The 99% Spring has arrived!
Below is a collection of reflections of students who participated in the 99% Spring trainings from April 9th – 15th. Go through the online training today by learning more at The 99Spring!
By Lindsay Damiano of University of Oregon SLAP
The 99% Spring Training inspired, empowered, and ignited me. Meeting on a gloomy Saturday in Eugene, Oregon, Jeremy, the other host, and I, had no idea what to expect. But surely people started trickling in, each one with a unique powerful 99% story to share, a unique passion, a unique reason for coming to the non-violent direct action training. We shared and empathized; the table included the unemployed, the conservative, the student drowning in loan debt, the old, the young, and the very concerned citizens.
After delving into the heartwrenchingly troubling economic scams that brought this country and all in attendance to the place we are, it was time to learn to act. We role-played actions ranging from protests to sit-ins to lobbying, and confronted the discomfort that often comes with meeting with decision-makers head on, and learned to overcome it. In practice-protesting, learning, and talking about our lives together, we 99% Spring Trainees inadvertently built a powerful team of dedicated activists ready and willing to make a wave of change. The next Student Labor Action Project meeting was charged with ideas, and on April 25th, the day student loan debt is expected to reach 1 trillion dollars, we will be building an enormous Wall of Debt for students to band together in protest and disgust of the rising cost of higher education. I am the 99% because, as a college student with an interest in international relations and political activism, I am forced to take classes to learn a more “marketable career”, which is still anything but secure in this country. The 99% Spring Training taught me, other University of Oregon students, Eugene community members, and 100,000 other activists around the country just how to fight those issues that are plaguing our lives and our futures, and taught us the skills to effectively stand strong and fight back.
By Shane Furman of University of Central Florida SLAP
UCF’s 99% Spring Training was took place with roughly thousands of other trainings across the nation on nonviolent direct action. Ida Eskamani along with Hayley Cavataro and myself help facilitate the training early that Saturday morning. With such a broad array of people who came the meeting, we were shocked on how many people from so many different backgrounds and various ages. They all came together to address the social, political, and the economic inequalities that they’ experience by directly targeting the individuals responsible, the 1%.
Surprisingly enough the majority of the people with an open mind to direct action organizing, because Orlando is a epicenter of electoral political, I took this as a sign for change. These people wanted to empower themselves through creating campaigns that are capable of concrete victories for the working class here in america. With so many people being instructed by one of the most powerful ways of effecting change in america, it’s only a matter of time till we can create a reality for the 99% in which live in a fair economy.
By Annie Mombourquette of UMass SLAP
For me, being part of the 99% means I do not get a voice in decisions affecting my everyday life. As a student at the largest public university in Massachusetts, decisions other people make without input affect my everyday life, whether it be working hours without compensation at my job on campus, fee hike after fee hike for my public education, and most prevalent, my student debt with the threat of unemployment upon graduation. These issues do not only affect me. They impact every student on this campus and thousands more across the state.
The 99% Spring training matters because this is happening now. National student loan debt is projected to reach $1 trillion this month. The 99% Spring training matters because the time is now. Students, seeking a better future for ourselves and for this nation, are facing astronomical debt in a limited job market with interest rates as high as 30%. Non-violent direct action is the way we reclaim our voice, the way we confront corporate greed, and make our stories heard. The way we begin is by sharing our stories with each other, because we are not alone. We are the 99%, and we will not stop.
By Isaiah Toney of George Washington University SLAP
This weekend, we got down to business in DC. Across three trainings around 100 people were trained in Non-Violent Direct Action as part of the 99% Spring trainings (can we hyperlink this to the website?). And across the country, we trained tens of thousands of people in coalition with 60 major national organizations fighting for social and economic justice. I cannot speak for anyone else, but I thought that it was quite a thrill.
I’m thinking about working with Students Occupy DC and our DC Student Labor Action Project network, United States Student Association and Jobs with Justice and in particular the Sallie Mae campaign. I’m thinking about rallying in front of the Sallie Mae offices in DC and how I’ve gotten to do it three times now. And how if we had had this training before, we could have done it bigger and better: we could have shown more power. We’re trying to shift the economy just a little bit by lessening the burden placed upon students who choose to go to college. We think that tuition rates and fees are too high in addition to the interest rates, fees, and costs associated with paying back loans. I know that I’m going to graduate with about $80,000 in debt and since the national average is about $25,000 (as of 2010), I’ve got a long road to walk before my debt is resolved.
But I lament not; for it is always a long walk to freedom. I know that these trainings are a strong step towards our goal of an economy that works for everyone. Our three trainings were hosted by the Communication Workers of America (CWA), who are fighting the VeriGreedy corporate giant Verizon to maintain good working class jobs in a tough economy, DC Jobs with Justice, which is fighting for rights for day laborers, restaurant industry workers, residents and workers affected by proposed Walmarts in the city of Washington, D.C., and our SLAP chapter at the George Washington University, the Progressive Student Union, which is working on the Sallie Mae campaign to make education a right.
These three groups have great records of fighting for social and economic justice in Washington, D.C., and I know that there are hundreds like them all across this country. We are engaged in what we talked about in our training: the two-handed theory of nonviolent direct action. We are trying to upset a system of injustice and simultaneously engage people in the endeavor of creating a new system of justice. I think that folks got the lesson, and if you don’t believe us, check out StudentLabor.org after 1-T Day- the day that student debt nationwide is expected to pass $1 Trillion- and our national day of action to end student debt!
