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Boycott Whole Foods
John Mackey is a right wing libertarian.
He’s a union buster.
He believes that corporations should not be criminally prosecuted for their crimes.
He has just launched a campaign to defeat a single payer national health insurance system.
And he’s the CEO of Whole Foods.
Primo hangout of liberal Democratic yuppies.
“We are all responsible for our own lives and our own health,” Mackey wrote yesterday in the Wall Street Journal. “We should take that responsibility very seriously and use our freedom to make wise lifestyle choices that will protect our health. Doing so will enrich our lives and will help create a vibrant and sustainable American society.”
Yes it will, John Mackey.
Yes it will.
I do take that responsibility very seriously.
I try to eat well.
And exercise regularly.
I also take my responsibility as a citizen seriously.
After all, Mr. Mackey, we are all responsible for our own civic lives and our own civic health.
We should take that responsibility very seriously and use our freedom and make wise civic and consumer choices that will protect our nation’s health.
Doing so will enrich our civic lives and help create a vibrant and sustainable American society.
That’s why, today, Single Payer Action is calling on all American citizens to boycott Whole Foods.
Why?
Because Mackey has launched a public campaign to defeat single payer national health insurance.
This despite the bottom line reality that single payer is the only way to both control health care costs and cover everyone.
As Dr. Marcia Angell says in today’s New York Times, “if you keep health care in the hands of for-profit companies, you can increase coverage by putting more money into the system, or control costs by decreasing coverage. But you cannot do both unless you change the basic structure of the system.”
Mackey leads his Wall Street Journal diatribe against national health insurance with a quote from one of his heroines – Margaret Thatcher: “The problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people’s money.”
And the problem with Mackey’s campaign is that it results in the deaths of 60 Americans every day due to lack of health insurance.
Mackey is responsible for these deaths as much as anyone.
And we are responsible for putting money into his Whole Food bank account so that he can continue his campaign without resistance.
I know that this boycott of Whole Foods will upset many liberal Democrats.
Where will they buy their organic wines?
And cheeses?
And tofu?
There are options.
Your local health food co-op.
Farmers’ markets.
Community supported agriculture.
Other corporate chains like Trader Joe’s.
So, please, join the Single Payer Action Boycott of Whole Foods.
Don’t cross the picket lines.
Don’t spend another penny at Whole Foods until John Mackey and his right wing friends are defeated.
And single payer is enacted.
Onward to single payer.
- Posted in
393 Comments so far
Show AllI do sometimes shop at Whole Foods, for organic food. But after reading this article, I will boycott. Fortunately, there's still one local organic store not too far from me. Thanks for this article.
Ditto. I can get natural/organic items at Giant and Safeway instead, and I'm buying more and more food from farmer's markets these days.
When I lived in the Northern Virginia DC area, access to local produce was very tough. There wasn't a single food co-op in Northern Virginia. It seems there is now one in Arlington. The more "liberal" inner Maryland suburbs have lots of food co-ops.
Traditional Public Markets (a relic of the pre-supermarket past) are the best where they still exist. The eastern market in Capitol Hill in DC is a great place to shop.
Baltimore has a great public market system - probably the best in the whole US.
http://www.bpmarkets.com/markets.html
A North America list of co-ops is here:
http://www.purefood.org/coopindex.htm
There's plenty of farmer's markets around here, and they have just about everything I eat, it's definitely not a problem right now.
I had just recently decided to turn vegetarian though, and vegetarian alternatives to meat are really only available at grocery stores. But I'm sure Giant will have stuff for me.
Thank you, PJD, for the great list of co-ops. We're trying to get one started here, in a deeply conservative, politically corrupt backwater, and so being able to locate other successful models will be really important to us.
Whole Foods is the only source of edible food within walking distance of my workplace. I suppose I could buy ingredients elsewhere and bring green politically correct snacks and lunches into work, but I guess I'm not dedicated enough for that. No matter how much you go green someone can always find something you're doing that is adding to your carbon footprint or to the exploitation of third world children.
When it all starts to go bad, will it be a comfort for those going down the drain to say, "Well, at least I didn't shop at Whole Foods; that makes me better than the rest of these people who are dying along side me!"?
Paranoid Pessimist August 13th, 2009 9:22 am......You gave yourself away saying "I guess I am not dedicated enough for that". What dedication does it take to not support elitists who are dedicated to their own bottom line? My guess is that if there is a Whole Foods in your area, there are other green grocers around. When it starts to go bad, the folks that did their best will be able to say that. Maybe YOU are doing your best. I don't know. BUT, why disparage folks that are trying to be conscious consumers? I agree with the owner of Whole Foods that we should all take care of ourselves. It can easily be done without shopping at Whole Foods, whose prices I find to be pretty much out of my range.
Single payer is the only viable option for Americans. Medicare works...just extend it....
easydoesit: You beat me to the punch. Good reply to PP.
Agreed. Two good answers. I like it when there are good answers to my posts. It means I can b.s. myself into thinking I'm "stimulating debate."
"Whole Paycheck."
Good for you, Anne. I quit shopping at Whole Foods about seven years ago when I found out about Mackey and his beliefs. I drive right past a WF store to another town and purchase products at a smaller locally owned health food store.
And of course, I shop at the Farmer's Market's in my area for organically grown produce. Supporting smaller, local farmer's is an important part of the sustainability movement, which is catching on across the country.
Russell's article should be distributed as part of the public's awareness on companies against single payer health care as well as the other things he has listed.
Can someone find an email address where we can bombard that idiot with messages? I generally don't like to refer to people as idiots, but CEOs aren't human beings.
http://www.wholefoodsmarket.com/
Yup, after I posted here, I emailed Whole Foods' "world headquarters" via the customer service link and told Mr. Mackey that I would no longer be shopping there, explaining why. I said I hoped that every liberal, progressive, democrat, centrist or other who supports single payer or at the very least believes that Americans DO have a right to healthcare, will do likewise.
Really? CEO's are not human beings? Could it be you don't know any? Could it be wealth envy? What do you do?
Go ahead, e-mail him that he is an idiot. I am sure he will listen to you.
Or another option is wonder why someone who founded the best alternative to all the horrible pesticide-laden, ge, corn syrup-based food and corporate supermarkets out there, who must have a lot of the same concerns and beliefs as you, would be opposed to big powerful oppressive govt just as much as he is opposed to big evil corporations. Or just shout out the party line along with the author. While you are at it you might wonder why so many libertarians do not consider themselves "right-wing" and why they are opposed to war, torture, everything the Bush administration ever did etc... Perhaps their opposition to corporatism and big govt is because they see the obvious link described in the article here on CD yesterday between the proposed plan and handouts to Big Pharma and they might be concerned that it is inevitable as it always is that big govt means handouts to big corp.
So the national chain Whole Foods isnt a big corporation?
There is no evidence that the government is what leads to the concentration of wealth and power in the hands of a few. Unregulated capitalism does. It is true that when capitalists reach a sufficient level of power, they corrupt governments. but you seem to have cause-and-effect reversed. Please review your history of the robber-barron era.
There have been heath food stores as you describe long before Mackey and his chain began. He wasn't original except for becoming a large national chain.
As for the author of this article, he is not shouting out "the party line" unless you would like to call Mokhiber's party, the "Truth, Justice, and Equality Party." I've reading his stuff for years and Russell is no lackey for the Democratic or any other party.
As far as the Libertarians go,they weren't boisterous for the eight years the Republican Crime Family and the collaborating Democrats bankrupted the country, and waged wars of aggression and committed acts of treason. But that is off topic.
Reread the article, especially Mackey's belief in corporate personhood. Haven't we had enough of lobbyists controlling government by writing bills and having our "representatives" vote them into law, for the corporate benefit, not the peoples?
Actually, in all fairness, libertarians have always been qiute antiwar and anti-interventionist - although their opposition seems to come more from a sort of isolationism rather than a sense of social justice.
According to the article, Mackey did not launch a national campaign against Obama's "proposed plan" that has the referenced sellouts to Big Pharma.
Mackey launched a national campaign against a SINGLE-PAYER plan, which is NOT "the proposed plan" that you refer to.
With your principled "opposition to corporatism and big government", do you oppose a "big government" plan for Social Security? A "big government" plan for Medicare? A "big government" plan for public education? A "big government" plan for a fire department?
And how in the heck do you equate opposition to single-payer health coverage with opposition to corporatism? What's your proposal to oppose the rampant corporatism that infests the US health care system?
Exactly so.
PS. I try to stay away from Whole Foods and look for local food co-ops etc... I'm just saying there is room for a little bit of intellectual curiousity here as opposed to knee-jerk party line reactions.
I think if you're looking for knee-jerk party-line reactions you can tune into rightwing media. Most comments here on Common Dreams are backed by solid evidence. We recognize facts such as small businesses being several times more efficient than big businesses, that happiness in maximized at 1x to 2x poverty level, that the great majority of what "made merika good" were New Deal programs that people "made FDR do".
We predict what will happen next here at CD. We understand that at each step of social progress the elites will try their old tricks to re-exploit the changed scenario. So after we get over Whole Foods and start growing our own food in our yards, here he comes again... Mr. Monopoly! He opens a big box garden center in every suburb in the country. He is champing at the bit already. Best price on rakes and hoes!
No thanks - we'll make our own!
We are living within an unsustainable, slowly-but-surely collapsing agricultural (as well as 'health-care')system which we've been trained to be dependent upon. Liberation from insurance and big-pharma dominated 'healthcare' as well as from fast food, pesticide/hormone/antibiotic-laden, corporatized, overpackaged, over-travelled, adulterated or fake food is an enormous learning curve for even the most dedicated people, accustomed and addicted to convenience (and learned helplessness!)as we are. Whether we boycott, say, a particularly unconscionable brand of bananas, chocolate or coffee or an entire grocery chain, it is important to let that company know WHY they're being boycotted and to let them know frequently.... if they have a website or comment forms at their store to fill out, it's best to just regard regular feedback as one more little routine part of your errands.
It's equally important to THANK your grocer when they drop items that are unhealthy or carry a new item that strengthens local community health. We don't 'save the world' or even our own conscience with these tiny actions, but when greater numbers of people do it, there IS a cumulative impact and tipping points do get reached, enabling communities to get a foothold to develop local resilience....just as there is when more and more people take responsibility for learning how to compost,save seeds and plant them in windowboxes and gardens and to pool resources together to purchase CSA farm shares or when they support vendors at the farmer's market with a passion for providing wholesome, organic food.
It seems a bit more problematic dealing with the stranglehold that big pharma and insurance gougers have on our healthcare....not so easy to 'boycott' intentionally when you're in pain and faced with choosing between financial and bodily ruin, but the author of this article is connecting some important dots here. Being a squeaky wheel about it with your senators, newspapers, friends and family AND INFORMING Whole Foods or whoever WHY you're not patronizing them when they take a public stand against single-payer healthcare or engage in practices contrary to their 'healthful' or 'green' image-management probably DOES make a difference in the longrun.
A year or two ago, I sent an email to Publix thanking them for stocking organic food at their stores (and for being employee owned). I actually got a phone call from a Publix rep thanking me for my positive feedback. He said he usually only hears complaints and that it was nice to hear they're doing something right.
I used to work at Publix...they don't treat part-time workers very well.
zmann, I'm sorry to hear that (but not surprised).
Is Trader Joe's an alternative? I don't mind shopping there; the products are decent and the prices fair.
They are privately owned and operated, as their website states. A "neighborhood" store with 300 locations in 25 states.
But I am suscipious of any company that has to take a product, such as produce, and repackage and brand it to their own label. Is this not a tremendous waste of time and material?
I also know that the employees do not make a living wage.
Do we give Trader Joe's a pass because they seem "friendlier"? Is it like Target? Those who rail against Wal-Mart do not mention Target in the same sentence, but they're essentially the same.
Perhaps it's best to stay away from corporate anything, best that you are able to.
Ther is currently a boycott campaign against Isreali food products sold by Trader Joe's.
And against some of its seafood, by Greenpeace.
Maliswan: You bring up very good points.
Trader Joe's is a large corporation, and I shop there as well, for certain products. I remember when they had two or three stores in So. California. The original one and two branches. The owner would buy products by the truck load and sell them at a reasonably low price and made a fortune on volume sales. The stores were always packed with shoppers. In those days, TJ's had the widest variety of cheeses and I would load up.
The original owner sold the business a number of years ago and the corporation has opened stores across America. A "neighborhood" store? Not hardly. They have an employee turnover rate which is comparable to non-union stores.
As for packaging, the majority of products with private brand labels are usually made or packaged by other companies which have many clients. Whether it is pre-packaged produce, boxed or canned goods, the commodity comes off the assembly line and labeled accordingly. I know this first hand. I've seen pallets full of Whole Foods and Starbucks little packages of assorted chocolates and other sweets and where they were produced.
Regarding Target. They are no exception, but Wal-Mart is notoriously anti-union and has closed a few stores rather than respect their employees' desire for union representation.
I think your last sentence sums it up the best.
Mackey wrote yesterday in the Wall Street Journal.
Who owns the WSJ? Oh, I see, it's Rupert Murdoch.
http://www.wholefoodsmarket.com/company/index.php
Yes, I shop at whole Foods. I pay “more” for what I believe to be better food. There are some recent exceptions to this and it is probably another one of John Mackey’s innovations. Whole Food is succumbing to the sirens call of the multinational corporations who are labeling their foods as organic. That is a joke. These corporations could give a damn.
I have written a message to John Mackey telling him that I will boycott their stores until they support Single Payer. I will also advise my friends and acquaintances not to shop there.
Whole Foods espouses “core values” for the communities that they serve. They are NOT serving their communities by denying health care to 90% of their customers and having their employees getting rationed care by for-profit-insurance companies.
If all people in this country were enrolled in the Medicare program, they would have more money and could do all of their shopping at Whole Foods.
I know what harm a for-profit healthcare provider can do to one individual. I also know the harm of not having access to any medical care because of one’s finances.
This is one reason that in March I bought baby-chicks and have started my own garden. My hens have just started laying eggs this week. I am also making my garden bigger. I want to share my food with my friends.
John Mackey, are you listening: Life is a two way street. If you take and take, and do not give back, be prepared to lose. That is the law of the land.
I did the same thing... Here is the address/phone number if anyone is interested.
World Headquarters
Whole Foods Market, Inc.
550 Bowie Street
Austin, TX 78703-4644
512.477.4455
512.477.5566 voicemail
512.482.7000 fax
John Mackey is a right wing libertarian and he takes good care of himself. He, like all of his ilk who are successful never ever mention at who's expense they take care of themselves. This is their first lie.
Sophie Scholl-The Final Days
Didn't Whole Foods join with other corporations -- Costco, Wal Mart, etc., -- to defeat the Employee Free Choice Act?
Costco is against EFCA? I thought that they were pro-union.
Quite honestly, Jennifer, I was surprised when it was reported that Costco was one of the corporations that joined to fight EFCA. They do pay more, and they pay, from what I understand, a fair wage -- but other corporations have been putting pressure on them. I'll look for more information on this subject.
I found it -- March 21, 2009:
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Starbucks, Costco Wholesale Corp and Whole Foods Market are joining forces to propose alternatives to a bill that makes it easier for workers to unionize but is strongly opposed by U.S. corporations.
The three retail giants said on Saturday they sought a "third way" as big business and labor unions face off over the Employee Free Choice Act, backed by President Barack Obama.
The "card check" legislation would let workers form a union when a majority of employees sign authorization cards. That would change the current practice in which workers usually vote on unionizing, although the bill would leave the election option open for workers to choose.
Here's the link to the story
http://www.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUSTRE52L03920090322
For being a whole-sale volume-sale corporation, I was amazed that Costco was one of those few that would try to strike a balance between quality vs quantity. Still, it will be interesting to find out exactly what it is in EFCA that Costco opposes that make that company join the rest.
I am SOOOOOOOOO glad that I found this article. One store opened in Cleveland, OH, a few years back; I've gone there only a couple times, but every time I pass it I think: I need to start going there: NOT NOW! Thank you thank you thank you for sharing. Not only will I never shop there, I will tell everyone I know about the cryptofascist CEO.
I have heard that the West Side market is a good place to shop in Cleveland. Have you been there?
This isn't news and this has been mentioned before. Let's face it. Like Starbucks and Walmart, Whole Foods Market is a symptom of what's the matter with our disaster capitalist system gone even more amuck. I have shopped at Whole Foods too but only for a limited number of items such as hemp protein powder, stevia, and grass fed milk and buttermilk but I was lucky to finally see a new local organic grocery store open which has them too and more. That said, I have said so many times about the consequences of any company that goes into whole-sale volume-sale mode of doing business. They become "too big too fail" and end up engaging in unethical and possibly illegal practices to desperately wipe out the competition from small businesses. There are other crooked practices of doing business that they'll follow (thanks jakenewton) which are legal like it or not. The more I see this kind of corporate madness, the more that the lessons I studied in my two introductory courses in accounting and my introductory course in finance haunts me. Others on this thread have pointed out that other big retailers are also following the Walmart model of doing business. Jim Hightower would correctly call this the "Walmartization of America" !
Jennifer, if you can find a sunny spot for a stevia plant, maybe you can grow your own: http://www.mountainvalleygrowers.com/stevia.htm
Thank you anne for tips on growing stevia. Despite my living in a condo, I'm able to grow a few vegetables at my balconey with Topsy Turvey. I should have no problem doing the same for stevia. It will be an interesting experience being able to grow something inherently sweet for once. :)
After reading this article I will NEVER shop at Whole Foods as long as that a$$hole John Mackey is in charge or owns a stake in it. And what's sickening is that he targets the same market segment as OBAMA in the exact same way. He presses all of the hippie-granola-"progressive" buttons, when in fact he's a right-wing low life.
From Wikipedia: "He has said that he used to be a "democratic socialist" in college, but when he began a business and barely made money while being accused by workers of not paying them enough and customers of charging too high prices, he began to take a more capitalistic worldview and discovered the works of Ludwig von Mises, Friedrich Hayek and Friedman.[15] According to an article published in the New York Times on Sunday, August 2, 2009, Mr. Mackey is an admirer of author Ayn Rand."
Sounds pretty hypocritical and self-serving to me.
We've got too many of these type of people in power, and why should I make one of them richer? So they can spit on me even more?
The single biggest mistake the left has made over the past few decades has been
not being far more vigorous in attacking Randian objectivism, Friedmanite "Libertarianism", and it's gospel of "nothing exists but the Self".
So, after decades of subtle and not-so subtle brainwashng, the Internet (Wikipedia in particular), the news media, and every form of corporate popular entertainment is thorough polluted with a global, Objectivist-"ibetarian" bias. So we should not be suprised that all this "anti-government healthcare" vitriol is largely informed by the same sociopathic "libertarian" bias. These people fail to see the existence of society - everything is about the self and the self's interactions with other individuals. Consequently, any kind of collective solution - proven to provide the best outcome for the great majority of people wher it has been tried, can only be viewed through anecdotes of some government individual (Obama, or a "beureaucrat") stealing from "me" and giving the money to an unworthy lazy person. "Only contracural relationships between individuals are legitimate", they say, while being completely blind to the great implied social contracts that they recieve benefits from every day.
If these "libertarians" want to convince me of the superiority of their peculiar form of capitalist anarchy, they need to find an island somewhere and try it out. But for me, the writings of Dickens, Sinclair, Steinbeck, and the current day working examples of capitalist libertarianism in places like El Salvador, Honduras, post-Sandinista Nicaragua, and Colombia are all the convincing I need.
note: I enclose "libertarian" in quotes, becaise it's usage to mean a belief in completely unregulated capitalism and a life free of societal obligations is a largely unique to the US. In Europe, "libertarianism" refers to a form of anarcho-socialism.
"Randian objectivism, Friedmanite "Libertarianism", and it's gospel of "nothing exists but the Self"."
Yes. The corporate media in the 60's shaped the hippie story and these "libertarian" ideas were mixed in with the leftish liberation talk. Opposition to the Vietnam War and plastic consumer culture were conflated with libertarian anti-government ideas. So while Joe Six Pack was being race-baited toward the right, Hippie Johnny was being indoctrinated with "Libertarianism".
An avatar of this develpment is Stewart Brand of the Whole Earth catalog who was and is vocally anti-union.
Brainwashing? Did you say that with your out loud voice? Where is the data that libertarian thinking runs anything? Libertarianism is not "a life free of societal obligations". It is impossible to succeed in a libertarian society without providing service to others. It's based on everyone having the freedom to pursue one's own self interest by adding value to other people's lives in return for voluntary payments. And that means some people fail, and have to start over (no libertarian supported bailouts of AIG, Lehman, GM, and the banks). That frees resources to a higher value of the collective (the sum total of all individuals).
Libertarianism says that everyone benefits when everyone takes care of their own needs with voluntary exchanges.
Statism says some people have to be coerced to give up their freedom for the benefit of the elite.
I don't want to control your choices -- why do you feel compelled to strip me of mine?
Well at least you acknowledge that there is such a thing as a society. That is an improvement on the Randian idiocy that there is no such thing a a society. Maybe you should tell the so called self described "libertarians" that "Libertarianism is not "a life free of societal obligations" and that there is such a thing as society.
"Statism says some people have to be coerced to give up their freedom for the benefit of the elite.
I don't want to control your choices -- why do you feel compelled to strip me of mine?"
Complete freedom to do anything you want is not possible in any society. Randian idiocy.
And why do "libertarians" appear to have little problem with torture and detention without trial?
As a physical scientist, it seems obvious the me that this "free libertarian society" is full of coercions - take this wage or starve; work harder and for a lower wage than your neighbor or starve; accept this contaminated food, air and water (the EPA and FDA having been abolished) and shut up! What? you don't have a consumer product and environmental testing lab in your basement? Tough!
This what I meant by reading Dickens of Sinclair.
Globally, (in the engineering, but also the geographical sense), the libertarian capitalist system, with no regulation of any kind on concentration of wealth is in highly unstable equilibrium once an individual acquires even an incremental degree of wealth over another. This, initially small, concentration of wealth (and theefore power) allows the acquisition of tools and bargaining power to acquire more wealth and power, which leads to more power, more wealth, power, wealth... etc. The result is the inevitable concentration wealth and power concentrated in very few hands, and the vast majority impoverished. Is this a desrable outcome?
An analogy for this aspect of capitalist so-called libertarianism, would be a game like football or hockey but with rules that enititle the team that scores a goal to put two additional players in any position, on the field. Would the winner ever be in doubt once the first goal or touchdown is scored? Would anyone ever design an actual game this way? Why not?
Ther are other analogues - like the farm-ponds most rural or suburban kids are familiar with that the farmer stocked with bass and bluegills, then left it alone and unmanaged. The result is couple huge bass, an handful of skillet-sized bluegills, and thousands of 2-inch stunted starving bluegills.
The end-stage of capitalist libertarianism will always be feudalism and oligharchy. This is what I meant by asking you to observe the Central American States - most of which historically have highly unregulated economies a libertarian would very much agree with.
And you cannot argue that these outcomes, or the current corprotocratic governance here in the US, can't be blamed on libertarianlsm because they weren't really following libertarian principles. They most decidedly were! The whole history of the US, and many other places since the 1970's has been one of putting in place libertarianism, through deregulation and privatization. What is the ongoing outcome?
But, you might argue, it isn't really libertarianism, because there is state intervenes for big corporations. Of course, the main way the state has has interevened is by ending their regulation of them, but it is also true that the cost of regulation does fall unfairly on small businesses who can't afford the lawyers, engineers, laboratories and consultants needed to comply with the regulations that a big corporation can - and something needs to be done about this. But leaving that aside, if the state really did take it's hands off, would there be a different outcome? Once again, labor history teaches us a lot about this. If the large and powerful capitalist can't hire the state to do it's bidding, it is a simple matter to hire a private contractor (like the Pinkertons) to do the dirty work.
As far as I'm concerned, the only thing left in deconstructing libertarianism is the question" "Is the libertarian philosophy rooted in naievte'; or is it rooted in cynicism by those players who know very well what the brutish outcome will be?