References:
We Are Change:
http://wearechange.org/deptofhumanity/ Burrito Project:
http://tinyurl.com/yr6tjy We Are Change is a grassroots activist group that is a moderated outgrowth of the "patriot movement", a generally conservative "libertarian" political movement often associated with the militia movement of the 1980s. The patriot movements' primary concerns are Constitutional fundamentalism, gun ownership, and international isolationism.
We Are Change is aesthetically neutral, eschewing the traditional patriot aesthetic of red-white-blue, flags, and eagles, in favor of the "Adbusters flag" of America sold out to corporations. Their main political focus is "911 truth", except with the political intent of getting people together and pushing them toward supporting the patriot movement's political concerns.
The Burrito Project is a direct action project to feed homeless and hungry people, by cooking up burritos and giving them away. TBP is explicitly apolitical, or claims to be apolitical, and does not wish to be affiliated with Food Not Bombs. FNB is a well known feeding project that is anarchist, and with a stated goal of exposing the relationship between hunger, poverty, waste, and war.
FNB rescues food that will be thrown away from stores and farmers markets, cooks it, and serves it in a public place. The name "Food Not Bombs" makes a political statement that society should be organized to satisfy human needs, not to create war and violence. By feeding people in public, and eating in public, they expose the issue of homelessness, and the crime of throwing away edible food simply because it's unsellable in the market. (Different FNBs do this to different degrees - some feed the homeless where they are segregated, and others get the homeless to eat in more visible places.) FNB is operated according to anarchist principles of consensus organizing.
The Burrito Project encourages people to form tiny cliques, and then purchase cheap ingredients from the store. Then, they take the food, cooked, to homeless people, and give them the food, clandestinely if necessary. Their goal is to feed people.
More importantly, the goal of BP is to help people feel good about themselves, that they are "doing something". And, as it grows, it can draw people away from a project like FNB, and the FNB politics.
Without politics, feeding is pointless. The fact is, there is a lot of food for homeless people. According to administrators of missions downtown, there are "soup kitchens" and other groups feeding, as well as food stamps and food banks. Residential programs to transition homeless people back into the labor market sometimes have meal programs.
Without politics, the participants in the BP are going to find little reason to keep feeding -- they will end up dropping out, or changing focus. With politics, the participants in FNB can learn to create public demonstrations that challenge society to change, so that homelessness is decriminalized and reduced, and feeding the homeless is legalized.
The problem of apolitical direct action already been demonstrated by the fact that the We Are Change organization has adopted the Burrito Project as a compatible project that people can do to feel more connected to We Are Change.
What was once an impulse directed toward larger political action, has been adopted by a right-wing front group.