Rebuild the Dream (31 page)

On the other hand, this situation is an organizer's dream. Millions of people have little sense of community and only weak ties to others in similar situations. Technology presents wonderful opportunities to connect quickly, share ideas, and build organizations. The opportunity is there. The question is, what tactics will allow savvy organizers and activists to seize it?

New approaches to protest and community building are necessary for the movement to continue growing. Fortunately, a number of new tactics that operate inside the Occupy or 99% frameworks are already being explored and road-tested. These tactics provide an important pivot from the “anger” stage to the “answers” stage of the 99% movement, while still making the connection to the “Occupy” branding and themes. Tactics like these are providing an invaluable bridge from the actual occupations as the 99% movement matures.

Additionally, other campaigns to improve the economy are gaining traction. Among the most promising are the New Bottom Line, Caring Across Generations, and Rebuild the Dream. (New Bottom Line works with grassroots organizations to challenge the banks to treat low-income people more fairly; Caring Across Generations is committed to justice for those working in the care-giving industries, including domestic workers; Rebuild the Dream anchors a national movement to fix the economy.) Some of these groups have already figured out how to assist
and/or leverage the 99% movement; some provide thriving models to follow or adapt.

Occupy Homes is a loose-knit coalition of activists that help tenants fend off pending evictions by taking over homes at risk of foreclosure. In Harlem, protesters occupied a derelict building's boiler room until the landlord agreed to provide adequate heat and hot water to tenants. In Los Angeles, protesters held a vigil outside a home at risk of foreclosure, then organized a sit-in at the Pasadena regional office of Fannie Mae. The bank eventually called off the eviction and agreed to renegotiate the homeowner's mortgage. In Minnesota, small business owner Ruth Murman credited the support of Occupy protesters in helping her gain more time to move out of her foreclosed home.

Take Back the Land is a network of local organizations (another starfish!) that has, since 2006, been identifying vacant government-owned and foreclosed homes, and moving homeless people into them. They also defend the families against eviction once that happens. They call it “liberating” homes.

With some of the Take Back the Land actions, police have come to execute the eviction and are faced with crowds of people willing to be arrested, and in many instances, the police have just left. Then the banks have waited for things to quiet down before they make a second run at it.

By leveraging the people power of the “Occupy” and “99%” brands, the 99% movement can keep large numbers of people housed. In early 2012, we are seeing some levels of success with that approach in Los Angeles, and with the organization City Life / Vida Urbana in Boston. Beyond securing those homes and making sure people get to stay there, the movement must champion policy changes that would help thousands of other people avoid evictions.

Students across the country have begun participating in an Occupy Student Debt campaign. Even as young people face the highest unemployment of any age group in the country, they face unfair lending practices.

I will let them speak for themselves. They do so eloquently on the
OccupyStudentDebt.com
website:

We did what we were told to do and “followed our dreams,” but we are now trapped by what was meant to be an investment in our futures, not a noose.

Obama's recent student loan “reform” has done nothing for those in default, or those of us with private (bank-backed) loans through Sallie Mae, Citibank, and so on.

It is crucial for our politicians and media to understand the difference between federal and bank-backed loans when discussing the student loan crisis. Bank-backed loans have been stripped of consumer protections, such as deferment for the unemployed, fair debt collection practice requirements, or any meaningful options for lowering interest rates and monthly payments. There are no refinancing rights.

For example, Sallie Mae, America's largest private lender, assigns low-income students variable interest rates of up to 25 percent. This is exploitation, pure and simple, sugarcoated in pamphlets distributed by our college financial aid offices.

Neither federal nor private loans can be discharged in bankruptcy, even for the disabled, whose Social Security checks can be garnished even when living below the poverty level. (However, back child support payments and gambling debt can be discharged in bankruptcy, so in the eyes of the law, it is better to be
a deadbeat parent who went wild in Vegas than a low-income student who tried to get an education.)

If we default, we cannot rent or buy homes, or even find jobs with the 60 percent of employers that check credit. Our professional licenses (nursing/teaching) can be revoked. And with the fees assigned to defaulted loans that double the amount owed, getting back on one's feet is nearly impossible.

We could not all be mythical bootstraps college students. Tuition costs have risen 600 percent between 1980 and 2010. Wages, of course, did not keep up. The predatory for-profit student loan industry has lobbied Congress to strip away necessary consumer protections, allowing our debt to snowball out of control.

As the campaign pushes Congress to reinstate the reforms it dissolved in 2005, it hopes to draw attention to the connection between the increasing cost of college and rising student debt loads. It also aims to highlight the necessity of federally funded institutions of higher education, interest-free student loans, and a requirement that for-profit and private universities reveal their internal finances. Some activists are calling for the abolishment of all current student debt. If an educated workforce is key to our long-term national health and security, then perhaps loans for school should not be treated the same as consumer loans. Both the society and the individual benefit when graduates populate the workforce, so perhaps both should share the pain when there are too few good jobs for the graduates who have taken on the debt. Then again, maybe college should be free, like primary and secondary school.

For more information on how the predatory student loan industry profits from lack of consumer protections and pushing
students into default, check out the student loan documentary
Default
and
studentloanjustice.org
.

Movements cannot live on protest alone; there also has to be inner nurturance and strategic growth. That is why workshops and teach-ins play a vital role in any movement. Economic inequality is at the heart of the movement's concerns. But economic issues are incredibly complex. In fact, confusion and obfuscation about how the financial sector actually works have been powerful tools in the hands of those who want to defend the status quo.

To tear back the curtain, the 99% movement must sponsor in-person gatherings, focused on educating large numbers of citizens and community members on these complex and important topics. Such teach-ins can give Wall Street's casualties the knowledge and tools to fight back in the battle of ideas.

But meeting this challenge will not be easy. Where will the movement find enough qualified and sympathetic economic experts to lead thousands of such gatherings, all across the country? And if there are not enough experts, how will the movement train a sufficient number of them? Here is another problem: economic experts may be good academics, but often they are not the most engaging public speakers. Many are fairly uncharismatic and unentertaining. Meeting the educational challenge will be a real test.

Fortunately, digital technology can help. Rebuild the Dream is producing short videos that feature powerful speakers, arresting animations, and smart infographics to break down economics for the 99%. The organization will distribute “digital toolkits” with these materials; the idea is to make it easy for people to get together, watch some captivating material, and then have a discussion.
While the average American might have great difficulty standing up and giving a coherent lecture on the U.S. economy, practically anyone can press play on a video and then lead a discussion afterward. That's called “watching TV and talking about it,” a skill that almost every American has mastered. This approach combines the best of in-person gatherings with the best of digital education.

The opportunity underscores a larger point about the need to continue to evolve the tactics. Many people might be afraid to go to a large Occupy encampment or a street protest. This is especially true for those who may fear racial or anti-immigrant animus on the part of the police. But there are many, many people who will feel comfortable getting together with a small group indoors to attend a teach-in. The 99% movement must continue to develop forums in safer spaces, so that different kinds of people can participate.

The New Bottom Line is a coalition of national and regional groups, including community organizations, congregations, labor unions, and individuals, all of whom share a vision of a bottom line that puts people before profits. Together, they are working to help American families build wealth, close the country's growing income inequality gap, and advance a vision for how the economy can better serve the many rather than the few.

In October 2011, in conjuncion with “The Other 98%,” they launched the Move Our Money campaign, to publicly move money—at least
$1 billion—
from Bank of America, J. P. Morgan Chase, and Wells Fargo. They began introducing local resolutions in more than fifty towns and counties around the country, to ask those municipalities to
divest
until those banks
invest
in those
communities. The New Bottom Line has also joined the Occupiers in the Occupy Our Homes campaign, bringing in people to support families that are fighting foreclosure and eviction.

Advocates of this approach invite people to put their money where their mouths are. Across the country, people pledge to close their accounts at Wall Street banks to protest their outrageous behavior—before, during, and after our nation's financial crash. The idea is simple: we need to stop feeding what we are fighting. We need to support good banks, banks that will fund our American Dreams, not America's nightmares.

In the first wave of action, centered on November 5, 2011, hundreds of thousands of people all over the country left big banks and moved their money to community banks and credit unions. In October 2011, 650,000 new accounts were opened at credit unions nationwide. One tracking website,
bankmigration.org
, which reflects only those who self-reported how much money they moved, reports millions being moved out of the big banks.

The action has even inspired one state to follow suit. In February 2010, New Mexico's House of Representatives voted to pass a bill that allows the state to move $2 to $5 billion of state funds to credit unions and small banks.

Within our own wallets, we have the power to hold Wall Street banks accountable. We can move our money to community banks and credit unions, institutions that are responsive and accountable to the communities we live in. Community banks know that they depend on the well being of local residents and the
local economy. Credit unions know that they thrive only if their account holders thrive. In other words, they put people before reckless profit-seeking. Wall Street banks have it backward, too often sacrificing people's life savings and homes just to prop up their balance sheets.

Just as green jobs present a win-win solution for the twenty-first-century economy, our nation's more than 2 million domestic workers have another one. A huge “care gap” is emerging in the United States as the baby boomers age and the number of older Americans skyrockets. The current direct care workforce—overworked and underpaid—is one of the fastest growing in the nation because of the tremendous and growing need for care. Thirteen million people needed long-term care and support in 2000; that number is projected to grow to 27 million in 2050. Meanwhile, the current workforce consists of about 3 million people.

Long-term care workers help ensure our elders, parents, and loved ones with disabilities receive quality support. The work they do is vital. However, the care workforce—whether direct-care workers or domestic workers—is compelled to work under strenuous, highly vulnerable, and often exploitative conditions. Domestic workers, many of whom were originally hired as nannies and housekeepers, have increasingly been called upon to tend to the aging relatives of their employers to help fill this gap. They provide vital care for the aging population, yet lack access to appropriate training or pathways to career advancement and citizenship.

It is a situation that transcends right-left politics: everyone at some time in their lives has needed care, and those who provide the care must be respected and supported. Both the aging population and their caregivers are falling through the cracks.

In 2000, a young organizer named Ai-jen Poo founded Domestic Workers United (DWU), an organization of Caribbean, Latina, and African nannies, housekeepers, and caregivers for the elderly in New York. The group waged a successful campaign for landmark legislation in New York State, recognizing the basic labor rights of its members. Now, as director of the National Domestic Workers Alliance (NDWA), Poo and her colleagues at Jobs with Justice are leading Caring Across Generations. This campaign is designed to create millions of quality jobs in home care that cannot be outsourced, have career ladders and job training, and address the crisis in caregiving for our nation's rapidly growing aging population.