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.

🧵 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.

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.

🧵

https://twitter.com/mattyglesias/status/1561335917390036993

It is obvious that canceling *some* debt is not the end game. @StrikeDebt has been coupling the demand for a full student debt jubilee and free public higher ed since 2012.

Stop acting like we are dummies who don’t see the deeper dilemma only you, smart man, can discern.

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🧵 Like all fundamentalists, technocratopians are deeply resistant to evidence demonstrating that their worldview is flawed. They are particularly hostile to proof that the byzantine systems they favor perpetuate the very injustices and harms they purport to want to prevent.

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. 🧵

nytimes.com/2021/07/02/opi… Many ancient civilizations periodically wiped the slate clean, cancelling debts and bringing creditors back in line to avert social breakdown. (David Graeber's "Debt," of course, has much to say on this.) 2

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. What @AOC says is correct.

The provision in the relief bill saying student debt cancellation isn't taxable is a big deal.

The worry that debt cancellation might be taxed as income has disappeared. Poof.

Now we need ensure the debt itself disappears.

https://twitter.com/thehill/status/1370448294560817152

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: 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.