Leftist Consumer Chic

My title is a stolen phrase from this piece by Andrew Breitbart on Whole Foods and its endorsement by "animal liberationist" and defender of infanticide Peter Singer. I love Breitbart's description of the urban dweller who frequents the chic emporium: "the one who wants to indulge class-conscious epicurean yearnings and save the world too." Breitbart's assertion that "organic" is one of the new synonyms for "virtuous" is also correct. To quote Breitbart again, the Whole Foods voice tells you, "You are an open-minded, deep-feeling and wondrously spiritual person. You are now free to buy, buy, buy!"

Well, the stock of this billion dollar enterprise, like that of its fellow-bobo coffee/food retail outlet, Starbucks, perennially trades at nosebleed prices -- Wall Street knows a trend when it spots one. The success of these businesses tells us something about who we are, I suppose.