Yet Another Reason to Boycott Whole Foods

[Better Believe It]

Yet Another Reason to Boycott Whole Foods
by Craig Brown
January 4, 2010

A Boycott Whole Foods movement was launched after John Mackey, CEO and co-founder of Whole Foods wrote an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal on August 12, 2009 quoting Margaret Thatcher and suggesting that healthcare is a commodity that only the rich, like him, deserve.

Now, Mackey has once again revealed his rightwing politics. In a just published profile in The New Yorker, Mackey takes on global warming:

“One of the books on the list was “Heaven and Earth: Global Warming—the Missing Science,” a skeptical take on climate change. Mackey told me that he agrees with the book’s assertion that, as he put it, “no scientific consensus exists” regarding the causes of climate change; he added, with a candor you could call bold or reckless, that it would be a pity to allow “hysteria about global warming” to cause us “to raise taxes and increase regulation, and in turn lower our standard of living and lead to an increase in poverty.” One would imagine that, on this score, many of his customers, to say nothing of most climate scientists, might disagree. He also said, “Historically, prosperity tends to correlate to warmer temperatures.”


JOHN MACKEY

http://www.commondreams.org/further/2010/01/04-4

[aquart]

1. Haven't bought anything there since the healthcare revelation.

I have gone in for the samples, though.

[tblue]

9. I shopped there for years but stopped when that opinion piece came out.

I'm not giving my money to finance a rightwing nut job if I can help it. I'm much more of a Trader Joe's kinda person anyway.

[NMMNG]

12. +1

And I regret every penny I ever gave that bastard.

[aquart]

16. Yes, it has caused me to discover Trader Joe's which is wonderful.

Especially the Beef Chili and the Lemon Pepper grinder.

[tblue]

18. Coconut Shrimp in the Frozen section

Banana-vanilla yogurt
Tomato/Roasted Red Pepper soup
Balsamic vinaigrette frozen veggies
Tzatziki sauce (tastes great on eveything!!!)


Don't leave Trader Joe's without them!

[Skittles]

2. he is a clueless asshole who needs to be canned

[devilgrrl]

3. Wasn't he booted from the board recently?

eom

[Miss_Underestimated]

4. Ass-Whole Foods. On top of everything else he gouges customers.Ass-whole

foods prices are the highest of any "health food" stores in town.

[avaistheone1]

13. +1

Good names for them.

[flyingfysh]

5. warmer temperatures correlate to prosperity????

Then how come Norway and Sweden have the highest standard of living in the world? Historically, northern Italy has been more prosperous than southern Italy. And Egypt has been more prosperous than Sudan, immediately to the south. In India, the southern part has historically been more prosperous. So trying to draw any such conclusions is silly and not borne out by any evidence at all. But I guess right-wingers don't need evidence.

[Quantess]

17. I noticed that too, right away.

Africa and Central America should be rolling in wealth if his theory were true.

[flyingfysh]

19. Central America used to be prosperous

Archaelogists say that a typical farmer back then lived much better than a typical peasant now (this figured out by studying farms buried by volcanic ash, with all the stuff the people had), and the population density was greater. What is now jungle used to be covered by farms and vast irrigation systems.

[amborin]

21. yeah but

regional differences in prosperity in Italy has everything to do with polictics and culture, and very little to temperatures, cold or hot

[onehandle]

6. No Whole Foods for us as long as he has a job.

I miss the prepared food case.

I still stop by for free samples. Had some wonderful cheese and a decent red wine the other day.

But no money from me.

[Danger Mouse]

7. Aka Whole Paycheck. Won't be wasting my money there, ever.

[virgogal]

8. Too pricey for me anyway.

[newscott]

10. It's wicked expensive but I love the samples. :)

[MissB]

11. Is he singlehandedly trying to ruin the company?

[elfin]

14. Long profile of him and the company in this week's New Yorker eom

[jtuck004]

15. The book "Omnivores Dilema" discusses how Whole Foods

is "industrializing" organic foods with all that entails, using marketing to obfuscate the details of what you are buying, and subsidizing this with cheap oil. They won't be able to sustain this for many more years.

If you don't want to do business with a person that promotes these views look for alternatives that are more local (and probably kinder to your local economy)

http://www.localharvest.org/

http://www.eatwild.com/

and there are probably others.

[TK421]

20. Just looking at that face the first word that comes to mind is "asshole" n/t