So Friday was the "Great American Gasout" right? What happened? The oil companies are saying it was a bust, a total waste of time, we shouldn't bother trying to reduce oil prices because they're set by the market anyway, yes?
NO! Of course our campaign didn't put anyone out of business, that wasn't the point. Did we devastate any gas station owners? No! (Did you think we wanted to?) We are trying to raise awareness that we ARE the market. We can make a difference. But our work in not done yet.
This requires coordination and planning. But the Internet is the perfect medium to make this possible. There is a really good website called www.gasout.com, that is compiling all the facts and laying out the plans. I urge you to read more about it on their website, but let me distill some of their ideas that I particularly agree with:
Why pick on Chevron? Because their maintenance lapses contributed to (or were used as a reason for) the incredible jump in prices. Also, as a reader pointed out to me. By focusing our frustration at one target (which is PLENTY big all by themselves) we can increase the impact of our actions. That person suggested we boycott Shell Oil, but I recommend we go along with gasout.com and all focus on Chevron.
What's the point? Why shouldn't we just bend over and take it from the oil companies and station owners? Well.... You can do that if you want to. I'm going to start riding my bike to work whenever possible and encouraging my coworkers to carpool/take the bus/tele-commute if they can.
Links: