Occupy the GAS PUMPS

[unionworks]

Hey Occupiers! Want a tactic sure to reach out and bond to the 99%? Wait till the oiligarchy starts to raise gas to over four bucks a gallon. Show up at gas stations with mini demonstrations, Fawkes masks and all, distributing leaflets explaining how big oil is shoving it up the wazoo of the 99%,especially those who MUST rely on fossil fuels to reach their job. Explain to them what a joke their payroll tax cut is, nowthat the 1% simply have to raise gas prices to take it right back off of them. You want an issue near and dear to peoples hearts that will forge a lasting bond with Occupy? Congradulations, the oil piggies have given it to you on a silver plattter.

[sabrina 1]

1. I agree, everyone can relate to this. Gas is already over $4 where I am. It jumped nearly

50 cents this week.

Explain to them what a joke their payroll tax cut is, nowthat the 1% simply have to raise gas prices to take it right back off of them.

So they gave people a tax cut, and now it goes to the Oil Criminals. I hate to be cynical, but it makes you wonder if it was not planned that way. And it takes it away from SS. So the anti tax, anti SS contingency wins again.

[Leopolds Ghost]

2. I believe in Peak Oil, but this is a winning strategy.

In any event the Oil Barons are using Peak Oil to their advantage, which is at the heart of what the OP is getting at.

[Owlet]

3. It's not the guy running the station's fault

It's wrong to screw up his business with a demonstration, mini or otherwise, and you're going to have confrontations with people who just want to gas up and get to work, not read some leaflet.

The original OWS (accept no substitutes) correctly targeted the group responsible for the economic outrages being perpetrated upon the citizens of this country. Nothing has changed and nothing will until the system that allows these ripoffs is allowed (some would say 'encouraged') to continue. You're right - there is what amounts to an oligarchy manipulating gas prices and pretty much everything else in the economy for their own benefit, but I seriously doubt if showing up a a gas station in a fawkes mask is going to change things very much.

Here's a link you might find interesting.

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/business/2012/02/how-wall-st-is-raising-the-price-of-gas/

Some excerpts:

"What may surprise you, however, is what one of Wall Street’s top regulators has to say about who else you’re paying: speculators on Wall Street.

Bart Chilton, a commissioner at the Commodity Futures Trading Commission,  the federal agency that regulates commodity futures and option trading in the United States, said it’s time to look at home — in addition to overseas — when searching for the reasons why gas prices are on the rise

<snip>

By Chilton’s calculation, if you drive a car like a Honda Civic, you’re paying $7.30 more than you should every time you fill up — to Wall Street speculators.  If your car is a Ford Explorer you’re paying an extra $10.41.
For a Ford F150,  he says owners pay an additional $14.56 per fill up -or more than $750 a year.

[TBF]

5. The guy running the station should thank the protesters -

for providing information to the customers that could put pressure on our elite. He only stands to gain - if the price comes down people buy more. At $4/gallon they are only going to buy what they absolutely have to for work and will do their best to accomplish errands on the way home, etc ... The have to be very cognizant of the price at that level because for most workers that adds up to a lot.

[Owlet]

6. Maybe he should,

but it's more likely he'll call the cops to have them arrested for trespass. Understand I'm not against protest as a tactic, but it's only effective if the ultimate target of the protest feels enough pain to make him change his ways. I just don;t see leafleting at gas stations accomplishing this.

[Leopolds Ghost]

11. It depends how it's framed. Gas price speculation hurts station owners severely

If the price of gas is driven by suppliers instead of by a supply demand imbalance, then the station owners get squeezed.

[sabrina 1]

9. They could work with the Station Owners. I agree that they are not responsible at all,

but wouldn't it make the protests against those who are, more visible across the country? Just emphasizing that they are not protesting the station owners.

[JNelson6563]

4. Additonal suggestion

Would especially love to see those who lead the way in raising prices targeted. I don't know about elsewhere but here there is one company who always is first to raise the price and the others soon follow.

An idea I've been thinking about recently, and I know it's nothing new, but if we could all do everything we can to cut back on consumption. Combine reasons for trips, car pool when possible, stuff like that. I think things were going this way back when gas went to over $4 a gallon (2008, I think) but I suspect it was somewhat abandoned when prices dropped.

Was just thinking if we could put serious dent in demand it would help our situation.

Just my .0125

Julie

[TBF]

7. That would be new for the bourgeoise for sure -

but working folks have already been conserving. I have family members in small towns who work for McDonald's or travel to another small town for work (midwest, job pickings are even more slim in the rural areas). $4/gallon gas makes it hard for them to break even on going to work at their minimum wage jobs, never mind extra trips.

I'm not sure what the ultimate answer is, because like most progressives I'd like to see more mass transportation and alternative energy methods addressed and get off this oil roller coaster. The problem is that something like the price of oil hurts so many people in this country and it's one thing they can relate to because they all have to deal with it. Then they decide to vote republican because they watch FAUX news with all their friends and view it as news as opposed to entertainment. And that's how you end up with a freak like Santorum as president.

I really don't know, it's very frustrating.

[JNelson6563]

8. I hear you!

I'm in northern MI and many here have to do some driving to get to and from work. Many live "out in the sticks" because it costs so much less but then, @ $4+ a gallon, it ends up costing even more! A catch-22 to be sure!

Julie

[unionworks]

10. Protest at the Pumps

Can be done in a legal non-violent manner. Leafleting wouldn't even be needed, appropriate signs would work. This would turn the oil piggies strategy right back on them. Believe me, most working people at the gas pups have a string of silent curses intheir heart because they know damn well they're being downright screwed. Seeing Occupy lend it's voice to what they feel inside will bring their hearts to Occupy. It hits them right where they live, it's not an abstract to them.

[KoKo]

14. Mass Transportation worked when folks worked "9-5:00p.m."..Not the case anymore..

Shift work, Part Time, Kids in Day Care home with Grandma...erratic jobs.

Buses and trains work on Profit Schedule...not the New Work force of the 21st Century. There's no way I could find a bus or train schedule where I live that could ever be profitable getting me to and from my Part Time with our own Business which is in another town away from me.

This is true of most Jobs in America today. The jobs are not on a Train or Bus Line but require long walks and when kids are involved the time for this and connecting with day care becomes an impossible challenge. The jobs today mostly involve long commutes to places that aren't on "lines" that can be profitable for cities to fund the schedules to take care of the temporary part time work that most of our workers have been downsized into.

I think that we on the Left forget that these days.. Just saying.

[TBF]

15. It is not "the left" that is wrong -

it is the defeatist attitude that we must bow to whatever corporate America dishes out. I could give a fuck about profit.

Just saying.

[Leopolds Ghost]

18. All I know is Ulaanbataar, Mongolia has a Metro (supposedly) but Kansas City doesn't

Despite the fact that Kansas City is built on a chalk bluff, meaning it's cheaper to excavate there than it is anywhere else.

(For comparison, Paris is built on limestone, an easy to excavate material, New York is built on a jagged ridge of glacial deposits and granite)

The federal government actually built underground warehouses in chalk mines to store old documents, because it's so cheap to excavate and climate controlled.

[KoKo]

12. McClatchy Reports:Once again, speculators behind sharply rising oil and gasoline prices

Once again, speculators behind sharply rising oil and gasoline prices

Feb 21, 2012 · Once again, speculators behind sharply ... A McClatchy review of the latest Commitment of Traders report from the Commodity Futures Trading …
www.mcclatchydc.com/2012/02/21/139521/​once-again-speculators...

[KoKo]

13. BTW...McClatchy isn't allowing me to "cut and paste" a snip of site...so

I have to give you the "Search" where you will have to probably cut and paste link into your browser.. But, it's a good read that "THEY" are doing it again...just in time for US "Consumer's Summer Driving" ... We've been there before.

[NYC_SKP]

16. Here's a shortened URL and a snippet:

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2012/02/21/v-print/139521/once-again-speculators-behind.html

same link as: http://bit.ly/zN6W7D

Excerpt:

(as a preface, demand is down and the US is actually a net exporter-- so why are prices rising?)

... The ostensible reason for the climb of crude prices on the New York Mercantile Exchange, where contracts for future delivery of oil are traded, is growing fear of a military confrontation with Iran in the Persian Gulf's Strait of Hormuz, through which 20 percent of the world's oil passes.

Other factors driving up prices include last month's bankruptcy of Petroplus, a big European refiner, and a recent BP refinery fire in Washington state that's temporarily crimped gasoline supply along the West Coast; gas now costs an average of $4.04 a gallon in California.

While tension over Iran has ratcheted up over the last few months, the price of oil and gasoline has leaped far beyond conventional supply and demand variables. Financial speculators are piling into the market, torquing the Iranian fear factor into ever-higher prices.

"Speculation is now part of the DNA of oil prices. You cannot separate the two anymore. There is no demarcation," said Fadel Gheit, a 30-year veteran of energy markets and an analyst at Oppenheimer & Co. "I still remain convinced oil prices are inflated."

I think the idea of a protest is only as good as the degree to which we can enlighten/educate the people who see us.

With that in mind, I fully support getting out there.

[unionworks]

17. How's this for enlighten and educate

Local Occupies march on public sidewalks in front of stations with signs bearing the names and pictures of the areas "elected representatives" along with the amounts of campaign contributions and soft money said representatives have received from big oil, gas and other energy profiteers. This directly points out to angry consumer/voters of the 99% the connection between corporate money and politics and how both together make their lives much more difficult for the profit of the 1%. Can it get any more plain and simple than that? Could it be any easier to really piss off the oiligarchs and their congressional shoe shine boys?

[Magoo48]

19. Good idea....

[NYC_SKP]

20. I like it!

And that's the kind of messaging we need to use.

Information, that's our ammunition!