01/13/2010
» New Yorker profile of Whole Foods CEO John Mackey
The New Yorker profile of John Mackey aka CRAZY PANTS is a must-read. Not because Vegansaurus wants you to stop shopping at Whole Foods. Nah, we know that shit is complicated and we realize that people think vegans are crazy enough without us calling for boycotts of places that bring vegan options to the people just because their CEO is a right-wing nutjob fooling himself into thinking he’s a free-thinking lady’s man. We just want you to read it for the entertainment value!
For reals. Check it: Mackey brings up his own sex life without the interviewer even asking him about it, then says that he won’t say anything about it. He alludes to his college experimentation with drugs, only to say, “I’ll not name those. We can’t be candid about everything in our society. You can’t kick the door down.” Oh Mr. Mackey, you tease! Why won’t you share with us? We all want to hear about how, perhaps, on some insane peyote-mixed-with-ether binge, God, who appeared to you as a goat dressed like Snow White, revealed to you that free-market no-holds-barred capitalism was the way to go! I mean, for instance.
Mackey also talks about how he moved to a vegetarian co-op house in Austin just to get some hot vegetarian ass: “I had no interest in a vegetarian life style,” he said. “But what I was interested in was alternative life styles. And I thought, honestly, that I’d meet a lot of interesting women. And I did.”
Speaking of women, Mackey used to use a fake name to log onto internet forums about Whole Foods and post flattering comments about how cute he was. It’s that kind of sexxxy self-confidence that led him to make this aside, after telling the interviewer he was reading Pride and Prejudice: “I’ve gotten old enough so that my masculinity is not in question.” Wow, he’s so comfortable with his masculinity that he will even read classic works of literature written by a white, straight woman of European heritage who suggests only mild alterations to the patriarchic paradigm—homeboy’s schlong must be totally ginormous!
On the political side, Mackey is just as much of a hoot. I’m sure you remember his op-ed against health care reform last year. This interview makes it clear that that wasn’t the opinion of just a free-thinking eccentric, but rather a right-wing ideologue of the most committed variety. Besides dissing the liberal, practical economist John Maynard Keynes, and citing Ayn Rand and Milton Friedman as having influenced his thinking, he offers an appraisal of unions worthy of right-wing talk radio: “The union is like having herpes. It doesn’t kill you, but it’s unpleasant and inconvenient, and it stops a lot of people from becoming your lover.” A cock-warrior like Mackey would know!
He reveals that he is not only skeptical about climate change, but thinks that “hysteria about global warming” could cause us “to raise taxes and increase regulation, and in turn lower our standard of living and lead to an increase in poverty.”’ Cause everyone knows that raising taxes is basically like the moral equivalent of child snuff films!
Read the whole, amazing thing here.


