It’s almost hard to tell the difference between Food Not Bombs & Peaceful Uprising. Both are committed to non violent direct action to stop environmental destruction, militarism, and oppression by the ruling class. Both have members who have made great sacrifices for causes they believe in.
Then why is Food Not Bombs as strong as its ever been, while the relatively new Peaceful Uprising is, according to the collective itself, on the verge of collapse? Because, amongst the myriad pitfalls that NGO’s & non-profits have in their way, they often rely on large donations and funding that have the potential to destroy them. See Peaceful Uprising’s latest on how its funds along with many other non-profits have been wiped out by their abusive fiscal sponsor.
As countless Food Not Bombs agents will tell you, and to very loosely paraphrase the Joker…our methods are very cheap. We just don’t need all that much money. Food Not Bombs will never be at risk of collapse because of not being able to pay rent or staff, because we don’t need either to accomplish our goals. What little equipment and funding we do utilize is, by and large, easily replaceable.
Many in Food Not Bombs have closely followed Peaceful Uprising’s co-founder Tim DeChristopher’s kangaroo court trial this summer and subsequent imprisonment even as many of us were facing similarly Orwellian police state tactics, and know that the group has the potential to make a difference…but this agent at least suggests removing money from the equation as much as possible if they want to achieve their aims. Hang in there!
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