A year to the day after the eviction of Occupy Wall Street, the Rolling Jubilee–in conjunction with Occupy Sandy–put paid to the notion that it all ended on that day last year. It was a distinctively Occupy event with music, comedy, speed talks, radical nuns, great art, awesome social media. And it was obvious that it’s a year later: with a cause, with a direct action that was also a symbolic action, one that was engaged with by hundreds of thousands of people. Now that the confetti has settled, the event has raised just shy of $300,000 which abolishes nearly $6 million in debt.

When I got to Le Poisson Rouge, the venue on Bleecker Street that so kindly hosted the event, at 5.30 there was already a queue for an event that was supposed to start at 8. Inside we launched into a frantic round of rewrites as the show’s director, filmmaker Astra Taylor, decided that many of the speed talks were too long and too preachy. Written texts were thrown away and material was committed to memory or radically reshaped. Very Occupy.

Before we felt ready, the first act appeared in the audience, playing Brecht-style  versions of New Orleans brass band music, which reminded me of a long-lost UK band called the Happy End, benefit regulars in the London of the 1980s. And then I realized this event was so unlike those benefits. Instead of a crowd of mostly quite drunk, mostly young men demanding to see the band, this diverse, mostly quite stoned crowd were very mellow. They listened with good humor and even enthusiasm to the revamped talks. In fact, I saw quite a few people happily leaving before the A-list stars were on, clearly having got what they came for: a collective experience of mutual aid and debt resistance.

On Flavorwire, Judy Berman captured the feel very well, after talking about the surprising emotion she felt after filling out one of our “Hello! My Debt Is” nametags:

What I experienced after I filled out my name tag and stuck it among the others on a wall of personal debt made the night about much more than rare performances. There was something of Zuccotti Park in the air, with handwritten financial horror stories blown up to poster size and stuck on the wall of LPR’s bar area, as Occupy-related organizations tabled and handed out flyers.

She called it the “best telethon ever,” and I would have to agree.

Lizz Winstead and David Rees at the social media desk

The real hub of the evening was the social media operation. From four laptops, the tech team co-ordinated the Rolling Jubilee website, Twitter feeds, Facebook posts, live-streaming and the email account. It was amazing to watch. The Facebook page achieved over 700,000 views. Tweets were running too fast for my phone to keep up. It was from this interface that the donations were raised and, according to those reading, many heartbreaking stories accompanied them. Not a few people gave a dollar because it was all they could afford but they wanted to be part of it anyway.

I had the job of talking about climate, debt and Sandy in two minutes or less, cut to 90 seconds at the last minute. I have to say, if you’re going to give a talk, do have Janeane Garofolo go on first, she warms the audience up amazingly. Seriously, I was gratified by what seemed to be serious attention after two hours of the event and others confirmed my impression. At least in New York, I do have a feeling that the climate debate is over–or more exactly, it’s changed to what it should always have been: how do we live sustainably from now on? It was a little nerve-wracking standing in the wings but on the stage it was easy to feel how supportive the audience were. When Occupy legend Amin Husain talked about Occupy Sandy, you could have heard a pin drop.

Jeff Magnum at the RJ (right)

Soon afterwards, that was really not the case, with Jeff Magnum ending the show on a blistering high note. I was probably the only person in the room who had not heard his work before to judge from the intense attention, and I have to say, he was totally excellent. Although the song going around my head all day was an old Woody Guthrie number that Strike Debt activist David Backer found and set to music

I’ve got more debt than I can ever pay/

More money than I’ll ever see

Piñata!

The evening concluded with a wonderfully anarchic breaking of a piñata, shaped like the Wall Street bull and clouds of glitter and candy filled the room.

Why was this such as success? Because the idea was brilliant. Because people are so tired of being asked for money by every political cause and having nothing to show for it. Because the 20: 1 multiplier of gift to redeemed debt was so exciting. Because it allowed people to talk openly about their own debt and not feel ashamed. Because it shows up the debt system for the rigged scam that it is and brilliantly revealed how simple the alternative could be: a socialized buy-out at 5%. Even with $11 trillion of debt out there, it’s a lot of money but it’s less than the Wall Street bailouts. $550 billion to abolish all debt.

With love to: Astra, Laura, Winter, Yates, Rosa L., Amin, Thomas, Anne, Matt, Aaron, Shyam, Stephanie, Crux, Pam, Sue, Nicole, Mike,  Andrew, Zola, David G, David B, Leina, Bre, Christina, Christopher, Suzanne, Chris, Jim, Jerry, and everyone else in Strike Debt.