SNAP Recipients Fight Back In Junk Food Crackdown

[Cirsium]

160. Indeed! My point exactly

Many people do not have easy access to food, hence, the need for programs of assistance.

"The first man who, having enclosed a piece of land, thought of saying ‘This is mine’ and found people simple enough to believe him, was the true founder of civil society. How many crimes, wars, murders; how much misery and horror the human race would have been spared if someone had pulled up the stakes and filled in the ditch and cried out to his fellow men: ‘Beware of listening to this impostor. You are lost if you forget that the fruits of the earth belong to everyone and the earth itself belongs to no one!'"

- Jean-Jacques Rousseau

There is a long history of the struggle for commoners to have access to the resources of the land, with the upper class denying that to them. Wave after wave of working class people have been driven off of the land. That is the historical and political background for government food assistance programs, which include the Land Grant college system, the USDA, Cooperative Extension, state ag departments, etc. All of those programs benefit the general public, not just particular recipients, such as the SNAP program participants.

In my opinion, Democrats should never be punching down. Pontificating about how those with the least power and resources should or should not be behaving, and calling for restrictions and qualifications is punching down.

The Enclosure Acts drove people off of the land in the UK, which created a desperate and easily exploitable labor force for the lords of industry and caused massive waves of emigration.That background is important for understanding urbanization, the Industrial Revolution and food security issues.

The Enclosure Acts

Common land is owned collectively by a number of persons or by one person with others holding certain traditional rights, such as to allow their livestock to graze upon it, collect firewood, or cut turf for fuel. A person who has a right in or over common land jointly with others is called a commoner.

Most of the medieval common land of England was lost due to enclosure. In English social and economic history, enclosure was the process that ended traditional rights on common land formerly held in the open field system. Once enclosed, these land uses were restricted to the owner, and the land ceased to be for the use of commoners.

https://courses.lumenlearning.com/suny-hccc-worldhistory2/chapter/the-enclosure-act/

Enclosure and the German Peasant Revolt

The demands of the poor and downtrodden in both urban and rural areas brought together calls for religious reform and economic liberation. Historians have access to hundreds of different examples of the demands raised by the rebellious peasants and townsfolk.

The Twelve Articles produced in March 1525 are the most famous example. This manifesto was quickly distributed and reproduced throughout Germany via the latest communications technology, the printing press. The Twelve Articles offer a fascinating insight into the thoughts of a mass movement that was developing its radical ideas and challenging the status quo.

The articles continued with economic demands, including the abolition of serfdom: “We hereby declare that we are free and want to remain free.” The rebels challenged the way that rich landowners had privatized the land by taking away the rights of ordinary people to hunt, fish, or use resources. One section called for forests to be “returned to the village so that anybody can satisfy his needs therefrom for timber and firewood,” along with former common lands that have been taken away from villagers to enrich the lords.

https://jacobin.com/2023/12/german-peasants-war-feudalism-class-conflict-reformation

"What is the evil brew from which all usury, theft, and robbery springs but the assumption of our lords and princes that all creatures are their property? The fish in the water, the birds in the air, the plants on the face of the earth — it all has to belong to them! To add insult to injury, they have God’s commandment proclaimed to the poor: God has commanded that you should not steal. But it avails them nothing. For while they do violence to everyone, flay and fleece the poor farm worker, tradesman, and everything that breathes, yet should any of the latter commit the pettiest crime, he must hang . . . It is the lords themselves who make the poor man their enemy. If they refuse to do away with the causes of insurrection how can trouble be avoided in the long run? If saying that makes me an inciter to insurrection, so be it!"

- Thomas Münzter

https://www.culturematters.org.uk/thomas-muntzer-and-the-german-peasants-war/

This historical background is important for Democrats to understand, because it still strongly influences politics today, if we don't address this dynamic a vacuum is created into which right wing demagogues can operate.

"The poacher is asserting a right (and an instinct) belonging to a past time—when for hunting purposes all land was held in common. In those times private property was theft. Obviously the man who attempted to retain for himself land or goods, or who fenced off a portion of the common ground and—like the modern landlord—would allow no one to till it who did not pay him a tax—was a criminal of the deepest dye. Nevertheless the criminals pushed their way to the front, and have become the respectables of modern society."

- Edward Carpenter
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Carpenter

"The enclosure of the biological and intellectual commons in this way is a real threat to the future of people everywhere because it creates a situation where common practices that have been part of people's lives for generations become monopolies of a handful of pharmaceutical, agribusiness and agrichemical corporations. People then become incapable of looking after their own needs."

"In England, the population explosion can be linked very clearly with the enclosure of the commons that uprooted the peasants from their land. In India, it was the same thing: the population increased at the end of the 18th century when the British took over and Indian lands were colonized. Instead of the land feeding Indian people it started to feed the British empire. So we had destitution. Destitute people who don't have their own land to feed themselves can only feed themselves by having larger numbers, therefore they multiply. It's the rational response of a dispossessed people.'

- Vandana Shiva