On Anniversary Of Zuccotti Eviction, OWS Raises $200K To Erase Debt

Remember this? (Scott Lynch)

One year ago Occupy Wall Street's encampment in Zuccotti Park was forcibly evicted by the NYPD in the dead of night. Lawsuits were filed, barricades were erected then lifted (then erected again), and many wondered if the death of a staging ground meant the death of a movement. Tonight, the Debt Strike arm of Occupy Wall Street will hold a sold-out Rolling Jubilee "telethon" to help erase some of the crushing debt that plagues this country's citizens, while Occupy Sandy volunteers continue to tend to the city's hurricane-ravaged regions.

According to the Rolling Jubilee website, the movement has raised $203,804 and counting for the purpose of buying debt and eliminating it. That money will erase roughly $4 million in debt alone. However, Lawrence White, an economics professor at NYU, tells The Guardian that the gesture is mostly symbolic. "I truly believe the Occupy Wall Street people have good intentions in all of this. It's good PR, it's good theatrics, but in terms of actual accomplishment, it's pretty small." White notes that if the debt has been reduced to such a tiny fraction, it's unlikely to provide any psychological relief to the debtor (that probably faded long ago), and it won't correct the debtor's credit score.
Still, buying up debt exposes how absurd and cruel the entire system is: the average household's credit card debt was $14,517 in March. And that's down from $16,383 because credit card companies realized they can't get blood from a stone.

You can watch tonight's event at Le Poisson Rouge via livestream at the Rolling Jubilee website. The telethon features Neutral Milk Hotel's Jeff Mangum, members from Sonic Youth, Fugazi, and TV on the Radio, Lee Ranaldo, Tunde Adebimpe, David Rees, Lizz Winstead, and Janeane Garofalo.

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