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Vive la Révolution: Or How I Crashed an Airbus into the Statue of Liberty while Drinking Perrier
By Neil Ransom | April 15, 2008
I know we are so over it and so back to drinking Perrier, flying on Airbus planes, coating our faces with L’Oreal and reading Rolling Stone magazine, even so I want to write about the old French product protest “we” had a few years ago. My first question about our protest of French products is; did it include the Statue of Liberty? Because it was made in France under commission of the French as a gift to America symbolizing the bonds of friendship that had formed between the two nations during the revolutionary war. If we (I am using the royal “we,” I had nothing to do with this shindig) really wanted to stick-it to the French we should have boycotted their symbol of union and friendship by only visiting the Statue of Liberty to deface it with spray paint and sledge hammers.
OK, so maybe we (royal “we” again) were only trying to hurt the French economy and as long as we already had a French product before the boycott we could continue using it because the transaction had already taken place. Fair enough, but that brings me to my second question; who even knows what a French products are? Most are elitist consumer goods anyway, and it seems like the type of American protesting French products wouldn’t buy them even during peace times. I mean I can’t tell you the last French thing I bought, ate or consumed that wasn’t purchased while in France. And I think this is probably true for most people. (To tell you the truth I bought a small bottle of French horseradish mustard the other day).
And finally, as case and point for my whole argument against the French product protest, when you have to make a Boycott Website to show people what to boycott and and what not to, it just goes to show that the world has changed so much that you can’t really punish a country anymore through a citizen product protest. Everything is made and owned by everyone else that if you were going to abstain from anything profitable to the French you’ll be left eating grass clippings and walking barefoot. Likely many French companies are owned by an American umbrella company or some other international group, and many things “Made in America” are owned by foreigners and maybe even the French. I say lets protest all things created, said or sold by those who came up with this stupid protest in the first place.
I am interested to see how the Chinese product protest goes with this whole Tibet and Olympics thing, there is not much left in the world that isn’t made in China.
Tagged with: China • French • French product protest • Protest
April 15th, 2008 at 9:42 pm
The finest list of french products I can think of would be found in the 80s cult classic film “Better off Dead”, wherein, Mrs. Meyer serves up a lovely meal of “Fronch dressing. Fronch fries. Fronch bread. And to drink….Peru!”
Classic.
April 16th, 2008 at 4:56 pm
and don’t forget Fronch Poodles.
April 16th, 2008 at 6:40 pm
Also, do expressions count? Should I boycott ‘Pardon My Fronch’? cuz I’ve been needing that one alot lately.
April 17th, 2008 at 8:53 am
I think words are okay as long as they don’t have a copyright. I mean if you have to pay a Fronch man every time you need to pardon your Fronch, then you might need to reconsider.
April 17th, 2008 at 10:33 am
As a side-note, boycotts are usually incredibly ineffective at forcing change. Rarely has a boycott done anything but hurt the people boycotting (the same goes for embargoes). There are a few notable exceptions (arguably, South Africa), but for the most part they have all been horrible failures.
April 17th, 2008 at 10:36 am
I had another thought regarding the French boycott. What a stupid thing that was. A country disagrees with us on the national stage, so what do we do? We refuse to buy their products and we remove the word “French” from our culinary vocabulary. We wonder why our elected officials demonstrate such horrible diplomatic skills. It’s because we as a nation have poor diplomatic skills.
You also notice that France, which arguably had plenty about which to complain when it came to America, did not start a boycott of American goods. Man that was silly.
April 19th, 2008 at 11:26 am
Ah, Viper, I see you are still looking for a good fight.
Viva La Revolucion!!!!
April 30th, 2008 at 3:26 pm
Not sure that’s the royal we, even though I could see your point.
Also, I am not sure that not visiting the SofL would be a French Boycott. Perhaps refusing to buy any further gargantuan statues symbolizing American values would qualify, and then I say by all means, let’s make our own.
May 1st, 2008 at 4:36 am
Actually, thinking about it and I have done so very little indeed, I don’t think that the point of whatever boycott that there was and I don’t think it was undertaken serioiusly was to hurt the French economy. It was to basically state that we don’t appreciate their opinions or the opinions of any foreign nationals about our military decisions. The French don’t seem to like a war that they didn’t either start or surrender to, and ‘Fankly’ I don’t think their their war or security advice is admirable. Except I sure do think their new President is a good improvement on things. Maybe I’ll go buy some Perrier to celebrate that election.
May 1st, 2008 at 4:49 am
Pardon my being dense but how can a nation have any kind of diplomatic skills?
I think in truth the French do boycott American products, and in the way that actually counts. They have heavily punitive tariffs on imports from America but not from Cuba, Russia or China. They diss America and American products both through their institutions and in the popular culture. And they resist English being adopted to name things when there isn’t really any good French alternative for words. If the French had their way ‘le computer’ would be called ‘le boite de technology’ even though no self respecting computer user of any nationality would be caught ‘morte’ saying something so ridiculously nerdy. If they could they would call a sandwitch ‘deux piece de pan avec quelque chose dand le centre.’
Except the French are at a distinct disadvantage when they try to resist English and American products. All of the new things and words happen to be coming from here. If they were to boycott our computers or our products, what would they be left with? As it is they are all ending up with crooked necks trying to drive their ridiculous Peujeuts and any buisness that actually uses a boite de technology even if mandated by the Academie Francaise will be laughed out of the business market. French hostility to America - at least any that measures on the radar screen - is in direct proportion to their power to do anything actually of consequence - none.
May 1st, 2008 at 4:53 am
Thanks Neil for reminding me I still had a good anti-Frog rant somewhere within my broken American spirit and my dashed American reves. It made me feel much better.
May 1st, 2008 at 4:56 am
I know that some of you don’t speak French but I’ll give you the hint my French joke roughly translated is ‘tres tres amusante!’
May 1st, 2008 at 5:06 am
I was actually impressed, I take it back that the prior French president said that any terrorist attack on France (this while said criticising our resoponse to 911) would be met with nukes directed toward no particular country! Just anyone that they could think of to nuke! Awesome. Maybe we should hire a French military advisor. I guess they learned their lesson equivocating and let Germans overrun them the whole past century and they don’t mess around. People change. Frogs change. Maybe not into princes, but anything’s possible I guess.