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Local activists are urging customers to boycott Whole Foods to protest the company ownership’s opposition to health care reform and organized labor.
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With four stores in Sonoma County, one in Napa and two in Marin, Whole Foods is the dominant purveyor of organic groceries in the North Bay. Georgia Kelly says that joining the boycott has meant disruptions in her personal patterns, but she feels living out her personal values is more important.
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Ben Boyce (left), director of the Living Wage Coalition, contends that while John Mackey is certainly entitled to his own personal beliefs, others who do not share those beliefs have a responsibility not to provide the financial support to perpetuate them.
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"Even in countries like Canada and the U.K., there is no intrinsic right to health care. Rather, citizens in these countries are told by government bureaucrats what health-care treatments they are eligible to receive and when they can receive them. All countries with socialized medicine ration health care by forcing their citizens to wait in lines to receive scarce treatments..." wrote Whole Food CEO John Mackey (right) in his Wall Street Journal essay, "The Whole Foods Alternative to ObamaCare."
"Rather than increase government spending and control, we need to address the root causes of poor health. This begins with the realization that every American adult is responsible for his or her own health." Read the full article here.
Will Shonbrun's response, an Open Letter to Whole Foods Market, was first published in the Empire Report. You can view the main Facebook page supporting the boycott here.
