Boycott Whole Foods? Yes We Can!

I haven’t been posting as much lately because I’ve been in Louisiana working on a very cool clean energy project. But it’s important that we all push back against John Mackey’s anti-Obama, anti-worker, anti-common good arguments in the Wall Street Journal.

Mackey is essentially promoting a bankrupt free market philosophy as the anecdote to a failing public commons. It’s been known for quite a while to those of us who have worked in and around the food industry that Whole Foods’ CEO is anti-union and anti-consumer co-op. Yet many advocates of natural and organic foods and many progressives and liberals have continued to support Whole Foods with their dollars.

After I moved back to NJ from Minneapolis I patronized Whole Foods for their meats even though I knew from interviews with Whole Foods butchers and meat cutters in Minnesota and Texas that Whole Foods feed lots much of their beef at the end of their life cycle — even the natural and organic cuts. And I always shook my head at the lack of locally sourced produce, fruits, eggs and dairy at Whole Foods, even in a Garden State like New Jersey.

But what choice did I have in winter and early spring? New Jersey lacks the great collection of local food co-ops that Minnesota boasts and the resources for locally raised chicken and pork like southeast Minnesota, southwest Wisconsin and northeastern Iowa. And Whole Foods is a pleasant shopping experience. Many of the smaller Whole Foods have a great market feel to them, and Whole Foods’ stores are well merchandised, exceptionally clean, and make great use of lighting. Rather than overwhelming you with signage, the flow and format of the stores guides you to where you need to be.

It’s a good place to shop from a merchandising perspective. However, Mackey and Whole Foods fail to live up to their mission statement and fail to fully respect the lnterdependent Web of Life of which we are all a part.

Ethan Nichtern, a Buddhist, Whole Foods Shopper, and founder of the Interdependence Project has a must read essay on our collective responsibilities to one another and John Mackey’s failure to embody this in his Wall Street Journal commentary. Nichtern writes:

“the Buddhist teachings on the truth of interdependence don’t allow us to stop at the level of individual health and wellbeing. The more we pay attention to reality, the more we see the total impossibility of taking care of our own bodies and minds without taking care of others. The more we see interdependence — that our lives do not happen in a vacuum, separate from the lives of others — the more we realize that our own health is inextricably bound up with the health of others. If you are healthier, then I am healthier, and vice versa. This is true physically, this is true psychologically, and this is true communally.

If John Mackey wants to take his failed libertarian ideals and his Whole Foods brand into battle against President Obama and meaningful healthcare reform than I say bring it on. Not only will we fight you on the healthcare front, we’ll extend the battle to EFCA and workers rights and right on into agriculture and organic standards.

We’ll fight hard to get back to a true free market economy where an abundance of farmers, local markets, small businesses and regional chains supply locally raised and grown foods to our tables. We’ll fight hard for a free market economy where butchers and food workers make middle class wages and can afford to live in pleasant communities with good schools, good libraries, and abundant recreational opportunities. And we’ll fight hard for collective bargaining and the right to organize to ensure that butchers and other workers earn middle class wages and are treated with dignity and respect.

Our public commons have been failing for a long-time because of people like John Mackey. It’s time we became the change we believe in and not let failed libertarian ideals and naked corporate greed hijack our opportunity to move the nation forward.

We have the power. It’s time we start using it.