Bye Bye Ben And Jerry’s
By guest writer Little Sister
As noted yesterday by Little Child, this past July 4th holiday, ice cream maker Ben and Jerry’s posted a message on their twitter page calling for the return of Mt Rushmore to the indigenous people of South Dakota, the Lakota tribe, a division of the Sioux Nation. In a July 4 tweet, Ben and Jerry’s posted “America was founded on stolen indigenous land. This Fourth of July let’s commit to returning it.” Mt. Rushmore is the site of four presidential faces, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt.
Shortly thereafter, Don Stevens, a Native American chief of the Nulhegan band of the Coosuck Abenaki Indigenous Peoples in Vermont said he would be happy to speak to Ben and Jerry about the return of their land in Burlington, Vermont where the company headquarters sits.
Now the history of the Abenaki Indian nations is complicated. In the 1700’s they interacted and traded with the French and went to war on the side of the French against the English. With the defeat of the French by Britain, many relocated to Canada, but enough stayed behind to support a soft claim of partial land ownership. Nevertheless, the ice cream maker has made no moves to reach out to the Abenaki people to discuss returning their land in South Burlington, Vermont. This, it would seem, is a classic example of “do as I say, not as I do.”
Meanwhile, I suspect that the American people are beginning to get fed up with the constant state of “wokeness” on the part of corporations and merchandisers who, despite a “holier than thou” attitude, still depend on consumer dollars to keep their enterprises afloat. There is a feeling of “just sell your product” and stop lecturing us, trying to convert us and shoving your values down our throats. Now, both Ben and Jerry have been “social activists” since they first formed their company back in 1978. They’ve let their sociopolitical views be known on matters from utilizing only Colombian coffee growers, to supporting Black Lives Matter and various LBGTQ+ activists. They have the right, of course, to express their views, but the flip side is that they must accept the consequences of such. Their tweet on returning Mt. Rushmore did not sit well with large segments of the American public, especially coming on the Fourth of July. The result was a boycott that’s had a huge economic impact (over two BILLION dollars of stock devaluation, by one estimate. So, has corporate Ben and Jerry’s begun to pay heed to the backlash? Possibly. Recently, it’s been reported that Ben and Jerry’s has taken down a controversial billboard, that had been displayed prominently on the side of their Waterbury, Vermont factory. (The billboard hadf blatantly glorified the Black Lives Matter group while completely ignoring the role that the group played in the destructive and deadly riots of 2016). They’ve replaced the original incendiary display with a more genteel billboard with milder social justice memes. We might wonder, therefore, if they’re beginning to feel the “heat?”
And, going forward, Ben and Jerry’s may find that they’ll encounter other “woke” challenges as well. Recently, the Climate Change Catastrophe clan has been assailing everyone and anyone to eliminate the selling and consumption of beef. Cows, it seems, are, themselves, MAJOR POLLUTERS due to their unavoidable tendency for BOVINE FLATULENCE! (ALL cows, you see, produce copious amounts of methane, a greenhouse gas). In the Netherlands, the legislature has put forth the proposition that farmers voluntarily slaughter 30% of their livestock. And they’ve made this proposal DESPITE the fact that there are currently food shortages in some parts of Europe! This has resulted in enormous “pushback” including widespread demonstrations by farmers who clogged the streets of Amsterdam with their tractors. It’s not clear, at this juncture, how many cows will be executed.
But wait!… What about the Ben and Jerry’s cows in Vermont? They fart too! Undoubtedly, there will soon be calls for Ben And Jerry to slaughter THEIR OWN ungulates! So, will this be “Bye Bye Ben and Jerry’s?”… We’ll have to wait and see!