Obviously, has to be Ben&Jerry’s (via death+taxes)
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 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.
Of course, Ben & Jerry’s is one of those evil corporations which *GULP* lobbies, but, they lobby for gooooood things, like the nebulous “climate justice” and “caring dairy”. I’m sure all the board members of B&J’s will rush out and give tons of their money up to the IRS, right? And increase their minimum pay scale to $20 an hour, as the #OWS folks want, right? Pay for their employees to go to college? Stop lobbying? Oh, wait, I forgot, they’re not an evil corporation.
Except, the average hourly wage for someone at a Ben and Jerry’s ice cream store/customer service is $10 and under.
