Weapons of war
The federal government is weaponizing food. Intentional starvation is a tool to control people, demand submission and force compliance. This time the guise for weaponizing food against the most vulnerable among us was the stalemate over the budget.
We should not mistake the larger implication here. The President of the US consciously chose to keep food away from hungry people. He put the daily lives of 42 million people at risk. He challenged judges who ordered him to restore the funding. He threatened to punish state governments that stepped in to try and fill the gaps created by lost federal funds. The intentional disruption of food aid is a war crime.
I would not have been surprised if Trump had declared it a crime for individuals to give and distribute food to the hungry. After all, it is already illegal in some right wing states to give out food or water to those waiting in long lines to vote.
This is the contour of the new civil war erupting in our lives. Anyone who is not a loyal, blind supporter of Trump is an enemy. For Trump and his minions, using the basic necessities of life is an acceptable cost in their consolidation of power and privilege. Death does not move them. This was clear as the bodies piled up from COVID and it is reaffirmed almost daily by the countless people killed by the direct orders to the US military and the indirect decisions to arm other governments intent on slaughter.
As blind as Trump is to the death of others, he is unable to resist his own comforts. While people lined up for food, he dallied in his gold-plated bathroom, surrounding himself with the wealthy elite he loves.
This kind of depravity is stoking the most deadly and destructive elements among us to do whatever it takes to protect their power, secure their privileges, and advance their wealth.
I found myself looking back at the origins of federal food benefits for people. In 1964, as part of the Great Society, President Lyndon Johnson proposed finding new ways to feed the hungry of this land. Johnson was often a petty, cruel man. I spent much of my life opposing his limited domestic agenda and his war in Viet Nam. But I have been struck by the kind of country he called us to imagine. With all his limitations, he advanced a framework that encouraged us to see our common human connection.
In his first State of the Union after the assassination of John F. Kennedy, Johnson reflected on the prosperity of the nation and said:
“We worked for two centuries to climb this peak of prosperity. But we are only at the beginning of the road to the Great Society. Ahead now is a summit where freedom from the wants of the body can help fulfill the needs of the spirit. We built this Nation to serve its people. We want to grow and build and create, but we want progress to be the servant and not the master of man.
We do not intend to live in the midst of abundance, isolated from neighbors and nature, confined by blighted cities and bleak suburbs, stunted by a poverty of learning and an emptiness of leisure.
The Great Society asks not how much, but how good; not only how to create wealth but how to use it; not only how fast we are going, but where we are headed. It proposes as the first test for a nation: the quality of its people. This kind of society will not flower spontaneously from swelling riches and surging power. It will not be the gift of government or the creation of presidents. It will require of every American, for many generations, both faith in the destination and the fortitude to make the journey. And like freedom itself, it will always be challenge and not fulfillment.
For many of us, Johnson’s vision was too small, his commitment to war too great. But he spoke of the dignity of people and our fundamental interconnectedness. He asked us to see beyond ourselves, guided by the belief that together we can improve the lives of everyone. This is the contour of the struggle in front of us.