The founder of Whole Foods Market may be just the man to heal the divide between red and blue America: a Ronald Reagan-loving, Adam Smith-quoting, Wall Street Journal--op-ed-page-reading libertarian who makes his living selling shiny organic apples and allegedly tasty tofu dogs to NPR listeners in places such as Palo Alto, CA; Portland, OR; Madison, WI--and even New York City, that tough town not known for its friendliness to either conservatism or rice milk. Though he insists suppliers practice sustainable agriculture and allow livestock to "fulfill their animal potential," John Mackey otherwise runs his 163-store chain the way any hard-nosed businessman would, buying up competitors, fighting unions, pushing the company this year to the brink of the Fortune 500. But no one will deny the real key to Whole Foods' success: no more musty-yeasty-old-hippies-in-hand-knit-wool-socks-health-food-store stink. Praise the Lord and pass the Kashi!
Ugh. Just: Ugh. I know none of my consumer choices are ethically pure, hell, *I'm* not ethically pure, I know that. But Mr. Mackey and this encomiastic VF write-up happen to hit several of my sore spots: libertarianism, anti-unionism, knee-jerk anti-hippieism, red-state/blue-state stereotyping. Whole Foods is doing the world no favors. And I'm doing myself even fewer favors by dropping $20-30 a week there. No more! The problem is, my only other neighborhood option is Safeway, which is threatening to fuck over its union workers this Xmas season. Well, at least The Safe *has* unions! And hell, it even has a nice little "natural foods" ghetto in its far southeast corner. As you, dear reader, have already surmised, this is about far, far more than expensive cheese.
Much as I enjoy reading VF, I gotta complain: only *I* am entitled to overuse hyphens like that, dammit! Just: Ugh.
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