Reply #61: You're lucky you live in a good area.

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Charity and fighting for systemic change are separate issues. My problem with the organics "movement" is that no other movement demands that people in other movements consumer their product. War resisters and the anti-war movement doesn't demand that people don't pay taxes. Police brutality activists don't demand that people de-fund their local police and they don't put up "more democratic" vigilante groups in their place. Labor activists don't demand solidarity strikes from other workers. LGBT activists don't demand that people fighting for transgender rights stop interacting with homophobic churches and they don't think change is going to come by banning gender segregated toys--hell, they're not even protesting opposite-sex marriages. Immigrant rights activists don't demand that people renounce citizenship to prove their "on-board."

But the organics movement (and every other consumer-based movement) demands that people conspicuously consume a product to be political. And for that reason they don't recognize the value of other political groups they could align with. They shame everyone instead. They act as if most people eat bad, toxic food because they are lazy and ill-disciplined--so war resisters, LGBT activists, labor activists, etc. are all "the problem." You can't build solidarity with other working class movements if you're approaching politics from a "buy-in" consumer angle. Why not use the center as a political education and research arm and build connections with other movements--without demanding that people stop drinking diet soda or eating non-local meat?

When I organize to help the Iranian protest movement, anti-war resisters, labor movements, anti-death penalty campaigns, (etc.) I don't require ANY of the people I work with to be in solidarity with my own personal struggle (LGBT violence) to join in. Instead I educate them as they educate me about their struggle.