Astra Taylor @astradisastra Twitter profile | Pikagi

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Astra Taylor

@astradisastra

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director of documentaries, writer of books and essays, retired fuzz guitar

https://t.co/1fUopLYOuK

Joined September 2011

Don't wanna be here? Send us removal request.

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@astradisastra

Astra Taylor

11 months

My 2023 Massey lectures and book, THE AGE OF INSECURITY, explore how seemingly disparate crises—rising inequality and declining mental health, the ecological emergency, and the threat of authoritarianism—originate from a social order built on insecurity.

Forget self-care. To feel better in this world, we need collective action, says Massey lecturer...

From rising inequality and declining mental health to climate change disasters and the threat of authoritarianism, insecurity has become a “defining feature of our time,” says writer, filmmaker and...

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@astradisastra

Astra Taylor

4 years

Then why should they have to pay for chemo?

@JoeBiden

Joe Biden

4 years

Let me be clear: No one should have to pay for coronavirus testing or treatment.

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@astradisastra

Astra Taylor

4 years

My husband Jeff Mangum of Neutral Milk Hotel just sent out a message in support of Bernie Sanders and I endorse his endorsement.

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@astradisastra

Astra Taylor

1 year

I am so fucking disgusted right now A bipartisan bill just passed in the senate that: 1) kills student debt relief & makes people pay interest cancelled due to the pandemic payment pause 2) reinstates public service loan forgiveness for 260,000 people (!!!) assholes.

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Astra Taylor

2 years

My reaction to today's long-awaited news. This is a stepping stone, not the destination. A President who wanted to do NOTHING had to do something. Up to 20 million people could be debt free. Hopefully some of them will join the fight for everyone else. Let’s. Keep. Going. 🧵

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@astradisastra

Astra Taylor

2 years

Student debt cancellation is already means tested. If you have student debt, it means you need cancellation. Sometimes shit is simple.

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@astradisastra

Astra Taylor

1 year

Today she voted with the Republicans to strip working class people of student debt relief.

@MGPforCongress

Marie Gluesenkamp Perez

@MGPforCongress

1 year

Teams get shit done, so I’m teaming up with Jared Golden and Mary Peltola to rebuild the Blue Dogs into something useful for working people. We know who we are, and we know how to win. Congress needs more people like us, and a lot fewer weirdos with white nationalist friends.

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Astra Taylor

4 years

Today I've been thinking of 2020 less as the year of unexpected shocks & catastrophes more as the year predictions came true. For decades concerned people have studied the likelihood of many bad things happening & proposed intelligent ways to prevent or mitigate them. A thread:

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@astradisastra

Astra Taylor

2 years

Today the NYT editorial board came out against student debt cancellation. They are so desperate for arguments opposing relief they cite Betsy DeVos twice. It's so awful we annotated it. I advise you read our version. It has facts, sass and a moral core.

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NYT Student Debt Editorial, Annotated by the Debt Collective

The New York Times wrote an opinion about student debt. This opinion is a bad one. It’s so bad, we annotated it. Our edits are bolded, and…

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@astradisastra

Astra Taylor

1 year

Once again, this is likely heading for a Biden veto. Good! But we can't be complacent. Because this is the kind of thing we can expect to see more of 1) Biden must use his full legal authority to deliver on his promise to cancel debt 2) Debtors need to keep getting organized

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@astradisastra

Astra Taylor

2 years

Are you someone who will benefit from the student loan relief announced today? If so, please fight for others who are still crushed by debt. That's how we got this far. Folks staying to fight, even after their loans were erased. Because no one's free, until everyone is free.

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@astradisastra

Astra Taylor

1 year

FYI the movement for student debt relief actually began with students who pursued technical/vocational degrees, but you wouldn’t know that since you went to Reed.

@RepMGP

Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez

1 year

Expansions of student debt forgiveness need to be matched dollar-for-dollar with investments in career & technical education. I can’t support the first without the other. The severe shortage of trades workers needs to be seen & treated as a national priority. It’s about respect.

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Astra Taylor

1 year

#2 should read: it will reinstate more than 260,000 already cancelled student loans owed by educators, nurses, first responders, and other public service workers

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@astradisastra

Astra Taylor

3 years

Some very serious points about student debt: 1. Cancelling it is an economic stimulus 2. Biden can use executive authority to do so 3. Tons of poor people w/out college degrees have student debt 4. STUDENT DEBT SHOULDN'T %$@^! EXIST BECAUSE EDUCATION SHOULD BE A HUMAN RIGHT

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@astradisastra

Astra Taylor

2 years

Debt has long been a tool of profit-making, social control and racial domination. And that certainly goes for student loans. Re-upping my animation YOUR DEBT IS SOMEONE ELSE'S ASSET which condenses thousands of years of history into 7 minutes. Cancel it.

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Astra Taylor

10 months

When Silicon Valley Bank crashed earlier this year, President Biden saved the bank and its financial investors within 72 hours. There was no political grandstanding over whether Section 13(3) of the Federal Reserve Act provided the authority to bail out venture capitalists.

@StrikeDebt

The Debt Collective 🟥

10 months

Our New Op-ed: Biden must act now to make student debt relief a reality—no matter what the Supreme Court says.

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@astradisastra

Astra Taylor

2 years

That’s why we intend to keep fighting until all student debt is canceled and college is free. If Biden can cancel this much debt, he can cancel it all. And one day, a president will. And yes, we are coming for medical debt, rent, and carceral debt too.

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@astradisastra

Astra Taylor

4 years

Gotta remind the idiots who think coronavirus is spread by immigrants and the poor that *80 percent* of people have never flown on a plane, not even once. It was the world's comparatively affluent that helped this things jump across oceans in an instant, not the impoverished.

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Astra Taylor

3 years

As someone who's been organizing for student debt abolition for almost a decade, it's sad to see fellow leftists mock @AOC ’s recognition that this is a critical moment to mobilize around the issue. She's right. It is. If you want debt cancellation, it's time to act. Thread.

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@astradisastra

Astra Taylor

11 months

Not fast enough. The problem is speed. This plan buys time for more baseless, bad faith, billionaire-backed lawsuits to get lined up with rogue judges eager to block anything that helps working people. Under HEA you can cancel debt immediately. That's what fighting looks like.

@POTUS

President Biden

11 months

In the wake of today's Supreme Court decision on student loan relief, we need a new way forward. And we're moving as fast as we can. Here's what's next:

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Astra Taylor

3 years

I'm in @nytopinion arguing that the time has come to revive the spirit of jubilee. Student debt, medical debt, court debt, back rent, and more must go. A "recovery" that only helps the wealthy is not acceptable. We need reconstruction & debt abolition.

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Opinion | Make Americans’ Crushing Debt Disappear (Published 2021)

The American dream used to be owning a home with a white picket fence, but now it is getting out of debt.

www.nytimes.com

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@astradisastra

Astra Taylor

5 months

The American way: Election fraudsters can walk away from their debts but student borrowers can't.

@axios

Axios

5 months

Rudy Giuliani has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, per a Thursday court filing. The filing comes as he has been mired in debt stemming from multiple legal cases — most notably the $148 million he owes for defaming two Georgia election workers.

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@astradisastra

Astra Taylor

4 years

Since I see #GeneralStrike is trending I thought I'd share something I just read. After more than 37,000 of baristas petitioned, Starbucks is temporarily closing its cafes w pay. Victories are still possible but workers have to stand up for themselves.

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Starbucks closes nearly all cafes during coronavirus outbreak, will pay staff 30 days

Starbucks announced Friday that for the next two weeks it will temporarily close all of its cafe-only stores and only operate drive-thru and delivery services amid the coronavirus pandemic.

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@astradisastra

Astra Taylor

2 years

I coined a new term: Technocratopian A technocratic, elitist utopianism characterized by an aversion to universal social programs and an erroneous faith that arcane bureaucratic systems can accurately distinguish the “deserving” from “undeserving” in the allocation of benefits🧵

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@astradisastra

Astra Taylor

4 years

One of my recent text exchanges with David Graeber. I complimented his prose, which is always as pleasurable to read as it is illuminating. His response is classic David. Writing well--meaning accessibly, invitingly--is a political act.

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@astradisastra

Astra Taylor

1 year

In the Senate Manchin, Tester, & Sinema joined w/ GOP to pass and Bennet & Warner didn't bother to vote.

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@astradisastra

Astra Taylor

2 years

To me, the real victory is the fact that millions of people now think 10 or 20k of cancellation is not enough. A HUGE difference from ten years ago. In the wise words of @rsgexp we have raised expectations. Now that is something to work with.

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@astradisastra

Astra Taylor

4 years

Did Ohio go blue? No. So shut up. Anti-Trump Rs didn't deliver voters bc they have no base; they deserve no say over what comes next. They've been repudiated at the ballot box & by common sense. Their deadly policies don't work, esp in a crisis, and will only strengthen Trumpism.

@JordanUhl

jordan

4 years

here's what dnc speaker & potential biden cabinet member john kasich had to say about progressives today

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Astra Taylor

4 years

Italy is suspending all mortgage and many debt payments as coronavirus spreads. The US should do the same. People who can't make ends meet in the coming economic downturn shouldn't feel bad or suffer quietly--they should organize and demand relief.

@StrikeDebt

The Debt Collective 🟥

4 years

Work stoppage. Rent strikes. Debt strikes. No more Nancy Pelosi symbolically tearing up a speech. Burn your student debt noticies. Burn your medical bills. Fight back.

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Astra Taylor

1 year

@NemesisOfPower ack - it will reinstate more than 260,000 already cancelled student loans owed by educators, nurses, first responders, and other public service workers.

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Astra Taylor

4 years

Just learned Tara Reade went to high school in my hometown & knows family friends who've long heard & believed her story. At bare minimum Dems should be running someone w a spotless record on this front. A certain candidate who has never sexually harassed anyone comes to mind.

@democracynow

Democracy Now!

4 years

Tara Reade, a former staffer in Joe Biden's Senate office, says he sexually assaulted her in 1993. "I actually tried to tell this story to some extent in 1993," she says. "But I was too afraid."

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Astra Taylor

1 month

Make no mistake, this is a test flight. If they can make student debt cancellation illegal for some people, they will do it for others. Student debtors and their allies need to stick together and stick up for each other. Contact the reps below.

@StrikeDebt

The Debt Collective 🟥

1 month

🚨🚨🚨This is a red alert 🚨🚨🚨 Congress wants to make student debt cancelation ilegal. Specifically @SenSchumer @RepJeffries @SenatorCantwell @SenDuckworth & @RepRickLarsen 45 million student debtors need to see this & get VERY VERY loud 📢📢📢

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Astra Taylor

11 days

Here’s our full-throated defense of outside agitators. The presence of community members and experienced activists in campus protests is nothing to be ashamed of. We need to connect with and learn from others to build a better world.

We Need “Outside Agitators”

Pro-Palestine student protesters are being smeared as puppets of shadowy “outside agitators.” The presence of community members and experienced activists in the protests is nothing to be ashamed of:...

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@astradisastra

Astra Taylor

4 years

David didn't want us to owe him anything, he gave his gifts freely. Gifts of ideas, knowledge, optimism, and friendship. He wanted a world of boundless generosity, and that's how he lived. We've lost a comrade and a very special soul. Thank you David. Fuck you 2020.

@StrikeDebt

The Debt Collective 🟥

4 years

We all owe David so much and his loss is unimaginable. This is devastating. We love you David.

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Astra Taylor

3 years

In today’s dollars @joebiden paid $33,598 for 4 yrs of tuition/room&board at UofDE Today it costs $30,922 a year or $123,688 for 4 years. Today's students pay $90,090 MORE for the same degree. Mass debt cancellation is about PARITY with his generation.

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Biden is already backtracking on his promises to provide student debt relief | Astra Taylor

Let’s be clear: whatever he may say, Biden absolutely has the power to unilaterally cancel all federal student debt

www.theguardian.com

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@astradisastra

Astra Taylor

4 years

I can't help but think that "affect politics" might be a more useful frame than "identity politics" to understand 2020. All this incessant talk of anger, civility, decency—& the insistence that it's not what people say (or their policy proposals) but how they say it that matters.

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@astradisastra

Astra Taylor

2 years

You can now officially apply for student loan relief: It is a beta launch of the application. You may have to refresh the page. Keep trying. Take a screenshot of the confirmation at the end. Then join the fight so for full cancellation & free college.

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Astra Taylor

2 years

Don't panic. Student debt relief isn't dead. It's a stay not an injunction, hopefully we'll be back on track soon. So keep applying: And let this be a reminder. The folks who want to keep us in debt are organized. We we need to be too. Join @strikedebt

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Astra Taylor

2 years

Totally outrageous non-answer from @VP -- she affirms there is a problem and a campaign promise was made, but ignores the fact this is a problem @POTUS can solve with a flick of a pen.

@StrikeDebt

The Debt Collective 🟥

2 years

"What happened to the $10,000 promised? Why did they renege on that?" Here's @VP 's terrible non-answer on Biden's broken promise to #CancelStudentDebt . She says "I get the issue." If only she were in a position to do something about it!

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Astra Taylor

4 years

"History will look back kindly on Sanders. The question is how generations to come will look back on the rest of us—the 'us' of the Sanders campaign’s rousing slogan. Let’s make the future proud."

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Astra Taylor

4 years

Nothing like giving Colin "WMD" Powell a prime convention slot while claiming to be the party that opposes fake news and alternative facts. It's just embarrassing.

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@astradisastra

Astra Taylor

11 months

I’m giving this year’s Massey Lectures. Book drops Sept 5th, the day the Canada tour kicks off. I was shocked and honored when they asked me to do it, weirdo that I am. I did my best to produce something that speaks to the intersecting crises of our time.

Forget self-care. To feel better in this world, we need collective action, says Massey lecturer...

From rising inequality and declining mental health to climate change disasters and the threat of authoritarianism, insecurity has become a “defining feature of our time,” says writer, filmmaker and...

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@astradisastra

Astra Taylor

3 years

Whittling down the case for a jubilee—the cancellation of debts and rebalancing of power between regular people and elites—to 1000 words meant leaving out most of the history. The connection between debt and democracy is profound. Here's what got cut. 🧵

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Opinion | Make Americans’ Crushing Debt Disappear (Published 2021)

The American dream used to be owning a home with a white picket fence, but now it is getting out of debt.

www.nytimes.com

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@astradisastra

Astra Taylor

9 months

Here it is, folks. This is serious. Do you have student debt? Any at all? Then this dispute tool is for you. Take 10-20 mins to submit it. You have nothing to lose but your odious and illegitimate student loans.

@StrikeDebt

The Debt Collective 🟥

9 months

There has never been an organized effort to apply or ask the Department of Education to use its legal authority to cancel your student debt—until now. Today, we're rolling our NEW Student Debt Release Tool: FILL OUT HERE:

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Astra Taylor

11 months

We don’t need him to do everything *humanly* possible to provide debt relief. We need him to do everything *presidentially* possible — and what he announced ain’t that.

@jonfavs

Jon Favreau

11 months

Joe Biden is doing everything humanly possible to give people student debt relief

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@astradisastra

Astra Taylor

2 years

Did you know that the White House could have canceled the debt immediately and automatically, without requiring individual applications, and cut these lawsuits off at the pass? Well, they didn't. Even though @StrikeDebt and others, including their own officials, warned them.

@WhiteHouse

The White House

2 years

If you are one of the 40 million Americans who could benefit from up to $20,000 in student debt relief: Did you know Republican officials are suing to prevent you from getting this relief? As @POTUS would say: it's ridiculous.

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Astra Taylor

14 days

A 🧵about the “outside agitator" trope, inspired by our book SOLIDARITY, which looks at why “outsiders” are so threatening & so vital. Outside support matters to movements. Not everyone denounced as an outside agitator is an outsider. But outside agitators are good, actually.

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@astradisastra

Astra Taylor

8 months

I got to do a fun wide-ranging @NewYorker interview. It covers everything from my new Massey Lectures book The Age of Insecurity, my unschooling childhood, updates from the Debt Collective ( @StrikeDebt ), and even my years on the road w Neutral Milk Hotel

Astra Taylor’s Age of Insecurity

The activist and writer sees capitalism as an insecurity-producing machine.

www.newyorker.com

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@astradisastra

Astra Taylor

2 years

Biden should have, and could have, done much more than cancel $10-20,000—he should have made the relief automatic, instead of imposing unnecessary hurdles. For millions of people these amounts don't touch their interest, and won’t reduce their monthly payments. That's unjust.

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@astradisastra

Astra Taylor

11 months

A reminder: The case before the Supreme Court is not about the legality of student debt relief writ large. It is about the specific legal tool @POTUS used to deliver relief. He has alternatives. Regardless of how SCOTUS rules, the fate of debt cancellation is in Biden's hands.

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@astradisastra

Astra Taylor

2 years

Last year Navient spent $1.7 million lobbying to keep us in student debt of $1.7 trillion. It earned $717 million in profits. Abolish Navient. Cancel student debt.

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Student-loan companies have spent millions fighting efforts like Biden's $10,000 debt-cancellation...

"It's upsetting because you vote for Democrats, and they honestly never really follow through with their promises at all," one borrower told Insider.

www.businessinsider.com

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Astra Taylor

2 years

the handwringing from these types about student debt cancellation is just further proof it isn't yet another hand out to the rich

@kenklippenstein

Ken Klippenstein

@kenklippenstein

2 years

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Astra Taylor

4 years

"We’ve lost a central member of a precious tribe: activist academics are a rare breed, and rarer still are ones as eccentric, ingenious, and committed as he was." A remembrance of David, with more tributes to come, at the @nybooks .

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David Graeber, 1961–2020 | Astra Taylor

David Graeber, the anthropologist and activist, died aged fifty-nine on September 2, 2020. The New York Review, to which he began contributing last year, is collecting tributes from his friends and...

www.nybooks.com

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@astradisastra

Astra Taylor

4 years

Whatever way this goes, the Electoral College is a farce.

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Astra Taylor

4 years

Bezos could give all 876,000 Amazon employees a $100,000 bonus and still have the vast fortune he had pre-Covid.

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@astradisastra

Astra Taylor

4 years

Play it again and again until all the debt is gone.

@StrikeDebt

The Debt Collective 🟥

4 years

We might sound like a broken record but it's worth repeating: Joe Biden's Education Secretary can UNILATERALLY cancel ALL student debt. It's almost as simple as her waiving a magic wand. Here's some of the legal explanation behind it. Thread.

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Astra Taylor

2 years

Host: If I was 23 I’d be all for debt cancellation. Are you for it? @Braxtonbrew96 : I am. And if I was 65 and having my social security garnished because I defaulted on my student loans I’d be for it too.

@StrikeDebt

The Debt Collective 🟥

2 years

JUST NOW: We went on @NewsNationNow to make the case for canceling student debt 👇🏽 “This is politically popular, this is morally advantageous, and the macroeconomics are also on our side.”

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Astra Taylor

2 years

Don't forget that the "immediate" cancellation of a "minimum" of $10,000 for everyone, without an income cap, was the baseline of @POTUS 's student debt relief commitment. Anything less than relief for all borrowers means he's defaulting on a core campaign promise.

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@astradisastra

Astra Taylor

3 years

“With Extreme displeasure” – that’s how Betsy DeVos reluctantly approved loan discharges for 16,000 borrowers who were scammed & defrauded by for-profit schools. Now think of how abjectly miserable she'll be when we make @JoeBiden cancel student debt for 45 million.

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Astra Taylor

4 years

Gotta pause to appreciate what a demented chant “Stop the vote” is in a country that fancies itself a democracy.

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Astra Taylor

4 years

Action is key. Caught off guard, we're stuck with reaction, disoriented and scrambling. But if we can face the facts, and honestly assess the risks and possibilities ahead, we might be able to move forward with some clarity and, proactively, strategize and shift course.

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Astra Taylor

3 years

A wise older radical friend once told me she thought that a lot of activists don't actually "burn out." They quit due to hurt feelings. Can't help but think about that as I look at this site. Debating is good, but try not to treat people—esp potential comrades—with contempt.

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Astra Taylor

1 month

You know how we'd know that student debt cancellation was actually a subsidy to the affluent? You'd be for it.

@BillAckman

Bill Ackman

1 month

Student loan forgiveness sounds great for borrowers overburdened with high interest rate debts they cannot repay. The problem is that the subsidy appears to go principally to more affluent families at the cost of burdening those who didn’t attend college or whose parents saved to

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Astra Taylor

2 years

Turning on student loan repayments is a “high priority for the administration.” Why? Optics. WH source said doing so affirms the narrative things are “back to normal.” So cruel and stupid. We’re still in a pandemic. @POTUS made a promise to cancel student debt he must keep.

@BidenTracking

Tracking Biden From The Left | Newsletter 9/18

2 years

. @PressSec : "In the coming weeks, we will release more details about our plans. A smooth transition back into repayment is a high priority for the administration."

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Astra Taylor

2 years

That has never happened before in history and it provides further proof that debtors have power when we come together and get organized. Getting organized is key.

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Astra Taylor

4 years

Soon we will have 5 far right Justices on the Court installed by Presidents who came to power after losing the popular vote. A reminder that the threat of populism has been overblown. Worrying about the tyranny of the minority would've been and is a more appropriate response.

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Astra Taylor

3 years

One of my personal favorite memories of Occupy Wall Street. At the end of a long day, I asked Jeff to sing for the occupiers camping out. I found this moment, when people started singing along, so moving. “We know who our enemies are.”

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@astradisastra

Astra Taylor

2 years

Think of what we can do moving forward. After years of organizing, including multiple successful debt strikes, borrowers and their allies pushed a reluctant administration to deliver broad based student debt cancellation.

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Astra Taylor

2 years

My statement on the latest White House news: “The current debt cancellation proposal being floated by the White House is frankly pathetic, failing to meet the bare minimum of President Biden’s campaign promises. 1/

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@astradisastra

Astra Taylor

2 years

I feel like I have entered the Matrix. To be harping on and working for something for so long -- when at the start people thought it was so pie in the sky -- to the president announcing it and then this.

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Astra Taylor

27 days

This is such an important thing to openly discuss - bc we are all ultimately impoverished by a system where only affluent folks can afford to write books (or do journalism, make documentaries, or make art, etc).

@strawburriez

Roxanna Asgarian

28 days

The amount of broke I am right now in the midst of professional accolades is truly mind boggling. It’s hard to talk about without sounding like a dick but it’s real and it’s getting me down.

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@astradisastra

Astra Taylor

11 months

Abolish student debt, abolish the Supreme Court.

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Astra Taylor

1 month

A reminder that a US president leaning into debt cancellation like this was unimaginable not that many years ago. Do we need to keep pushing so actions match words? Yes. Do we need to keep fighting to win not only debt relief but free college? Ofc. Organizing is everything.

@POTUS

President Biden

1 month

I said I wouldn't back down from using every tool at our disposal to get student loan borrowers the relief they need. That's why today we're announcing new plans that, if implemented, would cancel student debt for millions more.

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Astra Taylor

2 years

Appealing a Trump-appointed judge’s sabotage of student debt relief won’t cut it with the tens of millions of people counting on cancellation. ⁦My latest on the fact that @POTUS ⁩ has another legal tool at his disposal — and why he needs to use it.

Tweet card media

Young voters blocked the ‘red wave’. Biden must deliver on student debt cancellation | Astra Taylor

Biden acknowledged that student debt relief helped motivate ‘historic’ turnout. But we have yet to see a penny of actual relief

www.theguardian.com

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Astra Taylor

10 months

The Age of Insecurity exists as a physical object in the world. Officially publishes September 5.

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Astra Taylor

4 years

None of these warnings had particularly long odds. We are, basically, where the data and probabilities said we'd be if we didn't act.

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Astra Taylor

3 years

A long-brewing essay about how student loan cancellation became an issue, the power of social movements, double standards for corporate debtors, the challenge of reckoning what we owe, and an attempt to pay tribute to my late, great friend David Graeber.

How the Biden Administration Can Free Americans from Student Debt

In the anthropologist David Graeber’s view, the balance sheet must periodically be wiped clean, to free us from debt as an economic burden and as an ideology that distorts our interactions.

www.newyorker.com

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Astra Taylor

9 days

Warms my heart to see this and also saddens it. Teenagers stepping up because the adult leadership class is failing them.

@BTnewsroom

BreakThrough News

9 days

BREAKING: High school students from across Boston walk out of class to join the MIT student encampment in response to the increasing police repression. Eleven high schools, including private high school Boston Latin, have walked out to stand with Gaza.

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Astra Taylor

4 years

Happy birthday to the love of my life Jeff Mangum. One more year and we will have been together for two decades (!!).

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Astra Taylor

4 years

Cassandras sounded various alarms, and like Cassandra they were mostly ignored. A pandemic in the form of a zoonotic illness that crosses the species barrier? Experts have warned of that for years and suggested lots of ways to avert them.

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Astra Taylor

4 years

Fires, flooding, and storms? Anyone who has followed climate news was aware this was coming and the changes required. Millions of people one disaster away from homelessness, food insecurity, and more debt? We cannot say we had no idea this was the case.

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Astra Taylor

3 years

The plot thickens. That memo Biden keeps saying he's waiting on to see if he can keep his promise of canceling student debt? We FOIAd it. It has existed since April. @NewYorker 's @andrewmarantz tells the story of how we got here and the high stakes.

Tweet card media

What Biden Can’t Do on Student Debt—and What He Won’t Do

Activists argue that the President could cancel student debt with the stroke of a pen, fulfilling a campaign promise. Newly uncovered documents suggest that Biden has been “reviewing” the issue for...

www.newyorker.com

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Astra Taylor

5 months

New data: at least 40% of federal student loan borrowers refused to make their student debt payment in October. Instead they chose to pay rent, eat, see a doctor, buy gas - to live.

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Astra Taylor

2 years

You don't wanna miss tomorrow's Cancel Student Debt Town Hall with @BernieSanders and @StrikeDebt . Tune in to learn about the state of the movement and why cancellation would be a HUGE win for working people. Watch here, 8:30 PM:

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Astra Taylor

4 years

Like may of you, I imagine, I find myself disoriented and feeling like I can't get a grip on the stream of awful events. I write this because I'm just wondering if something shifts if we comprehend the chaos befalling us as both predicted and preventable, instead of unexpected.

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Astra Taylor

3 years

This isn't abt sympathy it's about solidarity. Cancelling all student debt would help 45 million people, benefit us all & point in the direction of education being a public good. If u truly care abt the well-off benefiting from policy there are far more pressing areas to focus on

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Astra Taylor

8 months

yup, she really said that.

@JonWiener1

Jon Wiener

8 months

"Increased insecurity makes workers more fearful of unemployment, more desirous of pleasing their employers through improved performance and higher effort and less apt to quit." –Janet Yellen @astradisastra comments on @thenation podcast @StrikeDebt

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Astra Taylor

2 years

Promoting the con that affluent people's security depends on locking up and punishing poor people instead of working to make a society where people aren't poor and can get the care they need is the real crime.

@equalityAlec

Alec Karakatsanis

2 years

I want to say this clearly: if Democrats try to be a "law and order" party, they will lose. Fascists will always do "law and order" better. The only path to Democrats getting power is to be the party that addresses the root causes of violence by giving people what they need.

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Astra Taylor

3 years

Bullshit. And I'm pretty sure I personally know which rich donors are persuading her to say this. Abominable. And just totally wrong, legally and morally.

@mstratford

Michael Stratford

3 years

>> @SpeakerPelosi says Biden does *not* have the power to cancel student loan debt -- as some Democrats, led by @SenSchumer , are urging him to do. "That has to be an act of Congress," Pelosi says.

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Astra Taylor

2 years

"When you are scammed by a friend, it is a shame. When your country scams you, it is a fraud.” The brilliant @tressiemcphd on why @POTUS must cancel student debt. And on why @strikedebt is stepping in to abolish unjust debt for students in then interim.

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Astra Taylor

4 years

We can’t repeat the mistakes of 2008. This time around we need a “people’s bailout” that includes a far-reaching program of debt cancellation to help those who are not just physically vulnerable but financially precarious better weather the coming storm.

@guardian

The Guardian

4 years

Cancelling student debt was always the right thing to do. Now it's imperative | Astra Taylor

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Astra Taylor

1 year

The Supreme Court is planning to decide the case to kill student debt cancelation without looking at the evidence. There has been NO DISCOVERY or FACT FINDING These justices take bribes & don't even do their homework. But we fact-found. And what we found demolishes the case.

@StrikeDebt

The Debt Collective 🟥

1 year

NEW: The lawsuit against student debt relief claimed student loan servicer MOHELA would lose financial revenue and harm the state of Missouri. We FOIA'd MOHELA's financial documents and this is simply false. After cancelation, MOHELA will earn *more* revenue than ever before.

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Astra Taylor

2 years

I know this is just bad faith concern trolling but I’m going to respond earnestly. Empty snark might be all that’s needed to help protect the corrupt status quo, but building the power to transform the political economy of higher education will take way more than that. 🧵

@mattyglesias

Matthew Yglesias

2 years

What is the plan for the day after universal debt cancellation when masters programs raise tuition and tell prospective students not to worry about it because the debt will be cancelled down the road?

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Astra Taylor

10 years

The capitalist imagination: It's easier to imagine a fleet of self-driving cars than cities w/ free efficient public transit. Or bike lanes.

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Astra Taylor

4 years

A hollowed out, archaic, increasingly unresponsive and oligarchic political system? Same. The fact an elderly and beloved Supreme Court justice might pass away under a Republican-controlled administration? Many respected legal minds brought up this sensitive subject too.

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Astra Taylor

4 years

A lot of Dem Party insiders crowing today are showing they would rather see a realignment with "resistance" Republicans than a rising, diverse, youthful, and class conscious progressive majority. A baleful strategy, and also not one I think can hold long term.

@BillKristol

Bill Kristol

4 years

“Many of Mr. Biden’s college-educated, suburban supporters are right-leaning independents or moderate Republicans...They don’t want to re-elect Donald Trump. And they’re willing to cross over to vote for a Democrat — a moderate and mainstream Democrat.”

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Astra Taylor

4 years

How about thanking the left for pushing your uninspiring candidate over the line in swing states & following their lead in GA? The election would be lost without the GOTV efforts of @IlhanMN @RepRashida @ConMijente @WorkingFamilies @PAStandsUp @LUCHA_AZ & other grassroots orgs.

@politico

POLITICO

4 years

Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her top lieutenants had a stark warning for Democrats today: swing too far left and they’re all but certain to blow their chances in the Georgia runoff that will determine which party controls the Senate

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Astra Taylor

3 years

“The 5/4 decision is a reminder that had RBG stepped down, there would likely have been a different outcome. Her lionization obscured the harm she committed...Sadly, 83-year-old Stephen Breyer appears set to make the same mistake. For the good of democracy, Breyer must retire.”

@BusinessInsider

Business Insider

@BusinessInsider

3 years

Opinion | The Texas anti-abortion decision is the result of a decades-long plan by the right to take over the courts. It's time liberals start treating the Supreme Court as what it is: a warped, anti-democratic institution. By @astradisastra

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Astra Taylor

3 months

Contrary to leftists being clueless or counterproductive as this thread implies, leftists pushing Biden is WHY there is a Plan B (and why there was a Plan A) and why any progress has been made on this front.

@mjs_DC

Mark Joseph Stern

3 months

It gets barely any media coverage, but after SCOTUS shot down Biden's Plan A on student debt relief, his Department of Education immediately pivoted to a Plan B that has wiped out truly massive amounts of debt and just keeps on trucking along. It's an extraordinary achievement.

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Astra Taylor

11 months

Debtors getting angry, hopeful, and organized is what put student debt cancellation on the political map. We've won billions of dollars of relief so far, and we're just getting started. The Supreme Court can strike this iteration of relief down, but it won't have the last word.

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