What is with the Whole Foods Nation?
By pm317 on September 4, 2009 at 7:01 PM in Current Affairs
You have heard about the boycott of the store Whole Foods Market by the Lefties. The CEO of Whole Foods Market, John Mackey wrote an Op Ed in the WSJ and dared to criticize Obama on his health care plan. He has a different view and proposes a different solution. Single Payer proponents don’t like that and therefore they are boycotting the store. Here is Greta with one of the boycott organizers (transcript).
Here is a description from Mackey’s editorial on health insurance benefits for his employees:
For example, Whole Foods Market pays 100% of the premiums for all our team members who work 30 hours or more per week (about 89% of all team members) for our high-deductible health-insurance plan. We also provide up to $1,800 per year in additional health-care dollars through deposits into employees’ Personal Wellness Accounts to spend as they choose on their own health and wellness.
Money not spent in one year rolls over to the next and grows over time. Our team members therefore spend their own health-care dollars until the annual deductible is covered (about $2,500) and the insurance plan kicks in. This creates incentives to spend the first $2,500 more carefully. Our plan’s costs are much lower than typical health insurance, while providing a very high degree of worker satisfaction.
What I find amusing about this boycott is that Mackey looks like a good guy, takes good care of his employees, does not pay himself excessive salary, and seems to advance the highly relevant cause of providing healthful alternatives to the populace. Remember the Giants, and the Safeways with their monopoly before this guy showed up? My neighborhood Giants is cleaner and spiffier now with new lighting and fresher produce. Ah, good old competition to straighten you up.
So the Whole Foods Nation is boycotting Mackey. Oh, my, where will they get their organic arugula from?
Joking aside, what I want to know is what they will do to boycott Obama when they find out he will not go for public option. They should be up in arms with Obama and not with some little guy like Mackey, because Obama didn’t even dare to put a single payer plan on the table.
Bonus: Single payer v. Public option.
Hillary with her (testicular) fortitude would have fought the good fight and done what is right. We had fifteen years to gear up for this fight and Hillary would have known what to do differently. She would have taken the people along with her instead of obfuscating and bamboozling, after all she learned her lesson the hardest way. She would definitely not have made deals with the insurance industry and the big Pharma like Obama has unless they coughed up some substantial restructuring to bring down costs and increase access.
Obama did not seem serious about implementing real health care reform even during the campaign. Universal health care was Hillary’s plan, not his.
You are not getting single payer, you are not even getting public option, you may just get an illogical “trigger” for public option. Yes, people of Whole Foods Nation, a TRIGGER. It is the big enchilada on Olympia Snowe’s table now. Her idea is to give the insurance industry time to clean up their act within a certain time and if they don’t do it, then the public option gets “trigger”ed. The Washington Monthly’s Steve Benon explains why the “trigger” is a stupid idea:
We’ve talked about this before, but since this talk is becoming more serious, let’s recap. Everyone floating the “trigger” idea seems to realize that a public option would be a far more affordable way of delivering care.* A public plan would lower costs, expand access, and use competition to improve efficiency. Those are, by the way, good things.
Those who like the idea of a “trigger” argue that if we pass a reform package and private insurers can lower costs, expand access, and improve efficiency on their own, we wouldn’t need a public option. It’s better, they say, to wait for the system to get really awful before utilizing a public option to make things better.
The problem should be obvious: if proponents of such an idea realize that a public option would necessarily improve the overall system — and they must, otherwise there would be no need for the trigger to kick in when things got even worse — then why deliberately delay implementation of the part of the policy that lawmakers already realize would help?
Or, put another way, if Snowe and Emanuel know a public option is a good idea, there’s no reason to push it off to some arbitrary date in the future, as the system deteriorates in the interim.
For a guy who voted present nearly 130 times as a state senator — you know whom I am talking about, the trigger option could be a good one to save his face with his base (and from my observation, they will suck it in) and brandish his finger at the insurance industry with an ultimatum at the same time.
Kick the can down the road!
More on “Trigger” — Obama Holds Conference Call With Progressives Who Oppose “Trigger”
(Release: November 13)
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Thanks pm for this post. I would shop at Whole Foods to support Mackey, but it’s just to expensive here in NYC.
I hear you, JMM. I shop at Whole Foods for three things (which I can’t find anywhere else) — Lactose free milk (organic, grass fed cows), Carrots (yes!), and a vegan low fat Carrot and Orange cake (which I pop in as breakfast in the morning in the car). Thankfully, in MD, we have a mom and pop store in our neighborhood that carries fresh and cheap produce (I am a vegetarian).
Sale items at Whole Foods are pretty affordable and sometimes better priced than regular grocery stores. Their only store near me is one hour away so I don’t get there often but when I do I stock up and buy a meal there which is delicious and generally cheaper than going to a restaurant.
You are so right about going after Obama and Congress instead of Whole Foods. But I guess messing with a local business (and harming employees from the community) is easier.
The Whole Foods boycott is just one more way of deflecting criticism away from Obama. Also those Obots love to marginalize anyone who dares to criticize “That One.” Keeps them off the hook from taking a real good look at what Obama is and what he’s doing, and helps them avoid discussing the real issues behind those criticisms.
You’re spot on Prem. The more the goose-stepping obaa-maa-bots can keep the public’s eye diverted from the real news, the more chicanery their master can indulge himself in.
I thought I must confused. Why is this guy in the video condemning the CEO of Whole Foods as “bad” for not advocating single-payer health - ‘people are dying because they have no health insurance’ - when the only people over whose health insurance premiums this CEO has control, that is, employees of Whole Foods, have 100% of their health insurance premiums paid as long as they work over 30 hours per week? If not advocating for single payer merits a boycott, advocate that people tune out the bad POTUS! Talk about changing the subject…
Criticizing The One is evil. Nothing else matters.
A lot of people objected to the rest of the editorial from the CEO, rather than the Whole Foods Employee benefits.
Everyone in the country cannot be an employee of Whole Foods and he seemed to express a cavalier attitude to everyone else. Among his comments seemed to be that if everyone ate the wholesome foods sold at Whole Foods they wouldn’t get sick and need so much health care.
I’d also like to point out that he doesn’t pay all his employee’s health cost. His plan has a $2500. high deductible. He pays $1,800. a year towards that deductible. You aren’t fully covered until you reach the point where your health savings account reaches $2,500. (a year and a half?)If you get sick shortly after you start, you are facing the $2,500. deductible.
Yes, I know that is a lot better than no insurance at all, but it’s not better than single payer which he was putting down.
There were other parts of his op-ed.
Here’s one:
Personally, I think we need MORE government regulation of insurance companies, not less.
Here’s another that I’m not fond of:
It is a great comfort to me to know that lawyers are an option.
Here’s another:
I’m on Medicare. I have enough empowerment and responsibility, thank you.
After this, he trashes the UK and Canadian systems, says the solution is to have people with health care donate money on their tax forms so the others who have no insurance can be covered (yeah, that’d work!) and closes with this:
Shop at Whole Foods and live to 100.
But here; read it all.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204251404574342170072865070.html
Mackey sounds like a real centrist and a smart man. That is more than likely why his stores are being boycotted. Expect the neoconpoops to join in, as well. There’s nothing extremists like more than a talented centrist on which to blame everything under the sun. I’d pay good money if those petulant pustules populating the fringes would shut the hell up.
If it were not for the far left and the far right no one would pay any attention those in the center. I say these extreme voices are needed to illustrate how bad it can get for one or the other to be totally in charge. The KEY imo is to have those in charge be PRUDENT in their decision making. I believe “prudence” not “hope” is finally making a comeback at least among the masses. As far as the government goes…, I doubt they know the meaning of prudence.
—Libertexan
From a political standpoint you may be right. That being said, the hard left and hard right never think through their positions to their ultimate end points. So I would postulate that they aren’t really doing any of us any favors because it it the centrists who have to come in an clean up the god damn mess left behind by the petulant fringe elements. Thanks, but the extremists can just take a hike.
And thanks for the enlightening commentary, pm317. We need more news about people like Mackey.
[...] What is with the Whole Foods Nation? : NO QUARTER [...]
I participated in the “BUY cott” of Whole Foods on Tuesday night. It’s a great store. They treat their employees exceptionally well, the service is excellent, and they get great benefits.
I only spent $14, and don’t shop there often ’cause they’re too pricey for me, but Whole Foods has got my support!
I guess the Obots have a problem with a CEO giving his opinion. They just HATE that pesky free speech.
But what do you expect from Marxists?
And if you can afford a box of the 365 Chocolate Truffles(only 6 bucks) they are to DIE for.
I buy @ Whole foods occasionally but i have been going there more often in Austin and it is PACKED! Guess the “boycott” has fizzled!
Just yesterday I shopped at Whole Foods. There were no people with signs protesting, and the store seemed to have the usual number of shoppers inside. When or if I hear a protest does start happening here, I’m shopping there for everything. That guy–couldn’t catch his name–is a total jerk. As Greta pointed out, to call Mackey a “bad guy” because he proposes something different from what you want doesn’t win me over.
What dopes these people are. How many people would like the health care provided by Whole Foods? I guess they need to throw a lot more people out of work to prove their “point” about the need for a single payor.
While single payor may be the way to go, if one is realistic, Obama and the Dem Congress with their many versions of reform, none of which includes single payor, is the one who has thrown the single payor movement under the bus.
There’s a Whole Foods near me the size of a Wal-Mart. It is HUGE and twice the size of a regular grocery store. It is also situated in Venice Beach, California, which is Hippie Central. Judging by the massive amounts of people flooding the sidewalks eating food from the Whole Foods cafeteria there the other day, the Whole Foods boycott is a total bust.
If the Venice Beach Whole Foods is overflowing with customers, I’d hardly think a boycott by mainly hardcore lefties is going to affect a Whole Foods store in, say, Ohio.
Whole Foods parking in Woodland Hills CA seemed down by about 20%.
This guy on Great’s show is as ignorant a human being as there is! I happen to have the luxury of having both an HMO and coverage in the Canadian Health Care System, which is NOT single payer, but is a taxation against income at a level of my income bracket of 11%/yr. Most of my employees run at a level of below 7% of income per yr and the corporate level runs at a level of 5%/yr. My HMO cost in the US runs me a cost of almost 14%/yr with a $2000 deductable.
Now many like to argue that in Canada, wait times are very long and that some places send Canadians to the States for care. What they forget on the sending cross border ffor care is that there is also cross border from the US care as well depending upon the locations.
As for wait times, I just underwent a heart valve repair operation and had it done in Canada within 30 days of being diagnosed with the problem. BUT my first move was to go back to the States to have it done closer to family and was told since my surgery was ELECTIVE, I had a wait time of anywhere from 30 to 45 days providing no emergency proceedures bumped me. Well in Canada, I was bumped due to an airborne patient being flown in from Buffalo for an immediate dire valve repair, my delay was 2 whole days, big deal!
One other factor, in the States, the doctor recommended by my GP was rejected by my HMO as to expensive and in Canada, the surgeon I chose was one of the worlds top cardiosurgeons and was mine come hell or high water and the delay was because his schedule is extremely full as is the one my GP in the States recommended, his wait time was minimum 60 days for elective surgery. (one other note, my HMO advised my premiums would also increase next year substantially if they chose to cover me at all after this surgery, caused by a virus I got in a hospital while visiting a friend dying in the States, that destroyed my valve)
Is there abuse to the Canadian system, damn right there is, but is care not available resonably, in many cases better than in the States for the choice specialist wanting to treat.
And one thing my friends at home in the States kept harping on is the care and recovery I would get having it done in Canada. Well after 6 hours on the operating table the usual recoup time for this proceedure is 10 to 14 days in hospital, yet the one magnet I had to this surgeon is that he cuts hospital time down by a quarter minimum through forced physio of movement and not laying in bed. I was out of the hospital in 5 days after surgery and am doing great, and back at work full tilt again next week. I had the surgery 2 weeks ago yesterday.
Do I agree with any of the plans on the table of thin air in the congress, not one for the simple reason being HMO’s are dangerous and have no right to dictate a persons health and well being, people are not commodities period!
And I post this because of one reason, Mackey is giving his employees total coverage, something that very few, myself included do not provide employees in the States to the degree that they pay nothing and enjoy life knowing they do not have to worry about health care.
I cannot do it because my labour force in the States is small and mostly part timers and the cost of providing that sort of coverage would bankrupt me in less than 6 months!
Thanks, Mel.
Is this site for real? You’re Hillary fans, so you’re defending John Mackey, of all people? Wow.
Did you come here to take fingers obamabot? You know, we might just give you one.
I don’t know what you mean by “taking fingers.”
If you ever stopped stuffing cheetos and actually made an effort to get out of your Mommy’s basement once in a blue moon, you’d know what I meant, Obumblebot. Take your single-digit IQ over to one of those nauseating sites devoted to the adoration of your slacker Prexy and lower the collective IQ THERE by an order of magnitude or so, m’kay?
LOL–You’re in rare form tonight, Ferd.
Whole Foods vs. O-Whole-Health. Now which one is the Holy O supporting? The O-Faithful go for Cheetos and other “finger food,” “single digit IQ food” and none of this qualifies as “Whole Food.” Oh, these are such confusing times . . .
finger food, I am laughing aloud but it is no laughable matter.
ROFLMAO…you are also on a roll! Excellent, Bravo!
tears from laughing!
pssst. do you think they eat the fingers or make necklaces out of them? Or are they…wait for it…biting the hand that feeds them. Ferd and I decided we have the perfect answer to be called racist….cannibal! Wow think what this could do to the veggie folks!
Yea, my veggie stomach is turning..
Sorry pm!
No problem.. I am enjoying the word play (notwithstanding the seriousness of that obot biting off the finger. Where do they find these people, ha?)
LMAO, oowawa.
You know, I would love to give those cannibalbots the finger but I’m afraid they’d keep it.
It means biting off the finger of the hand that feeds you — American democracy in the form of people exercising free speech. Ask BO what that means — he’s supposed to know everything….
We dfend logic…You know what that means don’t you!
My husband and I who are both ardent conservatives, are going to start going to Whole Foods whenever we can. Even though the closest store to us is not convenient for us, we will do it to lend support to an employer who treats his employees well, and is not afraid to speak out against dictator obumba.
I LOVE the Venice beach store.
If you want to support Whole Foods, shop there every Tuesday. It’s the “BUYcott” day. I think there’s some site where you can send your receipt to prove you shopped there. Don’t have it on hand, have to google it.
How can anyone be against a company that buys from local growers, supports the environment, treats their employees well(benefits and decent wages)?
Only a Marxist LOON like on the tape above.
To elaborate a bit: I find it astonishing that a site that by all accounts worships the ground HRC walks on, knowing her history of fighting for universal health care, would nonetheless apparently choose not to support Obama’s and the Democratic Congress’s efforts, which are only the most ambitious and close to realization of any health care effort since LBJ passed Medicare. Do you people know any of this history? Do you realize how far this has come already? How close we are to one of the greatest progressive victories in a generation?
To be sure, I have not been thrilled with the White House’s performance on this issue over the past few months. They’ve been wimpy and clumsy and they’ve lost their momentum and made it a tougher fight than it should have been. And Obama still might fold and accept a very poor bill. But it’s still way too early to reach such conclusions: Pelosi coming out strongly today saying, again, that a bill without a public option won’t pass the House ought to remind us of just how much of this kind of maneuvering goes on behind the scenes.
The bottom line, though, is simple: if you’re any sort of progressive — or even if you have any rudimentary knowledge of the ongoing fiscal and moral catastrophe that is the current U.S. health care system — you are on Obama’s side here. There’s no wiggle room. If you want Democratic health care reform to fail this fall, you want America to fall in the long run — because national bankruptcy is the nearly certain result of doing nothing — so that the Republicans can reap short term political gain.
If you want to pretend that there are any other positions here, you’re kidding yourselves.
Oh, put a sock in it.
Read the post. He will give you a “trigger” and if that. How stupid can you be.
Everytime you use the word progressive, your silly bot nose grows a little longer and the smoke emanating from your hindquarters gets a bit denser. A word to the wise–quit and leave while you’re still ahead, dimbulbbot.
you know if you truly wanted better health care then you would push this idea;open up the federal health plan to all of us[btw its private]do on asliding scale with your payment amount tied to your income say 7% with the feds covering the premiums for familes under the poverty leval and the old and disabled at lower rate,dont allow any denial of coverage and pass tort reform thats reasonable.if this is not good enough for you then get congress and the anoited one to accept whatever coverage they pass for the rest of us as their personal health care coverage.
Comparing BO to HRC is one thing; she is not officially the POTUS. But BO is no LBJ: Civil Rights Act of 1964; Wilderness Preservation Act; Urban Mass Transportation Act; Economic Opportunity Act; and the Urban Mass Transportation Act, Medicare, Medicaid, and Truth in Lending Act. If LBJ wanted single payer, we would have single payer.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2009-08-22/how-lyndon-would-have-passed-health-care-reform/
I agree completely jbjd. I miss LBJ.
Have you even attempted to read HR 3200?
Prime Obot:
Oh, that’s right, a CEO who treats his employees with respect is EVIIIIIL.
And you think Hillary wouldn’t support this kind of free market leadership?
You Bots are so brainwashed.
Go back to your momma’s basement.
PS: from a business standpoint, Mackey is a fool. My wife and I are good healthy progressives who love (and can afford) Whole Foods, and will never set foot in any Whole Foods store again until Mackey has resigned. And there are many, many people like us.
If he’s still the ceo in January 2010 I’ll be shocked.
Good, healthy, and progressive are three words that don’t belong together in any sort of sentence. The first two have no basis for connection with the third.
What you *really* meant to say was that you’re a simpering, jaundiced, Marxist thug with a penchant for abuse.
And a cannibal, too, from what I gather from the actions perpetrated by one of your fellow travelers. You are one nasty group of Cro-Magnons.
“good healthy progressives”–I’ll bet “wholesome” too! I can picture their good healthy progressive wholesome faces, beaming like illustrations of The New World in The Watchtower, but that figure they’re looking up to in rapt adoring fascination, it’s not Jehovah or Jesus Christ, it’s . . . it’s . . .
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_WkA8USJcfPw/SRe_mN92OZI/AAAAAAAAAPc/YocsAhTCT5M/s400/Untitled-1.jpg
Never would have taken them for finger-munching folk . . .
OMG I looked at it…a-m c-r-a-v-i-n-g k-o-o-l-a-i-d…..and lady fingers.
Yeah, I’m imaging a June and Ward Cleaver with a wholesome semi-metallic sheen, polishing their automaton faces, putting young Wallace2.0 and TheoDoreBot to bed before attending the evening dinner party over at the Rutherfords, who just purchased a new Obamavision TeeVee complete with two-way reception.
What’s the appetizer? Yep-fingerfood.
You guys are funny. Within the context of your tiny little universe, your insults presumably pass for clever. Not interesting, though. If anyone actually is capable of discussing politics, hopefully they’ll turn up soon.
pssst… pardon me but your stupid is showing.
I know–the Great Holy O (illustration above) will soon come to smite our tiny little universe. Well, toodle-oo–you don’t want to miss the comet when it comes by to take all you True Believers to Never Never Land, somewhere Over the Rainbow . . .
Yep, it would take That One and an entire army of Zombiebots to do any real smiting. I’ve done a head-count and they’re about 1.5 million short.
Well, little turd, you are one inconsiderate little asshat. You come here to a blog that you know isn’t sucking down the Kool-Aide like you kind do, proceed to make stupid statements like every automaton who ever came here before has done, and then criticize us for not partaking in the Kool-Aide with you. Let me clue you in to something–those of us here don’t get our news from the voices in our heads like you and your
“wholesome”hole-in-the-head brethren do. You can’t think outside the proverbial box because not only can you not think without some help from your Anointed One but you’re actually defined by your box.Go pollute some other web presence with your sewage. HuffPo is just down the hall on the extreme left behind the dumpsters.
Damn, that was good, Ferd.
I take back what I said about you in the past.
You kick ass, woman!
Well said!!!
LOL actually I came here precisely because every time I’ve visited since NQ came online I’ve been stunned by the level of anger, lack of genuine political knowledge, and reflexive viciousness toward non-Obama-hating fellow travelers, and I finally decided to see what it would be like myself. You folks didn’t disappoint. Notice that the stuff I’ve written wasn’t personal, it was about ideology and the politics of health care. I expected that the second I wrote anything, the mosquitos would start biting and name calling.
Oh well, enjoy it while Larry still bothers to keep the servers up. From checking in on Alexa, it looks like your community is shrinking pretty quickly. While most political sites have seen their traffic spike this summer, yours is actually down 30%, and you aren’t even on Alexa’s top 100,000 sites anymore. That is pathetic. Truly. It’s so funny to think that just a year ago you were all insisting that your ranks of disaffected millions of Democrats were going to cost Obama the election. Oh well.
Really, if NQ were such a non-entity, why bother to even go to look at Alexa? (Which, BTW, has often very bizarre and not very accurate metrics on traffic…because it’s based on toolbar tracking. I’ve seen my own modest site traffic fluctuate by the millions downward on Alexa when it’s actually up in my own logs and via Google…and then Alex will show the traffic up when it’s really not.)
But even if NQ’s traffic is down since the election, that’s not some sort of mandate for Obama. I have actual real life friends I met through NQ and they are busy with their lives since the election and don’t come here like they did - BUT they still realllllly dislike Obama. Nothing has changed for them in that respect. So your point is…?
LMAO. All you do, obamatron, is regurgitate talking points from some Powerpoint presentation given you at botDayCamp. I have seen identical comments from other illiterate bots more than once on this site. It is self-evident that you haven’t thought any of your positions through to their conclusion because they have been spoon-fed to you. Your inability to see beyond the lock-step repetition is amazing. Public policy isn’t a chant and we aren’t rappers here. You’re going to have to do MUCH better than your pedestrian commentary here if you are going to convince anyone you actually know what you are taking about. Why not try disconnecting yourself from the collective and actually look at the world through unfiltered glasses. It is scary at first but I’m sure you can do it. Just think, “yes I can”.
LMAO at the beanie-wearing, cheeto-eating, Kool-Aide drinking obamabot.
PO:
Oh, the elitist snobbery again.
Barney Fife, a fictional character, is smarter than you, buddy
What astonishes me, though, is that people like Prime Obot really believe that they have a monopoly on truth. This guy really believes that everyone who does not buy into what Obama says (which, as we will see and have seen, is very different from what Obama does) is wrong-headed, irrational, un-American, and reactionary. He is to be pitied more than anything else, for his “shock” when it becomes universally clear that the Emperor has no clothes, will be great indeed.
“And there are many, many people like us.”
Sorry, you’ve already lost. As you can read from my above post about the Venice Beach Whole Foods, the store is still going strong, and now has a bunch of moderate/conservatives as new customers to more than off-set the loss of a few lunatics such as yourself.
Having been to two different Whole Foods a number of times since the boycott, I see absolutely no evidence that the store has lost a significant amount of customers.
“Obot” and “mentally healthy” are mutually exclusive. Think about it.
Prime Bot:
Now I KNOW that you haven’t read the original HR3200.
But then again, you probably aren’t finished reading “Dick and Jane”.
It’s not the only option. It’s the option that your Dear Leader is trying to SHOVE down the throats of the American people. A bill written by the SEIU Union, no less.
Keep trying to lie to us.
We are awake now, and will fight you back.
And we don’t bring knives to the fight either.
Oh, and we also don’t bite off fingers of senior citizens.
That’s funny, Prime Bot, because the Whole Foods I was in was PACKED with people.
The employees were simply GLOWING.
I’m sure they are happy that good business for the company means that they will keep their jobs.
But I’m sure you don’t give a shit about the employees.
That’s the progressive way!
“Trigger”. Yep, LMAO. I see them shooting themselves in the other foot, soon.
The Buy-cott of Whole Foods in opposition to the boycott appears to be successful and is pushing Whole Foods toward record sales. I think that also reflects how genuine the “teabaggers” are. They are putting their money where their mouth is—literally.
I don’t like to rain on the parade here but John Mackey is just a libertarian hack wolf in progressive ’sheep’ clothing.
First, if you look closely at his Op-Ed piece you see that it’s pretty much a pastiche of of typical right wing sentiments about healthcare reform. It’s all about how we should make individual healthcare account available for the poor folks who cna;t afford to make healthcare payments, the usual balderdash about how poor individuals are being taxed at a different rate than businesses, etc, etc.
All of this ignores the few facts available, for example: individuals are at a disadvantage because actuarial tables make them a much higher risk to for-profit private insurance hence they can only get insurance at ruinous rates, changing tax rates for these folks is disingenuous at best.
He, of course, mentions the fav right wing hot button: tort reform. Ignoring the facts which are that jury awards in excess of standard court practice are as rare as phoenix eggs - that’s why we hear about them when they happen: it’s news. Yes, there should be reforms but the AMA should police its members better (or at all) and insurance companies should stop charging $900K/year fro obstetricians (that number is pretty old it may be much higher by now). I don’t see him complaining about that.
Mackey is also heavily involved with the massive food industry effort to denature the USDA “Organic’ labeling requirements - known as ‘greenwashing’. BTW, beware of the Whole Foods ‘365′ label, it’s not organic unless it specifically says so on the label with the USDA logo on it. He is vociferously anti-union, to me the classic sign of a mad-capitalist control freak.
I’m boycotting Whole Foods because of this issue but I’m not surprised by Mackey’s attempt to foist his libertarian “I’ve got mine and screw you” ethos on healthcare as well.
I don’t care what Mackey does or says — I am glad he started his business though so that the older monopolies could straighten up. I am amused to find that the ire of Obots is aimed at him and not Obama (who is thinking about giving them a “trigger”, LOL).
Craig:
Yeah, so you choose to boycott Whole Foods, and if they suffer losses, guess who loses?
The worker.
You are BRILLIANT!
If you disagree with Mackey, write him a letter.
Don’t hurt the workers that he employs.
Hey, I suggest a boycott:
GE. Qwns and runs NBC, and takes marching orders from Obama.
Now THAT is a corrupt CEO and leader.
Oh, and they own all of the wind farm equipment, so Obama is in bed with big business.
And you care about a grocery store chain?
Get real, man
Yeah, I think we should boycott GE as well as Walmart and Monsanto and Dow, I could go on and on…
The corporate fiends who use you and use me need to have a wake up call.
Mackey is just one of the most egregious ones - pretending to be eco-conscious and worker-ventric while he espouses Grover Norquist style wrecjing ball economics.
I GUESS YOU GROW YOUR OWN FOOD AND ARE MAKING YOUR CLOTHES OUT OF, HMMM, FLOUR SACKS?
He’s to be canned: first the yahoo thing and now this. CtW investments is demanding he be given the axe and replaced.
I want Obama to resign.
Mackey is a vegetarian — that is all I need to know.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Mackey_(businessman)
I would also like BHO to resign.
Why is it significant that Mackey is a vegetarian? I’m sure a good many of Whole foods boycotters are also vegetarians.
That tells me about his temperament especially about animal welfare (if you read Singer’s book on how cows and other animals are treated in this country, you will not eat or drink any animal product). Read the wiki. He seems like a good guy. Yeah, smarter vegetarian whole foods boycotters look at the big picture (hopefully). I do shop at Whole Foods and I can see how the business is run differently and for the better. Cutting off your nose to spite your face is kind of stupid.
I agree with the general principle that vegetarians are likely to care more about animal welfare than non vegetarians.
However, Mackey is primarily a businessman and he does not let his vegetarianism stand in the way of making a buck.
We had a great vegetarian store here in NC, called Wellspring: it was quite large and had most everything one could want. Unfortunately yuppie demand for meat was high and they began to carry it. Then Whole Foods got it. Now in addition to meat, the produce is rarely from our state & it is also largely not organic. Instead of vegetarian hippies shopping there it’s filled with porky rich snobs loading up on artisan pizza and fancy pastry. Worse, all the little vegetarian stores went under because they couldn’t compete with the huge selection of Whole Foods. Whole Foods is the Walmart to vegetarian mom and pop stores. I’m not a fan.
Craig Della Penna is correct that Mackey works against organic farming and not for it and is strongly anti-union. As I am both pro organic farming & pro union, I’m not too crazy about him either.
I don’t shop there but it’s out of my price range anyhow.
I guess whatever I said didn’t make much of an impression. Read the wiki about the union (all of it is cited unlike whatever you say). I don’t know what you are saying about organic farming. All I know is that his store is the only one which carries lactose free milk which is organic and from “happy” cows. As I grow older I need my milk and my calcium. I have a kosher mom and pop store in my neighborhood that is thriving despite being within a couple of miles of Whole Foods.
I have now read the wiki article; I remain unimpressed.
http://michaelbluejay.com/misc/wholefoods.html list of Whole Foods less than stellar practices
http://www.scfl.org/?ulnid=205 Whole Foods anti-union
http://campaignsilo.firedoglake.com/2009/08/15/lanny-davis-forgot-to-mention-he-was-a-lobbyist-for-whole-foods/ Lanny freaking Davis a lobbyist for Whole Foods aiding in anti-union (sorry about source)
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2009/04/are-starbucks-and-whole-foods-union-busting more anti-union
http://www.prospect.org/csnc/blogs/tapped_archive?month=08&year=2009&base_name=why_you_should_have_already_ha misc, mentions the yahoo thing
http://www.reuters.com/article/reutersEdge/idUSN1133440820070712 the yahoo thing
http://www.wjla.com/news/stories/0508/521743.html Whole Foods does sell lots of organic produce… from China. Like some melamine with that?
& here’s one I haven’t seen mentioned: How about their use of products from gene stealers like Driscoll?
Great! Now go change the wiki.
lol, no thx
anyone seriously interested in the topic of corporatization of food:
monopolization of farming (just 5 corporations control about 80% of US food supply), corporate patenting of genes produced from centuries of indigenous hybridization, legal action pursued against those opposed to said corporatization, adverse environmental impacts of bioengineered foods, water & crop inputs and land and resource theft, healthfulness of bioengineered foods…
is not looking for a wiki synopsis.
admin Spammy got me, plz rescue comment, thx very much
I am more concerned about a CEO who is practically blowing the President for business than a guy whose politics you disagree with.
Immelt is in BED with the government.
Can you say that about Whole Foods?
Come on.
BHO appointed Monsanto stooge Vilsack as head of the USDA.
There are several bills in congress right now attempting to limit growing organic food & small farms, esp. HR 2749.
City of New London v Kelo expanded eminent domain. The feds can take your water and they will be able to tell you what you can grow or drive you out of business with fees, leaving only the largest corporations in control of all the stuff you need to live.
so yes, I would say that anyone involved in derailing organic food is likely in bed with those who run our current administration even as they ran our last administration and highly dangerous to your
freedomhealth.The more one researches this topic the more serious it will seem.
I agree with you, Craig. There is a “Henry’s Farmer’s Market” just opened on Ventura a few blocks away from Woodland Hills’ Whole Foods. They also are green, organic, like Whole Foods but with lower prices.
They seem to be doing well. Don’t know if that has anything to do with the WF boycott but it is nice to see competition.
Ironically, Henry’s was sold by Whole Foods when they acquired Wild Oats in that bizarro episode which featured Mackey.
Absolutely agree, “tort reform” invoked under the penumbra of health care is a red herring. But the rest of your comment confused me. Why, exactly, are you boycotting Whole Foods, at this particular time?
Because Mackey opened his big mouth. If he had stayed silent, these people would have gone on merrily shopping there.
There is a video around that has a AU professor ranting about Mackey’s labor practices and this and that boycotting the store now, but it didn’t seem to bother her before(?)
Years ago I stopped listening to WETA (NPR), the classical music station because of their uppity attitude and self-righteousness. To me now, it is happening at a much larger scale. I don’t like what I am seeing in these people I associated myself with before (I guess I am firmly an independent now).
well Mackey’s the big believer in the “free market”: that’s exactly how it works: run afoul of the investors and you’re toast. It’s his own freaking world view, and he likes to fire people for opening their mouths and saying they want to unionize, so he can hardly complain.
Did he complain?
he hasn’t been fired yet; unless he is fired this can’t be answered. however, I meant “can hardly complain” as “could hardly complain without being a hypocrite” not that he had or necessarily would complain. sorry poor wording. & frankly, I’m a lot more concerned about his practices than whether or not he complains which is pretty much irrelevant.
Craig,
While I agree with you on this. . . .
As pm317 is, I am a vegetarian, trying hard to go vegan. It is difficult. And I don’t always shop at Whole Foods except for the things I cannot get elsewhere. I don’t like their open display of meat. But, for instance, it’s the only place I can go to get contact lens cleaner that is manufactured by a company that does not test on animals.
My son works for Target, which has a very watered down version of a healthcare option as Whole Foods’ plan. I am just happy that he has healthcare at all at this point. And he’s now at the level that it does provide him some financial protection.
I, too, would like a single payor option. We need a healthy populace as well as an educated populace. I would like our public education to be much, much better. And I know a single payor option will also be run by many idiots as the public education system is run. Still, it’s the only solution, I think, for the crazy out-of-sight costs of medical care we now have. I plain just don’t want any of Obama’s plans to pass. I think that if his “reform” does pass, we won’t get single payor for a long, long time. So I am happy to see any opposition to what Congress is putting out now. It seems to be in bed, in my opinion, with big insurance and Pharma more than Whole Foods at this point.
Where I live, there’s no hint of boycott at the WF. Ho
Where I live, there’s no hint of boycott at the WF. Honestly,
I was pretty irritated when I heard about the boycott. WF forced the local food stores to upgrade, remodel, get better produce and goods when they moved in. It was pretty crappy here until they moved in. It’s among the top 10 WFs in the country. On many items the supermarket rival chain is the same or more on some items. They are great to the community and treat their employees well (No, I don’t work there.)
This boycott has backfird. At our WF store there are no protestors and I started going there just because of Mackey’s guts in not getting on his knees and bowing to the creep in chief. The One is a bully–sending out his thugs whenever anyone says anything remotely in opposition to his policy(whatever that is with healthcare–no one, not even law professors can figure it out)–don’t dare to qustion–I guess the CEO of WF and Joe the Plumber are equal now.
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=prnw.20090825.DC65782&show_article=1
CtW Investment Group Calls for Whole Foods Board to Remove Chair and CEO John Mackey
This is beyond ridiculous. People should not be fired for their opinions. Freakin’ fascists is what these people are.
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Does anyone know how to find out if Mark E Rosenthal is related to Steve Rosenthal?
What have The Progressives done with the Democrats?
There is so much wrong with the protest organizer’s position that I find it difficult to decide where to begin. But I will make this a brief comment.
First of all, he claims that Mackey is a bad guy because he doesn’t support Single Payer. I don’t suppose it ever occurred to him that the President now states that he doesn’t support single payer either. Neither do any of the bills being proposed in Congress. So why isn’t this idiot protesting them too?
Second, he says a guy who provides very generous health insurance to nearly 90% of his employees is a bad guy. Sounds like something Homer Simpson might say.
Third, his position is that customers should be outraged at this horrible CEO that provides these generous benefits because they pay his salary. Perhaps he missed the fact that Mackey contributes his salary to charity. What a dope!
And finally, some balding men would do well to either get plugs or wear a hat in public. This guy looks fucking freaky. A well placed beret would do wonders for his appearance. At least then he would actually look the part of the elitist, totally off his rocker, socialist he really is.
You are spot on with everything pm.
That guy really made the argment agaiinst his own efforts. What an angry, mean and nasty man he was. You know, he’s just carrying Obama’s “organizing” torch for him. His tingle appararently has gone silent and needed to find a bad guy, other than the one who is to blame. Misdirection.
something tells me his tingle is still never going to return.
Many companies have used the approach of Whole Foods very effectively.
With a large enough pool of employees, it is a win-win situation.
The company can controll costs and realize tax deductions, while employees have a clear idea of their coverage limitations.
We may rue the day that plans such as this are eliminated.