Ben of Ben & Jerry’s Exposes the Motives Behind War With Russia & the Politicians That Sold Out

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Speaker 4 Ben Cohen moved to Vermont in 1977 and co-founded an ice cream company that bears his name, Ben and Jerry's. They made great ice cream.
They still do.

Speaker 4 Ben Cohen became famous for his liberal political activism. The ice cream was great.
His political opinions were deeply offensive to most conservatives.

Speaker 4 Fast forward to 2022, and Ben Cohen was one of the only liberals in the United States to come out against the war in Ukraine.

Speaker 4 It seems seems like a good moment to pause and reconsider whether some of Ben Cohen's views on war

Speaker 4 are maybe not insane. Maybe they're worth hearing.
Here's Ben Cohen.

Speaker 4 So,

Speaker 4 you brought a book by Smedley Darlington Butler, the most decorated Marine in World War I. He's a Marine general.
He won two Medals of Honor.

Speaker 4 And he wrote a book called War is a Racket. And for some reason, it's not the most famous book ever written in English, but it probably should be.

Speaker 4 What is that? And why'd you bring it?

Speaker 2 Well,

Speaker 2 I've been kind of inspired by this quote of his. I think

Speaker 2 he encapsulates what's been going on in terms of how our military has been used.

Speaker 2 And, you know, he's been there, done that. That's for sure.
And

Speaker 2 I think about it a lot in terms of,

Speaker 2 you know, all these

Speaker 2 refugees, immigrants that are trying to get to the U.S.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 why are they trying to get to the U.S.?

Speaker 2 A lot of times, it's because the U.S. at some point in history

Speaker 2 overthrew or invaded their government.

Speaker 2 Well,

Speaker 2 I'll tell you what Smedley says here.

Speaker 2 Can I quote? Please.

Speaker 2 So he says, I spent 33 years and four months in active military service, and during that period, I spent most of my time as a high-class muscle man for big business, for Wall Street, and the bankers.

Speaker 2 Butler wrote in 1955.

Speaker 2 Then he goes on, in short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism. I helped make Mexico safe for American oil interests.

Speaker 2 I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for national city bank boys to collect revenues. I helped in the raping of a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street.

Speaker 2 I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers in 1902 to 1912.

Speaker 2 I brought light to the Dominican Republic for the American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Honduras right for the American fruit companies in 1903.

Speaker 2 In China in 1927, I helped set it up so that standard oil went on its way unmolested.

Speaker 2 Looking back on it, I feel I might have given al capone a few hints the best he could do was to operate in three city districts we marines operated on three continents

Speaker 4 so this was a major general united states marine corps the single most decorated marine when he wrote that and i think he's pretty much forgotten now yeah and um he was much maligned after he said that yeah very much i mean so you think i guess another way of saying you think that our military heroes are the most revered people in our country.

Speaker 4 You can't, you can't criticize a man who's received two medals of honor, and yet he crossed the line, and they hated him for that.

Speaker 2 Yeah, but he told the truth.

Speaker 4 So, um,

Speaker 4 how do you, how is that relevant to right now?

Speaker 2 I think that

Speaker 2 those actions that the U.S.

Speaker 2 has done over the years back in his time and pretty much continues to do to essentially run the world in a way that benefits the elites in the United States, ends up causing a lot of resentment, ends up being the cause of a lot of wars, ends up being the cause of a lot of immigration and

Speaker 2 people trying to flee countries that are

Speaker 2 economically or politically

Speaker 2 unlivable.

Speaker 2 And And if you go back to the root causes, you find out that there were, you know, some great liberation struggles in these countries, and the U.S. was on the other side.

Speaker 4 Yes.

Speaker 4 What's interesting is that

Speaker 4 Spedley, General Butler wrote that, you know, years after he left the Marine Corps,

Speaker 4 he was a hero in World War I when we were working to stop the Kaiser. You know, many Americans killed to stop the Kaiser.
No one even remembers what a Kaiser is, but that was a war.

Speaker 2 The First World War was a war for

Speaker 4 democracy and freedom. It didn't work, of course.

Speaker 4 But we're hearing the same slogans now with Ukraine.

Speaker 4 And as then, a lot of really decent, you know, good-hearted people with the right motives are buying it completely.

Speaker 4 It's not just warmongers who are in favor of these wars. It's like your next-door neighbor who's a good person.

Speaker 2 Yeah, I think that's really true.

Speaker 2 The way a lot of people see it is, you know, this little country, Ukraine, got invaded by this big giant Russia.

Speaker 2 But I think what you need to understand is what provoked

Speaker 2 that war and how it could have been prevented.

Speaker 2 You know, at the end of the Cold War, the U.S.

Speaker 2 made promises to Russia that they're not going to expand NATO eastward.

Speaker 2 And then

Speaker 2 we

Speaker 2 proceeded to expand NATO eastward. As a matter of fact,

Speaker 2 you know, there was the government was not going to do that until

Speaker 2 the weapons manufacturers set up this committee to expand NATO. which was essentially the CEOs of the weapons manufacturers,

Speaker 2 lobbying Congress to expand NATO. So, I mean, geez, if you're a weapons manufacturer and you expand NATO, they're going to buy a lot of your stuff.

Speaker 4 Why would the well, first let me ask, do you think it's a reasonable request by Russia not to have NATO expand to its borders?

Speaker 2 Yeah, absolutely. I mean, in the same way that, you know, the United States says that

Speaker 2 What, there's our sphere of influence. Yes.

Speaker 2 You know, I remember learning about this in,

Speaker 2 was it elementary school or middle school

Speaker 2 that the Monroe Doctrine said

Speaker 2 it's our divine right

Speaker 2 from God.

Speaker 4 To control our hemisphere.

Speaker 2 To control our hemisphere. And it sounded crazy to me then.

Speaker 2 And,

Speaker 2 you know,

Speaker 2 I can see making sure that there's not enemies right on your borders. But in terms of controlling the whole hemisphere,

Speaker 2 I don't buy it.

Speaker 2 And the U.S. has now expanded its sphere of influence to include the entire world.
I mean, it's amazing.

Speaker 2 We have military commands that cover

Speaker 2 every portion of the globe.

Speaker 2 And we have 800 military bases around the world.

Speaker 2 You know, when I was growing up,

Speaker 2 you know, I heard we had a bunch of overseas bases. I figured, you know, that's cool.
You know, every country must have overseas bases.

Speaker 2 And then, you know, I find out that the country who has the next most overseas bases

Speaker 2 has like five.

Speaker 2 I mean, it's the U.S.

Speaker 2 that is using its military power to control the world.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 the fact of the matter is that the United States is 5% of the world population.

Speaker 2 So having 5%

Speaker 2 dominate the world militarily, that doesn't sound democratic to me.

Speaker 4 No.

Speaker 4 And it doesn't sound like it helps the United States very much.

Speaker 2 No,

Speaker 2 I think it's incredibly harmful to the United States.

Speaker 2 First of all,

Speaker 2 we're making a lot of enemies. People don't like us

Speaker 2 being the big bully on the hill telling all these other countries what to do.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 it sucks a huge amount of money out of our country. It's stuff that can be used for things that people really want and need.

Speaker 2 You know,

Speaker 2 we could have more affordable housing. We could make it so that

Speaker 2 the American dream could actually still happen, that people could afford a house,

Speaker 2 that you can get a decent education,

Speaker 2 and

Speaker 2 that you can get child care, that it doesn't have to cost you so much money to go to college. I mean,

Speaker 2 these things can all be done. And, you know, most other developed countries are providing that for their citizens.
But the U.S. chooses to spend.
I mean, look at this.

Speaker 2 This is a chart of the federal discretionary budget. That's the amount of money that Congress has each year to allocate to the various departments.
So the big red one on top

Speaker 2 that gets over half, that's the Pentagon.

Speaker 2 And these little slivers are like, you know, USAID, the Education Department, the Health Department,

Speaker 2 Community Development,

Speaker 2 whatever else the country does. But in terms of stuff that would actually be helpful to people living in their daily lives,

Speaker 2 it's all sucked out by the Pentagon.

Speaker 2 You know, Martin Luther King gave this speech and he talked about

Speaker 2 the Pentagon being this huge demonic sucking tube that sucks out the the lifeblood of

Speaker 2 things like housing schools you know you you know everybody's school budget is always you know in the red or you know can't raise enough money gotta gotta get rid of teachers or or whomever but i think that's when they shot him is when he said that the race stuff was fine

Speaker 2 that was no problem

Speaker 2 but um it was

Speaker 2 true he it is true it was that was the end of it he was assassinated a year to the day after he made that speech.

Speaker 4 So a year to the day. To the day.
April 4th, 1967, he must have given that speech.

Speaker 4 Amazing. Wow, that's amazing.
Yeah.

Speaker 4 The people in charge, I am convinced, would like Americans to hate each other on the basis of race. They don't want you to talk about the banks or the Pentagon.

Speaker 2 I think that's really true.

Speaker 4 I think it is true.

Speaker 4 Okay, so

Speaker 4 back to Ukraine. You said that there was an association of weapons manufacturers that were lobbying Congress to expand NATO.

Speaker 4 That

Speaker 4 seems a little bit crazy that weapons manufacturers would be allowed to dictate foreign policy because the conflict is so obvious.

Speaker 2 Well, it's just money.

Speaker 2 So

Speaker 2 they're lobbying.

Speaker 2 They're giving political donations to the legislators, legalize bribery. And

Speaker 2 yeah, it's definitely a conflict of interest.

Speaker 4 So that the pie, if I were to look at, if you didn't tell me what country that was, and you said, here's a country that spends half of more than half of its entire discretionary budget on weapons and troops, I would imagine a small country surrounded by enemies.

Speaker 4 I would not imagine a continental-sized country with totally with independent resources, enough energy, enough food, doesn't really need anything, that's separated from the rest of the world by the two biggest oceans.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 4 That doesn't make any sense, actually.

Speaker 2 No, it totally doesn't.

Speaker 4 Has the U.S. been invaded before by a foreign army since 1812?

Speaker 2 I don't think so. No?

Speaker 4 Yeah.

Speaker 2 It's a little weird. Yeah.
I mean, and they keep on justifying these

Speaker 2 huge expenditures by coming up with enemy after enemy after enemy. So, you know, first it was the Soviet Union.

Speaker 2 So the Soviet Union collapsed. And,

Speaker 2 I mean,

Speaker 2 Gorbachev said at the time, we will deny you of an enemy.

Speaker 2 And,

Speaker 2 you know, I assumed that the Pentagon budget was going to, you know, drop hugely because that was the whole justification for it. But

Speaker 2 what the Pentagon did was that they came up with what was called the two-war scenario. So now instead of the Pentagon budget being structured to

Speaker 2 defeat the Soviet Union,

Speaker 2 now what they said is it needs to be structured to fight two medium-sized wars in two different places at the same time. And what do you know?

Speaker 2 That's going to cost just as much as we were spending on preparing to fight the Soviet Union.

Speaker 4 Who are the wars going to be with?

Speaker 2 Well, I think at the time there was the axes of evil. What was that? Iran, Iraq, North Korea, Cuba,

Speaker 2 probably another one.

Speaker 2 Yeah,

Speaker 4 it's interesting because...

Speaker 4 Russia collapses, the Soviet system collapses after seven years in 1991, the summer of 91. And I kind of assumed, I think everyone assumed that we would take the win.

Speaker 4 Like we were having this Cold War all these years, and they collapsed, we won, and then we could be friends and move forward because there are no more Soviet communists left.

Speaker 2 They're gone.

Speaker 2 Right. And they wanted to be our friend.
I mean, I was walking on the Arbat in Moscow. People were joyful and they were all wearing these pins that showed a U.S.
flag crossed with a Soviet flag.

Speaker 2 They wanted to be friends.

Speaker 4 Why didn't that happen?

Speaker 2 Because

Speaker 2 our

Speaker 2 Cold Warriors,

Speaker 2 who for their whole life,

Speaker 2 fighting the Soviet Union, that's what they were about.

Speaker 2 They wanted to continue the Cold War. They wanted to continue

Speaker 2 having Russia as this enemy.

Speaker 4 So fast forward to 2022, February, and the conflict in Ukraine starts, and we're told that this is just like out of nowhere, like who could have known?

Speaker 4 And Putin wants to expand the Russian border, you know, all the way to Vienna or all the way to London or who knows? But he's just an expansionist power. He's Hitler.

Speaker 4 And Ukraine is like the backstop against his expansionism.

Speaker 4 And we need to fight Russia.

Speaker 4 You're saying that that's not actually what happened?

Speaker 2 Right.

Speaker 2 You know, starting with the end of the Cold War,

Speaker 2 there was a promise made to Russia that

Speaker 2 kind of in exchange for, I think it was taking down the wall in Germany, that

Speaker 2 we're not going to expand NATO eastward. Yes.
And I think it was James Baker, the Secretary of State, that made that promise. And

Speaker 2 then

Speaker 2 we proceeded to expand it eastward. There was one tranche of countries, and Russia was up in arms, and they objected in the most strenuous language, but

Speaker 2 we did it.

Speaker 2 And then we added more countries a bunch of years later, and Russia was up in arms, objected in in the most strenuous language. And, you know, there might have been a few more.

Speaker 2 And then there was a statement that Ukraine was going to become part of NATO.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 Russia objected in the most strenuous language. And then

Speaker 2 Russia started gathering some troops.

Speaker 2 on the border and again said in the most strenuous language that we will not tolerate having Ukraine part of NATO. We want to negotiate.

Speaker 2 They sent overtures to the U.S. I think the overture.
I think the U.S. did not respond.
We ignore you if we don't like you. We don't talk to you if we don't like you.

Speaker 2 And then they invaded. And

Speaker 2 I don't think they anticipated that they were going to end up in a proxy war with the United States.

Speaker 2 And what's crazy about it, what drives me crazy is that

Speaker 2 this is war. War.
I mean, we're, you know, I'm shooting my machine gun at you. You're dying.
You're dead. Hundreds of thousands of people on both sides have died in this war.
For what? I mean,

Speaker 2 eventually the war is going to be over. And there's going to be some settlement.
And why can't we just skip to that stage?

Speaker 2 uh well because you don't expend missiles doing that like i i i really do think that's what it's about i i you know that's what smedley butler came up with yeah i mean you read the whole rest of his book and he says at the end uh

Speaker 2 you know i i you know these anti-war protesters they're they're really good people

Speaker 2 but

Speaker 2 you're never gonna

Speaker 2 stop the military-industrial congressional complex until you take the profit out of it. That's what's driving all this shit, is the profit that these corporations are making

Speaker 2 on making

Speaker 2 weapons,

Speaker 2 which are more and more lethal.

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Speaker 4 So Smenley Butler, I know you know this. I think he first gave that speech in 1935-ish.

Speaker 4 And he was later kind of lumped in with bad people as somehow pro-Nazi. You must be for Hitler.

Speaker 4 You know, it was like the worst slander you could level against somebody.

Speaker 4 And that's why he's forgotten now.

Speaker 4 Something very similar seems to be going on, where if you say what you just said, you're pro-Putin.

Speaker 2 Yeah, which is bullshit. I'm not pro-Putin.
I'm not pro-Zelensky. I'm pro-

Speaker 2 peace. I'm pro-cease fire.
I'm pro-stop killing each other.

Speaker 4 So you've been that way. I mean,

Speaker 4 we're coming from different points of view, but we agree. I agree strongly with everything you've said.

Speaker 4 But you're the one who's been saying the same thing for a long time, like ever since for the 40 years I've been eating your ice cream, which is fattening. Sorry, I hate to say it.

Speaker 2 Thank you for consuming.

Speaker 2 You wear it well.

Speaker 2 I've got to stop eating that.

Speaker 2 It is delicious.

Speaker 2 Never trust a skinny ice cream.

Speaker 4 And excuse me. So

Speaker 2 i've been you know listening uh to your views on this for a long time and they haven't they haven't changed uh do you think they've your views have changed no my my view hasn't changed and bernie's views certainly haven't changed i've been listening to him for a long time i tell you it is the same freaking speech yeah uh people say you should change your speech he says

Speaker 2 when the when the country finally finally acts in a in a decent way i'll change my speech so what but it Ukraine feels a little different.

Speaker 4 Like, all of a sudden, you know,

Speaker 4 there was always this

Speaker 4 persistent, enthusiastic, anti-war caucus on the left, where you're coming from,

Speaker 4 um, not quite mainstream Democrat, but sort of more old-fashioned Democrat.

Speaker 2 They like evaporated.

Speaker 4 Maybe Chris Hedges,

Speaker 4 Jeff Sachs, Jeffree Sachs.

Speaker 4 You like, where's everybody else?

Speaker 2 Yeah, it really, it really split. Uh,

Speaker 2 I guess people,

Speaker 2 I mean, you're talking about people on the left.

Speaker 2 I guess we could talk about people on the left. I mean, anti-war people in general.

Speaker 2 Yeah, whatever. I think left, right.

Speaker 4 I don't know.

Speaker 2 Yeah, I think there's people like that on the left, right, and center. That's 100% true.
You're exactly right.

Speaker 4 And in fact, there are a lot of them on the right, whatever that is. I don't even know.
Those are fake categories at this point.

Speaker 2 It really is.

Speaker 4 Well, let's say it was 1985.

Speaker 2 Okay.

Speaker 4 It was 40 years ago or 1988, when I lived in Burlington. That was considered like a lefty view.

Speaker 2 Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 Yeah, so you're saying, right, so some of that group is,

Speaker 2 you know, behind Ukraine, let's defend Ukraine, and some of that group is saying, no, we shouldn't be involved in this war.

Speaker 2 You know, I think the people who are saying, let's define, let's defend Ukraine,

Speaker 2 I can certainly understand it from their their point of view.

Speaker 2 And their point of view is that

Speaker 2 Russia made an unprovoked invasion and Russia therefore started this war and they're trying to take over this country and

Speaker 2 we should defend that country.

Speaker 2 But people don't understand what led up to it. I mean, as a matter of fact, with the Eisenhower Media Network, this group of retired admirals, generals, and colonels,

Speaker 2 we took out a full-page ad in the New York Times at the very beginning of that war calling for a ceasefire. And

Speaker 2 the headline

Speaker 2 of the ad was supposed to be, the U.S. Provoked the War in Ukraine.
And the New York Times would not allow us to run it as an ad.

Speaker 2 They would not allow us to use that headline. Why?

Speaker 2 But it's an ad. Right.

Speaker 2 It doesn't seem right, but I mean,

Speaker 2 so that was on that thing, but I mean, in the run-up to the... Wait, can I say, wait, what?

Speaker 4 So this is another... Like, I don't think North Korea has a propaganda initiative as comprehensive and aggressive as the one I saw after the Ukraine war started.

Speaker 4 Like, it was just like, you know, the New York Open was taking Russian names off the scoreboard. New York Times was

Speaker 4 editorializing in other people's advertisements.

Speaker 2 Like, what was that?

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 2 War fever? I mean,

Speaker 2 the reality is that

Speaker 2 you can kind of control what the population thinks by

Speaker 2 the information that you give to them. So, you know, the U.S.

Speaker 2 is propagandizing its own people.

Speaker 2 You know, every country does that. But,

Speaker 2 you know, there's a lot of

Speaker 2 sins of omission in terms of the news that

Speaker 2 people get. And

Speaker 2 you never hear Russia's point of view. I mean,

Speaker 2 it's amazing to me.

Speaker 2 You know, they wouldn't let us hear what Osama bin Laden was saying after, you know, 9-11.

Speaker 4 I noticed.

Speaker 2 I mean, they don't let us hear what

Speaker 2 the people in China are saying. I mean,

Speaker 2 so I dug around. A friend of mine sent me

Speaker 2 a speech by the defense minister of China, and he's saying,

Speaker 2 we're not looking to be enemies with the U.S.

Speaker 2 We're looking to develop our country and and grow.

Speaker 2 And uh,

Speaker 2 we can we can peacefully coexist together. The, the, the world is big enough for for both of the U.S.

Speaker 2 But

Speaker 2 the

Speaker 2 explicit policy of the United States, if you read these, I mean, I don't know, what the hell is this ice cream guy doing reading these national security documents?

Speaker 2 I don't know, but anyhow, I read them.

Speaker 2 And uh,

Speaker 2 it is the policy of the U.S.

Speaker 2 to maintain hegemony.

Speaker 2 And I didn't know what that word meant.

Speaker 2 But it's the policy of the U.S. that if any country begins to develop economically or socially,

Speaker 2 you know, toward the level that the U.S. is at,

Speaker 2 that country is by definition an enemy.

Speaker 2 The policy of the U.S. is that we must have full spectrum dominance.
And

Speaker 2 why should 5%

Speaker 2 of the world control what's going on in the world?

Speaker 4 The Eisenhower Institute.

Speaker 2 Eisenhower Media Network.

Speaker 4 Media Network. My apologies.
So I've never heard of it.

Speaker 2 Yeah, I didn't think you had.

Speaker 2 Well, I just want to pay attention. That's okay.
Most people.

Speaker 2 No.

Speaker 4 Well, just no, I'm admitting that both because I want to be honest, but also because it tells you a lot.

Speaker 4 So this was a group you were involved in that had flag officers and had generals, admirals, other officers

Speaker 4 who worked at the Pentagon, worked in the military.

Speaker 4 And I've never heard of it. That's kind of interesting.

Speaker 2 What was their, what, what kind of people were in it? What was the goal?

Speaker 2 Well,

Speaker 2 originally

Speaker 2 during the Cold War and after, there was the Center for Defense Information, which was a home for retired

Speaker 2 high-level military officers that were critical of the Pentagon. And

Speaker 2 that organization kind of fell on hard times and kind of Twittered away. So

Speaker 2 myself and a veteran, Danny Surson,

Speaker 2 decided to start up the Eisenhower Media Network as a home for

Speaker 2 higher-level

Speaker 2 former former military people to use their credibility

Speaker 2 on the issue of critiquing the Pentagon. Because what usually happens when you critique the Pentagon is that you don't have the credentials.

Speaker 2 You say that, well, the Pentagon is doing this weird thing or that screwed up thing.

Speaker 2 And, you know, and

Speaker 2 then the Pentagon

Speaker 2 general gets up there in uniform with all his medals and stuff and says, you know, those guys have no idea what they're talking about.

Speaker 2 I'm the military expert. So, the idea of Eisenhower Media Network is to have those military experts that can support a different point of view than what the Pentagon is putting.

Speaker 4 What kind of response have you had for the media?

Speaker 2 You know,

Speaker 2 those guys are in the media sometimes, but they're certainly not in the media, despite our efforts, as much as the former

Speaker 2 high-level military guys that

Speaker 2 are now being paid by weapons manufacturers. I mean, so they're brought on these TV shows, TV talk shows, as experts,

Speaker 2 and they're never identified as in the employ of

Speaker 2 essentially war profiteers.

Speaker 4 Is that that's actually happened?

Speaker 2 I speak the truth.

Speaker 2 I shit you not.

Speaker 4 I mean, that's disgusting. Yes, sir.

Speaker 2 Huh.

Speaker 4 I've known a number of them, of course, because I worked at a TV channel. I worked at a bunch of TV channels with a bunch of retired military officers,

Speaker 4 you know, on the air letting their expertise to this or that. And some of them are impressive.
Some of them are utterly fraudulent and stupid.

Speaker 4 Well, I'm thinking of one in particular that's like, doesn't know anything. I don't know how he was a general, but

Speaker 4 sorry.

Speaker 4 I didn't realize they were being paid

Speaker 4 by defense contractors to do that.

Speaker 2 That's really

Speaker 2 and it's not revealed. Well, I didn't know, I mean, and I know them, right? Right, huh?

Speaker 4 So, who was in the Eisenhower Media Network or is in it?

Speaker 4 What kind of people?

Speaker 2 Uh, Larry Wilkerson, he was a former assistant to Colin Powell. Uh, I remember him well, Matt Ho Dennis Fritz was uh, he was the head of Space Force, actually, for a while.

Speaker 2 Are these older guys, younger guys?

Speaker 2 We have a range. Yes.
I'm happy to say.

Speaker 4 How hard is it for them to join a group like that? Because

Speaker 4 it seems like one of the structural problems is that

Speaker 4 if you're a one-star and you fail to make two-star, you just

Speaker 4 seamlessly move over to the defense.

Speaker 4 industry to a weapons manufacturer. There's like a place for you.

Speaker 2 Yeah. I mean, especially for the guys with even more stars.

Speaker 2 Exactly.

Speaker 4 Right. So the higher you go, the more you make when you leave.
So the incentive doesn't end with your military service. You get paid after you leave.

Speaker 2 Exactly. And you get paid by the corporations whose contracts you were supposedly supervising when you were in uniform.

Speaker 4 So when you were making ice cream, would you ever allow a contract set up like that to exist in your company?

Speaker 2 Never. Never.
I mean, the conflicts of interest that go on in terms of our government are,

Speaker 2 you know, would be illegal in a publicly held corporation. They'd be illegal.
Yeah.

Speaker 4 Yeah, I'm just, I'm asking these questions, dumb questions because I feel like I may be missing something.

Speaker 4 So it must, so the guys who are, have signed up, the retired officers who signed up for the Eisenhower media project are turning turning down a lot of money in order to do that.

Speaker 2 Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Huh.

Speaker 4 And what's their view, would you say? Like, what did they believe that these conflicts are driven by profit?

Speaker 2 Well, they're driven by profit.

Speaker 2 Sometimes they're driven by

Speaker 2 politicians

Speaker 2 not wanting to appear so-called weak on defense. Right.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 the only way we judge whether a politician is weak on defense or not is how much money they are willing to give to the Pentagon.

Speaker 2 So you have two politicians that are running for election,

Speaker 2 and

Speaker 2 usually they're trying to out-compete the other guy in terms of who's trying, you know, who's willing to raise the Pentagon budget because I'm strong strong on defense.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 that's

Speaker 2 so this is like the one area of bipartisan agreement. Let's give more and more money to the Pentagon.
And, you know, there's this other aspect of so-called political engineering that

Speaker 2 earlier,

Speaker 2 you know, I don't know, back in

Speaker 2 the 90s, I guess,

Speaker 2 you know, military contractors

Speaker 2 would,

Speaker 2 these weapons manufacturers would deliberately spread out the

Speaker 2 jobs for a particular weapon system

Speaker 2 in as many congressional districts as possible.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 so, you know, that creates jobs. And,

Speaker 2 you know, the politician from that area, that's what they,

Speaker 2 you know, that gives them a lot of credit. Of course.
I brought jobs to my district. And so,

Speaker 2 you know, for say the F-35, you know, it's probably made in over 400, you know, congressional districts. And,

Speaker 2 you know, if you say some, you know, if you try to say that this is a shitty airplane, which, you know, John McCain said it was the worst thing he ever saw,

Speaker 2 you can't stop it because they've politically engineered it. And

Speaker 2 so if you

Speaker 2 I don't know, that's kind of how it works.

Speaker 4 So when you tried to put this ad in the New York Times or did put the ad, but with a different headline. By the way, what'd they change the headline to? I don't remember.

Speaker 4 But something that didn't tell the truth about how this war started. Yeah.

Speaker 2 Well,

Speaker 2 the body did. Yeah.

Speaker 2 The body copy. Yeah, they're assuming most people read the headline.
Right, yeah. Right, right.

Speaker 4 nobody was saying anything like that then.

Speaker 2 I mean, that's right, I know.

Speaker 4 Um, I was saying it, got in a lot of trouble for it. All right,

Speaker 4 yeah, it just seemed obvious to me, but um,

Speaker 4 but very few people were saying anything like that. What kind of response did you get from people you know?

Speaker 2 Um, mostly positive, uh,

Speaker 2 and and and there were a bunch that disagreed. Uh,

Speaker 2 you know, I actually have, my wife

Speaker 2 was born in Kyrgyzstan,

Speaker 2 which is one of the countries that

Speaker 2 the Soviet Union had kind of taken over.

Speaker 2 She's never lived in Russia, but she's a Russian speaker.

Speaker 4 Yes.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 she lost some friends because of the stand that I took

Speaker 2 against that war in Ukraine. Really?

Speaker 4 Because they were offended.

Speaker 2 Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 2 You know,

Speaker 2 I think for

Speaker 2 countries that

Speaker 2 live, you know, that are located around the borders of the Soviet Union, countries that had been invaded by the Soviet Union.

Speaker 4 And mistreated.

Speaker 2 Right.

Speaker 2 They are

Speaker 2 really down on Russia. For sure, they are.
And

Speaker 2 And they're very down on socialism, and they're very down on

Speaker 2 they've been invaded and they're scared that

Speaker 2 they're going to get invaded.

Speaker 2 you know, their feeling is, you know, if we just let Russia go and

Speaker 2 have its way with

Speaker 2 Ukraine, that

Speaker 2 they're going to be next. Of course.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 I don't think there is any truth to that.

Speaker 2 I think, you know, clearly

Speaker 2 Putin is not

Speaker 2 doing very well, you know, invading one country. I don't think he's looking to go

Speaker 2 invade another one.

Speaker 4 He already runs the biggest country in the world.

Speaker 2 So, yeah.

Speaker 4 No,

Speaker 4 I agree with that. It's not, you know, praise of Putin to note that there's no evidence he wants territorial expansion at all.

Speaker 4 Were there any politicians, so that was like in the first few months after the war started that you said this? Yeah. Were there any politicians who were saying anything like that that you saw?

Speaker 2 That's interesting.

Speaker 2 Because a lot of them.

Speaker 2 I don't really remember any politicians being on our side. No.

Speaker 4 Including ones you knew personally and had supported in the past. They weren't saying that.

Speaker 4 So that raises the question. And some of those politicians, because you've always been against war

Speaker 4 for the 40 years I've paid attention,

Speaker 4 you

Speaker 4 were supporting anti-war politicians, but they made an exception for Ukraine.

Speaker 2 Yeah, that's true.

Speaker 2 I noticed.

Speaker 4 What was that about?

Speaker 2 Maybe because

Speaker 2 there was so much public

Speaker 2 kind of empathy for the people in Ukraine.

Speaker 2 And I think that

Speaker 2 a lot of it has to do with

Speaker 2 what information do people have.

Speaker 2 The only information people had is

Speaker 2 Russia came in and invaded with its army. Yes.
And they didn't hear what happened before, what led up to it.

Speaker 2 And they didn't think about,

Speaker 2 you know, which this ad that we ran did,

Speaker 2 what would the U.S. do

Speaker 2 if

Speaker 2 there were

Speaker 2 Russian missiles lined up along the Mexican border aimed at the U.S.

Speaker 2 I mean,

Speaker 2 it is the same situation.

Speaker 4 Of course it is.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 I've got no question that the U.S. would invade and get rid of them.

Speaker 4 Of course. We'd be occupying Tijuana right now.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 4 And I can see why, by the way, you don't want other people's missiles aimed from your border. That's pretty close.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

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Speaker 2 Terms apply.

Speaker 4 Interesting.

Speaker 4 So, did

Speaker 4 you have access to information on the people who didn't?

Speaker 2 Well, because you said that

Speaker 4 most people had this view because they didn't know better, because they didn't have access to other perspectives, to the truth, to the history of this.

Speaker 4 What were you reading that they weren't?

Speaker 2 I just been following the issue over time

Speaker 2 since the fall of the

Speaker 2 end of the Cold War. Yes.

Speaker 2 Yeah, so where do I get the information?

Speaker 2 Well, the stuff about the committee to expand NATO,

Speaker 2 that was in the mainstream press.

Speaker 4 But you already had the framework for understanding this because you've been paying attention to this issue.

Speaker 2 Yeah. And, you know, you think about,

Speaker 2 you know, most people,

Speaker 2 it's kind of a luxury to

Speaker 2 have the time to pay attention to an issue like this. I mean, most people are, you know, focused on the day-to-day,

Speaker 2 you know, just trying to get through the day. And,

Speaker 2 you know,

Speaker 2 the messages that you get are essentially the messages that

Speaker 2 the government wants you to get.

Speaker 4 Man,

Speaker 4 that was not the way it was supposed to work.

Speaker 2 No, it wasn't. We were supposed to have freedom of the press, but I mean, even when there,

Speaker 2 I guess even when there was a free press,

Speaker 2 it was still

Speaker 2 very

Speaker 2 controlled. I mean, so

Speaker 2 I say there was a a free press,

Speaker 2 not that free.

Speaker 2 You know, there's the, I think a lot of times the press is self-censoring. Yes.

Speaker 4 I don't know. How can you have a democracy without access, free access to information?

Speaker 2 Yeah, I don't think you can.

Speaker 2 I mean, now,

Speaker 2 you know, with the internet, I mean, you could say that there is free access,

Speaker 2 but

Speaker 2 you really need to kind of dig. And,

Speaker 2 you know, you get a very different perspective if you read the news

Speaker 2 in the U.S. versus if you read the news in some other country in the world, you know, talking about the same situation.

Speaker 2 So

Speaker 2 we get a U.S.-centric view.

Speaker 4 U.S. government-centric.

Speaker 2 Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 4 I don't know. I don't personally know anyone who's volunteering to fight Russia in Ukraine.
I don't personally know anybody. I've never met anybody

Speaker 4 outside of D.C. who wants another Middle Eastern war.
So in other words, the priorities of the government bear no resemblance to the priorities of the population.

Speaker 2 Yes,

Speaker 2 There are

Speaker 2 well done,

Speaker 2 rigorous

Speaker 2 studies on that issue.

Speaker 2 That,

Speaker 2 you know, you look at the

Speaker 2 line of

Speaker 2 what do regular old people in the country want versus what does the country do?

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 they're not congruent

Speaker 2 very much.

Speaker 2 then you look at the line of

Speaker 2 what do

Speaker 2 the elites want what do the really wealthy people and corporations want and what does the country do and it's much more aligned so on ukraine your position i'll just be totally blunt is like totally unfashionable it's like the least fashionable position you could ever take

Speaker 2 yeah well i was never really a fashion maven but this is this is anti-fashion this is like this is a way to get called really pretty slanderous names.

Speaker 4 It's a way to break up friendships. As you said, your wife lost friends over this.

Speaker 2 So it's like,

Speaker 4 why would you do that? Why not just sit this one out?

Speaker 2 Do I want... Well,

Speaker 2 I don't know. It's about

Speaker 2 standing up for what you believe in.

Speaker 2 I mean, I'm for a ceasefire.

Speaker 2 I'm for,

Speaker 2 you know, you would think

Speaker 2 most people would be in favor of a ceasefire. I mean, we don't want to keep on killing people.

Speaker 2 I'm not a Putin supporter. I'm not a Zelensky supporter.

Speaker 2 I'm a supporter of

Speaker 2 not

Speaker 2 killing each other and not

Speaker 2 using our resources to

Speaker 2 have actual wars, to supply weapons for wars, or

Speaker 2 to settle our problems through that means. I mean,

Speaker 2 it just,

Speaker 2 why can't we cut to the chase and assume the war is over

Speaker 2 and have a negotiated settlement? Why do we have to kill a few hundred thousand mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, sons and daughters

Speaker 2 in the process.

Speaker 4 There's also a sense in which there's like a suicidal impulse at work here because for most of three years, we were closer than we've ever been to a nuclear conflict, like an exchange of nuclear warheads where the most of the Earth's population dies.

Speaker 4 That's factually true, I think.

Speaker 4 And

Speaker 4 I think the planners at the Pentagon understood that, and they press forward anyway.

Speaker 4 Do you think that the average American understands how close we have been to nuclear war?

Speaker 2 No,

Speaker 2 I think they've heard that we've been close, but they don't have the details.

Speaker 4 Why do you think that people who plan these things and push these things don't seem to care about the risk of annihilating everyone on the planet?

Speaker 2 I think

Speaker 2 most people involved in the process are not

Speaker 2 are playing little roles in the process. They're just trying to do their small part well.
Yes. And

Speaker 2 they're not

Speaker 2 looking

Speaker 2 at the bigger picture.

Speaker 4 I think that's exactly right.

Speaker 4 They're just cogs.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 4 But the machine itself is moving towards something awful, but they don't have that picture. They just know their role.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 5 Huh.

Speaker 2 Who do you,

Speaker 4 you said there are no politicians who are saying what you believe.

Speaker 4 Is there who whose opinion on this do you respect on the Russia-Ukraine question?

Speaker 2 Larry Wilkerson, Jeff Sachs. Yes.

Speaker 2 I guess

Speaker 2 those are the two that come to mind.

Speaker 4 Given that I think we're right about Russia-Ukraine, clearly, if there had been a ceasefire in the spring of 2022,

Speaker 4 probably a million people would still be alive and Ukraine wouldn't be destroyed and we'd still be in the same place. So, like, why didn't we do that? Given that you called that correctly, I think,

Speaker 4 where do you think we're going on Iran?

Speaker 2 It sounds like we're kind of headed toward war.

Speaker 4 Why do you think that is?

Speaker 2 Well,

Speaker 2 I

Speaker 2 there seems to be

Speaker 2 some

Speaker 2 kind of

Speaker 2 strange relationship between

Speaker 2 Israel and the U.S.

Speaker 2 where,

Speaker 2 I don't know, Israel now

Speaker 2 has the U.S.

Speaker 2 supplying weapons for its genocide.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 what I'm told is that Israel wants some concept of greater Israel. I mean, I don't really know much about that.

Speaker 4 Do you think the U.S. faces a threat from Iran?

Speaker 2 No, I don't. No, I think that's absurd.

Speaker 2 I think, you know, Iran has a Pentagon budget. Well, not a Pentagon.
Their military budget is like $7 billion.

Speaker 2 Our Pentagon budget is darn close to a trillion.

Speaker 2 So

Speaker 2 I don't think that,

Speaker 2 I mean,

Speaker 2 what, is Iran going to

Speaker 2 invade the U.S.?

Speaker 2 I don't think so.

Speaker 4 Why,

Speaker 4 you sold your company. It was bought by Unilever, I think, like 25 ago.
Yeah.

Speaker 4 Did you consider buying a vineyard?

Speaker 4 No. No.

Speaker 2 How about you?

Speaker 4 No. I can't afford a vineyard.

Speaker 2 No vineyard. I don't even drink, so kind of out of the vineyard business.

Speaker 4 But

Speaker 4 why did you decide to spend the last 25 years on the issue of war?

Speaker 2 It's more on the issue of

Speaker 2 kind of the

Speaker 2 the spirit and the soul of

Speaker 2 our country uh

Speaker 2 you know

Speaker 2 there was a pope who said that

Speaker 2 even if the weapons are never used the arms race kills the poor by causing them to starve

Speaker 2 i'm

Speaker 2 amazed at

Speaker 2 how much money the United States has.

Speaker 2 We have a shitload of money.

Speaker 4 Is that a technical assessment? Yeah.

Speaker 2 We have enough money

Speaker 2 to

Speaker 2 solve health problems for people in our country and all over the world. We have enough to end hunger in our country and all over the world.

Speaker 2 We have enough to get rid of lead poisoning.

Speaker 2 the gargantuaness of the amounts of money that we have,

Speaker 2 you can't fathom it. And

Speaker 2 we're choosing to spend it on

Speaker 2 creating more

Speaker 2 and better ways to kill more and more people.

Speaker 2 It's such an incredible waste. It's,

Speaker 2 you know, I believe that we are all interconnected. As we help others, we actually help ourselves.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 all this money that's going into the Pentagon is sucking money out of things that people really want and need.

Speaker 2 It could be improving your libraries, your schools,

Speaker 2 your sports arenas.

Speaker 2 It could be paying for college for your kids, trade school for your kids.

Speaker 2 You have a better car. I mean, what is it that,

Speaker 2 what do people want?

Speaker 2 It's not more weapons.

Speaker 4 No, it's not.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 our country needs to start measuring its strength by

Speaker 2 how many people it can help as opposed to how many people it can kill.

Speaker 2 And I would say it would actually

Speaker 2 make our country more secure.

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Speaker 4 We definitely, plus they're good looking, I will say.

Speaker 4 You saw people, you know, just as recently as a few months ago say

Speaker 4 we actually benefit from sending billions to Ukraine because that money goes first through American companies.

Speaker 2 Right.

Speaker 2 I've heard politicians say that,

Speaker 2 yeah, this is great, man.

Speaker 2 We're employing our people. We're keeping our weapons production lines humming, and we're degrading the military of

Speaker 2 our enemy, Russia. And

Speaker 2 it is such

Speaker 2 sacrilegious reasoning.

Speaker 2 You need to think about our spirit and our soul, what it means to be an American.

Speaker 2 You know, right now, what it means to be American is that we are the world's largest arms exporter. We have the largest military in the United, in the world,

Speaker 2 uh, we support uh

Speaker 2 the slaughter of people in Gaza.

Speaker 2 If somebody protests the slaughter of people in Gaza, we arrest them. What does our country stand for?

Speaker 2 I don't know. I mean, you know, people say the budget is a moral document.

Speaker 2 See where you're spending your money, and that's what your values are.

Speaker 2 It hurts me to say that

Speaker 2 the values of our country seem to be

Speaker 2 military domination.

Speaker 2 Well, that's it.

Speaker 2 The

Speaker 4 impulse that drives

Speaker 4 is money, right? People want money. So you're an interesting person to ask since

Speaker 4 you didn't grow up rich.

Speaker 4 You've had times when you were poor, then you got rich, selling the best ice cream there is.

Speaker 4 So you've kind of seen the money thing from both ends. Do you think that

Speaker 4 people put too much emphasis on money?

Speaker 2 Well, part of what got me

Speaker 2 interested in this issue is that, you know, you talk about these large numbers like

Speaker 2 300 million,

Speaker 2 500 million, a billion,

Speaker 2 100 billion,

Speaker 2 800 billion. Nobody has any idea what the size of that is.

Speaker 2 It's just like more money than you could ever imagine.

Speaker 4 Yeah, I have no perspective at all on that.

Speaker 2 And so

Speaker 2 when Ben and Jerry's was sold,

Speaker 2 it came up to a level of $300 million in sales.

Speaker 2 And so I started having a feeling for how much money that is. And then I realized that three times that,

Speaker 2 that's about a billion.

Speaker 2 And so I vaguely got a

Speaker 2 handle on

Speaker 2 what quantity that is.

Speaker 2 And,

Speaker 2 you know, a billion is

Speaker 2 an unfathomably large number.

Speaker 2 If you counted every second since you were born,

Speaker 2 you would be 32 years old before you'd lived a billion seconds.

Speaker 2 It is a lot of seconds.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 that's just one billion.

Speaker 2 So

Speaker 2 the Pentagon budget is now

Speaker 2 a trillion,

Speaker 2 1,000 billion.

Speaker 2 You know, when you, in Pentagon speak,

Speaker 2 well, I don't know, it's a few aircraft carriers. It's another fighter jet,

Speaker 2 generation of fighter jets.

Speaker 2 whatever, whatever. But

Speaker 2 in regular speak,

Speaker 2 here's a good example.

Speaker 2 I wrote it down because I thought you might be asking.

Speaker 2 There was recently a fighter jet that fell off

Speaker 2 an aircraft carrier.

Speaker 2 So it was

Speaker 2 a $70

Speaker 2 million

Speaker 2 fighter jet.

Speaker 2 So,

Speaker 2 you know, that sounds kind of dramatic that, you know, a $70 million

Speaker 2 fighter jet fell off an aircraft carrier.

Speaker 2 But if you think about the Pentagon budget as a box of Cheerios,

Speaker 2 that $70 billion

Speaker 2 would be one-tenth of one Cheerio.

Speaker 2 Which is enough money if you take it out of the Pentagon to build two new hospitals in West Virginia.

Speaker 2 So

Speaker 2 what's crumbs to the Pentagon

Speaker 2 can really provide some real stuff that we need here in the U.S.

Speaker 4 Why?

Speaker 4 I mean, so you're describing a system that

Speaker 4 basically can't be changed because I don't know.

Speaker 2 No, I'm in the process of changing it.

Speaker 2 Okay.

Speaker 4 So you think that democratic levers still work in a non-democratic system?

Speaker 2 Well,

Speaker 2 I think that the only lever that works is

Speaker 2 public opinion.

Speaker 2 So

Speaker 2 I'm in the process of starting up a campaign, which is called Common Sense Defense at the moment. We're going to get a flashier name later, but right now it's Common Sense Defense.

Speaker 2 That's pretty flashy. Thank you.
Common Sense Defense. Yeah, it'd be a nice change.

Speaker 2 And it is a campaign that's aimed just directly at the public. We're not trying to lobby Congress.
We're not trying to influence that. We're trying to change public opinion in terms of

Speaker 2 what we want our government to be spending its money on, or at least not spending its money on excessive

Speaker 2 weapons.

Speaker 2 Yeah. So, yeah,

Speaker 2 I believe that the thing that can change it, and you know, and this is from

Speaker 2 my experience of my time going around lobbying on Congress in on Capitol Hill about this issue,

Speaker 2 you know, I think that's hopeless.

Speaker 2 I mean, I think all we can do is.

Speaker 4 Well, you think it's hopeless to lobby to Congress. Yeah.

Speaker 2 You know, hopeless for a guy who's not handing out hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Speaker 4 What was your experience? You actually went to Washington and talked to

Speaker 2 Washington. I talked to those politicians.
You know,

Speaker 2 they smile and they say nice things and they take a picture and then they

Speaker 2 and then they just vote and rubber stamp whatever Pentagon bill comes in because

Speaker 2 they don't want their opponent to call them weak on defense.

Speaker 4 Hmm. So there were none that you would trust?

Speaker 2 I wouldn't say that.

Speaker 2 You know, I think there's a guy, you know, there's

Speaker 2 no, I wouldn't say there's none. I mean, I think there's, I don't know,

Speaker 2 20, 30.

Speaker 4 Yeah.

Speaker 4 Do you think that part of the problem with the Ukraine war was Trump was against it?

Speaker 4 And that made it hard for people who hated Trump to say, I'm against it too?

Speaker 2 I wasn't

Speaker 2 I don't I don't really know about that I mean I didn't

Speaker 2 I wasn't conscious of that myself

Speaker 2 I mean I know that

Speaker 2 you know for I know I know that for some

Speaker 2 Democrats you know anything that

Speaker 2 Trump supports they don't yeah

Speaker 2 but I'm not aware of that as being an issue with related to the Ukraine war.

Speaker 4 You were saying that you think there's something sacrilegious about basic economy on weapons?

Speaker 2 Yeah, I really do. So

Speaker 4 are you driven by your spiritual beliefs?

Speaker 2 I'm mostly driven by,

Speaker 2 you know, just just

Speaker 2 a concern for people.

Speaker 2 I mean, I don't,

Speaker 2 in terms of a spiritual belief, I mean, I don't practice a religion.

Speaker 2 I was born a Jew.

Speaker 2 I love Jesus Christ. I think the words that he said are

Speaker 2 wonderful, are amazing.

Speaker 2 And,

Speaker 2 you know,

Speaker 2 I'm kind of distressed that

Speaker 2 a lot of organized Christian religions are not really,

Speaker 2 I don't know, abiding by the words of Jesus Christ.

Speaker 2 I am too.

Speaker 2 I'm friends with a guy named Shane Claiborne, who's

Speaker 2 a theologian. And

Speaker 2 he,

Speaker 2 you know, a Christian.

Speaker 2 Well, he calls himself a red letter Christian, and he's got a group called red letter Christians. There's other theologians.

Speaker 4 Red letters refer to the red letters of the New Testament connoting Jesus' words.

Speaker 2 Exactly.

Speaker 2 And, you know, he lives and works in an inner city of Philadelphia in a really

Speaker 2 low-income area. And he's,

Speaker 2 you know, that's his work. He's working to help people there.
But,

Speaker 2 yeah,

Speaker 2 I think if

Speaker 2 we could follow the words of Jesus Christ and

Speaker 2 take,

Speaker 2 you know, know, think about the Sermon on the Mount and,

Speaker 2 you know, take his words seriously. We wouldn't be doing the stuff we're currently doing.

Speaker 4 No.

Speaker 4 I don't know if I can improve on that. Ben Cohen, thank you very much.
All right.

Speaker 2 Thank you, Tucker.

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