That’s where all this ends, isn’t it?
Who would have thought that a time would come when conservatives would be boycotting Walmart and Krispy Kreme while flocking to Whole Foods?
(I still say it was dumb of the Whole Foods CEO to trash health care reform, the same way it would be dumb of the commissioner of NASCAR to endorse Cindy Sheehan for Congress or co-write a book with Richard Dawkins.)
Update. I see others are thinking the same thing. Now, to be clear, people can boycott all they want to, but the conservative list of boycotted companies has gotten awfully long.
Hunter Gathers
I’m going to boycott sanity by voting libertarian.
El Cid
Yeah. The righties will ‘flock’ to Whole Foods up until they get to the checkout counter and say, ‘How much for what???’
Demo Woman
Do you really think that WalMart shoppers are going to flock in masses to Whole Foods? Yeah right!
freelancer
I read this Dish post
http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2009/08/why-walmart-is-boycotting-glenn-beck.html
and thought of your exact post title, in question form:
Who’s going to boycott the boycotting boycotters?
JGabriel
Is there even a boycott of Beck’s advertisers? I was under the impression that Color of Change was merely asking advertisers to stop advertising on Beck’s show, and supplying transcripts to show why corporations might not want their products associated with Beck’s rhetoric.
.
jacy
I want the RedStaters to keep boycotting things until all they can do is manufacture what they need from odds and ends laying around the house and have to scrounge all their food from dumpsters. That’ll show us!
When you’ve lost Wal-Mart, you’ve lost the war….just saying.
wasabi gasp
Tis a shame Charles C. Boycott’s last name wasn’t Assfist.
Sloth
One wonders if the red stater’s will soon be eating macro.
A Mom Anon
@JGabriel:
I think this is the case,just making sure the PR people of these companies know what their product is associated with.
Napoleon
DougJ said: ” . . . .co-write a book with Richard Dawkins”
OT, but I heard a few days ago that his g-g-g-great grandfather was Sir Henry Clinton the British major general who was commander in chief of British forces in North America during the Revolution and one of 3 major generals that were in the colonies leading British troops at that time. He was at Bunker Hill, turned Benedict Arnold against the cause, etc. etc.
Zifnab
They don’t even really boycott. They just make a lot of noise.
jenniebee
Red Staters flocking to Whole Foods could be the beginning of a sea change in national politics. A dyspeptic worldview has little chance of surviving a high-fiber diet.
NoVa Commie
@JGabriel:
You are correct sir.
Quaker in a Basement
Meh. This isn’t the first time Mackey has acted all crazy.
Warren Terra
As far as I know, Color of Change is sending the advertisers petitions and telling them they ought to be ashamed, and warning them that a boycott might happen, but not promoting any such boycott yet.
In fact, back when I signed the Color of Change petition I went looking for a list of Glenn Beck advertisers that I could boycott, both on the Color-of-Change site and using Google, and I couldn’t find a list. Now, my Google-Fu might simply have been weak, but I’m pretty sure that if a boycott were in effect then people would have been working hard to make such a list readily available; and if Color-of-Change were involved in such a boycott then they’d have made a list of offending advertisers prominently available on their site, and linked to the list from the petition page.
tammanycall
Are there Whole Foods stores in Red Areas? I know some are in Red States, but I thought they’d be located in the bluer regions (i.e., cities or college towns.)
ricky
Whole Food’s corporate HQ and flagship store are within walking distance of my house. I have not set foot inside either. I last graced their doors before a flood wiped out their original store. You can get better elsewhere for a whole lot less.
GregB
I’m looking foward to hearing about gunfights breaking out in the arugula aisle at Whole Foods.(snark)
-G
jenniebee
@Warren Terra: it’s not like Color of Change would really have to do much beyond making the companies’ marketing departments aware that people had noticed Beck’s remarks and that non-white people are a large part of their customer base. You don’t even need to organize that boycott, just let people know that Company X is using the money you spend with them to pay Glenn Beck to call the President a racist, and the rest takes care of itself.
linda
oh shit, someone needs to go stand near a checkout and watch the look of horror as the cash register dingdingdings up those grocery tabs… lol
does this mean the reichwing now favors ….. organic!?!?!?
goddamn, this country is overloaded with teh stoopid.
T. O'Hara
If the purpose is to punish Mackey’s free speech, and squelch similar views under threat of similar punishment, isn’t that just a little bit, well, fascist?
Won’t that just make people write things under pseudonyms like, well, pretty much everyone here?
schrodinger's cat
I have never understood all this fuss about Whole Foods. It seems to me to be over-priced and over-rated.
The Bearded Blogger
@jenniebee, 12
LOL… the politics of regularity… maybe all Mrs Bachmann needs is some prune juice or pithaya…
CapMidnight
I don’t have time to keep up, so I just buy Support the Boycotts yellow-ribbon bumper-magnets.
But where does that money go? Did I get tricked?
Colette
@T. O’Hara: Your concern is noted.
Hmmm. Wonder what the “T.” stands for?
Morbo
@Napoleon: Oh, shit, time to boycott The God Delusion!
GregB
If the wingers start shopping for health conscious food won’t that make them fascists a la’ Jonah Goldberg’s theories?
As one of the dopiest person I have ever known once said:
Talk about a dilemnia.
-G
GregB
errr…persons.
NoVa Commie
@T. O’Hara:
fas·cism (fāsh’ĭz’əm)
n.
Fascism
1. A system of government marked by centralization of authority under a dictator, stringent socioeconomic controls, suppression of the opposition through terror and censorship, and typically a policy of belligerent nationalism and racism.
How is citizens exercising their freedom, based on a suggestion from a private advocacy organization, to not spend money at Whole Foods – for whatever reason – fascism?
Yawn.
The Bearded Blogger
speaking from ignorance here… has any red-state organized boycott, or march, or any kind of grassrooty thing ever been effective? Has it ever been anything other than noise? I’d be surprised to learn that it has.
Hissyfits are not boycotts.
GReynoldsCT00
Ouch! warn us before you link to RedState would’ja?
The Bearded Blogger
@NoVa Commie, 29
The right wing definition of fascism is different. It means “something I don’t like”.
eg. Brussel sprouts are fascism. Constipation? also fascism.
Punchy
If I wanted a boycott I’d visit a Cub Scout summer camp.
NoVa Commie
@The Bearded Blogger:
You owe me a keyboard :)
Zifnab
@The Bearded Blogger:
Crazied frothing teabaggers managed to give Baucus and Conrad the political cover needed in ripping out the public option, and left Grassley both heartily endorsing and sternly opposing the living will / death panel of death amendment.
So, there’s that.
Has Erik Erickson ever brought down a major corporate institution by sheer force of asshole? Not yet, no. But these guys are nothing if not persistent. If shoot enough spitballs at the giants, I’m sure you’ll bring one down sooner or later. Or, you know, one will trip and you can take credit for that.
GReynoldsCT00
@schrodinger’s cat:
It was called “conspicuous consumption”, gratefully we seem to be moving away from that
Sentient Puddle
Y’know, to me, this is like a game of eleven dimensional chess where neither player knows jack shit about how to play. Sure, they may think that they’re stragegerizing well and will blow our fucking minds when the endgame plays out, but really, we’re just left with Megan McArdle contorting herself into counter-boycotting Whole Foods while never planning on shopping there.
GReynoldsCT00
“The right wing definition of fascism is different. It means “something I don’t like”.
eg. Brussel sprouts are fascism. Constipation? also fascism.”
WIN!
cleek
i’ve never seen one. they tend to pop up wherever you have a bunch of relatively well-off lefties.
red areas get Food Lions and super WalMarts.
but i like the idea of wingnuts boycotting WalMart because Glenn Beck is too offensive for WalMart. Advertise with Beck, or else!
RedState’s a bottomless well of stupid.
August J. Pollak
Remember when Whole Foods was almost in the title of Jonah Goldberg’s book?
Bob In Pacifica
But that film about the evolution of NASCAR was great. I’m waiting for the film with Richard Dawkins driving a few laps. Should be good.
Molly
@Zifnab: “They don’t even really boycott. They just make a lot of noise.”
Exactly, and that’s why going after the advertising dollars was such a good strategy. Boycotts are empty threats; if the local Wal-Mart is where it’s at, they’ll go. But going after the $$$? It’s always about the money, always.
Geeno
I didn’t think that there was an actual boycott of Whole Foods. The CEO just happened to piss-off his mostly liberal clientele.
Molly
@tammanycall: “Are there Whole Foods stores in Red Areas?”
Oh yeah. I live in light-footed Tom Delay’s old district, and we’ve got a fantastic Whole Foods deep in the heart of it. And it’s always busy.
Ash Can
@jacy:
I had to do that; it was the first thing that popped into my mind and it wouldn’t go away. Whether it’s your version or mine, though, it couldn’t happen soon enough.
inkadu
I can’t go to Whole Foods because of their judgemental attitude about candy. Can’t buy any candy there unless it’s infused with cocoa beans and part of the profits go to help third-world farmers. There’s nothing more frustrating then running the supermarket gauntlet and not being able to get yourself a decent chocolate bar at the end of it.
Do love that Panda licorice, tho.
NoVa Commie
@inkadu:
There are no cigarettes at Whole Foods.
Fascist!
Tsulagi
Saw that boycott post by RSSF Commander EE last week. You just have to laugh at the brilliant thinkering and strategery.
So any potential sponsor of Beck who’d want to reach the Idiocracy demo would need to do the new math. If Beck or a similar clone says something so outrageous or disgusting trying to keep ratings up, one side would boycott generating negative press. But if they do the decent thing pulling sponsorship, then Idiocratics like EE on the other side boycott and call them names. No win scenario. Best bet then considering those variables would be to avoid Beck and similar from the start.
Common Sense
@I opined on the staggering dumbassery of Mark Steyn in an earlier post. I made the mistake of leaving the car radio on that station and caught the last quarter hour of his show — it is amazing what the two segments showed. In this one, we find out that socialized medicine will not work in the US. Evidence? First he dismantles the life expectancy issue with the oft repeated canard that European countries are smaller. However, evidence that our system of care is better can be found if you compare life expectancy of older Americans to their European counterparts. You see, in their 60’s an American lives as long as the average European. By 70, America take over Germany. And by 80, the average American lives longer than the average Swede. No mention of what kicks in when Americans reach their 60’s that might affect their ability to receive care. Just the explanation that older Americans live longer because they had the freedom to choose their care in their 40’s. The next case in favor of free market health care: No one has attempted to insure 300 million people before. The NEXT SENTENCE OUT OF HIS MOUTH was (paraphrased, but the countries used are real): “Sure they’ve done it in Sweden and Norway. They’ve done so in China. But no one has attempted to insure people before on this scale.” Finally? Britain’s national health care system is the third largest employer on earth after the Chinese railways (Steyn helpfully points out they have a billion people to debunk his previous point — one would think that China’s health care system would be larger as well, eh?) and India’s railways. This dude is absolutely concentrated levels of stupid the likes of which will leave you breathless.
Persia
Next, Whole Foods will begin advertising on Beck. Tagline: “The liberals don’t like us, either!”
TL
This whole clientele inversion thing has a certain ‘Stars upon Thar’s’ feel to it.
DemoDOP
I enjoy reading about “Red Staters” referring to someone with “socialist” tendencies as a “Facist”. It brings back fond memories of “Bushisms”. (Oh wait, those are nightmares.)
TEL
@T. O’Hara: I’m thinking if Mackey had tried to publish under a pseudonym rather than as the co-founder of Whole Foods, he probably wouldn’t have gotten any column inches in the WSJ’s op-ed (ahem, open=signed) section, or with any other newspaper.
Svensker
@T. O’Hara:
Criticizing what someone said is squelching free speech? Boy, you better tune in to Fox News quick — you won’t believe how they are inhibiting Obama’s free speech rights. It’s truly horrifying.
Also, morans.
Warren Terra
Off topic, but the site seems to be mostly dead for me. From the paucity of recent posts I assume this is so for others as well?
Da Bomb
I am now boycotting all whiners, people who suckle at the teat of society, and going galt.
Therefore, I am boycotting groups who are boycotting those who boycott the boycotters. Also.
There.
Wah-wah-wah….
freelancer
Damn. and here I thought we’d get our easy buttons back today. FUWP.
freelancer
@Warren Terra:
http://downforeveryoneorjustme.com/balloon-juice.com
is your friend until the redesign gets implemented.
kay
I don’t have a Whole Foods, because we don’t have a high enough income average.
I did read the editorial, though. This is my favorite part:
• Finally, revise tax forms to make it easier for individuals to make a voluntary, tax-deductible donation to help the millions of people who have no insurance and aren’t covered by Medicare, Medicaid or the State Children’s Health Insurance Program.
These are the people who live where I live,basically. He got to Last Bullet Point, then remembered the whole lower working class, so just took care of ’em with charitable contributions.
It’s like when you write a story in 3rd grade, and can’t manage all the characters, so you kill a bunch of them off, in a fire. “Then, they died”. The End.
Chad N Freude
@T. O’Hara:
From the T. O’hara dictionary: Exercising freedom choice without government coercion for the wrong reason is fascism.
You mean like this guy?
cbear
@T. O’Hara:” If the purpose is to punish Mackey’s free speech, and squelch similar views under threat of similar punishment, isn’t that just a little bit, well, fascist?”
It is literally amazing how often some asshole wanders into the discussion, states some ridiculous premise, promptly gets slapped about the head and shoulders—and exits stage left.
Very entertaining.
cbear
@Chad N Freude: FTW!
Anne Laurie
@CapMidnight:
WIN!
I think there’s a small wingnut cadre that already shops at Whole Foods — the moderately-well-off housewives, Katy Abram types, who don’t want their precious offspring ingesting artificial chemicals which Fox News has assured them can cause everything from hyperactivity to homosexuality. This new buy-a-car-magnet-to-support-our-thought-police campaign will give them a warm glow & another way to one-up the other Professional Moms at the next 9/12 homeschoolers meetup and bake sale. And there are probably WF stores near upscale senior-living communities that will see a bump in sales, at least briefly. But I’m not sure the increased, um, customer service requirements (dealing with the cranky & confused) will offset the attention spike.
kay
@cbear:
He’s sort of naive, for a CEO. How long has he been in business? His high-deductible employee policy is affordable now, but he might want to wait until he has some long-term older employees before he runs around crowing.
Anne Laurie
@Warren Terra:
I’ve been getting site-not-found messages all afternoon, but I’m never sure if that’s WordPress or IE. Because I’m an optimist, I keep hoping each crash presages the new updated sitebuild we’ve been promised…
valdivia
do the boycotting boycotters boycotters cancel out the original boycott?
I Z Confused.
Mike in NC
Are the wingnuts still boycotting Dunkin Donuts because of the Malkin hissy-fit about Rachael Ray’s scarf last year? Real Americans love jelly donuts, so they must have switched over to buying Krispy Kreme.
Bubblegum Tate
@The Bearded Blogger:
Bill-O kinda got Pepsi to drop Ludacris as a spokesman several years ago. That counts, right?
Indylib
OT Interesting development – Progressives raise over $40,000 in a few hours on Act Blue for House members that support the public option.
http://theplumline.whorunsgov.com/health-care/actblue-raises-over-40000-for-public-option-in-a-few-hours/
scav
How much boy can a boycott cut if a boycott could cut boys?
ok, slightlytwisted & OT but worth it. PS I’m still waiting for the revelation that St. Ronnie existed entirely on free-trade -ahem- -market organic Arugula. And that his visage has been sighted in a tub of hummus by the faithful.
PG
T. O’Hara,
You think if Mackey had submitted his op-ed to the WSJ under “Jane Smith” and without reference to being associated with Whole Foods, he would have gotten it published?
You must not look at the bylines of WSJ guest opeds much. As Yglesias noted, Mackey leveraged his success as a businessman in order to trumpet his views on a political question. Those who disagree with those views are now going against his base of power — his business. It makes for a neat little circle.
If Mackey, a health food store hippie with no college degree, much less an MD, and no experience in the health care industry, wants to spread his views without the prop of his fame from being the CEO and founder of Whole Foods, he can start a blog like the rest of us and see how successful his blatherings are in reaching a mass audience. If he wants to use his fame as a business to his advantage in promoting his unrelated policy views, he should be prepared for his political opponents to use that to his business disadvantage.
I blog semi-anonymously precisely because I don’t want people to evaluate what I have to say based on who or what I am. I want my views to be assessed based on how sound and well-supported with evidence they are. Mackey wanted some WSJ real estate for his rants so they’d be read by a much larger audience than he’d be able to get as Anonymous. (Unlike some folks I know, he’s simply not a sufficiently insightful, clever or funny writer to draw a large audience without having “CEO and founder of Whole Foods” attached to what he says.)
handy
@Mike in NC:
Well Krispy Kreme did start in the Heartland while Dunkin Donuts comes from snotty librul commie Massachusetts.
freelancer
@valdivia:
Not as much as wingers will be when they realize Whole Foods sells Arugala and fancy mustards.
freelancer
See here.
http://michellemalkin.com/2008/04/15/introducing-barack-arugula-obama/
Cognative Dissonance, bitchez!
Chad N Freude
@freelancer: If they don’t sell Grey Poupon, they’re OK.
ironranger
@kay:
Mackey has jogged blithely into controversy more than once. Sounds more like a guy with a over inflated ego than naviete.
valdivia
@freelancer:
LOL.
Litlebritdifrnt
So you have the CEO of a company who’s success is pretty much dependent upon the DFH’s who shop there, coming up with an op-ed that is bound to piss off the majority of his customers. Good luck with that. Personally I don’t shop at Whole Foods cause there isn’t one around here. If I were the CEO of Fresh Market I would be opening branches right next door to all Whole Foods locations right now.
IndieTarheel
@cbear: Stage right, even…
Keith G
Here in Houston much of the money is in the hands of the fairly conservative. So yah. But, I do not see these folks altering their shopping because of this. Not really on their radar I think.
oh really
As always, the comments at RedState are a source of knee-slapping hilarity — as long as one triples the daily dose of blood pressure meds. (I’d recommend a couple of Valium for those who don’t have high BP.)
The comments are so good and the commenters so reliable that the very first one in this thread delivers in spades:
An insurance company not run by leftists? In America? Gee, I doubt any such thing exists, since insurance companies in this country are pretty much run according to the Communist Manifesto.
That was written by “scottbomb,” apparently someone whose most cherished fantasy is to explode and take a bunch of commies with him.
Later on “Menlo” suggests AllState. Uh oh.
Wait until someone tells Menlo that AllState is run by a bunch of homo-loving commies. He’ll tell them to get their hands off him pronto!
It’s sick, man, all of America’s insurance companies are run by leftists. Maybe Menlo, scottbomb, and all the other patriots at RedState can get together and create an insurance co-op to take care of their auto insurance needs. I understand insurance co-ops are really popular among conservatives today…. Oh, wait…
John PM
Maybe this Whole Foods thing is just a plot. The CEO spouts wingnut talking points on health care, the liberal shoppers pretend to get mad, bringing the RSSF and its tens of supporters to Whole Foods’ defense, the wingnuts start buying arugala and the next thing you know they are supporting health care for their gay muslim spouses. Brilliant!
OniHanzo
Via Sully’s link to shitbag Radley Balko:
Right. NOW, fresh from their “town hells”, the belligerent assholes whine about a genuine discussion.
Ladies and gentlemen, a new hypocritical speed record.
OniHanzo
Goddamit. Foiled by the blockquote/no editing monsters again!
kay
@OniHanzo:
I just thought it was an incredibly dull and facile op-ed. Is there anyone who has caught a half hour of FOX News that couldn’t repeat those points? They are the GOP plan, except he gave a little nod to Compassionate Conservatism, with his brilliant and innovative ” tax deductible charitable contribution” idea, tacked on there at the end.
I also like how he breezed right by sick people in his health care plan. Done and done! A health care plan that works, as long as you don’t get sick. Jeez. Why didn’t I think of that.
T. O'Hara
That’s parody, right? Hard to tell, here.
My favorite:
T. O'Hara
Ah, so. Sorry, I now see that’s supposed to be part of the previous quote.
kay
@OniHanzo:
I’m confused, I guess. I have to shop at Whole Foods or I’m stifling free speech?
Where else do I have to shop?
Should I just get the list from a free-market conservative?
kay
I think this poor CEO is being persecuted by his….customers.
And, it’s not fair.
Jason
Did they come home from going Galt so they can do this, or is it the same thing, or…?
The idea that “shopping somewhere else” is the same thing as a “boycott” is really pretty entertaining.
T. O'Hara
You can shop wherever you like, obviously. You can even organize a boycott of someone for something he said (or wrote in an article, or whatever). I can then call you a hypocrite (or perhaps “baby fascist” . . . yes, I like “baby fascist”). Free speech. Yum. Good stuff.
Chad N Freude
@oh really:
Farmers Insurance. Farmers are not leftists.
Liberty Mutual. The Statue of Liberty is not a leftist.
GEICO. Geckos are not leftists (They’re not even people.)
kay
@Jason:
This is how he makes his LIVING, apparently. Please go there, or his voice will be silenced. You have to hire me, too, for daring to speak on this issue, or you’re just intolerant.
Chad N Freude
@T. O’Hara:
And I can call you a smug, pompous, supercilious, self-satisfied adult fascist.
Yum, indeed. Please, sir, I want some more.
kay
@Chad N Freude:
Conservatives thought “free” speech meant “free”, as in, you can piss off your customers and they’ll still pay you.
Wouldn’t that be great though? This could revolutionize customer relations.
Dollared
This is our world. The management and editorial staff of a “Cable News Channel” so little interest in the accuracy or value of its “content” that Wal-Mart has to exercise editorial control in the form of dropping its advertising.
One really has to wonder whatever happened to the journalism schools and the professional journalism and broadcast associations. Did they all just disappear, or are they just now the strip joints and pimps that pump new whores into the underground economy?
T. O'Hara
He must not be allowed to speak!
gwangung
@T. O’Hara: Really? I call you as needing some remedial grammar school lessons focussing on the use of a dictionary.
Homeschooled?
kay
@T. O’Hara:
Don’t be silly. Of course he can speak. And they can shop somewhere else. It’s magical, isn’t it, how this works?
Morbo
Balko has been on a roll lately. By which I mean he’s been letting his glibertarian freak flag fly. Someone needs to be tasered by the police to get his attention back on useful topics.
maximus
Sign these petitions for HR 676 single payer health care.
http://bit.ly/single_payer_ross
http://bit.ly/HR676
http://bit.ly/drug_benefit
Read our blog http://blog.democratz.org
Wile E. Quixote
So it seems that what T. O’Hara wants is a government program to force people to shop at Whole Foods to protect John Mackey’s freedom of speech and his bottom line. T O’Hara obviously knows fuck-all about how free-markets work or about how libertarians think free markets work. Any libertarian who was intellectually honest and consistent (work with me here) would recognize the right of John Mackey to say stupid things in a WSJ editorial (an editorial which was basically a bullshit argument from authority because Mackey knows fuck-all about medicine or public policy, he’s just a rich white asshole but for libertarians and conservatives that’s all you have to be to be considered an authority on anything), and the right of John Mackey’s customers to say “this guy’s an asshole and we’re not supporting him or his business any more.”
Hard core libertarians and free market conservatives argue that most government regulation is unnecessary and that the market will take care of businesses that pollute or discriminate or engage in practices that the public finds odious. But when this happens in the real world, as it has now, where the CEO of Whole Foods has taken a position that many people find odious and stupid, and where Whole Foods customers are saying “We are no longer going to patronize your business and we’re going to let everyone know about this to try and influence them so that they won’t patronize your business either because we don’t want the money that we work for to go to subsidize your beliefs” the Glibertarians and conservatards shit their pants and start using words that they don’t understand (words such as “fascism” which T. O’Hara obviously doesn’t have clue one about) and posting stupid stuff on blogs where they state that choosing to not give your money to someone because you disagree with their political beliefs somehow constitutes a violation of their freedom of speech.
I have a sneaking suspicion that T. O’Hara is one of those guys who spends a lot of time surfing porn at work, and who, when he gets caught starts bloviating about how his rights to privacy are being violated and who is incredibly offended that the company he was working for was keeping an eye on his online activities that he was performing on company property and company time with the company’s computer hardware and network. It’s the same kind of wankery.
Faisal
So right now around 90% of the US population has health coverage. Mackey’s proposal for improving on that number is to leave insurance up to companies like his, which provides health insurance for… 90% of its employees? So for being no better than the problem, he wants a cookie? Oh, right, he’ll keep the remaining 10% from needing health insurance by selling them organic vegetables they can’t afford anyway. Now I want a cookie.
oh really
@Chad N Freude:
I wasn’t being serious, Chad.
Chad N Freude
@oh really:
My remarks were directed at the redstate quotes, not at what you wrote. Apologies if that wasn’t clear. It’s obvious to me from what you wrote that you are — how should I say it — one of us.