Monday, September 07, 2009

The Maharishi Is Not Happy with Whole Foods

My beloved read Whole Foods' CEO John Mackey's anti-Obama health care rant in the Wall Street Journal and has reacted with this letter to Whole Foods.


To whom this may concern,

I just wanted your company to know how offensive, misguided and ignorant I found your company CEO’s letter in the Wall Street Journal. It would take pages to address his absurd take on the health care reform initiatives. His citing of Whole Foods’ health care plan as some model for the rest of the country completely ignores that most companies do not enjoy the high profits and lush revenue that Whole Foods does. Shame on him for abandoning the poor and indigent because they to do not work at Whole Foods. It seems that his entire approach is completely contrary to the responsible and empathetic values that Whole Foods espouses.  Further, I wonder how much time he has actually spent in Europe, given his comically simplistic citing of European health care systems and their supposedly notorious waiting times. The French, for example, have a longer survival rate for cancer patients than does the US and they are a fully socialized system.

As for converting to vegetarianism, I would love to hear what Whole Foods' butchers, meat suppliers, and ranchers have to say about his selling them out.

These are just some very brief reactions to his article. But, it seems to me, the most important one is that CEOs should keep their personal political views to themselves and focus on running the business with which they have been entrusted.

As for my other reaction, it is this, I will not shop at a Whole Foods for at least 6 months.

Good day,
-JM
Los Angeles, CA

6 comments:

Liberty London Girl said...

Yay! Go Maharishi go! LLGxx

So Lovely said...

Oh I do love it when The M gets a bee in his bonnet! And he's darn right. xx

CampusLady said...

I concur completely. My only caveat would be to say 6 months of not shopping there is not enough! In fact, I am sworn off Wholefoods altogether. Very good Maharishi!

Jessie said...

I think this is great, I really do, but people just now catching on that Whole Foods is a right-wing Texas-based corporation with a right-wing libertarian CEO haven’t exactly been tuned in. I’ve watched as they moved into Berkeley CA and took over the old Co-op, moved into DC and cannibalized Fresh Fields, lured in the middle-to-upper-middle-class liberals with their gleaming stores, fresh natural produce, gleaming brand, etc.

But: they are virulently anti-labor, they have a near cult-like “team” approach to goad productivity from their workers, who skew toward the young, short-term type collegy-hipsters who don’t need to feed a family on their paycheck (no unionized grocery lifers for them) or health care because they're still on their parents' plan, and they do support all kinds of right-wing causes. So I don't really think there was anything remotely progressive about shopping there in the first instance. Thank goodness for gardens and CSAs.

Ditto the iPhone, which has an exclusivity agreement with AT&T until at least 2010, which was one of the largest corporate contributors to both Bush/Cheney campaigns and then to McCain/Palin. I would venture a guess and say that most Apple/iPhone users lean more left than right, and this would seem somewhat material information to them.

Sometimes it feels like Americans live with the wool over their eyes about the corporate oligarchy they live in, and for liberals, the joke's on them.

Todd said...

Bravo to the Bearded One. He always writes the best letters of complaint and it's so nice to see people are putting up a fight against that whack job.

Wzzy said...

Of course, this is the same Whole Foods CEO who "wrote anonymous online attacks against a smaller rival and questioned why anyone would buy its stock, before Whole Foods announced an offer to buy the other company."

Read the AP's story on it here.