Whole Foods CEO John Mackey (below) has ticked off some of his most loyal customers by publishing an editorial in the conservative Wall Street Journal regarding "Obamacare". In it, he states that there is no "intrinsic right to health care".
Naturally, many of the progressives who purchase Whole Foods' overpriced goods are outraged and are calling for a boycott. A Facebook GROUP has sprung up, stating...
Naturally, many of the progressives who purchase Whole Foods' overpriced goods are outraged and are calling for a boycott. A Facebook GROUP has sprung up, stating...
Whole Foods is NOT a company that cares for communities and they have built their brand with the dollars of deceived progressives. No more. My $ will no longer go to support Whole Foods' anti-union, anti-health insurance reform, right-wing activities.
John Mackey, CEO and co-founder of Whole Foods wrote an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal on 8/12/2009 quoting Margaret Thatcher and suggesting that healthcare is a commodity that only the rich, like him, deserve.
I never spend a penny at Whole Foods anyway, but what do you think - will this affect whether or not you shop at Whole Foods?
14 comments:
well, it effects my DESIRE to shop at whole foods, tho it is a luxury i can rarely afford. as soon as i read the first paragraph of his op-ed when it was first published, i just started rolling my eyes. the funniest/saddest thing to me is the major SPIN that the poor PR sack who runs @WholeFoods (the hq's twitter acct, tho there are others run by city/state, too). go to that twitter page and see how much hate has been coming there way. i'm glad to see it, tho ~ big companies are usually republican-leaning at the very least b/c it benefits them most, but i love when duplicitousness from companies like whole foods is revealed.
i can't afford to shop their either. However, buying more organic was on my list of things to do and i most certainly won't be doing it at whole fools now.
gonna quote myself here:
no one's salary should limit or determine the quality of heath care that they receive. no one should be denied treatment because of an imaginary line that serves as a boundary on a map.
rise up...this is more than about healthcare, this is about the elite vs. the rest of us.
xxalainaxx
never shopped there and if I did this would not have stopped me
My friends and I have stopped buying at Whole Foods after reading the editorial. And we've been spreading the word. Healthcare is such an important issue we can't afford NOT to have our voices heard. We have to be proactive-boycott, letter-writing to the President, Senators, House Members, to the media, twitter, emails, going to townhalls, demonstrating. Don't let this moment slip by--PLEASE!
I'm sorry to say that we don't have a Whole Foods near us, because it would have made me very happy to NOT shop there. I had to content myself with joining the Facebook group and writing a letter to the company. I was appalled when I read the guy's letter. Elitist bastard. And they call President Obama an elitist? Puh-leeze. XOXO Beth
I'm afraid I'm a bad progressive on this one.
My Whole Foods boycott lasted all of maybe 36 hours. I am in 2 of their Chicago stores on an almost daily basis and love love love the convenience and the food. (But not the $$$ - I don't even want to know what I spend there each week/month.)
At least Mackey (huh huh - Mr. Mackey . . . mmm-kay?) expressed himself in a civil way - unlike the crazed Town Hell freaks - even if he is totally wrong. I just tell myself that my money is going to pay the salary of a fellow homo who works there - like when I'm forced to stay at a Marriott.
We shop at Whole Food occasionally. I'm not going to be in any hurry to get back after that editorial. When we are there my husband always comments on how grumpy the employees are. I guess we now know why.
I buy groceries at WF. Not left or right propoganda.
We live in the most prosperous country on the planet. We are doing so much to assist in all that is good for the health of the planet while others pollute at will or simply out of the inablity to finance a better solution. Not polluting is not the cheapest route after all.
Let's give all this partanship rhetoric a rest. Or at the least, give your fellow man a break and some love.
I don't shop there anyway because the prices are too high. But now I will tell my friends who DO shop there exactly how the CEO feels, and let them make up their own minds.
If you read Mackey's article in the Journal, it's clear he's offering just a bunch of gibberish on how to solve our health care problems. It's interesting that he quotes an Investors Business Daily article on British health care where that article's author states that if handicapped physicist Stephen Hawking were living in Britian, he "wouldn't have a chance." Trouble is, he DOES live in Britian and is well cared for. Just more misleading crap from the far-right that gullible red-necks eat up.
What little I've spent there won't affect them when I don't shop there.
Never shop there unless I want gelato. We had 2 Ralphs, 1 Whole Foods and 1 Trader Joes in walking distance of my last apartment. I always went to the Ralphs and got special stuff at Trader Joes like Indian food or bread and greek yogurt. WF is too expensive and I didn't notice enough of a difference in quality between there and the organic foods offered at my Ralphs. yes they may have had more options but I think I was lucky that I had nicer chain stores right near me. Trader Joes is still my favorite though I would only shop there is I could afford it. It is still a bit pricey.
after thinking about it, i have to say that mackey's views shouldn't have surprised me... after all, he's a man who has made his fortune on the premise that good food should only be for those who can afford it.
and to JON, let me just say:
do you really think that "organic" means "not polluting"? that's precious... ^_^
oftentimes, organic products have an as-large-as ~ if not larger ~ carbon footprint than non-organic produce. that food, which is mainly grown outside the US, has to travel many miles over air, land, and sea to get to your local WH. to add insult to injury, it usually comes via the same distributers who deliver (the same, but cheaper) produce to other local groceries and restaurants. also, the USDA has a handful of pesticides that are certified organic: more pollution. furthermore, those organic tomatoes that cost you $4.99/pound are STILL picked by what is essentially slave labor: pollution of a culture (theirs AND ours, imho). and if i still haven't convinced you, consider that everything in whole foods still comes in a plastic container: pollution.
basically what i'm trying to tell you, jon, is that just b/c whole foods makes you FEEL as if you're doing something good for the environment when you shop there, it doesn't mean that you actually are. remember: they spend a lot of ad revenue to convince people that WF = pro-environment... that in and of itself should make one wonder. basically, the only entity that benefits from you shopping at whole foods IS whole foods: just the way mr. more-for-me-less-for-you mackey seems to prefer things.
think about that next time you're on a shopping cart crusade. :)
it is rather pernicious to overly attack Mr. Mackey, considering what he states in that article is NOT what that facebook boycott says it is.
he makes some valid points (re: tax, openess about costs and tort reform (something Obama in principal at least supports) and he does admirably point out how the health of the nation is related to obesity, smoking etc!
whole foods is a leader in america for green issues, and the ethical treatment of animals, it also buys its power via wind energy and many other important environmental issues
it is deeply disingenuous for any 'liberal' who believes in reform of farming methods and the environment and executive pay (mackey earns way way substantially less than any other leader of a similar sized company), to boycott Whole Foods- while going to other stores that do not have WF's positive environmental/ ethical record.
there is a fair argument in the right v's entitlement argument with regard to health care but its odd for Mackey to muddle himself in that mire of controversy, - and that perhaps could roil people up,
but to boycott? is knee-jerking at its worst.
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