And whole foods reminds us that it's better to be mean than mean and stupid

I don't associate success with happiness, or a fulfilling career, or even with the rearing of non-ugly children. I associate it with shopping at Whole Foods.

Maybe it's shallow, but I'll know I've 'arrived' when, and only when, I can be at that store for more than 5 minutes without feeling guilty and tense.

For me, Whole Foods is kind of like Flowers for Algernon, only instead of leaving behind higher consciousness you're leaving behind grass-fed chicken and gluten-free hemp cookies. Their food is way better for you than ordinary food. They have bread there that cleans your teeth while you chew. And, like, files your taxes and stuff.

Unless you've earned it, every trip to Whole Foods can be like the life you don't have. Sort of like It's a Wonderful Life, or whatever that shitty Nicholas Cage movie was shooting for. So I try not to go there. I make do with Whole Foods' easier but slightly less attractive sister, Trader Joe's. (Trader Joe's carries non-organic meat, which is grocery store equivalent of being the town mule.)

That being said, I when I read what the CEO of Whole Foods wrote in the Wall Street Journal a few weeks ago, I thought it was a darned shame.

I can't say I was that surprised when the John Mackey, like so many drug front candy stores before him, revealed himself to be a giant hypocrite and is for that reason hated by all. And I hate him, too. Not because he's immoral, but because he's really fucking stupid.

You know that excuse you make to yourself when you buy non-free-range eggs or order pizza from clinic-bombers? You feel guilty, but you rationalize it by making grandiose promises about how you'll live your life once you have the income?

Whole Foods people have it. And what's more terrifying, they have the time to care.

Which brings us to the real lesson here, and that is: if you have to be a jerk, don't be a jerk when you have the one customer base in the country that's actually rich enough to be moral.

Here's the thing: if Walmart had written into the Wall Street Journal complaining about Universal Health Care, I would have been okay with it. Why? Because Walmart claims no moral highground above, say, not selling poison milk to schoolchildren.

Whole Foods, on the other hand, has this whole caring, sustainable living, helping indigenous farmers platform.

Another general rule: if you think your customers care enough about your "wind energy credits" for you to talk about it endlessly on your website, don't 180 on health care. They're different issues, but trust me: they sleep in the same plush, high-thread count, Whole Foods customer bed.

I'm not saying that Whole Foods customers are perfect. Some of them are total jerks. But they're jerks who have wealth guilt. Wealth guilt means that while you still buy your daughter a new car on her 16th birthday, you make sure it's a hybrid. Or at least a cute two-seater.

Maybe you could sell out America's future if you run a personal shopping business, because if you run a personal shopping business, your customers probably belong to the Let's Reinstate Chain Gangs demographic.

But not Whole Foods customers. Whole Foods customers spend their time thinking about heat-efficient ski trips and how to make their servants carbon-neutral. These people care.  Why else would they donate their Facebook statuses to Gaza?

That's why when John Mackey says:

"A careful reading of both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution will not reveal any intrinsic right to health care, food or shelter. That's because there isn't any. This "right" has never existed in America."

he's being particularly stupid because he's alienating his customers. Whole Foods shoppers don't just believe in rights, they want to think they believe in rights. And that's even more dangerous. Maybe they only believe in the right of their daughter to have an cushy unpaid internship at Goldman-Sachs and still get health care. But trust me: they will boycott you, and so will their groundskeepers.

I'd just like to end with my favorite line from the Op-Ed:

"We should be able to live largely disease-free lives until we are well into our 90s and even past 100 years of age."

Yeah ... if you subsist solely on the grass-fed, all-natural, sugar- and wheat-free animals they sell at Whole Foods. Which, by the way, probably have better health care than we do.