It's over-priced, it has all the correct social positions for the coasts, and it engages in the sort of naturalistic fallacies and logical flip-flops that anti-science progressives love.
Like: ice cream is not healthy if it has GMOs.
Well, it's junk food. It's inherently unhealthy yet they have said with a straight face they want their customers to believe they made it healthier by not having syrup made from a corn that had a genetic modification to allow it to be grown with fewer toxic chemicals.
They tell us their customers (not them! they insist) think a genetic modification anywhere in the food chain is putting their health at risk. And because they don't want anyone to believe they are anti-science, they fall back on the tired trope that they are "anti-industrialization".
That's right, a $100 million division of the Unilever conglomerate, the third-largest consumer goods company in the world with $67 billion in revenue, wants to pretend it cares about small farmers and stick it to Monsanto. This giant conglomerate is bullying a much smaller company (one-fifth the size of Unilever) and claiming it is about protecting small business.
The modern day Food Temperance movement is prettier. And in color. So Ben & Jerry's can try to convince America they care about small business, when they are a $67 billion company. Carrie Nation credit: public domain. Unknown girl credit: Shutterstock.com
That irony aside, are their customers really demanding no GMOs in overpriced ice cream? Unlikely. On a national survey, unless they were prompted to be worried about GMOs, only 7 percent of Americans proactively mention GMOs on their list of food concerns.
Given that, we can maintain a healthy skepticism about what their 'customers' (wink wink) think but we know science has nothing to do with it in any case. Anti-GMO people are overwhelmingly left-wing, and left-wing people long ago declared a war on science - you can find a hotbed of anti-vaccine, anti-GMO and anti-energy sentiment just by drawing a circle on a map around a Whole Foods store and 81 percent of counties with a Whole Foods voted For President Obama in 2008.
It used to be that Republicans were considered more anti-science because of global warming denial, but four Republicans from four Republican administrations just testified saying we should do something about climate change this week; where are all of the Democrat elites setting their voters straight about GMOs?
You won't find many. Where you will find national Democratic names is insisting that the federal government put warning labels on GMOs - 52 of the 55 names on their effort in 2012 were Democrats.
Anti-GMO Democrats in the House:
Peter DeFazio (OR-4)
Dennis Kucinich (OH-10)
Louise Slaughter (NY-28)
Keith Ellison (MN-5)
Raul Grijalva (AZ-7)
Peter Welch (VT-At Large)
Hansen Clarke (MI-13)
Earl Blumenauer (OR-3)
Lloyd Doggett (TX-25)
Anna Eshoo (CA-14)
Sam Farr (CA-17)
Maurice Hinchey (NY-22)
Rush Holt (NJ-12)
Chellie Pingree (ME-1)
Jim McDermott (WA-7)
Madeleine Bordallo (GU-At Large)
James Moran (VA-8)
John Olver (MA-1)
Jared Polis (CO-2)
Charles Rangel (NY-15)
Suzanne Bonamici (OR-1)
Pete Stark (CA-13)
Howard L. Berman (CA-28)
Robert Brady (PA-1)
David Cicilline (RI-1)
Yvette D. Clarke (NY-11)
Steve Cohen (TN-9)
Dianne DeGette (CO-1)
Bob Filner (CA-5)
Barney Frank (MA-4)
Luis Gutierrez (IL-4)
Janice Hahn (CA-36)
Michael Honda (CA-15)
Barbara Lee (CA-9)
Zoe Lofgren (CA-16)
James McGovern (MA-3)
Jan Schakowsky (IL-9)
Jackie Speier (CA-12)
John Tierney (MA-6)
Melvin L. Watt (NC-12)
Lynn Woolsey (CA-6)
Maxine Waters (CA-35)
Grace Napolitano (CA-38)
Anti-GMO Democrats in the Senate:
Barbara Boxer (CA)
Patrick Leahy (VT)
Bernie Sanders (VT) (technically not a Democrat, he is an Independent Democrat-Socialist, so he is even more Democrat than Democrats and caucuses with them)
Daniel Akaka (HI)
Dianne Feinstein (CA)
Ron Wyden (OR)
Mark Begich (AK)
Jon Tester (MT)
Richard Blumenthal (CT)
Jeff Merkley (OR)
So that anti-science apologists can claim anti-GMO beliefs are "bipartisan", here are the two Republicans who sided with them:
Anti-GMO Republicans in the House:
Richard Hanna (NY-24)
George Miller (CA-7)
And Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA) tried again last year with the Genetically Engineered Food Right-to-Know Act (she got two Republicans that time also).
Ben & Jerry's is counting on the gullibility of its customers not to ask too many questions, like which giant multinational conglomerate spent money to defeat Proposition 37 in California, that would have required labels for GMOs.
That would be Unilever, the parent company of Ben & Jerry's. And how do Ben & Jerry's customers feel about animal testing when it comes to toxic chemicals? I bet that question about Unilever is not going to get asked in their ice cream stores any time soon.
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