Whole Feuds
I interrupt my self-imposed respite from Eating Plants to bring you this utterly disturbing press release from Whole Foods, the company that assures me, after I submitted my open letter, that it’s all into animal welfare and all that stuff. Well, since when does animal welfare involve glorifying the killing of animals with such testosteronic histrionics? It is disgusting, chest-pumping, fist-raising displays such as this one that make it impossible for me to divert my mind from what we as a humane culture allow to happen under the guise of civilization and read a damn Updike novel in peace. Actually, the Updike novel was more disturbing than this outburst of insecure masculinity. In any case, looks as if my feud with Whole Foods isn’t over.
Armand “The Arm” Ferrante crowned Best Butcher in the U.S.
Whole Foods Market® expert meat cutter wins national company contest; his new beef “cut” to be featured in all stores starting Sept. 15
NEW YORK, New York. (September 10, 2012) /PRNewswire/ — His talent is rare; his job was well-done: Armand Ferrante, a Whole Foods Market butcher from Middletown, N.J., won the company’s 2012 national Best Butcher competition finale held at Meatopia, the nation’s largest celebration of meat, on Saturday in New York City.
Good to hear that a powerful voice, such as yours is, will be speaking further concerning the duplicitous (3D marketing) promotions for profits that Wholes Foods, shamelessly, does so well.
Humans need to know the true cost of this holocaust; annihilation of innocent animals, human health, and our planet!
THANK YOU!
Maybe all vegans should just find organic produce stores to shop at. Or better yet, get your cash together and start an organic veggie co-op. Then you wouldn’t have to worry about seeing those vulgar displays of testosteronic histrionics that got you all atwitter. Just my opinion. 1500 signatures when they have millions of customers means your opinion is nothing to them. If they lost 10% of their customers (assuming vegans make up 10%), and vegetables rotted on the racks because you stop shopping there they might take you more seriously. But other than that the righteous and holy stance you preach to your faithful flock to get them in a huff is a waste of time. But more than likely most will keep shopping there. Why? Because most vegans probably don’t have the time to be that much of a zealot. It is either inconvenient (another organic produce store is too far)or they like to be seen at Whole Foods. You know, that way they can say they don’t shop at Walmart.
The Arm is not glorifying the killing of animals — he is fetishizing it. The critters are already dead and the Arm’s cultural signifiers are meant to conform to pre approved codes of behavior among others of his social class and station. This is part of their interpersonal set of communications and affirms their relationships with each other through playing with dead flesh
Lets change the culture which values such displays. It is not just NJ although NJ and Texas are the worst
And WH had no idea, right? And is “schocked, schocked!”
John T,
Are glorifying and fetishizing mutually exclusive? Curious.
James
@james You know they are not. Fetishizing entails a deeper psychostructural mode of enactivism which encompasses all of the cultural and environmental concerns that led the Arm to be the Butcher he is today. Glorifying is merely the term used to describe the outward display of dead flesh play and its superficial meaning to the Arm and his audience. Fetishizing includes such hidden meanings as the Arm’s eroticizing dead flesh for the love and approval of his peers.
WOW is all I can say. It’s one thing to sell meat. It’s quite another to glorify the double slaughtering of animals. My. Goodness.
I’m mystified as to why you were surprised by the glorification of butchery…at an event called “Meatopia.” It is nonsensical to claim to be in favor of animal welfare and promote eating any animals under any circumstances or living conditions. Worse yet, it is true hypocrisy to claim to be in favor of animal welfare and then profit from the eating of animals. On a happy note, I can now get ALL of the cruelty-free products I want at a myriad of stores and markets so I never have to step food in a Whole Foods again…and I won’t!
Dear Veda,
I would say virtually no product is cruelty-free. The closer we look, the harder it is to avoid finding some form of collusion and exploitation. And I wasn’t “surprised” at all by this behavior at Meatopia. Never claimed to be. Disturbed, yes. But not surprised. What made you conclude that I was surprised?
James
I will be looking for another organic food store that doesn’t sell meat.
Gabby is right. It is one thing to sell meat and another to glorify it. John Mackey explained the many reasons Whole Foods would not remove their meat counters and made it clear that he did not have much pull when it came to taking meat out of the Whole Foods stores. My next question would be, why then, as an ethical vegan, does he choose to run a company that seems intent on spotlighting animal products and celebrating eating meat? Why not go elsewhere and do something more in line with the values of a vegan?
Because he is making an absolutely ludicrous amount of money. Enough to build a wall of Benjamin’s to separate his ethics and his business.
Anyone tempted to stand in front of WF stores on weekends and distribute “Don’t Buy The Myth” leaflets from humanemyth.org?
Good idea? Legal? Effective?
Hang in there James, and take care of yourself; you are a powerful force for good.
I just read the chapter on “activists are animals too” in Mark Hawthorne’s Striking At The Roots: A Practical Guide to Animal Activism. You surely know it, and I found it helpful for tips on keeping one going for the long run.
“Anyone tempted to stand in front of WF stores on weekends and distribute “Don’t Buy The Myth” leaflets from humanemyth.org?”
That sounds like an excellent idea.
utterly disgusting, keep at it james!
The contest is obviously another way for Whole Foods to celebrate, and encourage, their animal products, which is perhaps motivated by the following strategy: people are going to eat animals anyway, so it’s better to encourage them to eat the humanely treated ones, and to do that, we need to make eating our meat as appealing as possible — even if that means appealing to gustatory pleasures.
You’re shocked by the testosteronic histrionics? Sausages are shaped that way for a reason.
Really? Sausage is formed in a casing traditionally made from pig intestine; hence the shape of the intestine, not to be confused with the shape of a penis.
Thank you, susan, for your common sense. I abhor this kind of display as well as hunting and other activities that glorify suffering but how it is constantly tied to gender and phallic symbols is inane amd annoying. The last person (a hunter) I got into this was a female. The mindset is what is it and is not gender specific.
Butcher champs not to be outdone by Whole Fraud’s “Bacon Smackdown”. https://www.facebook.com/WholeFoodsMeat/app_346770228697815
Yeah… I’m sure they smack down those little pigs as nicely as consumers believe they do… Greedy fakes – one and all.
The “absent referent” is now re designated as the Arm’s “cut” — only at WH!
So let me get this straight …. it’s ok to criticize John Mackey and Whole Foods — but not HSUS or the other groups that signed a letter of appreciation for Mackey’s “Farm Animal Compassion Standards”, knowing full well that he would be selling meat:
http://www.humanemyth.org/mediabase/1009.htm
?
I don’t know about everyone else, but I criticize them too. In fact, they help him promote his meat by inviting him to their conferences.
Indeed they do, but the activists who support these groups get upset.
Hi Ellie,
This is a brief response to your previous posts to me in the other thread — for some reason, my reply there hasn’t been showing up when I clicked the “reply” buttom. Maybe something funny on my end.
Anyway, just wanted to say that you are clearly very knowledgeable about these matters, and I enjoy learning from your comments, although I’m inclined to disagree with your view that, on balance, welfare reforms are negative from an abolitionist perspective — even Francione recognizes that “new welfarists” favor abolition as a long term goal (currently reading his Rain Without Thunder). But I admit this is a complex (and divisive) debate, and since I’m still relatively new to the issues, I’ll avoid taking firm stances for now.
Moreover, I agree there is something perverse about consumers being enthusiastic with “happy meat,” as evidenced by Nicholas Kristof’s recent NYT’s article. But it may be a step-up from consumers being enthusiastic about garden-variety factory-farmed meat, for the following reason: there is less distance between people who morally discriminate only against consumption of factory-farmed animals and abolitionists, on the one hand, and people who do not morally discriminate against consumption of animals at all and abolitionists, on the other. With the former meat consumers, animal interests do matter morally — however imperfect those interests are weighed. I think that’s progress, but obviously it can’t end there.
Today I published a post on animalblawg about wrongs of “Happy Meat”: http://animalblawg.wordpress.com/2012/09/11/whats-wrong-with-happy-meat/ Would welcome your thoughts.
“A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines.”
–Emerson
“one can fight the world with a singular hammer, hitting the same spot over and over, or one can seek justice with an endlessly diverse toolbox, striking here, there, when it’s least expected.”
-unknown
“Sometimes the worst impulse an advocate can have is the desire to get it straight. The beauty of the maze is beyond comprehension to the single minded.”
-James McWilliams
Seems to me that’s a poor excuse for being hypocritical.
-Ellie Maldonado
It’s a messy world, Ellie.
It is, although I have to admit a little straightening out certainly wouldn’t hurt.
James, would appreciate an explanation of your very interesting quotes. Are you saying that we advocates are, “singular hammers”, and we should enter the “maze” (delusion) of humane slaughter (animal welfare)?
Sat through too many BS philosophy and social psychobabble classes to even bother with as answer to this: “consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds”
I am extremely curious if you have read the “World Peace Diet”, and/or seen Earthlings? I am getting the feeling you have not.
Thank you.
I think he’s saying it’s easy to stay in a routine that’s comfortable than break out and find a better way.
Hope every has or will watch this: http://vimeo.com/47433998 It clearly exposes Whole Foods(as the profiteers they are) and the animal “welfare” movement as the shills they are, and have been for a very long time!
And yet another reason to heavily enforce my decision to never shop at Whole Foods unless I absolutely have to.
unfortunately while I’m at school I have little to choose from outside of Whole Foods and Trader Joes. I was willing to bite the bullet and accept shopping at Whole Foods but damn, this really makes me not want to shop there ever again.
I sense Polonius has crept into this thread
Where’s Hamlet when you really need him?
James