Food Not Bombs
Food Not Bombs is a loose-knit group of independent collectives, serving free
vegan and
vegetarian food to others. Food Not Bombs ideology claims that myriad
corporate and
government priorities are skewed to cause
hunger amidst abundance. To demonstrate this (and to reduce costs), a large amount of the food served by the group is surplus food that would otherwise go to waste from grocery stores, bakeries and markets, often obtained through
dumpster diving.
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, then prepares it into community meals which are served for free to anyone who is hungry. The central beliefs of the group are:
*If governments and corporations around the world spent as much time and energy on feeding people as they do on war, no one would go hungry.
*There is enough food in the world to feed everyone, but so much of it goes to waste needlessly, as a direct result of
capitalism and
militarism.
*Vegetarian food is both healthy and
non-violent.
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 four tenets to the Food Not Bombs philosophy:
*
Recycling of food
*Decision making by
consensus*Nonviolence
*
VegetarianismAnyone who wants to cook may cook, and anyone who wants to eat may eat. Food Not Bombs strives to include everyone.
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
mayors,
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 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 - one man even had his neck snapped 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 Brown 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
1990s, and held three international gatherings: in San Francisco in
1992 and 1995, and in
Atlanta the following year. 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 in 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. [
1]
Today, there are close to 200 chapters of Food Not Bombs all over the world, though most are concentrated in
North America. Food Not Bombs has a loose structure: every chapter of Food Not Bombs embraces a few basic principles, and carries out the same sort of action, but every chapter is free to make its own decisions, based on the needs of its community. Likewise, every chapter of Food Not Bombs operates on consensus: everybody does an equal share of work, and has an equal say in making decisions. Besides collecting and distributing food for free, most chapters of Food Not Bombs are involved in community anti-poverty, anti-war and pro-immigrant organising, as well as many other political causes. Because most Food Not Bombs groups share the same values and because they operate in a generally
anarchist fashion, Food Not Bombs is sometimes known as a "franchise anarchistic organization".
United States
*Ann Arbor, MI
*
Akron, OH*
Birmingham, AL*
Boston, MA*Carrboro, NC (Comida No Migra)
*
Cleveland, OH*
Davis, CA*
East Bay Berkeley-Oakland, CA*
Fort Lauderdale, FL*Fresno, CA
*
Gainesville, FL*Greensboro, NC
*Corvallis, OR
*
Houston, TX*
Los Angeles, CA*
Lowell, MA*
Modesto, CA*
Milwaukee, WI*
Nashville, TN*
New York, NY*Philadelphia, PA
*
Pittsburgh, PA*Portland, OR
*Raleigh, NC
*
Richmond, VA*
Sacramento, CA*
Salt Lake City, UT*
San Diego, CA*
San Francisco, CA*
Santa Ana, CA*
Seattle, WA*
Sonoma County, CA*
Spokane, WA*
St. Petersburg, FL*
Tacoma, WA*Toledo, OH
*
Tucson, AZ*Turlock, CA
*Wake Forest, NC
*
Washington, D.C.Elsewhere
*
Belfast, Northern Ireland*[https://lists.riseup.net/www/info/brum_fnb Birmingham, UK]
*
Calgary, AB, Canada*
Dublin, Ireland*
Edinburgh, Scotland*Edmonton, AB, Canada
*
Genova, Italy*
Germany*
Halifax, NS, Canada*
Kitchener-Waterloo, ON, Canada*
London, ON, Canada*
Ottawa, ON, Canada*Peterborough, ON, Canada
*Rijeka, Croatia
*Toronto, Ontario, Canada
*
Vancouver, BC, Canada*
Victoria, BC, Canada*
Anarchism*
DIY ethic*
Freeganism*
Mutual aid*
Direct action*
Really Really Free Market*
Food Not Bombs*
Funky Nixons at Food Not Bombs Anniversary Shows in San Francisco*
CrimethInc*
"Free Lunch," Houston Press article*
The Global Free Economy Project
