Whole Foods and power structures

After an afternoon of teaching I went to Whole Foods in Midtown Detroit to replenish supplies. I finished there at about 5:30. From there to home is usually 30 minutes. Today it was 90. Now some of that was because the freeways were crawling and I saw a traffic notice that the express lanes were closed on my usual freeway home. So I tried some surface roads. Traffic was pretty thick on those too. Sheesh, the snowstorm was yesterday -- I got 4 inches, bringing the total for the season close to 60 inches.

That makes me wonder about alternatives to the key product I get there, the ham. At other stores in the area, even the upscale ones, offer ham with preservatives. So perhaps I should try a different kind of protein for my meals and snacks. Even if I stay with the Whole Foods ham I will not be trying to get there after teaching, so that I have to get home during rush hour.

Speaking of Whole Foods and Detroit…

Several months ago I attended part of the International People's Assembly in Detroit. As part of it a speaker talked about power structures and fair treatment of workers. Whole Foods got lumped together with Walmart as something bad for Detroit, though I didn't report it at the time. The bad way Walmart treats its workers made me wonder whether Whole Foods does the same.

The Washington Spectator for February devotes more than half the issue to the bankruptcy proceedings in Detroit. For me much of it was review, though this summary reinforces my belief that the whole thing was engineered to suck up the pensions of Detroit's retirees. The state legislature cut their support of Detroit. They passed an Emergency Manager law, which the people of Michigan rejected, so they passed another one. There isn't enough money for retirees, but there is enough for the city to pay for part of a new stadium for the hockey team. Lots of businesses aren't paying city taxes, but nothing is said about that missing money. The retirees are pitted against the big banks and we know how those battles tend to work out. Retiree Mark Phillips summarizes it quite succinctly.

Which leads some to speculate -- with good reason -- that there are two things going on. One is a simple power grab -- money for the rich sucked out of the pockets of the poor. A part of that is union busting. The other is race-related -- the white power in Lansing can't stand the big city in the state controlled by black politicians.

And Whole Foods? It may not be something against the store or in the way it treats its employees. The issue is more what it represents -- rich white people coming in and buying up the land, leaving nothing for black people. The black power structure being replaced with a white power structure.



The Olympics are on for the next two weeks. A lot of my evenings will be taken up watching the various figure skating competitions (that is, when I'm home). I may need to be creative in reserving time to tell you what is going on.