Hosts Cecil Prescod and Celeste Carey interview Robert Applebaum, founder of Founder of ForgiveStudentLoanDebt.com, a grassroots movement that began as a proposal entitled "Forgive Student Loan Debt to Stimulate the Economy" which he posted to a Facebook group by the same name in late January, 2009.

The following is from http://forgivestudentloandebt.com/content/about

Almost immediately upon posting the proposal, people from all walks of life began to join, sharing their stories of economic hardship and struggle as a result of their crushing student loan debts. While the original proposal was intended as an alternative economic stimulus plan, the group quickly evolved as a vehicle for exposing the gross inequities and unfair practices inherent in the student lending industry.

After membership grew to approximately 1000 people within the first week, a reporter for the Huffington Post wrote an article about the proposal and group and, thereafter, membership grew by the thousands. The group enjoyed a great deal of positive press attention in the Spring of 2009 which only served to increase membership, now close to a quarter of a million people!

ForgiveStudentLoanDebt.com was founded so as to take this growing grassroots movement to the next level through lobbying, education and advocacy for a complete overhaul to the way higher education is financed in this country.

Host Cecil Prescod speaks with Steve Fraser, historian of Wall Street and author of "Wall Street: America's Dream Palace." Steve Fraser has a current article on TomDispatch.com called "Take Our Children, Please! A Modest Proposal for Occupy Wall Street” http://www.tomdispatch.com/archive/175473/

The article plays off of the words of satirist Jonathan Swift, who at a moment when Ireland had fallen into utter destitution at the hands of British landlords, offered a “modest proposal” that they should sell their own children to the rich as food. Steve Fraser proposes that on January 16th, Martin Luther King Day, Americans should descend on Wall Street for a “macabre gathering,” a day that would be dubbed “We Surrender” or “Restore Debtor’s Prisons” or “De-Fault Is Ours” or “Collateralize Us.”

There, he suggests, we would offer ourselves and our children as a sacrifice to Wall Street. As he describes it in part: “You’ll want to turn in your subprime mortgage documents. And do you really need that mobile home or tent? And certainly, you’ll want to offer up your children to Wall Street if they’re young enough to make a “delicious” and nourishing meal. If a bit older, haul along that creaky swing-set from your backyard, or dilapidated blackboards and outmoded computer consoles from your child’s underfunded, disintegrating school… If your children are older still, and waterlogged from the college loans that put them ‘underwater’ before they even had their first jobs, why not donate those debts as securitized gifts to the Street? Better yet: give back their college diplomas.”

Fraser means this proposal seriously in the spirit of Martin Luther King, that “lawbreaker for justice.” As he writes, “If credit-default swaps and structured investment vehicles are legal, as they are, and if marching in the streets is becoming ever less so, as it is, then on January 16th we should begin to turn that kind of preposterous world upside down. What was lawful shall become criminal and what was denied to the people shall be taken by them and made good law.”

On Tuesday Oregon Governor John Kitzhaber announced that he is stopping the scheduled execution of Oregon death row inmate Gary Haugen. He also said he would not allow any other executions during his term as Governor. The Governor's announcement came just after the Oregon Supreme Court said it would allow the execution to proceed on December 6th.

More Talk Radio host Cecil Prescod will interview Jeff Ellis, of the Oregon Capital Resource Center. The group had petitioned the state Supreme Court to stop Haugen's execution. He also speaks with Ron Steiner of Oregonians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty about Kitzhaber's decision and what it means for the future of the death penalty in Oregon