. . . . offensive thing about the piece,” which was “astonishingly disingenuous.” He, too, said he would boycott.

* Boycott Not the Worst Idea, mused superblogger Matthew Yglesias of Think Progress, writing that he agreed with Mark Kleiman. “Very few businesses,” he pointed out, “go as far as Whole Foods in marketing their products specifically as part of a quasi-politicized left-wing lifestyle and few CEOs go as far as Mackey in public advocacy of political views that are only tangentially related to his business.” [...]


Others found the boycott calls absurd:


* I Ain’t About to Boycott Whole Foods, Waylon Lewis declared from The Huffington Post on Saturday. He gave three rea...

. . . . offensive thing about the piece,” which was “astonishingly disingenuous.” He, too, said he would boycott.

* Boycott Not the Worst Idea, mused superblogger Matthew Yglesias of Think Progress, writing that he agreed with Mark Kleiman. “Very few businesses,” he pointed out, “go as far as Whole Foods in marketing their products specifically as part of a quasi-politicized left-wing lifestyle and few CEOs go as far as Mackey in public advocacy of political views that are only tangentially related to his business.” [...]


Others found the boycott calls absurd:


* I Ain’t About to Boycott Whole Foods, Waylon Lewis declared from The Huffington Post on Saturday. He gave three reasons: 1) “Whole Foods is a vast organization, with thousands of staff, many if not most of whom disagree with John’s [...] views”; 2) Whole Foods is a public company; 3) “Whole Foods, thanks to [John Mackey's] leadership, has shown the way for thousands of green-minded companies.”

* ABC Co-Anchor Weighs In “Liberal Customers to Whole Foods CEO: Shut Up!” yelled John Stossel of ABC News’ “20/20″. “Perhaps,” he suggested, “what the ‘natural’ food nuts really hate is that Mackey is rich. They don’t like profit.”

* You Boycott Whole Foods, I’ll Boycott the Federal Government Don Boudreaux of the economics blog Cafe Hayek addressed a letter to a Daily Kos user: “You’re using your freedom to avoid paying for products offered by someone whose attitude toward government you disapprove of. [...] Will you champion my freedom to stop supporting, with my money, President Barack Obama’s services?” He asked whether the Daily Kos user would, specifically, support his decision not to pay taxes to support the president’s health care initiative.

Whole Foods Is Synonymous With Corporate Responsibility From his blog The Agitator, Radley Balko called the boycott notion “moronic,” pointing to Whole Foods’ stellar record in other areas of leftist concern, such as environmental standards and working environment. “Is this really the state of debate on the left now? ‘Agree with us, or we’ll crush you?’” From the pages of The Atlantic’s Politics channel, Patrick Appel concurred: “I’m with Radley Balko.”

Ezra Klein noted that Mackey’s suggestions were hardly new, and offered the following take on the matter[...]

Joe Weisenthal of the Business Insider stood even farther back from the fray, summing up the affair as “a curious phenomenon.” som...

Whole Foods Is Synonymous With Corporate Responsibility From his blog The Agitator, Radley Balko called the boycott notion “moronic,” pointing to Whole Foods’ stellar record in other areas of leftist concern, such as environmental standards and working environment. “Is this really the state of debate on the left now? ‘Agree with us, or we’ll crush you?’” From the pages of The Atlantic’s Politics channel, Patrick Appel concurred: “I’m with Radley Balko.”

Ezra Klein noted that Mackey’s suggestions were hardly new, and offered the following take on the matter[...]

Joe Weisenthal of the Business Insider stood even farther back from the fray, summing up the affair as “a curious phenomenon.” some event in the media reminds Whole Foods shoppers that the company’s (in)famous CEO John Mackey most likely doesn’t share their political beliefs. Mackey is an anti-union libertarian.”

Then, of course, there was the post on Wonkette today, which attempted a round-up somewhat like this one and wound up with the following startling conclusion: “Do not boycott Whole Foods. Instead, become a stockholder so that you can pressure John Mackey into starting a dog-fighting ring.”

Huh???