It seems the repubs are going to boycott over oil prices...

[jbm]

I post at several sites that are a conservative/liberal mix,and twice today I have run across this letter(posted below). Now I realize that most of us disagree that there is plenty of oil remaining,but my question is,if the repubs are going to boycott Exxon and Mobil for whatever reasons they have,is there any advantage to joining them? My first reaction is that forcing a decrease in fuel prices would actually be a bad thing..it would simply speed up the climate change and running out of oil stuff....but another part of me is thinking maybe it wouldn't be all bad to mess with the profits of two huge oil companies. Any thoughts?

Dear friends & family,

I hear we are going to hit close to $3.00 a gallon by the summer. Want gasoline prices to come down? We need to take some intelligent, united action. Phillip Hollsworth, offered this good idea: This makes MUCH MORE SENSE than the “don’t buy gas on a certain day” campaign that was going around last April or May! The oil companies just laughed at that because they knew we wouldn’t continue to “hurt” ourselves by refusing to buy gas. It was more of an inconvenience to us than it was a problem for them. BUT, whoever thought of this idea, has come up with a plan that can really work. Please read it and join with us!



By now you’re probably thinking gasoline priced at about $1.50 is super cheap. Me too! It is currently $1.77 for regular unleaded gas in Riverwoods, IL. We all know that we're being screwed by the oil companies. Does everyone remember how they drove up the prices way past a dollar and got the gas prices to where they wanted them, claiming there was a shortage of oil. Well, there isn't any shortage now, and the oil is more abundant than it was 35 years ago when the price of a gallon of gas was 29 cents!!!



Now that the oil companies and the OPEC nations have conditioned us to think that the cost of a gallon of gas is CHEAP at $1.50- $1.75, we need to take aggressive action to teach them that BUYERS control the marketplace....not sellers. With the price of gasoline going up more each day, we consumers need to take action. The only way we are going to see the price of gas come down is if we hit someone in the pocketbook by not purchasing their gas! And we can do that WITHOUT hurting ourselves. How? Since we all rely on our cars, we can’t just stop buying gas. But we CAN have an impact on gas prices if we all act together to force a price war.



Here’s the idea: For the rest of this year, DON’T purchase ANY gasoline from the two biggest companies (which now are one), EXXON and MOBIL. If they are not selling any gas, they will be inclined to reduce their prices. If they reduce their prices, the other companies will have to follow suit. But to have an impact, we need to reach literally millions of Exxon and Mobil gas buyers. It’s really simple to do!! Now, don’t whimp out on me at this point...keep reading and I’ll explain how simple it is to reach millions of people!!



I am sending this note to at least thirty people. If each of you send it to at least ten more (30 x 10 = 300) ... and those 300 send it to at least ten more (300 x 10 = 3,000)...and so on, by the time the message reaches the sixth generation of people, we will have reached over THREE MILLION consumers! If those three million get excited and pass this on to ten friends each, then 30 million people will have been contacted! If it goes one level further, you guessed it..... THREE HUNDRED MILLION PEOPLE!!! Again, all You have to do is send this to 10 people. That’s all (If you don’t understand how we can reach 300 million and all you have to do is send this to 10 people... Well, let’s face it, you just aren’t a mathematician. But I am .. so trust me on this one.)



How long would all that take? If each of us sends this email out to ten more people within one day of receipt, all 300 MILLION people could conceivably be contacted within the next 8 days!!! I’ll bet you I didn’t think you and I had that much potential, did you! Acting together we can make a difference. If this makes sense to you, please pass this message on. PLEASE HOLD OUT UNTIL THEY LOWER THEIR PRICES TO THE $1.30 OR LESS RANGE AND KEEP THEM DOWN. THIS CAN REALLY WORK!!!!!!!


PLEASE take a few minutes and pass this on to everyone you know!! If you can't e-mail it to at least ten people, please print out a bunch of copies and hand it out to your family and friends!!



NO MORE MOBIL & EXXON FOR ME!!!!

[mac2]

1. Haven't since Alaskan oil spill....

[brainshrub]

2. These idiots don't realize that the real problem is Peak Oil

and it's being exacerbated by their Hummers and SUV's.

[aquaman]

3. Quite hypocritical...

To drive a massive tank and then bitch about the gas prices. If you drive a tank, please, save your money, your going to need it.

[still_one]

7. Hey, I have two hybrids which get 40-50 mpg

Don't blame me if you have a tank

[Deja Q]

4. It's about the buyer, not the seller

The dude is right:

we need to take aggressive action to teach them that BUYERS control the marketplace....not sellers. (about the marketplace in general, not just oil... the corporations thinking it's the other way around will ruin us all.)

Of course, as reflected from my aborted original subject line: Peak oil aside of course, tell them to boycott NASCAR first...

Edit: Spelling

[HawkerHurricane]

5. What!

Republicans saying "we need to take aggressive action to teach them that BUYERS control the marketplace....not sellers."?

Tell the Dude that he's proposing Demand Side Economics; the exact opposite of St. Reagan's Supply Side Economics.

[Toots]

13. Bingo ~ I bet that never crossed their pea brains

Freepers supporting Demand Side economics what a huge Guffaw. They are supposed to be supporting these big oil corporations and get trickled on. Thanks for the laugh.

[drthais]

6. enough oil remaing?

...that would be a realtive thing

enough for what?

no, there's not enough
to keep upi this lifestyle
it would be best to re-tool, as it were

bikes - maybe not
but as a first step - hybrid vehicles
in the end (which is not long from now)
we wil ALL have to figure out how to live without electricity
(sporatically at first)
and know how to grow food and how to dig a well
time's a wastin

this is not a joke

[Viking12]

8. Economic Ignorance

The premise is that Exxon Mobil is only a retailer of oil/gas. If 3 million people go to Sinclair retailers rather than Exxon stations it won't hurt Exxon. Exxon will sell their inventory wholesale at higher prices to Sinclair and still make plenty of money. The "reductionless" boycott is a futile pipedream (redundant?). The only way to make a difference is to reduce consumption in real figures.

[jbm]

10. I hadn't thought of it that way...

but it makes perfect sense. Welcome to DU,btw.:)

[BiggJawn]

11. I agree with you.

I don't buy my dead dinosaurs at Exxon because it's already $1.75 compared to $1.69 at Family Pantry.
So it doesn't cause ME any hardship to say "I boycott Exxon!"

[DBoon]

9. In the absence of a just economic system

raising the price of a necessity causes harm to people it shouldn't, even if there are good reasons for people to consume less of the item.

A raise in gas prices would be OK, if it subsidized some alternatives - cheaper hybrib vehicles, mass transit, breaks for carpooling, etc.

That's not how things work now, in fact the opposite. People are led to believe they can compensate for their lack of power in the political realm by driving a "powerful" gas guzzling car. Real human desires are displaced into commodity fantasies. Once the psychological connection is made, then the price goes up.

[dweller]

12. This gem of a plan

is floated yearly, and can be debunked here:
http://www.snopes.com/inboxer/petition/gasout.htm

short 'painful' version:

"The only practical way of reducing gasoline prices is through the straightforward means of buying less
gasoline, not through a simple and painless scheme of just shifting where we buy it. The inconvenience of
driving less is a hardship too many people apparently aren't willing to endure, however."


dp

[Dissenting_Prole]

14. This is the kind of denial we can expect

in the next few years. And don't expect it to end when gas hits $5 a gallon. It's going to take more than a decade to weed out the whiners.


http://www.brant.net/gvmr/electric.htm

[RoeBear]

15. Why were you so ready to believe...

...that it was a Republican inspired boycott?

Try to be a little more sceptical the next time you run across something like this.