Ben & Jerry's Co-Founder Coming to Sarasota To Fight Citizens United
Ben Cohen is in Sarasota to visit a Ben & Jerry’s Scoop Shop with his 21-foot long money stamping truck with the hope of winning a constitutional amendment to overturn Citizens United.
The co-founder of Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream is in Sarasota to visit a Ben & Jerry’s Scoop Shop with his 21-foot long money stamping truck with the hope of winning a constitutional amendment to overturn Citizens United.
Ben Cohen is driving cross country from Vermont to West Texas, with dozens of stops in between, in his money-stamping Amend-O-Matic StampMobile.
"The Amend-O-Matic StampMobile is an amazing one of a kind machine," Cohen said. "Part Coney Island, part Rube Goldberg, part Kinetic Sculpture and part social action. It's participatory, colorful and interactive."
The vehicle will be at the St. Armands Scoop Shop, located at 372 St. Armands Circle, Friday at 4 p.m., where Cohen will spread awareness about the corrupting influence of money in politics and promote his non-profit organization, Stamp Stampede.
Ben Cohen founded Stamp Stampede in July of 2012. The non-profit organization sells stamps, at cost, which have messages like “Stamp Money Out of Politics,” or “Not To Be Used For Bribing Politicians” on them. People stamp these messages onto their money (which is completely legal), and spread the message simply by spending.
Cohen and The Stampede are seeking a constitutional amendment that states: 1) Corporations are not people; and, 2) Money is not free speech.
The Amend-O-Matic will park outside the Scoop Shop and attract visitors to come get their money stamped by this truly one of a kind machine. Cohen describes stamping as “a petition on steroids” as each dollar stamped reaches an estimated 875 people. In Cohen’s words “it’s a little monetary jiu-jitsu – using money to get money out of politics.”
According to political strategists Matt MacWilliams and Ed Erikson: “[Cohen’s] open source Stampede marketing campaign may become the new model for how to fuse social media and grass-roots activism with the assets of existing organizations to engage and provoke the public in demanding change.”
Richard M. Swier
6:45 am on Friday, February 15, 2013
Does anyone understand that what Ben Cohen is after is to eliminate the US Constitution? It seems that Patch does not cover that in this story or say what Citizens United is all about. Perhaps I can help.
Citizens United is a conservative non-profit organization in the United States. Its president and chairman is David Bossie. It is best known for the U.S. Supreme Court case on campaign finance Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission.
Citizens United describes its mission as being dedicated to restoring the United States government to "citizens' control" and to "assert American values of limited government, freedom of enterprise, strong families, and national sovereignty and security." To fulfill this mission, Citizens United undertakes various marketing projects, including television advertising and feature-length documentaries.
Joe Tortorici
10:07 am on Friday, February 15, 2013
Thank God there are a few of us left.
Bill
6:55 am on Friday, February 15, 2013
Nonsense. Citizens United exists to funnel unrestricted money, secretly, in its attempt to buy elections. It didn't work in November, but they'll keep on trying.
Gunrunner
12:43 pm on Wednesday, February 20, 2013
Pretty sure it did work
Richard M. Swier
7:05 am on Friday, February 15, 2013
Here is the case: Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, 558 U.S. 310 (2010), a landmark United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held that the First Amendment prohibited the government from restricting independent political expenditures by corporations and unions. The nonprofit group Citizens United wanted to air a film critical of Hillary Clinton and to advertise the film during television broadcasts in apparent violation of the 2002 Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (commonly known as the McCain–Feingold Act or "BCRA"). In a 5–4 decision, the Court held that portions of BCRA §203 violated the First Amendment.
This is settled law. Do you and Ben not wish to follow the law?
Charlesworth Longtooth III
3:07 pm on Tuesday, February 19, 2013
It is settled law until the next conservative judge dies or retires.
Randy Moore
9:48 am on Friday, February 15, 2013
Richard needs a scoop of ice cream. It might help his discernment about the underlying issue - too much corporate (money) influence over the political process.
Joe Tortorici
10:06 am on Friday, February 15, 2013
So let me get this straight. Ben Cohen is against a group that wants to restore citizen input and control of an out of touch, over regulated government that ignores or tramples the founding principles regularly. That means I assume that he is for a huge government that can tell us what to do in all instances and when to do it.
Those who are with him would be well advised to take some time and actually read the constitution which, I might add, is what the United States is all about. It's purpose was to limit the power of government to oppress the people.
So again, Cohen is against an organization that holds the constitution as sacred?
How this country has changed. I think we should change it back.
Bill
12:28 pm on Friday, February 15, 2013
This has nothing to do with the Constitution or with some imaginary "taking the country back." It has everything to do with big corporations and other powerful groups trying to buy elections by funneling untold sums of money into the process. There is nothing sacred about a corrupt Supreme Court decision that threatens the meaning of the votes of regular folks, regardless of party.
Richard M. Swier
2:02 pm on Friday, February 15, 2013
Bill,
If you want to break the power of money in the election process may I suggest that we have open primaries at every level (local to federal). The top two vote getters, regardless of party affiliation, are then placed on the general election ballot.
Any comments?
John Wright
6:32 am on Saturday, February 16, 2013
Benny Cohen has no problem contributing his corporate money to socialist/Marxist causes. How dumb are the Occupyers to side with the movie actors and people like Cohen and other 1%'s thinking that they're like them. Cohen also doesn't think union money influence elections like corporate money?
monique thomas
2:19 pm on Saturday, February 16, 2013
And maybe we just need to open up all the PACs to inspect their donor lists.elections while we're at.
Conservative PACs are afraid of retalliations- as it is Mr. Obama who stated "we must reward our friends and punish our enemies.
And from the progressives PACs wouldn't it be interesting to see what form of government these folks support. And we might even find some foreign supporter listed. I know that is not in our election campaign finance laws.