Whole Foods CEO John Mackey recently wrote an
op ed in the Wall Street Journal in which he proposed various alternatives to President Obama's prescription for health care reform. He proposed such things as allowing health insurance companies to market their products across state lines. He also urged a greater emphasis on adopting healthy lifestyles in order to avoid getting sick in the first place.
While some of Mackey's ideas are certainly worth discussing, personally I prefer single payer health insurance along the lines of the program that they use in Canada. I think that in the long run that will be the most effective and most equitable way to go.
But even though I disagree with Mr. Mackey on many of his points, I am totally opposed to the effort that some on the lunatic left have started to attempt a boycott of Mr. Mackey's company Whole Foods merely because some on the left don't agree with his ideas about health care reform. This effort by some to silence Mr. Mackey through a boycott of his stores is totally against the spirit of President Obama's effort to have a rational dialog on health care reform. The crazies on the right are just as bad if not worse with their caricatures of Obama as Hitler. But the left doesn't help matters either with their intolerance of opposing views on health care reform.
Why can't we just put everything out on the table for discussion? Why do we need to boycott someone's company because we disagree with that person on an issue? This sort of thing sets a very dangerous precedent.
I got into an argument about all this with several posters at the
Democratic Underground forum. I am a proud Democrat, but some of the extremists on that web site give the whole party a bad name, and that's too bad. A great political party like the Democratic Party doesn't deserve that. DU has been taken over by extremists in my opinion, and it's getting harder and harder for a moderate Democrat, which I like to call myself, to participate there.
When I tried to defend Mr. Mackey's right to participate in the debate about health care reform, one poster even had the temerity to suggest that I must also be defending the hatemonger Glenn Beck. I guess that must have been the worst insult that he could think of, so he went with it.
I have believed for a long time that too often both the far left and the far right practice intolerance for everything but their own narrow viewpoints. We had a taste of what the far right can do during that eight years of the illegitimate Bush Administration. Thank God we are through with that. But what we don't need now is a repeat performance this time coming from the left. I call upon President Obama to continue his efforts to govern from the center and seek consensus on important issues like health care reform. Please Mr. President, do not let the left wing of your party control you. Give the left a fair hearing, of course, but also listen to moderate Democrats and Blue Dogs, as well as independents.
It's getting pretty serious in Southern California. A fast spreading wildfire is threatening thousand of homes with destruction. It has blanketed the greater Los Angeles basin with a thick layer of acrid smoke which is posing a health risk to millions. Meanwhile, a complex of communications towers is threatened by the fire. Most Los Angeles area television and radio stations broadcast from there. The nearby historic Mount Wilson Observatory is also threatened.
