by Keith McHenry, co-founder of Food Not Bombs
Eleven people in Santa Cruz were charged with felonies after being accused of the temporary “occupation” in November 2011 of an abandoned bank building at 75 River Street that was owned by Wells Fargo. District Attorney Rebekah Young targeted eleven local community organizers with trespass and vandalism charges. The perfect political target in a city where banks like Wells Fargo and Bank of America had illegally foreclosed on families forcing them on to the streets where it is illegal to sleep outside and must risk arrest just for living in
their own community.
The case of the Santa Cruz Eleven comes during an important time when millions of people are taking action against the corrupt economic system. The real criminals are those who designed and implemented the policies that have ruined families and caused the suffering of so many. Wells Fargo executives Donald James, John Stumf and the other board members should be held at the county jail waiting trial for grand theft. In my June 2013 visit to Santa Cruz several people told me how the banks and government officials robbed them of their homes taking all they had after working hard their entire lives.
In March 2011 people organized a protest outside the Watsonville Branch of Wells Fargo in Santa Cruz County. They were outraged that the bank had taken the homes of so many people in the community. Lauro Navarro came to the protest because the banks had just evicted him and his family from a home he had built with his own hands. Mayor Daniel Dodge of Watsonville attended the protest saying that “This is a real crisis that hits home.” He also told the media that more than 8,000 homes locally had been affected since 2008 worth $4 billion and a loss of $26 million in property taxes. Nearly 200 teachers had to be let go as a result.
The stress of foreclosure can be too much for some. Newbury Park resident Norman Rousseau was preparing to move his family into an RV in May 2012 when e shot himself to death distressed from a year long struggle with Wells Fargo. The bank had claimed Rousseau had not made his May 2009 mortgage payment using this to justify the taking of his home but during the law suit the bank admitted there had been a mix up. “Our thoughts are with
the friends and family of Mr. Rousseau at this difficult time. The eviction has been postponed and we will continue to work with Mrs. Rousseau,” a Wells Fargo spokesperson told the Huffington Post in an email. “Despite current reports, we tried repeatedly to find affordable options for the family.”
Evidence that the banks systematically robbed thousands of families of their homes and saving. In a federal lawsuit in Massachusetts Bank of America employees have come forward to describe how they intentionally mislead homeowners using the Home Affordable Modification Program to take their homes. I have heard the story over and over from people eating with Food Not Bombs. They were told to qualify for a mortgage modification that they
had to stop making payment for two or three months using the default to justify foreclosure. “Bank of America’s practice is to string homeowners along with no apparent intention of providing the permanent loan modifications it promises,” said Erika Brown, one of the former employees. The damning evidence would spur a series of criminal investigations of B of A executives, if we still had a rule of law in this country for Wall Street banks.”
The Santa Cruz Eleven are understandably worried about having to spend time in prison if convicted and considering the evidence of a major nationally coordinated effort to permanently silence the movement this is a realistic concern. The Partnership for Civil Justice Fund recovered nearly 200 pages of FBI and Homeland Security internal memos that
showed that the authorities believed that Occupy could become a threat to corporate power so much that there was even a plan to use suppressed sniper rifles to kill the leadership if necessary.
So what is the most effective way defend activists like the eleven facing prison in Santa Cruz? The first thought, of course, is hire lawyers and formulate a legal defense but that might NOT be enough under the currant atmosphere. I say this from experience having faced 25 to life in prison for my work with Food Not Bombs in San Francisco. I had the best attorneys but the pressure to silence me was larger than the fact that all the evidence made it clear I had never
participated in any of the crimes I had been accused of. The only thing that keep me out of prison was political organizing.
The business and political leaders pulled out all the stops in an effort to make sure that the public would not be moved to support the idea that food should have a priority over bombs. The law was manipulated, a permit process was invented to justify an end to our effort to change public opinion. The corporate media and most local political leaders
sided with the campaign to drive Food Not Bombs out of sight. When injunctions, arrests, beatings and infiltration failed to work the authorities framed the “leader” of the movement making me out to be a violent irrational terrorist attacking city officials and stealing beepers and milk crates in my crazed attempt to redirect military spending towards social services
like education and healthcare.
Our legal defense was nearly impossible since those that organized my “crimes’ controlled the evidence, media and the legal system. On the other hand we had the truth on our side which we did all we could share. That truth was that our society is broken and that is easy to see when hundreds of people line up twice a day to eat with Food Not Bombs outside City Hall in San Francisco while billions are spent on the military to fight wars for oil, profits and power.
We video tapped nearly every arrest of our volunteers for providing vegan meals and free literature to the public. We filmed hungry families horrified and distressed as they watched the police drag their meals away to the trash. One by one volunteers would be smashed into the sidewalk for sharing bagels or tossed salad. The images told the ugly truth of an America that
would rather let its people starve then threaten the profits of the military industrial complex.
So our focus moved from the courts to the streets and offices of influential human rights groups. We organized a letter writing campaign providing flyers at every meal asking for support. The flyers included a request to write President Clinton’s Justice Department Civil Rights Division, Amnesty International and the United Nations Human Rights Commission seeking an investigation into our case. Each organizations’s address was included on the flyer. We also provided internal government and police memos, photos, affidavits and our video of our arrests to the organizations listed on our flyer and delivered additional copies to the offices of foreign governments at the United Nations. We also provided copies to the American
Civil Liberties Union and other local allies and activist groups and asked them to ask for an investigation.
While we had our campaign to gain the support of human rights organizations and activist groups we also organized on the streets. Central to the campaign was the sharing of our meals and literature twice every day to show we would not give up. Before each meal we determined who would be willing to risk arrest. We divided the food into three parts and two or three volunteers would share the first smaller portion until they were arrested.
As soon as they were hustled off to the police station a couple more volunteers would arrive and share some more food until they were arrested. After the police took them away we would bring out enough food to provide for everyone. The police rarely stopped us the third time. We also organized a campaign called “Risk Arrest One Day a Month with Food Not Bombs” and community groups, unions and religious organizations would share our food and go to jail.
The other strategy was to provide food outside the court house before each court appearance. This too could result in a number of arrests but it also had the impact of discrediting the legal system before people who themselves had been dragged into the system.
Our campaign was dedicated to nonviolent resistance even if at time people would yell at the police during the arrests. Amazingly our persistence slowly won over the rank and file police who started to object to their participation in efforts to stop us.
Our effort to reach President Clinton worked. His office claimed to have reviewed our information and video deciding that city officials were acting lawfully in there brutal campaign to shut down our protest. They would take no action to stop the violence. We shared copies of Clinton’s letter to Amnesty International and the United Nations. This was the final straw and they both announce support for Food Not Bombs.
Amnesty International announced that they would declare our volunteers “Prisoners of Conscience” and work for our unconditional release if convicted and made a public statement of condemnation of the United States on the floor of the United Nations Human Rights Commission in Switzerland.
Finally one day when my “Three Strikes” trial was about to start the local media turned on the mayor and city officials. The power structure cut their loses. The arrests in San Francisco did stop and I settled my case being sentenced to credit of 500 days served and a year probation. Maybe not a total victory but a lot better than doing 25 years in prison and the campaign helped encourage the start of Food Not Bombs groups in a few hundred cities.
The global wave of protests during the summer of 2013 provide many lessons. Social change takes time. The people of Egypt mobilized to drive out the dictator Mubarak only to replace his authoritarian rule with a new dictator. Just as happened after the Berlin Wall fell global financial institutions and Western governments rushed in to fill the power vacuum. Those risking their lives to bring about change were not prepared to replace the dictatorial system with one that represents the interests of the majority.
The increase in hunger and poverty in Egypt was predictable. Morsi quickly became an ally of the United States and other powerful nations agreeing to provide access to the global financial institutions and transnational corporate interests while ignoring the needs of his people. It will take more than the ousting of a dictator to bring about the change required to provide food, healthcare and education. Those of us seeking to bring democracy and economic security to the United States must build an alternate system ready to replace the failing political and economic system.
The struggle of the Santa Cruz Eleven provides a good example of how we can address the growing austerity crisis. While waging an aggressive legal defense is important it may be a more effective defense to build a movement against the real criminals at Wells Fargo like Donald James, John Stumf and the other board members. The authorities were fearful of the occupations organizing a campaign to claim we did not have a coherent message and that we had failed.
However the details revealed in the internal FBI and Homeland Security documents recovered by The Partnership for Civil Justice Fund, the criminal case against the Cleveland Five and the Dissent-or-Terror files obtained by DBA Press and the Center for Media and Democracy show that the Obama administration and corporate leaders were worried that the occupations were a real threat to the economic and political system.
Wells Fargo’s coordination with the FBI, Homeland Security and other financial institutions to silence Occupy is another aspect of the criminal conspiracy of the economic elite. Those responsible for destroying the economic security of millions remain free and continue to force families out of their homes, implement policies that criminalize those driven into poverty and clearly have no limits to their own crimes against society.
TAKING DIRECT ACTION TO MAKE KING’S DREAM A REALITY
August 28, 2013
On August 28, 1963 over 250,000 people participated in the “Marched on Washington for Jobs and Freedom” where eighteen luminaries spoke for an end to racism and support for policies that would provide economic security for all Americans. The program for the march ended with the text “WE SHALL OVERCOME.” The speech by Southern Christian Leadership Conference President Dr. Martin Luther King Jr is remembered to this day. Millions continue to make his dream a reality.
I remember visiting the hardware store in Luray, Virginia with my father around the time of King’s speech where it was possible to buy a mass produced “Colored Men,” “White Men,” “White Women” or “Colored Women” signs for your public rest room, swimming pool or other facility needing segregation. Many stores in town placed the popular “No Jews Allowed” signs in their shop windows, most bought at that same hardware store. My elementary school was forced to let African Americans attend classes on our side of the tracks when I started the sixth grade. All black students were diagnosed as having Down Syndrome and assigned to the Special Education Class with the white students that did need some special education.
The”desegregated” Luray Elementary also had mandatory weekly Christian Education classes that noted each Easter that “jews had killed Jesus” a message many students shared with our only jewish classmate as he sat alone in the hall way during bible class waiting to be ridiculed. My parents were Episcopalians and were not pleased that our public school was forcing their children to be told that the Pentecostal denomination was the “only true religion.” My family was also close to the jewish family so my mother and father spoke for a separation of church and state at during a Parents Teachers Association meeting. That evening my classmate’s parents surrounded our home at Shenandoah National Park Headquarters yelling hateful curses as they threw rocks at our house. A few parents even arrived with flaming torches giving a Ku Klux Klan atmosphere to the fearful assault.
As we struggled over the issue of discrimination in rural Virginia a war was raging far off in a country called Viet Nam that was televised each night to our family’s dinner table on a huge Ethan Allen black and white TV. My mother’s brother was eager to join the battle as an Army Ranger. His father spent the war trying to get General Curtis LeMay and General Robert McNamara to drop the nuclear bomb on Hanoi.
Every once in a great while our TV would show news of a protest in Washington DC. A local family would send a child off to the jungle and at times a classmate would arrive at school in shock after learning that their older brother or father had been killed in Asia. Frustrated young teachers employed to avoid the draft would provide corporal punishment with a bread board costume drilled for maximum pain. The war had come to Virginia.
My father supervised a dozen college students that worked as Seasonal Park Rangers leading nature walks, giving campfire programs and helping tourists at the visitor centers. One of his employees gave him a copy of “Walden” by Henry David Thoreau. After reading the classic he passed it on to his fifth grade son and having just learned to read I started with the shorter essay in the back, “Civil Disobedience.” Thoreau’s lecture explained his reasons for protesting the war against Mexico responding by spending a night in jail for refusing to pay is war taxes. Thoreau’s essay made a huge impression on this elementary student helping inspire a life dedicated to taking nonviolent direct action towards a world free of war, poverty and racism along with a Park Service kid’s natural interest in defending the environment. Many of us that heard King’s words stayed in the struggle even though the corporate media has done all it can to conceal this fact.
Fifty years later America has made a lot of headway. No more lunch counter sit-ins for those that can buy lunch and anyone that can afford to ride the bus can use any seat. Now people of color are treated “equally” with their desperate and homeless white “neighbors.”
This anniversary could not be more bitter sweet. The August 2013 memorials at the Lincoln Monument have been marred by hypocrisy as the Democratic Party spits on King’s Dream. It was difficult to see now Congressman John Lewis have to once again temper his speech forced by current events to direct his attention to defending the rights of all to vote.
Who let Congresswoman Pelosi speak after she had supported a decades long campaign of violence against the homeless and Food Not Bombs volunteers in San Francisco? A campaign of civil rights violations she vocally supported even to the extent that she had me arrested after I complemented her for her support of human rights in China following up with a suggesting she support efforts to stop San Francisco Mayor Jordan’s “Quality of Life Matrix Program” to drive the poor out of town. Pelosi statements attacking Snowden should have been enough to keep her speaking at the 50th anniversary of King’s I Have a Dream Speech.
Another travesty was the speech of Attorney General Holder who used the FBI to frame, arrest and brutally drive the Occupy Movement off America’s streets while he and Obama are bending over backwards to protect corporate power. How many bankers have been jailed compared to those of us participating in peaceful occupations? We are watching our civil liberties disappear as each day exposes another elaborate domestic surveillance operation. The type of COINTELPRO techniques used by the FBI and other agencies to disrupt and ultimately murder Martin Luther King.Jr because of his dream continue to be implemented by Holder’s FBI.
According to internal memos obtained by Partnership for Civil Justice Fund Holder’s FBI silently watched or maybe even helped “formulate a plan to kill the leadership (of Occupy) via suppressed sniper rifles” yet he and Pelosi denigrated King’s legacy by speaking from the stage during the 50th anniversary commemoration. Obama is marking the anniversary by blocking UN weapons inspectors from discovering that the chemical weapons attack in Syria was launched by rebels.
He may spend billions on bombs just to send his message that America is the only country free to use weapons of mass distraction. Billions that could be used for education, universal healthcare or repair of America’s Infrastructure. Clinton is also speaking at the Lincoln Memorial yet one in two Americans are struggling to survive as a direct result of his policies of the North American Free Trade Agreement and the deregulation of the banking industry. My friends in Serbia can tell you how ‘humanitarian” Clintons war was. Belgrade Food Not Bombs volunteer Emma shared her stories of being a nurse at a special hospital for children deformed by America’s depleted uranium bombs. Over 700 children some with two heads, four arms, one eye or even more freakish birth defects. America’a chemical weapons attacks in Iraq crossed the Reddest of Red Lines with nerve gas and phosphorous attacks on the people of Fallujah and tons of Depleted Uranium used across the country. Iraq is still at war and the special hospitals like those in Serbia are busy treating freaks born to loving families left behind in another war based on lies of weapons of mass distraction.
As you read this Obama may have already launch his “humanitarian” war” on Syria. Russia may be participating in the conflict taking the first steps towards a world war. America’s surveillance state may be in high gear busy silencing protest against the bombings. If the pressure for peace, freedom and an end to poverty grows too strong Obama may order the assassination of today’s Martin Luther King Jr. Gas prices in the United States may rob families of their next meal. Crop failures caused by climate change and GMO industrial agriculture are sure to increase food prices. The new cuts in food stamps and higher grocery costs might lead to food riots and groups like Food Not Bombs may be facing arrest in even more American cities than we are today.
It is more important than ever to build community and organize for King’s Dream. You could start or join a local Food Not Bombs chapter. Help staff one of our literature tables, write and design publications to distribute at your public meals. Maybe start preparing vacant lots in your community for next springs Food Not Lawns Garden. In the next few weeks we may want to organize local protests against the global war or join in actions to stop fracking, tar sands pipelines, mining, clear cutting and nuclear power. Banking criminals and foreclosures still need to be stopped. Consider rehousing our community by organizing a Homes Not Jails group and providing food to the occupations. There isn’t a protest that does not require a great vegan meal. We will be sharing food at the Taos Protest Against the War on Syria this Saturday at noon on the Taos Plaza.
If you are about to attend college you can make a huge difference by asking those who are leading student groups on your campus to bring the Smashing Hunger Squashing Poverty tour to your school. The tour starts in late September so don’t wait. It is a great way to help inspire your classmates to join you in making positive change. Please share our website with your classmates.
Thanks for having taken the time to consider taking nonviolent direct action on our path to overcoming the crisis we face today.
Keith McHenry
co-founder of the Food Not Bombs Movement
P.O. Box 424
Arroyo Seco, NM 87514 USA
1-800-884-1136
menu@foodnotbombs.net
TAKING DIRECT ACTION TO MAKE KING’S DREAM A REALITY
THE SMASHING HUNGER SQUASHING POVERTY PRESENTATION AND COOKING DEMONSTRATION
http://www.foodnotbombs.net/speaker.html
THE SMASHING HUNGER SQUASHING POVERTY
https://www.facebook.com/tofuspread
Please share, thanks
THE SMASHING HUNGER SQUASHING POVERTY TOUR with Food Not Bombs Co-founder Keith McHenry
August 15, 2013
I hope you had a great summer. We sure did. The Food Not Bombs Free Skool really made progress and next summer promises to be even better. This is the 25th anniversary of the first arrest of our volunteers for sharing ideas and food. Since that day on August 15, 1988 the authorities have tried to stop our progress by arresting our activists as they provided food to the hungry.
Each wave of arrests inspired the formation of another wave of Food Not Bombs groups. This summer Food Not Bombs groups have once again been threatened with arrest and over 50 cities in the United States have passed laws banning or restricting our work. August 15, 2013 is also the final day to donate to the Food Not Lawns Solar Pump House so please consider making a contribution at the website below. Today it is more important than ever to seek change and one of the most effective ways to help is to volunteer. We encourage you to bring Food Not Bombs co-founder Keith McHenry to speak with your community. His cooking demonstration is an inspiration and will not only encourage participation in Food Not Bombs but support any effort you may be involved in.
As you start back to school and the many other fall activities I hope you will consider bringing Food Not Bombs co-founder Keith McHenry to your school or community venue. Keith’s presentation is sure to inspire your classmates, friends and family. Visit our website and read all the positive comments students have made about past presentation. You don’t want to miss this opportunity. Speak with club leaders at your campus and ask them to host the Smashing Hunger Squashing Poverty tour. Don’t wait to book Keith as soon as possible before his schedule is filled.
Email us at menu@foodnotbombs.net today.
Visit our website to learn more.
THE SMASHING HUNGER SQUASHING POVERTY TOUR
http://www.foodnotbombs.net/speaker.html
The last day to contribute to the completion of the Food Not Lawns Solar Pump House at the Food Not Bombs Free Skool.
http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/free-skool-solar-pump-house-taos
Food Not Bombs thrives even as it faces repression.
http://blog.foodnotbombs.net/food-not-bombs-thrives-even-as-it-faces-repression/
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THE SMASHING HUNGER SQUASHING POVERTY TOUR with Food Not Bombs Co-founder Keith McHenry
Food Not Bombs volunteers have been smashing hunger and squashing tofu in protest to the exploitation of capitalism for over three decades. During Keith’s tofu spread demonstration he will talk about the principles, history and Food Not Bombs participation in the global transformation away from corporate domination. Hunger and poverty are intentional features of capitalism and will increase as corporate power increases. Over 25,000 people die every day because of hunger often as tons of food pass them on the way to better prices.
Oxfam and the UN are reporting that hunger will be on the increase this year leading to civil unrest and violent police repression. The capitalist food system is not only causing millions of animals to suffer but is directly responsible for an increase in food insecurity, disease and the climate crisis. Keith’s presentation will inspire you to participate in the transition to a future free from violence and exploitation.
Copies of Keith’s book “Hungry for Peace” with the tofu spread recipe will be available at the presentation
THE SMASHING HUNGER SQUASHING POVERTY TOUR
P.O. Box 424
Arroyo Seco, NM 87514 USA
575-770-3377
menu@foodnotbombs.net
http://www.foodnotbombs.net/speaker.html
Food Not Bombs thrives even as it faces repression.
(The anniversary of the first arrest on August 15, 1988 )
http://blog.foodnotbombs.net/food-not-bombs-thrives-even-as-it-faces-repression/
Keith McHenry cooking demonstration the Taos Food Pecha Kucha on August 11, 2013 (8:33 minutes)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lXmdZrWXFus
Keith’s book Hungry For Peace “is a self-defense guide for the compassionate, a catering cookbook for the generous, and a history of social change, but above all it’s a hymn to compassion. “
Raj Patel, author of Stuffed and Starved
HUNGRY FOR PEACE – How you can help end poverty and war with Food Not Bombs
http://foodnotbombs.net/hungry_for_peace_promotional.html
Please share – 
Food Not Bombs thrives even as it faces repression
August 7, 2013
The San Francisco Police Department made history on August 15, 1988 when they made the first arrests ever for sharing food with the hungry. Nine volunteers arrived at the entrance to Golden Gate Park with organic vegan food prepared to share with the several hundred souls that were making the dense wooded park their home. A reporter with the San Francisco Chronicle learned of the the department’s plan to deploy 45 members of the Tactical Squad to Haight and Stanyan to arrest the cooks and shortly after noon the nine Food Not Bombs volunteers were captured, cuffed and driven off to jail. The activists sang “we will not be moved” as the police vans removed them from the scene.
After spending most of the night in a holding cell at police headquarters they were released to discover that the Chronicle had published a huge photo of riot police guarding the food from the hungry with a headline proclaiming “Nine Volunteers Arrested For Feeding the Homeless at Golden Gate Park.” The Food Not Bombs answering service on Polk Street was swamped with calls from people wanting to help. Offers of food, legal support, help with cooking and even commitments to risk arrest if necessary flooded in. The August 15, 1988 arrests marked a change in American societies view of the homeless and sparked a global movement. The San Francisco Police made over 1,000 arrests for the “crime” of “making a political statement” by sharing food with the hungry in public. Remove the Food Not Bombs banner and literature and provide your meals inside the National Guard Armory on the edge of the city or be arrested on felony conspiracy charges.
Twenty five years after the first arrest the act of showing compassion and effort to encourage the redirection of resources from war to providing for our community is as threatening to the authorities as it was in the summer of 1988. In response to the impact of Occupy Wall Street and other occupations over 50 cities in the United States have banned or passed laws restricting the sharing of food in public. Authorities are currently threatening to stop Food Not Bombs meals in Seattle, Portland, Boulder and Detroit. Yes Detroit, just as the city is filing for bankruptcy and has unimaginable need to feed its hungry the authorities are threatening to arrest Detroit Food Not Bombs.
Hunger and poverty are on the increase yet so is the desire to respond to the crisis. New Food Not Bombs groups form every week. Volunteers from Umuahia, Nigeria and New Paltz, New York asked to have their chapters included on http://www.foodnotbombs.net today. Activists reported that there are over 100 groups in Indonesia and 30 chapters in the Philippines with the Davao City chapter posting photos of their 13th July 5th anniversary celebration on our Facebook last week. A new chapter started in the southern zone of Mexico City and groups in New Zealand announced their next Really Really Free Market.
The impact of the August 15, 1988 arrests continues to this day having inspired people to start the first wave of Food Not Bombs groups that in turn inspired others to start a chapter in their own communities so that there are volunteers recovering food, cooking vegan meals that they share with the public in over 1,000 cities around the world.
You can join this inspiring movement. The most important thing you can do is start or join an already active Food Not Bombs group in your community. To learn more you can visit http://www.foodnotbombs.net or call us at 575-770-3377.
You may want to get a copy of our book “Hungry For Peace” to learn more about Food Not Bombs. You could also participate with the Food Not Bombs Free Skool in Taos, New Mexico to gain more experience.
Another great way to make a difference is to invite Food Not Bombs co-founder Keith McHenry to speak at your school, cafe, book store or other community space. This is a great way to inspire your friends, family and classmates to join you in taking action.
Another way you can build interest is to invite the Autonomous Play House to perform their puppet show in your community. Their shows are sure to inspire participation in your community organizing efforts.
Finally you can help by contributing to the completion of the Food Not Bombs Free Skool Solar Pump House and support another season of gardening, education and organizing at the school in Taos, New Mexico. Check out the cool video about the construction of the solar pump house. The pump will be powered by a donated solar cell and our showers will be heated by the sun as will the entire building. We intend to complete our fundraising drive by the 25th anniversary of the first arrest of Food Not Bombs on August 15, 2013. Please share this email and ask your family, friends and classmates to support Food Not Bombs.
Thanks so much for your interest.
Keith McHenry – co-founder of the Food Not Bombs Movement
Food Not Bombs thrives even as it faces repression
http://blog.foodnotbombs.net/food-not-bombs-thrives-even-as-it-faces-repression/
CONTRIBUTE TO THE COMPLETION OF THE SOLAR PUMP HOUSE BY AUGUST 15, 2013 – Thanks!!!
http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/free-skool-solar-pump-house-taos
SOLAR PUMP HOUSE PROJECT VIDEO by David Cortez in Taos, New Mexico
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nJDCmFIhHS8&feature=youtu.be
Invite THE SMASHING HUNGER SQUASHING CAPITALISM TOUR with Food Not Bombs co-founder Keith McHenry to your community.
http://www.foodnotbombs.net/speaker.html
THE AUTONOMOUS PLAYHOUSE
http://foodnotbombs.net/autonomous_playhouse_portfolio.php
THE FOOD NOT BOMBS FREE SKOOL
http://fnb-freeskool.org/free_skool_photos.html
Food Not Bombs Thrives Despite Repression
http://www.popularresistance.org/food-not-bombs-thrives-despite-repression/
Food Not Bombs
P.O. Box 424
Arroyo Seco, NM 87514 USA
1-800-884-1136
http://www.foodnotbombs.net
http://foodnotbombs.net/dollar_for_peace.html
(Email us at menu@foodnotbombs.net to be removed from this list.)
please forward and post. Thanks… Keith McHenry
August 6th – Remembering the Nuclear Bombing of Hiroshima
August 7, 2013
Fire Bombing of Tokyo by John Phelan
I visited my grandfathers home often during the time of the Vietnam War. Every Christmas “Grampy Phelan” would pace below his photos of the fire bombing in heated phone conversations to General LeMay or General McNamara and argue the value of dropping a nuclear bomb on Hanoi. As I remember the argument my grandfather feared the Soviet Union and China would not believe the United States was capable of using the bomb a third time and take advantage of America’s weakness. The mass murder of Viet Nam with an even larger nuclear warhead would “prove” the United States was so depraved no country would dare question another direct order of our leaders. Decisions about taking so many lives was a burden our family had to endure as the responsibility of the genetically superior New Englanders.
He tried to prepare me for the brutality that would be my responsibility by taking me fishing on Middle Lake on Cape Cod. Smashing each perch and bass to death on the side our our dingy would be the first lesson. Looking into the eyes of those helpless creatures as I followed my grandfather’s directions made my heart sink. Butchering my first seven roosters was enough to introduce me to the world of vegetarians as my mother’s hens and goats screamed in painful solidarity during the massacre.
One sunny spring day in 1977 I took a break from my job at the Old South Meeting House where I spent my days sharing the history of the BostonTea Party with tourists and walked over to Park Street Station to eat lunch on the Commons. A small woman stood on top of a plastic Hood Dairy Milk Crate explaining that there were thousands of nuclear missiles that could be launched in a minuted notice. The Soviet Union could kill millions of Americans if they believed the United States was about to attack and the U.S. Military could kill millions in the Soviet Union. I later found out she was Doctor Helen Caldicott who came to Boston in her campaign to end the threat of nuclear war.
I could see how regular people, people like my mother’s father could rationalize horrible acts like the use of nuclear weapons and the murder of a million civilians in a quest to defend corporate power. I slept next to the two filing cabinets of Digital Electronics formulas before my grandfather soled them to Ken Olsen during the years he argued for the use of the nuclear booming of Hanoi. A few years later I happened to have a job trimming produce at an organic grocery in Cambridge, Massachusetts and was alarmed by how many cases of nutritious produce I was expected to discard so I took it to the hungry residence at the housing projects near the store. Very skinny children played outside the dilapidated brick buildings in the shadow of a modern glass tower where scientists were developing guidance systems for intercontinental nuclear missiles. Our society clearly valued bombs over food. That August 6th our new group Food Not Bombs march from Cambridge City Hall to the front of that weapons laboratory. I took the Boston phonebook from a bucket of gas, held it up to those assembled. “If a one megaton nuclear weapon were to hit Boston today all the people listed in this phone book would die in a flash!” I set a match to the book and up it went in flames.
Thirty years later we still face this very real danger. As we feared Reagan started a policy of redirecting our resources from healthcare, education and the real security that Americans need to the world’s largest military build up. On the anniversary of the nuclear bombing of Nagasaki appeared in court in Orlando, Florida along with many others for the “crime” of sharing free vegan meals with the hungry in protest to war and poverty. It is hard to imagine that any city official could justify spending tens of thousands of dollars to drive hunger out of sight knowing their citizens are suffering and have no prospects of jobs and are unable to find regular meals or affordable housing. But Orlando Mayor Dyer and his friends have the nerve to arrest and prosecute those volunteering to help seek an end to hunger.
And the crisis is growing. This year I joined a small group at Los Alamos. Speakers reported on the current production of America’s new Reliable Nuclear Arsenal. Auditors also announced that it is not possible to account for all of the weapons grade plutonium and that over 150 bombs worth of materials have been lost. Scientists at the national lavatory are developing conventional bunker buster bombs with more power than those dropped on Japan as waves of radio active poison from the ongoing meltdown of Fukushima grows more dire. West coast Americans have already experienced a dramatic increase in birth defects from the disaster.
At the same time authorities have announced a suspiciously phony terrorist alert that seem to be designed to justify the demonization of NSA contractor Ed Snowden and other whistleblowers just as one intelligence officer after another is coming forward to denounce the political system they have been hired to protect. The amount of covert surveillance operations exposed this summer is stunning. Tens of millions of innocent Americans are being tracked by the police through vast license plate scanning systems, according to new documents obtained by the ACLU in July 2013. We learned that all cell phones are monitored and that local police can follow your every move. Every internet and web actions is recored and identified to every user. There was even a suggestion that the “leaders” of the Occupy movement be killed using “suppressed sniper rifles.”
Millions already face hunger and live in poverty but this could just be the beginning of a desperate future for billions of others as they are driven from the middle class by the failing economic and political system. Every week someone will come to eat with Food Not Bombs reporting they have not had a meal in days. This story is becoming more common as we collapse into another “Great Depression” our volunteers will be required to help an even larger number of people seeking their first meal in days. The U.S. empire is in it’s last days and not taking it well.
Fortunately the collapse of capitalism is providing an opportunity to reshape our future. Sure it is a race to transform our society before there is a complete ecological failure but the magnitude of the crisis is so great many more people are rising to the occasion wiling to risk their freedom and security to confront corporate power.
I invite you to join or start a local Food Not Bombs group. You can help us recover, prepare and provide food to the hungry and those who are protesting the dangerous policies of austerity, war and environmental destruction. There really is no time like the anniversary of America’s first atomic massacre to join the struggle to protect our future.
Thanks so much.
Keith McHenry
cofounder of the Food Not Bombs movement.
http://www.foodnotbombs.net
The seven steps to starting a local Food Not Bombs group
http://www.foodnotbombs.net/seven.html
The Smashing Hunger, Squashing Capitalism tour
http://www.foodnotbombs.net/speaker.html
It is time to be honest about the impact of spying on our quality of life and the future of the planet.
June 25, 2013
By Keith McHenry, co-founder of the Food Not Bombs movement
June 25, 2013
“Since when did feeding the homeless become a terrorist activity?” asked ACLU Associate Legal Director Ann Beeson on May, 18, 2005. “When the FBI and local law enforcement target groups like Food Not Bombs under the guise of fighting terrorism, many Americans who oppose government policies will be discouraged from speaking out and exercising their rights.”
The information revealed by Edward Snowden is not news to those of us who have been the target of government and corporate intelligence operations. What is new is the much needed discussion about the impact of covert actions by the government and private intelligence programs on our future. Closing down the intelligence industry must be our first priority if we want to solve any of the other crisis we face today.
Domestic spying on the U.S. public is not as benign as its supporters are claiming. The data and personal information that is collected is used to stop a wide range important efforts. Even if not the target of these programs they have had a damaging impact on nearly everyone because those controlling the intelligence industry have used this power to interfere with nearly every effort to change our society for the better. The most important message to understand here is that there is more to surveillance than listening to phone calls and reading emails. The information collected is used to implement a complex system of programs designed to disrupt and stop perfectly legal community efforts. Changes in our society that you and your friends might support.
The information gathered by the intelligence industry is used more than most people realize to determine the direction of society and the health of our environment. No organization or person is immune from disruption. As Snowden pointed out “Not all analysts have the ability to target everything. But I, sitting at my desk, certainly had the authorities to wiretap anyone, from you or your accountant to a federal judge, to even the president, if I had a personal email.” The intelligence industry is able to determine the outcome of all important questions facing the public because they can use the information they gather to control people and organizations at every level of society.
My friends and I have been the target of disruptive intelligence operations and have direct experience with the devastation that can result from being the focus of the intelligence industry. I helped start the Food Not Bombs movement in 1980. We collect organic food that would otherwise be discarded, prepare vegan meals we share on the streets with literature suggesting we could end hunger and poverty if we redirected some of the military budget to healthcare, education and other domestic programs.
Surveillance has real consequences for those of us seeking to change society. I have been the target of a covert campaign of disruption by the intelligence industry since at least 1980 when 32 letters containing checks donated to Food Not Bombs were “damaged in route” by coffee on the stamp end of each envelope. I can only surmise that the authorities needed to make photo copies of the checks. During that same period our neighbors in Cambridge, Massachusetts reported that they had been questioned by the FBI about our work with Food Not Bombs and the secretary of Cambridge City Council told me that someone from the CIA had asked about me and a protest I was helping organize outside Draper Laboratory on August 6, 1981.
Food Not Bombs was first described as “one of America’s most hardcore terrorist groups” in the fall of 1988 during a three day training course for the National Guard on the threat of domestic terrorism. Even though we had been under investigation before 1988 the formation of a second Food Not Bombs chapter seemed to be threat to the authorities. A threat described in a 2009 State Department lecture that claimed we were more dangerous than Al-Qaeda because Americans visiting our meals were being moved to support a reduction in military spending.
An internal police memo dated September 27, 1988 explained that the information they over heard by listening to a telephone conversation I had with a friend in Boston ” was a great asset to ” their investigation. My friend and I expressed excitement about the fact that Food Not Bombs would be sharing food at protests against the war in El Salvador on October 15th in Boston, Washington D.C. and San Francisco. The first time Food Not Bombs would be providing food at protests in three cities on the same day. The police were able to interpret our conversation to support their plan to beat and arrest me during a protest against the war in El Salvador on October 15, 1988.
The memo to Deputy Chief Frank Reed Patrol Bureau from Acting Captain Richard Holder Commanding Officer at Park Station reads in part as follows. (this memo can be seen at http://www.foodnotbombs.net/wiretap1.html)
“As per your request, I have conducted an investigation regarding the planned activity of the “Food Not Bombs” organization on October 15, 1988 at the Presidio. During my investigation, I was able to obtain the private phone number of “Food Not Bombs” organizer, Keith McHenry, who unknowingly was a great asset to this investigation.”
“As part of a nationwide anti-war protest scheduled for October 15, 1988, “Food Not Bombs”, plans to blockade all the entrances to the Presidio to support similar activity at the Pentagon and other military organizations. The goal is to shut down the Presidio all day by blocking and feeding demonstrators at the gates to the post. “Food Not Bombs” anticipates that this demonstration will draw more participants, 3000, than the last major demonstration at the Presidio on 03/26/88.” I was sharing meals at the Nevada Test Site on March 26th and had not taken part in the planning of the protest at the Presidio. All we had planned to do was provide lunch to those participating in the protest.
A local activist videotaped the October 15th protest filming a “protester” as he threw a metal police barricade at a line of riot police. The video that we now call “The Food Not Bombs Greatest Hits” shows that he was dressed in the same type of clothing I had also worn that day. The video also shows the same man walking through a group of protesters pointing out the “organizers” to a squad of riot police that would arrest those he fingered. Protesters were upset at his actions and started to yell at him. The film shows him backing up against my truck as the activists yell at him for fingering the organizers. This was interrupted by more yelling as the people who were helping me pack up the Food Not Bombs supplies became upset at being pushed aside by riot police on their way to smash me to the pavement and arrested on charges of throwing a barricade at the police. The charges were dropped but I sustained many more arrests and beatings over the following ten years all facilitated by information obtained covertly from programs similar to those exposed by Snowden, Hammond and the other whistle blowers being prosecuted by the Obama administration. At no time did the authorities provide evidence that a warrant had been obtained for the many cases of my phone, email and personal effects being monitored.
The information gathered on me and my friends has been used to formulate plans to deny us permits, create disinformation campaigns, and prepare for our arrests and beatings while sharing food or supporting protests. On one occasion the police arrived to a rally against cuts in San Francisco General Hospital walked up to me hitting me with a large metal flashlight before throwing me to the ground. My attorney suggested this was done to discourage coalition building. Information covertly collected by the authorities have been used to develop smear campaigns that have reduced financial support for Food Not Bombs. Knowledge of my schedule was used to stop me on my way home from work where I would be arrested and taken to the Special Operations office at 850 Bryant Street in San Francisco where my clothes were torn off of me before being lifted by my arms and legs and smashed against the concrete floor as my tendons and ligaments were torn. I was placed in a tiny stress position cage for several days. Oddly I was not questioned even though the process is classified as “Information Extraction.” Information collected by intelligence operatives on other occasions were used to formulate a plan to frame me on violent or serious felonies where I faced 25 to life in prison and did more than 500 days in jail.
The intelligence industry has also worked to disrupt the work of many other Food Not Bombs volunteers. One of the first high profile attempts to frame and discredit one of our volunteers was the case against Connor Cash in Long Island accused of recruiting his high school friends to burn down some model homes in a disputed wetlands in 2000. He was acquitted by a jury on all charges in May 2004 but not before the media had associated Food Not Bombs and him as belonging to a terrorist cell.
Soon after Connor was prosecuted by Federal authorities in New York Food Not Bombs activists Josh Connole was arrested on September 12, 2003 as a suspect in the arson of 133 Hummers and other SUV’s at a Chevrolet-Hummer dealership in West Covina, California. Four days later, Caltech Physics Grad Student, Billy Cottrell, was arrested after emailing the media that Josh was not responsible. His case is a perfect example of how false information collected covertly can be used to falsely accuse some one of terrorism and aid in creating at basis for additional restrictions on our rights. Connole became a suspect after a neighbor became suspicious based on his anti-war politics, and electric car, then called in a tip. The police had cultivated a citizen watch program used to target activists.
The media in Orange County reported that “Agents placed the commune under surveillance and developed a political profile of the residents, discovering the owner of the house and his father have posted statements on websites opposing the use of fossil fuels.” An officer monitoring the activities of Connole and his roommates told reporters that after watching the house they discovered that “the owner had ties to a local chapter of Food Not Bombs, an anarcho-vegan food distribution group.” The FBI settled a civil rights lawsuit with Josh by paying him $100,000 and the city of West Covina paid him an additional $20,000 for false arrest. US Attorney General John Ashcroft spent the month of September 2003 touring the United States speaking to the media about the need for stronger anti-terrorism laws using the case of Josh Connole, and the arson in West Covina as the example of the extreme dangers facing America.
Even though there was no evidence that Food Not Bombs was planning to violate any laws the FBI paid an informant Anna at least sixty thousands dollars to infiltrate our movement. The FBI directed Anna to pretend to be interested in Eric McDavid. The FBI paid her to draw Food Not Bombs volunteers Eric McDavid, Lauren Weiner, and Zachary Jenson into a plot to bomb dams, banks and other targets. They refused but were arrested anyway. Eric was sentenced to 20 years in prison after the FBI pitted Wren against Eric. They used the information they gained through electronic surveillance and Anna against Wren knowing that she cared deeply for Eric and would be angry that he was attracted to the informant.
ACLU Attorney Mark Silverman showed an Australian journalist the FBI memos that detailed the government’s campaign to frighten Food Not Bombs volunteers from participating in the 2004 gathering. F.B.I. agents in Colorado, Kanas and Missouri made visits to people who were planing to attend questioning them about legal activities. The activists in Lawrence, Kansas stopped doing Food Not Bombs all together after the visit. The FBI didn’t stop investigating and intimidating Denver Food Not Bombs once they had disrupted the World Gathering. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) published a December 7, 2004 FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF) documents about an FBI “routine” investigation into Food Not Bombs. A December 7, 2004 memo to the Denver FBI office from a Denver Squad 5/JTTF Special Agent reads, “Synopsis: To document information regarding Sarah Bardwell and Food Not Bombs.”
It goes on to say “Details: as previously noted in serial 4, Colorado has several active Food Not Bombs (FNB) groups in Denver, Boulder, Fort Collins and Durango.”
The memo continues, “On August 1, 2003, eight individuals were arrested at the so-called Denver FNB house at 1435 Lipan Street. The Charges included obstruction police/fire, disturbing the peace, resisting arrest and assault. These arrests were noted in this investigation due to (i) the close association between FNB and Anarchist Black Cross movement and (ii) the close proximity of the FNB house to 923 Lipan Street, the location of the Anarchist Black Cross Denver.” As it turned out the flyer announcing the formation of Anarchist Black Cross Denver was published by the F.B.I. to provide probable cause for the investigation.
On March 8, 2006 FBI Supervisory Senior Resident Agent G. Charles Rasner gave a presentation entitled “Counter-Terrorism Efforts in Texas” to a U.S. Law and National Security class at the University of Texas School of Law. He used PowerPoint slides to illustrate the nature of the terrorist threat in Central Texas. Rasner listed Indymedia, Food Not Bombs, and the Communist Party of Texas as “Terrorist Watch” cause groups in Austin. The word “Unclassified” appeared prominently in bold red letters on the opening PowerPoint slide.
In the year before the 2008 Republican National Convention in Minneapolis the F.B.I. and local authorities infiltrated Food Not Bombs and the RNC Welcoming Committee. Ramsey County Sheriff’s Department Narcotics Officer Marilyn Hedstrom used the name “Norma Jean Johnson” joined Food Not Bombs claiming she loved dumpster diving and had recently been divorced. She and the other informants Ramsey County Corrections Officer Rachel Nieting known by local activist as “Amanda Clara” or “Amanda Amey,”Chris Dugger and Andrew Darst would “joke” about bombing the police or Republican delegates while participating in meetings with Food Not Bombs. Their statements suggesting the use of violence were used to request a warrant against the RNC Welcoming Committee. The Food Not Bombs house was raided the day before the conference and eight volunteers were charged under the state’s Patriot Act.
Most recently the use of covertly collected information from programs like those exposed by Snowden were used to disrupt Occupy Wall Street and the other occupations. The Partnership for Civil Justice Fund reported that “FBI documents revealed that from its inception, the FBI treated the Occupy movement as a potential criminal and terrorist threat even though the agency acknowledges in documents that organizers explicitly called for peaceful protest and did “not condone the use of violence” at Occupy protests.”
“FBI offices and agents around the country were in high gear conducting surveillance against the movement even as early as August 2011, a month prior to the establishment of the OWS encampment in Zuccotti Park and other Occupy actions around the country.”
The infiltration and surveillance on the occupations included a campaign in Cleveland organized by the FBI office in the Northern District of Ohio. Brandon Baxter and Connor Stevens cooked with Cleveland Food Not Bombs and helped cook for the occupation. I had worked with them from time to time. The FBI targeted five cooks at Occupy Cleveland sending an agent and paid informant Shaquille Azir to the kitchen on October 21, 2011. Azir had had a 20 year criminal history and was paid by the FBI to encourage the occupiers to participate in a bombing plot. The FBI was able to involve them in their May Day plot to bomb a bridge after offering the money, beer and showers.
Terry Gilbert, Stevens’ defense attorney, told reporters that he wondered why the FBI would send “a plant into a peaceful demonstration with a very ambiguous claim of criminal behavior. Once you get an informant in there, they have every motive to get a case. They are trying to make money or are working off a criminal case.”
Arun Gupta’s December 1, 20012 article in “The Guardian” outline the FBI’s effort to recruit Occupy activists for their campaign to discredit the movement. He reports that ” After Hayne agreed to testify, Wright, Baxter and Stevens accepted guilty pleas 5 September, gambling that Dowd would reduce their sentences based on mitigating factors. But this nixed the defense plan to argue entrapment, detailing how Shaquille Azir, a paid FBI informant with a 20-year criminal record, facilitated every step in the plot.”
“Azir molded the five’s childish bravado and drunken fantasies into terrorism. He played father figure to the lost men, providing them with jobs, housing, beer and drugs. Every time the scheme threatened to collapse into gutterpunk chaos, he kept it on track.”
“FBI tapes reveal Azir led the brainstorming of targets, showed them bridges to case out, pushed them to buy C-4 military-grade explosives, provided the contact for weapons, gave them money for the explosives and demanded they develop a plan because “we on the hook” for the weapons. At one point, Azir burst out in frustration at their ineptitude: “every time we meet, we leave saying, we’re doing some research. And then get back together and go back to square one.”
There was a concerted effort to reestablish the occupations on May Day but news stories about the Cleveland bombing plot, Black Bloc destruction in Seattle and Oakland and a phony story about the mailing of a suspicious white powder having been mailed to bankers in New York City made the news that morning portraying our movement as violent. This nationwide coordinated effort by the Obama administration was enough to stop our attempt to re-occupy the public square.
The investigation released by the DBA Press and the Center for Media and Democracy in May 2013 details more about the impact that intelligence operations like those exposed by Snowden and Hammond can have on constitutionally protected protest. The report details the use of “fusion centers” to coordinate the disruption of the occupations. This was not the first time “fusions centers” focused on disrupting community efforts. In August 2009 Food Not Bombs organizer Brendan Maslauskas Dunn learned that his friend John Jacob was in fact military intelligence officer John J Towery working at the Force Protection Unit and Fusion Center at Joint Base Lewis-McChord (JBLM) directed by his superiors to infiltrate the anti-war group Port Militarization Resistance (PMR), Food Not Bombs, and anarchists groups in Olympia and Tacoma. Dunn told me about his friend John and his help in organizing the protests against the shipment of weapons to Iraq when I spoke in Tacoma. Dunn told me John was a janitor at the base providing valuable information on the movement of armored vehicles to ships in the Puget Sound. It is easy to understand how devastated he would be on learning John’s true identity.
The documents in the 20013 report “Dissent or Terror: How the Nation’s Counter Terrorism Apparatus, in Partnership with Corporate America, Turned on Occupy Wall Street” show that corporate and government intelligence operations coordinate their efforts to disrupt community organizing that if not interfered with could be of value to most Americans. The authorities claim that the military can assist in disrupting the democratic process if their agents are assigned to a “fusion center” justifying the introduction of the military in domestic spying.
Most chilling are the FBI’s documents regarding their surveillance of the Occupy protests obtained by The Partnership for Civil Justice Fund that stated that someone “planned to gather intelligence against the leaders of the protest groups and obtain photographs, then formulate a plan to kill the leadership via suppressed sniper rifles.” The names of those planning to kill the perceived leadership of the occupation was redacted by the FBI.
The examples of intelligence operations implemented against myself and the other Food Not Bombs volunteers could fill a book, a book I have been writing for over a year already. Friends like Hugh Mejia have killed themselves as a result of the stress and lies generated by some of intelligence programs I will outline. Others like Michael Taylor have been murdered and still others like Eric McDavid and Jeremy Hammond languish in prison. Many others have given up trying to seek to change society. I am reminded every day of the very real harm caused by the intelligence industry and facilitated by the not so benign surveillance programs like those now being debated.
On June 24th Ed Schultz told his radio audience that he thought Snowden should return to the United States saying he could get a fair trial but it is clear that Snowden was correct to reveal news of the NSA programs from a hotel room in Hong Kong. There is no way he could have gotten a fair trial in the United States. Even with Amnesty International announcing I would be considered a prisoner of conscience I could not get a fair trial and all I had done was suggest we divert our taxes from paying for the military to healthcare and education. With Senators and congress people claiming Snowden is a traitor he would be crazy to come anywhere near the United States. Snowden must have known about the brutal treatment of Bradley Manning for providing evidence of war crimes to Wikileaks. If the United States could capture Julian Assange he would also face life in prison for the “crime” of exposing the criminal actions of those in power and consider the fate of Food Not Bombs activist Jeremy Hammond, prosecuted for sharing details about the work of the global intelligence company Strategic Forecasting Inc. or Stratfor with Wikileaks. He faced life in prison and has been held without bail since his arrest in March 2011, often in solitary confinement. He was pressured into pleading guilty in exchange for the lighter sentence of ten years in prison. The Stratfor files show that there is has been a global program of surveillance designed to protect the interest of transnational corporations and their government supporters from legal community opposition. Even before brave people like Manning, Hammond and Snowden exposed the extent to which the intelligence industry is collecting information about the public those of us that had been working for change had direct experience with covert efforts to stop our progress.
Almost any threat to corporate power can inspire the system to start a program of disruption using information covertly collected by the intelligence industry to inform their strategy. San Francisco Food Not Bombs had less than ten volunteers and shared vegan meals once a week at Golden Gate Park when the full force of the intelligence industry first implanted their covert war against our totally innocent project. Fortunately their efforts back fired as we can see time and time again and their unreasonable campaign against us inspired solidarity and the formation of Food Not Bombs groups in over 1,000 other cities.
There are no limits to the methods deployed by government and corporate security departments in defense of profit and power. No one is immune. Not judges, politicians or lawyers. Information can be manipulated against even the most powerful. Information collected on those working for the environment, animals, civil rights, peace and justice have faced brutal campaigns of infiltration, criminal prosecution, disinformation, injury, and even death.
Imagine if the security forces had not used billions of our tax dollars to interfere with efforts of concerned individuals, community groups and social movements. We may have transitioned to sustainable energy decades ago and would not be confronted with extreme weather, massive forest fires, droughts and the climate crisis. Efforts to improve the economic system could have saved millions of Americans from foreclosure had the intelligence community not subverted organizations working to build popular support for changes in banking policies. Every American might have the benefits of universal healthcare and affordable education. Instead of one out of two Americans struggling to survive most of us could be living relaxed lives of dignity. Millions of civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan might be alive today if the intelligence industry had not interfered with the peace movement. The threat of an attack on the United States by people angry from decades of war would never have become a reality.
Almost every aspect of society has been manipulated by the intelligence industry. Not one reform of our political or economic system is possible as long as we are subjected to the surveillance state. We will never have freedom and democracy until we dismantle the web of intelligence programs that control our society. Closing down the intelligence industry must be our first priority if we want to solve any of the other crisis we face today.
https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/549518-fbi-ows-documents.html
http://www.foodnotbombs.net/wiretap1.html
DEFENDING THE RIGHT TO SHARE FOOD AND IDEAS
June 16, 2013
The State of New Mexico issued a citation to Food Not Bombs on June 1, 2013 for sharing food without a permit while our volunteers were preparing to share our weekly meal at the Taos Plaza. This type of government interference with our Constitutional rights should never happen. Government permission to share food and speak out for our rights should not be required in a free country. The excuse of food safety is bogus. After 33 years of sharing free vegan meals with the hungry, first in Boston and now in over 1,000 cities world wide there has not been one report of illness. No one in our seven years of sharing organic vegan meals at the Plaza has ever complained of illness. Food Safety and sanitation can not really be the reason we were issued a citation.
If asked I am sure New Mexico Environmental Health officials will agree that the complaint they were responding to had nothing to to with food safety. Oddly the inspector did not even inspect the food and had to cross out the word “sell” and write “serve” above it on the citation because just as is the case in every state it is not necessary to have a permit to give away free things to your neighbor.
I believe it is important to defend our right to share food and ideas particularly now as the government concedes making huge cuts in the food stamp program while over $700 billion is being redirected to the military and another $90 billion is used on surveillance and covert disruption of community efforts at social change by groups like Food Not Bombs.
Over 47 million people in the United States officially live in poverty with studies reporting that one in two Americans are struggling to survive. America’s hungriest state New Mexico is also home to the world’s largest stock pile of nuclear weapons and is also producing a new nuclear arsenal at Los Alamos National Laboratories. Cannon Air Base flies their million dollar drones over our state and is considering using Taos County as a practice area for the use of the MV-22 Osprey in future invasions. We also learned that the government is collecting data about every phone call in Taos, that our web traffic is also being collected, stored and analyzed while locally our taxes are being used for a new command center for use by some unknown agencies to command some undefined staff for some unclear reason.
Taos was not the only community where our volunteers were confronted by local authorities this June. Officials in Seattle, Washington and Gainesville Florida also interfered with the efforts of Food Not Bombs that same week. After the occupy movement was driven from the streets nearly fifty cities including Philadelphia and Houston proposed the banning or limiting the sharing of food in public. They are still struggling to defend their rights.
This is not a “theoretical” concern. After years seeking permission from the city of San Francisco to share food and literature at Golden Gate Park we learned that there was no legal grounds for the state to require us to have a permit. Not one state requires people to obtain a permit to share with one another. It became clear that the authorities in San Francisco had no intention of issuing a permit because the real threat was our message that our country would be more secure if it spent its resources on food and not on so many bombs.
The complaint issued to our volunteers in Taos could be an innocent mistake made by the owners of a new food cart in the plaza ( I liked their spinach pie- its very good. ) or it could be part of a larger pattern that we are experiencing across the United States. Either way if we let the state require permits for the sharing of free items and ideas in this atmosphere it wont be long before people will be required to request permission to help people with flat tires or their math homework. You can visit our weekly meal and join us in seeking to build a free and democratic society where our hopes, desires and basic needs are given priority over the profits of transnational corporations and their government agents. I hope to see you this Saturday from noon to 2:00 PM at the Taos Plaza.
Keith McHenry
http://www.foodnotbombs.net/june_1_violation.html
TAOS NEWS ARTICLE
http://www.taosnews.com/news/article_b7241fd6-cec1-11e2-af56-001a4bcf887a.html
HUNGRY FOR PEACE – How you can help end poverty and war with Food Not Bombs
This is the new book about Food Not Bombs.
STATE OF NEW MEXICO ISSUES VIOLATION NOTICE TO TAOS FOOD NOT BOMBS
Officials with the State of New Mexico issued a violation notice to Food Not Bombs co-founder Keith McHenry as the Taos group was setting up their weekly meal on the plaza. The week before Food Not Bombs provided free organic meals at the March Against Monsanto.
Food Not Bombs has shared free vegan meals and literature on the Taos Plaza on Saturdays for the past seven years as part of the movement’s global campaign to end war and poverty. Since the action is protected as free expression under the U.S. Constitution and the food is a gift Food Not Bombs is not required to seek permission.
State official James Jenison appears to have understood that no permit is required and crossed out the word “Sell” on the notice and hand wrote “Serve” above it suggesting the law had changed and was now covering free speech activities and the sharing of good will and compassion. The sharing of free food has been an unregulated activity for centuries with the rare exceptions such as Mahatma Gandhi’s collection and distribution of salt during the movement for independence from Britain.
No one has ever reported being made ill by enjoying the organic vegan meals shared by Food Not Bombs in Taos or in any of the nearly 1,000 cities where the movement shares free food and information. Attempts by state officials to regulate the sharing of food in America’s hungriest state is misguided considering the state ignores the known threats to public health caused by the production, storage, deployment, and shipment of nuclear weapons and uranium mining.
After having shared free vegan meals at the Taos Plaza for the past seven years it is not clear why the State of New Mexico would suddenly suggest that our volunteers apply for a permit. When officials in Arizona, California, Florida and other states approached Food Not Bombs and asked our volunteers to seek permission officials refused to issue permits attempting to silence our message.
It is not clear who is behind this change in policy and why state officials would arrive to disrupt efforts to end war and poverty when congress is considering cuts in food stamps, we are seeing an increase in military activity over Taos County and a push for greater participation the crisis in Syria and the war on terrorism.
Please attend this week’s meal at the Taos Plaza Saturday from Noon to 2 PM.
NOTICE OF VIOLATION ON JUNE 1, 2013 BY THE STATE OF NEW MEXICO
http://www.foodnotbombs.net/june_1_violation.html
The State of New Mexico came and issued us a notice of violation on June 1, 2013. Very odd.
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