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Indybay Feature

Single Payer Action calls for Whole Foods boycott

by single payer advocate
A Whole Foods Market recently opened up in Santa Cruz and in Capitola. They are rapidly opening new stores in cities across the country.

Spread the word to boycott Whole Foods Market!!

"You Don't Cut Deals with the System that Has to Be Replaced": Ralph Nader on Secret White House Agreements with the Drug Industry
http://www.democracynow.org/2009/8/14/you_dont_cut_deals_with_the

Boycott Whole Foods
http://www.singlepayeraction.org/blog/?p=1327
boycott-whole-foods-market.jpg
August 13, 2009

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.

This op-ed by Whole Foods CEO John Mackey on health care is getting folks all riled up. Fine, I'm with you. But why is this the first time you've considered boycotting Whole Foods?

Mackey has made it quite clear that he's anti-union: According to union activist Sheila Payne, he once said, "The union is like having herpes. It doesn't kill you, but it's unpleasant and inconvenient, and it stops a lot of people from becoming your lover." Um. Ok. He personally intervened in the attempt of a Wisconsin store to unionize, asking workers to instead "'expand into love." And, as this Texas Observer piece notes, Whole Foods passed out fliers against the United Farm Workers, and declined to sign on to a pledge endorsed by most of the other large grocery chains decrying conditions for strawberry pickers.

More recently, Whole Foods was very much behind the push to kill EFCA. They, along with Starbucks and Costco, proposed a "third way," which, naturally, involved writing card check out of the legislation. After all, Mackey doesn't "feel things are worse off for labor today." Hey, Mackey, you're wrong.

And, while we're at it, Mackey is one of the original sock puppeters. Between 1999 and 2006, Mackey went on message boards championing his store and deriding competitor Wild Oats (which, of course, Whole Foods took over in 2007). He was investigated by the Securities and Exchange Commission and his own corporate board for the posts.

And, heck, if you want to stay with the foodie angle on this one, I'd refer you to Michael Pollan, who, despite my other problems with him, long ago pointed out that the big-ag organic approach of Whole Foods was problematic.

So, please, by all means, boycott Whole Foods. But shouldn't you have done that a while ago?

--Phoebe Connelly

Add Your Comments

Comments (Hide Comments)
by .
Can anyone rank the level of union power or friendliness at other grocery stores? For example, Trader Joe's has cheap prices on many staples, and the workers often appear jolly, but what is the real situation there? I believe Safeway has a decent union
Yeah, we all need food and the supermarkets, even Trader Joe's, do what they will.

Safeway workers are UFCW, but I feel so sorry for them that they are instructed by their management to address customers by name. When I use my Safeway Club Card (only way to get their discounts) my name shows up on the cashiers screen. Inevitably they stare hard at it and say, "Thank you Mrs. R___". Wait, who said I am a MRS?
It is apparently Safeway management's lame attempt at creating a customer friendly environment but it is a real sham.

Farmers markets, bless them, are not available in all places and at all times of the year. Use them when you can, cut out the middlemen!
Why is it inherently and unquestioningly wrong for Mackey to speak against unions? Ive seen unions empower lazy, dishonest, almost worthless people to become even moreso. Ive seen it first-hand, dealing with trade show labor unions in LA at the Staples Center. I've seen it first-hand at the phone company, with the Communications Works of America union.

Mackey has some good points. We dont need more government bureacracy, more fat lazy union-protected apathetic paper pushers making a bad problem worse.

I buy my medication (both recreational and therapeutic) illegally off the street, or illegally overseas. Both sources are (relatively) free of interference from the US government, and you know what? Both are much cheaper than legal sources in America, yet quality is just as good. Even Sam Farr admitted at his recent Town Hall that drugs are much cheaper over the Internet from Mexico, than buying them here.

Guess why that is - because the US government isnt involved! High prices in America are the result of a *combination* of Big Pharma corporate greed *and* the AMA, FDA, and DEA supressing competition to boost Big Pharma's domestic profits.

Government is, as usual, the problem not the solution. Get government out of medicine, and those cheap drugs from Mexico will become even cheaper and much more easy to buy.

I dont shop at Whole Foods because they cost too much. I prefer Trader Joes or New Leaf. But because of this boycott, I will seriously do my next grocery run AT WHOLE FOODS, and write the local manager and Mr. Mackey both a letter telling them so. In fact, I'll do it tonight because Im going near there anyway.

To quote Margaret Thatcher (who admittedly was a warmonger police-state republican bitch most of the time),
"The problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people's money."

Sincerely,
Antiflag
by ntuit
The main point of the post was that Mackey is against a single payer health care plan. Carl Rove AKA Antiflag decided that this was an opportunity to rant against unions. Some of his points are good some are not. Some unions are good...some are not. However, what have unions done for workers historically? A lot. Read some history.

I'm sure Mr. Mackey has health care and all the other benefits including exhorbitant salary that comes with being a CEO in America. He is no doubt a much superior being to the rest of us. But I don't think he knows a thing about not having health care or being denied coverage, etc, etc. If he is like most US CEOs he lives in a dream world.

Government can do good things or bad. That is the problem. It can change because of the people running it. However, under all kinds of people it has consistently put funding for war over funding for people. When the people are the most ignorant, entertained and drugged out - the government will fashion itself as the answer to everything. When people are intellegent, educated, engaged, serious, not over drugged or over enterained...they will begin to see what needs to happen. This is not America today. Will it ever be?
by John Thielking
I've heard that different drugs sold overseas are sometimes marketed with the exact same brand names as other drugs marketed in the US. You are playing with fire by buying drugs from Mexico.
Lucky for me I already have single payer. It is called Valley Care for low income (through Santa Clara County) and my co-pays are zero right now.
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