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Download .pdf leaflet (Baltimore, Maryland)
Download .pdf leaflet (The Triangle, North Carolina)
Access to Food is a Basic Human Right!
For increasing numbers of people, every trip to the grocery store has become traumatic. Food prices are skyrocketing. For growing numbers, it means that in addition to less nutritious meals, some will skip a meal so the young ones can eat. Sometimes it means not eating in order to make the rent. In the U.S., unlike some other parts of the world, it isn’t because of food shortages. It’s because food is only available to those who can pay the price.
And along with price increases, food safety deregulations mean that it’s difficult to even know what is safe to eat anymore. Tens of thousands of people are finally recovering from the explosive cyclospora outbreak, only to face new serious recalls – from lettuce to eggs to beef to blueberries. We shouldn’t have to live this way!
This isn’t a new problem. This system of capitalism prioritizes profits over our needs. Food is produced not to nourish us, but for profit. And food that is grown but not profitable is thrown away rather than given to those in need. The Trump administration has directed even more funding towards its military and global power schemes, leaving much less for social programs. DOGE, headed by Elon Musk, made drastic cuts to the agencies responsible for monitoring our food, health, and safety. We’re seeing the effects. Regulations for big companies have been cut. Our food and water supply is less safe! There are fewer people tracking food parasites and monitoring food production.
Restrictions to qualify for Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits this year have created even more insecurity for around 4 million people. And with the program’s costs being shifted to the states next year, even more people will be denied access to basic foods.
The money is there, produced by our work. There are record corporate profits, the stock market is soaring, and billionaires measure their wealth in hundreds of billions of dollars. This is a war on our basic existence! And it is not limited to the U.S. The U.S. government is waging war and imposing tariffs around the global food markets. This will impact small farmers, limit food imports and raise food costs. Food will be even more inaccessible to many.
The U.S. wars are making food markets more unstable. Disrupted trade routes are making global shipping completely unpredictable. And the war on Iran is disrupting the export of fertilizer and key fertilizer ingredients that the agriculture industry relies on. Next year it is guaranteed that we will face even more drastic food shortages, which will drive prices even higher, and make food completely inaccessible to some.
In addition, the intensifying climate crisis is destroying croplands around the world. The unrelenting use of fossil fuels is driving conditions for survival to the brink. Weather and natural disasters are more violent and unpredictable. The heatwaves, droughts, flooding, and wildfires are threatening the global food supply. Grain and vegetable production, which also affect livestock and egg production, are at historic lows across much of the world.
Those in power have created a world of extremes. Water supplies around the world are drying up. The slow melt of glaciers and mountain snow during the warming months provides water to hundreds of millions of people around the world. But glacier collapse can lead to catastrophic flash flooding, which in Nepal last week killed hundreds to thousands of people and destroyed whole towns and agricultural lands. And more floods are predicted to follow.
These are not natural disasters. They are the result of the criminal acts of those who are in power. Their addiction to increasing their wealth means gambling with our lives and the future of life on our Earth. Already, around the world, more than one in four people face moderate or severe food insecurity. Food insecurity and hunger do not have to be our future! But under the current system it is guaranteed. When profits are the main priority: waste is part of the process of production, climate destruction is a result, and our basic food needs are just another item to sell.
The knowledge and technology exist for us to live very different lives, not ones of fear and want, but of creativity and engagement. If our needs were prioritized, addressing the shortages and lack of access to basics and beyond would be a focus of all of our activity. And that change is up to us. We would use the knowledge of local ecosystems to develop agriculture in sustainable and less wasteful ways. We would all contribute our creativity, labor, time, and energy towards assuring the well-being of everyone.
Cyclospora is not the only thing we need to remove from our lives. We need to get rid of this system, which has shown a total disregard for anything but amassing wealth.
It will take a fight, the fight of our lives, because our lives and much of life on our Earth depends on it.
Reports From Speak Out Members Around the U.S.
Bay Area, California: Defend the Crockett 10! An Injury to One is An Injury to All!
Workers at C&H Sugar in Crockett, CA, were on strike for over a month when scabs tried to drive through their picket line, injuring two workers and sending one to the hospital. C&H called the police, who beat and arrested 10 members of ILWU Locals 6 and 10. Local 6 represents the warehouse workers who were on strike, and Local 10 represents dock workers honoring their picket line. At their court date on August 19th, the arrested workers and their supporters learned that charges had not yet been filed.
Law enforcement is collaborating with the C&H bosses by dangling charges over the workers heads while negotiations continue. Cops defend the bosses’ interests over ours! We need to show up in support of the Crockett 10, to show that they can’t get away with this!
Baltimore, Maryland: Tech Corporations Won’t Control Our Neighborhoods
Last week residents of Baltimore and other Marylanders spoke out at City Hall against the proliferation of data centers. At a city council meeting a few days later, another crowd packed a hearing room to oppose a bill regulating new data centers in Baltimore, instead demanding that the current one-year moratorium to be made permanent.
New data centers are being built at a staggering rate, primarily so the big tech companies can create new AI products. They use outrageous amounts of power, increasing electrical bills and threatening blackouts for people nearby, and often result in new, polluting power plants. And many local governments are offering secret deals and tax breaks to encourage their development. Let’s make sure our resources are used for our needs, not the tech billionaires!
Newark, New Jersey: ICE Raids Hit Jersey Hard
New Jersey is feeling the effects of more ICE roundups. In July ICE arrested 2,100 in the state, surpassing previous monthly totals. In one raid in Lakewood, 18 were kidnapped as they went about their day working in a Mexican market and while looking for day work. This coincides with national numbers, showing that ICE snatched 49,000 nationwide in July.
ICE has shifted tactics, becoming less dramatic and confrontational. Whereas long ICE occupations of whole cities like Minneapolis or L.A. were met with large protests, these smaller and decentralized raids are harder to quickly recognize and organize against. It will take more than one-off protests to stop this. We’ll need a larger response from the larger working class. Otherwise more lives and families will be destroyed.
The Triangle, North Carolina: A Modest Proposal to Address Stress in Restaurant Work
North Carolina restaurant owners have discovered an alarming fact: restaurant work is stressful. Food preparation and serving workers report frequent mental distress at a rate 60% higher than workers overall. Researchers have identified such mysterious causes as insecure income, inadequate benefits, job strain, abusive customers, bullying, and lack of control at work.
One might therefore raise wages, provide sick leave, guarantee hours, hire enough people to do the work, or give employees some say over their jobs. But these remedies share an obvious defect: they cost employers money.
They have found a cheaper answer. Triangle restaurant owners are funding UNC’s Psychology Department to give restaurant and hospitality workers up to 20 free counseling sessions. Thus no one need remove the boot from the worker’s neck. Just give her a therapist to help her explore why being stepped on makes her anxious!
