"[We] ... had heard about this idea of not buying any gas for the weekend of April 9. [My husband is] not convinced that it will work, as everyone who will participate will be buying their gas the few days before the "gas-out" (especially as it lasts the whole weekend)-- so there will be a run on gas before the weekend, and in the long run, very little difference in the amount of gas sold will occur!

"Another interesting idea is to stop buying gas from one particular company unless they lower their price by a certain amount -- then they'll be forced to lower their prices, we'll buy from them exclusively, and the other companies will then have to follow suit...."

Response:
Someone suggested not buying gas from April 9, 2000 to April 10, 2010. I think that comes closer to my sentiments.

The real issue is not price; it's availability. Mother Nature is sending a warning message again, but people generally haven't caught on yet. Those who expect help from government would do well to appreciate how the prevailing political mechanisms constrain our leaders from delivering the cruel message to the public, "The Joy Ride is about to End[large file]."

Modern political machinery relies heavily on the existence of an enemy. This was brought out in a remarkable book, The Report from Iron Mountain:

"Political: The permanent possibility of war is the foundation for stable government; it supplies the basis for general acceptance of political authority. It has enabled societies to maintain necessary class distinctions, and it has ensured the subordination of the citizen to the state, by virtue of the residual war powers inherent in the concept of nationhood. No modern political ruling group has successfully controlled its constituency after failing to sustain the continuing credibility of an external threat of war." [www.simonsays.com/titles/068482390X/rimexcerpt.html]

In the book, written in 1967, the author claimed to be leaking information from a meeting held by government planners deliberating on the merits of warfare. While this was a hoax, and though one might argue that the author presents an overly cynical view of the human condition, the message is relevant to the current situation. The political will does not yet exist to present the facts of nature to the public. As oil supplies go into decline in the next few years, it will be very tempting to blame the Arabs. As Buz Ivanhoe has put it so succinctly, "The God of Oil is Allah!"

We all will benefit by making the truth known (see http://www.oilcrisis.com/) and holding our politicians accountable for hiding behind statistics and theatrical exercises, such as American politicians threatening to tap into the stategic reserves if OPEC doesn't lower its prices. Who are they trying to kid? The strategic reserves represent less than a month of current US production.