[WOODPIE]

Boycott whoever whatever totally ridiculous. With the way this "global economy" runs, I would be as likely to cause an American to lose his job as a workman in France or Germany if I were to join a boycott.

It is also misguided to think that today's France should still be beholden to America for liberating them during WW2. Should France, or any nation, eternally have to kowtow to American whims and whines? If so, then the reverse sentiment should be equally legitimate. Native American Indians should have every right to resent the Eminent Domain policy that almost, but not quite, wiped them from the face of the earth. And American Blacks, decendants of American slavery, America owes reparations, I guess, even though there is not one original slave owner left alive.

Guilt and gratitude. One can be neatly forgotten, the other held over the heads of others forever, is that it?

Some of the French probably were very grateful that the Allied forces chose Normandy as the assault point, back then in 1945. The collaborators were less than thrilled, I suspect, but even if you were in bed with the Germans before June 6, some French women found themselves in bed with the American GI after, expressing their deepest and most heartfelt gratitude for being liberated. Other not-quite-so fortunate GI's got at least a good meal and a buzz on from what there was left to drink.

The French folks there and then were grateful, I believe is my point. The French today, here and now, personally owe me nothing for what the previous generation of Americans did. To assume that gratitude and accolades are to be passed on from one generation to the next would make me an Ugly American indeed, and I should expect to get thrown out of restuarants.

The people who will suffer from any effects of a boycott are the same as you and me. If a French workman looses his job because I don't buy those Michelins, he's not going to vote against his government. He's going to try to find another job to feed his family and pay the rent. ***** runs downhill, always has, always will.

Ed