I, for one, am not going to boycott Whole Foods over the comments of their CEO John Mackey. On balance, he's done a lot of good things for Whole Foods workers and the grocery and food biz. I agree with some of his ideas (see the link to the column in Morford's rant) and don't fully understand others.
Read Mackey's article and see for yourself. Nobody is perfect. Mackey certainly isn't either. But I'd rather work for him over other CEO's too numerous to list. And I don't really shop at Whole Foods, not because I don't like the CEO, but because everything is too expensive in there!
Down with crab cakes! Ban Whole Foods!
On the ludicrous outcry against a brilliant, oddball CEO and his unfortunate opinion
By Mark Morford, SF Gate Columnist
Friday, August 21, 2009
So it is that the latest absurd micro-furor comes down the pipeline of misplaced lefty outrage, a rather bizarre eruption of wrath aimed at poor little John Mackey, humble and wacky CEO of saintly Whole Foods, who suddenly finds himself waylaid by a torrent of criticism over his rather unfortunate personal opinion regarding national health care, and how basically he doesn't think most people actually deserve it and everyone should just shut up and buy more $10 crab cakes, $14 salads and $8 bottles of fine artesian water flown in from Sweden.
OK, that's not exactly accurate. But it doesn't really matter, because the outcry against Mackey's health care position is, in itself, rather ridiculous, in large part due to its wild hypocrisy, given how Whole Foods ain't exactly a tiny hemp-n'-beans farmer's market by the side of the road and anyone who can afford to shop there is, it's safe to assume, largely immune to the health care woes of the 47 million uninsured Americans who are currently loading up their carts with orange soda, Coors Light and liquid cheese over at Safeway and FoodCo and Walmart.
Translation: Wealthy bohos complaining that their beloved organic supermarket's top (libertarian) exec doesn't agree with Obama on a particular issue? Isn't that like bitching that your private jet doesn't use grass-fed leather in the lounge cushions? Disingenuous? Maybe a little?
Make no mistake: I get it. Mackey is the figurehead, the primary rep of his company, his brand, that overall feel-good, Earth-lovin', we-are-the-world vibe that Whole Foods is fond of shouting from its rooftops. You want to think the guy who leads such a supposedly yummy, ethical place would at least embody what his stores are supposedly selling. It appears there's a painful disconnect.
Or is there? Five minutes of research on the guy reveals he's always been a bit ... unusual, a bit of a lightning rod for the both the left and the right, slightly offbeat and radical insofar as he fits into no typical CEO mold you can name. His health care opinion is merely par for the course.
Keep in mind this is the guy who, not a couple years ago, announced he was cutting his personal salary down to $1 because he said he had plenty of money, didn't need any more and merely wanted to continue working for the joy of it, and to help improve the world. Huh? This is the company that still has a salary cap for its top execs; no one can make more than 14 times the lowest-paid employee. WTF? The lords of capitalism are not pleased.
As CEOs go, when compared to the typical voracious cretins who rake in more than the GNP of a small country and who bathe in bloated, multimillion-dollar golden parachutes like they were golden showers, Mackey still looks like some sort of hippie socialist mutant. Maybe what's most surprising is how supposedly "shocked" liberals are by another example of how he regularly defies expectations. The guy's been a maverick CEO for what, 25 years? Where the hell have you been?
Personally, I've always found Mackey to be one of the more fascinating, likable characters in a land where heartlessness and a general pissing on the world reign supreme. Yes, I find his health care stance to be idiotic and wrong. But his company's efforts and policies regarding everything from meat production to slaughterhouse conditions to dairy farming, et al? Still rather astonishing.
Whenever a silly furor like this pops up, I go back and do a bit of homework, remind myself of Mackey's -- and Whole Foods' -- track record. Everything I read about the guy indicates he walks the talk, practices what he preaches, is definitely not some ruthless prick of a CEO out to rape the populace for as much power and money and influence as possible while only pretending to give a damn about the health of his employees. He is not, in short, the GOP.
Quite the opposite, in fact: Agree with everything he says or not, he remains one of a tiny handful of major CEOs you can name who has, without a doubt, actually made the world just a little bit better. Deny it at your peril.
Here's the gist: Love it or hate it, Whole Foods has changed the food industry in America for the better. No major food retailer has done more across the board to enact policies and raise awareness of the organic movement overall -- a movement it actually helped create in the first place.
Do you think Walmart, soon to be the largest purveyor of organic food in the country (!), would give a flying capitalist crap about organics had Whole Foods not essentially created a mass market desire for it? Do you think Safeway and Albertson's, et al would have enormous organic departments and green initiatives, or spend millions to redesign their stores to make them less the cold, fluorescent-lit nightmares they once were, had Mackey not essentially invented the new model? Do you even remember what grocery shopping was like 20 short years ago? I mean, dear God.
Look. There will always be those who whine and nitpick about a place like Whole Foods. There will always be a certain strain of overzealous lefties who will never be satisfied, no matter what Mackey (or the Dems, or Obama, or the courts) say or do. Like the religious fundies who were so angry at Bush because he didn't imprison all gays, ban abortion and bring the Rapture, hardcore lefties will always find things to hate about imperfect corporations, simply because they're imperfect corporations.
Do I wish Mackey was all-in for single-payer health care? Do I wish he supported unions? Do I wish he was a bit more in line with some "traditional" liberal positions? Hell yes. But I can also see the bigger picture. I think I see the choices fairly clearly.
On one side, a simply stunning laundry list of things this one company has done to improve the quality of food, food manufacturing and food shopping in this country, right alongside an entire self-created culture of green and organic and healthy. On the other, a handful of questionable, even distasteful policies and CEO personal opinions.
And above it all, another Whole Foods deli that's less like a deli and more like some sort of insane orgiastic sensory-overloaded paean to all things wondrous and delicious and healthy and bountiful on this here planet Earth.
Not a very difficult choice, really.
The original is here.
Down with crab cakes! Ban Whole Foods!
On the ludicrous outcry against a brilliant, oddball CEO and his unfortunate opinion
By Mark Morford, SF Gate Columnist
Friday, August 21, 2009
So it is that the latest absurd micro-furor comes down the pipeline of misplaced lefty outrage, a rather bizarre eruption of wrath aimed at poor little John Mackey, humble and wacky CEO of saintly Whole Foods, who suddenly finds himself waylaid by a torrent of criticism over his rather unfortunate personal opinion regarding national health care, and how basically he doesn't think most people actually deserve it and everyone should just shut up and buy more $10 crab cakes, $14 salads and $8 bottles of fine artesian water flown in from Sweden. OK, that's not exactly accurate. But it doesn't really matter, because the outcry against Mackey's health care position is, in itself, rather ridiculous, in large part due to its wild hypocrisy, given how Whole Foods ain't exactly a tiny hemp-n'-beans farmer's market by the side of the road and anyone who can afford to shop there is, it's safe to assume, largely immune to the health care woes of the 47 million uninsured Americans who are currently loading up their carts with orange soda, Coors Light and liquid cheese over at Safeway and FoodCo and Walmart.
Translation: Wealthy bohos complaining that their beloved organic supermarket's top (libertarian) exec doesn't agree with Obama on a particular issue? Isn't that like bitching that your private jet doesn't use grass-fed leather in the lounge cushions? Disingenuous? Maybe a little?
Make no mistake: I get it. Mackey is the figurehead, the primary rep of his company, his brand, that overall feel-good, Earth-lovin', we-are-the-world vibe that Whole Foods is fond of shouting from its rooftops. You want to think the guy who leads such a supposedly yummy, ethical place would at least embody what his stores are supposedly selling. It appears there's a painful disconnect.
Or is there? Five minutes of research on the guy reveals he's always been a bit ... unusual, a bit of a lightning rod for the both the left and the right, slightly offbeat and radical insofar as he fits into no typical CEO mold you can name. His health care opinion is merely par for the course.
Keep in mind this is the guy who, not a couple years ago, announced he was cutting his personal salary down to $1 because he said he had plenty of money, didn't need any more and merely wanted to continue working for the joy of it, and to help improve the world. Huh? This is the company that still has a salary cap for its top execs; no one can make more than 14 times the lowest-paid employee. WTF? The lords of capitalism are not pleased.
As CEOs go, when compared to the typical voracious cretins who rake in more than the GNP of a small country and who bathe in bloated, multimillion-dollar golden parachutes like they were golden showers, Mackey still looks like some sort of hippie socialist mutant. Maybe what's most surprising is how supposedly "shocked" liberals are by another example of how he regularly defies expectations. The guy's been a maverick CEO for what, 25 years? Where the hell have you been?
Personally, I've always found Mackey to be one of the more fascinating, likable characters in a land where heartlessness and a general pissing on the world reign supreme. Yes, I find his health care stance to be idiotic and wrong. But his company's efforts and policies regarding everything from meat production to slaughterhouse conditions to dairy farming, et al? Still rather astonishing.
Whenever a silly furor like this pops up, I go back and do a bit of homework, remind myself of Mackey's -- and Whole Foods' -- track record. Everything I read about the guy indicates he walks the talk, practices what he preaches, is definitely not some ruthless prick of a CEO out to rape the populace for as much power and money and influence as possible while only pretending to give a damn about the health of his employees. He is not, in short, the GOP.
Quite the opposite, in fact: Agree with everything he says or not, he remains one of a tiny handful of major CEOs you can name who has, without a doubt, actually made the world just a little bit better. Deny it at your peril.
Here's the gist: Love it or hate it, Whole Foods has changed the food industry in America for the better. No major food retailer has done more across the board to enact policies and raise awareness of the organic movement overall -- a movement it actually helped create in the first place.
Do you think Walmart, soon to be the largest purveyor of organic food in the country (!), would give a flying capitalist crap about organics had Whole Foods not essentially created a mass market desire for it? Do you think Safeway and Albertson's, et al would have enormous organic departments and green initiatives, or spend millions to redesign their stores to make them less the cold, fluorescent-lit nightmares they once were, had Mackey not essentially invented the new model? Do you even remember what grocery shopping was like 20 short years ago? I mean, dear God.
Look. There will always be those who whine and nitpick about a place like Whole Foods. There will always be a certain strain of overzealous lefties who will never be satisfied, no matter what Mackey (or the Dems, or Obama, or the courts) say or do. Like the religious fundies who were so angry at Bush because he didn't imprison all gays, ban abortion and bring the Rapture, hardcore lefties will always find things to hate about imperfect corporations, simply because they're imperfect corporations.
Do I wish Mackey was all-in for single-payer health care? Do I wish he supported unions? Do I wish he was a bit more in line with some "traditional" liberal positions? Hell yes. But I can also see the bigger picture. I think I see the choices fairly clearly.
On one side, a simply stunning laundry list of things this one company has done to improve the quality of food, food manufacturing and food shopping in this country, right alongside an entire self-created culture of green and organic and healthy. On the other, a handful of questionable, even distasteful policies and CEO personal opinions.
And above it all, another Whole Foods deli that's less like a deli and more like some sort of insane orgiastic sensory-overloaded paean to all things wondrous and delicious and healthy and bountiful on this here planet Earth.
Not a very difficult choice, really.
The original is here.
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