Weekender 19: Fuck Foodbanks

Fuck them.

I'm done with the expectation that, because of some narcissists with their eye on climbing the greasy pole, I should be grateful for this piss poor 'safety net'. That people destroyed by the capitalist system and its monstrous ruling class should be grateful for a parcel of dreadful quality nasty food, donated only because it's so cheap, not because it's healthy. Stop tugging the god damn forelock. We are human beings with the world and its abundant riches, food air water etc, as our shared birthright.

Why should I be grateful that corporations have stolen those resources and found ways to package their produce up into deliberately portioned, addictive, and mass produced, industrial muck. That in turn, should I need it (as we all need food), I should be grateful that a fellow citizen - no matter how well intended - has seen fit to spend a few pence extra on his weekly shop to grant me such a boon.

No one should live like this.

Look at the ongoing (it will never stop) spectacle of Tory and establishment grandees taking selfies at foodbank openings and events. As if this so called charity was a spectacle. But that's what it is; these people - and I don't mean the volunteers who are, largely, good and kind - are there to further their careers. At best they are propagating the system that foodbanks exist as a pressure valve for. If there was no alternative there would, quite rightly, be rioting. No one wants starvation, that's the point. But without this there would be civil unrest. That's the purpose of the creation of the welfare state. After WW2 the state recognised it couldn't countenance veterans coming home to poverty. The public wouldn't stand for it.

It's no surprise the Tories love them. Their existence allows them to claim social victory: that they are encouraging a 'big society'. All the while maintaining the very systems that keep people in need of foodbanks. Maintaining the systems of poverty and telling everyone to rely on charity while appealing to some religious dogma that justifies their existence. Jacob Rees Mogg finds them 'uplifting' while voting against measures that would improve things systemically. Though of course these measures are still within the system and thus problematic. We are supposed to have a welfare system and that should take care of people, but it's been dismantled and foodbanks, unfortunately, have contributed to that. Ultimately we need to dismantle the entire system so that there is no need for a welfare state. In the meantime, spare me the spectacle of 'uplifted' Tories.

Fast forward to now and it's selfies with scumbag Tories, preening before a Usual Suspects line up of the local great and the good. Arseholes that can't see all they are doing is propagating the problem while deigning to offer their gifts to the local paupers. All of whom should feel unceasing and fulsome gratitude to receive such kindness. A package of limited support that is neither comprehensive, sufficient, or ongoing. As if a few days, maybe - if you're lucky (or unlucky!) enough - weeks, to subsist on. Meanwhile the implicit unspoken assumption is that, by some miracle, your circumstances will change and you won't somehow need food anymore.

So be thankful ye paupers. Be grateful that the Tories and the ruling class and everyone propagating this dreadful capitalist system are willing to throw some cardboard crumbs your way. Cry your tears into your bowl of powdered milk that you may enjoy a ration of sugar coated corn syrup infused cereal. Don't ever look at the ingredients though. None of them are what the human body needs.

Ultimately even the welfare state is problematic for the same reasons. But it is part of the state and as such Tories use foodbanks to cut these systems. I'm all for a world without a welfare state, but that can only be part of a society where resources such as food are made freely available and shared without fear or favour. That humans have to go cap in hand to those who have engineered and maintained a protective hierarchy is abhorrent and unnatural.
Charity indeed is a cold dead hand.