Strike Debt!

You are not a loan.

Strike Debt is a nationwide movement of debt resisters fighting for economic justice and democratic freedom.

Debt is a tie that binds the 99%. With stagnant wages, systemic unemployment, and public service cuts, we are forced to go into debt for the basic things in life — and thus surrender our futures to the banks. Debt is major source of profit and power for Wall Street that works to keep us isolated, ashamed, and afraid. Using direct action, research, education, and the arts, we are coming together to challenge this illegitimate system while imagining and creating alternatives. We want an economy in which our debts are to our friends, families, and communities — and not to the 1%.

The Debt Resisters' Operations Manual

Coming Soon

The Debt Resisters’ Operations Manual
Available in print and on the web

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Get Involved

Visit a Strike Debt Event

  • Strike Debt Events April 4, 2014
    • April 4, 2014 · Book as Tactic: NYC Launch for Debt Resisters' Operations Manual

      7:00 pm – 10:00 pm

      20 Cooper Square, Fourth Floor, New York, NY, United States

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      Join us on Friday April 4th for the New York City launch of the fully revised and updated edition of the Debt Resisters' Operations Manual (DROM), published by Common Notions/PM Press. We will discuss the original conception of the DROM as a form of collaborative research to emerge from Occupy Wall Street, and reflect on the possibilities of using the format of the book as an organizing tool in the task of building a debt-resistance movement. Along with a brief introduction to the revised edition of the DROM, the event will also be an opportunity to celebrate the role played by books in emancipatory movements more generally—including book blocs of course! Refreshments will be served, red squares will be distributed, and plans will be hatched for moving from analysis to action in the years to come.

      https://www.facebook.com/events/1375597829385171/?ref_dashboard_filter=upcoming

  • Strike Debt Events April 13, 2014
  • Strike Debt Events April 27, 2014

Current Initiatives

The Rolling Jubilee

We buy debt for pennies on the dollar, but instead of collecting it, we abolish it. We cannot buy specific individuals' debt—instead, we help liberate debtors at random through a campaign of mutual support, good will, and collective refusal. All proceeds go directly to buying people's debt and cancelling it.

The Debt Resistors' Operations Manual

This manual—written by an anonymous collective of resistors, defaulters, and allies from Strike Debt and Occupy Wall Street—aims to provide specific tactics for understanding and fighting against the debt system. You'll find detailed strategies and resources for dealing with credit card, medical, student, housing and municipal debt, tactics for navigating the pitfalls of personal bankruptcy, and information to help protect yourself from predatory lenders. Recognizing that individually we can only do so much to resist the system of debt, the manual also introduces ideas for those who have made the decision to take collective action.

The DROM was originally released on September 15, 2012, and will be available with updates and new chapters through Common Notions/PM Press in early 2014.

The Strike Debt Organizing Kit

Want to build your own Strike Debt chapter? Here's how. The information and advice in this kit can be used by Strike Debt affiliates, or by existing groups who would like to affiliate because they have shared goals. It is a living document, which means it will be revised periodically to reflect the experience and input of new affiliates.

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