There have been protests in...

[Doityourself]

Spain, India, Japan, France and Portugal and other countries regarding the spike in gas prices... when will the citizens of the US stage protests in the street...

I know in Malaysia what broke the camel's back was this:

In Malaysia, gasoline pump prices jumped 41% overnight and diesel prices surged a stunning 67%.

What is America's breaking point? How much are we willing to pay for gas before we hit the streets in protest?

[High Plains]

1. Can I drive to the demonstration?

[Doityourself]

3. Lmao..as long as you car pool...

[lame54]

4. I protested today...

Usually when I fill up I get a 32oz soda to go along with it - today I only bought the 24oz

[Doityourself]

9. I didn't protest..but I did get some free air for my tire..that'll show 'em

[lame54]

10. power to the people

[Doityourself]

12. Can you dig it?

[bdamomma]

2. people in other countries are not as passive as us.

we could learn a lesson, or will we be out in streets when there is another invasion.

[Doityourself]

5. My mom says the same thing..she said we have gotten soft..all they did was protest back in the day..

she said, she and my dad would take us kids and march for a cause...civil rights, vietnam war...no excuses.

[liberal N proud]

6. They don't have ESPN and X-Box

[Hangingon]

7. The people in those countries pay a lot more for gas than we do.

When it hits $9 a gallon, we may see some unrest.

[Doityourself]

11. Damn unrest at $9...that far away? lawd

[gatorboy]

13. Yeah but at least with countries like France, they get their health care out of the expense.

All we get is.. The expense.

Not to mention, have you seen the gas mileage of a European car?

Face it. We're getting screewwwwed.

[gatorboy]

15. Dupe

Delete!

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

21. No, people in those countries pay more taxes...

which go back into public services such as public transport. If anything, they've felt the spike in prices less.

[w8liftinglady]

8. the independent truckers in my area are Republicans.

protests would be seen as endorsing Obama.

[Warpy]

14. We froggies are being brought to the boil slowly

in hopes we won't notice until we're cooked and it's too late.

Last week in NM it was $3.77. This week it's $3.89, and I live in the cheap part of town, away from the Interstates.

[The2ndWheel]

16. Protest what?

The global corporation? When does that entity listen?

The government, which if we had healthcare by taxes on gas would increase the price we pay for gas? Now there is a good protest sign. "We want lower gas prices!! We want more healthcare!!"

Geology?

More of humanity gaining equal access to resources?

What are the protests around the world accomplishing?

[Doityourself]

18. Any suggestions? Or should we just use the revolver and get it over with? lol

[The2ndWheel]

19. Most of us wouldn't exist without cheap energy

However, if we stop living in the world our dominant institutions have built, not for people, but for their own enlargement and increasing power over people, then you might not have to use the revolver just yet. It would be different for different people, in their own particular circumstance and place, but that's ok. Actual diversity is good(as opposed to men and women, black and white, working for the same corporation).

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/jun/06/ethicalliving.food

Don't give up

"Why bother? That really is the big question facing us as individuals hoping to do something about climate change, and it's not an easy one to answer. I don't know about you, but for me the most upsetting moment in An Inconvenient Truth came long after Al Gore scared the hell out of me, constructing an utterly convincing case that the very survival of life on earth as we know it is threatened by climate change. No, the really dark moment came during the closing credits, when we are asked to ... change our lightbulbs. That's when it got really depressing. The immense disproportion between the magnitude of the problem Gore had described and the puniness of what he was asking us to do about it was enough to sink your heart.

But the drop-in-the-bucket issue is not the only problem lurking behind the "Why bother?" question. Let's say I do bother, big time. I turn my life upside-down, start biking to work, plant a big garden, turn down the thermostat so low I need the Jimmy Carter signature cardigan, forsake the clothes dryer for a laundry line across the yard, trade in the SUV for a hybrid, get off the beef, go completely local. I could theoretically do all that, but what would be the point when I know full well that halfway around the world there lives my evil twin, some carbon-footprint doppelgänger in Shanghai or Chongqing who has just bought his first car (Chinese car ownership is where America's was back in 1918), is eager to swallow every bite of meat I forswear and who is positively itching to replace every last pound of CO2 I'm struggling no longer to emit. So what exactly would I have to show for all my trouble?

A sense of personal virtue, you might suggest, somewhat sheepishly. But what good is that when virtue itself is quickly becoming a term of derision? And not just on the editorial pages of the Wall Street Journal or on the lips of the American vice-president, Dick Cheney, who famously dismissed energy conservation as a "sign of personal virtue". No, it seems the epithet "virtuous", when applied to an act of personal environmental responsibility, may be used only ironically. Tell me: how did it come to pass that virtue - a quality that for most of history has generally been deemed, well, a virtue - became a mark of liberal softheadedness? How peculiar, that doing the right thing by the environment - buying the hybrid, eating like a locavore - should now set you up for ridicule."

[Doityourself]

20. Can one take comfort from their own contribution...even if it is a small cog in an evil wheel?

I sometimes think in the end it won't matter anyway, and we will destroy ourselves eventually; come rain, come shine, come hybrids, come recycling..come lower gas prices..or higher ones!

Has mankind has been on a path of destruction since the beginning of time? That is the question.

[raccoon]

17. I was one of a small group of people who attended anti-war rallies

in my city before the invasion of Iraq.

The vast majority of people in my conservative area, knowing their arses, their kids' and grandkids' weren't going to be at risk, were supportive of it, I guess figuring if the government said the US needs to invade Iraq, they must be right. :sarcasm:

Doggone if I'm going to protest gas prices.

[Javaman]

22. When the ratio of how much we pay for gas is to how much we bring home increases...

nationally, we currently paying between 13 and 15% of our take home pay for fuel.

When that increases to 20 - 25% then you will see serious protests.

In most 3rd world nations, the percentage is roughly 50% to 70% of fuel costs to take home pay.

Here, in the states, we, because we are so completely dependant on cars and oil for everything we do, it would take a lot less for us to begin the protests.

At the rate oil is rising as well as the price at the pump, I predict, sometime either late this fall, as people notice a major rise in their heating fuel, things, as they say, will get interesting.