Johnny, We Hardly Knew You

I have enjoyed the few shopping trips I have taken to the nearest Whole Foods market, 55 miles up the road in Omaha, Nebraska and I have appreciated the rise of the company from one health-centered store in Austin, Texas. I have even enjoyed some of the writings of the CEO, John Mackey over the years. The story of his embrace of veganism is nothing short of inspiring. But, oh, Johnny, what on earth has happened to you? Now it's a free country, or reasonable facsimile thereof, and Mr. Mackey can think and say what he wishes, but his recent editorial in the Wall Street Journal brought me up short.

He states:

"Many promoters of health-care reform believe that people have an intrinsic ethical right to health care—to equal access to doctors, medicines and hospitals. While all of us empathize with those who are sick, how can we say that all people have more of an intrinsic right to health care than they have to food or shelter?"

If you read the entire editorial you'll find a chilling case of blaming the victim, blaming the poor for not making better "lifestyle choices" and for not eating a diet which is "a diet consisting of foods that are plant-based, nutrient dense and low-fat" i.e. a diet purchased from Mackey at Whole Foods. How dare people think that not only do they owe society, but society owes them? Even feudal lords took care of their serfs, providing shelter, protection and food in exchange for work and loyalty, however the feudal lords had a sense of noblesse oblige which today's lords of capitalism apparently lack. Does Mackey think that soup kitchens, food pantries, food stamps, homeless shleters and Medicaid are bad ideas - does he think the very corporal works of mercy are bad ideas? (For the non-Catholics reading this, the corporal works of mercy are as follows -

To feed the hungry;
To give drink to the thirsty;
To clothe the naked;
To shelter the shelterless;
To visit the sick;
To ransom the captive;
To bury the dead.

From Catholic Encyclopedia: The Divine command is set forth in the most stringent terms by Christ, and the failure to comply with it is visited with the supreme penalty of eternal damnation (Matthew 25:41): "Then he shall say to them also that shall be on his left hand: Depart from me, you cursed, in everlasting fire which was prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry, and you gave me not to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave me not to drink. I was a stranger, and you took me not in; naked, and you covered me not; sick and in prison, and you did not visit me"...

The audacity of the I've-got-mine nouveau riche such as Mackey, who have aped the attitude of that horrid film, The Secret, is chilling. If you are poor, according to this mindset, it's your own damn fault, and why are you sooo negative, you icky poor person? Mr. Mackey has uttered his "let them eat cake" speech; now let the boycotts fall where they may.

I will stick to my local CSA's, Farmer's Markets, Co-Op and local grocers from here on out.

Gives me the damn willies, it truly does.

Here's a doctor's letter to Mackey on the boycott.

Noonan On Ms. Palin

Miz Moose-hunter has had almost 8 weeks to show us her quality, and has come up pretty much empty handed, says conservative icon Peggy Noonan in the Wall Street Journal. I concur. It's really too bad she isn't a brilliant libertarian who just talks like a common country gal, which is what I originally took her for. Terribly sad, the whole story.

QUOTE Here is a fact of life that is also a fact of politics: You have to hold open the possibility of magic. People can come from nowhere, with modest backgrounds and short résumés, and yet be individuals of real gifts, gifts that had previously been unseen, that had been gleaming quietly under a bushel, and are suddenly revealed. Mrs. Palin came, essentially, from nowhere. But there was a man who came from nowhere, the seeming tool of a political machine, a tidy, narrow, unsophisticated senator appointed to high office and then thrust into power by a careless Franklin D. Roosevelt, whose vanity told him he would live forever. And yet that limited little man was Harry S. Truman. Of the Marshall Plan, of containment. Little Harry was big. He had magic. You have to give people time to show what they have. Because maybe they have magic too.

But we have seen Mrs. Palin on the national stage for seven weeks now, and there is little sign that she has the tools, the equipment, the knowledge or the philosophical grounding one hopes for, and expects, in a holder of high office. She is a person of great ambition, but the question remains: What is the purpose of the ambition? She wants to rise, but what for? For seven weeks I've listened to her, trying to understand if she is Bushian or Reaganite—a spender, to speak briefly, whose political decisions seem untethered to a political philosophy, and whose foreign policy is shaped by a certain emotionalism, or a conservative whose principles are rooted in philosophy, and whose foreign policy leans more toward what might be called romantic realism, and that is speak truth, know America, be America, move diplomatically, respect public opinion, and move within an awareness and appreciation of reality.

But it's unclear whether she is Bushian or Reaganite. She doesn't think aloud. She just . . . says things. UNQUOTE

Noonan On the View From Gate 14

Peggy Noonan, Reagan speechwriter and biographer, Wall Street Journal editorialist and and fine specimen of a conservative (I say this as a CCCLL ~ Catholic Crunchy Con who lists to the Left on environment and toward Libertarian on civil liberty & freedom) has an op-ed piece up today which pegs it exactly right. Her pulse taking is nuanced. Senator Obama would do well to hire her as speechwriter, if she would make the temporary short trip left it might take to write for him, because Peggy understands what it is to love America. And I think she is starting to understand that those who deeply love America are not only ready for change, but demanding it. This current sad caricature of the USA cannot stand.


QUOTE America is in line at the airport. America has its shoes off, is carrying a rubberized bin, is going through a magnetometer. America is worried there is fungus on the floor after a million stockinged feet have walked on it. But America knows not to ask. America is guilty until proved innocent, and no one wants to draw undue attention. America left its ticket and passport in the jacket in the bin in the X-ray machine, and is admonished. America is embarrassed to have put one one-ounce moisturizer too many in the see-through bag. America is irritated that the TSA agent removed its mascara, opened it, put it to her nose, and smelled it. Why don't you put it up your nose and see if it explodes? America thinks. UNQUOTE