Sweet Support of the Day: The Occupy Wall Street demonstrators just received an encouraging nod from two of their highest profile supporters to date: Ben & Jerry.
“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,” said the Ben & Jerry’s Board of Directors in a statement just posted to the company’s official site.
In addition to their kind words, the ice cream brand’s board also submitted a list of issues raised by the movement that they feel “are of fundamental importance to all of us”:
- 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 that words are relatively easy,” the statement goes on to say, “but we wanted to act quickly to demonstrate our support.”
The board then lists material actions undertaken to distinguish themselves from the corporations they bemoan:
We have provided support to citizens’ efforts to rein in corporate money in politics, we pay a livable wage to our employees, we directly support family farms and we are working to source fairly traded ingredients for all our products.
They close by reiterating their support of the protesters “call to take back our nation and democracy.”