Taken from a comment elsewhere regarding the "progressive" boycott against
Whole Fields for Mackey speaking his mind:
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Intimidating with a massive boycott is much the same as shouting people down.
You want to put the hurt to Mackey for stating his point of view because it didn't agree with yours. All sorts of excuses why that's okay - he tried to use his brand, he's anti-union,  whatever.

The point is, he said X which is not quite the same as Republican Y, and definitely
not the same as Death Panels and Euthanasia Z.

But to left-wing nutcakes, all ist egal. "He must be punished. He's not single payer,
he's not public option. The rich bastard is worried about costs and not us little
guys in the street without health care."

See what a tough company like Wal-Mart tells you - they're not going to be
writing Op-Eds, thats for sure, especially after watching Mackey have his neck
lopped off. Not to mention companies involved in the health care mess.

You *COULD* try telling Mackey why you disagree in intelligent terms,
coordinate people to *PERSUADE* him to your side of the argument,
since if he's writing Op-Eds, he *MIGHT* be in partial listening mode,
especially if 5000 of his closest friends and customers wrote him in
*SOMEWHAT* polite language with *COHERENT* arguments for specific
details - something that Obama and others have yet to effectively do.
Now, Mackey may not buy it, but he might buy *PART* of the logic
and then promote the parts that he finds make sense - maybe even
writing a followup to WSJ.

But one of the reasons Mackey went from liberal to libertarian is because
he found he was getting shit for trying to do something positive with
health food, that it was always that he didn't do enough for his employees
or customers, that there was no winning. Reinforcing that experience
will not bring any change.

I personally think that universal health coverage is good for employers,
letting them focus on an aspect of business most are not good with,
and freeing good workers to move around to where they're best used
and best equipped, not just being stuck with where they have insurance.
Plus people who have good insurance waste less crucial energy worrying
about that part when they are sick, letting them focus on the illness
and getting better. (I.e. mental health and comfort is an important part
of health)

And if progressives were in the mood to boycott someone, how come it
hasn't been an advertiser on Fox News? How come Rahm tells progressives
to STFU and they say "please sir, may I have another?" How come people
are acting like there's an actual bill with agreed upon content? Something's
weird in the whole scene. They say you can catch more flies with honey,
but everyone knows a flies are more attracted to a bowl of shit.

You would think someone building up a successful Green business from scratch, promoting vegetarian living, healthy foods, bringing it to new neighborhoods across the country would be something of a Progressive hero.

You'd be wrong.

Even before today, John Mackey had fallen out of favor with many progressives because as he notes, "he used to be a "democratic socialist" in college, but when he began a business and barely made money while being accused by workers of not paying them enough and customers of charging too high prices, he began to take a more capitalistic worldview and discovered the works of Ludwig von Mises, Friedrich Hayek and Friedman."

Well, today, Mackey has earned the scorn and ire of the Progressosphere by doing the one thing that leftists cannot tolerate - he expressed his opinion. Not just any opinion - one that disagreed with the common agreed upon wisdom of the left, which is that we need to reform health insurance this year or else, though we don't know exactly what's going to be in it but it won't be single payer or have a public option and Big Pharma contributions will be capped so the industry doesn't suffer too much and whatever else gets watered down in bill writing and in committee and in reconciliation.

You might think that Progressives would be so irate with Obama and Blue Dogs and Rahm Emanuel, who keeps telling them to STFU every few weeks, picketing outside the White House and Congress. But no, we're supposed to boycott an ovo-vegetarian organic food-growing businessman/entrepreneur who brought health food to your neighborhood. (Who has the conch? Kill the Pig! Kill the Pig!)

Mackey is being pilloried for having such "right wing talking points" as "make personal insurance deductible like corporate is", "allow insurance competition across state lines", "take personal responsibility through healthy eating and exercise so you have less chance of getting sick", and "with boomers retiring and fewer paying into the system, we can't afford to keep adding expensive entitlements".

The cheap bastard then goes on to describe his attitude towards insurance - 100% coverage for employees with a high $2500 deductible that Whole Foods provides $1800 yearly for that can be rolled over if unused. It's a wonder the fruit shake makers haven't walked off the job already. And here:

[In 2006 Mackey announced] he would reduce his own salary to $1 a year, donate his stock portfolio to charity and set up a $100,000 emergency fund for staff facing personal problems. ... While CEO of Whole Foods Market in 2008, he earned a total compensation of just $33,831, which included a base salary of $1, and a cash bonus of $33,830.

Another reason progressives are mad at Whole Foods is they've discovered that organic foods are expensive. Who'da thunk it? Having heard once that "the best things in life are free", there's some confusion as to whether a whole grain muffin with organic carrot and radish is *not* one of the best things in life, or they're being overcharged. (After overdosing on a dozen or more Orange-Mango Zooms, I have to vote for the latter - only a good 3 shots of vodka would have improved the experience).

Anyway, not much else to say, I'm just gobsmacked. It's worth perusing the Mackie bio at Wikipedia just for his past - it's short, about 20 seconds, but a few gems, like:

    Whole Foods Market is one of only two Fortune 500 companies listed among the 25 Best Companies to Work For in 2005, a fact which Mackey ascribes to his pro-employee philosophy. He supports non-adversarial unions and advocates their legalization in the U.S. "It's illegal in the United States for there to be company unions -- special unions which are formed and controlled by the employees and managers of the company to represent their interests and collectively bargain on their behalf. These type of unions are legal in many countries such as Japan, but are illegal in the United States. Instead the law requires that all unions be outside unions. I believe this law should be repealed and that company unions should be as legal as any other kind of voluntary association."

Summon up all your outrage, and join the left's version of Town Hall protests, where we tea bag our own.

But it's also rather horrifying to see Progressives try to destroy someone economically for expressing their opinion on a matter that he has no control over. Someone even compared it to Rosa Parks. But what can Mackey do? He's not on Obama's team. He's not a Republican politician or someone with big connections. Pretty much the most he can do is say, "I apologize for expressing my opinion, I won't do it again" and it affects the progress of health reform not one iota. Corporates do this all the time - they don't "censor speech", they just de-employ the person who still supposedly has free (but slightly more impoverished) speech. But meanwhile the villagers are gathering their torches, insistent that this is how free speech is conveyed in more progressive quarters, when Quasimodo has the nerve to say, "But Master...." And when you see Quasi swinging from the belfry, ask not who he tolls for - he tolls for thee.

I know it's been fretting everyone worried about Hillary's unpaid creditors, those little vendors, a year back, but just in case you missed it, as of the end of June, her campaign is finally in the black. Actually she'd paid off everyone but Mark Penn by end of March and only had 4 others left by end of last December (she paid Penn $3 million in the 1st quarter leaving him the sole unpaid creditor at $2.3 million to finish off).

Folks at the NY Times must be relieved since even last June they were fretting that people like John Glenn had taken 20 years to pay off a $3 million debt, and that it would take Hillary years to pay off hers, and even in November there was a flurry of concern that fund-raising would distract from Hillary's new job at State (actually it looks like she's only had Penn to worry about since assuming office). Well, it took a year, but now Clinton can fully focus on her duties and those little creditors can sleep well at night.

Now for those who maintain concern about this type of thing, Rudy Giuliani still owes $2.9 million & Chris Dodd still had $300K to pay as of end of June, and John Edwards still had a $333K debt from 2004. Hard to imagine Edwards being a viable candidate in 2008 with such utter disregard for those little unpaid vendors. Guess that's how politics works.

PS - Hillary's been in Africa this week speaking against corruption, lack of repercussion for torture (hope she makes a talking tour here), lending some support for Africa's only female leader, and of course highlighting the horrific rape conditions in the Congo. And as one blogger notes, continuing our mad destructive self-defeating policy in Somalia.

The question greeted her in the Congo: "Thank you. Mrs. Clinton, we've all heard about the Chinese contracts in this country. The interference is from the World Bank against this contract. What does Mr. Clinton think through the mouth of Ms. Clinton and what does Mr. Mutombo think on this situation? Thank you very much."

How did Politico describe this? "...Clinton's temper flared on Monday when a Congolese university student asked her for her husband's thinking on an international financial matter." Kinda sorta. It doesn't quite reflect the zest & tanginess of "What does Mr. Clinton think through the mouth of Ms. Clinton?"

So when Politico follows with Ms. Clinton's response, ''If you want my opinion, I will tell you my opinion. I am not going to be channeling my husband'' there's not that link of "through the mouth of Ms. Clinton" and "channeling my husband".

One report elsewhere even phrased its story as "what Ms. Clinton thought she heard". Oh my. If you watch the video with the sound up, you know exactly what Ms. Clinton heard - what's written above. Now, there's a question of whether the translator got it wrong. But even so, even if it was "What does Mr. Obama think through the mouth of Ms. Clinton, what does Mr. Mutombo think", the questioner is basically asking Ms. Clinton to just pass on the word of what the dudes think, not give her opinion. Yeah, probably she should have held anger, especially as it over-shadowed her anti-rape message. Imagine those African tours aren't easy, especially with everyone continually asking about your husband just back from North Korea.  

The latest flap about Sarah Palin represents just another example of how Democrats continue to lose - as ReadyToBlowAGasket notes, by not even recognizing the semantic and logical rules at play, and often by just ignoring reality for too long.

TPM does a disservice to readers by not giving background to where Palin's Death Panel reference comes from. It's from a 1996 paper (not 2009 as some contend) by Ezekiel Emanuel, Rahm's brother. It does in fact discuss the differences between basic and discretionary services, and in view of limited resources, what criteria might be used to decide who gets those resources. Jake Tapper discusses:

http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2009/07/when-academic-words-become-political-ammunition-.html

Emanuel doesn't seem to be "advocating" - he is discussing the different ways such a thing happens and what might be more ethical ways of doing this.

The fact is that health insurance companies have these same kind of decision makers, but they're not elected or public officials, they might be simply bean counters looking to guarantee stockholder value, there is no transparency for the public, but someone denied say breast cancer treatment (I believe one of the bloggers over at Firedog had this issue) has no recourse. If it's a government body making this decision, you can raise a fit, call your Senator, sue or start a protest. If it's an insurance company does it, good luck.

But by not giving sources of known information, readers assume Palin's just whacko, and then they give Republican fans an easy retort: "you're deluded, Emanuel says so right here". Bad way of doing business, bad way of arguing. Instead, progressives need to have the facts, and be able to say how many cases are disallowed by insurance companies a year (there were just Senate hearings on this very issue), retroactively labeled as "pre-existing" or other foul practices. But instead, Democrats do what they usually do, go into battle unarmed and get mowed over by self-assured conservatives with a few key facts and a head full of deception.

Now, since Palin is working off of factual information, she's already misrepresented in criticizing her description of a Death Panel. There are already many Death Panels in and out of government. Deep Capture describes how the FDA denied a promising prostate drug treatment due to unethical and likely illegal actions of stock manipulators in the background. The government decides which drugs and treatments it has the resources to test - the rest are pushed aside. Insurance companies decide which treatments are too expensive, often masked with "acceptable lower cost alternatives exist". HIV research and AIDS care was a political hot potato for Death Panels for a number of years, some years going up, some years going down. Death Panels decide on needle exchange programs, sentencing junkies to likely early deaths. Our foreign aid Death Panels for Africa favors AIDS programs over traditional diseases like tuberculosis and malaria, while our Christian fundamentalist influenced Death Panels kill off family planning efforts that would make disease preventing contraception available while exacerbating poverty with appalling death rates. Defunding stem cell research was a direct attack on a number of promising lines of research - I think that decision was made by a Death Panel of 1, George W. Bush.

And as for baby Trig, for most people the insurance companies will have their eye out to have the kid tossed off their insurance rolls as quickly as possible, and once on the pre-existing condition list, Trig will be singing the most famous nursery rhyme since Al Gore sang "Look for the Union Label": Tough Titty Said the Kitty.

The insurance Death Panels also play by procrastination. Treatment and payment delayed means more drop outs, fewer filed claims, fewer consultations. So even that decision of how many operators to leave you waiting on the phone 45 minutes is made up of some kind of cold calculating Angel of Death annualizing the number of minutes on hold per patient that leads to maximal profits without invoking complaints by the corporations that pay the bill (with their insurance payment tax exemptions funded by you, the tax payer - one of the largest expenses in our budget). Oh, hey, forgot that Death Panel - your employer. Remember when they switched insurance plans, saying they'd cut costs and get better service? Did you believe them? Did your service get better? Or did you get a chance to find out, when they downsized and put you on the street where you can't afford the COBRA payments that some Death Panel somewhere in their delusion thought would be affordable.

As Dave Berry might say: "Death Panel: Great Name for a Band. Better Name for an Insurance Racket."