What, no “shorter Douhat”? Today’s is a real gem, and needs your subtle interpretation. Please?

i second the shithead douhat request for expansion and enlightenment ..

Just, fuck you, MM. Really. Fuck you and your BBQ’ing jerk of a fiance, too. You are a blight upon humanity.

Oh, and I third a shorter Douthat request. I can’t bear to read him, but I NEED to know what he is up to–kinda like always keeping the bogeyman in sight.

By the way, anyone see JDM3 lately? I miss the lyrical poet of this site.

Good God, her argument is stupid on at least five different levels. Not the least of which is that she *does* know, doesn’t she, that France is a country? And Whole Foods is, you know, just another store.

I suppose it would be pointless to point out to McCurdle that had I chosen to boycott “the French,” that country is thousands of miles away, whereas Whole Foods is the nearest supermarket to my house? And that ze Frennnch folk–as a destination, or even as a product–aren’t as formerly-everyday an item here at Casa Biscuitbarrel as, say, a banana? Go away, Megan, or I shall taunt you a second time!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9V7zbWNznbs

ha ha ha .. you shall taunt her a second time eh ?? lol .. as for me .. i shall merely fart in her general di-rection …

Lasted about four weeks, until everyone figured out that this meant foregoing Dannon yogurt and Mephisto sandals, and spending hours looking for a decent American brie.

The overlap between “French Boycott” and “everyone” and “Dannon yogurt and Mephisto sandals” and “spent hours looking for a decent American brie” pretty much begins and ends at the ends of her fingers. My only surprise is that she didn’t include Louis Vitton in there.

If you actually look at the op-ed piece, it’s not evil, just incredibly stupid. That’s assuming he actually believes the crap he proposes. If he isn’t that stupid, then yes, it’s evil.

I have serious misgivings about the whole boycott thing anyway. It’s largely consumer masturbation — really only satisfying the person doing the boycotting and their smug sense of “really making a huge difference.” No doubt Whole Foods will survive the mass exodus of liberal organic salsa shoppers — it’ll just leave more room for the “hidden majority” of hardcore conservative shoppers, like McMegan and her ilk, as they peruse the isles for some bespoke arugula and cappuccino… Who’s the fucking hypocrite here, McM?

Huh, for the longest time I always thought Whole Foods was the discount supermarket chain that was located in every poor neighborhood.

As with the French boycott, this is one I don’t have to participate in, for I am not sure there is anything that I purchase that is made in France, while I can honestly say I have never made a purchase at a Whole Foods market and now is not a time to start.

Now if you are a snooty fuckhead American like myself, you buy your cheese from these folks, who aren’t even close to being French, just two big bull dykes who make goats happier than Mickey Kaus could ever hope …

(Is Pabst Blue Ribbon French beer?)

here’s the fucking link already, goddamn TBogg and his goddamned website, prolly hates America and goats.

http://www.cypressgrovechevre……n_3.0.html

WTF are Mephisto Sandals? I tie Banana leaves to my feet, and I like it.

So…we’re all powerless consumers who have to shop at places like Whole Foods because do to otherwise is just ineffectual and useless? How is boycotting it any more smug than shopping at Whole Foods to begin with? What on Earth is wrong with it, other than it offends your refined sensibilities for some reason?

It may not be a huge choice, but it’s a choice. You get enough of us smug liberal organic salsa shoppers making the same choice, you can start to impact their bottom line, which is the only damn thing that matters to fucks like Mackey anyway.

Humboldt–

Pabst Cordon Bleu. Ask for it by name. And then don’t buy it!

Whoa, geez, easy there. No, of course we don’t have to shop at Whole Foods. I don’t think it’s smug to shop at Whole Foods to begin with — I don’t have one within a hundred miles of my house, but I do rather like the place.

My “refined sensibilities” aren’t offended by the notion of a boycott at all (in truth, they’re not even all that refined), I’m just saying that in a case like this, I sincerely doubt it’s going to very be effective to make the connection between the CEO’s stupid editorial and the refusal a few people to come shopping.

There are lots of better places to shop anyway (my local farm stand & independent grocer) — places I should be shopping instead of Whole Foods, irrespective of the policies of their CEO. On the other hand, the quality of the food at Whole Foods is a lot better than what you find at your average crappy supermarket. So, really, you get to pick your battle — maybe you can have your organic salsa *and* work for change, too; that’ll probably get more people on board. Or you can just throw your organic salsa at me (leave the lid on tight, will ya?) — whatever floats your boat.

until everyone figured out that this meant … spending hours looking for a decent American brie

Well at least now we know what she did with the time she should have spent reading up on the subjects in which she is supposedly an expert.

But seriously, Megan McArdle is SUCH a dick. Like so much of her absurd output, this foolishness is not really meant to make or support an argument, it’s meant to show off her social class and supposedly elite tastes. She doesn’t give a shit what we think of her polemics, and will put up with all kinds of mockery/abuse (and perhaps she is even inviting it with this), as long as we recognize that she is Not Poor and she knows What’s Good and What’s Not. We can despise her all we want, it doesn’t matter, because she has forced us to see that she has Superior consumer sensibilities and partakes of the offhand speech patterns of the Leisure Class (…”simply HOURS to find a DEEEE-CENT Brie, dahling!”).

Demonstrating her stratum is infinitely more important to Meggie than demonstrating a grasp of facts. Disgusting.

Whole Foods does a good job of creating a pleasant shopping environment, and they have a good selection of products, albeit at extremely inflated prices. I have my own personal reasons for not shopping at WF, but I had been softening on it a bit even shopping there a few times in the last year. I’m never fucking going back. I don’t want to support that fucking Randian jackass who is the CEO.

I suspect the only person McArdle is talking about is herself. She’s all for living up to her ideals as long as it doesn’t take any effort.

Fair enough, but this: It’s largely consumer masturbation — really only satisfying the person doing the boycotting and their smug sense of “really making a huge difference.” is a long way from the inarguable thing you just wrote. First because boycotts do work and few who engage in them really think they make a “huge” difference, just some difference. Collectively, that makes a big difference.

And I don’t shop at Whole Foods for the most part because I find the quality incredibly overrated, I’m not fully on the mega-organic bandwagon, they’re too expensive, there are better places that are cheaper, other expensive places that are better and still other places that are unionized where I prefer to spend my lucre. Better still, from the smaller joints to the larger chains I do shop at, I don’t know their CEO and I rather like it that way.

There’s no Whole Foods nor anyone French within a hundred miles of me, so I can boycott both without doing anything I wouldn’t do otherwise. This, I believe, pretty much sums up glibertarian activism.

Oh, and shorter Douthat’s column: “Pay no attention to the profit-taking, wasteful overhead of our private insurance industry. If Obama wants to save health care dollars, that means cutting off grandma’s life support.”

If Mackey thought it wasn’t going to be a problem, it’s odd that he didn’t show how confident he was by, say, not selling a big block of his stock right before his piece appeared.

So, the only way to be an activist now is by *not* shopping at Whole Foods? You must really be lacking imagination if you have to wait around for the CEO of your local chain store to write an op ed in the WSJ before you can think of anything to do. I’m trying to get this: According to jaybrida Whole Foods is really all about the bottom line anyway, and that’s bad — so why shop there in the first place? On the other hand, where are you going to shop instead — as far as I know, most retailers are about the bottom line, otherwise they pretty soon go out of business. What if the next store is great on health care, but happens to run by rabid X-tians who actively supported Prop. 8? And if there was a better option than bottom-line fixated Whole Foods available all along, then who’s the glibertarian for not shopping there in the first place?

Now, I happen to buy most of my stuff at my local co-op, of which I’m also one of the owners. If there’s something I’m unhappy about I can go to the shareholders meeting (or knock on the manager’s door) and express my concerns. But you’re right, of course: it’s so damn glibertarian to pro-actively go out and find a better food source. Much better to conveniently ignore that big retail is all about the bottom line (disguised as an organic salsa lovers paradise or not) and then feign outrage when the CEO declares as much in public. Bully for you, you’ve clearly got the activism shtick completely covered.

I’m trying to get this: According to jaybrida Whole Foods is really all about the bottom line anyway, and that’s bad — so why shop there in the first place?

I didn’t say it was bad. I said it’s the only thing that matters to them, which seems pretty obvious. If that’s what ultimately it’s about, then isn’t the consumer’s only way to reach them through negatively impacting it?

You’ve also created an entire straw universe out of my earnest outrage AND Dr. BDH’s obvious joke.

No; take your business somewhere more preferable because you want to make a positive difference with your $$$, not simply to spite the CEO of some random corp who happened to say in public what we all know to be true. My gripe was with the sensationalist knee-jerk “Ooh, let’s boycott the fuckers” reaction as opposed to a determined change in consumer habits that’ll empower us all along with our local vendors of quality food. The change may well happen at the expense of big retailers, but that’s not the main point. Is “the consumer’s only way to reach them” shopping elsewhere? Nah, I really don’t think so.

Is that organic straw, humanely harvested? I mean, I want to know, because if it’s not I’m never shopping here again.

This.

No; take your business somewhere more preferable because you want to make a positive difference with your $$$, not simply to spite the CEO of some random corp who happened to say in public what we all know to be true.

?

What Mackey wrote was particularly untrue, from my perspective — and as JuliaGrey noted, it’s possible he had a sense of what was coming before he said it. But regardless of that, I don’t really understand the difference between taking one’s business more preferable and taking it away from somewhere less preferable because of the person who runs it. It’s a zero-sum decision irrespective of rationale. If I spend money there, I don’t spend it elsewhere and vice versa. Certainly, the politics of a place can, indeed, play a role in where I spend my money. I don’t think that’s masturbatory — I don’t owe any store my money — and I don’t think it’s the only factor, but one of many.

And I don’t see Whole Foods as even a model grocery store in terms of the health care crisis in this country (they hardly exist in places where they would have the most positive impact for good financial reasons I’m sure, but still, it’s not worth supporting, in my opinion), but they are pretty good at featuring local vendors. But even there, in the market, comes an opportunity for other stores who can take advantage of consumer dissatisfaction toward the CEO and become more open to local producers. That’s how the market works.

Now, I live in California and have a wealth of options and I can get nearly everything they offer at Whole Foods somewhere else, almost always for less (or direct from the farmer) — but I still don’t see how consumer behavior doesn’t change businesses.

Re Whole Foods, my son worked there while in school, and he was impressed with the way Brazilian (the major minority group here) employees were treated. When there was a general meeting, there was a running translation for those whose english wasn’t up to speed, and there were ESL classes with certificates and applause for those who had done well in them.

Eh, I never shopped there in the first place as I prefer the local co-ops.

I guess we agree, then: the market works, and consumer behavior can indeed change business. I’m just advocating pro-actively putting your money where it’ll do good ahead of re-actively withholding it from places with which you disagree. I think it gets you more bang for your buck, literally (just like actively spending money is a better stimulus in a recession than a tax cut).

With the “positive” approach, you’re driving the market by actively and specifically seeking out and supporting the vendor you want; with the “negative” approach you’re hoping that your sudden lack of shopping will send a clear message to the grumpy CEO a million miles away. YMMV. I’ll go back to being glib now. (I like my straw universe; a little scratchy, but very comfy.)

Well I’ll be boycotting, but that’s only because I don’t shop at scab grocery stores if at all possible. But we’ve already lost Jeralyn at TalkLeft and just about everybody else who actually shops there.

Here in St. Paul the UFCW picketed Trader Joe’s for being non-union and the parking lot was packed full of Volvos and Lexuses with Obama bumperstickers.

Fuck it. Tonight’s the 36th anniversary of my hiring on at unionized tire plant and I’m drinking to forget the beatings we took on every contract after my hiring. Thank god they laid me off nine years later.

I do my shopping at Walmart where I can get low prices and great value.

D! Long time no see!

Once again as always, you add such “great value” to the conversations here, and we all know the price is low, so thank you for being the loss leader. Always. Also. Or something.

Not so sure that she’s worked out that difference yet… Country/store. Hmmmm…. Which would be easier to boycott??? Damn… that’s a toughie….

I have serious misgivings about the whole boycott thing anyway.

I’m an old enough fart to remember Cesar Chavez and his boycott. Which did work.

If you need the City of Paris, there’s only one.
If you need organic lettuce, there are options.

Someone should explain free market capitalism to Megs; and while they’re at it, throw in a geography lesson.

Btw, for those who aren’t aware, the CEO of Whole Foods admitted, “We Sell a Bunch of Junk.” See the Organic Consumers Association.

In the immortal words of PeeWee Herman…

“Everyone always has a big boy cot.”
http://davistent.com/davisTent/html/Cots.html

Hmmmm….maybe that’s why so many Repubs lurve the boy cot, being closeted and all…I mean, did you see those fine, strapping men?!?! Starburts. Also.

I don’t see why McMegan would be so negative about boycotts as a tactic.

After all, McMegan’s boycott of intelligence and sanity has worked like a charm! Okay, okay, the Universe hasn’t quite capitulated yet, but the MSM has, so … WOLVERINES! Also.

I thought The Atlantic stopped allowing employees to smoke week while on the job after Reagan became President…………………..

Call me elitist, but I have Mephisto sandals, purchased in Paris (on sale, though). To hammer home Tbogg’s point, it’s really hard to imagine Bill O”Reilly’s audience knowing of Mephisto sandals, much less wearing them, which proves once again that MM is a dope.