On Mon, Aug 17, 2009 at 9:20 PM, Doug Henwood<[email protected]> wrote:
> The boycott probably an empty threat—so far, the stock market, for what it’s > worth, seems to think so. This seems to be the case. Even if it was not as empty, a boycott has always considered to be a weak tactic for many reasons. I've been personally supporting SINALTRAINAL's Coca-Cola boycott for years now, although my dent in the KO ticker price has probably been minor. > But the suddenness of this attack of righteous indignation is a little > strange. > Mackey has long been rabidly anti-union; he once famously compared organized > labor to herpes. No its not. Mackey jumped into the middle of the fray just as many people are mobilized around this peripheral labor issue of health care. If there was a real organized labor movement/coalition in the USA, perhaps a campaign against Whole Foods could have started earlier, but there isn't, so there hasn't been. There's virtually no non-union support on picket lines in New York City as it is, probably less around the country, so why start a new battle in a not "hot shop"? It makes no sense. > The NPR demographic that is the Whole Foods base has never been fond of > unions. Yet you do have to wonder > if the venters have any idea what’s actually in the awful health care reform > bills circulating around Congress. > They’re probably just outraged that Mackey’s dissing a Democrat. Let's look at NPR's demographics... http://www.wmot.org/under02/NPR-audience-profile.html http://www.prss.org/docs/2005_2_Community_Involvement_Data.pdf NPR's audience is certainly more well off and "better" educated than most Americans. Politically? According to the poll above 30.59% of NPR listeners describe themselves as conservative, and 27.83% of NPR listeners describe themselves as liberal, with the rest describing themselves as middle of the road moderates. So more NPR listeners describe themselves as conservative than liberal. Insofar as health care - consultants, small companies, people between jobs, people with pre-existing conditions or relatives with such etc. have to worry about health care to some extent. They have an interest in these bills that they don't in the working conditions of supermarket workers. As far as the bills, with single payer not going to happen, and the public option probably coming out maimed, if existent at all, it could be true that it would be better for the bill not to be passed than to be passed. _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
