The board of directors of Ben & Jerry’s has issued a statement in support of the Occupy Wall Street protests taking place in New York City and other cities around the country.
"We, the Ben & Jerry’s Board of Directors, compelled by our personal convictions and our Company’s mission and values, wish to express our deepest admiration to all of you who have initiated the non-violent Occupy Wall Street Movement and to those around the country who have joined in solidarity," the statement said. "We know the media will either ignore you or frame the issue as to who may be getting pepper sprayed rather than addressing the despair and hardships borne by so many, or accurately conveying what this movement is about. All this goes on while corporate profits continue to soar and millionaires whine about paying a bit more in taxes. And we have not even mentioned the environment."
According to Gawker, the Vermont-based ice cream company is the first corporation to back the protesters. Ben & Jerry’s is a subsidiary of the Unilever corporation.
Occupy Wall Street calls itself a "leaderless resistance movement" that represents the 99 percent that "will no longer tolerate the greed and corruption of the 1%." Since starting out in New York City several weeks ago, the protests have spread to other cities in the United States.
More from GlobalPost: Biden explains Occupy Wall Street movement
On Monday, Reverend Al Sharpton's National Action Network issued a press release saying that Sharpton would broadcast his radio show live from the Occupy Wall Street protests in lower Manhattan "to show that those that are raising issues on Wall Street are as concerned about the economy and that Blacks and Latinos have grave concerns about economic issues and jobs." Sharpton recently became a host of his own show on MSNBC.
On Sunday, Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain dismissed the protesters as “people who want to protest the success of somebody else."
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