Monday, August 24, 2009

Health Care Food Fight

From the steady diet of invective comes a bite of nostalgia, a reminder of the 1960s when right-minded (that is, left-leaning) people supported California migrant workers by not buying grapes.

Boycotted this time around are the Whole Foods markets whose CEO wrote a Wall Street Journal piece opining, "Health care is a service that we all need, but just like food and shelter it is best provided through voluntary and mutually beneficial market exchanges. A careful reading of both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution will not reveal any intrinsic right to health care, food or shelter. That's because there isn't any."

Lovers of organic food and the public option rallied online asking supporters to stop "voluntary and mutually beneficial exchanges" with the health-food chain, claiming that “Whole Foods has built its brand with the dollars of deceived progressives.”

This may not be exactly what the President has in mind when urging diet discrimination and exercise to keep down health care costs, but for one shopper, the boycott will pose no hardship. Visits to Whole Foods have always reminded me of what Jimmy Durante said when asked if wheat germ and yogurt made you live longer: "Naw, but it sure seems longer."

Whatever their political opinions, I'll stick with Trader Joe's.

1 comment:

Fuzzy Slippers said...

Boycotts to correct or put pressure on companies that are exploiting people seems like an important political statement.

Boycotts to "correct" someone who holds a different opinion than you do smacks of a petulant temper tantrum. I felt the same way when the right was gung-ho to boycott Ford for advertising in gay magazines. Who gets hurt? The worker who need their jobs to pay their rent. Short-sighted, narrow-mindedness is ugly on both sides of the political fence.