Hate is the consequence of fear; we fear something before we hate it; a child who fears noises becomes a man who hates noises.
- Cyril Connolly
Love is rarely a hypocrite; but hate- how to detect and how to guard against it! It lurks where you least expect it; it is created by causes that you can the least foresee; and civilization multiplies its varieties, whilst it favors its disguise.
- Edward G. Bulwer-Lytton
Like a lot of flaming lefties, I love Whole Foods. Yeah, the prices are a bit high (it comes by the nickname, “Whole Paycheck” honestly), but the products Whole Foods carries are generally of high quality, so in most cases I don’t mind the higher prices. I also admire the chain for working to live up to a set of values too often ignored by corporations who care for nothing except making a buck and maximizing their stock prices. Well, at least I did until they decided to cave to a reflexively anti-Muslim bigot like one Debbie Schlussel. Schlussel is living, breathing proof of the adage that while not everyone can write (she can’t), ANYONE can hate. As near as I can tell, Schlussel seems to think that constructing a convincing argument is as simple and effortless as combining name-calling, character assassination, and an over-developed sense of self-superiority…oh, and she thinks that Islam is Of. The. Devil. After all, why would a national grocery chain celebrate Ramadan (Except that, oh, I don’t know…perhaps they value their Muslim customers??)?
Amazing, isn’t it, how quickly a normally well-meaning and reasonably fair and equitable corporation can cave to a shrill voice of hate determined to poison any sort of dialogue with her particular flavor of hate? And I can’t help but wonder where Schlussel stands on the issue of Christian terrorism? Or is she one of those who believe that Christians cannot by definition be terrorists (cough…Paul Hill…cough…Anders Behring Breivik…cough…Scott Roeder….)
​Under pressure from right-wing bloggers who blindly associate Ramadan and Muslims with terrorism and burqas, Whole Foods has sent an email to its stores across the United States in which it specifically tells stores not to promote Ramadan this year.
Would be it be hoping for too much to think that there’s NO POSSIBLE WAY Whole Foods would have caved based on the bleatings of a single Right-wing blogger who couldn’t construct and support an argument if St. Ronald of Reagan appeared to her in a vision?? The Houston Press article only mentions Schlussel, who’s about as fair and reasonable as a Glenn Beck joint…so, yes, it does appear that Whole Foods surrendered to an army of one. Jeebus, y’all really need to grow some balls, don’tchathink??
Just last week, Whole Foods began its promotion of Saffron Road’s line of halal products throughout the holiday, which ends on August 29, via writer Yvonne Maffei’s blog, My Halal Kitchen. That promotion was waylaid by what seems like a very small amount of criticism, according to an internal email that the Houston Press obtained recently.
“It is probably best that we don’t specifically call out or ‘promote’ Ramadan,” reads a portion of that email. “We should not highlight Ramadan in signage in our stores as that could be considered ‘Celebrating or promoting’ Ramadan.”
Please tell me that Whole Foods didn’t cave to a lone ignoramus who traffics in personal insults as if they were OxyContin pills? Surely, Whole Foods wouldn’t toss their Muslim customers overboard in order to keep one hateful harpie with a blog (and the delusion that she can actually write) from aiming even more of her bile in their direction? As much as I don’t want to believe it to be true, it really does seem as if Schlussel’s personal solitary and hateful crusade brought Whole Foods to heel.
Way to stand up and do the right thing, y’all….
Though the Whole Foods party line is that they of course didn’t cave to Schlussel when they decided not to promote Ramadan, one need only refer to the company’s original email on the subject, which made it clear that they were in fact surrendering:
Is Whole Food Market hosting a campaign to celebrate Ramadan?
No. Whole Foods Market is not promoting Ramadan.
The truth may well be, and likely is, somewhere between Schlussel’s rabid lunacy and Whole Foods’ contention that they didn’t cave to pressure from a lone Right-wing hate-monger. Still, when you get of whiff of what Schlussel’s cooking, it’s hard not to come away wondering how and why Whole Foods couldn’t just tell her to pack her tiny ball of hate in her old kit bag and hit the road….
Whole Foods PR hacks sent out press releases and e-mails lying and denying. But none of what the company said was true and since I wrote about this, I received many reports from Whole Foods customers that Israeli olive oil and other products had been removed from the shelves of many Whole Foods, replaced by the Palestinian terrorism olive oil. My reports didn’t stop ignoramuses like Michelle Malkin Fraudkin from blindly urging people to buy goods at jihadist-enabling Whole Foods, merely because its CEO was under fire for opposing Obamacare. Only morons-and that includes Fraudkin, bigtime-believe that the enemy of my enemy is my friend, even when they enable and financially support Islamic terrorism.
And, now, there is the Ramadan crap, solely for monetary reasons. Yes, like ALL other American corporations, Whole Foods is whoring itself out to Islam for profits. And as more and more Muslims populate America through immigration and high birth rates, more and more corporations will shill for jihadist interests. It’s that simple. We’ve already seen it with Wal-Mart, Best Buy, and others. And now this from Whole Jihad Foods. The question is, how long ‘til Whole Foods no longer carries pork and other non-halal products? Answer: Not long.
Even scarier, the Whole Foods’ Whole Planet Foundation acknowledges “an ongoing charitable relationship” with halal foods maker Saffron Road. What exactly does that mean? Where is that Whole Foods charity money made from your Whole Foods purchases going? Is it going to hateful mosques that openly support Hezbollah and HAMAS (which is pretty much every mosque in America)? Is it going to support extremist Muslim schools? Why take the chance and continue to buy at Whole Foods? You don’t know where your money is going. But, for certain, it’s going for Ramadan promotions and giveaways.
“Palestinian terrorism olive oil?” “Whole Jihad Foods?” “[H]ow long ‘til Whole Foods no longer carries pork and other non-halal products?” Personally, I have to marvel that anyone so clearly off her meds is still somehow able to string together anything resembling complete sentences. Not that she has an actual supportable argument, of course. Her assertion that “Islam = Terrorism” is as offensive as it is flagrantly wrong. There’s no denying that some who profess to follow the teachings of Mohammed have committed acts of terrorism…but it also cannot be denied that some who profess to follow the teachings of Jesus Christ have done the same. That Schlussel choose to simply ignore this reality renders her argument (such as it is) as pointless as it is offensive. Yeah, truth, facts, and reality can be SO inconvenient, and Schlussel doesn’t appear to be one to allow such trivialities to stand in the way of her propensity to hate what she can’t be bothered to understand.
Whole Foods, like any business with a diverse customer base, has a responsibility to those it serves. Promoting halal foods during Ramadan is really no different than promoting Kosher Foods during Passover, turkey and stuffing during Christmas, or Buffalo Wings on Super Bowl Sunday. That Schlussel chooses to focus her hatred for any and all things Muslim on Whole Foods’ effort to reach out to its Muslim customer base doesn’t change this reality. It’s just too bad that Whole Foods couldn’t see their way clear to displaying something resembling moral courage by telling Schlussel into which orifice she could stuff her impotent rage.
Islam isn’t the problem here, any more than Judaism or Christianity is. The problem is people like Debbie Schlussel (and there are no lack of haters like her) who hate because they refuse to learn, understand, and recognize the truth that Islam is no more or less a threat to our safety and security than Christianity or Judaism. When you get right down to it, the real threat is people like Schlussel, who would sooner destroy someone for being a Muslim than embrace them for their humanity.
Yeah, go ahead; tell me the terrorists haven’t won….
