← Let's Give A Damn
Let's Give A Damn
Ben Cohen: Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream, the Genocide in Gaza, and the Department of Pentagon Excess
01:11:09
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- [00:00]
A
Hello, dear friends. Welcome to the let's Give a Damn podcast, a show where I have conversations with incredible people who give a damn and who aim to lead the planet much better than they found it. I'm your host, Nick lapara. Thank you so much for being here. Truth is, you could be doing a million different things and yet you've chosen to listen to this show this week. So thank you very much. Before I introduce this week's guest, I just wanted to remind you that that you can show your support for this show by becoming a monthly donor partner on our Patreon. You can follow us on social media, you can share this episode with friends in person and online, or you could buy some of our merch on our website, letsgividam.com or maybe you're an organization or company that aligns with us and you'd like to sponsor some episodes. There are so many ways to support and I invite you to explore which ones are right for you. You can reach out to me anytime with any questions at. Hello, let's Give a damn. Com. So I have been a fan of my guest today, Ben Cohen, for years and years and years. Not just because he's the Ben from Ben and Jerry's and who doesn't love Ben and Jerry's ice cream, but mostly because this human truly, truly, truly gives a damn. He's a philanthropist, an anti war activist, an activist for many causes, and has been doing this work for longer than I've been alive. Now, that isn't a weird way of bringing up Ben's age. I say that to highlight his faithfulness, his steadfastness. He truly is an example to all of us. In our conversation, Ben and I discuss his Zionist upbringing, his decades of service to so many people, how Ben and Jerry's became the iconic brand that it is, how he is trying to free Ben and Jerry's. His current initiative called up in Arms, which can be found at upinarms, Life and so much more. This conversation was fantastic. And my couple of hours with Ben were truly, truly something that I'll remember for a long time. Oh, and maybe you saw that Jerry, the other half of this badass duo, stepped down from Ben and Jerry's because they've been silenced by their company from speaking up for, for so long about so many things. That announcement of him stepping down, which went viral, came just hours after Ben and I recorded our conversation last week in New York City. Speaking of New York City, a huge thanks to the People's Forum for inviting us to record in their space in Midtown. You can check out their work@peoplesforum.org before we begin, a quick reminder, as always, that you can email me anytime at. Hello, let's giveadam.com you can ask questions or recommend future guests. Tell me how much you love or hate the show. Tell me how much you love or hate me. Anything goes. I just love hearing from you. And don't forget, if you prefer to watch your podcasts instead of listen to them, we're on YouTube as well. And now let's get right into my conversation with the inimitable Ben Cohen. Let's go. Ready to go?
- [03:12]
B
Yeah. Hit it, baby.
- [03:14]
A
Ben Cohen, welcome to the let's Give a Damn podcast.
- [03:17]
B
Nick, it's a pleasure to be here.
- [03:19]
A
I'm so thrilled. This has been a long time coming for me. Not for you, but a long time coming for me. I've admired your work for years. You've been doing this for a long, long time. This work of giving a damn, trying.
- [03:33]
B
To get a little more justice into the world. Why not?
- [03:36]
A
Yes. And you've been doing it for decades. And those of us that are a little bit younger and are trying to figure our way in the world are really grateful for the path that you've forged for us. You've shown us how to do it well. You've shown us how to stick with it. And so, yeah, again, a true pleasure to have you here.
- [03:55]
B
Well, thanks.
- [03:56]
A
I want to speak for a second to those listening. Some of you were expecting a live podcast today. We were going to do it live, and for a variety of reasons, we canceled that. So now we are sort of in studio, but still the same location in the People's Forum in midtown New York City. A wonderful organization here that I just heard downstairs. You've done other events here before?
- [04:19]
B
Yeah, I've been here once or twice.
- [04:20]
A
Yeah, they do a lot. People's Forum does a lot of justice work here in the city. And, yeah, grateful for their contribution to this podcast episode happening. And a huge shout out to our friend Shane Clayborne.
- [04:32]
B
Yeah, Shane.
- [04:33]
A
Shane is great stuff.
- [04:35]
B
I've done a bunch of gigs with him.
- [04:36]
A
Have you gotten arrested with Shane?
- [04:39]
B
Not yet.
- [04:39]
A
Not yet.
- [04:40]
B
Planning on that for next year.
- [04:41]
A
Great, Great. Me too. I'm always, like, ready for him to say, come on down. And to get arrested with Shane would be a true honor. To get arrested with you would be a true honor as well.
- [04:50]
B
Well, come on down.
- [04:51]
A
Okay. But a huge. Yeah, huge shout out to Shane, who's a previous podcast guest, for connecting me with your Team, we have a lot to talk about. We have an hour to do it in, so let's begin. I would love to go back before we get to up in Arms and you getting arrested and a lot of the justice work that you've done. Before we get to Ben and Jerry's, I want to go back as far as you're willing to go to hear a bit about your upbringing, the people, places, and things that made you who you are today. Because I always. I'm a huge memoir, autobiography person. If there was a job where I could just sit down and listen to people tell their stories all day, I would love that job because I love hearing people talk about their lives, the ups and the downs, the good, the bad, the ugly. And in those stories, there's always clues. Whether it was born out of trauma or good things, there's clues as to how we got here, how you got here. So would you mind going back as far as you'd like to, to tell us how you got here?
- [05:56]
B
Sure. Well, I believe that I was conceived in Brooklyn, New York.
- [06:03]
A
Fantastic.
- [06:03]
B
Born in 1951. My parents moved to Long island when I was one and a half. And, you know, in elementary school, I attended after school, a couple days a week, the Center Island Jewish School. And they taught me about Jewish culture. And, you know, I learned about how, you know, the state of Israel was created as a home for the Jewish people who had been, you know, slaughtered in the Nazi gas chambers. And, you know, I learned about how the Jews were oppressed and discriminated against. And, you know, I think as the civil rights movement, you know, developed and I became aware about how black people were discriminated against and oppressed, I felt really drawn to try to do something about that. I remember when I was 12, I wanted to go down on the buses with the Freedom Riders. My parents wouldn't let me. And I remember driving in with my parents into the city. We'd come over, I think, the Triborough Bridge or the Throgs Neck Bridge, and, you know, you end up getting let out right on 110th street and, you know, the border between, you know, the well to do part of Manhattan, and at the time, Harlem was really down and out, and, you know, it looked in bad shape. I mean, and, you know, I remember I'd ask my father, you know, how come things look so good on one side of the street? They don't look so good on the other. And he. He talked about how, well, you know, the people on the good side of the street, you know, they Pay a lot of taxes, and so they get a lot of city services, and on the other side, they don't pay a lot of taxes and they don't get it. And, you know, I just felt like it was not fair that people that end up getting born on one side of a line get, you know, such a good life and the people on the other side get such a hard life. So I don't know. That's kind of.
- [08:41]
A
I live in Harlem. We live in Harlem, my partner and our three kids. And it is quite remarkable. Even today, Harlem is not like it was the timeframe that you're referring to, but there is still a very distinct line. I walk with, I do cigar walks all the time. I love cigars. And I always do from our apartment down the east or the west side of Central Park. And the line is still there, still there, even now that Harlem is this incredible neighborhood to raise families. And Harlem has welcomed us, a Guatemalan, but very white, passing family into, you know, into this sort of rich, beautiful culture. There's still a line. It's kind of crazy how that 1 10th line is still visible even in the year of our Lord 2025. But I know from the documentaries and the books that I've read that it was much more distinct back then. So am I to assume that because you learned so would you say. So the school that you went to, they were teaching, Were they teaching just what happened or was it from a Zionist?
- [09:58]
B
Well, this, this was an after school program. And I went to public school on Long Island. And yeah, I was, I was a Zionist, of course. I believed that there should be a homeland for the Jewish people. And what they, what they taught us was that, well, this was really shitty land that they gave to the, the Jews. It was a desert, Nobody was living there. And, you know, and, and then the Jews made the desert bloom and, you know, developed this, you know, highly advanced civilization. And then, you know, people in Arab countries that bordered it looked over the border and were jealous of all this stuff. And that's, that's what I was taught.
- [10:46]
A
Yeah. A land without a people, for people without a land. I, I'm not Jewish, but I grew up a very conservative evangelical Christian. And those are a group that really love Israel. Like a disproportionate amount of love. Like, we grew up, the church I grew up in before we moved to Guatemala when I was young, it was a Baptist church upstate New York. And they had an American flag on the stage, a Christian flag. I'm not sure if you've ever seen a Christian flag. It's white with a blue and then across in the middle. Then they had an Israeli flag on the stage. Rochester, New York, a Baptist church, not a Jewish synagogue, had an Israeli flag. We raised so much money every year for trees and all sorts of things in Israel. Almost all the fundraisers we did were for Israel. We had, we had people come in to talk about Israel and how we got to support it. So I grew up also. I never embraced the Zionist part of my evangelical upbringing, but it was. I mean, it was Zionism everywhere as a non. As a non Jew. So I know a little bit about what it feels like to, like, you're being fed this thing. From the Christian perspective, from the evangelical perspective, it was, yeah, like, it's very clear. If you don't bless Israel, if you bless Israel, God will bless you. If you don't, God will curse you. And that's, again, if your God, if the God you're thinking of is this big, scary dude in the sky that can damn you to hell for anything that you do wrong, right then. Well, I got to. I got to. I got to bless Israel. I've got to do everything for Israel, even though that Israel we know is not this nation state that we're seeing now. So. Did you ever wrestle as a young boy with. As you're learning all of these things, did you wrestle with, hey, is this, like, for real? Like, was there ever any doubts that this was the way that things were supposed to happen, the things I was supposed to believe? And when did you. When did that start changing for you?
- [12:50]
B
No, there was. I didn't wrestle with any of that stuff when I was young. You know, it's. I mean, in terms of Israel and understanding, you know, what, what, what really happened, I, I think it's only in the past, I don't know, maybe 20 or 30 years, that, that I became aware that there were people living there and they. And they got kicked out and, you know, ended up getting placed into Gaza and the West Bank. And, you know, I certainly understood before that that the way Israel was treating the Palestinians in those occupied territories was really horrible and unjust. And, you know, I was opposed to that.
- [13:53]
A
Yeah. Yeah, of course. So you also said when you were. One more childhood question, and then we'll move on. Maybe we'll talk about ice cream next. But you said when you were 12, you wanted to ride the bus with the freedom fighters, right? So you were already, you were already seeing things that were wrong in the world and saying, I want to do something about that.
- [14:14]
B
Yeah.
- [14:15]
A
Where did that come from? Was it religious? Was it. Was there? So. Because obviously, again, for now, if that was 12 and for decades, you have been giving a damn, and it started way back then. Do you know kind of how that sort of sprouted up in you to be like, there's an injustice. I want to help? And even though your parents didn't let you go, like, you would have gone if you could have. Where did that come from?
- [14:39]
B
You know, I don't know, really. I mean, I think that when you're confronted with situations of injustice, you have kind of three choices. You can complain about it, you can ignore it, or you can do something about it. And I feel better doing something about it.
- [15:02]
A
Yeah.
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B
Or at least trying.
- [15:04]
A
Is there. Is there merit in complaining about it and doing something about it? Maybe not complaining. Speaking up about it, I think is probably different.
- [15:12]
B
Well, speaking up, you know, is certainly a thing that we all have to do. I mean, you know, he who is silent consents. I believe that very strongly. And, you know, I mean, in terms of when we ended up starting a business, we were aware that the voice of business is the Chamber of Commerce and the national association of Manufacturers, and those organizations were espousing points of view that Jerry and I were very opposed to. So that's a big part of the reason why Ben and Jerry started speaking up, because we wanted to make sure that we were not. That people didn't feel like the Chamber of Commerce and the national association of Manufacturers was speaking for us.
- [16:15]
A
Yeah. And let's talk about Ben and Jerry's here, because most people. Well, I don't know. A lot of people know you from your activism work, but most probably know you more from the ice cream that we enjoy all the time.
- [16:29]
B
Thank you.
- [16:30]
A
We're a vegan family, and there's a lot of great vegan ice cream choices out there, but Ben and Jerry's does it best.
- [16:41]
B
Yeah. I've been pretty amazed. I'm not a vegan, but I've eaten some of those vegan flavors, and. Yeah, you're right. It's really good.
- [16:52]
A
It really is. I mean, it's one for one in my mind. Like, there's no, like, oh, I can taste that. That's vegan. It's really. Again, we don't have to talk about the vegan thing, but, like, you know, there's coconut ice creams, there's almond, there's cashew, there's all these kinds. And I'm pretty sure that most, if not all, Ben and Jerry's are almond milk based and it really has just a beautiful flavor. My favorite is. What is it? The lights, caramel action. Ava DuVernay's flavor. I love Ava and her work. And the flavor is great. And so.
- [17:27]
B
Well, they were all almond based. And then we switched because some people are allergic to almonds and we switched to oat milk.
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A
Oat milk.
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B
And I think it's even better.
- [17:40]
A
We do a lot of oat milk. I hadn't realized that. Or maybe I did realize that. Maybe I've been eating the oat milk versions of it. Either way, so grateful for Ben and Jerry's contribution to the world again. So some people know you from your activism, but it's probably Ben and Jerry's brief. Your story's out there, people know it. But what's that story? Like, how did you get hooked up with Jerry and how did this. Yeah, what's the brief story of how this thing became literally? I mean, you know, this one of the most iconic ice cream brands the world has ever known. I mean, Ben and Jerry's is. It's ubiquitous. It's everywhere, you know, and so that's quite a. Quite a thing.
- [18:23]
B
It's kind of amazing. Whoever would have guessed. How did it happen? Well, it started with, you know, Jerry and I met in junior high school in seventh grade gym class. We were the two slowest, fattest kids in the class. And you know, you get friendly with whoever the other fat guy is. Your ally.
- [18:46]
A
Yeah.
- [18:48]
B
And you know, then we went through junior high and high school together and I went to some colleges and dropped out of them. And I decided that I wanted to become a potter and I studied pottery and I planned on making my living. You know, I was planning on kind of living a subsistence lifestyle, kind of going back to the land and having a, you know, growing my own food and chopping my own wood. And the idea was that when you're living that kind of lifestyle, you do need some money to buy some stuff. And the idea was that making pottery, selling pottery was going to be my so called cash crop. The only problem is that I started selling my pottery at craft shows just to kind of work up to it. And nobody would buy my pottery. And Jerry went to school for pre med and then couldn't get into medical school. And we got together and we said, well, we're both failures. If we're going to get by in this world, maybe we should start our own business. And since the only thing we really liked doing was eating, we decided to start like a restaurant and we knew one guy who knew something about business. And he said, whatever you do, don't start a full service restaurant. You're open too many hours, too many employees, all the different shifts and all the food waste. He said, if it's gotta be food, make it a very, very limited, limited menu. And Jerry and I wanted to live in a rural college town. So our idea was to take a food trend that was starting off in the big cities and bring it to a rural college town. And the two things that were happening were bagels and homemade ice cream. And we've. Originally it was going to be bagels. And we checked out how much bagel equipment costs, and we couldn't afford it. And so we figured ice cream had to be cheaper. And we opened in 1978 on an investment of $4,000 apiece. And, you know, kind of renovated this old gas station that was falling apart and started selling our ice cream. And, you know, Jerry. Jerry could understand the science behind ice cream because he was pre med. And, you know, we took this correspondence in ice cream. And there was this big blue college textbook called Ice Cream. And, you know, full of equations and formulas and all this shit. And Jerry understood it, and so he developed our formula for our base ice cream. And we were making it in the window of the homemade ice cream shop in an old rock salt and ice freezer. People really liked it. We'd run out of ice cream all the time.
- [22:02]
A
So. Yeah, what was the. So you were in a gas station in Mike. Correct. An old gas station. And the menu was there. Is it just ice cream or some crepes?
- [22:12]
B
Correct. Yeah, it was what we call it. Incredible ice cream and amazing crepes.
- [22:17]
A
Wow.
- [22:19]
B
You know, because we did get a $4,000 loan from the bank. And the bank said, well, you gotta have something to deal with the seasonality of ice cream. So we decided to do crepes. And, you know, Jerry was in charge of the ice cream, I was in charge of the crepes. Clearly, Jerry did a lot better than I did.
- [22:39]
A
Yeah, the Ben and Jerry's crepes. Nobody's heard of that.
- [22:41]
B
You can't buy that in your supermarket freezer.
- [22:44]
A
So two years later, there's ice cream on shelves in grocery stores. Correct. 1980.
- [22:51]
B
Well, I don't know. I don't think it was two years later, but. Okay.
- [22:54]
A
I thought it was early.
- [22:56]
B
Yeah, probably in the early 80s.
- [22:57]
A
Okay, early 80s. So it was still just a few years after starting.
- [23:01]
B
Well, first what we did was, you know, we had these restaurants, a few restaurants around the state were asking for our ice cream and so we started delivering it to them. I was the delivery guy. And so we were first delivering tubs in the back of my VW square back in an insulated box. And, and we were. And then we had, you know, we had more ice cream to deliver than would fit in that box. So that we bought this ancient ice cream truck that we were using to deliver in and it was breaking down all over Vermont and it cost a lot of money to tow it back to, you know, get it repaired. And that's when we said, you know, we were losing our shirts. And in a last ditch effort to stay alive, we started packing the ice cream into pint containers to see if I could sell it to the little mom and pop groceries we were passing. And that's what turned the corner for the business.
- [24:08]
A
This is not an important question, but I've always wondered. So it's in the pint. Everything's in those, that one size pint at least. Now in those pints, you know, a lot of other ice cream you can get in half gallons or even like smaller, like single serve, whatever. That was a conscious decision, I'm sure, but like, why not go, like, why was there a conscious decision to not go bigger than that to like a half gallon?
- [24:31]
B
Well, well, one of the reasons for keeping it in pints is that if you, if you finish it faster, it stays in better shape, you know. Oh, sure, ice cream degrades when you have it in your home freezer over time. And, and the other thing is that, you know, it's a fairly expensive ice cream.
- [24:52]
A
Right.
- [24:53]
B
You know, if you buy a pint, it's less.
- [24:57]
A
We usually, I don't like shopping at Whole Foods, but we have a few, only a few grocery stores around us in Harlem and Whole Foods is right there. So I go there very infrequently, but I go there because once, I don't know, once a month they have, they. Ben and Jerry's ice cream's on sale. And you know, I live in the most expensive city in the world. You know, three kids trying to, trying to keep, keep it together. And so that's when I'll stock up on, you know, I'll grab four pints. Then when it's on sale, you know, $2 off. That makes, that makes a difference. At the end of the end of.
- [25:30]
B
The day, it totally does make a difference, you know, But I would recommend, you know, if you're going to store ice cream for any length of time, do it in a storage Freezer. You know, like a chest freezer or something like that. Something that's not a self defrosting freezer. Because the magic of a self defrosting freezer is that it does frost up.
- [25:51]
A
Yep.
- [25:51]
B
And then a couple times a day it heats up to melt off the frost and when.
- [25:57]
A
So your ice cream without even knowing about it.
- [25:59]
B
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Temperature fluctuation. Right, right. That's what kills it.
- [26:04]
A
Okay.
- [26:05]
B
But you know, chest freezers, storage freezers, they don't self defrost.
- [26:10]
A
Last ice cream related question for now. What's your favorite flavor? Do you have a favorite?
- [26:15]
B
You know, I, I eat around, you know, New York Super Fudge Chunk is a really big one lately. I'm into coffee. Coffee. Buzz, buzz, buzz.
- [26:25]
A
Okay.
- [26:26]
B
I've spent some delightful nights with chubby hubby chocolate covered peanut butter filled pretzels. And those are the, those are the three that come. Well, you know, my, my favorite thing for, for quite a while has been just taking some vanilla ice cream and putting it on a Wheat Thin. You know, you got your sweet and salty, your creamy and crunchy. Don't knock it till you try it.
- [26:54]
A
I love trying new things. I'm gonna do that. Cause I love a good Wheat Thin. Yeah. Who doesn't love a Wheat Thin?
- [26:59]
B
I think a Wheat Thin is an excellent product.
- [27:02]
A
It's so simple.
- [27:03]
B
Yeah.
- [27:04]
A
You can put two simple things together.
- [27:05]
B
Yeah.
- [27:06]
A
Vanilla ice cream, wheat Thin.
- [27:07]
B
Yeah.
- [27:08]
A
Okay, I'm gonna try it.
- [27:09]
B
Open face.
- [27:10]
A
I'm gonna try. Yes. Just like it's a topping on it.
- [27:12]
B
Exactly. A canape.
- [27:16]
A
Okay. So at what point as you're building, you referred to it earlier, but I wanna spend one more minute on this because I think it's important. I think when people think about businesses that give a damn, yours comes to mind. Patagonia, a few others where it's like, oh yeah. As long as I can remember, they've gone beyond just transactions and they've done good in the world. They've spoken up, they've started this thing and done that thing. Ben and Jerry's is in that. And you kind of. Again, I think you're probably responsible. Ben and Jerry's is for helping other businesses think through. Yeah, I should probably do something or I should try to, hopefully. When did that start taking place? Obviously the first few years were, hey, we got to get this thing going. You know, you're making crepes and ice cream and you know, in your vw, taking it to places. But at what point in the business were you like, yeah, we gotta like we gotta speak up. Like we have a responsibility as we have visibility now. We gotta say things about the things that matter. When did that happen?
- [28:20]
B
Well, from the very start, we wanted our business to be run the way regular old everyday people walking down the street would like to see a business run. And so, you know, about halfway through our first year in business, we said, you know, we realized that, you know, nine out of ten new businesses fail. And we said, well, if we're still in business a year from now, we're going to give away free ice cream to all of our customers. I mean, essentially everybody. We weren't going to ask, are you our customer?
- [28:54]
A
Right.
- [28:56]
B
Just give away free ice cream to anybody who walked in the door. And you know, we had no idea if we could afford it. But you know, we felt like, well, you know, these people have been buying ice cream from us all year. I mean, if we, we gotta be able to afford to give them one free one. So we did that and you know, we would hold these community celebrations that had, you know, there were stilt walking contests and three legged races and sack races and apple peel peeling contests and frog jumping contests and, and then we held, you know, free movies. We, we decided that, you know, we had this big space in front of the gas station where the pumps used to be and we hung up a big screen and that's cool. Showed free movies. And they were walk in movies as opposed to drive in movies. You had to bring your own chair. So we were, you know, you know, we were just a little neighborhood place and we were, that was what we could do in terms of giving back to the community as well as, you know, donating to whomever. And then as the company got bigger, we realized that, you know, we were part of a larger community and that we realized that, you know, business in general is the most powerful force in our societies. That it used to be, that religion was the most powerful force and then nation states came to be the most powerful force. And today it's business. And that we need to use that power to improve the quality of life for people as opposed to narrowly use that power to increase profits at the expense of the community, our employees, the environment. And we felt like, you know, let's. And you know, we thought about it and you know, we factor, we decided to factor social concerns into the day to day runnings of our business in terms of, you know, our banking relationships and in terms of where we bought our ingredients. But then we realized that really the most powerful tool that business has is, is its voice that when business talks, you know, the media listens, the politicians listen and the people listen. And so we decided we're going to use that tool. I mean, you know, business is very political, very. But the power that they use, the political power that they use, they don't particularly want people to know that they are making political donations to politicians so that they'll pass laws that benefit that business. And they don't particularly want people to know that, you know, Congress is crawling with lobbyists that represent business. And we felt like the difference for Ben and Jerry's is that we're very overt in terms of our political involvement.
- [32:41]
A
Yeah, we're very big in my community, in our family. We're very big supporters of the BDS movement and figuring out what we're going to boycott and what we're gonna like, overcompensate and supporting because business is political and it's powerful and we vote with our dollars. And the business owners also are trying to get us to vote with our dollars, you know, in their general direction. We've seen it work, I think it works the way it's supposed to and really well. You've seen, you know, when, when Target succumbed to the administration about DEI stuff, they've now had like their, their seventh straight, like worst month ever. And they didn't get their like back to school, you know, bump that they usually get. And they're, they're suffering. Right. And a lot of businesses are seeing that when you align with the empire, when you align with the powers that be and you don't speak up and you don't say no, this is who we are, regardless of whether we get to stay around as a business or not, then I think people are more aware than ever that they get to vote with their dollars and that they, that it's a powerful, it's a powerful tool. We have limited resources, so every dollar that I spend is communicating. My friend Max Lamanna, who is a plant based chef and cookbook author, very huge platform online, lives in the uk. He just started this. He started this. He has really beautiful content online. He's been speaking up during the genocide and doing really great stuff, raising a lot of money. He just started this Thursday, every Thursday, boycotting supermarkets in the uk. He's asking everybody to do it, but he's asking for boycotts in the UK for any supermarkets to sell Israeli products. And as a result of the boycotts that he's done over the last couple years, one supermarket chain in the UK stopped carrying Israeli goods directly because of him saying, we can't. Like, we. We have limited resources. We're not going to spend money with you unless you stop supporting, you know, these. These products. So anyway, I think it's very important and I guess just going back to. Yeah, like, going back to the power of business and business owners speaking up, not just making products. Like, I want to buy products that. I feel so bad. We're filming this on an iPhone. I feel so bad every fucking day that I have to use that thing. I don't have to. I could go back to a dumb phone or some sort of, like, rotary. Like, I could go back. But I feel so bad. The products in my life, I'm using one here. I'm sure something else here is also, you know, a terrible company. What I run by terrible people. But Google I use. Right.
- [35:27]
B
Yeah, that's exactly right. I mean, most people are buying products despite what the business represents.
- [35:35]
A
Yeah.
- [35:36]
B
And, you know, I think, you know, for people to be able to buy a product from a company whose values they actually support is incredibly powerful. I mean, you know, I mean, it's a delight and it's a pleasure for the customer, the person buying it. But the other part of it is that Ben and Jerry's ends up forming a relationship with its customers based on shared values. And that's pretty much the deepest relationship that you can form. It's very. It's very mutually.
- [36:21]
A
It's a very beautiful thing. I mean, you've built not just products, but like a community. Right. When I walk down the frozen dessert aisle, your products stick out. Yes. I've got other ones that I try from time to time. Oh, yeah. I really like how they make vegan ice cream. Da, da da da da. But it's always back to that. You know, that one column that is all the Ben and Jerry's flavors. Some people might not know, though, that you, for the last several years, you haven't owned it in the same way that you owned it at the beginning.
- [36:50]
B
That's absolutely right.
- [36:52]
A
And so some people might even if they've watched the platform over the past decades and were like, wait, they're speaking up more then. And now it seems like they're not or whatever. Like, what is that? And I know that you were just in the UK last week. So what was it? It went from Unilever to Magnum. Correct. What's going on? Because I know that there's an effort right now to try to free Ben and Jerry's. Free Ben and Jerry's.
- [37:15]
B
Exactly. What happened was that as the company was growing, we needed a cash infusion. And we had a bunch of venture capitalists coming to us unsolicited, saying, hey, we want to invest in your business. And we said, no, we don't want to do it like that. What we'd like to do is make the community the owners of the business that instead of essentially selling stock to people who already had a lot of money so that they would make more money, we wanted to sell our stock to regular old everyday people. And you know, there's SEC laws that prevent you from doing that. But we found this kind of obscure law that had never been used before that allowed us to have an in state public stock offering. So you could, you know, if you lived in Vermont, you could buy stock in Ben and Jerry's in the early days and get in on the, on the ground floor. And you know, all the, you know, accountants and lawyers were telling us, you know, you're crazy, don't do this. It's never been done before. You're never going to sell the stock. There's not that many people in Vermont. They don't have much money. And you know, we, we had this very low minimum buy of $126.
- [38:55]
A
Wow.
- [38:56]
B
And we did it. And by the end of the offering, one out of every hundred Vermont families had bought stock in Ben Jerry's. So that's the way it started. And then the years go by and we had a need for more investment. And the people who had bought the stock, they said, you know, it's really great owning stock in Ben and Jerry's, but there's no market for it. And if we ever want to make some money, we can't. And so we had a national public stock offering and the company was listed on the NASDAQ Stock Exchange and it was doing quite well. And we ended up hiring the wrong CEO. And he kind of made an approach to Unilever because he saw a way for him personally to make a bunch of money if the company were sold. And so the company, over the objections of Jerry and myself, got sold to Unilever in the year 2000. But because we were, Jerry and I were so opposed to it, they added this provision, which was, you know, had never been done before in terms of a acquisition of a company. What they did was they, by law, we established a legally binding independent board for Ben and Jerry's. And that independent board is responsible for the social mission. It's responsible for the quality of the ice cream, and it's responsible for the way the product, the way the company is marketed, and Unilever has been responsible for operations and finance. And so, you know, that relationship worked pretty well until several years ago when the company decided to pull out of the West Bank. That our. We had a licensee in Israel, and the ice cream was distributed in Israel and in the West Bank. And we. We felt like the way Israel was treating people in the west bank went against our values. And so we made a decision to pull out of the West Bank. And, you know, Unilever got a bunch of pushback from the government of Israel. And eventually they decided to sell off the rights to Ben and Jerry's to an Israeli. And, you know, that was, you know, they were going against the acquisition agreement. You know, that was under the authority of the independent board. So the independent board sued Unilever. And since that time, Unilever has muzzled Ben and Jerry's on issues related to racial justice, dei, Gaza, freedom of speech. So that's what's been going on. And then about a year ago, Unilever announced that they're looking to sell their entire ice cream division. They own about 20 different brands of ice cream around the world, and the two most popular ones are Ben and Jerry's and Magnum. And so we, you know, so we felt like, well, you know, if Unilever, Jerry and I felt like, well, if Unilever is looking to sell their whole ice cream division, why don't they just carve out Ben and Jerry's and sell that to a group of socially aligned investors so that we wouldn't constantly be struggling? And as long as they didn't want it anymore, why not? But they didn't want to do that. And so what they decided to do was to spin off their entire ice cream division into a separate publicly held company called Magnum, the Magnum Ice Cream Company. And so now we're trying to convince Magnum that it is to their advantage to sell Ben and Jerry's to this group of socially aligned investors so that we can let Ben and Jerry's be Ben and Jerry's and let Magnum be Magnum.
- [44:09]
A
That's fascinating. Complicated, Big. And I hope that. I mean, I hope that it happens. What is the likelihood in your mind of that happening?
- [44:22]
B
You know, I believe that we will win.
- [44:25]
A
Yes.
- [44:29]
B
You know, I mean, most people say it's a long shot, but, you know, all of Ben and Jerry's was a long shot.
- [44:37]
A
Yep.
- [44:39]
B
You know, we've had problems before. I mean, early in the history of Ben and Jerry's, you know, Haagen Dazs got bought by Pillsbury, and they tried to cut off our distribution. And really, it was Ben and Jerry's customers that saved us. And so, you know, I think that our customers do care about it and care about the values and care about the issues that Ben Jerry's has been standing up for. And they just need to let Unilever and Magnum know how they feel.
- [45:29]
A
Yep. Well, I've seen you. Yeah. You've put out a few videos over the last couple weeks, and I think they've done well. I've seen just a lot of traction, and I think. I think we will win as well. But I hope so, because it's a brand that deserves to be free, freed from capitalist overlords that don't want to let you speak up. There are many. This last section of our conversation, there are many different, like, phases, periods of your activism that we could talk about, but for the sake of time, let's talk about a few that are sort of happening sort of lately. We'll end with up in Arms, which I'm so excited to talk about. But a few months ago, you were arrested during a Senate hearing that was happening with RFK testifying. How. How did that happen? Like, why. Was there. Was there a particular reason why that? I mean, I watched the Senate hearing. I watched the whole thing. I would be lying if I didn't admit that I laughed a little when you all started protesting and RFK jumped and he got really scared.
- [46:41]
B
He was a little surprised.
- [46:42]
A
He was probably thinking that something very tragic was about to happen. You know, it was very startling. But I don't like the guy at all. And so it was very. It was kind. Again, I don't know if I should be laughing at this, but it's, you know, it was a little satisfying to see him get a little scared there. But why that Senate hearing and what sort of. What happened? You did get arrested. I saw the video that our friends at Code Pink, you know, put out outside of the chambers in the hallway. What was that experience like? And what were you. What were you all trying to communicate that day?
- [47:17]
B
Well, what was going on for me was that, you know, I was continuing to read these reports about the slaughter in Gaza, horrific every day, driving me up a wall. And then I read this report about how there was a new lead poisoning outbreak in. I don't remember. I think it was maybe Milwaukee. And, you know, lead poisoning kind of drives me crazy because it affects little kids, it's irreversible, and there's an easy solution to it. Get rid of the old Lead paint in the low income apartments where these kids have no choice but to live and get rid of the lead in the, in the plumbing. And we can do that. And you know, it caught, you know, in order to do that, it costs, you know, like 2% of the, of the Pentagon budget.
- [48:26]
A
Yeah.
- [48:28]
B
So these, sorry, these two things are happening and, and you know, and meanwhile we're, instead of dealing with the lead poisoning, we're buying weapons and giving them to Israel as a gift so that they can bomb poor kids there in Gaza.
- [48:53]
A
Yep. Innocent kids here, innocent kids there. Right? Innocent everybody. But yeah, all over.
- [48:59]
B
You know, I, you know, I felt like I needed to make my voice heard on that in the loudest way I could. And that's to do some do civil disobedience. That's the strongest statement that a citizen can make. And you know, my first idea was to chain myself to the White House fence. And you know, people told me that, well, you can't do that anymore because it's been militarized. It's a militarized zone. And there's all these, you know, there's all these police or slash military with big fucking guns hanging out there. So, you know, the guy I work with said, you know, well, you can disrupt a Senate hearing. And I said, you think that's really going to help? And so that's what we did. And you know, I got a. My hat is off to Code Pink who, you know, helped me get into that hearing and, and they're the guys who, who took that video. And you know, I mean, every once in a while you do something that works. You know, I've done a lot of stuff and that's failed.
- [50:18]
A
That didn't work. Yeah, but no, that was a very successful protest. You know, again, it's not, you know, we don't. No, we do. Like I was gonna say, we don't do it for show. No, we do do it for show. We do do it because I think a, every news station, because it was you, if you weren't there, it probably would've been like, oh, these faceless, nameless protesters got up and did this thing and look at them go again. But because there was a well known figure, your name was called out, your association with Ben and Jared, just everyone knows about. So there was some. Yeah, there's all these like connection points going off and it was very, very powerful. And I do think that, like, I think Empire is getting the message slowly but surely because there's more civil disobedience than ever. Like I Think one of the most powerful things about the last two years. I think it happened in a big way during 2020. George Floyd Black lives Matter movement but it's happening more now where I think Empire is more scared than ever because they realize that we are by and large not scared of them. Like, we're not scared of committing civil disobedience. We're not scared. I mean, I see these incredible, going back to the genocide, like I see these protests happening all over. There was that person, I don't know what their gender was, but there's a person a few weeks ago in Germany who got punched in the face by a fucking cop. Like in the video. They got punched in the face and they turn right back around and we're like, I'm not scared of you. Like, that's gotta fuck with you a little bit. If you have all this armor on and you've got all the weapons and this person with nothing on and a tank top, you just punch them in the face and there's literally blood gushing out of their face and they turn right back around and say, I'm not scared of you. Like that's the scariest thing for empires. Like when we stop saying we're not scared of you. Like, we're not really scared. We just have to make things right, whether it's in Senate hearings or in protests or whatever. And so all that to say, very proud of you and the Code Pink. I mean, Code Pink is amazing. I love them so much. They're doing this every. They're doing this. As you know, this was a one, you know, one time thing for you so far. But like they're doing it all the time and it's so unbelievable, I think the bravery. So again, Stan, these are not armed empire, but these are the politicians. They're the ones that could change things and they're not day after day in these hearings. So thank you for sharing that up in arms. Yeah, I'm so excited about it. I'm so excited about it because I'm so pissed about. I've always been, I've always been just like in disbelief that we live in the wealthiest empire ever on the planet. We have so much money, we have the ability to fix every, like name the problem and we can fix it. These lead, all the lead poisoning, homelessness, hunger, doesn't matter what the issue is. Obviously we can stop sending money to giving Israel money so they can bomb people in Gaza. We can fix all of this. And yet we choose it's active choices to not fix These things. Right? And yet, as you're going to share with us here, we just give like nobody else on the planet does this. We're unique in that way. We're told that like Russia and China, like all these other bad guys, they don't even come close to the money that we dedicate to the. Our military. The Pentagon budget here and the. You would probably know this number. We have like a thousand military bases around the world. Like, no one has that. No one has military bases in almost every country on the planet. But we do. You know, we're just, we have a presence everywhere and our tax dollars are being used to fund it. So I'll shut up. Share about up in arms. I'm so excited about it, and I'm so excited for the let's Give a Damn family to like, learn more about it and figure out how to support it, because it's something that we have to push, push, push and push.
- [54:09]
B
Well, this is the issue that I've been most passionate about really, for my entire life, that as you said, we have so much money. I mean, it's incredible how much money we have, you know, if we can't conceive as humans of the magnitude of these numbers. But to just give you a vague idea, a billion, you know, if you were to count all the seconds that you were alive since you were born, it would be. You'd be 33 years old before you lived. A billion seconds. And that's just 1 billion. You know, you think about 100 billion. Wow, that's a lot. And then you think about the size of the Pentagon budget today, which is a trillion. That's like 1,000 billion. It's just staggering.
- [55:23]
A
It's an unbelievable amount.
- [55:25]
B
Staggering amount. And, you know, so as you said, you think of any problem that we have, homelessness, you can solve that problem for about 4% of the Pentagon budget. You know, they, you know, we're concerned about people in the U.S. kids in the U.S. that don't have enough food to eat. And there's millions of kids around the world that are literally starving to death because they don't have enough. And for 5% of the Pentagon budget, you could take care of all the kids in our country and all the rest of the kids all around the world. So, you know, we spend on the Pentagon more than the next nine countries combined. And most of those are allies. You know, the country that spends the next most on their military besides the US Is China, and they spend one third of the amount of money that we spend. And you Know, I think, you know, every once in a while Trump tells the truth. And he recently renamed the Department of Defense the Department of War. And that is probably the most truthful thing the guy has ever done.
- [57:03]
A
Absolutely.
- [57:03]
B
I mean, it's not about defense. It's about controlling the entire world through military force. And that's why, yeah, we have 800 military bases around the world. When I grew up, I heard we had a bunch of bases around the world, and I figured, well, you know, that's just what countries do. They have military bases around the world. It turns out that we're the only.
- [57:31]
A
Fucking ones that do it.
- [57:32]
B
The country that has the next most has like seven.
- [57:35]
A
Right.
- [57:37]
B
So it is the Department of War. It is designed to prosecute wars around the world. And it's not about defending the United States. If it were, we probably wouldn't need to spend. We'd probably spend half as much. And so that's what up in Arms is advocating for, to use the military to defend the geography of the United States. And, you know, what we've got is a huge amount of overkill. That's what we're paying for. And there's no better way, I think, to understand it than by looking at our nuclear weapons. And as you know, you know, one nuclear weapon killed over 100,000 people in Hiroshima. Today, the size of our nuclear arsenal is the equivalent of 50,000 Hiroshima sized bombs. I mean, that's absurd. Supposedly the purpose of our nuclear weapons is deterrence, but this isn't deterrence. This is delusion. And the amount of money that it costs, it's $100 billion a year. And half of that is to build a whole new generation of nuclear weapons. So, yeah, we're saying let's use the money to help people in their everyday lives. Let's use the money to make it so that people can afford a decent place to live, so that people can afford child care, so that people aren't going bankrupt because of medical debt. And it doesn't cost us any more money in taxes. It's just shifting from, you know, kind of a budget based on fear to a budget based more on flourishing, love, caring, thriving communities.
- [60:11]
A
How much happier of a society would be if people were, if we didn't have a half a million people every year going bankrupt because of a medical bill. Not irresponsible spending. Like I got cancer or I had to get my appendix taken out or whatever, and I couldn't afford it and now I'm bankrupt. That's insane. That's evil. Yeah, homelessness like you said, like we could fix all of the, like we would be so much happier. And yet we have, yet we're spending a trillion. And you've got Brian Kilmeade of Fox News two days ago on Fox saying we should lethal injection homeless people. Like those were words that he said and he didn't get fired. So that's how like sick we are and how twisted it is. So how are you and how is up in Arms going to communicate? Like, what are the means of communicating this on social media? I know there's been sort of public demonstrations. I don't know what you call that thing you all did in D.C. but like, is that what are the means of pushing this message out and how can let's give a damn listeners get involved?
- [61:07]
B
Yeah, so it's events like what you're talking about. You can get involved by going to up in Arms.
- [61:17]
A
I love that.
- [61:18]
B
And yeah, so we had this huge structure in D.C. that was the amount of volume that $100 billion in hundred dollar bills would take up.
- [61:36]
A
One tenth of the actual budget.
- [61:37]
B
That's right. That's right. And you know, we around the anniversary of the bombing in Hiroshima, we placed this doll that had, you know, had obviously been in the bombing of Hiroshima. We placed it in Disneyland and you know, got people to, you know, got a bunch of coverage for that, got people to understand what was going on. And we're about to launch the dope campaign, the Department of Pentagon Excess.
- [62:18]
A
Love it.
- [62:19]
B
You know, Elon had his chainsaw and you know, was he wasn't trying to attack waste, he was trying to attack programs that help people. And he ignored the Pentagon, didn't cut the Pentagon at all. As a matter of fact, Trump threw another $150 billion into the Pentagon. So I'm going to be picking up where Elon left off and, you know, cutting the Pentagon budget.
- [62:54]
A
And for those listening, go to Ben's Instagram. I think you posted it today, a video of you sort of green screened into the Oval Office where you're, you're taking the place of Elon. You've got a dope hat on instead of Doge. And it's really effective. Let's wrap up with this. This is so excited. I'm excited to get people headed your way and involved in this. I will be involved in any way that you need me. You've been around the block. You've seen a lot of changes in this country. You've spoken up about a lot of things. This feels very like I haven't experienced as much as you have. But I've read enough history to sort of see the ups and the downs. And from, you know, from the civil rights movement on to here, this feels uniquely, to be very honest, this feels like a very, like a uniquely fucked up time where again, we know. We know way more than we did 40 years ago, 50 years ago. We have so much more knowledge and resources, and yet we're still making just horrific decisions here and abroad. We have some pretty bad actors that are leading us in politics. And I'm not just talking about the right. I'm not. I very much don't like the Republican Party. I don't like the Democrats. I'm a left, I'm a super, super leftist. Very disappointed in most of our Democratic politicians, whether it's Israel or a lot of other things. Encourage, if you can and if you will, encourage. A lot of listeners of this podcast are younger. They're trying to figure out. Figure their way in the world, try to figure out what they're going to give a damn about and how they're going to do it and where and all that stuff. How do you view sort of what's happening? Are you finding any glimmers of hope in this current sort of landscape? If so, what are they or what is it? And yeah, what should people be focusing on? Getting involved in politics or forgetting politics and getting out in the streets or a combination of a few different things? How are you kind of seeing the best way forward in this particular moment that we're in?
- [65:09]
B
Well, I think what we're seeing is the last gasps of a dying empire that it's gonna do anything it can to hold on to its power. And, you know, there are people that are rising to the occasion. I mean, here in New York, Mamdani is, you know, incredible. And I hear there's another guy like him in, I don't know, Milwaukee or Michigan or some country, some state there in the Midwest. And so I think that's what, I think that's what we need to do is focus on politicians like that, help more of them to come into existence. You know, in terms of stopping the current bleeding. You know, there's an election coming up in 26, that's pretty soon. And so we have an opportunity to staunch the horrors that are going on. And yeah, I think getting involved in that, I mean, I think that anybody who has not voted to stop the gifts of arms that we're sending to Israel should not get our vote.
- [66:44]
A
Yeah, they need to get. We need to get them out.
- [66:46]
B
Yeah. And Vote in the new guys.
- [66:50]
A
Yeah. Yeah. Are you. How do you. This is the last question. How are you staying hopeful? How are you sustaining yourself through. Yeah. Through these times. Like, what's keeping, what's keeping you going?
- [67:12]
B
You know, it's just, it's just doing the work. I mean, what. Again, what choices do you have?
- [67:19]
A
Yeah.
- [67:19]
B
You can either ignore it, you can complain about it, or you can try to do something about it. I. I heard. You know, I used to think that, all right, I'm doing something about it and I want it to change tomorrow. And, you know, I guess there are some writing somewhere that says, you know, you don't have to finish the job, but you have to work on it. You know, just use whatever you've got to work to end injustice and enjoy that process. You know, the civil rights struggle took place over hundreds of years.
- [68:09]
A
Yeah. And it's still not over. Right.
- [68:13]
B
And the same with apartheid. And we need to enjoy the journey of working for justice. It's the joyful journey for justice. And.
- [68:29]
A
That'S beautiful. I, you know, I'm all for people. You know, a lot of the. When I asked forms of that question to different guests, a lot of it's around, the answers will be around, like self care and like, how to rejuvenate. I all for that. Like, take care of yourself so you can be in it for the long term. What I love about, you know, a lot of people, when I'll. When something happens and I will do some sort of an event or an action or post something that goes viral online and, you know, there's a lot of hate coming my way. I get a lot of people that are like, how are you holding? And I'm like, okay, sure. I don't care about stuff. I get death threats. I've gotten horrific things that have come through. It's like that stuff. I don't even care about that. But I'm reminded of the joy of this. Like, for every death threat that I get, I get 50 people hitting me up saying, like, keep going. Thank you for doing that. Right. So you being out there doing these things, these actions, this big demonstration in D.C. or all these things that you're doing. Yeah. That's fuel to see how many allies like to be reminded that I don't think we're kind of fucked, but we're not altogether fucked because there's so many people out there that give a damn and want to. They're gonna stick around for the long term. They wanna do this work. And so I love that. I forget what you said exactly. But finding the joy in fighting for justice instead of it just being a struggle, like, sure, it's hard, it's fucking hard. But there's also joy in it.
- [69:51]
B
Yes, yes, there's joy in fighting injustice.
- [69:56]
A
Love that so much. Ben, I would love to talk to you for hours, but you don't need that today and this room needs to be occupied by other justice fighters here in a few minutes here at the People's Forum. So Ben, thank you so much for this conversation.
- [70:12]
B
Great being on the show with you.
- [70:13]
A
I hope it isn't our last conversation and interaction. And yeah, just really grateful for your work and let's Give a Damn is here to help with anything that you want.
- [70:24]
B
Well, thanks a lot. Great to be here with you, Nick.
- [70:32]
A
Friends, thank you so much for showing up and for spending some time with Ben and me today. To find links for everything mentioned in today's conversation and to keep up with all things let's Give a damn, visit letsgivadam.com Please share this episode with a friend or two. Please leave us a five star rating and review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. And please show up next week. We have many more incredible conversations coming your way very soon. You can reach out anytime for any reason@hello letsgivadam.com keep giving a Damn my friends. I love you all. Bye for now.