by Crimethinc. Workers' Collective
Available in 284 free installments
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The next day, before each of the four movies, we read aloud a statement the squatting group had prepared about their action, taking advantage of the assembled audiences to publicize it. Food Not Bombs served again, and two radical infoshops from the region set up tables in the foyer to distribute books and literature. One of the movies was not a Hollywood affair, but a whimsical French documentary about dumpster diving; we preceded it with series of brief documentaries one of our colleagues had compiled on the subjects of thinktanks and folk science, accompanied by a live voiceover. In the intermission that followed, we opened the theater up again for a free slideshow and discussion on squatting around the world. The numbers in attendance for this day were lower, again, as they had been on Friday; many of the people who had been involved before spent the day at the squat, cleaning it up and watching for police, who fortunately did not appear.
On the day following the film festival, those of us who had worked hard to organize
it were totally exhausted. All the same, one more skillshare took place?^the advanced
Pg5j,-^^,j course on graphic design, following up Thursday's introductory workshop?and that
2^6 night, the group that had remained in the squatted house opened it up to the public
for a commimity potluck and dinner. The house was crowded with people eating delicious food, getting to know one another better, and discussing the pros and cons of the weekend's event.
Was our festival a success? Not unequivocally. We lost quite a bit of money, and the people of our town haven't yet risen up to replace capitalism with ex-workers' councils and gift economics. The dates we had picked for the festival were in the middle of vidnter, right at the end of the semester for local college students, and many people were busy or had already left on vacation. Also, I feel we should have varied more from the format of showing movies; after three days of constant movie-watching, the contradictions between our goals of motivating people and the spectatorship-based medium we had chosen for a starting place were painfully obvious. Our towri didn't quite have enough people to support a radical film festival of the kind we staged, and we were counting on the proceeds from the films to cover our expenses; people came out to see a movie or two, but your average cinema-goer won't go out to see more than a couple of movies in a three-day period, and for understandable reasons the greatest number of people chose the firee day to show up. If we had held the same event in a larger city, it would probably have worked out, assuming our costs hadn't been higher As it was, we might have been better oif breaking up the movies wdth other kinds of performances and events, and renting fewer movie reels.
On the other hand, we pulled oflF a very idealistic experiment, and survived to learn from it. If nothing else, our festival was part of a string of cultural events that serve to build and maintain the radical social base in our community, and it did involve a wider range of people than the average activist rally. Until every radical is connected to a community and every community is radicalized, events like this should be happening constantly, so people can meet each other and be exposed to new possibilities. 247
Festivals
Food Not Bombs
Ingredients
There are a very few things you need to start a Food Not Bombs.
248
like Crimethlnc, "Food Not Bombs" is something between a strategy and an organization: the basic idea is that people get together in public on a regular basis to cook and share free food. The concept behind Food Not Bombs is so simple you could start one on your own even if you'd never seen one anywhere else; if there isn't a Food Not Bombs in your town, it's time to start one. Food Not Bombs doesn't simply feed people and redistribute resources?it is one of the most common and effective ways for people to get their first taste of anarchist politics and action. You can't look long at all those mounds of discarded food and all those people who could use a good free meal without beginning to question the basic principles of a society that values wasteful consumption over common sense. Food Not Bombs is a gateway drug to activism.
An understanding of and agreement with the three PRINCIPLES OF Food Not Bombs
a place and time to cook
a place and time to serve
a core of volunteers
Transportation
Basic large-size cooking
pots and pans Serving containers Utensils
a few staple ingredients Food
Highly
Mone y-for at least not much of it)
