"Ben Cohen [of Ben & Jerry's] supports Occupy Wall Street with ice cream" (in "The New Yorker")

"[T]he police backed down, and the standoff turned into a victory celebration, catered by [Ben] Cohen. Some activists boycotted the ice-cream party. 'One very loud Occupier walked up and down shouting about how Ben & Jerry's is owned by a corporation that is part of the problem,' he said. 'I understand his point of view. All I can say is: the line for ice cream did not get any shorter.' "

-- from Andrew Marantz's April 23 New Yorker "Talk of
the Town" report (only an abstract available free online)

by Ken

Unfortunately high quality of soul is no guarantee of high quality of ice-cream manufacture, any more than high quality of ice-cream manufacture is a guarantee of high quality of soul. That said, the ice cream that Ben Cohen and Jerry Goldfield set out to make became as good as it was, and the company they ran -- whey they ran it -- was as good a capitalist citizen as it was, because the founders are pretty darned good people.

I was both tickled and touched to read this New Yorker "Talk of the Town" piece by Andrew Marantz, and thought you might enjoy reading this portion of it too.

Cohen, who is sixty-one, has a ruddy, clean-shaven face (Jerry is the one with the beard). He talks slowly, chuckles often, and wears comfortable shoes. Last October 12th, Cohen left his home, in Burlington, Vermont, and arrived at Zuccotti Park with a freezer full of ice cream, hoping to feed hungry protesters. But they had more pressing concerns: the police were threatening to force everyone from the park the following morning, and people were staying up, singing protest songs and preparing to be arrested. "It was amazing," Cohen said. "I kept texting Jerry to tell him what I was seeing." The next day, the police backed down, and the standoff turned into a victory celebration, catered by Cohen. Some activists boycotted the ice-cream party. "One very loud Occupier walked up and down shouting about how Ben & Jerry's is owned by a corporation that is part of the problem," he said. "I understand his point of view. All I can say is: the line for ice cream did not get any shorter."

Cohen continued to visit encampments across the country, bearing Chunky Monkey. In January, hoping to contribute something more solid to the movement, he founded the Business Affinity roup. The idea was to find one-per-centers for the ninety-nine per cent, including businesspeople "who might lend the movement some mainstream support and credibility -- but who probably would not go down to Zuccotti Park themselves." Many Occupiers were wary, so Cohen renamed his effort Occupy Money Group. "But that made it sound like we were the official fund-raising arm of the movement, which we are not," Cohen said. The name changed again, to Movement Resource Group. M.R.G. acts like a foundation, funding projects on the strength of written proposals. So far, M.R.G. has raised four hundred thousand dollars, and it has given small grants to a health-care conference in Montana and an Occupy radio station in Astoria. Several times a month, Cohen flies from Burlington to New York, and bikes to meetings with potential donors.

To celbrate President Obama's inauguration, Ben & Jerry's released a flavor called Yes Pecan! What about an Occupy-themed flavor? "It's come up," Cohen said. But he no longer has power within the company -- it was sold, over his objections, in 2000 -- and Unilever, the corporate parent, has been reluctant to endorse the movement. "My idea was to call it Choccupy, and it would be all vanilla with one big chunk of chocolate on top. You could just eat the chocolate and pretend you're part of the one per cent, or you could break it up and mix it with the rest of the ninety-nine per cent, and make chocolate chip."

Jerry and Ben in 2010 (photo: Dismas/Wikipedia Commons)
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