Hundreds of poor people waiting
outside of a closed grocery store for the possibility of getting the
remaining food is not the picture of the “American Dream.” Yet on March
23, outside the Laney Walker Supermarket in Augusta, Ga., that is
exactly what happened.
Residents filled the parking lot with
bags and baskets hoping to get some of the baby food, canned goods,
noodles and other non-perishables. But a local church never came to pick
up the food, as the store owner prior to the eviction said they had
arranged. By the time the people showed up for the food, what was left
inside the premises—as with any eviction—came into the ownership of the
property holder, SunTrust Bank.
The bank ordered the food to be loaded
into dumpsters and hauled to a landfill instead of distributed. The
people that gathered had to be restrained by police as they saw
perfectly good food destroyed. Local Sheriff Richard Roundtree told the
news “a potential for a riot was extremely high.”
“People got children out here that are
hungry, thirsty,” local resident Robertstine Lambert told Fox54 in
Augusta. “Why throw it away when you could be issuing it out?”
SunTrust bank is trying to confuse the
issue and not take direct responsibility for their actions. Their media
relations officer Mike McCoy, stated, “We are working with store
suppliers as well as law enforcement to dispose of the remaining
contents of the store and secure the building.” Yet he also said that
the food never belonged to SunTrust Bank.
There is no need to sugar coat what
happened. Teresa Russell, chief deputy of the Marshal’s Office in
Richmond County, said the owner of the building ordered that the food be
taken to the landfill. Some people even followed the truck to the
landfill and were still turned away.
In Richmond County, there are about 20
evictions per day, and the area surrounding the supermarket is one of
the poorest in the state. According to the last available data, the
poverty rate is 41 percent. Many people in that parking lot probably
knew all too well how evictions work, and were in desperate need of the
food assistance.
This story is not some bizarre exception.
It reeks of the truth of capitalism and is strikingly similar to the
H&M scandal that broke in 2010 when clothes were being shredded
before being thrown away, so as to make sure the value of the
merchandise was unaffected.
In a capitalist society, the motive
behind the production of food is not to feed people, housing is not made
to give them shelter, clothing is not made to keep them warm, and
health care is not offered primarily to keep people healthy. All of
these things, which are and should be viewed as basic rights, are
nothing other than commodities—to be bought and sold—from which to make a
profit. If a profit cannot be made, usually due to overproduction in
relation to the market, the commodity is considered useless by the
capitalist and destroyed.
In this case, it appears the bank simply
did not care. For the banks that have made their profits through
evictions and foreclosures, it is little surprise that they showed no
remorse in leaving people staring in disbelief, with empty bags, as they
watched the food that could be feeding their families dumped into a
landfill instead.
Source:
www.globalresearch.ca
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