John Mackey, My Hero of the Day

Outraged Left Calls for Boycott of Whole Foods

Where will the balding, pony-tailed, Birkenstock-wearing, upper middle class proletarian buy his tofu and organically grown, unbleached cotton, $27 pair of socks now?

Like the customers of Whole Foods, I am also quite surprised that the founder and CEO of Whole Foods is a person who quotes Margaret Thatcher and opposes socialized medicine. I admire his courage in taking a position that most likely counters that of most of his customers. By doing so, he may reach people who would otherwise never consider the merits of a view that counters their preconceived opinions. Unfortunately, it may cost him financially.

The left wing of the blogosphere has gone ballistic at being betrayed by one who they thought was one of their won. CounterPunch called for a boycott and essentially called John Mackey a murder when it said; “the problem with Mackey’s campaign is that it results in the deaths of 60 Americans every day due to lack of health insurance. Mackey is responsible for these deaths as much as anyone.” (read more)

Wow! I thought liberals disdained inflammatory language. Is this a call for an assassination? Is this hate speech? Pro-life advocates are soundly condemned by progressives when an abortionist, who thousands of times performed the procedure that terminated the lives of unborn babies, is called a murderer; yet, a grocer who opposes socialized medicine is accused of the death of 60 Americans a day! In a year that would make him responsible for 21,600 deaths! In the last ten years he is responsible for 216,000 deaths!

Daily Koz and hundreds of other lefty bloggers have joined the call for a boycott. A growing facebook page is devoted to the topic. Many of these vegetarians sound like they are so enraged they may commit violence. I know vegetarians have a reputation as peace loving harmless, sensitive people. Don’t buy it. Don’t forget; Hitler was a vegetarian.

For taking an unpopular stand, speaking the truth, risking financial loss, possibly risking his life, or possibly being hit with an overripe organically grown tomato, John Mackey is my Hero of the Day.

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The Whole Foods Alternative to ObamaCare

One of the lies told over and over by proponents of ObamaCare is that the critics of this move toward a government takeover of our health care system are opponents of reform. NO! Not so!

I have seen no one say that the status quo is acceptable. There are numerous proposals for reform that will lower health care cost and will insure more people and yet will not put mechanisms in place to destroy the system we have now, expand the government, or balloon the deficit.

There are two schools of thought on how to fix our broken health care system: one, represented by the current bills before us, will further destroy the remaining remnants of a market system and will transfer control of health care to the government away from the individual; the other will remove some of the obstacle that keep the system we have now from functioning properly and will move us toward greater individual control of healthcare.

John Mackey is co-founder and CEO of Whole Foods Market Inc. Below is his list of eight specific thing we can do to improve healthcare without adding to the deficit. These are all solid ideas that will yield positive results. Please read them. I think all opponent of ObamaCare need to be able to able to answer the question, "Well, what would you do?" This is a list of eight things we should do.

I cannot help but sometimes think that many of the proponents of a government takeover of health care are not really that concerned about improving healthcare at all, but are instead motivated by a desire to see a radical transformation of society. I sometimes think they do not really want to see problems solved and view real reform as the enemy of revolution. Except for these left-wing ideologues who will be satisfied with nothing short of government nationalization, I would think that most people of goodwill could embrace common sense reform that would improve our health care system.

The Whole Foods Alternative to ObamaCare

By JOHN MACKEY, AUGUST 11, 2009, 7:30 P.M. ET, The Wall Street Journal

"The problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people's money."
—Margaret Thatcher

With a projected $1.8 trillion deficit for 2009, several trillions more in deficits projected over the next decade, and with both Medicare and Social Security entitlement spending about to ratchet up several notches over the next 15 years as Baby Boomers become eligible for both, we are rapidly running out of other people's money. These deficits are simply not sustainable. They are either going to result in unprecedented new taxes and inflation, or they will bankrupt us.

While we clearly need health-care reform, the last thing our country needs is a massive new health-care entitlement that will create hundreds of billions of dollars of new unfunded deficits and move us much closer to a government takeover of our health-care system. Instead, we should be trying to achieve reforms by moving in the opposite direction—toward less government control and more individual empowerment. (read more)

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