Froofy Lefty John Mackay opposes healthcare reform
Posted: Tue Aug 18, 2009 1:47 am
Friends,
As many of you know, I have engaged repeatedly in a war against what I call "froofy" lefties. What I mean by that term is the "new" left, as opposed to the "old" left, that arose amongst the affluent baby boomers during America's postwar, post-industrial economic golden age of unprecedented economic prosperity. Where the old left was always equated with the Enlightenment, with science, and specifically concerned with the working class, indeed was mostly working class, these "new" lefties were predominantly the product of middle class affluence. They are and were middle class, and unsurprisingly, have been mostly occupied with middle class concerns. Thus, I argue, many of them are not 'left' at all. This is not merely semantics, it is based on the history of ideology. Words mean things, or they used to before our era of new left relativism.
Here is a perfect example of what I am talking about. Last week John Mackey, evil corporate overlord of Whole Foods Market Inc., the store that sells "organic," "natural," hippy dippy foods to millions to the tune of billions of dollars, came out in opposition to healthcare reform on the pages of the Wall Street Journal, of all places, leading with an anti-old left quote from-get this- Margaret Thatcher!!
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142 ... 65070.html
Rush Limbaugh couldn't have said it better.
Sounding just like a reactionary Republican, Mackay advocates more free market solutions to the healthcare problem. Surprise, surprise, surprise! I have long maintained that the new froofy left, is not. He's a great example. Read the article. I especially like where he goes food fascist arguing, almost, that poor people are too fat and cost too much, so they should, presumably, shop more at his store. As if poor and working class people could afford to eat like the upper crust do. Brilliant. And reactionary. Ever wonder why more poor people are overweight? Mere coincidence? Hardly. Or maybe they are just ignorant wretches who get the fate they deserve for being so stupid, eh Mr. Mackay?? But I digress...
But it just gets better and better with this asshole. Seems he used to call himself a "lefty" until, after trying to pick up chicks by turning vegetarian, he went into business. Then he decided to look for a more palatable philosophy, or at least a more prosperous one. So he turned to the holy prophets of free market capitalism (NOT something the old left would even consider), and found his answers with Hayek, Ayn Rand, et al. Man.
Whole foods is huge, and growing, catering to do gooder new left yuppies with his bourgeois products. He says he manages with "love" and respect and ends every "team" meeting with his "stakeholders" (employees or proletariat for those unaccustomed to froofy talk) by making sure everyone says something nice to each other. Isn't that fucking sweet? He wasn't so sweet when his employees did a VERY "old" lefty thing, and organized a union in his store in Wisconsin a few years back. He succeeded in crushing it. So much for love. As a working class person myself, and the son of a Teamster, I'd just as soon piss on Whole Foods Market Incorporated than spend $8 for an happy organic artichoke! Maybe its when he equates Unions to herpes that finally made up my mind on this point. Check it out:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/ ... k.organics
"Peace, Love, and Profit." Man you have to love the Brits.
But it gets even better. Mackey gets an A+ in crazy intellectual inconsistencies. In an interview with some ardent pro-capitalist Libertarians, he acknowledges his ideological transformation after making big bucks, and his flirtation with Libertarianism. It reminds me of this really nice froofy lefty kid I befriended, and thousands of others I saw on campus, who think of themselves as 'left' but supported Ron Paul for President. I'm pretty sure they were mostly impressed with his stance on legalizing dope, more than anything else. Anyway, I made her a tad bit angry, when I insulted her hero Ron Paul, by pointing out that it took a genuine moron, or a diabolically evil man to say, on Martin Luther King Day, that HE knew the dangers of big government. WHAT? The only reason blacks were able to attain equality was because Big Government provided it at the expense of racist southerners screaming "States Rights." Unbelievable. Apparently she had never heard of the Civil Rights Act, the Civil War, the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments to the Constitution, all enacted by a big bad Federal Government in an attempt to prevent states rights southerners from trampling all over blacks...and their freedoms. Being an historian gives me ulcers. That girl no longer likes to debate with me.
But the best part is when Mackay, like millions of other froofy lefties of the "new left" variety, shows how these people are no longer in any way associated with the hallmark of left wing ideology based in the Enlightenment Project by talking about the "life force value" of "organic" food. All after saying he was not anti-science, and getting a lot of history and science wrong in the first place. Can anyone tell me what this crazy shit means? Does he think tomato's have souls? Do they walk on water and spring forth from virgins as well? It's all very confusing to me. Mackay studied philosophy and theology, but didn't finish. As a holder of a philosophy degree myself, I'd venture to guess he would have never passed basic logic anyway. What the hell is the "chi" of food? So much for the Enlightenment.
http://www.endervidualism.com/salon/intvw/mackey.htm
Just look at those inconsistencies. But then, as Mackay says, and many froofies believe, "Why is it important to monolithically consistent?" He's paraphrasing Judith Butler here, a froofy lefty post-modern feminist who's book I had to suffer through in a grad seminar. She argued that consistency and clarity were reactionary values before then arguing that biological sex differences between men and women were social constructs! Oh, and that there is no truth. Except, presumably, hers. Why else would she write a book?
These people are crazy and not "left". They remind me of a couple I saw just the other day at a coffee shop who sported a bumper sticker on their laptop that said, "This is Sarah Palin Country" on one side and "Bob Dylan" on the other. Indeed. Froofy lefties have abandoned reason and science, thus the Enlightenment project, which was the very definition of "left" until they got a hold of it. And they have abandoned the working class. In fact, they are not Humanists at all. They are much much more concerned with their own personal space than anything else. They are infused with bourgeois values through and through and through. There used to be a word for such people. It was "Conservative."
Rants? Objections? A list of demands?
Oh wait, I just found this, it gets EVEN better: Other froofies are responding to Mackay's anti-healthcare reform rant. They are shocked, shocked, that he would do such a thing, and some are planning to boycott Froofy Foods...I mean Whole Foods. But alas, some defend him for being so nice and philanthropic, and making big corporations...nicer. That ain't "left" man. It's froofy.
But I suppose if yuppies who can afford to shop at his stores, and do so despite his virulent anti-unionism, boycott it, the world will be a much, much better place. Sheesh.
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/20 ... ods-fight/
Sorry folks, a long rant. But I've been stuck on this issue for a long time now. In fact, some of these things occupied much of my thoughts as I finished my Master's Thesis this summer.
Tony Red
As many of you know, I have engaged repeatedly in a war against what I call "froofy" lefties. What I mean by that term is the "new" left, as opposed to the "old" left, that arose amongst the affluent baby boomers during America's postwar, post-industrial economic golden age of unprecedented economic prosperity. Where the old left was always equated with the Enlightenment, with science, and specifically concerned with the working class, indeed was mostly working class, these "new" lefties were predominantly the product of middle class affluence. They are and were middle class, and unsurprisingly, have been mostly occupied with middle class concerns. Thus, I argue, many of them are not 'left' at all. This is not merely semantics, it is based on the history of ideology. Words mean things, or they used to before our era of new left relativism.
Here is a perfect example of what I am talking about. Last week John Mackey, evil corporate overlord of Whole Foods Market Inc., the store that sells "organic," "natural," hippy dippy foods to millions to the tune of billions of dollars, came out in opposition to healthcare reform on the pages of the Wall Street Journal, of all places, leading with an anti-old left quote from-get this- Margaret Thatcher!!
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142 ... 65070.html
Rush Limbaugh couldn't have said it better.
Sounding just like a reactionary Republican, Mackay advocates more free market solutions to the healthcare problem. Surprise, surprise, surprise! I have long maintained that the new froofy left, is not. He's a great example. Read the article. I especially like where he goes food fascist arguing, almost, that poor people are too fat and cost too much, so they should, presumably, shop more at his store. As if poor and working class people could afford to eat like the upper crust do. Brilliant. And reactionary. Ever wonder why more poor people are overweight? Mere coincidence? Hardly. Or maybe they are just ignorant wretches who get the fate they deserve for being so stupid, eh Mr. Mackay?? But I digress...
But it just gets better and better with this asshole. Seems he used to call himself a "lefty" until, after trying to pick up chicks by turning vegetarian, he went into business. Then he decided to look for a more palatable philosophy, or at least a more prosperous one. So he turned to the holy prophets of free market capitalism (NOT something the old left would even consider), and found his answers with Hayek, Ayn Rand, et al. Man.
Whole foods is huge, and growing, catering to do gooder new left yuppies with his bourgeois products. He says he manages with "love" and respect and ends every "team" meeting with his "stakeholders" (employees or proletariat for those unaccustomed to froofy talk) by making sure everyone says something nice to each other. Isn't that fucking sweet? He wasn't so sweet when his employees did a VERY "old" lefty thing, and organized a union in his store in Wisconsin a few years back. He succeeded in crushing it. So much for love. As a working class person myself, and the son of a Teamster, I'd just as soon piss on Whole Foods Market Incorporated than spend $8 for an happy organic artichoke! Maybe its when he equates Unions to herpes that finally made up my mind on this point. Check it out:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/ ... k.organics
"Peace, Love, and Profit." Man you have to love the Brits.
But it gets even better. Mackey gets an A+ in crazy intellectual inconsistencies. In an interview with some ardent pro-capitalist Libertarians, he acknowledges his ideological transformation after making big bucks, and his flirtation with Libertarianism. It reminds me of this really nice froofy lefty kid I befriended, and thousands of others I saw on campus, who think of themselves as 'left' but supported Ron Paul for President. I'm pretty sure they were mostly impressed with his stance on legalizing dope, more than anything else. Anyway, I made her a tad bit angry, when I insulted her hero Ron Paul, by pointing out that it took a genuine moron, or a diabolically evil man to say, on Martin Luther King Day, that HE knew the dangers of big government. WHAT? The only reason blacks were able to attain equality was because Big Government provided it at the expense of racist southerners screaming "States Rights." Unbelievable. Apparently she had never heard of the Civil Rights Act, the Civil War, the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments to the Constitution, all enacted by a big bad Federal Government in an attempt to prevent states rights southerners from trampling all over blacks...and their freedoms. Being an historian gives me ulcers. That girl no longer likes to debate with me.
But the best part is when Mackay, like millions of other froofy lefties of the "new left" variety, shows how these people are no longer in any way associated with the hallmark of left wing ideology based in the Enlightenment Project by talking about the "life force value" of "organic" food. All after saying he was not anti-science, and getting a lot of history and science wrong in the first place. Can anyone tell me what this crazy shit means? Does he think tomato's have souls? Do they walk on water and spring forth from virgins as well? It's all very confusing to me. Mackay studied philosophy and theology, but didn't finish. As a holder of a philosophy degree myself, I'd venture to guess he would have never passed basic logic anyway. What the hell is the "chi" of food? So much for the Enlightenment.
http://www.endervidualism.com/salon/intvw/mackey.htm
Just look at those inconsistencies. But then, as Mackay says, and many froofies believe, "Why is it important to monolithically consistent?" He's paraphrasing Judith Butler here, a froofy lefty post-modern feminist who's book I had to suffer through in a grad seminar. She argued that consistency and clarity were reactionary values before then arguing that biological sex differences between men and women were social constructs! Oh, and that there is no truth. Except, presumably, hers. Why else would she write a book?
These people are crazy and not "left". They remind me of a couple I saw just the other day at a coffee shop who sported a bumper sticker on their laptop that said, "This is Sarah Palin Country" on one side and "Bob Dylan" on the other. Indeed. Froofy lefties have abandoned reason and science, thus the Enlightenment project, which was the very definition of "left" until they got a hold of it. And they have abandoned the working class. In fact, they are not Humanists at all. They are much much more concerned with their own personal space than anything else. They are infused with bourgeois values through and through and through. There used to be a word for such people. It was "Conservative."
Rants? Objections? A list of demands?
Oh wait, I just found this, it gets EVEN better: Other froofies are responding to Mackay's anti-healthcare reform rant. They are shocked, shocked, that he would do such a thing, and some are planning to boycott Froofy Foods...I mean Whole Foods. But alas, some defend him for being so nice and philanthropic, and making big corporations...nicer. That ain't "left" man. It's froofy.
But I suppose if yuppies who can afford to shop at his stores, and do so despite his virulent anti-unionism, boycott it, the world will be a much, much better place. Sheesh.
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/20 ... ods-fight/
Sorry folks, a long rant. But I've been stuck on this issue for a long time now. In fact, some of these things occupied much of my thoughts as I finished my Master's Thesis this summer.
Tony Red