Posted on 06/14/2004 2:56:24 AM PDT by mgist
Alors! Spilling Wine
To Chastise France
They were Americans exercising their right of protest, and they poured out their anger at France.
As the French fought early last year to block United Nations approval for an invasion of Iraq, some Americans responded by boycotting anything French. Occasionally, they made a public splash of it, emptying bottles of French wine into sewers and rivers, while fellow Americans hailed or assailed their actions.
Anthony M. Tola, above, drew a media spotlight when he poured a bottle of merlot into a toilet at his New Brunswick, N.J., restaurant and said he had earlier done the same with six bottles of Dom Pérignon - flushing away $1,000 in sales. He also returned the rest of his stock of French wines to his supplier.
Also in New Jersey, John Koppenaal invited the public to his wine and liquor shop in Plumsted Township, then led the scores of people who showed up in pouring his entire stock of French wine into a storm drain - several hundred bottles whose wholesale cost he put at more than $5,000.
Last week, both men said they still were not selling French wines, though Mr. Tola said he "probably will" do so again at his restaurant, the Old Bay.
"As good friends have disputes, good friends make up," he said. He is encouraged, he said, by France's action last week in joining the rest of the United Nations Security Council in support of an American and British resolution to transfer sovereignty to an interim Iraqi government.
Of 500 mailed and telephoned comments he got, "about 70 percent were in favor," Mr. Tola said. "But a lot of people called me a warmonger, and that was not my intention," he said. As for patronage, "I lost some, but gained some."
Mr. Koppenaal said his Plumsted Buy Rite shop would never again sell French wine, which had accounted for only 5 percent of its wine sales in any case. And 98 percent of the comments he got supported his dumping session, he said, adding, "It helped my business, but this is not why I did it."
Where did the dumpings fit in to the overall picture?
"They were isolated instances," said Greg Deligdisch, vice president and marketing director of Sopexa USA, a company that promotes French wine and food in America. But he acknowledged that last year was a "difficult time for French wines on the U.S. market," though he attributed this to economic factors as well as to the tensions over Iraq.
France is not my good friend, and my (although very small & personal) boycott goes on.
France has not improved much in relations with the USA. The boycott continues..
Agreed. As Charles Krauthammer points out, France is no longer an ally but an adversary, seeking to undermine the US. The lamestream media does not know that France has been promoting islamic fascist regimes in African countries for the past few years.
They may not, but it would seem to fit in with the lamestream media's "America needs to revert to a third world country" ideology, which to me is basic Communism.
You know, we (all God's the chilluns) are all equal, all get the same food, duds to wear, and salary. America stops its greedy, and overbearing consumption of "the worlds" resources, and we all live in caves eating bugs, and berries, as nature intended.
I agree with everything you said, but more so. Not only is it Communism, but it's worse. The angry and privileged non achievers want want want to offset their own self loathing. I know of what I speak as I am related to two of them.
I have several in my family also. Unfortunately, many familys do.
Seems it is a sickness that predominates when one is comfortable, and in looking at others less fortunate, (reads: Americans unwilling to work towards their own betterment) become overwhelmed with a false sense of guilt.
For the sake of my favorite vice, I sincerely hope that Scotland remains an ally.
Actually, Mom figured it out. She said, the ones we did the most for do the least for us now and the ones we did the least for are the ones who do the most now.
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