Huh. Whole Foods right wing. Who knew?

[mhendo]

@RickJay

In this case, people are getting theri panties in a twist not over anything Whole Foods is DOING, but over a simple opinion held by the person who owns it. If you boycotted every business whose owner(s) held a different opinion from yours, you’d never be able to patronize any businesses.

This is probably true.

But some business leaders go out of their way to insert themselves into the public political sphere. When they do this, they carry with them the reputation they have developed as a business leader, and they are relying on that reputation (at least in some measure) to convince people of the validity of their position. If they’re going to trade on their corporate image, they have to be prepared for it to backfire with some of their customers.

Also, as Dangerosa notes, Whole Foods is a company that makes strong appeals to its customers based on a particular set of values and a particular brand image, and it shouldn’t be surprised if those customers see a contradiction between its expressed beliefs and this particular position. I know there is no necessary contradiction between advocating a healthy, sustainable lifestyle, on the one hand, and advocating against Obama’s healthcare plan, on the other, but the fact is that a majority of Whole Foods’ clientele probably see it differently.

@RickJay

Of course, you can do anything you want with your money, but I’m a little skeptical over people basing their decisions over what comments get play in the paper. I mean, really, that’s what the OP is about; this CEO got quoted in an article they read. That’s the difference. Probably a hundred businesses or more patronized by the OP have CEOs or directors who oppose this health care bill. They just don’t happen to have gotten into the paper.

Well, if he had made some offhand remarks that got “play in the paper,” i might agree with you. But this CEO didn’t just get “quoted in an article they read”; he wrote an editorial for the Wall Street Journal, which is a bit different from having a few words quoted in the Austin-American Statesman. The WSJ is a national organ that is aimed clearly at business and policy leaders in the United States. Choosing to write an editorial there is choosing to insert yourself into political debate at the national level. If you don’t want to bear national scrutiny and the possible consequences, it’s probably best not to do it.

[Really_Not_All_That_Bright]

@suranyi

You could be perfectly justified in your opinions about what he says about Health Reform. However, you should be aware that newspaper headlines are not written by the author of the articles They are written by the editors of the newspaper. So the word “ObamaCare” was written by the Wall Street Journal, not by the Whole Foods CEO.

Wishing you all the best.

@Carol_Stream

Equipose has a habit of lying in political threads. :shrug: Same old, same old.

We got nearly two pages before anybody brought up the point that the title wasn’t his- at which point I did- so Equipoise is hardly alone in the assumption that OpEd writers choose their own headlines.

Attributing that mistake to malice is deliberately disingenuous.

[suranyi]

@Carol_Stream

Equipose has a habit of lying in political threads. :shrug: Same old, same old.

I happen to know Equipoise personally – or at least I knew her many years ago. She is an honorable person. I was just correcting an erroneous assumption she had made.

[elucidator]

Worked for years in the co-op food “movement”. Time well spent, in my estimation. In many ways, a quixotic venture, spectacular failures, modest successes. A comic opera might well be written, but not by me, I wouldn’t hurt those people’s feelings for all the organic tea in China.

We glommed some development money, and rented some actual store space, with all the plumbing and wiring you need for practical refrigeration. Located in a somewhat disadvantaged location, many of our customers would have preferred to go to Big Food, but they came to us when they needed something they forgot. And they talked to us. And we talked to them. And they came back.

And then, of course, the interminable arguments. Lord God, the fight over offering meat. The pure “meat is murder!” vegan wing against the crypto-Marxist “working class diet” wing. You think Republicans fight dirty? You don’t know. Oy!

We were totally worker owned, we ran the place. Period. We hired a long-time grocery manager who’s store closed in perfect timing for us. Stan, who was in a constant state of benign confusion wondering how he got mixed up with the likes of us. Proof that the Goddess often packages big men in modest containers.

We had two meetings a week, semi-mandatory. First meeting for business, second meeting for "policy ". Which meant endless discussions about how best to manifest feminism in our workplace. Groan.

We stepped up to the plate with two strikes already. We competed with Big Food, which could operate on a profit margin we could match if only our workers paid us four dollars an hour to work there. But we scored some minor victories.

Bulk foods is the best example. Say, oatmeal. Show your customer a box of Quaker Oats, and show them the price of the same amount of oatmeal in “bulk”. See the dawn break behind their eyes. And spices? Lord God, Jim Bob! Schilling makes a killing.

The hard part was buying practical containers for bulk foods, nobody made them. And, gosh, the way the health requirements were written, you’d think somebody was actually trying to stop us from selling food that way! No, really, sounds crazy, but yeah…

Funny thing is, our customers went to Big Food too. So did I, intelligence gathering, you understand. Know Your Enemy. They carried Hydrox cookies, we only had that weak-as-shit Oreos. And that’s when I noticed them putting in “bulk bins”. Same bulk bins we finally settled on. And their oatmeal was ten cents a pound cheaper than ours. The spectre of Doom.

Eventually, the enterprise folded, nothing dramatic, just the usual. Others didn’t, other’s learned from our mistakes and emulated our successes and are still there. There’s nothing freaky or weird about sincerely serving people.

I, personally, will never, ever work in a collective again. Period. I would much rather struggle with the Man, who I can cheerfully despise, than struggle with my friends. And, as a sarcastic and hyper-individualistic asshole, I am fundamentally ill-suited for a collective. But that ain’t their fault, its mine.

So this guy took our costumes and put them on, and pretends he’s us. OK, really, who cares? The Big Food outlet down the street has my bulk foods, my bulk spices, organic veg if I feel the urge. We lost, but we won, and such is progress.

Peace.

[Leaper]

Libertarian blogger Radley Balko has written about this subject before, and recently posted a response to various liberal criticisms of what he wrote.

How would y’all who’ve weighed in so far respond, especially since he brings up several points already made here?