David Graeber on the Occupy Wall Street Protest & Forgiving Debt of the American Poor

DemocracyNow.org - As President Obama prepares to outline a deficit-reduction plan that includes tax increases, as well as cuts to programs such as Medicare and Medicaid, anthropologist David Graeber proposes a radical solution: cancel the debt of the nation's poor. "Debts between the very wealthy or between governments can always be renegotiated and always have been throughout world history. They are not anything set in stone," says Graeber, author of "Debt: The First 5,000 Years," on Democracy Now! today. "It's generally speaking when you have debts owed by the poor to the rich, debts becomes a sacred situation, more important than anything else. The idea of renegotiating them becomes unthinkable." On the Occupy Wall Street protest, Graeber says, "If you look at who showed up [in Egypt and Spain], it was mostly young people, and most of them were people who had gone through the educational system who were deeply in debt and who found it completely impossible to find jobs. ... The system has completely failed them ... If there's going to be any kind of society worth living in, we're going to have to create it ourselves."

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Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• amy goodman
• democracy now
• dn
• news
• politics
• David Graeber
• OccupyWallSt
• Days of Rage
• Wall St
• protests
• poverty
• financial crisis
• debt

[peacewavenow]

Paul Ryan is a bootlicking-mouthpiece for the wealthy.

The real "job creator" in America is a healthy economy.

A healthy American economy cannot exist without a strong middle class.

Republicans are the enemy of the middle class and the poor.

The extremely wealthy are just fortunate by-products of a healthy economy, they are not "job creators".

[DavesAV6]

LIAR BASTARD.....TAXES HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH HIRING!!!

DEMAND DICTATES HIRING !!!!!

NO DEMAND = NO HIRING !!!

BUSH TAX STRUCTURE IS EPIC FAIL !!!!!

[mulabate]

David Graeber For 235 years USA has been a constitutional Republic, unfortunately! In-fact in combination with Crony & Corporate Capitalism has long produced a "Kleptocracy". The reality is both forms of Capitalism & Republic, all a design of/by/for the few to benefit from while explioting the masses needs outlawing from existance. Republics never do provide direct Citizen Democracy. Citizen Democracy is needed to allow each citizen legal nation ownership & direct rule & control over $/bus/govt

[Christ724]

@TimmyOsman Actually, let's end both

[Christ724]

@TheSteve4200 Neither is typing in all caps

[summondadrummin]

Peak Oil ,Peak Population and a Monetary Regime which creates Peak Debt. Its Nothing New. People have been saying for thousands of years an interest based system is unstable and unjust and we still have the same elite controlled debt based numbers game which is compulsively driving civilization to waste the planets real wealth.

[TheSteve4200]

MICHEAL MOORE-ON AND HIS SUPPORTERS ARE SO GREEN.

PROTEST IN-FRONT OF THE FEDERAL RESERVE BANKS..

YOU CAN BURN WALL STREET TO THE GROUND AND IT WONT CHANGE ANYTHING LOL!!!!!!

AND RAISING TAXES IS NOT A REAL SOLUTION DUMB ASSES..

[TimmyOsman]

STOP FUNDING ZIONISTS

[TimmyOsman]

END THE FED NOT WALL ST