Organization seems to be part of the problem.  Good luck.

I don’t know if I think we’re as mice against the coyotes of the established order, but if we are, we’d better get organized.

I’m just saying, even the poor field mice follow a certain set of rules, e.g., never jump into the jaws of coyotes.

Certainly Orlando is acting violently.  That, to me, is the point Food Not Bombs is making there.  I am hoping it won’t be obscured.

In related news, someone who knows more about the situation than I told me that Anonymous has made a point of distancing themselves from Food Not Bombs.  Their position (she said) is that if anyone feeds the hungry and homeless, they should be left alone, not attacked, as the Orlando authorities are doing.  This will make it more difficult for Orlando to slander Food Not Bombs as a terrorist organization, which I think they have already tried to do, lies being of course one of the primary tools of government.

It just seems to me that, just as sarcasm is a blunt instrument, so the ruling in Orlando is an act of violence by the state. We can hem and haw about where to draw the line between what is considered violent and what is not.
    To me, the vocabulary of ANONYMOUS won’t score them any points, but the act itself is less “violent” than the ordinance. Not one of Disney’s patrons will miss a meal because of the hackers. Theoretically, lay-offs could happen, but I’d say we are better off without Disney.
    Disney is, in my opinion, a cultural aberration, not to mention a drain on the people’s wallet. For the money you spend, there is very little value to be gained by going there which can not be acquired, with effort and imagination, at a much lower price and much closer to home for most. Since society wrongly gears us to find pleasure and entertainment outside of ourselves and within the realm of things we must “pay” for, Disney is an excellent target to in the quest for simplicity.

katsteevns, July 2 at 11:03 pm:

By Anarcissie,
” But force is negation. “

Interesting concept, but how well does this work for say, an Iraqi family as I mentioned earlier(in the form of a blunt instrument smile )? Will this proverb still be true when we are reduced to the same level?

People being actively subjected to violence don’t have much choice outside of resistance or flight.  That is, they will use force to try to negate the force being brought against them.  However, organizing for resistance will preclude the evolution of different relations than those they already know, and will necessarily replicate the relations of the state, which is the most efficient social configuration for producing coercive force.  Under such circumstances, about the best outcome—and this will require a lot of luck—will be liberalism, with its various defects.  For people in Iraq, that would probably be an improvement.  In the United States, however, where we already have liberalism and can observe its seemingly inexorable degeneration into imperialism, totalitarianism, and kleptocracy, we probably want to aim for something better if we can.

By Anarcissie,
” But force is negation. “

Interesting concept, but how well does this work for say, an Iraqi family as I mentioned earlier(in the form of a blunt instrument )? Will this proverb still be true when we are reduced to the same level?

Jr.—I suppose the conflict in Orlando can be construed in different ways.  My view is that it is an attempt to forestall the growth of the state to totalitarian dimensions, when it will interpose itself in every human relationship.  After all, if you can’t give someone a sandwich without a license from the authorities, there can’t be much you can do except stay home and hide in your closet.

One of the first things those who want to resist the totalization of the state can do is call the extension of its powers into question in the minds of its constituents.  The drama being played out in Orlando does that: hungry people are being deprived of free food for no other reason than the assertion of the authorities that they can and should intervene at will (or as prescribed in regulations) in any and every human relationship, even the most primordial: the gift of food, for example.

Whether Food Not Bombs ‘wins’ or ‘loses’, the attempt to suppress its harmless activities is likely to at least provoke some thought.  Or so I would think.

Anarcissie,

In answer to your question, i have taken many tofu sandwiches into the parks, myself, to consume them, myself.  And should i happen to catch e-coli, or some other disease from doing so, i’ll have no one to blame, but my self.  Yes, the so-called law enforcers are power hungy! There’s no denying that; but what’s one to do?  Fight them at their own game?  Seems like a wasted effort, to me.  They be quite the force to contend with, and, frankly, there is nothing anyone can do about it:  they’re NOT going to just go away.  Most americans seem to be living in the dream of freedom, and most haven’t, yet, tested those supposed freedoms, because if they had, they might find the only ones remaining is the right to a speedy processing.  Sorry, i didn’t create the system, just observing it.

If it is illegal to be drunk-and-disorderly in public, then arrest all who are drunk and disorderly!  If it is illegal to be in the parks after the posted hours, then arrest everyone that is in the parks after closure!  Make the arrests, but arrest EVERYONE in violation of the posted rules:  homeless and joggers, alike.  The class discrimination is needing to be done away with.  Witch-hunting is running viral in america, especially by the, misnamed, law enforcers.

@ Anarcissie

I agree with you. Force is not radical enough to change the way people think about things. But maybe it is radical enough to save some of the lives of the victims. Didn’t someone mention earlier in this thread that it is better to stand up and fight for truth than it is to lay down and die for non-violence? Do you think that people are gonna wake up before all of our freedoms have been taken away? I don’t, and I think it’s a bad gamble to think that they will. And this as the list of fallen continues to swell and expand.

katsteevns—I don’t think force is radical enough.  I think we have to construct or cultivate a new kind of society.  But force is negation.  You can get the new cops to drive off the old cops, but you’ve still got cops.

@ Anarcissie,

If the youth(Anonymous) are gonna take a stand, I say let ‘em do it the best way they know how.(let ‘em learn a few things since they are obviously not listening to the peace-niks) No need for us fogies to be bitching about their tactics when we ourselves aren’t getting results on the scale needed.

I think everyone should be taking to the streets on this issue. Dont we know that we will be next in the chow line?

“Then they came to persecute the homeless,
But I wasn’t homeless so I didn’t speak up…...”

  Government offices need to be occupied on a grand scale. The sheriffs need to step in and perform their constitutional duties. People need to stop paying taxes.

The apathy in this country is nauseating. So, when someone finally says ENOUGH IS ENOUGH, are we gonna smack ‘em down because they don’t have flowers in their hair? Just be thankful the Koch Brothers aren’t funding them.

Right, drug dealers are going to give away drugs to the homeless and the indigent in tofu sandwiches.

I think it’s interesting the way the drug trade keeps popping up in this discussion, although no one actually in touch with the facts has suggested any connection between Food Not Bombs and drugs.  Of course, there would be a very easy way to eliminate drug dealers and the drug trade, but the usage here suggests that why the authorities don’t want to do it.

Anyway, jr., is there any activity you think should not be supervised by the police?  What if I take a tofu sandwich to the park with the intention of eating it myself?

Personally, i’m not convinced the city of orlando has so much a problem with the homeless being fed in the parks, as much as with it’s being done WITHOUT a permit.  Imagine, if you will, every drug dealer in the city packing tofu sandwiches in super-meals, trodding down to the local parks, and passing them out; oh, and by the way, some be furnished with certain specials mickeys to those that qualify. ‘Twould give new meaning to the idea of theme park. 
Unless the rules posted in each park didn’t specifically state, “no feeding the pigeons, the homeless, and other wild animals”; or, the police didn’t give the wouldbe do-gooders an opportunity to abandon their efforts in order to get the needed permits; i don’t imagine the defendants stand a snowballs chance in hell of winning their cases.

katsteevns, June 30 at 9:53 pm:

‘....meanwhile in Iraq, Afghanistan etc., they pay by eating bullets as we nonviolently march on.’

Sarcasm is a blunt instrument.  Maybe you could say clearly what you think Food Not Bombs ought to do.  Take weapons to the park and resist the police with them?  How will this further their aims?

....meanwhile in Iraq, Afghanistan etc., they pay by eating bullets as we nonviolently march on.

I think non-violence is, or would have been, useful in this particular case, because it would illustrate the difference between the state and its class system, supported of course by violence, on the one hand, and the non-violent, class-free polity proposed by Food Not Bombs.

It is important to show that class is violence.

Anarchissie:  But free speech is the public’s private property. ?? At the very lest, it is not the private property of government, and if we allow it to become so, we are all goners.

That’s why the “hackers” should not adopt the language of oppression and violence, but should avoid it like the plague.  However, the kids behind the movement probably are only dimly aware of the real practical significance of, and need for, non-violence. Their consciences, like our own, are worn down by “weapons of mass destructiono, “collateral a damage” and “enhanced interrogation techniques”, more correctly known as torture.

If we all spent full time just recognizing what has happened to us, as individuals and as a society—how clouded,  how confused ... if we just all kept calling attention to essential misunderstandings and befuddlements, it might ultimately serve as a small but powerful bastion of “trickle-down” enlightenment.  Truthdig, anyone?  Or maybe not? 

At any rate, I know the kids are smarter than our elected officials and corporation bosses.  My hope is that they will use their skills more wisely than their parents have used theirs.

By Jay

“The city does not want the homeless fed at all in public because they feel like it hurts tourism.”

Ah, the specter of the best of capitalism come round to bite us in the ass.

I say, take a house to house vote and forget what “the city” wants or doesn’t want. If “the city” wants DEMOCRACY, then they will comply with a poll. If “the city” does NOT want democracy, throw them out on their asses.

Anarcissie doesn’t seem to understand that our government is in the process of making EVERY ACTION by freedom fighters “considered ‘terrorism’ by most respectable citizens”.

Where does it stop, when we are all in labor camps watching our children being torn from our grasp and sent off to who-knows-where?!? When?

Is non-violence really the only sane/moral alternative?

Or are we just feeling overly guilty that we have been supporting an imperialist empire with our tax dollars for all these decades and non-violence would make us feel like HOLY SAINTS in our own right? (Not to mention negating and purging the sins of our fathers).

    DIVINE PROVIDENCE WITH A TWIST?!?
...A lemon twist for me, please! Honey, no sugar.

Non-violence is a pretty high calling for a people who remember no war within its borders. Or is it simply the FEAR of violence that fuels our convictions?

Did non-violence work for the gazillion women and children of Iraq who never picked up a gun or for the 6 million Jews of the Holocaust?

And who is this ANONYMOUS anyway? They are not here on TruthDig, are they? Has anyone talked to them? How many are there? Maybe it is run by Julian Assange.

Hacking in the sense of attacking Orlando’s or Disney’s computer systems will certainly be considered violence by the governments concerned.  It will be considered destruction or theft of public or private property.  Property is one of the cardinal principles of liberalism.  Since Anonymous’s attacks will be in pursuit of a political end, they will also be considered ‘terrorism’ by most respectable citizens.  Disney and the City of Orlando will be happy to conflate this ‘terrorism’ with the distinctly non-terroristic activities of Food Not Bombs.

The powerful advantage of non-violence seems to have been thrown away.

Anarchissie:  Thanks for the FNB info.  The moment after I punched “submit” it dawned on me!  I had a temporary lapse, not infrequent these days!  Lucky it’s only temporary.

I regard these hackings as nonviolent—so far at least, and hopefully continuing.  At this point we need every exposure of corporate and governmental truth we can get, though I fear the present dumpings
are already an endangered species. My one hope is that the kids are smarter than their elders.  I’ve been vastly encouraged to learn the increasingly widespread use of nonviolent tactics everywhere, though follow-up after the original protests still seems to be more or less ungrounded.  That’s natural, however, and to a degree even these beginnings are looking more hopeful than not. International efforts like the flotillas are making a lot clear as well as trying to be materially helpful.  Israel’s petty defensiveness is mind-numbing. How is it that governments simply coil up and strike instead of saying “Thank you” to whistle-blowers for making gross injustices visible?  Why can’t they use the exposure of errors to self-correct and step back out of their counter-productive, oppressive knee-jerk responses?

gerard, June 29 at 10:42 am:

‘Anarchissie:  Any counteraction will “justify the established order”, (mainly in their own eyes) won’t it?

Excuse my ignorance but what is FNB and what could they better do?  And what about the FDA which I think of as “the established order” in this case? ...’

FNB is Food Not Bombs.  Here are some informative web sites:
http://www.foodnotbombs.net/
http://www.lifnb.com/
http://www.bedstuyfnb.org

As far as I know, Food Not Bombs was doing just fine all by themselves.  Every time they went out and got busted, they exposed the true face of the state.  However, it seems to me that with the intervention of Anonymous, the state, in this case the city government of Orlando, with Disney behind them, can say ‘See?  They were terrorists all along.’  I would prefer to confront the violence of the state with non-violence for a while, just to make the point clear.  But I’m not there, nor am I directly involved (we are all indirectly involved) so I can’t say for sure.

No feeding? homeless pigeons and stray dogs.
let them starve. Boycott Florida, index finger to
Florida.
WHAT CREEPS right “Ratso”. No public toilet?
MacDonalds behind this? Bunch of Clowns.
Best thing to do is get couple thousand people with
sand-witches biggest picnic on the beach or in the
parks, take up space and eat.
Lots of folks eating in the street.
YUMMY Yummy goes my tummy.
Ridicule these Florida jerk Offs.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N_an6wsgrAg

Like Gerard I am struck by Anon’s “creativity,... moral integrity and ... exuberance” while being underwhelmed by their war imagery and checklist of threats. They can do what they promise, and promise would be a better (less bellicose)stance to take.

Arresting Food Not Bombs for feeding the hungry devolves to putting in charge(of gov’t) people who cannot THINK, as well as fetishizing (so to speak) military action over negotiation and legalisms over good, decent behavior.

By the way, I called and volunteered with the local FNB chapter. It is a most honorable endeavor, one I am happy to support. Maybe they should (re)name their Orlando campaign “Starve Mice Not Men”.

PS—Rereading my last entry I am struck by my use of “bulldozers” as being outlandishly retro.  More like “weapons of mass destruction.”  So early in the game the war imagery rumbles in.  Anon’s warning letter is full of it, and in that respect Anon. is ignoring “nonviolence” and continuing on in the habituated idiom—“bomb” “ceasefire” “target” etc.
It’s like leaches stuck to our skin—or a bad taste in our mouths that we can’t spit out.

Anarchissie:  Any counteraction will “justify the established order”, (mainly in their own eyes) won’t it? 

Excuse my ignorance but what is FNB and what could they better do?  And what about the FDA which I think of as “the established order” in this case?

In my opinion, Anonymous letter is fairly balanced in “tone” though if it were me I’d cut down on the threat element as the “power” in this case is overwhelmingly on the side of Anonymous—both technical and moral.

Shifting times for media, and for us all. Time to form and build sound tactics for future durability,
effectiveness and public support. Hackers need to be thinking about “public relations” skills along about now—and that, without corrupting their creativity,
their moral integrity and their exhuberance. If and
when government brings in the bulldozers, Anon. etc will need public understanding and support. In fact, they need it right now!

Good for them. Keep going, Anonymous!

I think this intervention, at this point, is unfortunate.  FNB can do very well using nonviolent methods without counterattacking.  Cyberwar will cloud the issues and justify the established order.

I guess it takes virtual civil disobedience to get results.

This is democrassy in action!
These homeless people could be dirty and smelly and disease ridden and this is
incompatible with Mickey Mouse as it would be socialism to help.