A BUZZFLASH INTERVIEW

Ben Cohen first rose to fame as one half of the team that created Ben and Jerry’s ice cream (originally housed in an abandoned gas station in Burlington, VT). You know, a regular guy who made sure that a portion of their profits went to progressive causes.

That was then. Now Unilever owns the ice cream business, and Ben Cohen’s creative energies are channeled into political activism.

Founder of True Majority and originator of the “Liar, Liar Pants on Fire” George Bush doll, Cohen also trains True Majority volunteers who bring the Bush Pants-on-Fire Mobile to towns across America. Most recently Cohen has co-authored "50 Ways You Can Show George the Door in 2004," a handbook for activists looking for ways they can individually make a difference. The book includes ideas to be used by the intellectual wordsmith and the in-your-face street theater type, among others.

A grassroots activist and creative man of action, BuzzFlash salutes Ben Cohen for carrying on the activist tradition started with "Ben and Jerry's" ice cream.

Hmmm, just writing this introduction we got a hankering to go out and buy a pint of Cherry Garcia!

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BuzzFlash: What is True Majority and why did you found it?

Ben Cohen: True Majority is an entity that brings together people that are concerned about the environment, or children’s health care, or education, or international cooperation. We monitor Congress on these issues. When we think the voices of our members can count, they get a short e-mail alert, and just by clicking “reply,” it generates a fax to your Congressperson in their name.

We founded it because there’s probably 50 or 60 million Americans who all agree on the same issues, which is essentially based on a values system that’s life-affirming, but nobody’s got the time to monitor and be active on 10 different issues. What happens is that people say: Well, I’m going to focus on the environment. Someone else says: I’m going to focus on education. Someone else says: I’m going to focus on the homeless or health care. Whereas we start off as this one united huge group of people, by each of us focusing on one or two different areas, we become very fragmented. And when any one of those advocacy organizations needs to generate pressure and numbers on Congress to influence legislation, nobody’s got enough people. You can’t bring enough pressure to Congress.

What we realized is that, with the development of the Internet and the prevalence of e-mail, it is now possible for this huge group of people that share concerns to essentially hire an agent in Congress to monitor Congress for them on the issues they’re concerned about. That’s a full-time job. And when their voice counts, they get this e-mail alert. They can be active and raise their voice on all the issues they’re concerned about.

BuzzFlash: How is it different from or similar to MoveOn.org?

Ben Cohen: It’s similar to MoveOn, and we work very closely with MoveOn. Our organization is based on this set of 10 principles, which you can see on our website. We have this service that generates a free fax for you when your voice counts in Congress. MoveOn doesn’t use the free fax service. They have a system whereby they gauge what their members are interested in at a particular time, and then they’re active on that. What ends up happening is that the two organizations are often working on the same things, and we often work on them together.

I think the other difference is that you probably get more communications from MoveOn and less from us. We try hard to not overload your in-box. Our e-alerts are shorter; we tend to be very conscious of people’s time, whereas MoveOn could is more detailed and more in depth.

BuzzFlash: When was True Majority founded?

Ben Cohen: Two and a half to three years ago. It’s a project of Business Leaders for Sensible Priorities, which has been in existence probably for about eight years now.

BuzzFlash: You’ve co-authored a book with Jason Salzman – "50 Ways You Can Show George the Door in 2004." You’re a guy who’s been through a few Republican administrations. Where is Bush in relation to other administrations, including previous Republican administrations?

Ben Cohen: It’s night and day. Bush is, beyond a doubt, the most destructive president that I’ve ever seen in my lifetime -- in terms of trampling the Bill of Rights, in terms of lying to the American public and having a very, very sophisticated propaganda operation to support those lies. They’re boldfaced lies you know he’s saying. On the same day that the 9/11 Commission determines that there was no connection between Saddam and 9/11, Bush and his vice president are out there saying that there was.

BuzzFlash: Cheney’s still saying that lie.

Ben Cohen: Right. And Bush is coming out with legislation called the Clear Skies Initiative that actually makes the skies more polluted, the Healthy Forest Initiative that actually destroys forests, using 9/11 as a pretext to invade Iraq, something they were planning on doing all along.

BuzzFlash: What do you think of Bush’s record on the environment?

Ben Cohen: I think it’s been a disaster. He changed environmental regulations that were being put forward by the EPA, and as a result 20 million tons more of mercury per year is going into the air. Like I said, in terms of forests and water, he’s really destructive.

BuzzFlash: Why did you decide to do this book, "50 Ways You Can Show George the Door in 2004?"

Ben Cohen: We felt like there were all these Bush-bashing books that were out there -- people love talking about how bad Bush is -- but there really wasn’t anything that was talking about what you as an individual can do to make sure the guy doesn’t get reelected. It’s a roll-up-your-sleeves, get-your-fingernails-dirty list of actions that you can take either by yourself or with others, or as part of an organization. Regardless of what your personality type is, or your skill set, or what things you like to do, you can find something in that book that will match your abilities and desires.

BuzzFlash: Many of our readers say, "I’m mad as hell and can’t take it anymore, but I don’t know what to do." What you have in here is some concrete action.

Ben Cohen: That’s exactly right. Those are exactly the people that this book was written for.

BuzzFlash: What are some of your favorites?

Ben Cohen: I’ve been visiting this weekend with the former head of Greenpeace. In my garage we made a sidewalk chalk stamper. It’s like a giant oversized rubber stamp that you use with a chalk slurry solution, so you get this powdered chalk and you add some border to it. You can make this two-foot wide stamp. Their stamp is: “Vote to fire Bush.” They were thinking this morning that they should have said: “Stamp Bush Out.” I have one that says “Vote Bush Out.” But the amazing thing about this stamper is that it only takes about two hours to make. And you can write anything you want on it and go around stamping sidewalks. It’s got a broomstick handle on it, so nobody really realizes that you’re stamping sidewalks. You’re just walking around with this broomstick handle. I’ve done it in plain sight, in daylight, in cities around the country. It’s no problem. You soak up the warm chalk solution and get around 10 to 15 stamps out of it.

BuzzFlash: That’s number 19 in your book’s list of actions to take -- “Chalking sidewalks for the good of the nation.” How long does it last on the sidewalk?

Ben Cohen: A couple of rains.

BuzzFlash: Here’s number 12: “Your car is a moving billboard.” How do you do that?

Ben Cohen: I can’t emphasize how effective bumper stickers are because they stay on day in and day out from now until the election. They get a lot of repeat viewers. A reader took the sidewalk chalk step and he stamped his rental car with it because, well, it’s chalk. It comes off.

BuzzFlash: Number 5: “Help defeat Bush in swing states, even if you don’t live in one.” A lot of people would be interested in doing that. What are some of your recommendations for that?

Ben Cohen: Mostly we’re hooking people up with ACT and Project Vote. But on our website, there’s a match-up system that we partnered on with ACT.

BuzzFlash: That’s America Coming Together?

Ben Cohen: Right. You put down your zip code and the kind of thing you’re looking to do, and it hooks you up with a local organization that needs your services. In terms of swing states, if you don’t live in one, a lot of it is phone banking. And, of course, there are swing states that are beautiful states to vacation in. I’m going to be vacationing in the swing state of Arizona with a bunch of my friends. We’re going to be taking a motorcycle trip and we’re bringing a sidewalk chalk stamper with us. We’re going to ride into town, get off our bikes, do a bunch of stamping, and get back on and ride through the next town.

BuzzFlash: In Number 37 here, you propose a little talk-radio subversion: “Pose as a Republican.” Now some BuzzFlash readers might find that extremely distasteful.

Ben Cohen: Well, there are also instructions in the book for places where you can get nose clips, so that you can hold your nose and do it. The nose clips are meant for people who are not that excited about Kerry, but want to vote Bush out. Everyone has to make a sacrifice in order to get Bush out of office. We’re giving the Republican talk show hosts fair warning that we will be masquerading as Republicans and getting onto their talk shows and talking about how Bush is not even a good conservative. He’s trampling the Bill of Rights. He’s running up a very huge deficit. He is de-funding Veterans’ health programs. The Veterans of Foreign War called his budget deplorable. So that’s what we’re suggesting.

BuzzFlash: “Vote by mail-in ballot” is number 2. Aren’t state laws different about absentee balloting and mail?

Ben Cohen About 20 states encourage voting by mail, and about half of those are swing states. We’re saying that, if you vote by mail, there’s a much better chance that you’re actually going to vote. If something happens on election day -- the kid gets sick, the car breaks down, it’s really lousy weather -- your vote is still in there. It’s a lot easier for people to just pop a ballot in the mailbox as opposed to taking time off from work to go down to the polls. The other thing is that, in terms of these organizations that are going around canvassing and trying to get the vote out, if you’ve already voted by mail, they don’t have to worry about you. Of course, it is a paper ballot so you don’t have to worry about problems with electronic voting.

BuzzFlash: Many BuzzFlash readers feel extremely frustrated with pro-Bush media coverage in the mainstream media and, for the most part, uncritical articles that reflect the White House perspective. What do you suggest here? What can people who are frustrated with the pro-Republican media do to try to change that?

Ben Cohen: A really big opportunity is letters to the editor. It’s an incredibly well-read section of the newspaper, and people listen to the voices of fellow citizens. I think another effective thing to do would be to write letters to the advertisers and sponsors of the media and say that you’re no longer going to buy their product because they are supporting this media that is using biased news coverage.

BuzzFlash: What role do you think the Internet will have in 2004?

Ben Cohen: I think there was some great person who said that there used to be two superpowers, the U.S. and the Soviet Union. And then there came to be this one superpower, the United States. And the burgeoning new superpower that’s coming into being that has the capability to counter the United States is the world public opinion -- organized public opinion -- by the Internet.

When computers first came out, they were personal computers. There was talk about how this was really going to democratize our society, and this was going to shift the balance of power. And for the longest time, that didn’t happen. All that happened was that corporations used computers to be better able to concentrate wealth.

But now we’re finally learning how to use personal computers in order to organize and activate the population in a very effective way. You first saw it in the run up to the war in Iraq. We’re seeing it now in terms of this year’s elections, which are precedent setting in terms of what Howard Dean was able to do, and what we will do in order to get rid of Bush.

I don’t think it’s the Democratic Party that’s going to be responsible for getting rid of Bush. It’s going to be all those Americans that have organized in order to do it.

BuzzFlash: Ben Cohen, thank you very much for your time. We are most appreciative of the hard work you’re doing to advance democracy.

Ben Cohen: Well, thanks a lot for all your work.

A BUZZFLASH INTERVIEW