Whole Life Times: A Topsy-Turvy Interview with Ben Cohen of Ben & Jerry’s

July 2007

A Topsy-Turvy Interview with Ben Cohen of Ben & Jerry’s

by Charles Shaw

CS: Are you on the road right now promoting the priorities of the Topsy-Turvy Tour, or is this something that you’re just launching now?

BC: It’s part of a larger campaign called Priorities Campaign, sponsored by Business Leaders for Sensible Priorities (sensiblepriorities.org) and True Majority (truemajority.org). That campaign has been ongoing for years, but just in the beginning of 2006, we started up an organization in Iowa and an organization in New Hampshire that focuses on getting national budget priorities into the presidential campaign; the Topsy-Turvy bus is part of that effort. So, the whole tour is based on getting the issue of national budget priorities into national press. The Topsy-Turvy bus will be focusing its time in Iowa and New Hampshire until the caucus and the primary.

How is your relationship with the candidates? Do you have one?

We’ve been bird-dogging the candidates in Iowa and New Hampshire. We have a head staff and 6 or 8 thousand volunteers in each state that have been following the candidates around on the campaign trail, and they are all very, very aware of us. We’ve been there wherever they show up, asking them questions about how they would propose the budget and what they plan on doing about this $60 billion a year spent on Cold War weapons which prevent us from funding education, healthcare, and energy independence initiatives. So yeah, they’re very aware of us.

Have you gotten any feedback as far as how they feel about that? Pentagon spending is kind of this weird sacred cow that isn’t necessarily controlled by us. It seems like candidates would be hesitant to open up into a discussion on the defense budget.

They are hesitant, but many candidates have admitted that there is a tremendous waste in the Pentagon and that they would seek to compact that waste. Our goal, our next step, is to get them to specify particular weapon systems they would seek to cancel. One that we’ve been working on is nuclear weapons — not to totally abolish them, but to reduce our nuclear arsenal down to what most all experts regard as an effective deterrent force. That would end up saving us $10 billion a year. We’re currently spending about $20 billion a year just on nuclear weapons. For that amount of money we have an arsenal equivalent to 150,000 nuclear bombs the size of which we dropped on Hiroshima. Most sane people would say that’s absurd. We can afford to reduce the number of nuclear warheads to 1,000; that would be a sufficient deterrent force. There are a bunch of presidential candidates who have agreed to that one.

The True Majority flash movie with the Oreo cookies (truemajority.org/oreos) was an incredibly effective teaching tool, and I think it really got people thinking about budget expenditures in a simple and accessible way. I’m curious what your feedback was over the years from the movie. And more importantly, when you talk about the strategy you’re employing here, it’s a very specific, one-point strategy: to take this line-item in the Defense budget — the weapons systems that are obsolete — and turn that back over to social services. How much thought did you put into having this very targeted campaign as opposed to a broader-speaking campaign about the $700 billion we spend on defense and related spending every year? Why did you choose to attack it in that specific manner instead of bringing attention to how, a lot of us would say, ridiculous our defense spending is on the whole?

In general, essentially the logo of the campaign is the pie chart of the Federal Discretionary Budget. And that shows that half of the Federal Discretionary Budget goes to the Pentagon. Things like education, healthcare, energy, and job training have all these little slivers. We are very much making people aware of the whole $700 billion expenditure as you see.

So you’re saying it’s more of an understated thing. You don’t want to beat people over the head?

The reason for it is that we felt that it was critical to get recognized military authorities and military experts supporting the campaign. Because, you know, we are going up against the Pentagon. Politicians at least are deathly afraid of being called weak on defense. We needed credible authorities supporting our position. Essentially, the $60 billion that we came up with is the lowest common denominator of the experts that are recommending cuts. The greatest number of them agreed to $60 billion.

So you’re looking for the largest consensus?

That $60 billion number is based on a study and report by Dr. Lawrence J. Korb who was named Secretary of Defense under Reagan. In that report, available on our website, he details each weapon system no longer required: how much it costs each year and the reason it is no longer needed.

The press release you put out states, “Extensive polling says that most Americans don’t think the budget reflects their values.” I’m curious about how the public has responded to you about defense spending. There’s a time not so long ago that people, it seemed to me, wouldn’t dare question defense spending because of the threat that they perceived. I’m curious about what you’ve seen over the years. Are people really starting to understand that there’s too much military spending, or are they still thinking it’s a good thing because they want to be safe? Have you penetrated that mythology of the ever-persistent threat to the public?

Yeah, I think that is a really good point. And yes, I personally have noticed a change in the ten years that I’ve been working on this. At the beginning of the campaign, I would go around speaking to business organizations, Rotary Clubs, and Chambers of Commerce. I didn’t get very good reception. People were pretty much opposed to what I was suggesting. And now, I’ve been going around talking to Rotary Clubs and business organizations in Iowa and New Hampshire, and I’ve been amazed at how positive the reception is and how much agreement there is. I mean, literally, there are standing ovations when I come in and make the presentation. We see this supported by polls conducted by Pew and other national, highly respected organizations like them. I think a big part of what’s going on is erosion in the public in terms of the credibility of the Pentagon. I think it’s based on the scandals that have been coming to light: the defense contractors, the Walt Scandal, and the Pentagon reports — in terms of War in Iraq — that have later been debunked. And, just recently there was the testimony about Jessica Lynch and that guy Tillman — both fabrications. It’s unbelievable. I think the whole image of the Pentagon is finally getting tarnished. The reality — scandals of weapons proliferating and weapon systems ending up costing five times more than advertised — is starting to sink in. And what is definitely sinking in is that the wars of the future are not going to be against other countries — they’re going to be against guerillas and terrorists. Nuclear submarines don’t really play a role in that. Coming up with a new generation of fighter jets that cost 150 or 200 billion dollars … to fight who? There is no other country that has a credible air force for our fighter jets to fight.

How do the younger generations respond to your message? I’m in Generation X, and below me is Gen Y, made up of Echo-Boomers,the Baby Boomers kids, and Millennials — they’re all starting to really get politically conscious now. How is your message translated to them? Do they understand the issues as much as people from your generation?

Yes. We have breakdowns of the polling by age and by gender. Essentially, younger people and women tend to agree more with the position that we’re putting out. The reality is that the position we share is what the majority of the population agrees with. A higher percentage of younger people and women want to shift more money from the Pentagon into social needs.

One simple last question: Do you think you’ll succeed?

Yes. I think that the trend is definitely in our direction. The reality is that our schools, health care, and energy dependence have been under funded, and that’s just a few examples of programs that have been under funded. There’s so much investment needed in those areas. The money’s got to come from somewhere. I think a good illustration is a bill that was just introduced in the Senate by Bernie Sanders, a senator from Vermont. It’s called the National Priorities Act. It shows that in order to come up with the money to invest in needed areas, we have to roll back tax cuts of the richest Americans — that gets you about $70 billion a year. And then you need to cut the Pentagon budget by about 12 percent — that gets you another 60 billion a year. And that’s $130 billion. That’s the kind of investment that is necessary.

And that cookie piece was so amazing when you said, “All you need to do is just take a couple cookies here.”

It is incredible — and maybe that’s why the reception is better now. Ten years ago we didn’t have the cookie demonstration.

I just want to commend you. This is a great, great campaign. And if I may pontificate for a second, this issue is so important. People just need to break out of the idea that we need to be this bloated military empire. People are just finally getting it. You’ve taken it so far and I really commend your work.

Thank you so much I really appreciate your help.

Charles Shaw is the editor of Conscious Choice

Recommend this page to a friend

Top Ten pages recommended to friends: