in production relations.

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Speaker 1: So he's talking about how like these charities that are

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Speaker 1: meant to like you know, aid the poor really aren't

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Speaker 1: impacting like the power dynamics and society or like who

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Speaker 1: controls like the profits of like the working classes labor

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Speaker 1: and Uh. I just thought that was really interesting, I mean,

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Speaker 1: especially with relation to like this idea of debt that

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Speaker 1: we're talking about today, where so many things are privatized, education,

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Speaker 1: housing market, getting a car, uh, healthcare that where we

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Speaker 1: will rely on like the we're like we as the needy,

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Speaker 1: like rely on nonprofits, like oh may I have some

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Speaker 1: more please, like for the food banks and the diaper

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Speaker 1: banks and the job skills training and the the homeless

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Speaker 1: shelters when it's not really like organizing us to push

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Speaker 1: back on the fact that it's just really a rich,

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Speaker 1: greedy fox are the reason why we don't don't have

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Speaker 1: in the first place. Yea, for whatever reason. I don't

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Speaker 1: know why. But the part where he's like, but woman,

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Speaker 1: you're my comrade, ride or die and the revolution making

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Speaker 1: other earth standing with me in the grocery line, I

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Speaker 1: don't know why. I just love that you're my comrade part.

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Speaker 1: Just with the the whole tone of the song, it

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Speaker 1: just kind of gives it like this sort of socialist flare.

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Speaker 1: This is like, I don't know if that's what you've

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Speaker 1: been by it, but I'm gonna take it. I'm gonna

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Speaker 1: take it. Just another observation about the song. This is

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Speaker 1: definitely one of those sort of songs and you probably

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Speaker 1: could hear it when you heard the little snippet, but

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Speaker 1: it's like, if you put it on, it's definitely something

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Speaker 1: that could just be on and you would wouldn't even

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Speaker 1: think twice about what it's about. You just kind of

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Speaker 1: that's a pleasant song. Samples and the dramatics like like

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Speaker 1: that but then it's one of those ones were upon

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Speaker 1: closer listening, you're like, oh, ship this is about Then

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Speaker 1: what's the name of this that mass political, educational potential

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Speaker 1: of hip hop? Or you just put the song on

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Speaker 1: maybe twenty times in the car, then it like gradually

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Speaker 1: radicalizes you just slowly. Yeah. Then we got New York

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Speaker 1: rappers Sammy's with Schools Out. A lot of rappers touch

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Speaker 1: on particularly issue of student loans. I feel like a

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Speaker 1: lot of like the post hip hop generation, not the

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Speaker 1: first people to grow up with hip hop, but like

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Speaker 1: the second generation of people grow up with hip hop.

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Speaker 1: A lot of us grew up, we graduated into a

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Speaker 1: recession where it's become difficult to make those payments on

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Speaker 1: the education we just received. Um. And so SAMs is

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Speaker 1: one of many rappers that touches on the money that

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Speaker 1: we all fucking Oh Sally, may students tap for another

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Speaker 1: year at a name at home need to sneak around

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Speaker 1: in the middle, Like you were talking about the generational

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Speaker 1: divide in how we perceived debt to be and in

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Speaker 1: her in the beginning of a verse, she was mentioning

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Speaker 1: living at home with your parents because of student loans,

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Speaker 1: and that's kind of something that I think is you know,

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Speaker 1: for people in our generation, is a lot more of

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Speaker 1: a common theme and feeling like, I know, like my parents,

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Speaker 1: Like the notion of oh, someone who's a grown man

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Speaker 1: or woman moving back in with their parents still has

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Speaker 1: a certain taboo to it, whereas for our generations, like, yo,

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Speaker 1: you know how many bills we got, Like that just

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Speaker 1: might be the necessity of hell bills our parents got

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Speaker 1: and they're like, hey, why don't you stay living at

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Speaker 1: home with me? She later in the song talks about

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Speaker 1: how she had to buy a new MacBook and like

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Speaker 1: the need to like have access to really expensive technology

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Speaker 1: just to like access to your access to your workforce,

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Speaker 1: access to your schooling right now, etcetera. And so it's

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Speaker 1: like so many bills following up in addition to as

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Speaker 1: she references just purely what you got to pay to

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Speaker 1: get your credit hours and build up your network to

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Speaker 1: try to get a good job when you get out

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Speaker 1: of school. You mentioned how she references Sally May, which

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Speaker 1: is a common reference in hip hop. Very yeah. So

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Speaker 1: from Rhapsody to oil A Deonte Hitchcock, Big Cred Corday

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Speaker 1: all over the place. In fact, in Corday has been around,

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Speaker 1: uh he has. He does this interesting thing where he

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Speaker 1: sort of he's like sort of just like Braggadoccio, a rhyman.

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Speaker 1: But then he has this moment where he jumps back

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Speaker 1: to like seeing I think in the I pertect, I

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Speaker 1: interpreted it as the perspective of a fan. Although it

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Speaker 1: might seem so bittersweet when you ain nothing to eat

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Speaker 1: and Sally may call him a phone for like the

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Speaker 1: fifth time this week and all your bills are overdue,

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Speaker 1: Like I know, we stop talking about himself there, let's

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Speaker 1: hear that. It's like, yeah, that's the sting would seem

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Speaker 1: a sweet you ain't got nothing to eat, Sally make

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Speaker 1: call your phone for Like the fib I misinterpreted that

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Speaker 1: maybe it is talking about himself. I mean, it sounds

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Speaker 1: like he's talking about himself. But I mean, even if

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Speaker 1: it isn't, it's kind of like a universal feeling. I mean,

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Speaker 1: it's it's like you're saying, everybody has that feeling. It

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Speaker 1: could be he knows somebody and he's just drawing from

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Speaker 1: somebody else's experience, but either way, it it totally makes

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Speaker 1: sense with who he is being. Yea, it's got that

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Speaker 1: kind of like backpack realness. I feel like backpackers are

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Speaker 1: like a little more straight up about like he yo,

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Speaker 1: I'm working on a dairy quean. Well, yeah, I mean

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Speaker 1: the backpack or indie aesthetic is kind of geared around

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Speaker 1: just being more earnest and realistic with what your circumstances

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Speaker 1: are as far as what you draw from to, you know,

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Speaker 1: to inspire you to write your rhymes and stuff like that.

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Speaker 1: So Lacoari has a similarly like, uh, how should I

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Speaker 1: say this, like pensive vibe on this song. Well, let's

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Speaker 1: listen to it first. This is always new by La

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Speaker 1: Craz professes couple of thousands and graduated in recession. Sadly

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Speaker 1: may just want to check it, expressing us it's on

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Speaker 1: a tree now, I'm in a session. The very thing

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Speaker 1: I'm talking about, like this debate about whether or not

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Speaker 1: we should go to school and try to get an education.

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Speaker 1: It's like worth it. We never saw ourselves there, we go,

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Speaker 1: we leave thousands and debts. How it may is calling

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Speaker 1: stressing out and then chasing music as like the way

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Speaker 1: to finally make it out of this situation, even if

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Speaker 1: not even necessarily that is, uh, how having the chain

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Speaker 1: of something like you're the debt of getting your education.

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Speaker 1: How that can prevent you from pursuing things that you

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Speaker 1: would rather be pursuing, you know what I'm saying. So,

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Speaker 1: I mean, whether that be music or maybe whatever, you know,

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Speaker 1: it's just it's it's a fucking burden. It's a it's

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Speaker 1: another thing you have to do, you because it's like,

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Speaker 1: I know, I know cats who who were trying to

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Speaker 1: do their art but did the full Monty full ride

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Speaker 1: through school, you know, and getting out. It's like they

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Speaker 1: don't really have time to funk around. They gotta immediately

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Speaker 1: start paying that ship back. So like pursuing something fun,

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Speaker 1: you know, it's not necessarily in the cards anymore. So

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Speaker 1: we got another song that's kind of actually fun in

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Speaker 1: celebratory in that the the protagonist uh is really excited

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Speaker 1: about having paid off Sally May. And this is Sally

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Speaker 1: made Back by Do You Want the White Lady? Yeah,

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Speaker 1: So I really love that Sally May And this music

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Speaker 1: video it's depicted as the stern, older, suburban looking woman

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Speaker 1: black nails, which oh fucking funny, because that's absolutely how

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Speaker 1: I picture Sally May office before I got it in

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Speaker 1: my mind, as like a sufficient enough adult to realize

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Speaker 1: like Sally May wasn't like a living person to like,

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Speaker 1: we know money. I was like, oh man, this fucking

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Speaker 1: pitch while he has like an ascot. So the next

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Speaker 1: song that we got is World, World, Let's go a

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Speaker 1: little Sally May reference that. I think it's energy we

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Speaker 1: need to keep regarding our debts in the spirit of

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Speaker 1: the de collective. So when he says he talks about,

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Speaker 1: you know, making a lot of money off of shows,

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Speaker 1: maybe then I could pick Sali mate, So I'll be

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Speaker 1: dealing with some real like we're not. So that's the

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Speaker 1: energy that we need for the same energy be we'll

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Speaker 1: keep for our landlords. I am so excited today to

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Speaker 1: be talking to Astra Taylor, author, organizer, documentarian, and fellow

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Speaker 1: former Athenian, which I think is actually how I came

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Speaker 1: to know about your work. I was at the Nation

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Speaker 1: offices in Manhattan in two thousand eighteen, uh meeting with

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Speaker 1: their editorial board, and upon leaving, they said, oh, we

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Speaker 1: have this book from this woman from Athens that we

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Speaker 1: want to give you as a gift, and it was

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Speaker 1: democracy may not exist, but we'll miss it when it's gone.

402
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Speaker 1: I all of a said, needed when it's gone, which

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Speaker 1: is not wrong, but UM, And so I took it

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Speaker 1: home with me and I put it on my bookshelf.

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Speaker 1: And it was a couple of months later that I

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Speaker 1: was switching medications under the orders of my psychiatrists and

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Speaker 1: had like a suicidal like break essentially, and I was

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Speaker 1: sent to a hospital and they allowed me to bring

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Speaker 1: a book, but they had to be softcover. So I

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Speaker 1: sent my mom to the house. I was like, find

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Speaker 1: me a softcover book to read while I'm in the

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Speaker 1: lunear bin, and she brought me. Democracy may not exist,

413
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Speaker 1: but won't miss it when it's gone. And so I

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Speaker 1: spent four days the only thing I could do was

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Speaker 1: read your book, UM, and it was transformative. It was

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Speaker 1: it was like my lifeline and otherwise cold and sterile

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Speaker 1: world for like four days. UM. And that brings us

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Speaker 1: to our topic of discussion today, because UM, I still

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Speaker 1: am in debt from being in the mental hospital. I

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Speaker 1: owe the hospital a couple of thousand dollars and they

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Speaker 1: called me and they send me mail and I am

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Speaker 1: not alone. And that I realized, especially through reading the

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Speaker 1: dec Collective's new book, I can't pay, won't pay. So

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Speaker 1: we're here today to talk about debt. How did we

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Speaker 1: get here with it? And what do we do now?

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Speaker 1: So if you could to start out with first, I

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Speaker 1: have to respond to that amazing introduction though, because I

428
00:26:19,280 --> 00:26:22,080
Speaker 1: think that was probably the most powerful introduction I've ever

429
00:26:22,200 --> 00:26:24,359
Speaker 1: been given. And I just want to say out of

430
00:26:24,359 --> 00:26:27,840
Speaker 1: the gate, the admiration is mutual. And one of the

431
00:26:28,160 --> 00:26:30,800
Speaker 1: wonders of the Internet, which brings many terrible things into

432
00:26:30,840 --> 00:26:33,600
Speaker 1: our lives, is that I've been able to watch Rise

433
00:26:33,720 --> 00:26:37,280
Speaker 1: rise and get to know her from afar uh. And

434
00:26:38,119 --> 00:26:41,359
Speaker 1: you know how much you captured to me the ideal

435
00:26:41,560 --> 00:26:44,160
Speaker 1: spirit of Athens, right, which is this town of creativity

436
00:26:44,240 --> 00:26:47,600
Speaker 1: and music that it's you know and um and enjoy,

437
00:26:48,080 --> 00:26:51,760
Speaker 1: but you know, it is also a community that you know,

438
00:26:52,200 --> 00:26:55,359
Speaker 1: I always felt really needed to be politicized and should

439
00:26:55,400 --> 00:26:58,520
Speaker 1: be more radical than I felt it was growing up there. Um.

440
00:26:58,560 --> 00:27:00,600
Speaker 1: So the fact you're bringing those two straight rounds together

441
00:27:01,040 --> 00:27:05,320
Speaker 1: is really, um just moving and important to me. And

442
00:27:05,720 --> 00:27:09,160
Speaker 1: your story about reading the book um again, the mental

443
00:27:09,240 --> 00:27:11,359
Speaker 1: hospital and it leaving you in debt is amazing. So

444
00:27:11,480 --> 00:27:13,640
Speaker 1: thank you to the nation editors my friends over there

445
00:27:13,840 --> 00:27:17,320
Speaker 1: for for giving it to you. Okay, so we're in

446
00:27:17,440 --> 00:27:21,240
Speaker 1: this debt based economy and just the way I look

447
00:27:21,280 --> 00:27:24,480
Speaker 1: at it is very few things are coincidences and very

448
00:27:24,520 --> 00:27:27,480
Speaker 1: few things are accidents. So it kind of tends, you know,

449
00:27:27,640 --> 00:27:30,840
Speaker 1: makes me believe that this all has a reason for it.

450
00:27:31,040 --> 00:27:34,280
Speaker 1: So why why is our economy structure this way? Why

451
00:27:34,320 --> 00:27:36,720
Speaker 1: are so many people in debt? I mean, it says

452
00:27:37,320 --> 00:27:40,480
Speaker 1: it says so much, right, it ties into the bigger

453
00:27:40,560 --> 00:27:43,840
Speaker 1: question about the debt based economy. We are in a

454
00:27:43,960 --> 00:27:48,359
Speaker 1: situation where as individuals, we have to debt finance what

455
00:27:48,480 --> 00:27:52,440
Speaker 1: should be our basic rights and our our basic entitlements.

456
00:27:53,200 --> 00:27:59,359
Speaker 1: You know, we shouldn't ever experience. Indebtedness is a consequence

457
00:27:59,440 --> 00:28:02,159
Speaker 1: of any sort of health crisis, whether it's a physical

458
00:28:02,200 --> 00:28:04,600
Speaker 1: health crisis or a mental health crisis. I mean, most

459
00:28:04,640 --> 00:28:10,000
Speaker 1: countries don't have medical debt. It doesn't exist because they

460
00:28:10,119 --> 00:28:14,359
Speaker 1: have universal healthcare. So and this is something that we

461
00:28:14,480 --> 00:28:17,480
Speaker 1: take for granted as a feature of American life. You know,

462
00:28:17,560 --> 00:28:20,439
Speaker 1: there's lots of research on this. You know, Bernie Sanders

463
00:28:20,480 --> 00:28:22,639
Speaker 1: on the campaign trail often, you know, made a lot

464
00:28:22,680 --> 00:28:24,600
Speaker 1: of noise about the fact that medical debt is the

465
00:28:24,680 --> 00:28:27,399
Speaker 1: number one cause of bankruptcy in the United States. It

466
00:28:27,600 --> 00:28:30,960
Speaker 1: is a leading driver of poverty in this country. It's

467
00:28:31,000 --> 00:28:32,920
Speaker 1: what tips people over the edge, the fact that something

468
00:28:32,960 --> 00:28:35,320
Speaker 1: happens you don't have control over, you know, and then

469
00:28:35,400 --> 00:28:38,600
Speaker 1: suddenly you're buried in debt and your your life. The

470
00:28:38,720 --> 00:28:41,840
Speaker 1: tenuous threads by what you're holding on fray and you know,

471
00:28:41,960 --> 00:28:46,040
Speaker 1: things fall apart and it's just you know, a moral outrage,

472
00:28:46,080 --> 00:28:49,320
Speaker 1: but it ties to these bigger dynamics. I mean, the

473
00:28:49,400 --> 00:28:51,760
Speaker 1: thing about debt, once you start kind of cracking it open,

474
00:28:51,960 --> 00:28:53,560
Speaker 1: is you can go all the way back like that

475
00:28:54,120 --> 00:28:59,040
Speaker 1: that precedes capitalism. That is a tool of domination and

476
00:28:59,120 --> 00:29:02,120
Speaker 1: oppression proceeds capitalism as we know it. So if you

477
00:29:02,160 --> 00:29:05,400
Speaker 1: go back to um, you know, ancient Greece, ancient Rome,

478
00:29:05,520 --> 00:29:08,320
Speaker 1: what you had was people being driven into debt by

479
00:29:08,360 --> 00:29:12,720
Speaker 1: the wealthy and then having to sell themselves into debt, slavery, debt, peonage.

480
00:29:13,560 --> 00:29:17,640
Speaker 1: So I mean, it's like a very ancient violent form

481
00:29:17,720 --> 00:29:21,600
Speaker 1: of economic control. UM. But it's really you know, it's

482
00:29:22,320 --> 00:29:26,600
Speaker 1: it's really essential to our our modern economy. And the

483
00:29:26,760 --> 00:29:28,920
Speaker 1: insight I think from the debt collective is just that

484
00:29:29,240 --> 00:29:33,440
Speaker 1: you know, we are as we move away from what limited,

485
00:29:33,560 --> 00:29:37,680
Speaker 1: imperfect welfare state supports we had in the twentieth century, right,

486
00:29:38,400 --> 00:29:40,560
Speaker 1: we're moving away from a welfare state to a debt

487
00:29:40,600 --> 00:29:43,040
Speaker 1: fair state. So a world in which we have to

488
00:29:43,760 --> 00:29:49,640
Speaker 1: take on the cost as individuals of uh provisioning for

489
00:29:49,720 --> 00:29:52,920
Speaker 1: ourselves through mechanisms of debt. What we should be entitled to,

490
00:29:53,080 --> 00:29:55,760
Speaker 1: so education, healthcare, housing, I think, which should be a

491
00:29:55,880 --> 00:29:59,920
Speaker 1: human right. UM, food, basic sustenance right. That's people are

492
00:30:00,040 --> 00:30:04,480
Speaker 1: putting their um, you know, their their food and basic

493
00:30:04,600 --> 00:30:07,400
Speaker 1: necessities on their credit cards around paiday loans, especially now

494
00:30:07,480 --> 00:30:10,480
Speaker 1: in the age of COVID, and so it's like and

495
00:30:10,600 --> 00:30:12,959
Speaker 1: basically people are getting robbed twice. You're underpaid at your

496
00:30:13,000 --> 00:30:16,120
Speaker 1: job if you have a job, and then you don't

497
00:30:16,120 --> 00:30:17,920
Speaker 1: make enough money, so then you have to borrow and

498
00:30:18,000 --> 00:30:21,240
Speaker 1: you end up paying interest in fees. And that's driving

499
00:30:21,320 --> 00:30:25,160
Speaker 1: the incredible unethical concentration of wealth and power in this country.

500
00:30:25,560 --> 00:30:30,520
Speaker 1: So it's a huge problem. And our principal and the

501
00:30:30,680 --> 00:30:32,520
Speaker 1: same I'm speaking as the Debt Collective, as a founder

502
00:30:32,560 --> 00:30:34,320
Speaker 1: of the Debt Collective, which is a union for debtors,

503
00:30:34,480 --> 00:30:38,360
Speaker 1: is that debtors have power. They're not utilizing that when

504
00:30:38,400 --> 00:30:41,200
Speaker 1: you say that they can't pay, won't pay um that

505
00:30:41,280 --> 00:30:44,719
Speaker 1: if we do that collectively, then actually what we can

506
00:30:44,760 --> 00:30:48,200
Speaker 1: do just as a labor union withholds its labors can

507
00:30:48,320 --> 00:30:53,280
Speaker 1: withhold their payments and exerts some countervailing force on the

508
00:30:53,320 --> 00:30:55,480
Speaker 1: powers that be. And you know, we're at a point

509
00:30:55,560 --> 00:30:57,840
Speaker 1: where we can't afford to leave power on the table.

510
00:30:59,280 --> 00:31:01,360
Speaker 1: So US talked a little bit about what the debt

511
00:31:01,400 --> 00:31:03,720
Speaker 1: collective is. Could you tell us where it came from?

512
00:31:04,960 --> 00:31:06,960
Speaker 1: I mean, it's one of these crazy things that only

513
00:31:07,080 --> 00:31:11,680
Speaker 1: happens in a collaborative setting, right. So when one thing

514
00:31:11,720 --> 00:31:13,680
Speaker 1: I say in the preface to the book, I wrote

515
00:31:13,720 --> 00:31:15,520
Speaker 1: the preface and then the rest of the book is

516
00:31:15,600 --> 00:31:20,080
Speaker 1: co authored, is that individually, not paying your loans isn't

517
00:31:20,080 --> 00:31:22,680
Speaker 1: a debt strike. Right. So I defaulted on my student

518
00:31:22,760 --> 00:31:26,080
Speaker 1: loans in two thousand and eight because I just didn't

519
00:31:26,160 --> 00:31:29,680
Speaker 1: have enough money to pay them. And so what happens.

520
00:31:30,240 --> 00:31:32,400
Speaker 1: I get a phone call from the collector and they say,

521
00:31:33,480 --> 00:31:36,000
Speaker 1: you know, hey, you haven't paid your loans and two

522
00:31:36,680 --> 00:31:39,080
Speaker 1: days so guess what, now you have more. So now

523
00:31:39,160 --> 00:31:41,880
Speaker 1: you have forty dollars and now your credits destroyed. And

524
00:31:42,720 --> 00:31:45,840
Speaker 1: you know, that wasn't a dead strike. That was that

525
00:31:46,080 --> 00:31:49,000
Speaker 1: was just you know, me, UM being unable to pay

526
00:31:49,160 --> 00:31:54,160
Speaker 1: and then being penalized. But that UM kind of precipitated

527
00:31:54,240 --> 00:31:57,160
Speaker 1: this political awakening. I mean I think I just thought, well, hey, like,

528
00:31:57,760 --> 00:32:00,040
Speaker 1: why do I have so much debt from going to it,

529
00:32:00,640 --> 00:32:04,240
Speaker 1: you know college anyway? And I really bristled. I felt like, Okay,

530
00:32:04,520 --> 00:32:06,240
Speaker 1: the fact I'm having to pay this for the next

531
00:32:06,280 --> 00:32:10,720
Speaker 1: three years is gonna constrain me. It's gonna make me

532
00:32:10,880 --> 00:32:13,440
Speaker 1: make choices I don't want to make. It's gonna control

533
00:32:13,520 --> 00:32:16,440
Speaker 1: my life, you know. And um, it's gonna be this

534
00:32:16,480 --> 00:32:18,400
Speaker 1: thing I'm always having to manage and worry about and

535
00:32:18,600 --> 00:32:21,320
Speaker 1: like and just work basically just to like pay this

536
00:32:21,800 --> 00:32:28,280
Speaker 1: inflating balloon of interests albatroz or something, you know. Um.

537
00:32:29,000 --> 00:32:30,920
Speaker 1: And so I think I was ready. It just took

538
00:32:31,440 --> 00:32:34,400
Speaker 1: it took me finding others before I could, you know,

539
00:32:35,280 --> 00:32:37,360
Speaker 1: begin on the path that led to the detllective. And

540
00:32:37,440 --> 00:32:39,200
Speaker 1: so what happened is in the early days of Occupy

541
00:32:39,240 --> 00:32:42,400
Speaker 1: Wall Street, I started collaborating with people. We realized that

542
00:32:42,520 --> 00:32:46,400
Speaker 1: indebtedness was something that we're was really galvanizing. It was

543
00:32:46,440 --> 00:32:48,960
Speaker 1: bringing people to the encampments, not just in New York

544
00:32:49,000 --> 00:32:52,560
Speaker 1: City where I was, but around the country. And one

545
00:32:53,080 --> 00:32:57,360
Speaker 1: person whose name is Thomas goki Um said this thing,

546
00:32:57,480 --> 00:33:01,600
Speaker 1: I vividly remember it because we were talking about, you know,

547
00:33:01,760 --> 00:33:03,920
Speaker 1: kind of what campaigns or actions we'd like to see

548
00:33:04,000 --> 00:33:06,479
Speaker 1: come out of the Octopills Street movement, and he said, unions,

549
00:33:06,600 --> 00:33:09,920
Speaker 1: debtors need to make unions just like they're labor unions.

550
00:33:10,640 --> 00:33:12,880
Speaker 1: And for me, it was like one of those moments

551
00:33:12,920 --> 00:33:14,520
Speaker 1: when a light bulb went off in my head, just

552
00:33:14,640 --> 00:33:16,760
Speaker 1: like in a cartoon, and I was like, whoa, you're right.

553
00:33:16,920 --> 00:33:21,240
Speaker 1: Like the model of unionization of like workers coming together

554
00:33:21,440 --> 00:33:26,800
Speaker 1: in the workplace to argue, uh argue, but to fight

555
00:33:26,960 --> 00:33:31,040
Speaker 1: for higher wages, benefits, more time off, right, that model

556
00:33:31,080 --> 00:33:34,480
Speaker 1: should be applied to other arenas of the economy. And

557
00:33:35,400 --> 00:33:37,960
Speaker 1: and it's true, like if we don't pay, they don't

558
00:33:38,000 --> 00:33:41,360
Speaker 1: get their money. And that's that's what they're banking on.

559
00:33:41,440 --> 00:33:44,440
Speaker 1: I mean, they've they've projected our future payments into their

560
00:33:44,960 --> 00:33:49,720
Speaker 1: you know revenue uh forecasts, right like they they need that.

561
00:33:49,920 --> 00:33:51,600
Speaker 1: And it flipped. What it did was it cause a

562
00:33:51,640 --> 00:33:55,520
Speaker 1: whole transformation of how I thought things. So suddenly my indebtedness,

563
00:33:55,640 --> 00:33:58,440
Speaker 1: instead of it just being this burden and this albatross,

564
00:33:58,560 --> 00:34:00,880
Speaker 1: I realized that it was actually some one else's profit

565
00:34:01,920 --> 00:34:04,480
Speaker 1: that every payment I was making month after month after month,

566
00:34:04,840 --> 00:34:07,360
Speaker 1: I was paying more than the original principle, the original

567
00:34:07,360 --> 00:34:10,440
Speaker 1: amount of world, because that's profit for someone else. So

568
00:34:10,520 --> 00:34:13,319
Speaker 1: I started to see the way our collective debts are

569
00:34:13,320 --> 00:34:18,200
Speaker 1: an asset of the ruling class, but then also an

570
00:34:18,280 --> 00:34:21,920
Speaker 1: asset that we could leverage to demand change and demand

571
00:34:22,360 --> 00:34:25,520
Speaker 1: the abolition of debts, but also the provision of public goods.

572
00:34:25,560 --> 00:34:27,840
Speaker 1: In other words, give us that universal healthcare so we

573
00:34:27,880 --> 00:34:30,600
Speaker 1: don't have medical debt, give us the universal education so

574
00:34:30,760 --> 00:34:33,399
Speaker 1: we don't have to have student loans. And I think

575
00:34:33,600 --> 00:34:36,200
Speaker 1: give us social housing because we shouldn't have to live

576
00:34:36,280 --> 00:34:41,600
Speaker 1: in a commodity. And you know, give people the um

577
00:34:42,000 --> 00:34:44,919
Speaker 1: goods and services that they need to live dignified lives.

578
00:34:44,960 --> 00:34:48,600
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, I'm I'm for mass decommodification of

579
00:34:49,760 --> 00:34:54,239
Speaker 1: basically everything. Yeah, but I think I mean on the

580
00:34:54,360 --> 00:34:57,839
Speaker 1: front of like where does it come from? I mean,

581
00:34:57,880 --> 00:34:59,440
Speaker 1: I don't know. Growing up in Athens to you know,

582
00:34:59,520 --> 00:35:03,080
Speaker 1: my parents were like always, you know, on the brink

583
00:35:03,320 --> 00:35:06,960
Speaker 1: of economic catastrophe. Even though my dad was a professor.

584
00:35:07,200 --> 00:35:10,360
Speaker 1: They they declared bankruptcy when I was a teenager. My

585
00:35:10,480 --> 00:35:12,800
Speaker 1: dad had tons and tons of student loans, you know

586
00:35:12,880 --> 00:35:15,439
Speaker 1: that he was just paying off like far far into

587
00:35:15,560 --> 00:35:18,719
Speaker 1: his career. There, my mom was just recounting how we

588
00:35:18,800 --> 00:35:22,040
Speaker 1: used to go out to the mall on like Atlanta Highway.

589
00:35:22,160 --> 00:35:24,719
Speaker 1: I guess it's college, Yeah, and eat at this one

590
00:35:25,080 --> 00:35:27,279
Speaker 1: terrible restaurant. I never knew why we would go there

591
00:35:27,320 --> 00:35:28,920
Speaker 1: at the end of the month, Like it was horrible,

592
00:35:28,960 --> 00:35:30,160
Speaker 1: and she was like, because it was like the one

593
00:35:30,200 --> 00:35:32,279
Speaker 1: place that took this one credit card, you know. So

594
00:35:32,360 --> 00:35:36,680
Speaker 1: I think there was this sense, like I think I

595
00:35:36,800 --> 00:35:40,520
Speaker 1: just had this sense that, you know, something wasn't working

596
00:35:40,600 --> 00:35:44,240
Speaker 1: with this system. It's like, you know, if you're somebody's

597
00:35:44,280 --> 00:35:47,319
Speaker 1: gonna work a full time job, they should at least

598
00:35:47,320 --> 00:35:49,400
Speaker 1: to be able to make it to the end of

599
00:35:49,480 --> 00:35:53,359
Speaker 1: the month, you know. Um, so yeah, you're saying kind

600
00:35:53,400 --> 00:35:55,840
Speaker 1: of like Occupy Wall Street was kind of going on

601
00:35:55,960 --> 00:35:59,600
Speaker 1: around like the inception of the debt collective. So I

602
00:35:59,719 --> 00:36:04,960
Speaker 1: was wondering, Um, what do you think is like if

603
00:36:05,000 --> 00:36:08,840
Speaker 1: you could pinpoint any particular public policy that's led us

604
00:36:08,880 --> 00:36:12,560
Speaker 1: to this moment in the debt crisis, Like, I mean,

605
00:36:12,760 --> 00:36:16,480
Speaker 1: obviously we know Corona is is, you know, doing what

606
00:36:16,600 --> 00:36:19,560
Speaker 1: it's doing to the economy, But we were in a

607
00:36:19,600 --> 00:36:23,719
Speaker 1: bubble before Corona happened, you know. It was looking kind

608
00:36:23,760 --> 00:36:27,440
Speaker 1: of timid before that. But what what what condition led

609
00:36:27,560 --> 00:36:29,120
Speaker 1: us to to being in this is it? Is it

610
00:36:29,239 --> 00:36:31,520
Speaker 1: merely just the people at the top want to grab

611
00:36:31,600 --> 00:36:35,440
Speaker 1: power or is it more just individual systems that kind

612
00:36:35,440 --> 00:36:38,120
Speaker 1: of add up to being this monster that it is

613
00:36:38,200 --> 00:36:43,919
Speaker 1: where everyone's in debt. I mean, it's a complex array

614
00:36:43,960 --> 00:36:48,400
Speaker 1: of forces got us here. And I think you you know,

615
00:36:48,440 --> 00:36:50,680
Speaker 1: in a really expansive sense, we have to look back

616
00:36:50,800 --> 00:36:54,640
Speaker 1: and look at the history of capitalism, especially you know,

617
00:36:54,719 --> 00:36:57,400
Speaker 1: what we would call the history of racial capitalism, and

618
00:36:57,520 --> 00:37:02,600
Speaker 1: look at the way debt and credit have played out politically.

619
00:37:02,719 --> 00:37:06,839
Speaker 1: So if you go back to, you know, the sort

620
00:37:06,880 --> 00:37:09,440
Speaker 1: of golden age of American capitalism in the mid twentieth

621
00:37:09,480 --> 00:37:15,240
Speaker 1: century and look at how the middle class was formed,

622
00:37:15,400 --> 00:37:18,279
Speaker 1: you know, it was we the white middle class was

623
00:37:18,400 --> 00:37:22,800
Speaker 1: formed because there was easy access to government subsidized credit

624
00:37:22,960 --> 00:37:26,719
Speaker 1: in the form of government backed mortgages. Right that a

625
00:37:26,880 --> 00:37:30,400
Speaker 1: program of giving a certain community, a racialized community, access

626
00:37:30,480 --> 00:37:33,720
Speaker 1: to credit on fair terms is what sort of built

627
00:37:34,360 --> 00:37:37,200
Speaker 1: that the sort of cliche of the American dream for

628
00:37:37,239 --> 00:37:39,600
Speaker 1: a certain set of people, and it was very exclusionary.

629
00:37:39,719 --> 00:37:46,240
Speaker 1: So I think something like or of betterly secured mortgages

630
00:37:46,239 --> 00:37:52,879
Speaker 1: in that period went to white patriarchal you know last

631
00:37:52,960 --> 00:37:56,600
Speaker 1: on last week's episode, and so access to credit, you know,

632
00:37:57,400 --> 00:38:01,000
Speaker 1: has um access to credit, then the inverse, which is

633
00:38:01,040 --> 00:38:05,040
Speaker 1: denial of predator redlining or or predatory lending, you know,

634
00:38:05,120 --> 00:38:11,160
Speaker 1: have created this unequal, the unequal, racialized economy that we

635
00:38:11,280 --> 00:38:14,480
Speaker 1: live in today. And so I think it's important to

636
00:38:14,520 --> 00:38:17,960
Speaker 1: put that twentieth century history like sort of as the foundation,

637
00:38:18,160 --> 00:38:19,920
Speaker 1: even though we could go further back, right, we can go,

638
00:38:20,800 --> 00:38:23,960
Speaker 1: we can go back to the abolition of slavery and

639
00:38:24,080 --> 00:38:27,080
Speaker 1: the fact that you know, formerly slave people, then the

640
00:38:27,480 --> 00:38:31,560
Speaker 1: dominant economic relationship with sharecropping, pen and farming, right and

641
00:38:31,800 --> 00:38:36,719
Speaker 1: and in debt there as a form of of suppression

642
00:38:37,200 --> 00:38:45,759
Speaker 1: of the drive for you know, true egalitarian democracy. So

643
00:38:46,360 --> 00:38:48,719
Speaker 1: but in the seventies, something definitely happened, you know, and

644
00:38:49,080 --> 00:38:54,000
Speaker 1: scholars talk about neoliberalism, we talk about financialization, but basically,

645
00:38:54,200 --> 00:38:56,920
Speaker 1: you know, what happened was the ruling class went on

646
00:38:57,000 --> 00:39:01,000
Speaker 1: a war with the welfare state, you know, and wages,

647
00:39:01,920 --> 00:39:06,000
Speaker 1: wages were suppressed. And what happened is we cover that

648
00:39:06,120 --> 00:39:09,160
Speaker 1: up by giving people access to credit. You know, That's

649
00:39:09,239 --> 00:39:12,719
Speaker 1: that's when people started having credit cards. Um, that's when

650
00:39:13,040 --> 00:39:17,640
Speaker 1: tuition became more common at public universities. People started you know,

651
00:39:17,760 --> 00:39:20,600
Speaker 1: taking on debt to go to college. And so, you know,

652
00:39:20,640 --> 00:39:23,760
Speaker 1: there was like an economic shift that's not just one policy,

653
00:39:23,880 --> 00:39:27,719
Speaker 1: but it was kind of reorganization of the economy that

654
00:39:27,920 --> 00:39:32,759
Speaker 1: diminished the state, that um short of corporate power, that

655
00:39:33,320 --> 00:39:37,680
Speaker 1: covered up inequities with credit. And now we're you know,

656
00:39:38,040 --> 00:39:43,560
Speaker 1: in a situation where that system is kind of yeah,

657
00:39:43,640 --> 00:39:47,120
Speaker 1: well that system is dominant. But then with COVID, it's like,

658
00:39:48,440 --> 00:39:52,919
Speaker 1: you know, incredibly disastrous because you know, when people can't

659
00:39:53,000 --> 00:39:55,359
Speaker 1: when people don't have paychecks, when they don't have when

660
00:39:55,400 --> 00:39:59,200
Speaker 1: they're unemployment, benefits dry up, like you're just gonna have

661
00:39:59,480 --> 00:40:03,920
Speaker 1: mass delinquency, mass default, and you know, debt and despair

662
00:40:04,040 --> 00:40:06,480
Speaker 1: as a consequence. And it's like, so we are living

663
00:40:06,560 --> 00:40:10,399
Speaker 1: in a moment of record consumer debt. I mean it's

664
00:40:10,520 --> 00:40:14,759
Speaker 1: something like fourteen trillion dollars and that's a symptom of

665
00:40:14,920 --> 00:40:18,279
Speaker 1: just the mal distribution of wealth in this country. It's like,

666
00:40:19,000 --> 00:40:21,960
Speaker 1: so you have people who just dream of literally like

667
00:40:22,280 --> 00:40:25,520
Speaker 1: we the average you know, American now just dreams of

668
00:40:25,560 --> 00:40:27,960
Speaker 1: having zero dollars, Like, oh my god, if I could

669
00:40:28,000 --> 00:40:31,120
Speaker 1: just have zero and not negative, that would be awesome.

670
00:40:31,880 --> 00:40:35,320
Speaker 1: And meanwhile, you have you know, these billionaires like Jeff Bezos,

671
00:40:35,320 --> 00:40:36,880
Speaker 1: who's really just like, you know what, I dream of

672
00:40:36,960 --> 00:40:40,040
Speaker 1: a trillion dollars and he's almost sucking there, Like he's

673
00:40:40,040 --> 00:40:42,840
Speaker 1: almost there. But I think that the depth of this

674
00:40:43,040 --> 00:40:49,080
Speaker 1: model of debt financing UM is, you know, it sort

675
00:40:49,080 --> 00:40:51,239
Speaker 1: of knows no bounds. I mean, one thing we talk

676
00:40:51,320 --> 00:40:53,200
Speaker 1: a lot about in the book and are working at

677
00:40:53,440 --> 00:40:56,040
Speaker 1: more as as the decllective is the fact that you know,

678
00:40:56,160 --> 00:40:59,040
Speaker 1: people go into debt for their own incarceration, right, and

679
00:40:59,120 --> 00:41:02,160
Speaker 1: that connects with this larger moment where people are discussing

680
00:41:02,160 --> 00:41:06,880
Speaker 1: because an abolition and you know, our criminal injustice system

681
00:41:07,080 --> 00:41:08,800
Speaker 1: or whatever we want to call it. But you know,

682
00:41:08,880 --> 00:41:13,200
Speaker 1: the fact is people have to take on debt to

683
00:41:13,360 --> 00:41:17,120
Speaker 1: pay cash bail. So often you know, it's not cash bail,

684
00:41:17,160 --> 00:41:19,799
Speaker 1: it's credit fail. So people's family members and loved ones

685
00:41:19,880 --> 00:41:23,319
Speaker 1: end up um going into debt to get people out

686
00:41:23,360 --> 00:41:25,880
Speaker 1: of people they love, out of cages. The average bail

687
00:41:25,920 --> 00:41:28,880
Speaker 1: debt in California's fifty dollars, you know, and often you

688
00:41:29,000 --> 00:41:31,400
Speaker 1: have to have that even if you're found not guilty

689
00:41:31,480 --> 00:41:36,680
Speaker 1: and you're the charges are UM, you know, charges are dismissed,

690
00:41:37,239 --> 00:41:39,839
Speaker 1: people have to pay for probation. I mean, so it's

691
00:41:40,000 --> 00:41:43,160
Speaker 1: this insidious model that's in its tendrils are in you know,

692
00:41:43,280 --> 00:41:48,160
Speaker 1: all aspects of our life, and it is ultimately is

693
00:41:48,200 --> 00:41:52,000
Speaker 1: a way of it's a form of just allowing people

694
00:41:52,040 --> 00:41:56,080
Speaker 1: who are already rich to extract more. And that's the

695
00:41:56,200 --> 00:41:59,120
Speaker 1: thing we're trying to We're trying to like get people

696
00:41:59,200 --> 00:42:02,560
Speaker 1: to see the economy in this way as to de

697
00:42:02,800 --> 00:42:08,879
Speaker 1: naturalize debt and ask, you know, why it's so omnipresent

698
00:42:09,040 --> 00:42:11,759
Speaker 1: and whose interests it serves Because we're told this lie

699
00:42:11,840 --> 00:42:14,680
Speaker 1: that we take it on ourselves, and we take that

700
00:42:14,800 --> 00:42:17,360
Speaker 1: risk on so we can better ourselves and better a future.

701
00:42:17,440 --> 00:42:18,719
Speaker 1: And I think we want to say no, it's it's

702
00:42:18,760 --> 00:42:21,480
Speaker 1: imposed on us, and it's a form of control, and

703
00:42:21,560 --> 00:42:25,240
Speaker 1: it's a form of um enriched. It's it's a means

704
00:42:25,360 --> 00:42:29,000
Speaker 1: of enriching those who are already in a position, um

705
00:42:29,600 --> 00:42:33,640
Speaker 1: you know, already who already have the upper hand. Yeah,

706
00:42:34,040 --> 00:42:36,200
Speaker 1: So talk to us if you get a little bit

707
00:42:36,280 --> 00:42:39,080
Speaker 1: about the impacts of debt or organizing to date and

708
00:42:39,160 --> 00:42:41,560
Speaker 1: some of what you hope it can achieve. Pretty rearly

709
00:42:41,600 --> 00:42:45,440
Speaker 1: interested in like y'all have scored some some wins already

710
00:42:45,640 --> 00:42:48,520
Speaker 1: and then you know a few years since this got

711
00:42:48,600 --> 00:42:51,839
Speaker 1: off the ground. Yeah, So the idea of this idea

712
00:42:51,840 --> 00:42:55,160
Speaker 1: of the decollective and as as a union, um, you know,

713
00:42:55,239 --> 00:42:58,960
Speaker 1: we tried to see if that concept would actually take off.

714
00:42:59,200 --> 00:43:02,600
Speaker 1: So we launched what we call sort of our pilot

715
00:43:02,640 --> 00:43:06,359
Speaker 1: Debtors Union in two thousand fifteen, and basically we made

716
00:43:06,400 --> 00:43:09,719
Speaker 1: contact with students who had gone to one of the

717
00:43:09,800 --> 00:43:12,920
Speaker 1: big for profit college chains, so people probably know like

718
00:43:13,040 --> 00:43:15,640
Speaker 1: University of Phoenix and I T. T. Tech. It was

719
00:43:15,719 --> 00:43:19,239
Speaker 1: one of those companies. It was called Corinthian Colleges. They've

720
00:43:19,280 --> 00:43:22,200
Speaker 1: been totally like lied to, defrauded. So they went to

721
00:43:22,320 --> 00:43:24,920
Speaker 1: these vocational programs and came out of them with like

722
00:43:25,000 --> 00:43:29,120
Speaker 1: seventy thousand dollars a hundred thousand dollars hundred fifty thousand

723
00:43:29,120 --> 00:43:31,759
Speaker 1: dollars of debt, and you know, and their resumes were

724
00:43:31,840 --> 00:43:36,360
Speaker 1: laughed at um and the abuses of these companies was

725
00:43:36,440 --> 00:43:39,799
Speaker 1: well documented. The thing. The thing is that for profit

726
00:43:39,880 --> 00:43:41,719
Speaker 1: colleges on the back end, like if you have a

727
00:43:41,719 --> 00:43:44,240
Speaker 1: student loan, whether it's from University of Phoenix or Harvard,

728
00:43:44,320 --> 00:43:49,040
Speaker 1: it's the same financial it's the same financial structure leading

729
00:43:49,120 --> 00:43:52,719
Speaker 1: straight to the Department of Education, right, so you're you know,

730
00:43:52,840 --> 00:43:56,000
Speaker 1: one degree might be fancy and get you access, and

731
00:43:56,120 --> 00:44:00,600
Speaker 1: one degree might be kind of risible, but the the money,

732
00:44:00,800 --> 00:44:05,200
Speaker 1: the system that matters is all the same and and

733
00:44:05,800 --> 00:44:08,800
Speaker 1: you know, so that's ultimately what we're targeting. But basically,

734
00:44:09,160 --> 00:44:12,520
Speaker 1: we organized the first ever student debt strike. It began

735
00:44:12,600 --> 00:44:16,680
Speaker 1: with only fifteen people. We also developed the legal strategy

736
00:44:17,320 --> 00:44:20,920
Speaker 1: um that has so far been put to use by

737
00:44:20,960 --> 00:44:23,600
Speaker 1: we just got numbers three hundred and sixty thousand people

738
00:44:24,200 --> 00:44:27,840
Speaker 1: because these for profit colleges are huge, and you know,

739
00:44:27,920 --> 00:44:30,480
Speaker 1: we ended up being the first group to ever win

740
00:44:31,280 --> 00:44:34,239
Speaker 1: debt relief from the federal government, from the Department of

741
00:44:34,360 --> 00:44:37,080
Speaker 1: Education first under Obama, and we've been fighting Betsy Divas

742
00:44:37,160 --> 00:44:40,080
Speaker 1: ever since and we've won well over a billion dollars.

743
00:44:40,200 --> 00:44:43,920
Speaker 1: That's with a b billion dollars to date. And then

744
00:44:44,000 --> 00:44:46,560
Speaker 1: in doing that we devised this legal What we realized

745
00:44:46,600 --> 00:44:49,239
Speaker 1: in our research was actually the Department of Education has

746
00:44:49,360 --> 00:44:53,400
Speaker 1: the ability Congress already vested The Congress already vested the

747
00:44:53,520 --> 00:44:56,720
Speaker 1: Department of Education with the power to erase every penny

748
00:44:57,360 --> 00:45:01,479
Speaker 1: of student debt. And yes they can do it. There's

749
00:45:01,520 --> 00:45:05,320
Speaker 1: literally like a destroy button in the form of education.

750
00:45:05,760 --> 00:45:09,040
Speaker 1: We wrote like this one page letter that if the Department,

751
00:45:09,160 --> 00:45:11,399
Speaker 1: if the Secretary of Education would just sign it, all

752
00:45:11,440 --> 00:45:16,080
Speaker 1: of our federal student loans would be obliterated. Um, and uh,

753
00:45:16,400 --> 00:45:18,200
Speaker 1: you know, then we could start trying to figure out

754
00:45:18,200 --> 00:45:20,880
Speaker 1: how to actually solve our problems. But what's amazing is

755
00:45:21,000 --> 00:45:25,040
Speaker 1: that this theory that it was admittedly pretty fringe, because

756
00:45:25,080 --> 00:45:27,359
Speaker 1: of course that hasn't been done before a few years ago.

757
00:45:27,360 --> 00:45:29,719
Speaker 1: When we started pushing it. A couple of weeks ago,

758
00:45:30,560 --> 00:45:35,439
Speaker 1: um in the bizarreness of Senators Elizabeth Warren and Chuck

759
00:45:35,520 --> 00:45:38,400
Speaker 1: Schumer from New York. So Chuck Schumer, for I mean,

760
00:45:39,040 --> 00:45:42,400
Speaker 1: is not a liberal guy, he's a bad man. But

761
00:45:43,280 --> 00:45:49,200
Speaker 1: they announced a Senate resolution basically saying, uh, yeah, use

762
00:45:49,280 --> 00:45:53,400
Speaker 1: this legal argument and erase fifty dollars per borer in

763
00:45:53,480 --> 00:45:56,120
Speaker 1: the country. And so they you know, it was quite

764
00:45:56,160 --> 00:46:00,520
Speaker 1: the surreal moment where these ideas that fundamentally came from

765
00:46:00,800 --> 00:46:03,400
Speaker 1: the Debt Collective, which is this group born of Occupy

766
00:46:03,480 --> 00:46:07,359
Speaker 1: Wall Street, suddenly Chuck Schumer and Elizabeth Warren are there

767
00:46:07,440 --> 00:46:11,120
Speaker 1: saying exactly what we've been saying for the last four

768
00:46:11,239 --> 00:46:16,880
Speaker 1: years and and acknowledging and acknowledging they have we have

769
00:46:17,040 --> 00:46:19,720
Speaker 1: the power to do this, and this will cost nothing.

770
00:46:20,080 --> 00:46:22,480
Speaker 1: So there's no you know, because what it does if

771
00:46:22,520 --> 00:46:26,160
Speaker 1: you just cancel student debt, you're not if there's no expenditure, right,

772
00:46:26,200 --> 00:46:29,239
Speaker 1: they don't need to do any cost analysis. What it does.

773
00:46:29,400 --> 00:46:31,560
Speaker 1: That means all that money that people would be otherwise

774
00:46:31,640 --> 00:46:34,680
Speaker 1: paying to their loan servicer, they can help pay their rent,

775
00:46:35,120 --> 00:46:39,759
Speaker 1: they could buy some music, they could eat well. Right,

776
00:46:40,000 --> 00:46:42,080
Speaker 1: that money would be in the economy. So it would

777
00:46:42,080 --> 00:46:45,320
Speaker 1: be a huge economic stimulus. That's like the capitalist argument

778
00:46:45,400 --> 00:46:47,480
Speaker 1: for it, because all that money could go to things

779
00:46:47,560 --> 00:46:51,719
Speaker 1: people actually need and you know, quote unquote get the

780
00:46:51,800 --> 00:46:54,960
Speaker 1: economy moving again instead of sending it back to the

781
00:46:55,000 --> 00:47:00,360
Speaker 1: federal government via these like predatory collectors and mediators. Wouldn't

782
00:47:00,360 --> 00:47:02,680
Speaker 1: also be good for people's mental health if not, Like

783
00:47:03,160 --> 00:47:05,839
Speaker 1: the majority of the population was walking around stressed out.

784
00:47:06,040 --> 00:47:09,399
Speaker 1: People are like open the economy the supicide, right, it's

785
00:47:09,440 --> 00:47:14,000
Speaker 1: going there's all these deaths of despair, Like you just

786
00:47:14,120 --> 00:47:18,080
Speaker 1: cancel all the debt. I mean, I it's I mean,

787
00:47:18,160 --> 00:47:21,600
Speaker 1: I just heard of a friend's dad like last week,

788
00:47:21,840 --> 00:47:25,320
Speaker 1: and he killed himself because he was so indebted, and

789
00:47:25,719 --> 00:47:28,799
Speaker 1: then with COVID he was isolated and he couldn't see

790
00:47:28,800 --> 00:47:33,120
Speaker 1: a way out right. Um and then he's so indebted

791
00:47:33,280 --> 00:47:38,920
Speaker 1: that you have these creditors basically um like buying for

792
00:47:39,000 --> 00:47:42,399
Speaker 1: a piece of whatever, like limited little estate he had,

793
00:47:42,520 --> 00:47:45,560
Speaker 1: right like whatever things he had after his death. So

794
00:47:46,120 --> 00:47:48,480
Speaker 1: one statistic in the book is the average American dies

795
00:47:48,560 --> 00:47:52,719
Speaker 1: with sixty dollars of debt and um and I think

796
00:47:52,760 --> 00:47:56,880
Speaker 1: you're totally right that it's a it's a mental health crisis.

797
00:47:57,000 --> 00:47:59,080
Speaker 1: I mean, it's something that like you feel the anxiety

798
00:47:59,200 --> 00:48:01,440
Speaker 1: in your body and in your mind right when you

799
00:48:02,040 --> 00:48:05,640
Speaker 1: are worried about how you're going to pay your loans

800
00:48:05,760 --> 00:48:07,480
Speaker 1: or whether or not you're going to be evicted. I mean,

801
00:48:07,560 --> 00:48:10,120
Speaker 1: forty million people are at risk of eviction now in

802
00:48:10,200 --> 00:48:13,080
Speaker 1: the rent even with the moratorium. What they know is

803
00:48:13,120 --> 00:48:14,880
Speaker 1: that they're just gonna be a massive rent bill at

804
00:48:14,920 --> 00:48:19,239
Speaker 1: the end of this and um and so it has

805
00:48:19,320 --> 00:48:24,239
Speaker 1: total uh psychological effects and those are not incidental. So

806
00:48:24,360 --> 00:48:27,160
Speaker 1: this is one thing that's really important, the fact that

807
00:48:28,080 --> 00:48:33,040
Speaker 1: this there is a disciplinary function of debt. So and

808
00:48:33,760 --> 00:48:37,960
Speaker 1: and people say this, you know really clearly, so Alan Greenspan, right,

809
00:48:38,120 --> 00:48:43,080
Speaker 1: the um uh, the economist you know it said, you know, right,

810
00:48:43,160 --> 00:48:46,640
Speaker 1: if you have if you have people who hold mortgages,

811
00:48:46,719 --> 00:48:48,319
Speaker 1: you're not going to have a country that's like going

812
00:48:48,360 --> 00:48:51,200
Speaker 1: on stripe. You're not going to have a populace that

813
00:48:51,480 --> 00:48:55,000
Speaker 1: is going to be, you know, demanding more. You're going

814
00:48:55,080 --> 00:48:57,080
Speaker 1: to have people who are right, they can't come to

815
00:48:57,200 --> 00:48:59,640
Speaker 1: the demonstration because they've got to be at work, because

816
00:48:59,680 --> 00:49:02,920
Speaker 1: they're not to get kicked out of they have so much.

817
00:49:02,960 --> 00:49:04,319
Speaker 1: I mean, if you're a renter, you get kicked out

818
00:49:04,320 --> 00:49:06,279
Speaker 1: of your house, it's bad. But if you have someone

819
00:49:06,280 --> 00:49:08,439
Speaker 1: who and you've been paying your mortgage for fifteen years,

820
00:49:08,480 --> 00:49:09,880
Speaker 1: you don't want to lose all of that you know,

821
00:49:10,000 --> 00:49:12,480
Speaker 1: wealth that you imagine that you've you've invested in there,

822
00:49:12,600 --> 00:49:16,080
Speaker 1: right you know. Um, and so this is so you

823
00:49:16,160 --> 00:49:19,680
Speaker 1: know that was well appreciated, was that a nation of

824
00:49:19,760 --> 00:49:22,800
Speaker 1: mortgage holders would be what is the word I'm looking for,

825
00:49:23,080 --> 00:49:28,279
Speaker 1: more subdued, right, um? And and more docile. And then

826
00:49:28,360 --> 00:49:31,600
Speaker 1: with student loans, this history is really clear. I mean, basically,

827
00:49:31,760 --> 00:49:35,400
Speaker 1: Ronald Reagan was governor of California. Um. You know, the

828
00:49:35,520 --> 00:49:39,600
Speaker 1: University of California system was the crown jewel of the country,

829
00:49:40,080 --> 00:49:43,359
Speaker 1: was public, it was free and then what happened while

830
00:49:43,400 --> 00:49:46,400
Speaker 1: there was there was student arrested Berkeley. Famously, there was

831
00:49:46,520 --> 00:49:51,920
Speaker 1: also at this at the junior college system, uh, the

832
00:49:52,560 --> 00:49:55,319
Speaker 1: formation of basically black radicalism, I mean, the Black Panther

833
00:49:55,480 --> 00:49:59,760
Speaker 1: Party emerged at Merrick College and these free public colleges,

834
00:50:00,600 --> 00:50:05,600
Speaker 1: and Reagan was like, yeah, no, he really truly was like,

835
00:50:05,719 --> 00:50:08,600
Speaker 1: this is not you know, this is not a conspiracy theory.

836
00:50:08,680 --> 00:50:11,800
Speaker 1: He basically was like, hell no, and we're going to

837
00:50:12,880 --> 00:50:15,440
Speaker 1: kick those bumps off campus and when they pay for it,

838
00:50:15,600 --> 00:50:18,320
Speaker 1: they're not gonna um, they're not going to engage in

839
00:50:18,360 --> 00:50:21,040
Speaker 1: this kind of behavior. And so there was a you know,

840
00:50:21,640 --> 00:50:25,239
Speaker 1: Neil Liiberal economists, Um, we're like, okay, this is how

841
00:50:25,320 --> 00:50:28,799
Speaker 1: you control that is that you impose tuition and debt

842
00:50:29,280 --> 00:50:31,560
Speaker 1: and then you get you know, and then your college

843
00:50:31,560 --> 00:50:35,319
Speaker 1: students stop being rebels. And so it's always I mean,

844
00:50:35,400 --> 00:50:39,360
Speaker 1: it is it is a tool of of of control.

845
00:50:39,600 --> 00:50:41,800
Speaker 1: And you know, in the psychological effect of that of

846
00:50:41,880 --> 00:50:44,279
Speaker 1: like make a population that feels like they're constantly on

847
00:50:44,360 --> 00:50:48,839
Speaker 1: the brank of economic collapses, like to some people, that's

848
00:50:48,840 --> 00:50:52,880
Speaker 1: a benefit, you know, And and the challenge for organizing

849
00:50:52,920 --> 00:50:54,880
Speaker 1: debtors then is that what you first have to do

850
00:50:55,000 --> 00:50:57,400
Speaker 1: is say, Okay, I know this makes you like, I

851
00:50:57,520 --> 00:51:00,520
Speaker 1: know you can't can't face that bill. I know that

852
00:51:00,600 --> 00:51:03,920
Speaker 1: it makes you sick to open that envelope because it's scary.

853
00:51:05,080 --> 00:51:07,759
Speaker 1: And I know that you've been indoctrinated into this world

854
00:51:07,880 --> 00:51:09,560
Speaker 1: view that tells you that it's your fault and that

855
00:51:09,680 --> 00:51:12,280
Speaker 1: if you had done something better or been a better person,

856
00:51:12,840 --> 00:51:14,800
Speaker 1: you wouldn't be in debt. Hey, you'd be a millionaire.

857
00:51:15,160 --> 00:51:18,240
Speaker 1: But you know, let go of that shame and stigma

858
00:51:18,400 --> 00:51:21,480
Speaker 1: and realize you are not alone, which is our slogan,

859
00:51:22,000 --> 00:51:24,520
Speaker 1: and and come together. So one thing I think we

860
00:51:24,800 --> 00:51:27,080
Speaker 1: offer as a as a union, as an as an

861
00:51:27,120 --> 00:51:30,279
Speaker 1: organization is not just the possibility that your debts will

862
00:51:30,280 --> 00:51:34,480
Speaker 1: be erased, but also that you can erase that shame, right,

863
00:51:34,760 --> 00:51:38,360
Speaker 1: and that that's also a huge value. He started to

864
00:51:38,440 --> 00:51:42,120
Speaker 1: talk a little bit about the challenges of debtors organizing

865
00:51:42,239 --> 00:51:45,120
Speaker 1: and so I'm really curious how it differs from other

866
00:51:45,200 --> 00:51:47,560
Speaker 1: forms of organizing. In the book, you will talk about

867
00:51:47,600 --> 00:51:53,360
Speaker 1: how like we're all spread out across geography and all

868
00:51:53,440 --> 00:51:57,120
Speaker 1: different walks of life, and look at as an asset

869
00:51:57,480 --> 00:52:00,880
Speaker 1: being able to connect with folks who have shared experience

870
00:52:00,960 --> 00:52:03,120
Speaker 1: even though they might be different than in either other ways.

871
00:52:03,200 --> 00:52:07,799
Speaker 1: I wonder if that might also make it harder even

872
00:52:07,880 --> 00:52:11,560
Speaker 1: that in Athens, like you know, last week there was

873
00:52:11,600 --> 00:52:15,280
Speaker 1: a video of a young man getting painted by the cops,

874
00:52:16,040 --> 00:52:18,960
Speaker 1: and now we're all on the street together, you know,

875
00:52:19,280 --> 00:52:22,280
Speaker 1: a couple of days later, because it's like geographically bound,

876
00:52:22,480 --> 00:52:25,080
Speaker 1: like we all live in this place together, we're all

877
00:52:25,120 --> 00:52:27,680
Speaker 1: going to stand up for changes in this place. So

878
00:52:28,000 --> 00:52:30,600
Speaker 1: I'm just curious, like what the two sides of the

879
00:52:30,680 --> 00:52:34,400
Speaker 1: coin are with the sort of distributed nature of the

880
00:52:35,200 --> 00:52:39,880
Speaker 1: demographic of debtors, I guess my my thought in response

881
00:52:39,920 --> 00:52:42,600
Speaker 1: to that, though, is that even to how people mobilize

882
00:52:42,680 --> 00:52:44,920
Speaker 1: locally with that sense of consciousness, you still have to

883
00:52:45,000 --> 00:52:47,560
Speaker 1: do you stop to do work. It's not spontaneous, right,

884
00:52:47,600 --> 00:52:51,200
Speaker 1: It's not like neighbors. Neighbors don't just naturally like spontaneously

885
00:52:51,280 --> 00:52:54,280
Speaker 1: or naturally rise up or have solidarity. Like that's something

886
00:52:55,520 --> 00:52:57,400
Speaker 1: to me as someone who used to live in Athens.

887
00:52:57,520 --> 00:52:59,279
Speaker 1: You hearing you say that, I'm like, well, that means

888
00:52:59,360 --> 00:53:01,279
Speaker 1: that you've done the work and other people have done

889
00:53:01,320 --> 00:53:04,640
Speaker 1: the work of organizing to even to get people in

890
00:53:04,719 --> 00:53:08,200
Speaker 1: Athens to see themselves as a political community. That should

891
00:53:08,239 --> 00:53:12,640
Speaker 1: respond to something like that, right um. Uh. And so

892
00:53:13,120 --> 00:53:17,360
Speaker 1: you know organizing regionally is also it also takes effort

893
00:53:17,680 --> 00:53:19,920
Speaker 1: um and you have to form those bonds and that

894
00:53:20,040 --> 00:53:26,200
Speaker 1: consciousness um and and uh and so in that sense,

895
00:53:26,360 --> 00:53:28,920
Speaker 1: you know, it's not that different to organize people at

896
00:53:28,920 --> 00:53:35,359
Speaker 1: a distance, UM, because you know, we're we're what we're

897
00:53:35,360 --> 00:53:39,400
Speaker 1: doing is we're exposing a commonality. Right, It's like, Okay, actually,

898
00:53:40,320 --> 00:53:43,120
Speaker 1: you know at the end of the month, you're all

899
00:53:43,200 --> 00:53:46,320
Speaker 1: stressing out over making this payment, and that's something that

900
00:53:46,520 --> 00:53:50,600
Speaker 1: that that that brings you together, and UM can unite you.

901
00:53:51,080 --> 00:53:54,000
Speaker 1: So you know, I think for people on the left

902
00:53:54,080 --> 00:53:56,960
Speaker 1: or people who want to engage in activism, like the

903
00:53:57,400 --> 00:54:00,479
Speaker 1: building the bonds of solidarity is just it's always really hard,

904
00:54:01,320 --> 00:54:04,680
Speaker 1: right UM. And I guess for me, like one of

905
00:54:04,719 --> 00:54:06,600
Speaker 1: my naive questions, so I was like, why is it

906
00:54:06,680 --> 00:54:11,680
Speaker 1: harder to divide us than unite us? Why? Why? Um?

907
00:54:12,640 --> 00:54:15,839
Speaker 1: And And then I think I'm also just interested in like, well,

908
00:54:15,920 --> 00:54:19,080
Speaker 1: what new forms of uniting can we invent, like to

909
00:54:19,160 --> 00:54:22,440
Speaker 1: approach it as like a creative question or problem, like

910
00:54:22,560 --> 00:54:25,600
Speaker 1: what what other ways can we identify? What ways can

911
00:54:25,640 --> 00:54:30,160
Speaker 1: we identify that that that UM bring these unlikely alliances

912
00:54:31,440 --> 00:54:33,759
Speaker 1: uh into being, and I think that, you know, I

913
00:54:33,840 --> 00:54:38,799
Speaker 1: think we have to not universalized too much about indebtedness.

914
00:54:38,880 --> 00:54:42,160
Speaker 1: Like that's why it's important to keep that lens that

915
00:54:42,480 --> 00:54:47,279
Speaker 1: that reveals, uh, the way that racism has shaped indebtedness.

916
00:54:47,360 --> 00:54:49,960
Speaker 1: So one of our phrases at the beginning was that

917
00:54:50,200 --> 00:54:54,279
Speaker 1: is the tie that binds, but it doesn't bind everybody equally, right,

918
00:54:54,400 --> 00:54:57,880
Speaker 1: Like that is common, but it's not an equalizer. It

919
00:54:58,000 --> 00:55:02,840
Speaker 1: amplifies inequalities in lots of ways, is um Nevertheless, you know,

920
00:55:03,239 --> 00:55:06,880
Speaker 1: for example, with our for profit college union, you know,

921
00:55:07,120 --> 00:55:10,040
Speaker 1: it was a really it was a really diverse group.

922
00:55:10,120 --> 00:55:12,920
Speaker 1: I mean there were people who lived in rural areas,

923
00:55:13,000 --> 00:55:16,840
Speaker 1: and there were urban youth, and there were um, you know,

924
00:55:17,200 --> 00:55:19,360
Speaker 1: middle aged grandmas who had kind of gone back to

925
00:55:19,480 --> 00:55:22,319
Speaker 1: college after the economic crisis in two thousand and eight,

926
00:55:22,840 --> 00:55:24,839
Speaker 1: and then there were young people just starting their lives out.

927
00:55:25,360 --> 00:55:27,440
Speaker 1: And you know, they were black, they were white, a

928
00:55:27,480 --> 00:55:29,640
Speaker 1: lot of them were first generation, a lot of single mothers.

929
00:55:29,760 --> 00:55:32,480
Speaker 1: But you know, I think when you when you do

930
00:55:32,680 --> 00:55:38,000
Speaker 1: organize with a material analysis and you follow those chains

931
00:55:38,200 --> 00:55:40,799
Speaker 1: of debt or you know, look to where people are

932
00:55:40,960 --> 00:55:44,840
Speaker 1: being exploited in the workplace, you will kind of you

933
00:55:45,200 --> 00:55:51,040
Speaker 1: will end up with a diverse coalition, right because you know,

934
00:55:51,160 --> 00:55:53,960
Speaker 1: that's that's the real that's who's being exploited in this

935
00:55:54,120 --> 00:55:58,279
Speaker 1: world and taken advantage of. Um. Yeah, there are there

936
00:55:58,320 --> 00:56:01,760
Speaker 1: are real There are definitely colleges in debt or organizing

937
00:56:01,880 --> 00:56:03,840
Speaker 1: and there you know, and I'm not sure they're not

938
00:56:04,040 --> 00:56:09,200
Speaker 1: that different than organizing. UM in general, I think we have.

939
00:56:09,640 --> 00:56:11,440
Speaker 1: I think the thing about that or organizing is just

940
00:56:11,560 --> 00:56:14,400
Speaker 1: that it's it's a new framework, right, Like we're customs

941
00:56:14,400 --> 00:56:17,080
Speaker 1: of thinking, Yeah, we're a customed to thinking okay, organized

942
00:56:17,880 --> 00:56:22,960
Speaker 1: electorally organized at the workplace, get out and vote or

943
00:56:23,160 --> 00:56:26,640
Speaker 1: join a union. Yeah, and this is like, okay, hey,

944
00:56:26,760 --> 00:56:30,320
Speaker 1: here's this whole new set of not just of corporate

945
00:56:30,360 --> 00:56:32,920
Speaker 1: targets and government targets, because there's the sense of like

946
00:56:33,239 --> 00:56:36,000
Speaker 1: you could organize against the bail bond's company or the

947
00:56:36,040 --> 00:56:39,759
Speaker 1: paida lender or the bank or the government apparatus that

948
00:56:40,760 --> 00:56:45,520
Speaker 1: enables their behavior or could potentially regulate them or implement

949
00:56:45,600 --> 00:56:49,040
Speaker 1: a policy that could put them out of business. Um.

950
00:56:50,200 --> 00:56:52,480
Speaker 1: But it's but it's it's so I think that's I

951
00:56:52,560 --> 00:56:55,600
Speaker 1: think right now we're still in the proselytizing phase of like, hey,

952
00:56:55,960 --> 00:56:59,239
Speaker 1: this is how the economy is organized. It's organized to

953
00:56:59,360 --> 00:57:02,360
Speaker 1: put you in debt. So we should then use this

954
00:57:02,480 --> 00:57:04,799
Speaker 1: as an opportunity to organize ourselves in a new way

955
00:57:04,880 --> 00:57:17,320
Speaker 1: to transform it. M absolutely. I was also curious in

956
00:57:17,440 --> 00:57:22,640
Speaker 1: terms of challenges UM. In my lifetime, at least I've

957
00:57:22,640 --> 00:57:26,000
Speaker 1: seen movements emerge at if acute moments of injustice. The

958
00:57:26,080 --> 00:57:28,880
Speaker 1: murders of like of Michael Brown or George Floyd has

959
00:57:28,920 --> 00:57:31,960
Speaker 1: some personally impactful examples. I wonder if you see a

960
00:57:32,040 --> 00:57:37,120
Speaker 1: potential matchstick moment for debtors organizing the way that we've

961
00:57:37,200 --> 00:57:42,080
Speaker 1: seen previous UH moments of a justice spark these huge

962
00:57:42,240 --> 00:57:47,640
Speaker 1: movements UM around a certain kind of organizing or in

963
00:57:47,720 --> 00:57:52,680
Speaker 1: a certain UM frame or areas. Such a good question.

964
00:57:52,880 --> 00:57:59,760
Speaker 1: I mean, I I think sometimes those moments can be made.

965
00:58:00,120 --> 00:58:02,680
Speaker 1: I mean, this is a whole theory of organizing UM.

966
00:58:03,240 --> 00:58:05,440
Speaker 1: You know. I don't know if you followed like the

967
00:58:05,520 --> 00:58:10,680
Speaker 1: momentum model which has influenced the UM groups like Sunrise

968
00:58:10,800 --> 00:58:12,680
Speaker 1: for example, but their whole thing is that you can

969
00:58:12,760 --> 00:58:16,360
Speaker 1: generate those galvanizing moments of crisis UM instead of kind

970
00:58:16,360 --> 00:58:20,760
Speaker 1: of waiting for one UM. So my my impulse is

971
00:58:20,800 --> 00:58:24,880
Speaker 1: you know, debt or organizing. Um. You know, I think

972
00:58:24,920 --> 00:58:27,440
Speaker 1: one of the things about debt, I mean it's a

973
00:58:27,480 --> 00:58:29,600
Speaker 1: little bit like the wage, right, it's kind of part

974
00:58:29,680 --> 00:58:33,960
Speaker 1: of part of the ideology of capitalism is, oh, that's private, right.

975
00:58:34,000 --> 00:58:36,560
Speaker 1: You don't talk about that. You don't you don't go

976
00:58:36,720 --> 00:58:38,760
Speaker 1: around talking about what you're paid, you don't go around

977
00:58:38,800 --> 00:58:41,880
Speaker 1: talking about what what you owe. And so it's kind

978
00:58:41,920 --> 00:58:45,640
Speaker 1: of insidious in that way. It's a little invisible. Um.

979
00:58:46,240 --> 00:58:49,040
Speaker 1: So it challenges my imagination to think, like what would

980
00:58:49,040 --> 00:58:51,840
Speaker 1: be the big spark. But on the other hand, you know,

981
00:58:51,920 --> 00:58:57,240
Speaker 1: I think with COVID, our economy is like going off

982
00:58:57,320 --> 00:59:00,640
Speaker 1: the rails. I mean, once again, fort allion people in

983
00:59:00,720 --> 00:59:04,480
Speaker 1: this country are going to be an imminent threat of

984
00:59:04,800 --> 00:59:08,600
Speaker 1: eviction and homelessness and have these massive back rents do

985
00:59:09,400 --> 00:59:13,040
Speaker 1: and you know, something like that can't spark and like,

986
00:59:14,280 --> 00:59:16,920
Speaker 1: you know, a movement about this, then I don't know,

987
00:59:17,200 --> 00:59:19,280
Speaker 1: I don't know what it would take, um, but it

988
00:59:19,360 --> 00:59:22,440
Speaker 1: feels like we might be heading to heading into a

989
00:59:22,560 --> 00:59:29,480
Speaker 1: different um like just different terrain because of the crisis

990
00:59:29,600 --> 00:59:31,960
Speaker 1: that we're in right now. Um. And that's why I

991
00:59:32,000 --> 00:59:38,960
Speaker 1: think we're having moment. It's their dog and their Mailman.

992
00:59:39,200 --> 00:59:42,440
Speaker 1: Everyone needs to read Can't Pay. Well, that's I'm serious,

993
00:59:42,480 --> 00:59:45,760
Speaker 1: it's really good book. But and then we'll have the

994
00:59:46,000 --> 00:59:49,840
Speaker 1: frame work I which to understand the moment we're going through,

995
00:59:50,120 --> 00:59:52,720
Speaker 1: and the moment itself will be the match thing. Well,

996
00:59:52,720 --> 00:59:54,320
Speaker 1: I think that's I mean, that's sort of you know,

997
00:59:54,440 --> 00:59:55,800
Speaker 1: I guess I'm like, I don't want to be too

998
00:59:55,840 --> 00:59:59,200
Speaker 1: prophetic or optimistic, but I think that is the that's

999
00:59:59,360 --> 01:00:01,600
Speaker 1: the wage that we're trying to make. What you know

1000
01:00:01,760 --> 01:00:04,919
Speaker 1: is that we know that tens of millions of people

1001
01:00:04,920 --> 01:00:06,880
Speaker 1: are going to be in the can't pay scenario and

1002
01:00:06,960 --> 01:00:11,000
Speaker 1: already are like that's where we are in this moment.

1003
01:00:11,440 --> 01:00:14,280
Speaker 1: And so you know, if we can rise to the

1004
01:00:14,320 --> 01:00:17,240
Speaker 1: occasion as the debt collective and his organizers and turn

1005
01:00:17,320 --> 01:00:19,920
Speaker 1: that can't pay moment into a won't pay moment, right

1006
01:00:20,040 --> 01:00:23,080
Speaker 1: because you shouldn't have to pay anyway, Like these debts

1007
01:00:23,120 --> 01:00:25,640
Speaker 1: are immoral because their their debts related to your basic

1008
01:00:25,720 --> 01:00:28,560
Speaker 1: survival and you know, things you should be entitled to

1009
01:00:28,600 --> 01:00:31,560
Speaker 1: as a human being, then yes, that could be our

1010
01:00:31,600 --> 01:00:38,280
Speaker 1: match stick. Right. So it's you know, I think I'm sorry, no, no,

1011
01:00:38,360 --> 01:00:39,800
Speaker 1: but I think that's right. I mean that you know,

1012
01:00:39,880 --> 01:00:43,480
Speaker 1: we want the proposition we're making is like, you know,

1013
01:00:44,040 --> 01:00:47,439
Speaker 1: skip the shame, skip the self reproach, and like let's

1014
01:00:47,480 --> 01:00:51,440
Speaker 1: get angry and get organized and indignant about this. In

1015
01:00:51,520 --> 01:00:55,200
Speaker 1: a way, I think it might. I think COVID kind

1016
01:00:55,240 --> 01:00:57,560
Speaker 1: of might help out with that because one of the

1017
01:00:57,640 --> 01:01:02,080
Speaker 1: things that I worry about sometimes is with everyone's lives

1018
01:01:02,200 --> 01:01:04,960
Speaker 1: kind of with everyone's lives being you know, built around

1019
01:01:05,080 --> 01:01:07,600
Speaker 1: hustle and bustle, and everyone has to grind and grind that.

1020
01:01:07,680 --> 01:01:12,880
Speaker 1: I feel that sometimes when things get so outrageous that

1021
01:01:13,320 --> 01:01:18,200
Speaker 1: that can some sometimes dampen people's want to fight. You know,

1022
01:01:18,320 --> 01:01:21,240
Speaker 1: you were talking about how being in debt can be

1023
01:01:21,360 --> 01:01:24,320
Speaker 1: a form of keeping the population subdued. Like I feel like,

1024
01:01:26,040 --> 01:01:28,160
Speaker 1: just using Trump as an example, if we were to

1025
01:01:28,240 --> 01:01:30,520
Speaker 1: wake up one morning and see that Trump did something

1026
01:01:30,720 --> 01:01:34,960
Speaker 1: like completely completely outrageous, like more outrageous than the normal,

1027
01:01:35,480 --> 01:01:38,280
Speaker 1: that most people would be mad on their phone in

1028
01:01:38,360 --> 01:01:40,680
Speaker 1: the morning and then have to go to work. And

1029
01:01:40,800 --> 01:01:45,880
Speaker 1: I feel like COVID, now the economy now don't have

1030
01:01:45,960 --> 01:01:49,080
Speaker 1: shipped to do. So It's like, let's like, how how

1031
01:01:49,480 --> 01:01:53,400
Speaker 1: would the would the George Floyd protests and the protests

1032
01:01:53,440 --> 01:01:57,160
Speaker 1: that have followed since, would that have been as massive

1033
01:01:57,240 --> 01:02:00,680
Speaker 1: and widespread. If forty million people didn't get lose their

1034
01:02:00,760 --> 01:02:03,200
Speaker 1: job before him, well, what do you think have that

1035
01:02:03,280 --> 01:02:06,280
Speaker 1: to tie them down? I'm I don't think so personally.

1036
01:02:06,320 --> 01:02:08,880
Speaker 1: I think I think it kind of goes hand in him. Yeah,

1037
01:02:09,040 --> 01:02:10,560
Speaker 1: I think, I mean, I think that's what I think.

1038
01:02:10,680 --> 01:02:15,520
Speaker 1: That's right. I think there was something about people living

1039
01:02:15,560 --> 01:02:20,280
Speaker 1: in a different time scale because of the pandemic that

1040
01:02:21,120 --> 01:02:24,640
Speaker 1: enabled a deeper reflection for some people who might otherwise

1041
01:02:24,680 --> 01:02:30,680
Speaker 1: have just ignored it or um like moved on more quickly. Uh.

1042
01:02:30,880 --> 01:02:34,560
Speaker 1: And so I think I do think pandemic time influenced

1043
01:02:35,560 --> 01:02:38,360
Speaker 1: people's responses. I think the thing for me is that,

1044
01:02:39,320 --> 01:02:42,040
Speaker 1: you know, I just want people to be have a

1045
01:02:42,120 --> 01:02:47,680
Speaker 1: better analysis of power. It's like, how where is the power?

1046
01:02:48,400 --> 01:02:51,000
Speaker 1: What power do we have, what leverage do we have?

1047
01:02:51,800 --> 01:02:55,920
Speaker 1: And so that's it's like, because I actually think there

1048
01:02:56,040 --> 01:02:58,920
Speaker 1: are lots of people who are pretty awake and who

1049
01:02:59,040 --> 01:03:02,800
Speaker 1: care about things in a disgusted by injustice. I think

1050
01:03:02,880 --> 01:03:07,000
Speaker 1: what we don't have in this country are you know,

1051
01:03:07,440 --> 01:03:15,280
Speaker 1: solid organizations that are geared towards like um class conflict

1052
01:03:16,480 --> 01:03:19,760
Speaker 1: on the side of the working class, right, like unions

1053
01:03:20,360 --> 01:03:24,960
Speaker 1: are really really incapacitated by the legal regime we're in.

1054
01:03:25,400 --> 01:03:27,360
Speaker 1: I mean, if you go back to the beginning of

1055
01:03:27,400 --> 01:03:31,720
Speaker 1: this country, imported from British common law, is basically this

1056
01:03:31,840 --> 01:03:34,400
Speaker 1: idea like workers organizing was a conspiracy, it was illegal,

1057
01:03:35,280 --> 01:03:37,440
Speaker 1: But the legal regime has always been set up to

1058
01:03:37,560 --> 01:03:43,520
Speaker 1: encourage you know, investors and bosses to collaborate, right, Like

1059
01:03:44,040 --> 01:03:47,000
Speaker 1: what is an LLC but just basically a legal mechanism

1060
01:03:47,120 --> 01:03:49,360
Speaker 1: so that like you know, people can collaborate and have

1061
01:03:49,440 --> 01:03:51,760
Speaker 1: a business and have limited liability. Right. So from the

1062
01:03:51,880 --> 01:03:54,560
Speaker 1: very beginning of this country, it's like there has been

1063
01:03:55,040 --> 01:03:59,640
Speaker 1: uh an assault on people's capacities to collaborate and have

1064
01:03:59,760 --> 01:04:05,800
Speaker 1: some literarity and and organize um organizing their interests. So

1065
01:04:05,880 --> 01:04:09,080
Speaker 1: I guess that's where you know, I think if we

1066
01:04:09,160 --> 01:04:11,480
Speaker 1: need to make an intervention, it's like, okay, we all

1067
01:04:11,640 --> 01:04:13,320
Speaker 1: we you know, a lot of people care enough of

1068
01:04:13,440 --> 01:04:15,400
Speaker 1: us care about what's going on in the world that

1069
01:04:15,440 --> 01:04:18,840
Speaker 1: if we were just organized, we could change things together, right,

1070
01:04:19,880 --> 01:04:22,840
Speaker 1: bearing together in a strategic way. That actually is like

1071
01:04:23,000 --> 01:04:26,040
Speaker 1: where is the power, you know, where can we stop

1072
01:04:26,160 --> 01:04:30,040
Speaker 1: the flows of capital, Where can we interrupt exploitation? Where

1073
01:04:30,080 --> 01:04:32,120
Speaker 1: do we have political leverage? Which is why it's so

1074
01:04:32,280 --> 01:04:35,240
Speaker 1: important for people like Maria and others to be running

1075
01:04:35,280 --> 01:04:39,880
Speaker 1: for office and you and um and having skin in

1076
01:04:40,000 --> 01:04:41,840
Speaker 1: that game. But I think, you know, it's really for

1077
01:04:41,960 --> 01:04:44,680
Speaker 1: me the power analysis that we need to be developing

1078
01:04:44,800 --> 01:04:49,080
Speaker 1: and like building the organizational and institutional might to get

1079
01:04:49,160 --> 01:04:52,000
Speaker 1: in the way of business as usual. Um, you know.

1080
01:04:52,120 --> 01:04:55,640
Speaker 1: And and protests are amazing and I moved by them,

1081
01:04:55,840 --> 01:04:57,959
Speaker 1: and I've been at my share of them in my life,

1082
01:04:58,080 --> 01:05:03,919
Speaker 1: but like I want, I want different forms of institutional power. Yeah,

1083
01:05:04,280 --> 01:05:07,200
Speaker 1: for sure, I wouldn't be respectful for your if your

1084
01:05:07,240 --> 01:05:10,720
Speaker 1: time first stance. We're getting in towards three thirty, I

1085
01:05:10,760 --> 01:05:12,880
Speaker 1: don't know if you've got to run a Should we

1086
01:05:13,040 --> 01:05:15,280
Speaker 1: get to the last question? I'm really curious for the

1087
01:05:15,320 --> 01:05:18,160
Speaker 1: second to last question. Then second to last question, I

1088
01:05:18,200 --> 01:05:19,920
Speaker 1: do want to say one thing about the racial justice

1089
01:05:19,960 --> 01:05:21,920
Speaker 1: then really quick is you know it's interesting that the

1090
01:05:22,000 --> 01:05:24,480
Speaker 1: phrase we always use as reckoning, that we're having a

1091
01:05:24,560 --> 01:05:28,520
Speaker 1: reckoning around racial justice, now that that word actually means

1092
01:05:30,440 --> 01:05:33,520
Speaker 1: it's actually a reference to debt. Right, it's a settling

1093
01:05:33,560 --> 01:05:38,080
Speaker 1: of accounts, it's a calculation, and so it's kind of

1094
01:05:38,320 --> 01:05:40,200
Speaker 1: you know, for me, as someone involved in debt or organizing,

1095
01:05:40,240 --> 01:05:43,920
Speaker 1: it's interesting that our moral language is steeped in indebtedness

1096
01:05:44,520 --> 01:05:47,600
Speaker 1: and the payback of debts. Right, So one thing the

1097
01:05:47,720 --> 01:05:50,040
Speaker 1: debt collective is trying to do, and what we're trying

1098
01:05:50,040 --> 01:05:51,720
Speaker 1: to do with campaign Won't Pay, is like challenge the

1099
01:05:51,760 --> 01:05:56,520
Speaker 1: morality of debts. Right, we don't we don't, uh, we

1100
01:05:56,600 --> 01:05:59,720
Speaker 1: don't always have to pay. In fact, the rich walk

1101
01:05:59,760 --> 01:06:01,160
Speaker 1: away from their debts all the time. I mean, look

1102
01:06:01,160 --> 01:06:03,880
Speaker 1: at the revelations about Trump. Right, we knew Trump had

1103
01:06:04,080 --> 01:06:07,040
Speaker 1: like six or seven bankruptcies behind him, but you know

1104
01:06:07,160 --> 01:06:10,040
Speaker 1: he's like he's like four million dollars in debt or

1105
01:06:10,120 --> 01:06:11,880
Speaker 1: something like that, and he's been able to use it

1106
01:06:11,960 --> 01:06:16,040
Speaker 1: to just get richer and get more powerful. Um. But

1107
01:06:16,200 --> 01:06:20,040
Speaker 1: I think you know the the the flip side of that, though,

1108
01:06:20,120 --> 01:06:21,640
Speaker 1: is like, well, what debts do we want to pay?

1109
01:06:21,760 --> 01:06:23,920
Speaker 1: Like we don't want to pay these student loans, we

1110
01:06:23,960 --> 01:06:27,600
Speaker 1: don't want to pay these medical bills, but we want

1111
01:06:27,600 --> 01:06:30,720
Speaker 1: to pay reparations. We want you know, to like we

1112
01:06:30,800 --> 01:06:33,240
Speaker 1: want to pay the climate debt that you know, we

1113
01:06:33,440 --> 01:06:37,040
Speaker 1: as this rich, industrialized question country oh for you know,

1114
01:06:37,120 --> 01:06:39,640
Speaker 1: burning up more than our fair share of carbon and

1115
01:06:39,760 --> 01:06:43,680
Speaker 1: to help pay back debt so we can build a

1116
01:06:43,800 --> 01:06:46,640
Speaker 1: new green economy. So I think that the yeah, the

1117
01:06:46,880 --> 01:06:51,200
Speaker 1: language of reckoning in this moment is interesting. Um, you

1118
01:06:51,280 --> 01:06:52,880
Speaker 1: know in this question of like okay, yeah, in a

1119
01:06:52,960 --> 01:06:58,720
Speaker 1: reckoning like what like we need receipts. You know, it's

1120
01:06:58,760 --> 01:07:03,480
Speaker 1: not just if the perspective that's required that's really interesting.

1121
01:07:03,600 --> 01:07:06,520
Speaker 1: You know as a linguist, that's just like, oh my gosh,

1122
01:07:08,440 --> 01:07:12,320
Speaker 1: you know, there's like a linguistic and etymological link between

1123
01:07:12,440 --> 01:07:14,400
Speaker 1: like this moment we're having and the language we are

1124
01:07:14,480 --> 01:07:15,960
Speaker 1: using about it. But we can we could do a

1125
01:07:16,000 --> 01:07:18,800
Speaker 1: whole interview, just like Love for Etymology, because they like

1126
01:07:19,400 --> 01:07:22,920
Speaker 1: because where words come from, like the meaning, like the reckoning.

1127
01:07:23,160 --> 01:07:26,280
Speaker 1: It's like that meaning is even if you don't know

1128
01:07:26,440 --> 01:07:29,160
Speaker 1: it consciously, it suffuses it. Like that's part of why

1129
01:07:29,200 --> 01:07:34,160
Speaker 1: we're going to that word. Um, I love words were

1130
01:07:34,360 --> 01:07:36,480
Speaker 1: just so good and you're good at words. Thank you.

1131
01:07:36,600 --> 01:07:40,280
Speaker 1: I really appreciated that. I really if you if you

1132
01:07:40,360 --> 01:07:43,320
Speaker 1: were rhyming, it would probably make some ill verses. My god,

1133
01:07:45,640 --> 01:07:50,760
Speaker 1: that episode we would be. So that's not even fair

1134
01:07:50,880 --> 01:07:52,840
Speaker 1: to say that because now you might not do it.

1135
01:07:53,040 --> 01:07:57,440
Speaker 1: It's not every episode. Since it's about hip hop and politics.

1136
01:07:57,560 --> 01:08:00,960
Speaker 1: We wrap in the intro and I the show, and

1137
01:08:01,080 --> 01:08:03,800
Speaker 1: so for many weeks, a lot of times we freeze out,

1138
01:08:03,840 --> 01:08:07,240
Speaker 1: but for many weeks we like right versus about the topic.

1139
01:08:07,640 --> 01:08:10,200
Speaker 1: So I this weekend, I'm gonna sit down, let's see

1140
01:08:10,280 --> 01:08:13,440
Speaker 1: what I got for that, and then I'll have to

1141
01:08:13,520 --> 01:08:17,440
Speaker 1: have another dance party. I had one question about scaling

1142
01:08:17,880 --> 01:08:22,080
Speaker 1: that strikes to like various institutions from a local governmental perspective.

1143
01:08:22,160 --> 01:08:25,919
Speaker 1: I was really intrigued by the chapter about governments refusing

1144
01:08:25,960 --> 01:08:27,760
Speaker 1: their debt and wondered if you could speak to that

1145
01:08:27,800 --> 01:08:29,000
Speaker 1: a little bit, just give me a little piece of

1146
01:08:29,000 --> 01:08:33,439
Speaker 1: ice about how to bring this to bear in my

1147
01:08:33,600 --> 01:08:38,040
Speaker 1: local legislation. So, um, where do we start? I think

1148
01:08:38,120 --> 01:08:43,240
Speaker 1: one one thing? Okay to begin, Well, you see hear

1149
01:08:43,280 --> 01:08:45,320
Speaker 1: a lot about debt from the right wing, and the

1150
01:08:45,439 --> 01:08:49,479
Speaker 1: argument from the right wing was the national deficit. We

1151
01:08:49,600 --> 01:08:51,680
Speaker 1: as a country are so in debt, and we're just

1152
01:08:51,800 --> 01:08:54,000
Speaker 1: like a household. When a household is in debt, we

1153
01:08:54,120 --> 01:08:56,000
Speaker 1: need to like tighten our belt. We need to cut

1154
01:08:56,040 --> 01:08:59,400
Speaker 1: our spending right and uh, and so therefore we're going

1155
01:08:59,439 --> 01:09:01,960
Speaker 1: to have to cut some security and cut funding education

1156
01:09:02,120 --> 01:09:04,920
Speaker 1: and cut you know, everything except the military, accept the police.

1157
01:09:05,560 --> 01:09:10,160
Speaker 1: So that is as we've seen post COVID fundamentally wrong.

1158
01:09:10,200 --> 01:09:11,960
Speaker 1: I mean, what did the federal government do. They just

1159
01:09:12,040 --> 01:09:14,640
Speaker 1: came up with trillions and trillions of dollars for corporations

1160
01:09:14,880 --> 01:09:18,519
Speaker 1: overnight without any discussion. So at the federal government level,

1161
01:09:18,560 --> 01:09:22,880
Speaker 1: that's wrong. At the state level and the municipal level,

1162
01:09:23,200 --> 01:09:25,800
Speaker 1: governments aren't able to just print money in the same

1163
01:09:25,840 --> 01:09:28,839
Speaker 1: way the Feds are. Right, So there are real vegetary constraints,

1164
01:09:29,280 --> 01:09:32,800
Speaker 1: But we have a dynamic where um, the rich people win.

1165
01:09:32,960 --> 01:09:37,040
Speaker 1: Why because we don't tax wealthy residents, right, States and

1166
01:09:37,200 --> 01:09:40,880
Speaker 1: local governments don't tax rich residents enough, don't tax corporations.

1167
01:09:41,680 --> 01:09:44,960
Speaker 1: Um end up imposing regressive taxes right sales tax or

1168
01:09:45,000 --> 01:09:48,759
Speaker 1: whatever else. And then what do we do. We issue bonds,

1169
01:09:49,960 --> 01:09:53,320
Speaker 1: which is a basically borrowing from rich residents. So you

1170
01:09:53,400 --> 01:09:55,160
Speaker 1: say like, hey, rich people are not going to tax you,

1171
01:09:55,240 --> 01:09:57,799
Speaker 1: but we'll borrow your money and we'll pay you interest

1172
01:09:58,720 --> 01:10:01,439
Speaker 1: and um and in Wall Street will will get a

1173
01:10:01,479 --> 01:10:04,000
Speaker 1: cut for brokering the deal. And so what we have

1174
01:10:04,200 --> 01:10:07,920
Speaker 1: today is situations where you know, people communities have to

1175
01:10:07,960 --> 01:10:11,040
Speaker 1: issue bonds for schools, for roads. But also like there

1176
01:10:11,160 --> 01:10:14,680
Speaker 1: was a big paper recently about police brutality bonds. So

1177
01:10:14,920 --> 01:10:19,240
Speaker 1: essentially city governments issuing bonds, borrowing millions of dollars um

1178
01:10:19,360 --> 01:10:23,080
Speaker 1: so that they can pay when the cops kill people.

1179
01:10:23,320 --> 01:10:27,799
Speaker 1: In other words, residents are paying, yeah, for killer cops,

1180
01:10:28,160 --> 01:10:30,519
Speaker 1: but the investors in those bonds and a k a.

1181
01:10:30,560 --> 01:10:34,439
Speaker 1: The rich residents get their dividends in Wall Street gets

1182
01:10:34,479 --> 01:10:38,000
Speaker 1: a fee off of these, you know, bonds covering police brutality.

1183
01:10:38,120 --> 01:10:42,240
Speaker 1: So I think that's that that is a vivid example

1184
01:10:42,400 --> 01:10:46,639
Speaker 1: of just how messed up the system is. So um

1185
01:10:47,400 --> 01:10:49,439
Speaker 1: so one thing, you know, I think it's it's these

1186
01:10:49,520 --> 01:10:53,000
Speaker 1: deals are really commonplace, and so we are organizing. We

1187
01:10:53,080 --> 01:10:56,160
Speaker 1: have a Hub Debt Collective Pennsylvania that's sort of centered

1188
01:10:56,160 --> 01:11:00,439
Speaker 1: in Philly. I'm engaging in in campaigns that are focused

1189
01:11:00,520 --> 01:11:05,200
Speaker 1: on renegotiating these municipal debt deals. Right. So, you know,

1190
01:11:05,680 --> 01:11:09,000
Speaker 1: school systems lose hundreds of millions of dollars a year

1191
01:11:09,000 --> 01:11:11,360
Speaker 1: because they're paying interests on these bonds, and Wall Streets,

1192
01:11:11,400 --> 01:11:13,160
Speaker 1: you know, getting a cut, And that's money that I

1193
01:11:13,240 --> 01:11:15,799
Speaker 1: can go to patching the roof, or hiring more teachers,

1194
01:11:16,080 --> 01:11:19,720
Speaker 1: or giving the students the computers they need to learn remotely. Right,

1195
01:11:19,800 --> 01:11:22,719
Speaker 1: So I think I think there are some potential really

1196
01:11:22,800 --> 01:11:27,880
Speaker 1: interesting campaigns of municipal debt resistance. One dream we've had is, well,

1197
01:11:27,920 --> 01:11:31,640
Speaker 1: what if multiple cities went on strikes? My dream too,

1198
01:11:31,720 --> 01:11:34,320
Speaker 1: That's what I was thinking about, like finding other cities

1199
01:11:34,479 --> 01:11:38,600
Speaker 1: that are that are done bonds with a certain you know,

1200
01:11:38,920 --> 01:11:41,479
Speaker 1: and maybe you've all done bonds with Goldman Sacks and

1201
01:11:41,520 --> 01:11:44,519
Speaker 1: then there's like a five city municipal strike against Goldman Sacks.

1202
01:11:45,160 --> 01:11:48,400
Speaker 1: I think that there is another thing that cities and

1203
01:11:48,439 --> 01:11:50,400
Speaker 1: states could do that would be really cool, which is

1204
01:11:50,840 --> 01:11:54,840
Speaker 1: how do you protect your citizens from predatory lenders and

1205
01:11:54,880 --> 01:11:59,040
Speaker 1: debt collectors. UM, Well, there's something called eminent domain. Right.

1206
01:11:59,160 --> 01:12:06,639
Speaker 1: Eminent domain is where the government right see the hotels,

1207
01:12:06,880 --> 01:12:10,439
Speaker 1: se seize the debts that people owe because you're you

1208
01:12:10,520 --> 01:12:12,559
Speaker 1: know those those sheets of all of the money. That's

1209
01:12:12,560 --> 01:12:15,160
Speaker 1: so that's an asset. That's property that could be seized

1210
01:12:15,160 --> 01:12:22,960
Speaker 1: by eminent domain. And E raced UM and we've been

1211
01:12:23,000 --> 01:12:27,600
Speaker 1: working working and we've been working with so this. We

1212
01:12:27,680 --> 01:12:32,320
Speaker 1: have been working with UM, any leading economist on this.

1213
01:12:32,520 --> 01:12:35,320
Speaker 1: And there's a wonderful assemblyman in New York named ron

1214
01:12:35,479 --> 01:12:38,000
Speaker 1: King him from Queen's New York Assembly. When we were

1215
01:12:38,280 --> 01:12:42,000
Speaker 1: we ron Kim on this idea. UM and so, I

1216
01:12:42,080 --> 01:12:44,320
Speaker 1: mean there's so many things. This is this is the thing.

1217
01:12:45,120 --> 01:12:47,839
Speaker 1: We have lots of rights on the books that aren't respected.

1218
01:12:47,960 --> 01:12:50,080
Speaker 1: I mean that's the story of America, right, It's like

1219
01:12:50,400 --> 01:12:52,080
Speaker 1: you know, so I think one thing is people need

1220
01:12:52,120 --> 01:12:55,080
Speaker 1: to get organized just to have the rights they have

1221
01:12:55,200 --> 01:12:58,080
Speaker 1: on the books enacted. Like that's that's that's true. And

1222
01:12:58,120 --> 01:13:03,080
Speaker 1: there's there are consumer protections, um and and things that

1223
01:13:03,280 --> 01:13:05,840
Speaker 1: that we can mobilize and organize around. But then there's

1224
01:13:05,880 --> 01:13:09,120
Speaker 1: so much that, uh, there's so much that could be

1225
01:13:09,240 --> 01:13:11,800
Speaker 1: done if people were actually brave enough to use the

1226
01:13:11,840 --> 01:13:15,200
Speaker 1: state power at their disposal. Right, I mean this is

1227
01:13:15,280 --> 01:13:17,800
Speaker 1: why we have built this whole movement pointing out the

1228
01:13:17,840 --> 01:13:20,479
Speaker 1: fact the Department of Education has the power to cancel

1229
01:13:20,520 --> 01:13:25,040
Speaker 1: all student debt, Like, should Democrats control the Department of

1230
01:13:25,200 --> 01:13:29,599
Speaker 1: Education next year? Right, We're not going to let them say, oh, sorry,

1231
01:13:29,760 --> 01:13:33,240
Speaker 1: Mitch McConnell, won't let us do it. Right, the Republicans

1232
01:13:33,280 --> 01:13:37,320
Speaker 1: are obstructing us. We're gonna say no, you actually unilaterally

1233
01:13:37,360 --> 01:13:40,000
Speaker 1: have the power, and you're just cowards or worse than that,

1234
01:13:40,320 --> 01:13:43,400
Speaker 1: you like to see people suffer. Right, So I think

1235
01:13:43,479 --> 01:13:46,280
Speaker 1: this question of what what power do people have? What

1236
01:13:46,439 --> 01:13:48,880
Speaker 1: rights do people have that they can you know, fight

1237
01:13:48,920 --> 01:13:51,280
Speaker 1: to enact. What power do people have that they should use?

1238
01:13:51,400 --> 01:13:53,960
Speaker 1: And then how can we push the envelope and imagine

1239
01:13:54,120 --> 01:13:57,400
Speaker 1: using some of these things like eminent domain or you

1240
01:13:57,520 --> 01:14:01,880
Speaker 1: know the power of municipal finance to renegotiate the terms

1241
01:14:01,960 --> 01:14:05,799
Speaker 1: and start democratizing the economy. Is like where our movements

1242
01:14:05,880 --> 01:14:09,280
Speaker 1: need to go next, because I think, you know, victors

1243
01:14:09,360 --> 01:14:12,960
Speaker 1: like that are inspiring to people. You know, that's the thing, um,

1244
01:14:14,000 --> 01:14:16,200
Speaker 1: and it would terrify Wall Street, which would also be fun,

1245
01:14:17,280 --> 01:14:21,000
Speaker 1: super fun my favor. Well, Yo, this was amazing. I

1246
01:14:21,120 --> 01:14:23,040
Speaker 1: feel like we need to talk for hours. This is

1247
01:14:23,120 --> 01:14:25,960
Speaker 1: set out, but we probably you know what, will probably

1248
01:14:26,320 --> 01:14:28,439
Speaker 1: have to ask you to come back on for something else.

1249
01:14:28,479 --> 01:14:30,800
Speaker 1: I'm sure I would love that. But we get to

1250
01:14:30,840 --> 01:14:32,679
Speaker 1: hang out in person one day, so I would really

1251
01:14:32,760 --> 01:14:37,600
Speaker 1: like that when hanging on in person happens again, it

1252
01:14:37,680 --> 01:14:40,879
Speaker 1: will happen, I think it's going to happen. But I'm

1253
01:14:40,880 --> 01:14:42,320
Speaker 1: so honored to be on here, and I feel like

1254
01:14:42,360 --> 01:14:45,519
Speaker 1: I'm talking to like an old friend. So really I

1255
01:14:45,640 --> 01:14:48,360
Speaker 1: feel the same. Where can we uh? Where can people

1256
01:14:48,400 --> 01:14:50,320
Speaker 1: find you? All? Right? So, well, first of all, so

1257
01:14:50,400 --> 01:14:53,720
Speaker 1: what do we do? I've got hospital bills. You got bills, Yes,

1258
01:14:53,800 --> 01:14:56,599
Speaker 1: I got bills, hospital bills. So everybody listening, we all

1259
01:14:56,640 --> 01:15:00,120
Speaker 1: got bills. What do we do now? W W you

1260
01:15:00,240 --> 01:15:04,400
Speaker 1: debt collective dot org, sign up, join the union. If

1261
01:15:04,479 --> 01:15:07,320
Speaker 1: you don't have money to pay your dues, that's fine,

1262
01:15:09,360 --> 01:15:11,120
Speaker 1: you know. I think it's important that people. I think

1263
01:15:11,120 --> 01:15:13,840
Speaker 1: it's important people pages because we don't want social movements

1264
01:15:13,880 --> 01:15:16,559
Speaker 1: that are funded by philanthropy, and we don't want social

1265
01:15:16,600 --> 01:15:19,960
Speaker 1: movements that are funded by people who are ultimately invested

1266
01:15:20,000 --> 01:15:23,200
Speaker 1: in maintaining the status quo. That's why it is important

1267
01:15:23,240 --> 01:15:29,879
Speaker 1: that we UH own our organizations. But there are dispute

1268
01:15:29,880 --> 01:15:32,919
Speaker 1: tools that you can use for free UH to dispute

1269
01:15:33,040 --> 01:15:37,320
Speaker 1: any sort of wage, wage garnishment, so security garnishment, tax

1270
01:15:37,400 --> 01:15:39,600
Speaker 1: garnishment you might be suffering if you're in default, to

1271
01:15:39,680 --> 01:15:43,479
Speaker 1: dispute any debt in collections UH and join especially the

1272
01:15:43,800 --> 01:15:47,639
Speaker 1: student loan that is union, because we want to force

1273
01:15:47,720 --> 01:15:50,120
Speaker 1: the hand of the government in the year ahead and

1274
01:15:50,560 --> 01:15:54,519
Speaker 1: make them abolish all one point seven trillion dollars of

1275
01:15:54,560 --> 01:15:57,920
Speaker 1: student loans. And as someone who has been working on

1276
01:15:58,000 --> 01:16:00,639
Speaker 1: this issue for the last eight years, I can tell

1277
01:16:00,640 --> 01:16:03,120
Speaker 1: you we're closer than we'd ever thought we'd be. So

1278
01:16:03,320 --> 01:16:06,080
Speaker 1: let's push it over the edge and make the Republican

1279
01:16:06,200 --> 01:16:08,600
Speaker 1: nightmare come true. Because what they always tweet is what

1280
01:16:08,840 --> 01:16:15,280
Speaker 1: you raise? Student loans? What's next? Credit cards? Auto loans? Yes, yes, yes,

1281
01:16:15,760 --> 01:16:17,760
Speaker 1: like follow that line all the way through, buddy, that's

1282
01:16:17,760 --> 01:16:22,200
Speaker 1: where we're going forever. That's how it should be. Bring

1283
01:16:22,280 --> 01:16:24,439
Speaker 1: it back, that's how it should be. Social housing. You

1284
01:16:24,439 --> 01:16:26,160
Speaker 1: should be able to live in a home and not

1285
01:16:26,320 --> 01:16:29,519
Speaker 1: in a commodity. Your life will be better. But that's

1286
01:16:29,520 --> 01:16:31,840
Speaker 1: where they find us. On the internet, where you find

1287
01:16:31,880 --> 01:16:35,840
Speaker 1: everything in these days. At debt strike on Twitter. Oh yeah,

1288
01:16:35,880 --> 01:16:39,439
Speaker 1: at strike, debt on Twitter, strike on Twitter? Got it? Yeah,

1289
01:16:40,800 --> 01:16:44,280
Speaker 1: thank you so much? You really dope talking in here.

1290
01:16:46,800 --> 01:16:56,799
Speaker 1: I feel like reparations. Let's get a beat. You waiting

1291
01:16:56,800 --> 01:17:04,120
Speaker 1: on reparations? Do and I fighting for collective liberation. Yet

1292
01:17:04,200 --> 01:17:06,000
Speaker 1: we're taking on the titans by tell them the big

1293
01:17:06,200 --> 01:17:09,400
Speaker 1: bankers we're making any payments for our hospitalizations or our

1294
01:17:09,439 --> 01:17:11,479
Speaker 1: cars and work credit card. Tell them they should thank

1295
01:17:11,560 --> 01:17:13,439
Speaker 1: us for every dollar they're making up the way the

1296
01:17:13,479 --> 01:17:16,000
Speaker 1: ball us different load, can't bay, won't BA have to

1297
01:17:16,040 --> 01:17:18,840
Speaker 1: tell them? Louis No from Seattle to Nevada. Louis worked

1298
01:17:18,840 --> 01:17:21,200
Speaker 1: a lout b and privatization and the race of that.

1299
01:17:21,360 --> 01:17:23,960
Speaker 1: We shouldn't oh straight up abolish it. Give us three

1300
01:17:24,040 --> 01:17:27,160
Speaker 1: comments in joblessness to give free healthcare to all of us.

1301
01:17:27,439 --> 01:17:29,720
Speaker 1: We can't pay till we won't pay. You not get

1302
01:17:29,800 --> 01:17:32,200
Speaker 1: that straight, because together we owned the whole bag. Put

1303
01:17:32,240 --> 01:17:34,360
Speaker 1: the lean on my whip. I'm afraid when a part

1304
01:17:34,520 --> 01:17:36,519
Speaker 1: at eight team wanted kicks put it straight in the

1305
01:17:36,640 --> 01:17:39,120
Speaker 1: car started racking the bill. Still, it was confusing to

1306
01:17:39,160 --> 01:17:41,080
Speaker 1: see stuck in my dad up to my neck like

1307
01:17:41,160 --> 01:17:43,560
Speaker 1: I'm through in the sea. Couldn't think long term what

1308
01:17:43,680 --> 01:17:46,400
Speaker 1: the future could be. No, I can't unlearn the fucking

1309
01:17:46,479 --> 01:17:49,120
Speaker 1: users agree, I gotta pay that the hope of my fortune.

1310
01:17:49,120 --> 01:17:50,960
Speaker 1: Don't want to say jack with all the old make

1311
01:17:51,040 --> 01:17:52,760
Speaker 1: me feel like I'm stuck in a straight jack. But

1312
01:17:52,840 --> 01:17:55,120
Speaker 1: then told the state tax the rent wise stays that

1313
01:17:55,400 --> 01:17:57,840
Speaker 1: will I survive? I bet if I will. I wish

1314
01:17:57,920 --> 01:18:00,280
Speaker 1: that I didn't once I see that medical bill, don't

1315
01:18:01,760 --> 01:18:12,840
Speaker 1: jesus damn reph. Hey, my name's dope knife Franca, and

1316
01:18:13,000 --> 01:18:17,400
Speaker 1: we are waiting on reparations. Hurry the fuck see you

1317
01:18:17,439 --> 01:18:22,200
Speaker 1: guys next week. Waiting on reparations is a production of

1318
01:18:22,280 --> 01:18:25,040
Speaker 1: I heart Radio. Listen to Waiting on Reparations on the

1319
01:18:25,120 --> 01:18:28,160
Speaker 1: I heart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get

1320
01:18:28,200 --> 01:18:28,880
Speaker 1: your podcasts.