A Man Worth $150 million Still Can't Make Himself Heard
Why is it, do you think, that Ben Cohen (of Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream) has been reduced to getting dragged by police out of a public hearing?
Two years ago, the multi-millionaire ice cream entrepreneur Ben Cohen was struggling to reach his fellow Americans about the latest awful war prosecuted in our name. Back then, his Vermont-based non-profit helped organize a full-page advertisement in The New York Times — one signed by leading academics and national security experts — that called for urgent diplomacy and peace talks to end the war in Ukraine.
It didn’t go very well.
First, when offered Cohen & Co.’s statement, The New York Times was not interested. The statement had been signed by Ronald Reagan’s former U.S. ambassador to Moscow, and by retired majors, colonels, lieutenant colonels and other men and women of military rank, among others. It was professional in tone. It even reflected what the majority of the world likely thought about the Russian-Ukrainian conflict. When I was growing up, all of that would have prompted the self-styled national newspaper of record to accept this offering with gratitude, to publish as an Op-Ed.
But no. Not anymore. These days, if you are off-message according to the national security state, then you don’t merit “a platform”.
Cohen and his colleagues asked if they could at least run their statement as an advertisement. More than 30 years ago, after all, The Times let real estate mogul Donald Trump run an ad demanding we put to death five people who in fact later turned out to be innocent. It seems like you can say whatever you want, as long as you pay for the space, right?
Wrong again.
The Times did grudgingly agree to publish Cohen & Co.’s call for Ukrainian peace talks as an advertisement — meaning, they had to be paid money before they’d agree to air an important political perspective. That was so even as the idea of peace talks was already then supported by the majority (57%) of the nation! Today the polls show 70% of Americans support peace talks.
But The Times only agreed to run the ad in their print edition, clearly assuming this meant it would never be seen again. What’s more, Ben Cohen just revealed in a podcast that The Times would not even let him and his co-authors use their preferred headline, which was, “The U.S. Provoked the War in Ukraine.” Instead, The Times changed it to the also-true but much-less-forceful, “The U.S. Should be a Force for Peace in the World.”
So, The Times was rewriting someone else’s paid advertisement — clearly marked as an advertisement! — to suppress a political view it disliked.
Fast forward to today. This week, among many other events, we saw Ben Cohen and others disrupt a Senate hearing to call for an end to American support for Israel’s relentless persecution of the Palestinians. Thousands upon thousands of Palestinians have over the past 18 months been bombed, shot, starved and herded towards the exit of Gaza, in what amounts to the world’s first live-streamed ethnic cleansing.
“Congress kills poor kids in Gaza by buying bombs [for Israel], and pays for it by kicking poor kids off of Medicaid in the U.S.,” said a handcuffed Cohen.
I have been more focused on the tragedy of Ukraine, because I have years of personal and professional knowledge (and corresponding strong feelings) about that part of the world. And yet Gaza’s tragedy dwarfs even Ukraine’s. Both places — Gaza and Ukraine — are being demolished with the massive, active participation of our U.S. government. Peace could be brought about rapidly to both places by an assertive U.S. demand for that.
I understand that there’s political theater to making a ruckus and getting arrested. I also have doubts about the strategic value such tactics have when it comes to convincing other U.S. citizens of a point of view. That said, it’s striking to see how roughly Capitol police manhandle Cohen, a gentleman in his 70s really providing no resistance whatsoever. It’s also disquieting to remember that Cohen has already proven that, even though he’s worth more than $150 million, he has few legitimate platforms for making the case for peace. It’s common (and true) to say that our political system has been ruined by money, and that only those of fabulous wealth can hope to influence it. But apparently, even fabulous wealth is not enough.
Central Park Five guilty of assaulting the female. Ruined her life. Trump was right about this one. Woktopia got them cut loose.
“In its January 2003 Armstrong Report, the panel "did not dispute the legal necessity of setting aside the convictions of the five defendants based on the new DNA evidence that Mr. Reyes had raped the jogger."[104] But it disputed acceptance of Reyes's claim that he alone had raped the jogger.[104][105] It said there was "nothing but his uncorroborated word" that he acted alone.[104] Armstrong said the panel believed "the word of a serial rapist killer is not something to be heavily relied upon."[104]
The report concluded that the five men whose convictions had been vacated had "most likely" participated in the beating and rape of the jogger and that the "most likely scenario" was that "both the defendants and Reyes assaulted her, perhaps successively."[104] The report said Reyes had most likely "either joined in the attack as it was ending or waited until the defendants had moved on to their next victims before descending upon her himself, raping her and inflicting upon her the brutal injuries that almost caused her death."[104]
New York City detectives supported the 2003 Armstrong Report by the police department. The panel said there had been "no misconduct in the 1989 investigation of the Central Park jogger case".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Park_jogger_case
The financier-funded politicians, media and academics will always beat the drums for the latest effort to kill the people of any nation that fails to play ball with them. https://laboristmovement.substack.com/p/war-what-is-it-good-for So long as working people allow the financiers to divide us with stupid fake issues and fake "enemies", we will degenerate into a little people, a silly people, greedy, barbarous and cruel.