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Boycotting Whole Foods? Shop at the White House!
D.C.'s ethically ostentatious are struggling to figure out how to make do in a world where Whole Foods is anathema:
Adrienne Pine, a professor of anthropology at American University, admits that she’s known about Mackey’s “right-wing libertarianism” for a while now, but that his Wall Street Journal op-ed was “the straw that broke the camel’s back,” and the reason she switched from Whole Foods to co-ops and farmers’ markets.
But options may soon expand for Whole Foods
boycotters in the capital city. At yesterday's health care forum,
President Obama indulged in a little
entrepreneurial spit-balling:
So, you know, Michelle set up that garden in the White House?
One of the things that we’re trying to do now is to figure out, can we get a little farmers’ market—outside of the White House—I’m not going to have all of you all just tromping around inside—(laughter)—but right outside the White House—(laughter)—so that—so that we can—and—and—and that is a win-win situation.
Since a couple of the protesters in front of D.C.'s P Street Whole Foods were already sporting "UFCW for Obama" shirts, I'm sure they be thrilled to transfer their custom to the man himself.
Come to think of it, there is a convenient blocked off section of Pennsylvania Ave. right in front of the White House. And I'm sure the Secret Service won't mind at all if Sasha and Malia get out there and hawk some of those spare zucchini.
Seward|8.21.09 @ 3:40PM|#
The boycott of Whole Foods will work about as well as the boycott of France did.
|8.21.09 @ 3:45PM|#
Adrienne Pine, a professor of anthropology at American
University, admits that she's known about Mackey's "right-wing
libertarianism" for a while now, but that his Wall Street Journal
op-ed was "the straw that broke the camel's back," and the reason
she switched from Whole Foods to co-ops and farmers'
markets.
Don't worry Adrienne, he'll be the first up against the wall when
the revolution comes.
oh no not this again|8.21.09 @ 3:45PM|#
The proof, he's a socialists. Good job beating this issue into my thick skull. You kept at it, but I was skeptical. Next time I won't question the plot that obama and the unions have ti steal my life and savings funneling it into their sinister co op.
Jack Thread|8.21.09 @ 3:47PM|#
Looking Forward to the Outraged New York Times Editorials -- and
the Prosecutions
Military defense attorneys are under investigation by the Justice
Department for showing photographs of covert CIA operatives --
secretly shot by "researchers" hired by the ACLU and the National
Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers -- to Gitmo detainees in
preparation for potential trials, the Washington Post
reports:
It is unclear whether the military lawyers under investigation
identified the CIA personnel in the photographs to the al-Qaeda
suspects or simply asked the detainees whether they had ever seen
them. It is also unclear whether the inquiry involves violations of
federal statutes prohibiting the identification of covert CIA
officers or violations of military commission rules governing the
disclosure of classified information, including to the
defendants.
Nyuh huh. Guess it takes a Republican administration, pics of
non-covert lefty CIA employees, and a disgruntled former Deputy
Secretary of State to reveal them, to make something like that
really, really clear.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/20/AR2009082004295.html?hpid=topnews
|8.21.09 @ 3:48PM|#
"And I'm sure the Secret Service won't mind at all if Sasha
and Malia get out there and hawk some of those spare
zucchini."
hope they get a permit first.
creech|8.21.09 @ 3:56PM|#
I guess Prof. Pine will be giving "World's Smallest Political Quizzes" to every proprietor before she buys anything in the future?
JB|8.21.09 @ 3:57PM|#
I will shop at Whole Foods more often if cunts like Adrienne Pine aren't there.
JB|8.21.09 @ 3:58PM|#
So is it racist to tell Obama he better get out there and plow
that field garden if his children want to eat?
|8.21.09 @ 3:59PM|#
From Jack Thread link:
It is unclear whether the military lawyers under investigation identified the CIA personnel in the photographs to the al-Qaeda suspects or simply asked the detainees whether they had ever seen them. It is also unclear whether the inquiry involves violations of federal statutes prohibiting the identification of covert CIA officers or violations of military commission rules governing the disclosure of classified information, including to the defendants.
Prediction: complete blog 180 for everyone who covered the Plame
affair. Righties: You're outing covert CIA personnel! Lefties:
They're not covert!
Seward|8.21.09 @ 4:00PM|#
One of the beauties of capitalism is that the political, etc. thoughts of buyers and sellers are irrelevant.
|8.21.09 @ 4:05PM|#
Seems to me that Mackey has done a great thing for his business.
The people who will follow this boycott are precisely the customers
you don't want: the whiny, demanding, pushy, snotty twats who make
it unpleasant to visit his stores.
-jcr
|8.21.09 @ 4:07PM|#
I will shop at Whole Foods more often if cunts like Adrienne
Pine aren't there.
I'd only been in Whole Foods two or three times before this. Now, I
think I'm likely to become a regular customer. They've got a pretty
good butcher counter.
-jcr
EJM|8.21.09 @ 4:08PM|#
What the District and the inside-the-Beltway suburbs really need are more Shoppers locations. If that fails, maybe Meijer can come to town.
Don\'t you call me Boycott|8.21.09 @ 4:15PM|#
The Washington City Paper link is the funniest thing I've read in some time.
|8.21.09 @ 4:26PM|#
This is the greatest thing ever. The hugest idiots will stop getting in front of me at Whole Foods.
Anomalous|8.21.09 @ 4:26PM|#
Anyone who boycotts Whole Foods because the CEO wrote an opinion piece can starve to death as far as I'm concerned. Dumbasses.
Euler|8.21.09 @ 4:29PM|#
I love the subtle digs at the protesters in the Washington City
Paper article.
"There are some problems [with Canada's system]," Husseini says,
but "we're more technologically advanced than Canada and we can do
it better."
Husseini can't name any improvements off the top of his head, and
declines to comment on how an effective store boycott might affect
low-level Whole Foods employees.
massive lulz for me.
Doug|8.21.09 @ 4:34PM|#
-so that-so that we can-and-and-and that is a win-win situation.
I thought only hockey moms from Wasilla did this kind of thing.
Fluffy|8.21.09 @ 4:38PM|#
Prediction: complete blog 180 for everyone who covered the
Plame affair. Righties: You're outing covert CIA personnel!
Lefties: They're not covert!
For me the 180 is functional and constitutional:
Our government does not have the constitutional power to tell a
defense attorney he can't ask his client about the people who have
provided evidence against him. Pass a law saying he can't, and I'll
tell you to go fuck yourself. And if I can undermine your
enforcement of that law, I'll do that too.
I fucking wish I had pictures of every last CIA operative
whose "cover" has been used to justify setting up kangaroo courts
where the defendant doesn't get to know about the evidence against
them. I'd publish that shit as fast as I could make my fucking
fingers type.
GDLL|8.21.09 @ 4:39PM|#
"an we get a little farmers' market-outside of the White
House..."
Um, we have one. It's called Eastern Market. It's about 24 blocks
away. And halfway between the White House and Eastern Market is the
weekly farmer's market outside of Teaism, near the Navy Memorial
metro stop. I know, I know, those venues don't present an optimal
photo-op and pandering exercise, so forget about it.
Russ 2000|8.21.09 @ 4:42PM|#
and the reason she switched from Whole Foods to co-ops and
farmers' markets.
The ONLY other options are co-ops and farmer's markets?
Every big city has loads of specialty markets and independent
grocers. I'm not saying they are as all-encompassing as Whole
Foods, but they have a hell of a lot more variety than the co-ops
and farmer's markets. If you suddenly dislike Whole Foods, why take
75 steps back when 3 steps back is sufficient?
Those who can't think, teach.
The Gobbler|8.21.09 @ 4:44PM|#
othing Wrong With EnronCare
• "In Britain, the government itself runs the hospitals and employs
the doctors. We've all heard scare stories about how that works in
practice; these stories are false."--former Enron adviser Paul
Krugman, New York Times, Aug. 17
• "It was a simple thing. Another blood test, some more
investigations into whatever flawed gene or missing protein might
be the cause of my daughter's troubled life, with her terrible
seizures, her blindness, her inability to walk or talk or eat
unaided. Over the past 15 years, there have been many such attempts
to identify her condition. One year later, we asked the doctor, a
top geneticist at one of the world's most famous hospitals, what
had happened to the results. His office told us a rambling story
about financial restrictions and the need to send such tests to a
laboratory in Germany. They said there was little he could do but
promised to pursue our case. It was a bare-faced lie. The precious
vial of blood had been dumped in storage and forgotten. The
following day it was despatched to a laboratory in Wales and 40
days later the specialists came up trumps. They identified her
condition, an obscure genetic mutation called CDKL5. . . . The most
shocking thing was not the lying. Nor even the incompetence. It was
our total lack of surprise at the turn of events, since after 15
years suffering from the failings of the National Health Service we
are prepared for almost any ineptitude."--Ian Birrell, Independent
(London), Aug. 21
The Gobbler|8.21.09 @ 4:44PM|#
An Insult to Jackasses Everywhere
"TV listings: The Prime-Time TV grid in Thursday's Calendar section
mistakenly listed MTV's 'Jackass' show on the MSNBC cable schedule
at 7 and 10 p.m. where instead MSNBC's 'Countdown With Keith
Olbermann' should have been listed."--correction, Los Angeles
Times, Aug. 21
The Gobbler|8.21.09 @ 4:47PM|#
• "Moose With Giant Warts Causes Commotion in Homer"--headline,
Anchorage Daily News, Aug. 21, 2009
Anyone notice that both Reinmoose and Warty have been gone
today?
The Gobbler|8.21.09 @ 4:50PM|#
Commentary's Rick Richman notes an amusing exchange the other
day between ABC's White House correspondent, Jake Tapper, and Press
Secretary Robert Gibbs:
Tapper: In a letter sent last week to the White House from the
National Association of Postal Supervisors, the president of that
union, Ted Keating, said that his union had a, quote, "collective
disappointment that you"--meaning the president--"chose the Postal
Service as a scapegoat and an example in efficiency." Does the
president--has the president seen that letter? Has he responded?
Does he regret using the post office as an example of
inefficiency?
Gibbs: I doubt he's seen that letter, and I don't have any reason
to believe he regrets it, since he repeated it.
Fist of Etiquette|8.21.09 @ 5:03PM|#
Single Payer Action's Sam Husseini doesn't say much about
unions, but he loves the idea of the U.S. modeling itself after and
improving upon Canada's medical system.
"There are some problems [with Canada's system]," Husseini says,
but "we're more technologically advanced than Canada and we can do
it better."
Thank God we're more technologically advanced. I just wonder how
that happened.
Elemenope|8.21.09 @ 5:04PM|#
I, for one, don't get it. You you don't like what someone has to
say so much that you do not wish to patronize their establishment,
what on Earth is wrong with that? If some people no longer want to
shop at Whole Foods because they believe their money goes to
someone who is opposed to their policy goals, doesn't that just
mean shorter lines for you?
Shorter: what is all this libertarian bitching about people using
whatever rubric they want in order to choose what place to spend
their money?
|8.21.09 @ 5:23PM|#
You know, I never understand that argument. People having the
right to do something misguided and stupid, si. People
being forced to not do something misguided and stupid,
no.
It's not like we don't make fun of people around here all of the
time. For instance, no one has asked for the ban-hammer to strike,
say, Lonewacko, yet he is mocked and insulted mercilessly.
ed|8.21.09 @ 5:32PM|#
what is all this libertarian bitching about
A way to fill the emptiness of our pathetic, wasted lives?
|8.21.09 @ 5:34PM|#
Alpha-bits: I will not presume to speak for anyone else, but in
my case it is intense amusement that I am expressing.
Don't those people who try to adhere to the "agenda 'o the week"
ever just get "please, just kill me" headaches?
"This week I am supposed to boycott WF, but this means that I have
to either drive 20 blocks further to shop (thereby increasing my
carbon footprint) or patronize a local farmer's market (are those
things properly regulated by the FDA?). Of course, I could go to
the Walmart 4 blocks away (but then I would be supporting a evil
union-busting meta-corporation)....zzzzzzzz! does not compute, does
not compute....!"
Invisible Finger|8.21.09 @ 5:34PM|#
what is all this libertarian bitching
Where's the bitching? Every post and most of the comments are
simply making fun of these boycotters, not bitching about them.
Half-baked reasoning deserves ridicule.
|8.21.09 @ 5:35PM|#
Shorter: what is all this libertarian bitching about people
using whatever rubric they want in order to choose what place to
spend their money?
We're cool with people choosing who to give their custom to. We're
also cool with pointing out that the reasons they base their choice
on are idiotic.
Because they are free, they are free to be wrong. Because we are
free, we are free to mock them.
Everybody wins!
ed|8.21.09 @ 5:36PM|#
I'm sure the Secret Service won't mind at all if Sasha and
Malia get out there and hawk some of those spare
zucchini
I was going to make a crack about fresh cherries, but it wouldn't
be right. It wouldn't be prudent.
|8.21.09 @ 5:44PM|#
I did my part. I just spent $200 at whole foods on groceries and wine. That'll teach John Mackey to stop spouting that conservative libertarian hooey of his.
Libertarian Girl|8.21.09 @ 6:09PM|#
Maybe they can donate the veggies to public schoolkids' lunches,
since the USDA so-called "healthy" lunches are pretty much a
mystery meat mush and probably contribute to childhood
obesity.
In fact, maybe they can send some down to Malia lookalike Jasmine
Messiah in Miami, who can't get vegetarian food in her public
school lunchroom.
Gene Berkman|8.21.09 @ 6:16PM|#
The Gobbler @ 4:50 PM
"Gibbs: I doubt he's seen that letter..."
Of course he has not seen the letter. They probably mailed it to
him via USPS.
Gene Berkman|8.21.09 @ 6:20PM|#
Of course people have the right to buy or not buy wherever they
want to.
Actually, there are better reasons for not shopping at Whole Foods
- the prices obviously. But I have a problem with a "health food
store" that adds sugar to almost all their proprietary
products.
And the butcher counter is turn-off to vegetarians.
Too many of their baked products have white flour.
In fact, opposing nationalized health care is one of the few things
Mackey has done that I approve of.
JB|8.21.09 @ 6:20PM|#
Where's the bitching?
Exactly. I'm very happy there will be fewer smelly hippies when I
shop there.
|8.21.09 @ 6:29PM|#
"This week I am supposed to boycott WF, but this means that
I have to either drive 20 blocks further to shop (thereby
increasing my carbon footprint) or patronize a local farmer's
market (are those things properly regulated by the FDA?). Of
course, I could go to the Walmart 4 blocks away (but then I would
be supporting a evil union-busting meta-corporation)....zzzzzzzz!
does not compute, does not compute....!"
true true true!
|8.21.09 @ 6:45PM|#
Can somebody explain to me why urban liberals are so hyped up about "greenspace" and "farmers markets"? If they are so important, why don't they live where those things exist?
|8.21.09 @ 7:21PM|#
I just love the picture. So cute...the God-King's wife and young'uns, pretending to work just like the peasants do.
BakedPenguin|8.21.09 @ 9:12PM|#
For anyone with hypertension: Whole Foods' brand wheat bread has 15 mg sodium per slice, vs. about 150 for other brands. Also, for those allergic to corn, and Dave W., it doesn't contain corn syrup.
|8.21.09 @ 9:57PM|#
Professors of anthropology make enough to shop at Whole Foods?
Why?
FWIW, we went to Whole Foods an extra time this week, on Tuesday
night. There were no protestors at the Lincoln Park store, and
empty parking spaces were few. If it weren't for the news, I'd have
no idea there was a boycott.
anonymous|8.21.09 @ 9:58PM|#
I like the argument in the comments section of the first link,
regarding Riggs' bias in the article. Because, if he had been
equally biased but not indicated it in text, he wouldn't have
reminded progressives that people disagree with them and hurt their
fragile self-esteem would have made people trust the article
more.
Apparently it's not important to be trustworthy as a reporter and
put out reliable facts, it's important to make your readers trust
you so that they believe what you say. It sounds like bad advice to
give a non-leftist reporter, since it could actually work, but they
probably were thinking of the president when they gave it.
Strictly speaking, isn't writing with an obvious bias
improving the objectivity of the piece? The position of
the writer is a factual element of the story with potential
significance, and making it clear is improving the honesty of the
piece. Maybe that's why people are abandoning newrags that pitch
propaganda under the guise of neutrality for blogs.
Do the people bitching about the author revealing his bias also
complain when journalists add the typical "Full disclosure: I'm
currently shorting the company I'm portraying as in disarray in the
article" bit?
|8.21.09 @ 10:39PM|#
WhackAlone, re: your 4:29 comment and link
brotherben | August 20, 2009, 9:31am | #
here is a story of a gun wielding, Ron Paul supporting, appraisal
photographer in Meridian Idaho you may enjoy. Or maybe you
won't.
I posted a link to that story yesterday. You are a day late my
friend. Having never seen you use a Statesman link, I assume you
got the tip from me. Credit and appropriate groveling are expected.
Thanks.
The Libertarian Guy|8.22.09 @ 12:19AM|#
Libertarian Girl, I read your posting about the vegetarian kid,
and the links... and IMO the *real* reason the White House objected
was the story didn't reflect well. The Obamas are selectively
protective of their kids, but will trot them out for a photo op
when it suits Barry's needs.
I feel sorry for the Obamakids. God knows how screwed up they're
going to be... and I don't mean from having to spend at least four
years in the White House, I mean the indoctrination their parents
are cramming into their noggins.
Nipplemancer|8.22.09 @ 12:42AM|#
I hope one of them makes it onto Rock of Love 18 with a bloated Nick Jonas as the 'prize' only to be kicked off the tour bus for Paris Jackson.
Art-P.O.G.|8.22.09 @ 1:40AM|#
Ha ha, Brotherben with the win. Lonewacko hoisted with his own petard.
Federal Dog|8.22.09 @ 7:33AM|#
How stupid is Michelle Obama? Posing for a photo op in a black jumpsuit and holding a shovel, pretending to garden?
|8.22.09 @ 8:18AM|#
Mr. Mackey's millions have clouded his view of the real world. His suggestion to cover the uninsured with voluntary donations show how ridiculous his arguments are. There is a related post at http://iamsoannoyed.com/?page_id=588
hmm|8.22.09 @ 9:03AM|#
Great. Now I have to subsidize his fucking kids with farm subsidies as well. That is if there isn't a DC law against kids selling shit like lemonade on the street.
The Libertarian Guy|8.22.09 @ 3:26PM|#
hmm, you can damned well bet if there WERE a DC law against lemonade stands, it would be suspended if the Obamakids were to set up a stand...
The Libertarian Guy|8.22.09 @ 3:35PM|#
Scratch that. The Obamaparents would never allow their precious
muffins to be sullied with the ideas of entrepreneurship,
capitalism, and that four-letter word, "profit".
Besides, they'd have to sell the lemonade at government prices, pay
union thugs to stand around and bully people into buying the
product, and hire Paul Krugman to write a glowing article on the
cuuuuuuteness of it all.
"Here's your lemonade, mister. That'll be $5,937.26, please."
|8.22.09 @ 5:31PM|#
Their garden and farmers markets should be required to conform to all federal regulations governing food production and safety.
|8.22.09 @ 9:03PM|#
• "Moose With Giant Warts Causes Commotion in
Homer"--headline, Anchorage Daily News, Aug. 21, 2009
I good, hard self-taint kick would probably clear those warts right
up.
|8.22.09 @ 9:30PM|#
His suggestion to cover the uninsured with voluntary
donations show how ridiculous his arguments are.
Because Americans are so lousy at contributing to charity?
|8.24.09 @ 2:51AM|#
"Here's your lemonade, mister. That'll be $5,937.26,
please."
Is that adjusted before or after hyperinflation?
|8.24.09 @ 5:39PM|#
If they set up a vegetable stand, Sasha and Malia could become the first Obamas ever to earn an honest dollar.
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