The Man Can't Bust Our Ice Cream!

Irony — now in single-serving thousand calorie packages:

We, the Ben & Jerry’s Board of Directors, compelled by our personal convictions and our Company’s mission and values, wish to express our deepest admiration to all of you who have initiated the non-violent Occupy Wall Street Movement and to those around the country who have joined in solidarity. The issues raised are of fundamental importance to all of us. These include:

• The inequity that exists between classes in our country is simply immoral.

• We are in an unemployment crisis. Almost 14 million people are unemployed. Nearly 20% of African American men are unemployed. Over 25% of our nation’s youth are unemployed.

• Many workers who have jobs have to work 2 or 3 of them just to scrape by.

• Higher education is almost impossible to obtain without going deeply in debt.

• Corporations are permitted to spend unlimited resources to influence elections while stockpiling a trillion dollars rather than hiring people.

We know the media will either ignore you [Red-line that irony meter, boys! –Ed] or frame the issue as to who may be getting pepper sprayed rather than addressing the despair and hardships borne by so many, or accurately conveying what this movement is about. All this goes on while corporate profits continue to soar and millionaires whine about paying a bit more in taxes. And we have not even mentioned the environment.

Ben & Jerry’s is a division of the British-Dutch Unilever conglomerate:

Unilever owns more than 400 brands as a result of acquisitions, however, the company focuses on what are called the “billion-dollar brands”, 13 brands, each of which achieve annual sales in excess of €1 billion. Unilever’s top 25 brands account for more than 70% of sales. The brands fall almost entirely into two categories: Food and Beverages, and Home and Personal Care.

Unilever’s brands include:

Aviance Axe/Lynx Ben & Jerry’s Blue Band Dove Flora/Becel Heartbrand Hellmann’s Knorr

Lipton Lux (soap) Omo/Surf (detergent) Rexona/Sure Wish-Bone Sunsilk TIGI (haircare)

The URL of Ben & Jerry’s corporate anti-corporate manifesto is http://www.benjerry.com/activism/occupy-movement/ — and “occupy-movement” sums up both the lifespan of their product, and the protestors’ poster boy rather well.