" >
wrote in oups.com:

>> Too many boycotts are launched as
>> an unintelligent emotional reaction to something one takes as a
>> personal slight, like the guy who wanted everyone to boycott
>> Chinese buffet restaurants in the US until China released the spy
>> plane they had captured when it landed in Hainan. Fat lot of
>> good that was going to do :-)
>
> Well it might have helped improve food quality. I don't know about
> US "Chinese buffets" but I have never seen a good one in Canada. I
> don't think most Chinese food is designed to be left in warming
> pans . Getting people to eat in 'real' Chinese restaurants would
> have been a good thing.

My point was that the guy was recommending a boycott of US businesses
to "punish" the Chinese government for holding a US spy plane which had
landed on their territory, a government who, it must be said, derives
no benefits from said Chinese buffets in Iowa, I think it was. It was
a case of a man clearly thinking with his butt.

Now boycotting Chinese buffets to improve the food might or might not
work, but in a so-called free-market economy (yeah, right) you are free
to NOT buy from them anyway, and inversely they are free to not sell to
you. If you were a good client of one restaurant and wished to protest
a change of policy with respect to food preparation, a personal boycott
might have an impact on the owner if he valued your custom, but
otherwise, you're asking to be ignored.

Switch to Indian buffets. They're much better and way fewer chemicals.

--

"When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why
the poor have no food, they call me a communist."

Dom Helder Camara