EMPIRE COLLAPSE

Could this open a path to a future of community and compassion?

The US Empire may have run its course. The last assets of America being cannibalized by the techno-fascist billionaire class hovering around Washington DC and Silicon Valley. The vultures of Wall Street are perched to sell the top of the stock market. We could be on the precipice of an economic crash as brutal as the world suffered in the 1930s.

For millions of Americans the Great Depression 2.0 has been their reality for that last few years. There was a 32% increase in the number of Americans who became homeless during the Biden Presidency.

The month long disruption of SNAP food stamps that forced 47 million people to worry about their next meal was a wakeup call for America.

But even before the SNAP disaster Americans were struggling. I have been getting calls nearly everyday for that past four years from all over the country seeking food. Many haven’t eaten in days. Others tell me they are eating canned cat food or have only one box of cereal in their pantry. Often these are seniors who have been referred to me by a health insurance company who gave them a $100 gift card when they signed up for Medicare Advantage. When the money runs out they call the number on the back.

United Health gave the Food Not Bombs toll free number to a woman in Corpus Christi, Texas during the first week of December. She told me that the Meals On Wheels waiting list was months long, the food bank couldn’t help her because she couldn’t drive and when she called SNAP they said they had run out of money. She is typical of my dozen or more such conversations I have each day. Fortunately I was able to direct her to Tacos Not Bombs.

The economy really is a house of cards. Families forced to buy ever more expensive groceries with credit cards at 20% interest. There is little money left after paying rent.

Meanwhile AI companies are using a circular financing scheme promising each other $300 billion contracts to gin up the value of their stocks and the Federal Reserve rushes billions in overnight repro (repurchase agreement) to save banks from defaulting on their obligations. One giant economic crashing Enron style Ponzi Scheme ready to crash. Get ready.

The number of people coming to eat with their local Food Not Bombs group is already on the increase. A collapse could send additional torrents of people seeking food and material support.

When industry and businesses closed sending millions into unemployment after the 1929 crash there were no food banks, soup kitchens or established mutual aid groups like we have today. And thankfully if food banks and foundation funded meal programs are used by the authorities to force compliance with the dystopian programs of control there is already a strong and growing network of hundreds independent mutual aid groups like Food Not Bombs that will refuse to cooperate.

The closest relief effort to that of Food Not Bombs was the Catholic Worker. In response to the savage hunger around her a young woman from New York named Dorothy Day started the first Catholic Worker soup kitchen in the Lower East Side of Manhattan New York. The depression had already been inflicting pain when their first pot of soup was removed from the stove and they spooned out the first bowls of stew. Unlike Food Not Bombs they had to learn the art of the soup line when the crisis was already unbearable.

This time when all goes bust there are hundreds of experienced cooks and logistic experts are at the ready in hundreds of American cities. Volunteers that have years of practice providing the most essential gifts of food, water, clothing and companionship. They have personal relationships with those working at groceries, bakeries and a whole network of local support. Many local Food Not Bombs chapters have been active for decades.

Our network of resources and support are already well established. Volunteers understand logistics, a skill that translates into being capable of providing hundreds of hot meals and emergency relief efforts after hurricanes, fires and social upheaval. Most Food Not Bombs groups are in a position to respond.