Occupy Offshoot Forgives $1 Million In Random People’s Debt
Occupy Wall Street offshoot, Strike Debt, announced Friday that it has abolished $1.1 million in medical debt for more than 1,000 people.
The protest group did this by buying emergency room debts for pennies on the dollar and then simply forgiving them rather than trying to collect the money, Strike Debt said in a statement.
When a bank, lender or other company, like a hospital, is unable to collect on a debt, it typically sells it to debt buyers or collectors — often at a much lower price than the original amount owed since the odds of collecting the money are low. Whoever buys the debt then attempts to get the money from the debtor.
Citing the large number of bankruptcies that stem from medical bills, Strike Debt’s mission is to stop this collection cycle and abolish the debt altogether.
“Our privatized health care system buries ordinary people in debt all to enrich the 1%,” the group said.
The more than $1 million in debt the group eliminated belonged to 1,064 people, amounting to an average of about $900 in debt per person. These randomly-selected people will receive notices explaining that their debt has been forgiven.
The organization spent about $21,000 to purchase the debt, using money raised from supporters.
To rally the troops around its debt-busting initiative, Occupy’s Strike Debt is planning protests later this month against private insurance companies and other events to raise awareness about hospital closings due to excessive amounts of debt.
Strike Debt originally launched its campaign and fundraising efforts in November, abolishing more than $100,000 in consumer debt before the end of 2012.
(via jillusiveman)
Some people are too loyal for their own good.
A version for tumblr that can be read without opening a new tab, since plenty of people would scroll past this story otherwise.
The bravest woman on Earth.
International Women’s Day, y’all.
This is a true face of courage.
(via osbombing)
So I went to my first big convention at ECCC this weekend, and here are some lovely cosplay shots of myself and my wonderful friends (and husband). Of course, I pretty much half-assed an Iron Man cosplay on Sunday, as well as Mitch Hundred of Ex Machina on Saturday. My husband went as Spider-Man from the Noir series. Special guest appearance by the fantastic Ally (who was also the fantastic photographer on many of these) who came as Pepper Potts on Sunday, and the fantastic osbombing, arielle and sphinxingtongues as the Sentry, Wonder Woman, and the Riddler.
All in all, it was a fantastic time, although I was wholly overwhelmed the entire convention! I got some fantastic commissions, though, and some even more fantastic swag! I’m definitely looking forward to next year!
(via osbombing)
The Riddler continues to capture excessively talented artists.
Justice Scalia Calls Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act a "Perpetuation of Racial Entitlement"
The Supreme Court Justices took in oral arguments regarding Section 5 of the VRA, the point of contention in Shelby County v. Holder, which requires all or parts of 16 “covered” states with long histories and contemporary records of voting discrimination to get federal clearance before making any changes to their voting laws.
Recalling earlier racial statements made by GOP nominee Mitt Romney of “gifts” to minority groups, Justice Antonin Scalia inflamed many civil rights proponents when he suggested that the continuation of Section 5 represented the “perpetuation of racial entitlement.” Adding, “Whenever a society adopts racial entitlements, it is very difficult to get out of them through the normal political processes.”
Progressive advocacy group Demos responded to the statement calling it “a shameless inversion of history,” adding, “Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act has stood as a bulwark against racial discrimination in voting. It is widely recognized as one of the most effective and important civil rights laws ever enacted in this country.”
(Source: nonsensemachine)
a reminder that mental illnesses are actual life-altering disorders and not quirky or cute fashion accessories
(Source: roosterteat, via montoyas)
February 19, 1942: Franklin D. Roosevelt issues Executive Order 9066.
The order provided for the designation of military areas (to be decided by the Secretary of War and commanders of the U.S. armed forces) from which “any or all persons” could be relocated. No specific ethnic groups or sections of the nation were singled out in the text of the order, but it stated that these new powers would serve as “protection against espionage and against sabotage”. In practice, it resulted in the internment of 120,000 Japanese-Americans, nearly two-thirds of whom were American-born citizens; smaller numbers of German- and Italian-Americans were interned as well, but no ethnic group was targeted by the government to the extent that the Japanese were.
Virtually every Japanese-American living on the West Coast was interned, while a small fraction of those living in Hawaii - just over a thousand - suffered the same fate. The justification for the executive order was practical; it was believed that many Japanese, Issei and Sansei alike, could not possibly remain loyal to the United States if it went to war with Japan. It was outwardly practical (the Ni’ihau Incident seemed to prove American suspicions), and it was deeply rooted in racial prejudice. Many white farmers were glad to see their Japanese competition uprooted and displaced; several newspapers printed opinion pieces that supported wholeheartedly the internment based on their own personal feelings toward the Japanese; the American public (including even Theodore Geisel/Dr. Seuss) generally supported the move; and the Supreme Court, the ultimate defender and interpreter of the U.S. Constitution, upheld the constitutionality of the executive order in Korematsu v. U.S. (also see: Hirabayashi v. U.S.). Camps were run by the Wartime Civil Control Administration and the War Relocation Authority; the largest of these by population were Tule Lake and Poston, but the most well-known today is Manzanar.
Some Japanese-Americans escaped internment by volunteering to serve in the U.S. Army, and many of them served in the famous 442nd Infantry Regiment, a unit that fought in Europe after 1944. Ironically, while many of its members’ families remained interned at home based on widespread racism and suspicions of disloyalty, this all-Japanese unit eventually became the most decorated infantry regiment in the history of the U.S. Army: twenty-one of its members were awarded the Medal of Honor.
Executive Order 9066 was eventually rescinded in 1976, and surviving Japanese internees received payments and apologies from the U.S. government in the 1990s. But money paid four decades later could not compensate for the time lost in the camps; the businesses, homes, farms, and other property sold last-minute at ridiculously low prices by their owners or vandalized and destroyed in their absence; and the humiliation and disillusionment at having been denounced by their own countrymen and rounded up by their own government.
(via anklewings)
