Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield, the founders of Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream, held a news conference Monday at the National Press Club to address their support for the Occupy Wall Street movement and the need for corporations to get out of politics.
The Daily Caller asked Ben Cohen why he isn’t outspoken about the fact that Unilever, the multinational corporation that owns Ben & Jerry’s, spent more than half a million dollars on lobbying in 2010.
“I don’t think that corporations should be trying to influence legislation. I don’t really have anything to do with Unilever … Ben and Jerry’s is definitely owned by Unilever, but I don’t attempt, personally, to try to influence Unilever.”
TheDC also asked whether the number of rapes and other violent incidents that have occurred at “Occupy” protest camps factored into Ben & Jerry’s decision to support the movement.
“No it wasn’t,” Cohen said. “The Occupy Wall Street movement is adamantly nonviolent.”
“It’s definitely true that there were some problems in some particular occupies where they became overrun by people that were not really part of the movement,” he insisted.
Watch Ben Cohen talk about his “Ice Cream Social”-ism:
[dcvideo videoid=”24779732″ name=”ndnPlayer_24779732″ type=”ndn” /]—
Videography by Direna Cousins
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