Abstract

Tofu Politics in Berkeley

On the hallowed site of Berkeley, California's old co-optation stands the latest addition to the counter-cultural topography of the infamous red city by the bay. The whole foods market is friendly, tastefully decorated in earthy shades of green and brown, and full of high-minded principles. Recycling is second nature. Political buttons are in ample supply. One can get organic kidney beans and pre-printed postcards that support legislation promoting organic food production, find cruelty-free cosmetics and guidelines for taking action against animal testing. Whole foods are predictably filled with the kind of people who have made Berkeley and nearby Oakland, California legendary havens for political radicalism and oppositional culture. Many of the Berkeleyans who cross the particular picket line, it seems, see what they're doing as a progressive and very political act. What's happening at whole foods market is a parable, in many ways, of the problematic fate of the counter-cultural politics that once thrived in towns like Berkeley: a tale, twenty years after the fall of the New Left, of what happens when the personal overwhelms the political.