Rather than learning their lessons in a meaningful way that could actually advance their cause, liberals seem to always resort to one of two tactics when they want to make a point: condescension or timid chastisement. But the one time they've decide to show some balls and do something different, it's with the absolute worst of reasoning.
The newly roused left wing are now coming out in full force to prove that they're just as stupid and reactionary as their counterparts on the right by launching a boycott of Whole Foods in retaliation to an op-ed piece written in the Wall Street Journal by Whole Foods CEO John Mackey.
In the opinion piece, Mackey advocates against a public option and for some changes he believes will fix health care. Ignoring the fact that all of his points were essentially ripped straight from John McCain's health care proposals during the 2008 Presidential campaign, nothing that Mackey said was particularly objectionable.
Apparently, the most egregious and offending portion of the piece was Mackey's statement that everyone does not have "an intrinsic right to health care." Believe what you will about the health care debate, but this isn't really all that outrageous a claim. Even if it has never been explicitly stated, the conservative philosophy has always centered around the idea that no one is entitled to anything.
The article was, without question, a self-aggrandizing, narcissistic, worthless, unrepentant advertorial for Whole Foods - he mentions the store without any real reason, by name, twice - and the Republican party, but it didn't cross any lines of decency, like, say, going on a talk show and saying that our President hates white people.
God forbid John Mackey have an opinion and God forbid it be one that differs from yours. I mean, seriously, there are people protesting the fact that the man has an opinion? That's got to be the stupidest thing I've heard since "John Kerry will be the Democratic candidate for President."
This whole protest business started harmlessly enough. Some woman in Los Angeles, Nancy Richardson (at least she's the first credited creator on the group's page), started a facebook group - because that's what liberals do when they get angry, they fly to their computers and type things angrily, banging on the keys until their spacebars get stuck and they have to take their laptops to the Apple store to see a Mac Genius. But then it got a lot less benign and hard to ignore once it grew and the press got wind of it*. Then there were protests and imperious boycotts and these horribly ignorant people who started to remind me a lot of another group of loud, ignorant and obnoxious people I've seen on the news recently.
To be fair, Mackey must have been high when he agreed to write the op-ed and send it in to the Wall Street Journal, of all places. Who exactly does he think his customer base is? Yes, he's now endeared himself to a few conservatives - talk radio's Mike Gallagher, WSJ's Kathleen Parker, American Conservative's Doug Bandow and blogger Radley Balko, are among the big name heavyweights now throwing their support behind Whole Foods - but he's alienated not just his customer base, but a number of prominent liberals. Two unions, Change To Win Investment Group and United Food And Commercial Workers Union, have even jumped aboard the "Boycott Whole Foods" bandwagon; which is sad.
Did Mackey think that liberals wouldn't read the Wall Street Journal? He certainly must have realized that those who patronize a store that charges $10 for a loaf of bread and $12 a liter for milk** (because buying milk in gallons is reserved for the proletariat) probably have at least a middling interest in the goings on of the market.
Odds are, he figured that whiny liberals would do what they always do and whine about it to each other on facebook and in coffee shops while continuing to purchase the commensurate cheese from Whole Foods' extensive collection. And the whining happened, but so did a now massive boycott.
Yes, Mackey is a conservative. Yes, you're a liberal. Yes, you disagree on an important political issue. Why does that mean you have to boycott his business and protest outside like idiots?
What's truly disappointing is that lost in this fracas is the fact that there are actually very good reasons not to shop at Whole Foods. Their prices are unjustifiably exorbitant - further exacerbating the very problem (the nation's poor health care and eating habits) Mackey pontificates about in the article; they have never had a great record of supporting free trade, as many of their rivals like Trader Joe's do; they pay their workers comparatively low wages and have been accused multiple times of union busting; and they've long been suspected of engaging in shady business practices to buyout local, natural and organic food businesses to monopolize the market.
I'm all for a boycott of Whole Foods - to be honest, they're a lot more evil than Starbucks and I haven't heard of a single trashcan being thrown through their windows - but people should boycott for a good reason. Everyone is entitled to do whatever they want with their money, but protesting a business because they have a CEO who disagrees with your political ideology isn't righteous public outrage, it's just stupid.
I'll be at the Westwood protest of Whole Foods tomorrow to catch the action first-hand and to see just how many people show up.
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