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Food Not Bombs is a loose-knit group of independent collectives, serving free Vegan and Vegetarian food to others. Food Not Bombs' ideology is that myriad Corporate and Government priorities are skewed to allow Hunger to persist in the midst of abundance. To demonstrate this (and to reduce costs), a large amount of the food served by the group is Surplus Food from grocery stores, bakeries and markets that would otherwise go to waste. This group exhibits a form of Franchise Activism . FIRST PRINCIPLES Food Not Bombs is an effort to feed anyone who is hungry. Each chapter collects surplus food that would otherwise go to waste from grocery stores, bakeries and markets, sometimes incorporating Dumpster Diving , then prepares it into community meals which are served for free to anyone who is hungry. The central beliefs of the group are:
Food Not Bombs also tries to call attention to Poverty and Homelessness in society by sharing food in public places and facilitating gatherings of poor, homeless and other disenfranchised people. There are three tenets to the Food Not Bombs philosophy:
Anyone who wants to cook may cook, and anyone who wants to eat may eat. Food Not Bombs strives to include everyone. HISTORY Food Not Bombs began in the early 1980s in Cambridge , Massachusetts , USA , a city adjacent to Boston , when a group of anti- Nuclear activists, who were protesting the nearby Seabrook Power Plant , began spray-painting the slogan “Money for food, not for bombs” around the city. The slogan was shortened to “Food Not Bombs”, and it became the name of their group. Soon after, they decided to put their slogan into practice. At a meeting of wealthy bank executives who were financing nuclear projects, the group showed up and started handing out free food outside to a crowd of three hundred homeless people. The action was so successful that the group began doing it on a regular basis, collecting surplus food from grocery stores and preparing it into meals. In the late 1980s , a second chapter of Food Not Bombs was formed in San Francisco . This chapter soon encountered tension with the police and fought two “Soup Wars” with the city's Mayor s, Art Agnos and Frank Jordan . Agnos initiated the first confrontation by using Riot Police to shut down a Food Not Bombs serving. The group was persistent, however, and despite its participants being arrested hundreds of times, managed to continue serving food on the street. Their use of the Media 's coverage of the altercation allowed them to gain community support. The Conservative Mayor Jordan succeeded Agnos and tension continued between Food Not Bombs and the Office of the Mayor. Members of the group were routinely beaten and jailed by police. By this time, however, the group had expanded. With crowds of hundreds of people at each serving, police action was difficult. Members of Food Not Bombs began videotaping police action and using the court system to try and stop Police Abuse . During the 1990s the Boston chapter of Food Not Bombs also faced some opposition from local police. However, following demonstrations and offers of solidarity from local churches, the potential bad publicity made carrying out of this opposition impractical. In the San Francisco election of 1995 , candidate Willie Lewis Brown, Jr. promised to stop the attacks on Food Not Bombs. Brown won the election. In part because of the media attention that Food Not Bombs garnered during their struggles in San Francisco, chapters began springing up all over the world. Food Not Bombs continued to gather strength throughout the and 1995, in Atlanta in 1996, and in Philadelphia in 2005. Chapters of Food Not Bombs were involved in the rise of the Anti-Globalisation Movement in the late 1990s, leading to the APEC resistance in Vancouver in 1997 ; the June 18 , 1999 International Carnival Against Capitalism; and the “Battle Of Seattle” later that year, which shut down the World Trade Organisation meetings. Food Not Bombs has also been heavily involved in the Anti-war Movement which arose in 2002 – 2003 to oppose the 2003 Invasion Of Iraq . During a presentation to the University Of Texas At Austin in 2006 , an FBI Counter-terrorism official labeled Food Not Bombs and Indymedia as having possible terrorist connections. {Link without Title} Today, there are close to 200 chapters of Food Not Bombs all over the world, though most are concentrated in fashion, Food Not Bombs is sometimes known as a “franchise anarchistic organization”. REFERENCES |
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