Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' on at Whole Foods

The people have spoken, well, vegans and the Prius set. Those who who buy pesticide-free and sustainable foods are boycotting what had been their house of worship, Whole Foods, to protest the store's chief executive, John Mackey, publicly denouncing governmental participation in health care.

This is nothing if not change, which Obama had promised us. Conservative Theodore Olson is favoring same-sex marriage, and Republicans eager to undermine Obama are undoubtedly instructing their drivers take them to Whole Foods to show support for Mackey's position by buying tofu. Will this be the new definition of "alternative lifestyles?"

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Comments

[sandiaview]

And I thought he was a one time nut when they caught him trying to drive Wild Oats stock price down while blogging in his wife's maiden name. This man is just like a know it all teenager. Always wrong!

[rabblerouser42]

Sweet Revenge: 'Whole Foods' Taken Over by 'Publix'
http://satiricalpolitical.com/?p=8448

[djl13]

Yeah for John Mackey!!! This man wrote some thoughtful ideas that seem to have no place in the hearts and minds of liberals, aka socialists. God forbid you should not agree with someone's political point of view. There is a price to pay in spite of all the excellent things Whole Foods does as a company. I for one shop all the time at Whole Foods even though I thought they caved into pressure from extreme animal rights groups and stopped selling lobsters.
I guess conservatives are more open minded about issues than liberals, just look at the reaction to Mr. Mackey's alternative ideas to a total goverment takeover of healthcare.

[surfvenice]

love whole foods. went there today to shop and ran into crazy ridiculous protesters. showed them my $124 receipt, they were furious. lol

[juliette23]

I encourage people to shop their local famers' markets and food co-operatives in lieu of shopping Whole Foods. If you are in the San Francisco Bay Area, stop by Rainbow Grocery, a vegetarian worker-owned co-operative in the City that offers a blanket 10% discount to seniors over 60 and members of the SF Bike Coalition.

[LMPE]

I never shopped at Whole Foods anyway.

[Donald]

The Board of Directors at Whole Foods ought to take their fiduciary responsibilities to the company seriously, and diffuse this matter by issuing an unambiguous public mea culpa, to the effect that:

(1) While the Board respects and defends CEO John Mackey constitutional right to express his own personal opinions concerning current health care reform efforts being considered by Congress, he was never authorized by the Board to speak on behalf of the Whole Foods family in doing so, and

(2) The Board sincerely regrets Mackey's decision to invoke the company name in what has become a highly charged and controversial partisan political affair, and thus wishes to offer its apologies to those Whole Foods customers and members of the general public who were greatly and understandably offended by his statements.

I mean, really, how hard is that? For the Board to fail to take such an action implies that it agrees by default with its CEO's decision, and therefore I'd have to convey to the Board my own regret that I'm now compelled to take my business elsewhere.

[plumnelly]

Use to love to shop there, but Mr. Mackey put the brakes on that. He believes in health food but not access to healthcare for Americans. Just another shill for corporations. I'll just buy more from the local farmers directly.

[BarryS]

interesting how multimillionaires don't want medical insurance. Sure they can afford to pay 100 dollars for a gluccose test the insrance companies re-inburse for 50 cents. What about the rest of us. Well, he'll get his. no one will be able to afford Whole Foods any more.

[alisonv]

Yes, I have to agree happytrails. I don't object to Mackey having his own personal opinion and even publishing it. But writing an article described as "The Whole Foods" solution which denounces the public plan as socialist, encourages FURTHER deregulation of insurance companies and gives suggestions which will only slightly correct the problems of the uninsured and uninsurable is a very different thing. If he had published the article under his own name and not brought in Whole Foods, I would not have boycotted. But he didn't and I did and I wrote him to tell him so.

[happytrails]

I'm neither a vegan nor a Prius driver, but I DID shop in Whole Foods until John Mackey made his statement. You can believe that I have e-mailed it to everyone on my list, all of whom are Liberal/Progressive. From my list alone Whole Foods has lost 100 to 200 customers, nationwide.

I hope we help put you out of business, Mackey, or that you change your song! Or have you decided that the Knownothings are your new base?

[happytrails]

....should have said I hope Mackey changes his heart, his mind and his song!

[Donald]

I would think that the whole point of a boycott, ad hoc or organized, is not to put Whole Foods out of business, which would put admittedly thousands more people on the unemployment rolls if successfully undertaken with such an extreme conclusion in mind.

Rather, its goal should be to compel the company's board of directors to publicly repudiate the statements of its own CEO, and to apologize for his impetuous decision to invoke the company name in a highly charged political debate concerning matters of public policy, rather than state forthrightly in his op-ed for the Wall Street Journal that he spoke for himself only, and not in his capacity as Whole Foods' chief executive officer.