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Matthew Freeman is a Brooklyn based playwright with a BFA from Emerson College. His plays include THE DEATH OF KING ARTHUR, REASONS FOR MOVING, THE GREAT ESCAPE, THE AMERICANS, THE WHITE SWALLOW, AN INTERVIEW WITH THE AUTHOR, THE MOST WONDERFUL LOVE, WHEN IS A CLOCK, GLEE CLUB, THAT OLD SOFT SHOE and BRANDYWINE DISTILLERY FIRE. He served as Assistant Producer and Senior Writer for the live webcast from Times Square on New Year's Eve 2010-2012. As a freelance writer, he has contributed to Gamespy, Premiere, Complex Magazine, Maxim Online, and MTV Magazine. His plays have been published by Playscripts, Inc., New York Theatre Experience, and Samuel French.

Thursday, August 13, 2009

Boycott Whole Foods

Get this...all you upscale, well-meaning kids who love Whole Foods. John Mackey, the co-founder and CEO of Whole Foods, wrote a column in the Wall Street Journal that quotes Margaret Thatcher on "socialism," refers to "Obamacare" and says that there is no intrinsic right to health care.

He says:

"Many promoters of health-care reform believe that people have an intrinsic ethical right to health care—to equal access to doctors, medicines and hospitals. While all of us empathize with those who are sick, how can we say that all people have more of an intrinsic right to health care than they have to food or shelter?"


So assisting the homeless find shelter, or food stamps... bad ideas? I'm sure that the poor often choose to shop at Whole Foods.

His solution to the health care crisis? Um...

"Recent scientific and medical evidence shows that a diet consisting of foods that are plant-based, nutrient dense and low-fat will help prevent and often reverse most degenerative diseases that kill us and are expensive to treat. We should be able to live largely disease-free lives until we are well into our 90s and even past 100 years of age."


He thinks that if we all shopped at Whole Foods, we wouldn't need this "socialist" public option for health care reform. I'm sure he'll give up some of his own salary, or pay more in taxes, to subsidize the prices at Whole Foods so shopping there is affordable for those who are on the margins.

Wait... that's socialism.

In short, if you can afford to be healthy, you can be healthy. That's his philosophy.

Boycott Whole Foods.


Let Whole Foods what you think of Mackey here.

4 comments:

Aaron Riccio said...

Much as I disagree with Mackey, I think it's silly to boycott an entire business because you disagree with the CEO's opinion. Consider the reverse: would you be MORE likely to shop at, say, Fairway, if the CEO published an op-ed that you loved? Businesses are already dangerous cults of personality; I prefer not to mix business with pleasure.

In any event, I find myself reminded me of that whole debacle with the AD out in California who took flak for having supported Prop 8....

Freeman said...

I honestly don't think it's silly. Essentially, to free market supremecists, the only vote that counts in the dollar. Choosing where you spend your dollar matters.

Julia Hebner said...

I'm not spending a dime at Whole Foods because that particular dime might end up in Mackey's pocket. There is little enough real political power for those of us who aren't billionaires, but a boycott is still noticed. If we don't DEMAND real health care reform, we are never going to see it. This is a small way of making that demand clear.

libhom said...

I refuse to shop at Whole Paycheck again until Mackey is gone and until Whole Foods supports single payer.