I don't think you appreciate how much the founders of Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream are involved in financing left wing politics in Vermont (as well as across the rest of the country). They have a rather HUGE war chest that they've put into an activist organization that backs many different left wing causes with significant money, grassroots campaigns, etc.
Much as I like their ice cream, I won't buy it anymore.
A few months ago I was a member of a local anti-war group in Burlington, VT. This group was about 10% ISO socialists (International Socialist Organization), but those few socialists tried like hell to control the entire group's direction, to the anger of all others involved.
Mike is right, Ben & Jerry's funds leftism. They gave us a $1,000 grant for one single anti-war event, although the event wasn't too "leftist" (I was involved and wouldn't allow that to happen! hehehe). Without Ben Cohen's money, we would have failed to raise enough money for our event.
As a matter of fact, Ben Cohen was cited by the police a few weeks before that event when my group pulled off an act of Civil Disobedience and took over the headquarters of the Burlington Free Press with a Die-In one evening. Someone in the group even has pictures of it.
It was all for a good cause as the war was clearly wrong, but I'm willing to bet a lot more money goes to anti-freedom causes than we could ever know.