Strike Debt Meeting - 28 Jan 2013

= Strike Debt Meeting - 28 Jan 2013 =

Attending: Carolyn, Ian, Steve, Joe, Anna, Rich, Jonny, Kendra.

Committee Reports
Venue Report (Joe). Spontaneous celebrations. Would cost around $700-800. Copley square venues are more expensive. We did an event at Hope central church (in JP), which was only a hundred or so dollars. That church has room for 200 people. Other ideas: a VFW hall.

Is the cathedral (at Park Street) a possibility? Anna will check with the Bishop there. 21

Possibly the VFW in Somerville, 617-666-8794? Joe will check.

A medium-sized space packed would be better than a large space sparsely attended.

Programming Report (Dana). Get as many people as possible together, break then up into small groups, and brainstorm possible things to do. We decided against this - Strike Debt people came to their decision over a long period of time, with a disciplined group. Instead: we'll try to get people to the next meeting, and get input there. Goal is for people to sign on to working on this as a project.

We want bands, projections, food, music.

Planning Discussion
The Future of Higher Education has an exposition of how the cost of education has changed over time. The increase in college debt maps exactly to large increases in CEO incomes. This isn't a matter of bad financial planning, it's a systemic structure that's advancing the interest of the 1%. Discuss: how did we get here, and what do we do now?

Student loan debt is savagely protected, but there are mitigating factors. We'd like to get some advice on how the debt collection systems work; tangible information that people facing debt hardships we could use.

Maybe involve someone from NYC who was involved with planning of Debt Jubilee in NYC.

What ideas can we come up with for student debt?

We could intersperse bands and expositions/talking. (Similar to the NYC debt jubilee).

If we get people there, and can make some presentation about the NYC debt jubilee, that will blow away people who've never heard of it before.

Also - work with other people? Maybe Indymedia, Dollars and Sense, progressive caucus of the MTA (teachers union). The MTA caucus is called "EDU", for "Educators for a Democratic Union". Should we include anything that addresses individual testimony and shame? That was a powerful aspect of NYC's strike debt movement.

Is this becoming too big for one event? Maybe a first event where people talk, and then get interested, and a second event where they can come back and do more.

Maybe people could write about their debt on large sheets of paper (artistic interpretation). People can do this while other things were going on.

We have an OB member who has student loan debt coming out of her social security payments. She could probably give a good testimony.

I've heard three natural divisions to this discussion: (1) where we are, (2) how we got there (presenters), (3) what would we like to take as next steps. Invite people to confess. At the end, have someone offer absolution.

I love this idea, but I wonder if we should do it in more than one night. Give people a reason to come back.

By itself, a confessional might be too depressing.

I like three-part idea. I don't see these being long parts, they should only take a few minutes. In "where are we now", perhaps 1-2 people get up and talk, while others write on paper.

In a way, this is like the jubilee/telethon, but without the telethon part. That event went on for several hours; it was really long.

If we end with music (a party), that might be a nicer way to end.

We have some potential leads on music.

I think we can do all three parts, as long as we have concise programming.

In terms of next steps: what kind of transformative plans can we come up with? Give people something to think about.

Last year, there was an Occupy MBTA meeting. As that was going on, there was a person in the corner videotaping testimonials. Eventually, we had a large repertoire of video testimonials.

Part of reason for talking to a lawyer is to avoid giving people bad advice. That's a big responsibility. For me, that means getting a real lawyer. NLG, and UFE have lawyers who might be able to help.

Could we push this as a larger event, and maybe get NYC, other occupies involved?

I've written a couple of skits. This could be a good skit subject.

I'd like to come up with a bunch of creative ideas.

Is there any effort to revisit bankruptcy laws, so that student loans could be forgiven (by bankruptcy)? There may be a few petition campaigns. If there's a legislative flame we could pour fuel onto, then we should do that. However, bankruptcy laws are federal.

This is a really weird situation. On an individual level, it seems hopeless. On a larger level, it's unsustainable. Eventually, who will pay to go to college? Colleges are scared of this. This seems like a daunting thing, but it's not untenable.

In terms of overall medical debt, the NYC's Debt Jubilee was a drop in the bucket. But it was symbolic. What if government paid debts off, using something the size of one of the Bush tax breaks, or bank bailouts.

People could brainstorm ideas of how to work their way out of the debt problem (during the gathering). Let people get in a group and come up with ideas. Go through presidents, and see what their student loan debts were. I'll bet that most presidents didn't have any student loan debt.

I like the idea of people having to say everything, but being able write it on the wall. There are little bursts, but not preachy.

What about food? We're planning to contact Food Not Bombs.

I'd be willing to put together a table with lists of free education available online. MIT Open Courseware, etc.

Other orgs to tie in with: we give them a short slot and ask them to fill it. As long as the talking stays on topic, and doesn't run over time.

We need to nail down a timeframe for this event. Four hours, five hours?

We have to nail down the venue. Perhaps 3:00-7:00pm?

We have all of these ideas - can we flush them out with something more concrete? The budget thing. It would still be good to try to come up with a budget, so that we can ask for funding at the next GA.

I'd like a few hundred dollars for T-shirts.

I think we should nail down the place really fast. We shouldn't wait until the next meeting. The venue may dictate programming to some extent. Could we move that along? This is also relevant to asking for money.

What about having it here (at the Community Church)?

Perhaps we could ask for voluntary donations at the end of the event? Or, donations for T-shirts. Let's pass the hat at the end, and not at the beginning. Wait until the end, so it doesn't seem like we're asking for an admission fee.

Middle East upstairs could be a good venue. Could we check on that?

Dana will ask one of the authors of The Future of Higher Education about speaking. I'd like to see us come up with (1) a time and place, and (2) an estimate of how much money to ask for.

PR/Outreach will probably need some money (printing flyers and such).

How many people do we think might attend? Middle east has several rooms. Folks seem to be leaning towards the room with a capacity of 194. The Middle East doesn't publish rates on their web site, just a contact for booking.

Things that we need to budget for
 * Venue
 * Space (if we do this at the Middle East, we might have to get food from them)
 * Art supplies. Large papers. ($70)
 * T-Shirts (a few hundred dollars)
 * Sound System (shouldn't be an issue if we host the event at the Middle East)
 * Posters/flyers (publicity, and to hand out during the event) We have several whiteboards in the storage space, and markers.

Outreach brainstorming:


 * Posters + Debt Resistors Operations Manual (there's a box of DROM's in the corner of the CCB).
 * Draft of email announcement.
 * DSA is working on some kind of debt event. Should we get them involved?
 * Boston Occupier
 * MIT's radio station
 * Other radio shows, that do political topics
 * Banned in Boston (unregular radio)
 * Boston Phoenix
 * College Newspapers
 * Small town newspapers (Arlington Advocate, JP Gazette)
 * Op-ed or letter to the editor in the Boston Globe
 * Any of the folks who's requests have come into the community forum

In addition to pre-event publicity, we should think about post-event follow-up. Especially if there's a good turnout.

Having a Speaker at the End of Feb
Ann Larson sent an email out, about a scholar who's doing a speaking tour. Carolyn knows him. He also spoke at NYC's debt jubilee. He's speaking in Providence, rather than RI. His specialty is the history of debt resistance. George Caffentzis. He'd like to come to Boston. Possible dates Tue Feb 26th, Wed Feb 27th. Or Sun Feb 24th, during SAA. I think we could do this to a broader audience, or the core group. It should work either way. I think it would be worth getting him as a resource. This would be just another in a series of strike debt issues. It might interest OB people who haven't been around in a while.

This would also be a great opportunity to promote the April 6th event.

What about meeting with George? Wed. seems to be the more popular.

Next Meeting
Next meeting in two weeks. Feb 11th. 6:30-7:00 socialize. 7:00 meeting.