FriendBurst Blog

Arresting Food Not Bombs is Censorship- Support the Orlando Volunteers
Global days of action May 18 – 24, 2011

http://www.foodnotbombs.net/arresting_fnb_censorship.html

“There has to be some kind of (police) action. At this point it seems
to be a political statement on their part not a food give away issue.”
SAN FRANCISCO POLICE SPOKESMAN JERRY SENKIR 1988

“They don’t want to feed the hungry, they just want to make an
anarchist type statement and we aren’t going to allow it.”
SAN FRANCISCO POLICE CAPTAN DENNIS MARTEL 1989

On April 12, 2011 the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the
City of Orlando could limit Food Not Bombs right to share information
and food to the public to twice a year per park. Other Florida cities
may follow Orlando’s path. This ruling comes at a time when the message
of Food Not Bombs is more important than ever. Poverty and hunger are
increasing as military spending grows and public investment social
services, education and healthcare are slashed. The city of Orlando
could begin its arrests of Food Not Bombs volunteers as early as May 18,
2011, the first meal 30 days after the ruling. Food Not Bombs groups
have been invited to share free food and literature under their banner
that week in a global defiance of this order.

The authorities don’t object so much to the groups feeding of the
hungry. What worries government and corporate leaders is our message.
The San Francisco police made this clear in 1988 when they offered to
provide city buses to take the hungry out to an armory at Ocean Beach
telling the media that they didn’t object to our providing food and that
the problem was that we were “making a political statement” and that was
not allowed. After 1,000 arrests the San Francisco Police used a more
effective strategy. They figured out a way for the group to discontinue
bringing literature and a banner to the meals. San Francisco Food Not
Bombs slowly became invisible and they fed less and less people. People
passing the meal assumed they were a well meaning church group. The
discussions about national priorities ended. Instead of feeding two or
three hundred people the group was sharing food with forty or fifty of
the cities most needy people at a time when more people need food and
the economy was in decline. People that happened to know this meal was
organized by Food Not Bombs naturally assumed this was the method that
had inspired ten years of police repression and reproduced the food only
meals in other cities around the United States. Those groups were
sending the message that as long as we are providing food to the hungry
our political and economic system is fine. Most people had no idea they
were part of a global movement organized to change society so no one had
to rely on a soup kitchen for food and that everyone would have the
freedom to eat when and where they wished without having to worry about
where their next meal would be coming from. The impact of sharing food,
information and conversation with hundreds of people with the goal of
inspiring social change and rebellion was absent. When millions of
Americans go hungry each day how can we spend half the federal budget on
preparing for war? In the past year San Francisco Food Not Bombs is
turning this image around. Encouraging this debate is easy. Collect
stacks of literature from local organizations, print up some flyers
about Food Not Bombs, place them in a bag or box and place your Food Not
Bombs banner on top. Take this to the meal, set out the literature and
hang the banner in a way where the most people possible can see it and
start sharing your tasty vegan dishes. After two hours dozens of people,
maybe hundreds will have contemplated the idea that we really can end
hunger and poverty if only we redirected our resources from wasteful
programs like the military. Repeat this every week and before long as
happened in Iceland at our weekly Food Not Bombs action people will be
marching to the parliament and inspiring change.

We first realized the power of sharing vegan meals and literature on
March 26, 1991 when the first Food Not Bombs collective dressed as hobos
and shared soup outside the stockholders meeting of the National Bank of
Boston to protest their investment in Seabrook Nuclear Power Station.
Over 50 people came to share food and express concern about the dangers
of the nuclear industry. We were attempting to build popular support
against the nuclear industry. We were seeking to stop the board of
directors from investing their depositor’s money on risky and dangerous
projects. Projects that could lead to nuclear meltdowns, ecological
collapse or as Reagan suggested, nuclear war. The Board of directors of
the Bank of Boston also sat on the board of Babcock and Willcox, the
company that was building Seabrook Nuclear Power station and many of
them also sat on the board of the Public Service Company of New
Hampshire who was buying the power station. These bankers also profited
from the nuclear weapons industry. Their policy of lending themselves
millions of dollars with little public oversight was reminiscent of the
bank practices that caused the Great Depression in the 1930’s.

We decided to make that point visible by dressing as hobos and setting
up a soup line outside the annual stockholders meeting of the bank. I
was a produce worker and discarded several cases of produce every
morning so soup was an easy vehicle for our protest. As we prepared tour
huge pot of soup we became concerned that there would not be enough
people participating to represent a Depression era soup line so I went
down to the Pine Street Inn and told the assembled homeless that we were
planning a protest at noon outside the Federal Reserve Bank at South
Station. They responded with excitement about the protest. Even so we
were surprised when over 50 people showed to partake of the first Food
Not Bombs meal. We set out literature including the details of how the
board members of the bank also controlled companies like General
Electric, Raytheon and other leaders in military contracts. We also
shared literature from the War Resisters League showing that half the
federal budget was spent on the military.Our banner and literature
caught the attention of stockholders and business people passing our
table and before long men in expensive suits were having serious
conversations with people that often slept at the Pine Street Inn.
People that never spoke to one another discovered that there wasn’t much
difference between them. Our literature inspired debate on the issues of
military spending and the real security of housing, education,
healthcare and food.

Thirty years later the world is facing the most lethal nuclear disaster
since the atomic bombings of Japan. The Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power
station is on the verge of melting down. The global economy is in crisis
due to the policies of bankers investing for their own benefit. Experts
might call it the “Great Recession” but for billions of people it feels
more like a Great Depression is on the horizon. Bank executives lobbied
for deregulation, sold bad mortgages, reaped the profits letting the
economy collapse. Food prices are increasing at fastest pace in thirty
years as speculators move to invest in commodities. At the same time the
Supreme Court ruling in the Citizens United case claims that
corporations have the First Amendment right to spend unlimited money to
influence American politics while the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals
ruled that Food Not Bombs is limited to express it’s message to twice a
year per park in Orlando. Food Not Bombs volunteers are defying the
ruling and continue to share food and literature under the banner Food
Not Bombs willing to risk arrest to defend the First Amendment right to
express our message that food is a right and not a privilege and that
real security could be achieved by diverting military spending towards
human needs.

When the San Francisco police started arresting us in 1988 they told
the media that they didn’t have a problem with us feeding the hungry but
that Food Not Bombs was trying to make a “political statement” and they
wouldn’t “allow that.” The banner and literature where the first targets
of the police during the nearly nine years of arrests and beatings in
San Francisco. When it was clear that strategy was backfiring the police
developed a more effective policy of sending informants to discourage
the use of banners and literature. Having erased the political statement
Food Not Bombs was free to share food and the chapter slowly devolved
into the environment feeding less and less hungry, recovering less and
less food and retaining fewer volunteers until it became an invisible
“Nine Gallons” of soup as described in Susie Cagle’s graphic novel.
Church groups handed out their bible tracts and potential volunteers
called discouraged that they had gone to United Nations Plaza but could
not find Food Not Bombs. Those activists that were persistent and
learned that it was Food Not Bombs started their local chapters based on
their impression that the San Francisco group was he most significant
chapter and reproduced the model sharing vegan meals without literature
and a banner not realizing volunteers had suffered violent beatings,
torture and faced long prison sentences defending the First Amendment
Right to share literature under the banner Food Not Bombs. Food Not
Bombs volunteers in San Francisco are working hard to make sure banners
and literature are at every meal. Authorities will not silence their
message. Their visible presence is sure to encourage more volunteers,
food donations and attract more hungry to their meals. Their historic
position in the Food Not Bombs world is sure to inspire a stronger more
visible challenge to a militaristic United States as they influence the
use of banners and literature at chapters all over the United States at
this critical time.

April 5, 2007 Orlando Food Not Bombs activists Eric Montanez, was
arrested for sharing food with more then 24 people in violation of the
cities “Large Group Feeding Permit” law. Eric was found innocent and a
Federal judge ruled the law unconstitutional and a violation of our
First Amendment right to Free Speech but on April 12, 2011 the Eleventh
Circuit Court of Appeal ruled the city could restrict Food Not Bombs to
sharing it’s message and food to twice a year per park. The message that
resources should be redirected from the military to basic human needs
should be supported. The impact of showing volunteers are able to
provide nutritious vegan meals to hundreds of hungry Americans while
encouraging conversation on our national priorities should happen every
day on every corner and park in every town and city in the United States
not restricted to twice a year per park.

The United States is not alone in attempting to silence Food Not Bombs.
The Belarus dictator Alexander Lukashenko is also ordering the arrest of
our volunteers each week in Minsk attempting to silence efforts to
develop a free and democratic future.

A young Tunisian produce worker Tarek al-Tayyib Muhammad Bouazizi set
himself on fire on December 17, 2010 fed up by police abuse and high
price of food sparking a global wave of uprisings. Those wealthy bankers
are seeking to squeeze every last cent out of an increasingly desperate
people. Hunger and cruelty of the super rich is sparking a global
uprising. The billionaires are responding by murdering their people. The
global revolt is spreading from Tunisia, Egypt, Oman, Libya, Bahrain,
Yemen, Algeria to China, Korea and the United States. People are rising
up from Wisconsin and Michigan to England, Iceland, Greece, Croatia, and
France. Replacing failed social structures with a sustainable system
maybe more difficult then over throwing governments. But still there is
an urgent desire to bring democracy, dignity, basic necessities, if
nothing else some sanity to our world. The richest 2 percent already own
over half the world’s wealth and resources. And they seem to want more
even though nearly a billion people go hungry each day. Are we really
prepared to allow our last penny to be delivered to the ruthless
destroyers of our future? As the Food Not Bombs faces repression in the
United States we are witnessing unprecedented disasters stemming from
the public’s cooperation with a mad political and economic system. We
let the billionaires lead us to this point. Too many of us bought their
products and their philosophy. The owners of BP continue to live in
spender after they commanded one of the world’s worst oil gushers as do
the Wall Street executives that plunged millions into unemployment,
homelessness and hunger. These mad men claim ownership of billions of
suffering animals farmed in factories, the genetics of our food seeds,
acres of ancient forests, gallons of fresh water, oil, gas and minerals
all treated as products to be sold to a world of consumers. Now we are a
world of consumers without money, shelter, food or dignity. Consuming
war, radioactive fallout, near slavery and toxic “food.” What near
apocalyptic event or poverty inducing theft is in our future? While
ladling soup outside stockholders meeting we were concerned that we
could face a future of nuclear disasters, environmental catastrophes and
a global economic collapse. We urged those visiting our first Food Not
Bombs meal to join us in building resistance to the policies that could
bring ruin to our world. Our literature and speech invited them to
withhold their support of the “culture of death” and join us in
transforming society. Maybe by practicing democracy using consensus in
our groups or sowing hope and a feeling of abundance with our sharing of
vegan meals we would have some influence in our community. Thirty years
later it is clear that our concerns were well founded and the need for
change couldn’t be more urgent. There has never been a time when
encouraging dialog on the issue of redirecting military spending towards
food, healthcare and education is more urgently needed. Defying the
courts order to restrict our ability to reach the public with our
message and feed as many people as possible is our obligation under the
current conditions.

Back in 1981 we could not have seen was that our tiny theatrical soup
line would be joined by thousands of others. Not only seeking to end
their own painful hunger but to join us in our effort to stop the web of
disastrous policies. Each crisis has inspired another wave of volunteers
eager to participate with Food Not Bombs. Eager to take a stand and feed
the hungry. Rushing to participate, having been forced into poverty or
inspired to insurrection by the untenable conditions.

We are eager to welcome you to our table. There is enough for everyone
if we withdraw our support for the system of exploitation and have the
passion to implement a nurturing community where everyone’s ideas are
respected. Cultivate community and reap revolution. Cook for peace and
transform the world with food not bombs.

Please forward…

Orlando Large Group Feeding Permit Law
Except for activities of a governmental agency within the scope of its
governmental authority, or unless specifically permitted to do so by a
permit or approval issued pursuant to this Chapter or by City Council:
(a) It is unlawful to knowingly sponsor, conduct, or participate in the
distribution or service of food at a large group feeding at a park or
park facility owned or controlled by the City of Orlando within the
boundary of the Greater Downtown Park District without a Large Group
Feeding Permit issued by the City Director of Families, Parks and
Recreation or his/her designee. (b) It is unlawful to fail to produce
and display the Large Group Feeding Permit during or after a large group
feed- ing, while still on site, to a law enforcement officer upon de-
mand. It is an affirmative defense to this violation if the offender can
later produce, to the City Prosecutor or the Court, a Large Group
Feeding Permit issued to him/her, or the group, which was valid at the
time of the event. (c) The Director of Families, Parks and Recreation or
his/her designee shall issue a Large Group Feeding Permit upon
application and payment of the application fee as es- tablished by the
City. Not more than two (2) Large Group Feeding Permits shall be issued
to the same person, group, or organization for large group feedings for
the same park in the GDPD in a twelve (12) consecutive month period. (d)
Any applicant shall have the right to appeal the denial of a Large Group
Feeding Permit pursuant to appeal procedure in Section 18A.15 with
written notice to the Director of Families, Parks and Recreation and
with a copy to the City Clerk.