Gas Boycott, What Was I Thinking!?

Recently I put my foot right in a big cowpile of illogic and thought I should come clean. I was headed out to my step brother's place this past Mother's Day with my folks. My dad informed me of some 'nationwide gas boycott' thing where you weren't supposed to buy gas on tuesday. I thought it was a good idea because it was a market-based solution, not a government regulation one. I thought it was a good way to Stick It To The Man. But the next day my stupidity became embarrassingly obvious. A one day gas boycott, are you freakin' NUTS? What the hell is that gonna do!? Don't buy gas tuesday but wednesday's okay? Ridiculous! I am not very good at thinking on my feet unfortunately.

If you want to Stick It To The Oil Man you simply have to make a LONG TERM CHANGE IN YOUR GASOLINE CONSUMPTION. Better yet, make a short term change by actually consuming gasoline. You will die and Mother Earth will be reborn in splendor. No but seriously, unless you make a fundamental reduction in buying gas they aren't going to see any decline in sales. Reduce unnecessary trips, use a bike instead of a car, move closer to work, buy a more efficient car...these things will actually help. Everything else will be either symbolically good but useless or have the reverse effect.

But fundamentally I am stumped by the fact that complaining about gasoline prices are a favorite pastime of Americans. I am an evil person who wants to destroy the universe which means I commute a long distance to work everyday, burning fossil fuels and causing unborn babies to choke on deadly smog. However, the cost of this earth-raping madness of mine has never really caused me undue grief. Gasoline does not comprise a huge portion of my spending. If it bothered me so much I would have recourse, I could move closer to work. I wish all the gas price complaints were directed instead at something truly nefarious like say the income tax, or our fiat currency system which causes inflation in the first place.

A boycott of a certain product or company seems to be a form of protest. But what was the message of this alleged one-day gas boycott?

"We're pissed about high gas prices and you oil companies can go to hell!"

or was it actually:

"We're pissed about high gas prices and uh, we're going to keep buying it anyway. So yeah, go to hell oil companies! Um, just as long as you can still sell me gas in Hell...please? I need it..."

Let's face it, certain industries have got us by the balls. The energy business is a great business to be in. We all want it, and there's people willing to provide it. Sure we can go without, but well, it's really really nice to have. Sometimes I wish I worked in such an industry. Something like energy, food, drugs, funeral homes...these are industries that will never go away. I work in a lesuire activity industry that's based upon another industry whose golden age is slowly fading into history: model railroading! And it's in the printed page too, another area I worry is threatened by the steady march of progress. But I digress...

As they say in Morbid Angel, "send up our hate\to burn Heaven's gate". Such hate ought to be addressed to Washington D.C. and not the local filling station in my opinion.

(cripes, don't use the spell check on Blogger, it fucks up your text! *doh*)