How To Be Hopeful Episode 34 "The Bank Job- hope, joy, resilience and debt"

In this week' podcast I have the great pleasure of chatting with the team behind The Bank Job" documentary "a feature film and art project pushing for a national debt writeoff as part of a reset for a fairer economic system" 

The seed of this fantastic project began with a conversation between co-creators Dan Edelstyn and Hilary Powell and their neighbour who had heard about "Strike Debt" in the U.S- a movement that was abolishing debt by hacking into the secondary debt market. This conversation came at a time when Dan "was looking for the answer to the question- why am I making films?..... this is the central quest of the bank job... to find a useful thing to do"

We chat about the power and hope to be found in collective debt refusal; and the idea of debt unions, of Dan and Hilary's struggle and journey to find a way to tell the story after their economic awakening when a "whole new world of knowledge" opened up before them.They developed the idea of a "community heist" in their local area of Walthamstow in London, and set about printing and selling their own money as artworks to raise funds. The sales enabled them to purchase and write off the debt of 450 local people; as well as donate to their chosen local charities.They also blew up the debt by exploding a van outside the towers of finance in the City of London. 

We speak about what they hope for " there is a better way of organising society... we urgently need to change and to innovate the systems we live under... we want to look after each other and the world, and pass on something viable to our children" 

Dan says his best tip is to "librate yourself with knowledge" so with this in mind, please join me to watch the preview of the film "The Bank Job" on 11th December 2020 from 7pm here to learn more:

https://membership.bankjob.pictures/preview?r_done=1 

Some books Hilary and Dan recommended are: 

"Debt The First 5000 years" by David Graeber

"Creditocracy and the case for debt refusal" by Andrew Ross

and check out the Jublilee Debt Campaign - a UK charity working to end poverty caused by unjust debt through education, research and campaigning

https://jubileedebt.org.uk/ 

Thanks so much for listening- more next week! 

Love Bernadette

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