The Way We Were

Remember how we're when we're kids....until that age we didn't know what worry is and what it means. Everything is taken care of by parents and grandparents, we just grew up, get used to parents, home, surroundings and don't need to do anything else.

(I can only speak for myself and friends who grew up along with me in a middle class upbringing. Anybody born into poverty or a broken home, might've experienced hunger or abusive parent very early.)

As we grow up slowly we wouldn't be worried ...but we come to know what money is and that few posses it more than us and few less than us. That might be one of the important things which we discover ourselves in our lifetime. It wouldn't be an epiphany, but a slow process.

Then we would be worried about homework, exams and movies which we couldn't go even though all our friends are going. As we get into teens, it's all about impressing the opposite sex. Then for the chosen few (from Indian perspective) girlfriend or boyfriend issues. Then study abroad / job search..

Few just cruised through, few worked hard and few struggled, but I didn't experience phenomenon by name frustration. That helpless feeling that sinks in when there's so many things in this world which're unjust and we can't do anything about it.

For me I guess the first thing (apart from personal things) which got me all worked up and frustrated was Iraq war. I couldn't get my head around thought that we can go to war with less powered nation for made up reason with clever media management and a bumper sticker 'war against terrorism'.

It took me years but I made peace with it, then the financial crisis, my immigration hassles and related issues. Then right wing group, their thinly veiled racism and their aversion to science, gender equality, social safety net and rise of batshit crazy people like sarah palin, michele bachmann, allen west et al. I've grievances with liberals also.

This frustration might vary from person to person, I can see why these bother me so much. The amount of time I spend reading the news, columns, listening and sometimes writing. I've been interested in reading since I was kid, but when you're 9 year old your focus will be about how things work. My initial interests were stories, astronomy, then slowly progressed into how things work, politics, movies, technology. I was interested about politics in India also, but that never caused frustration. What was missing then...which exists right now? I guess until I came to US, I only read how things're and how things work. I might not've read why is system flawed and who is benefiting from it.

I was never frustrated about any singular thing as I'm about gun control now. Even Visa hassles which gave me so much pain, didn't make me this frustrated. I already read and heard so much about guns  and culture even before the rampage of all these shootings. So nothing is really surprising to me. But after Sandy Hook there's scrutiny of NRA's process, which was missing before. The travesty in the name of second amendment protection is sickening.

How much NRA bullied politicians, influenced Gun regulation or lack thereof is mind boggling.

Tiahrt Amendment

Ban on CDC research on Gun Violence

Restrictions on ATF

No centralized database of guns

When you walk through an airport security, a shampoo bottle bigger than 3oz or grandma's medicine is a security risk. In the same country, in almost all the cities you can walk with concealed weapon or automatic weapon with minimal restrictions. It's like we live in two parallel worlds. Any form of gun control is considered as infringement of second amendment.

After Sandy Hook, I'd a breakdown on social networks, donated money to Gun Control advocacy groups, will donate again,  But I can't go to rallies cause of work. In the past, no matter what we did, NRA got the upper hand. Because they've a product to sell...and we oppose the product. They've a monetary cause, ours is safety/survival cause. That could be the reason they're winning. Same with Arizona and other states immigration laws. Private prison lobbied for AZ law as this law will keep the inmates coming to these prisons. As a bonus conservatives can rally the extreme right voters.

That feeling of loss isn't boding well with me and I really look back at days of those blissful innocence. The more we know, the more cynical we become. Information or facts are only useful when you can use them for our advancement or society upliftment. Information might be power, but ignorance is a bliss.

Is there any reason to be optimistic? So much money poured into last election to defeat Obama. Koch brothers had spent almost 400 Million USD, Adelson spent another 100 Million and all those SuperPACs. But Obama prevailed. I'm not saying he's messiah or anything...he's just another politician. But money can't buy all the elections, that's one of the takeaways from last general election.

I hope common sense will prevail over money in Gun Control fight also. The stake are high, it's our next generation lives.

Come for the overpriced produce, stay for the ugly rhetoric

On Wednesday 01/16th, Whole Paycheck CEO John Mackey called the ObamaCare as Fascist law  while promoting his book on npr's morning edition. And then, shitstorm ensued.

Let's get a few things out of our way. Mackey is entitled to his opinion and he can voice it. I understand the frustration of providing health insurance because of a government mandate as his primary duty is to increase the shareholder equity. ;)

But the paradox here is, you run a store where a gallon of milk costs double or triple the price in a regular grocery store. That's because you sell food with organic ingredients and you've some policies about procuring produce locally, not to sell foods with certain kind of ingredients and all. And who're the typical patrons of whole foods? Hipsters who live beyond their means and Liberal Ladies who drive LandRovers. OK that's stereotyping, but you get the picture. Most of the whole foods customer base which includes above stereotypes and people who fall in between these two extremes voted for Obama and supported his healthcare law.

CEO of an upscale Organic Store which sells $10 soaps and 100 types of cheses and gourmet salts (wtf?) should tread carefully on political issues. Calling healthcare law as fascism is like Zuckerburg making fun of moms who facebook their baby pictures for the lack of productivity or Instagram founder ridiculing people who lounge in Starbucks during working hours and instagram pics of their sugary drinks and sunsets. Those analogies are little far fetched, but what I'm trying to say is why would anybody alienate their customer base, particularly when you're running a business which solely relies on the concept of customer paying high for the greater good of society and sustainability of earth.

And Mackey chose the best platform to reach out to customer base and then blew it. You don't go on Morning Edition and talk ill about healthcare law. No self respecting liberal driving a volvo / sipping her chai latte / eating his granola would miss that. This shit would've flied, if this's Cracker Barrel CEO complaining on Fox news. It could've brought more old people into those restaurants as a freedom appreciation day or some BS name to it. I said cracker barrel as it's the exact opposite of whole foods. And the existence of this restaurant or shop gives you a rough idea whether you're in blue or red area.

Once this shit had hit the fan, Mackey forced to give a pseudo-apology, he likes a Swiss model here in USA.

I believe that, if the goal is universal health care, our country would be far better served by combining free enterprise capitalism with a strong governmental safety net for our poorest citizens and those with preexisting conditions, helping everyone to be able to buy insurance. This is what Switzerland does and I think we would be much better off copying that system than where we are currently headed in the United States.

Government helping poor people buy insurance, isn't that socialism? Or whatever thing which Republicans call as wealth redistribution? Healthcare is screwed up in USA, there's no denial about it. That's how insurance companies make profit. And this whole government take over is utter nonsense. Obama gave a gift to insurance companies, which keeps on giving in the form of healthcare mandate which was first proposed by Heritage foundation in 1989, not a liberal group by any measure. Once a self-responsibility idea supported by Bob Dole (1996 Republican candidate for President) became a government takeover in 2010. I don't know why, but I'm pretty sure that Black man in White House now is just a coincidence.

I don't run any business, so I might be misinformed about many things. But as an employee, I pay my health insurance, and when the rates went up I took the brunt, not my employer. And if whole foods is already paying health insurance, why is he bothered about ObamaCare. Wait, I know ..libertarians don't want government to tell them anything. In that Utopian land, there wouldn't be FDA, FAA, clean air/water act or any law of the land.

 

For Mackey, this isn't a moment he got carried away and said something which he didn't mean. He wrote an op-ed in WSJ in summer of '09 calling it socialism even before the bill was presented in Congress. This is the same genius who was caught bashing Wild Oats in 2005 with a pseudonym on yahoo finance, at that time Whole Foods was trying to take over Wild Oats

My Question here is, is this just the Mackey's Cognitive dissonance where his ideology contradicts their company mission statement and operating model. Or is it just bad PR training which he gets.

Talking about PR, who're the hacks training this guy and that Chick-fil-A CEO. Or all those Republican politicians who just can't resist talking about rape. I feel that I can run a better shop than these clueless numbnuts who're training/advising these CEOs and politicians.  Only if my rich friends are reading this..

Thanks in advance for your seed money fellas.