by the Money on the Left Editorial Collective

A domestic occupation is currently being staged in the United States. National guard units have been deployed to Washington, D.C., with similar moves signaled for Chicago and New York. The script pairs visible deployments with their fiscal equivalent: threats of impoundment, selective audits, procurement slow-walks, and last minute deals that convert liberal institutions into collaborators one by one. A military showdown is the point for Trump; it is the terrain the regime wants. Likewise in Albany, a fiscal showdown over tax increases is the terrain that liberal collaborationists prefer: a ritualized crisis designed to brand a Mamdani administration as a failure between rounds of austerity. The playbook is the same: manufacture a crisis, force a spectacle, and make the rest of the year about forcing victims to pick up the pieces.

When most people think of “insurgency,” images of guerilla warfare come to mind. But even where historic insurgencies have included armed struggle (which we do not endorse in the United States), combat is not the most essential component. Successful insurgencies succeed by sustaining daily civilian life under occupation. Civil societies endure by keeping ordinary routines going: schools that still teach, kitchens that still serve, routes that still move people, meetings that still convene, mundane responsibilities that people still meet. That continuity erodes the occupier’s legitimacy, stretches its capacity, and ensures it cannot outlast the people.

Military clashes and ritualized budget standoffs are already on the next page in Trump’s playbook. The durable answer to Trumpism is a fiscal insurgency: visible, practical, reproducible ways to keep the payments that sustain public life flowing so that recruitment and retention for deployments struggle, as residents continue to work, learn, care, and govern themselves. Rather than just play the showdown game, we keep the city on schedule—and build capacity as we go.

Fiscal insurgency

Fiscal insurgency creatively rereads what money already is in practice: credit issued, accepted, and retired through infrastructures that already operate. In addition to cash and bank accounts, we are all familiar with EBT, transit passes, tuition remissions, union stipends, city vouchers, and fee waivers—all variously posted ways of paying for participation. 

Under pressure, the task is to keep payments aligned with capacity. Groceries, rides, childcare, rooms, translation, training, and pathways into responsibility must remain accessible even during a fiscal blackout. The practical goal is twofold: first, to route around staged fiscal choke points so that routine civic coordinations do not pause; second, to shrink the labor pool for occupation deployments by offering better work, learning, and debt relief at home.

This approach does not meet occupation with spectacle or force. It meets deployments where they actually live: recruitment and retention. When a city pays for participation—public-works fellowships in libraries, parks, and transit; childcare and travel coverage for trainings and meetings; tuition offsets at community colleges; clear ladders into union roles and civic responsibility—the material case for enlistment weakens. Recruitment shortfalls and morale depletion follow, which is a fitting answer to a regime that wields austerity to get its way.

Why the Zetro Card, what it is now, and why it matters

There are countless everyday tools with public potential in plain sight. As a separate example of the appetite for this, the Mamdani campaign just launched a citywide “Scavenger Hunt”—distinct from the Zetro Card—that shows how eager New Yorkers are for playful, card-based participation; early events blew through the first batch of cards. The point in this article is not to crown one instrument, but to activate what is already familiar. The Mamdani campaign’s “Zetro Card” is one such tool.

What the Zetro Card is today. The Zetro Card is a playful paper punch card in the Mamdani campaign. Supporters receive stamps at canvasses, phone banks, and pop-ups; after a set number of stamps, the card is redeemed for campaign merchandise. Because selling merch became constrained after certain fundraising thresholds, items are given away at volunteer events and DIY printing tables—so the punch card doubles as a tangible way to recognize participation and pick up posters, tees, and totes. It lives inside a high-energy field operation with frequent events and check-ins.

How it scales without changing its feel. The same form—stamp, QR, or SMS—can carry credits that partners agree to honor for posted items tied to real capacity (for example: childcare blocks during meetings, off-peak community-room hours, produce bundles, modest travel support on action days, training seats, and even reserved speaking or facilitation time). Individual balances remain private; weekly program totals are public; a brief monthly check-in evens small differences with next-month service or modest dollars. In that expanded form, Zetro becomes a practical way to pay for participation without permission, while staying playful, legible and low-friction.

Zetro grows in three lanes at once:
1. Coalition Lane: Partners post menus of Zetro-receivable items
2. City Lane: Municipal agencies comp or cover what they already can in Zetro credits
3. Public Digital Payments Lane: A targeted amendment to State Banking Law §131, which currently prohibits corporations from receiving deposits, would be sufficient for Zetro to merge with a public digital payments system along the lines of what has already been proposed at state-level with the Inclusive Value Ledger Act. Same Zetro system, but even more doors and menu items open. 

The types of work credited on the card and the forms of participation those credits unlock can widen month by month and year by year—from campaign tables to coalition partners (DSA chapters, WFP affiliates, union training arms, worker co-ops, cultural venues) and then into public venues (library class seats, after-hours school auditoriums, parks fieldhouses, union halls, community-room hours, partial fares). Over time, credits can help residents purchase municipal groceries, arrange childcare and transit for organizing and training, and access professional on-ramps into union ladders and a renewed municipal care-and-organizing sector. Swap lines to other cities and allied campaigns can make the pattern replicable and coordinative nationwide.

What follows is a one-year plan in four quarters, a year-two continuation, and a horizon where Zetro Cards and other coalition credits grow together with “Blue Bonds.” Here’s how it could work:

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Year One

Quarter 1–2: Posted menus with offline-capability

• Posted coverage sheets (“what this card covers here”). At initial partners (DSA chapters, WFP affiliates, supportive worker co-ops and public venues like libraries and community centers), list covered items with clear limits matched to actual capacity: bundled produce at a co-op table; modest transit support on canvass days; childcare blocks during meetings; off-peak community-room hours; small print runs; reserved speaking/facilitation time.
  
• Privacy by default; public totals. Individual balances are private. Weekly program totals are public (dashboard-style).
  
• Monthly check-in. Partners bring two numbers—what they issued and what they honored—and even out any small differences with next-month service (extra room hours, print runs, childcare blocks) or modest dollars. A small rainy-day amount smooths one-off bumps and is refilled at the check-in.
  
• Offline-first tools. Paper cards with serials, SMS codes for basic phones, QR badges for smartphones, and a simple web ledger where participants see only their own balance; stewards sync when connected.

Insurgency-specific provisioning (safety and movement)

• Safe Walk & Ride corridors. Posted hours and mapped routes between meeting sites, libraries, schools after-hours, parks, fieldhouses, transit hubs.
  Menu items: escort hours, corner posts, route leads; modest travel support for route volunteers.
  
• Buddy and check-in protocols; door marshals; de-escalation teams.
  Menu items: marshal shifts, de-escalation shifts, check-in desk.
  
• Kitchen windows at evening meetings (community kitchen cadence) hosted in libraries/community centers.
  Menu items: prep/serve shifts; ingredient runs; take-home food bundles for late routes.
  
• Dispatch table for ride pools (carpool grids).
  Menu items: dispatcher shifts; driver mileage allotments; maintenance credits.
  
• Accompaniment pilot (court/clinic/ICE check-ins) with faith/legal partners.
  Menu items: escort hours; language access; staging-site stewards.
  

Quarter 3: Scale under known rules

• Review coverage and limits against observed demand; keep balances private and totals public; maintain simple grievance and appeal routes.
  
• One-page coverage sheets per site, reviewed quarterly, so people know exactly what the card covers where.
  
• Mentored on-ramp for new issuers (co-issuance with small, posted starting limits and a graduation path once delivery is demonstrated).
  
• Union-linked training access. Partners begin accepting Zetro for defined allotments of training seats in union programs (safety workshops, evening classes). Framed as an extension of existing education supports.

Insurgency-specific provisioning (citywide habits)

• Route maps go citywide; relay rooms in libraries and community centers host hand-off windows.
  Menu items: relay room stewards; wayfinding/signage crews; neighborhood route coordinators.
  
• Clinic and pharmacy relays for prescriptions and supplies (privacy rules posted).
  Menu items: intake desk; pharmacy runs; cold-chain handling.
  
• Observer teams at sensitive sites—visible, trained, non-confrontational.
  Menu items: observer shifts; alerts desk.
  

Quarter 4: Public venues, groceries pilot, and formal accompaniment

• Public venues with narrow, posted coverage. A set number of library class seats; off-peak community-room hours; partial fares for travel to trainings. Coverage lists, clear limits, privacy, and the monthly check-in remain standard.
  If the Public Digital Payments Lane opens, we can mirror these posted menus there; if not, the Coalition Lane and City Lane continue.
  
• Municipal groceries pilot (petition window). The Mayor’s Office opens a petition process for organizations—campaign-linked or not—to request coverage for defined grocery bundles with posted maximums and periodic review.
  
• Formal accompaniment lanes with faith and legal partners; posted procedures and privacy rules.
  

Year Two (selected extensions)

Quarter 5–6: Union issuance and civic rebrand

• Unions begin limited issuance of credits through strike support and childcare stipends, following a transparent, bounded framework aligned with coalition standards.
  
• City rebrand. The administration rebrands Zetro under a civic name (for example, “City Card”), signaling its shift from campaign experiment to city-backed fiscal infrastructure without changing privacy or monthly check-in rules.
  

Quarter 7–8: Payable labor time and public venues

• Union issuance expands to stipends for stewards, interpreters, and trainers—more forms of labor time become payable.
  
• Coalition credits recognized for a set number of seats at public venues (libraries, community centers, municipal groceries), knitting the system further into daily civic infrastructure.
  

Quarter 9–12: Tuition offsets, debt relief pilots, swap lines

• Tuition offsets and student-debt relief pilots for CUNY programs that support public work (ESL, EMT/first-aid, IT support for schools). Offsets are clearly defined, privacy-respecting, and guided by simple equity rules.
  
• Demilitarization lanes. Offsets scale once receivability is wide enough to undercut debt-for-ICE recruitment offers directly.
  
• Swap lines with other cities. Credits earned in New York can be honored in Chicago for defined uses, and vice versa, on posted terms and routine settlement schedules.
  

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The horizon: Blue Bonds + coalition credits (two tools to save our cities)

Blue Bonds—a proposal of the Money on the Left Editorial Collective—offer a way for city and state governments to finance an urban full-employment buildout that broadens receivability. They are ordinary dollar bonds, offered in small denominations to residents and anchored by public pensions and union funds (with solidarity subscriptions from other cities and states). Proceeds are tied to visible municipal options that coalition credits already move people through: grocery depots and cold-chain upgrades, childcare hubs and accessibility retrofits, community kitchens and repair cooperatives, library classrooms, transit access, and municipal broadband. Retirement is stated up front: as pressures recede and revenues normalize, the series winds down and the books close. Legislative changes in the Public Digital Payments Lane—a no-fee, real-time public wallet—make this even easier, but Zetro + Blue Bonds work already in the Coalition and City lanes. 

Paired with Zetro/coalition credits, Blue Bonds and credits create political space for each other. Credits route around staged choke points so everyday provisioning continues; Blue Bonds draw in dollars on public terms to expand the very programs those credits already make usable. To cautious audiences, Blue Bonds read like familiar “borrowing.” To a coalition living with credits, they read as one denomination of credit among many: another way the city measures and coordinates provision, retired according to plan rather than by some supposed law of physics.

With capacity increased, receivability widens so credits can meet a substantial share of a household’s monthly essentials. Agencies and partners post coverage lists that expand steadily: groceries via municipal depots and co-ops; local travel through transit and bike programs; childcare and elder-care blocks; language access and legal aid; device repair and broadband; library and community-center programs; CUNY training and certifications; cultural access; tool-lending and community-kitchen time. Each item carries clear limits tied to real capacity; privacy is the default; weekly public totals keep everyone oriented; a brief monthly check-in keeps books even.

The employment premise is simple: there is always work to do and a way to step into it. Roles in facilitation, safety, translation, outreach, maintenance, logistics, kitchen prep, route escorting, and accompaniment are paired with training and mentoring. Credits earned here are immediately usable for listed needs, and tuition and student-debt offsets scale so the city’s offer competes directly with Trump’s enlistment promises; the better path is at home, in public life.

Beyond the city, swap lines make the pattern replicable and coordinative. Posted agreements allow defined items to be honored across jurisdictions and settled on a routine schedule. Credits earned here can be used for named needs there, and residents can subscribe to one another’s Blue Bonds. The result is a durable fabric: credits keep patterned flows of provision steady; bonds fund expansion in plain view; together they cultivate a public that understands these instruments as democratic coordination, not deference to gatekeepers.

Appendix

A. Blackout readiness (why this matters)

One reason this infrastructure is urgent is simple: an administration hostile to cities will try to exert power over everyday payments as leverage. If a single processor, platform, or office can be squeezed, it will be. The response is to build many ways of paying that cannot be shut off by flipping a single switch switch.

That is why the plan mixes paper, SMS, and QR; has menus of “what this card covers here” are important; has stewards learning to settle up together on a simple schedule even if systems are temporarily offline; and why ordinary municipal bonds held by residents, small dollar donors and public pensions can fund visible programs that credits already carry people through. No single vendor or account holds the keys; if one lane is squeezed, others stay open. Pursuing public banking and a Public Digital Payments Lane in parallel adds redundancy and cuts private choke points, but the Coalition and City lanes are enough to keep going in the meantime. Payment follows the work that people are doing, and the rules are posted in public so everyone can keep moving while the politics catch up.

B. How we will track and share progress (in plain language)

People should be able to see what is happening with Zetro Credits without surveilling their neighbors’ transactions. Each week, it is essential to post totals by program and neighborhood—how many childcare hours, room hours, training seats, rides, grocery bundles—along with how quickly credits are being used. Once a month, partners can sit down for a short check-in to even out differences: if one site provided more than it issued, the group will agree on make-goods for next month (extra room hours, added training seats, more kitchen time) or a small cash adjustment. Every quarter, the city can publish a short summary of what was made possible, where pressure points were, and what will change on the coverage lists to keep pace with real demand.

C. Money on the Left’s seven principles for coalition credit (Our standard for support and endorsement)

1. Coalitional responsibility, not sovereign enclosure
   Credits are commitments to a wider public supported in coalition. Issuance and acceptance are accountable to relationships across organizations and agencies, not only to a membership’s pre-defined ends.
   
2. Responsibility to full participation (the full-employment principle)
   Every issuer has a duty to open real ways to earn credits—especially for undervalued labor (care, language access, accessibility, logistics)—and to pair earning with pathways into responsibility (facilitation, training, strategy roles).
   
3. Responsibility to recognize others (bounded cross-coalition receivability)
   Each issuer provides a clear pathway to receive credits from trusted partners that meet a published threshold of coalitional trust and solidarity. Recognition is bounded and menu-defined (what is accepted, where, and in what amounts) and is periodically reviewed in public.
   
4. Structured paths to enfranchisement as an issuing authority
   There is a transparent route for new groups to become issuers: mentorship or co-issuance periods, capacity checks tied to real infrastructure, defined caps while ramping, and clear criteria for advancing to full issuer status.
   
5. Duties and accountability that come with enfranchisement
   Issuers steward capacity (do not over-promise), publish aggregate issuance and redemption by program, participate in monthly clearing, honor grievance and appeal processes, and accept time-bound suspension or revocation if they violate standards.
   
6. Privacy as public trust
   Individuals’ balances and transactions remain private by default. Public oversight operates through aggregates and due-process audits for suspected misuse. Privacy is not a perk; it is how coalitions extend trust without control or surveillance.

Tied to real infrastructure and needs
Receivability menus must map to concrete capacities—passes, rooms, classes, childcare, groceries, trainings—and be adjusted regularly to meet demonstrated needs, with special attention to reducing participation barriers.