Bankrupt the System, Exploit The University

[Nathan (Animas SDS)]

By Sammy Scams, a hi-rollin' proletarian

The recent student struggles in California to transform their
universities have been inspiring examples of what people can do when
they come together, and begin to collectively believe in the future
rather than fearing the threats issued in the present. Social wars
need money, as Alfredo Bonanno (a 74-year old anarchist recently
arrested in Greece for bank robbery) can attest to, and the university
has put the gun in your hands. All you need to do is pull the trigger.
Max out your credit cards, max out your student loans. Bankrupt the
system that is bankrupting us!

All my life, I've been washing dishes, delivering pizza, bagging
groceries, and hustling to make enough to pay rent. I've always been a
working class, Joe "The Plumber" Wurzelbacher kinda guy. You betcha!

In the past, I've dumpster dived, telling myself it was because I
wanted to. But really, I would've preferred to eat the fresh food in
the store. I did it because I didn't want to waste away my entire life
in that hot, wet, greasy dishwashing room. I did it to be able to save
up money so I could quit my job and travel before I became a shriveled
up old prune with arthritis, whose only way to see the world was using
an RV, something that I would probably never be able to afford.

Anyway, I got into some shit with the law, you know the deal. The cops
love to make their quotas. It was military, prison, or college and
some time on probation for me. I applied to college solely to save my
own ass, not for some stupid degree that I can present to a potential
boss for the "opportunity" to spend the next decade kissing his ass.

College is a social structure full of the privileges the state gives
to the middle class. No one ever explained this dope ass scam to me
before! My parents didn't go to college, they didn't know what the
deal was. No wonder you middle class students are so content, I'd
think to myself. No wonder you didn't want a revolution.

Well, now that some of you do, or at least you know there needs to be
some serious changes because the system is breaking down, it's up to
you to pull those triggers.

This is a call for all students to take full advantage of the benefits
the middle class is offered through the university. To bet on the
future and not on the present: to take out as much money in student
loans and credit cards as you can, with no intention to pay it back.

Take advantage of the fact that social movements long before you
forced debtor's prisons out of existence. Commit yourselves to change,
financially! It's not that scary. In fact, it's quite nice seeing
those $$dolla dolla bills$$ roll in every semester and fatten that
bank account!

Rake it in and use it to fund the struggle! Use it so that you can
quit your job and organize. Use it so you can bail out your friends
when they get arrested. Use it so you can buy beer or snacks or a
bounce-castle for your occupied buildings. Use it to fly to other
universities and show them how to do occupations, too.

The government has stolen generations of wealth from our parents,
grandparents, and colonized people from around the world. Shouldn't we
take back as much as they will "loan" us, and use it to destroy this
system before it can steal even more?

Yo, stop that worrying! I can see it from here. Middle class people
worry more than anyone I've ever met: are my kids going to the right
school, are they watching the right TV shows, am I feeding them the
right foods, am I choosing the right college, am I choosing the right
major, am I choosing the right classes, am I choosing the right
career? It's hilarious, really.

You're on the side of the revolution, right? You're on the side of
what's possible, and not this insanity that currently exists, right?

Then don't worry about credit scores or debt collectors. The
liberation you can find in one another can destroy those things. We
only need the time and space to make that liberation real. This money
can help us get there together. And if it doesn't, who cares if you
have a good credit score? YOUR LIFE IS GOING TO SUCK.

Step II:
To get more ambitious, organize with lots of other people on your
campus to all take out the max amount of loans, and then pool them and
share them with everyone who participates, that way some people won't
have the advantage of the government deciding to give them more money
than the amount that others may qualify for. As long as you are taking
out your max allowed amount, you can have access to the pool.
Everything for everyone! Communize the government's money! Destroy
it's social sorting processes! Collapse privileges and create
solidarities.

So many people are already defaulting on loans during this crisis. My
aunt just lost her house, and she was the only one in my family to
actually go to college. Due the fact that our earnings are supposed to
fall short of the last generations, even more people will be in the
same position as us in the future. At least we will be consciously
doing it. At least we will understand our ticket out of it is not a
third job and 4 Red Bulls to get through the day, but rather
collective resistance, refusal, and struggle.

And this debt crisis will generate yet another opportunity in the
future: to fight for student loan amnesty, together, as former
students who took out loans knowing that someday we will fight for
amnesty, and will never even attempt to pay them back. To use the
power of our collective resistance keep the hoarded wealth the system
has loaned us, and refuse to give it back. We will fight to create a
world without credit scores and debt collectors, one where no one is
hoarding wealth and checking our bona fides before giving us access to
it.

For me personally, it's nice to not have to eat out of dumpsters
anymore, and it's nice to be able to fight for change because I don't
have to work. And it's nice to be able to help my family pay their
rent and give my homeless friends a warm place to crash at. It's nice
to be able to send money to political prisoners, and to pay for the
copies to print fliers about the college budget cuts and tuition
increases where I live.

Bet on the future. Max out your student loans before it's too late and
the communization of the universities happens! After that, the
government won't be so quick to hand out loans. They'll realize
students are no longer content to become drones working in corporate
offices or building weapons for the military in university labs, that
students have abdicated their tiny privileges in this society for the
collective liberation in a future one. That a student has become just
the name for one who learns for the sake of learning, and not
collateral for bond issuances and hostages of capitalism clawing for
diplomas and grades to play the lottery of getting a bigger slice of
the pie.

Place your bets on the future now! FAFSA is open! Take ruthlessly from
power, and share selflessly with all.

Organize, discuss, and disseminate.

Create a ballin' revolution! Get paid! Get paid!