Keith McHenry: Food Not Bombs! An American Saga

. NOTICE! This video is available from the PIRATE TELEVISION website located here: http://www.edmaysproductions.net/ Please download the video at this link: http://www.edmaysproductions.net/webvideo/mchenry.wmv /************************************************************ A Brand New Video from ** Pirate TV ** !!! *************************************************************/ Keith McHenry: Food Not Bombs! An American Saga, Monday 3/30/09 12-1 & 8-9pm PST Keith McHenry: Food Not Bombs! An American Saga. Recorded 3/21/09 The Food Not Bombs movement began in 1980 by a group of anti-nuclear activists from the Clamshell Alliance in Cambridge MA who were organizing against the Shoreham Nuclear Power project. The organizers stumbled upon the revolutionary tactic of distributing free speech with free food. Of course no good turn goes unanswered and although last time I checked, free speech and free food were not illegal; this transgression against the established order has not escaped the ire of the authorities. The loose affiliation of social justice anarchist collectives dedicated to nonviolence has been repeatedly attacked by police in the United States and has been under investigation by the FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force, Pentagon and other intelligence agencies. It has been designated one of the 10 top “terrorist threats” by the FBI. A number of Food Not Bombs volunteers have been arrested on terrorism charges. Of coarse none of this has ever stood up in court because as I said, handing out free speech and free food is not illegal. Government repression has only resulted in the rapid spread of Food Not Bombs collectives throughout the world. As we will see, the powers that be have good reason to feel “terrorized” because not only is this movement spreading out of control but it has spawned many offshoots such as Pirate Radio and the Indymedia movement, Rainforest Action, the Direct Action Network and other anti-corporate globalization operations, as well as recent by-products such as Food Not Lawns, Bikes Not Bombs, and the Homes Not Jails project. Keith McHenry, one of the original 8 instigators of Food Not Bombs tells the story of the 30 year struggle on Pirate TV this week. The entire 60 minute talk plus an additional half hour of Q&A is posted on the Pirate TV website. Food Not Bombs http://www.foodnotbombs.net/ Pirate TV and SCAN need your help! Production of high quality independent, socially relevant television like Pirate TV is labor intensive and expensive. I estimate conservatively that since I began producing my own show in 1996 that I have put well over a half a million dollars of my time into this media activism project. Each week by the time I finish a show, post it on the web and do a write up, I have put in anywhere from 10-30 hours of my time. I also have to pay out of my pocket for expenses such as web hosting, supplies, hardware and software. This costs thousands of dollars. In the past generous friends have helped offset some of the expenses for equipment purchases. This week my camera started eating tapes. Last time that happened it cost me 3 or 400 dollars for a new head, the time before that I had to buy a new camera. Soon I need to upgrade my system to HDTV. This means HD camera(s) and new very expensive editing software. I don’t mind donating my time but I don’t see why viewers shouldn’t be asked to help out from time to time with the expenses. A donation of $10 a year from everyone who watches Pirate TV on line will help get me through the current crisis and start me on my way to the needed upgrade to HDTV. I want to move eventually to a situation where I can start to cover the cost of my own labor and hire people to do some of the videotaping and editing. To do this including expenses, I will need to raise about 25 thousand dollars a year. A check of 10 or 20 dollars from each of you will help keep Pirate TV on the air. However if you would like to donate larger amounts, say $100 or more, you can get a tax write-off by making the check to SCAN and writing “for Pirate TV” in the memo line. SCAN is a 501c3 and Pirate TV qualifies for non-profit status under the SCAN umbrella. 10% will go to SCAN and you will receive a receipt that you can use for your tax return. Please make your check out to me or SCAN, not Pirate Television. Send all checks to: Ed Mays 6057 3rd NW Seattle, WA 98107 For cable viewers: Other ways you can help SCAN Public Access Television and other Community Access (PEG- public, educational, or governmental) cable channels were a concession won from giant media conglomerates such as AT&T, TCI, Comcast, or Viacom by local franchising authorities (municipalities) at the behest of media activists and consumer lobbies in exchange for what amounts to monopoly control of cable transmission in any given local area. Another concession in this regard was the creation of C-Span. It was thought that this would keep people who complain about a lack of programming in the public interest off their back. People who would watch programming like Pirate Television most likely will have recognized long ago that there is very little on the cable channels that you pay for what would qualify as information that is actually in the public interest. Most of what you get in the form of “news” or informational programming is either right wing or corporate propaganda, or has been filtered to remove anything that even hints at what is important for the public to know in order to effectively govern themselves in their own best interest. For that reason the corporate media monopolies rightly see programming such as Pirate TV as their competition both ideologically and for viewers. As they see it, why should they be forced to fund and provide access to their competition now that they have secured monopoly control over your eyeballs? This is why they started maneuvering to get out of their obligations from the very start. In fact Viacom has legislation before the Washington State Legislature at this very moment to eliminate the cable franchises altogether thus leaving local governments with no control over them at all. The media conglomerates have succeeded in extricating themselves from Public Access funding and are moving toward eliminating the PEG channels altogether. SCAN and PSA (Puget Sound Access) are now non profits and all funding for SCAN secured through the government is scheduled to stop within two years. The last SCAN director Marshall Parker had a plan to address this that partially involved content producers raising their own funding either from grants, donations or sponsors. Under this system the station would get 10% of the proceeds as the non-profit umbrella. Marshall at first told me that he would have no problem finding sponsors for Pirate Television. Later it became apparent that I was going to have to find my own funding. The problem with this is that just producing a weekly TV show saps all my spare time as it is, leaving me with no time to chase down sponsors. In addition, asking people for money is not my forte. My guess is that most other producers are the same because apparently Marshall’s plan wasn’t bringing in much money and the SCAN board fired him at the beginning of this year. Although I got along famously with Marshall, I disagree that Public Access Television should be “privatized”. Public Access should remain “public”, funded through the City and County by allocating a few cents each month from your cable bill just as it was before. You can help make this happen by contacting the Seattle City Council members and the Mayor’s office. The Mayor has not been a strong supporter of SCAN in the past. Many of the Councilpersons are on our side (especially Nick Licata) but may need a little inspiration. Your calls and letters, telling them how much you appreciate Pirate TV, Democracy Now, or any other essential programming could make all the difference in putting real public television on a sound financial footing. Thank you, Ed Mays Producer, Pirate TV Seattle http://www.edmaysproductions.net/ Watch Pirate Television on SCAN Primetime in King County, Washington, USA channel 29 or 77 Pirate Television is streaming online on SCAN TV Mondays 12-1 & 8-9 PM PST http://www.scantv.org/ Pirate TV also streams several times a week on PSA http://www.pugetsoundaccess.org Pirate Radio http://www.freakradio.org/ Watch Democracy Now! http://www.democracynow.org/

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 cezen (2010-03-10)

Thank you SO much for providing the links! This is good stuff!