After a long day of action planning, including training in Zuccotti Park, a performative walk around the Financial District and a late night discussion in a pub, Strike Debt consensed on its actions for September 17, using the slogan: “We Disrupt Wall Street to Strike Debt.” This will be a non-violent disruptive and celebratory refusal of those who would subjugate our lives to debt, in the place where they do that work of subjugation. It affirms life, love, and companionship over the isolation and fear that is the debt society.

The morning begins at 7am at 55 Water Street. From there the movement will swirl around Wall Street, spreading confetti, bubbles, balloons and a ticker tape parade as a celebration of our refusal to be debt peons and to insist that debt abolition is both necessary and inevitable. There’ll be visual and performative acts of non-violent civil disobedience that will make the point that to live in the red is not a valued life. We assert that we are not a loan in the shadow of the towers built by ratings agency Standard and Poor’s, who give credit ratings to student loans and the CDOs that brought down the global economy. We assert life in the face of AIG, the disastrous insurance company that took billions of federal bailout money as household debt went through the roof. We assert a culture of mutual aid in front of JPMorgan Chase, one of the many corrupt banks that have paid no penalty for their scandalous behavior.

The action will not be measured in numbers, whether of participants or arrests. It’s a qualitative difference, one that will compel Wall Street to show its true colors in barricades, fences, security cordons and mass police presence. All for a few people carrying banners and balloons. What are they so afraid of? Could it be that they worry that the concept of living a life that is not measured by debt might prove popular if people became aware of it?

Want to find out more? Check the Strike Debt Facebook page for updates, come to the Convergence in Washington Square Park on Saturday 15 from 1-4 pm. Figure out how to get involved: because if you’re reading this, you already are.