Mukherjee writes: "In an interview with NPR, Whole Foods CEO and self-professed libertarian John Mackey revived his previous criticism of Obamacare - but this time, with a new twist."
John Mackey, the CEO of Whole Foods. (photo: Whole Foods)
Whole Foods CEO: Obamacare Is 'Like Fascism'
17 January 13
n an interview with NPR, Whole Foods CEO and self-professed libertarian John Mackey revived his previous criticism of Obamacare - but this time, with a new twist. While Mackey incorrectly denounced the landmark health reform law as "socialism" in a controversial 2009 Wall Street Journal op-ed, the multimillionaire CEO has revised his assessment and now considers Obamacare - also incorrectly - to be closer to "fascism":
"Technically speaking, it's more like fascism. Socialism is where the government owns the means of production. In fascism, the government doesn't own the means of production, but they do control it, and that's what's happening with our healthcare programs and these reforms."
Although fascist nations do often control their "means of production," Mackey seems to have forgotten that they usually utilize warfare, forced mass mobilization of the public, and politically-motivated violence against their own peoples to achieve their ends. By contrast, Obamacare regulates some of the insurance industry's shoddiest practices and imposes a small tax penalty on Americans who refuse to purchase government-subsidized private insurance.
That hasn't stopped other conservative critics of Obamacare from making similar statements. In 2011, former Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum decried that America was falling into the throes of fascism, and that the health reform law was the "final death knell."
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Comments
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Wrong on this. Obama actually DID say something. He declared Manning "guilty" in advance of trial. With the retributional strength and inherent credibility of the office of POTUS, a "fair" trial is now utterly impossible.
You have to forgive conservatives. They are wired in such a way as to disbelieve truth that doesn't favor their positions but to believe lies that do, no matter how absurd those lies are. Had I known when I was in high school I'd have only gone out with Republican girls since they seem to believe the most ridiculous lies. ;o)
Mackeys talking ponts are ..."a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing."
It is the insurance industry lobby that needs to be fought.
http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/15575-aaron-swartz-prosecutors-need-to-be-held-accountable
Bottom line is our version of America, as many of us now experience it, has many features of fascism as it has been historically known. It may not have outward violence on a mass scale, but after seeing the police state crack down on Occupy it is hard to argue that mass violence against the people is not possible. It is hard to argue it would not happen if unrest were to break out on a mass scale. I would argue the only reason it has not happened is because the masses are so busy trying to attain the American dream and most of the media is busy distracting them with coverage of nonsense like the Kardashians while in the background our civil rights are being eroded. Waking up to the reality that the government knows everything about everyone is pretty scary when you also think about what kind of power they have of selective prosecution and persecution. Freedom is starting to look a lot like a right reserved for corporate persons. I would argue that is fascism.
You pay your monthly premium - to the for profit 'health insurance' scam - and they use your money to invest it in stocks, bonds, hedge funds, etc. for their profit.
The game is to use your money for their investment profit - and profit is the game not you getting 'health care'.
'Health insurance' criminals make up the language and rules - so that they don't have to pay out to you and lose those profits they're making. Profit is more important than you.
'pre-existing conditions' - of course you have them - when you were born you came with them.
Health care is your right not the psychopathic republican rant that it's a privilege.
All of you will need health care at some time in your life. It comes with the territory of being human.
If you are a country, a community of citizens, then you recognize health care as a necessity for all the citizens.
It's a great profession; aiding your fellow humans with regaining and maintaining health and it's a massive employer as well.
Health care should be the focus not the waste and health destruction of military spending.
If you make health care access based upon money, profit, class status, then you are fascist and you have no country.
At least Obama's plan would finally put health records into a database where they belong. As it is, it's now way too easy for "health care" companies to lose your paperwork, and doctors can't communicate amongst each other without some way of linking up the records.
But the main thing is that we should not be forced to deal with these issues on the phone, working through phone trees, with people who are limited in the amount of time they can spend to help you, who get financial incentives for denying care. That is fascism.
add to that Obama's bailouts of the financial industry clearly he is the biggest fascist the world has ever seen
Yes,
Obama and his minions do fit that profile.
And you may be the least credible person the world has ever seen. And the bailout began under Bush.
ANd I suppose you were just as irate about the bank bailouts under Bush, the Medicare Part D Drug Plan that Congress and Bush passed that was written by drug company lobbyists, and please tell me are you equally outraged by the corporate welfare in the form of subsidies given to oil/gas companies which the Repubs in Congress refused to eliminate?
I suspect no - because somehow it's all about Obama. All that other stuff doesn't count.
"...the industry's spin worked as intended. The new law does NOT include the public option the president once said was essential "to keep the insurance companies honest" - and it DOES include a provision that candidate Obama was adamantly opposed to: a mandate that all Americans not eligible for an existing public program buy coverage from a private insurer.
Candidate Obama said during the campaign that he did not think people should be forced to buy insurance they could not afford.
The insurance industry and many members of Congress persuaded President Obama to change his mind. As a result, insurers will get billions of dollars in new revenues from people required by law to buy their products and billions more from the government to subsidize premiums for people who can't afford them..."
.
You said it perfectly. Seems funny to me that those that cry Fascism here are more likely to be Fascists themselves. They need to check a good dictonary instead of throwing about terms they don't know the definition of, oops ended on a preposition.
If you believe that there is no such thing as a greater good, and that corporate America has no responsibility in return for such amazing opportunity, then you have lost my vote (my dollars).
How ironic that your store appeals to people who are socially conscious. Your own audience will largely feel differently about you and your product. Go it alone if that's what you so clearly want.
A gentleman delivered wood to our place today. He has a cancerous growth behind one ear. We know it's cancer because of experience. He doesn't have health insurance because he got laid off 4 years ago and his wife doesn't have health insurance where she works because they keep hours below 40 so benefits are never provided. This is not going to bode well for this family, I fear.
Not haveing access to health care is pre-meditated murder as far as I'm concerned.
I promised to keep him in my heart and prayers, and promised him I'd keep on opening my mouth and blogging for HEALTHCARE NOT WARFARE.
Healthcare for all = socialism? Sorry, but I honestly believe such care is more truthfully labeled as humanitarianism , pointed out to us emphatically as the way to go by an extremely humanitarian man/God named Jesus.
And then there's the example that beloved Jesus set for us all, when he booted the money grabbers out of the temple. Lots and lots of such corporate, money grabbing temples we've got these so troubled days, including it appears, an eating temple called Whole Foods.
Insurance companies will let you die when they refuse to pay for life saving measures, because other people have to make a profit of the insurance. TOTALLY IMMORAL. Health insurance should never be for profit.
John Mackey is a royal fake. The products in his stores are quite a bit more expensive, than products from other supermarkets, because they supposedly are wholesome and organic.
WEEEELL read carefully. Some frozen vegetables are from CHINA??? If you believe they are organic,...I have some swampland for you.
He may be one of the employers cutting employee's hours so he doesn't have to pay for health insurance. He need some ore millions.
Whole Foods was also one of the Big "Natural" Food companies who wanted to make a "truce" with GMO's and stop fighting to get them labeled. He's a right wing kook who identifies himself as a libertarian.
"CEO John Mackey has reportedly claimed that "the jury is still out" on whether genetically engineered crops and foods are unhealthy for people or the environment. (Mackey also has statedhttp://ww w.newyorker.com "no scientific consensus exists" to support global warming or climate change)."
http://www.naturalnews.com/037478_whole_foods_gmo_truth.html#ixzz2IWuFcrGm
New Leaf's website even educates people about GMO's and how to avoid them.
Half Foods would never take such a position.
Being a MOTHER...If you have given birth to a child...you have a preexisting condition....If you have been treated for skin problems...You guessed it,..another preexisting condition, any other minor thing will prevent you from getting insurance, if you were to try to get it on your own.
With the new Affordable Care Act, (Obama Care) you will not be excluded. They have to take you...BUT you still may not be able to afford it. I do not know if you can get any help, (monetary)
That is what my son in Law calls it too.
You may have read my comment above about this exploiter. He really takes the cake.
What a jerk!
Isn't there anyone decent left in corporate America? Or is that too much to hope for?
Can't wait to leave this godforsaken country.
Social security is DEFINITELY socialism
Medicare is DEFINITELY socialism
Medicaid is DEFINITELY socialism
Most of the laws that protect the general public can arguably be considered socialism, but I seriously doubt any of us would want to get rid of all of them.
Calling something socialism seems to be the current conservative response to any change that benefits someone other than the wealthy or the extremely lucky.
(drumroll) "SOCIALISM"!!!
OMG run for the hills!
Who cares what label you put on it?
Social Security is socialism. Do you want to get rid of that, too?
Medicare is socialism. Do you want to get rid of that, too?
Medicaid is socialism
I could go on and on. Why don't you judge the change on its merits?
What?? He takes good care of his employees? I guess your definition of good care is a little different than mine,. I believe he pays them a starting salary of $10.00 an hour, you try to live on that. With such low pay he should buy them health insurance. How many homes and cars does one person need? How about boats, planes etc.
I will never shop in Whole foods again and plan to ask friends not to either. Piggy. If giving health care is socialism I say bring it on! I am sure citizens of northern europe are the lucky ones! The Danes are the happiest people in the world and they have socialism.
The Danes may not be the HAPPIEST people in the world, but they are content, for middle class people have very good lives. They have nice homes, not lavish mansions but nice and comfortable, and they can take vacations in southern Europe and here.
The child care is for much better than ours, and NOBODY goes bankrupt if they get ill. They are also much better educated than we are here. Again education is free, so nobody starts out with a big debt.
I was in Denmark and Norway last summer, so I did see for myself.
In spite of all that I have lived happily here in California for 53 years
I came at the right time (59) We had not a lavish, but a good life and I built a business, that I gave to my daughter when I retired, So I am one of the lucky ones.
Like a proportional representation system, which encourages small parties, which are then able to grow - if people really support them, that is. Hence here in New Zealand the Green party has around 10-15% of the vote, and a comparable influence on parliament. How is America's equivalent doing, I wonder?
Time for every community to start their own Alternative worker owned organic foods cooperatives. Then these cooperatives can agree to cooperate in purchasing and distribution centers. Other cooperatives can provide IT services and others can provide sales & marketing. Eventually you can have purchasing power for your members to buy their own health insurance from the alternative wellness cooperative. Then you can take all of the money from all of this activity and put it in the cooperative credit union which will be used to finance other cooperatives and mortgages to their members. Then you can start your own cooperative schools that teach healthy sustainable ecological peaceful living and cooperative economics.
Mondragon in the Basque region of Spain did it and it is working phenomenally well.
Real Democracy where it counts, in the work place devoted to high employment in the community instead of absentee shareholders.
Call it "corporate statism," if you like.
Fascism happens when the big corporations own and operate the government. (Although, sometimes, things can get messy. The corporate alliance with Hitler took Germany into the Second World War. The big corporations survived and prospered, but millions of Europeans suffered.)
During the early 1800s, Alexis De Tocquevelle talked about the ways in which manufacturers might be able to take control of the USA. (That was before the rise of the big financial institutions that dominate today's USA.)
Universal health care? Bismarck promoted the idea in a big way. The first goal is keep the labor force and the military healthy. Just like Farmer Brown cares for his cattle.
In modern times, a new goal has been added. "Keep the profits flowing for the big hospitals, the big drug companies, and the other big money interests that profit from health care."
http://newseasonsmarket.blogspot.com/2008/11/were-just-trying-to-mind-our-own-local.html
So lets just go straight to single a payer healthcare system and take this big burden off of Mackey and other busnisses.
But while we are waiting for universal healthcare, maybe the question should be why shouldn't Mackey pay a little bit more so that his workers have better healthcare?
If he were rational and not greedy, Mackey could be working to get universal healthcare for everyone and in the process removing some of the burden from his company, but somehow I think his only interest is to cut his own expenses....
I can find good food elsewhere. And I will
Get over it, CEOs. We need mandatory, universal health insurance so you employers don't get to control who gets to live or get proper care.
I agree with you, and I think I know who you mean with "risk-takers" the ones who destroyed our economy....But anybody who goes out on a limb and starts a business is a risk-taker... I know I did it...I worked hard and I was also lucky.
So I think we should differentiate between greedy no conscience risk takers, and people who start businesses big and small.
There are times when I've been so exhausted by the insurance nightmare that I just wish a pre-existing condition on people who are ignorant enough to criticize the health care bill. Nobody can understand what's that like until they've been through it. They'd understand it then. But I can't wish that on anyone.
I despise the US health non-care system -it's the main reason I've never become a citizen- but Obama is the first to accomplish anything in the face of Libertarian and Rethuglican opposition, the next logical step being Universal Coverage.
That would REALLY set then off!
So all these European and Latin countries, Australia, New Zealand, S. Korea, Singapore, Canada and so many others are "Fascist" eh?
And BTW, I'm a small business owner and struggling like Hell; I'd much rather that Universal coverage be seen what it could be which would be a small tax (yes TAX) taken from the wages of every one working -like S.S. which my wife and I are very grateful for right now- so everybody else is covered. That would take the burden of paying premiums to for-profit big insurance and pharma for themselves employees.
Anybody who can't work that out needs to be mentally treated.
And in all the countries with universal coverage, private insurance is still available (but gets you no better medical treatment) and small luxuries like private rooms and different food can be paid by national health patients -as my aunt used to do.
Ignorance might be bliss but it's also rife in the USA.
Be a SECRET SHOPPER : Shop And Walk (Don't Forget Your Letter)> Shop OFTEN!!!
Hmmmmm..... Looks like a Saul Alinsky tactic.... Might work at Wal-Mart and at a few other places.
Whole Foods offers some top products at some top prices. However, in terms of community involvement and labor practices, Whole Foods and Wal-Mart are "rich sister and poor sister." They're both from the same family and - aside from cosmetics - they're much the same.
Poor folks usually shop at Wal-Mart. Better access, if you're living in a typical low-income neighborhood, and better prices.
Do those extra travel costs - so that North American consumers can enjoy fresh strawberries in January - contribute to global warming? What are the labor practices like in Latin America?
Our police state was the creature of the Patriot Act that most members of Congress signed without reading it in a knee-jerk reflexive reaction to 9/11 and the mythical "war on terror" that has at all times been a hollow mantra used to frighten the masses into embracing a fascist state.
To Wholefoods CEO, I state: "Takes one to recognize it, n'est-ce pas? Even if the recognition is a subjective allusion.
I blame Obama for not dismantling what the Bush-Cheney co-residency set in motion in goose-step reaction to neo-con propaganda and hysterics.
Nothing in the Constitution about govt. taking over health care. That's where libertarians like me are coming from. Sure, we need govt. to regulate fraud. But wherever it's possible that private means might solve a problem, let's try that first.
(Cough, cough.) We're in the midst of a major flu epidemic. A good time to talk about public health and government involvement in health care.
Communicable diseases have been with humanity for a long time. During the George Washington Administration years, the American government took early action to create what (eventually) became the Public Health Service.
Federalists, especially, knew that the control of communicable diseases is essential for interstate trade and the nation's prosperity. Obviously, private medicine, by itself, can't prevent and control epidemics.
By the early 1900s, as modern medicine began to advance in significant ways, more emphasis was placed on creating a healthy labor force and a healthy pool of military recruits. A new job for government.
FOOTNOTE: Much of the government money that goes into breast cancer research and prevention comes from - surprise! - military budgets. Same old story. Uncle Sam wants a healthy military (and healthy workers.)
Government programs for health care? They started with George Washington.
Here is the thing: the drug companies can price fix, because they do not come under the Sherman anti trust act. The states are required by a nice move long ago, to regulate drug prices. When was the last time you saw price fixing charges against Walgreens or Wal-Mart? In Florida, we have a governor who headed Columbia Hospitals. Check out the fraud against the feds when it came to false medicare claims. It was over a billion dollars and it was never paid back, even when they caught them. Scott said, what me? I no see, I no hear, etc....and that was that. And the brilliant voters in my state make him our leader, our champion.
Remember, if you have what is called single payer (yes, socialized medicine) the government buys the drugs in bulk, saving huge amounts of money making health care so much better for our economy. The GOP and some DEMs are working for the drug companies, and the retail stores they sell to. Me, I hate the retail stores for their price fixing and making people have to decide between meds and eating. We are an ignorant country, and made that way by the people I worked with all my life. Not all of course, but too many.
And by the way, see the movie 1900 if you want to learn about Italian Fascism. great movie and really makes you think. and don't throw isms around unless you know the definitions.
The preface to Scott Nearing’s 1973 edition, Fascism, summarizes a 6/27/73 article in the NYT by Herbert Marcuse. Nearing points out that Marcuse does not once use the term "fascism" but nevertheless very precisely defines it. Some of the points in Nearingʻs summary (his words):
1) Organized labor poses a threat to the profits and power of big business.
2)Big business turns to the government for protection and assistance.
3) Under the new conditions "the rule of law and the morals of legitimacy" become an obstacle to business and power. At the same time the law no longer protects the weak and helpless. It is weapon wielded by the strong.
4)Public policy is made through conspiratorial agreements among the domestic and international economic and political powers.
5)These forces change the ruling class and modify its activities, at home and abroad.
6) Networks of rackets, cliques and gangs make and break laws as they see fit. The cult of violence takes over and is preached and practiced as entertainment and as the instrument of public policy. Political assassination, power seizure, military preparations and war become the central theme of public policy.
I think Iʻll be shopping a lot more at my local co-op, the Whole Fascist olive bar be dammed.
The original Marcuse article: http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9404E2D6123DE63ABC4F51DFB0668388669EDE&scp=1&sq=Herbert+Marcuse+Law+and+Morality&st=p
The only reason I will go into a WF store is to use the bathroom...but not the toilet!
I hope this info on how he feels goes viral and he loses 30% of his customers...som e people don't know when to keep their mouths shut.
American Heritage Dictionary definition of socialism:
Socialism. 1. a social system in which the producers possess both political power and the means of producing and distributing goods.
Those antipathetic to socialism have spun the meaning away from the original intent. That altered meaning gets passed on to succeeding generations.
As for capitalism:
Capitalism. 1. An economic system characterized by freedom of the market with increasing concentration of private and corporate ownership of production and distribution means, proportionate to increasing accumulation and reinvestment of profits.
Fascism. A philosophy or system of government that advocates or exercises a dictatorship of the extreme right, typically through the merging of state and business leadership, together with an ideology of belligerent nationalism. (American Heritage Dictionary)
If "ObamaCare" is fascist, it means that it is too far to the right; so let's let it go more toward the left with a single payer system, or other such social remedies. Notice, though, that this shoots the Whole Paycheck (foods) CEO's argument down-- unless he wants more socialism.
While we are at it why don't we deny those who do so (to avoid U.S. taxation) the benefit of business tax credits and deductions involving foreign operations.
All profits/revenue /royalties/lucr e should be taxed as income and taxed as such.
Wage earners are required to report all income to the government and have deductions withheld. Not so for those who live and breathe on capital gains.
It's a double standard. A boot on the neck of ordinary people and a free pass for those who live in rarified financial air.
Tax planners for plutocrats understand that IRS has no system for tracking complicated, exotic structures designed to avoid the receipt of reportable "income."
Thus, a huge amount of money flies over, around and under IRS's radar. Not so for the masses whose income beans are meticulously counted.
It is likely that we need a constitutional amendment mandating that all money of every type and description received by business in the course of business be reported to IRS with a maximum amount of credits and deductions allowed, like the one that exists for earned income.
At one point it was around the $125K level according to my CPA. That would take tax loopholes out of our bought and paid for Congress's hands.
FASCISM means "The big corporations own the government." (Government exists, primarily, for the benefit of the big corporations and what Americans call the military-indust rial complex.)
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