The last time gas prices spiked over $4 per gallon, the Tea Party exploded with rage against the sitting president, hanging the totality of the blame on his administration. Of course, by "exploded with rage," I mean "didn't exist."
This time around, the Tea Party is taking action to draw attention to the fact that Barack Obama is gouging Americans by making sure gas prices are high by causing war in Libya, not opening Alaska to drilling and saving our national energy reserves to power Chinese tanks after China's inevitable invasion of the U.S. We spoke with Chris Lotto, Arizona activist and co-creator of the "The 'Hope and Change' Sticky Note Campaign," a movement that places anti-Obama sticky notes on gas pumps.
Yes, America, like a couple on the verge of divorce, can only communicate with Post-Its®.
Last Saturday afternoon, Lotto, who lives in Phoenix, launched the Facebook call to "Purchase a pad of large sticky notes. Write on each one, "How's that Hope & Change working out for you?" Every time you stop to fill your vehicle with gas, place your sticky note somewhere on the pump before you drive away. DO NOT be destructive in ANY way! Place your sticky note somewhere, so as not to impede the next customer's ability to read the pump's digital readout."
By the end of this week, the page had over 8,000 fans who had sent out over 50,000 invites to join and dozens of pictures were rolling in of notes placed on gas pumps from Ohio to Wisconsin to Texas.
Of the pre-printed sticky notes that are beginning to appear, Lotto said, "I would prefer they hand write each one, as I want more the appearance of a down home, grassroots movement."
Lotto said he "created the Facebook page entirely on my own." But since his accounting firm "does not permit employees to use work computers to log onto Facebook" he "asked several other 'active' members of my page if they would allow me to make them co-administrators of the page, so they could monitor for any uncivil-like posts." Those administrators all have varying levels of Tea Party involvement, such as Diana Gonzalez Horton, who is a member of Ohio's 9-12 movement. (Lotto says he is "not a Tea Party member, although my beliefs fall in line with the Tea Party's beliefs.")
One administrator is Greg Hedgepath, associate of YourDaddy.net, a site that's having what we'll call "a little trouble" getting past the release of Obama's long form birth certificate. Greg himself is no reporting slouch, having broken wide open such scandals as "Ex-CIA Agent Reveals: 'Muslim Brotherhood' has infiltrated Obama Administration" and how "a network of Mexican-American women, known as BMWs (Big Mexican Women), have been assisting Afghanis in illegally traversing the United States." Greg is the lucky proprietor of the Facebook handle /stopobama.
"I was actually working in parallel with them and did not know they had the Facebook page created at the time of my first post," he told us. "By the time I was finished with my second post my wife had found the Facebook page. Chris was gracious to add me as a creator/admin since all I have done is promote this all week long."
His site has "had over 20,000 visits to the three pages I have put together since the 4th," he said. Plus he promised a new video later today at his YouTube channel.
"That's about it as far as my input into this campaign," he said. "I guess you could say I did start it but was not the only one doing so"—something he addressed on his site.
Almost all are fans of Feedomworks, Fox News and are very, very "pro-Israel." Lotto himself is a member of nearly every "defend Israel" Facebook group out there, including the "Mossad" one and "I am a Jew and I will NOT vote for Obama in 2012" as well as the groups "Shame on Gov. Jan Brewer for Vetoing Arizona House bill 2177 Birther Bill" and "R.I.P. Banned FB accounts that spoke out against Islam."
But this is about gas.
The campaign calls for an expansion beyond gas stations, and some stickers have already turned up in grocery stores, denoting Obama's complicity in the price increase of some basic American food staples, like Cinnamon Burst Cheerios.
As with all popular things, the "Hope and Change" campaign has inspired knock-offs like the "NObama Gas Pump Campaign" and the "Sticky Note Campaign."
It has also inspired a "union threat" of a counter-campaign in which pro-union thugs in Wisconsin will put stickers on brands that supported Governor Scott Walker's campaign. Fox 6 News from Green Bay (which we last read about when its cameraman at the state capitol was mocking protesting students for their ignorance), noted that "Grocery stores will call police on anyone they catch planting stickers." As a commenter on the story notes, "This is getting crazy. I hope some union thug gets his lights punched out for tampering with peoples food."
Lotto says that the movement is not grassroots, it's "gas-roots." It's an appeal to humor that the Tea Party is using more, the kind for which is has always relentlessly skewered the left. Just look at this bit of genius promoting Obama as President of Brazil.
The sticking-political-messages-on-other-people's-commodities tactic shows no sign of abating. It's a long way to 2012, and the GOP proper has completely lost control of its constituency, so everyone should prepare for what's probably going to be the most ugly election in recent history, and, with every free surface in the nation plastered with neon squares, I mean literally ugly.
And in the end, the only winner will be, as always, Big Post-It®.
Abe Sauer can be reached at abe sauer at gmail dot com.
I think I live in prime territory for this, but I haven't seen any post-it notes anywhere. But then maybe Tea Partiers don't shop at Fresh N Easy?
@soco A true American conservative wouldn't touch anything "easy" with a ten foot penis.
@soco They're more Kum N Go shoppers.
"Diana Gonzalez Horton"? Good god.
"Well, we could implement a cap and trad-"
"GO BACK TO RUSSIA"
"Uncivil-like posts." Leave it to Republicans to invent Alinsky Lite.
Although I just noticed that second note, "Get off Oprah."
I actually like this! It's free speech, but it's kind of ridiculous and it sounds like fun. It's like a temporary street-art version of political bumper stickers, only you can actually reply with your own post-its.
"How's that hopey changey stuff workin' out for ya?"
"Actually, I drive a hybrid. How's that Hummer workin' out for you?"
@DoctorDisaster It's a plot by 3M.
@DoctorDisaster I kind of think it's cute too. Because it's sort of conversational! It's interactional! ALSO I HAVE SOME POST-ITS IN MY CAR. (Which gets 30+ mpg and is 11 years old.)
@gnarlytrombone those were my first thoughts too. Conservative graffiti? interesting. What would a good response be? You're right, Obama forces American Oil Companies to make an 11 billion dollar profit.
@Choire Sicha YOU LIVE IN MANHATTAN AND OWN A CAR?
You must be rich!
@Clarence Rosario: I think he moved south.
@DoctorDisaster "Stick with Obama."
@Choire Sicha Sorry, your CAR? Bring it over here so I can throw something locally grown through the windshield.
My personal favorite are Samba post-its. You know, the colored sexy post-its that they sell.
Seriously, rising gas, food, and commodity prices can be laid directly at the feet of the Obama administration and its policy of "quantitative easing," in other words, just printing dollars so the Federal Reserve can buy US Treasury bonds and finance the deficit. No blaming Bush for this one, no spinning it, no excuses. It's all Obama this time.
It's called "Oflation."
@El Matardillo Nonsense. QE and QE2 are British.
@El Matardillo Keep 'em comin'. We wait all night for calls like these.
@dntsqzthchrmn
Comex Gold Hits New High, Pushes above Technical Resistance
http://www.kitco.com/reports/KitcoNews20110429JW_update.html
@El Matardillo Yeah, you better hurry and put all your money into gold. Right now.
@dntsqzthchrmn It's gone up another 3 dollars an ounce since my last post, 8 minutes ago.
@dntsqzthchrmn Don't forget non-hybrid seeds. Cause there is no way that a metal which serves no tangible purpose that we dig up out of the ground only to be put back into an vault could ever be inflated in value. And make sure you buy antique gold coins so zombie FDR doesn't confiscate them.
@El Matardillo Better buy it on margin, dear! Hurry!
@dntsqzthchrmn Now up 7 dollars an ounce in 30 minutes. The dollar reached a record low against the Swiss Franc today as well.
@El Matardillo Cute theory, bro!
@El Matardillo I'm curious -- what would you say to the US improving revenue by collecting tribute from nations freeriding on our Operation Enduring Petroleum?
@El Matardillo Oh, man. All of these prices had been rising for the past few decades in case you hadn't noticed. And isn't this basically the same kind of monetary policy that's been in place since the gold standard ended? As far as solely blaming Obama, he did not cause the 2008 financial collapse, the collapse which is forcing his hand to take emergency measures to deal with a post-collapse economy. I'm not saying I always agree with his methods, but a lot of cooks fucked up this broth. Bush, for instance, started the current deficit by granting upper class tax cuts that he couldn't budget. Most economists I've read agree that this is what got the colossal deficit ball rolling, but no one man can be blamed for this shit show.
@El Matardillo Dutch Tulips.
@El Matardillo Porter Stansberry, is that YOU?
www.endofamerica4.com
I'm just wondering how quantitative easing is raising the price of food and gas while leaving things like consumer goods and home prices untouched. Do grocery stores and gas stations use a different form of currency? If so, I somehow hadn't noticed!
@davetar Well there actually is answer to that. First and foremost, homes are still overvalued and declining from their 2008 bubble prices. As a financialized asset that is still overvalued, we need home prices to deflate. Furthermore with the exception of mobile homes, homes don't trade internationally and are priced in dollars. Thus for the most part, a dollar decline will not impact housing prices. And with the economy weak, demand for housing is poor.
Consumer goods have not gone up because of slack demand and superior supply chain management.
The most important factor for why consumer goods have not YET experienced price increases is because China, the world's factory, has pegged its currency to the dollar. Thus dollar declines do not mean yuan priced goods increase in cost. This is now changing as China has had to allow the Yuan to appreciate in value because the dollar peg has caused rampant inflation in China. So now American retailers, namely Wal-Mart, have announced that price increases are coming because China is allowing the Yuan to rise.
As for food, I will give you one guess as to what is the most critical input for food production, you got it, petroleum!
Happy to answer any other questions you might have.
@El Matardillo yeah, and at risk of feeding the trolls here, that might be an issue... if there was any inflation happening. Which there isn't:
http://www.inflationdata.com/inflation/inflation_rate/currentinflation.asp
Current value: about 2.5% annually.
I'd be much more interested in reading a post-it that outlines just what the president can do to lower global oil prices.
@boyofdestiny Stop inflating the currency.
@boyofdestiny Drill babies. I can't believe I just said that.
@El Matardillo I would second that.
@El Matardillo if you seriously think that currency devaluation is driving oil prices (and only oil prices) to go up, I've got some commodity futures to sell you. Oil is going up because 1) there's a lot of unrest going on in the places where most of it is produced (maybe you've seen the news, oh, sometime in the past few months), and 2) we're running out of the stuff.
Here's what Obama is up against, his supporters like Citigroup:
http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2009/04/citigroup_andrew_hall_needs_a.html
Here's how the problem is solved.
http://news.firedoglake.com/2011/04/29/sanders-wants-crackdown-on-wall-street-speculation-on-oil-prices/
@verysoreloser Since oil is priced in US dollars, and the world is awash in US dollars, and the Federal Reserve continues to create dollars out of nothing to finance the deficit, it's little wonder that traders expect the price of oil to rise and keep rising, along with every other commodity out there. Been to the grocery store lately?
@El Matardillo Hold on while I whip out my Milo Minderbinder theory on the cotton commodity market.
@gnarlytrombone Cotton prices are at record high levels. Look at the 30 year chart and see what has happened to them since Obama has been elected.
http://www.indexmundi.com/commodities/?commodity=cotton
@El Matardillo Are you for real?
@El Matardillo You don't say. Oh, you did say.
@dntsqzthchrmn The numbers are real and reflect the economic policies of the Obama administration. These numbers don't lie. They don't spin. They have no political agenda.
@El Matardillo Weird coincidence! That website you're basing your theory on is the same one I used in my spur-of-the-moment Google search to chart crude oil prices against cinnamon burst cheerios prices! Small internet.
@El Matardillo You have to understand that Awl readers aren't particularly good at math.
The numbers though actually do have a political agenda which is to benefit Wall Street, the largest financial contributors to the Obama administration.
@El Matardillo cotton prices have been rising due to a stagnant market following the 2008 financial collapse followed by a recent upsurge as the economy has climbed back to its pre-collapse output, and most of the demand seems to be in middle-class China. So, if I follow you correctly, you're saying that Obama personally engineered the 2008 collapse, and has since been secretly advertising cotton products to middle-class Chinese? If your theories are true, Obama is certainly a more capable man than you seem to be giving him credit for.
True, the numbers don't lie or spin. They wait for hacks like yourself to come along and interpret them as liberally as you please.
@Lockheed Ventura Dude, we're actually mathletes.
@dntsqzthchrmn Well, then you have no excuse!
@Lockheed Ventura Wall Street are the largest financial contributors to every administration.
@Lockheed Ventura May I be excused?
this really is the best way to communicate with a teabagger. i will use a red sharpie®.
@roboloki here's my first one: wwjmd ~ what would john mccain do
iran has cheap gas. move.
@roboloki
Or wwjmcd?
@Setec Astrology
Hm, maybe not. Let's try capitals:
WWJMcD?
(I can't edit on my office browser for whatever reason.)
Living a blissful car-less life I sometime forget how crazy people get when the price of oil, the substance which is a root cause to many (if not most) global problems, goes up. I also love (hate) how many people seem to believe that just because we're the United States that Obama has the power to lower prices all by himself.
The cause of, and solution to, life's problems.
@Van Buren Boy Obama DOES have the power to lower gas prices. We are not experiencing a supply shock or demand shock, we are experiencing a currency collapse driven by the Federal Reserve.
@Lockheed Ventura So what you're saying is that the fact that Egypt, Libya, Syria, Yemen, Tunisia, Bahrain, and pretty much the entire Middle East is blowing up, therefore making investors skittish that Saudi Arabia may be next, has nothing to do with the rise in oil price? Or that the continued surge of demand from China and other developing countries has no effect? Also, don't you think you're being a bit hyperbolic by saying we are experiencing a currency "collapse"? This isn't to discount everything that you're saying but it's not the principle force. Personally, I think that gas prices should be much higher (the federal gas tax hasn't been raised since 1993).
@Van Buren Boy I agree there are a multitude of factors, including geopolitical unrest in the Middle East and to lesser extent leveraged manipulation, but if you price oil in gold it isn't spiking. I believe the devaluation of the dollar is the main driver here. "Collapse" is probably too strong a word, how about slow motion train wreck?
And no this is not Obama's "fault" and it is much bigger than he is, but Qualitative Easing is killing the dollar's purchasing power in terms of oil. So today oil is "up" in dollars, but actually "down" when priced in Swiss Francs because Swiss Francs are viewed as having a more conservative monetary policy and more manageable level of public debt.
@Lockheed Ventura If you price oil in moon rocks it isn't spiking either. Or pixie dust. Or unicorns. Sorry to sound like a jerk (it's Friday) but if you price a commodity rising in cost to another commodity rising in cost of course there is no relative rise in cost. Anyway like I said it's Friday so I'm off to Happy Hour (I'll be walking too so I won't have to spend precious booze money on gas)
@Lockheed Ventura Qualitative Easing
Tee-hee.
@SidAndFinancy That is funny, "qualitative" easing would be interesting.
I am just bowled over that someone thinks $3.99 is an unreasonable price for brand-name cereal.
@MollyculeTheory Doesn't that person watch Extreme Couponing?
@MollyculeTheory: "bowled over" - I see what you did there.
That's awesome that he created a Facebook page all by himself. Also, "price of gas" LOL.
I guess maybe they would have a point if their solution wasn't "Vote for Donald Trump".
"Obama also retroactively inflated the price of gas in Europe for, like, the last 25 years" is too long to fit on a Post-It.
You know, when the Democrats ran campaign ads in the summer of '08 about the high price of gas, I felt very, very uneasy. Because it's true, there's not a lot you can do about the price of gas as president, certainly not in the short term! So here's a nice tactic that's come back to bite us in the ass, huzzah.
Of course, Donald Trump will fix the problem simply by shouting obscenities at the Saudis.
http://wonkette.com/444598/donald-trump-shouts-f-word-multiple-times-in-las-vegas-speech
(This is the attitude of entitlement that freaks me out the most. Uh, dude? It's their oil! They can sell it for whatever price they want!)
Gallon of Gas in Europe $8.90
and they still have FREE Health Care...
@Harold Harldrotta Boom!
@Harold Harldrotta But, but all good Tea Baggers know that Europeans are commies!
I'm with you on most of this, however...
Just because crazy people support Israel, that does not automatically mean that supporting Israel is crazy. I realize the guy's groups are merely correlation and not causation, but it is really unncessary, and I think draws away from the actual point of the article.
These people's point would not be any different if they supported Quebec separatists, a unified Europe, or pan-arab nationalism. Why does it matter that he supports Israel?
@djbsquared Lots of liberals have a knee-jerk anti-Israel problem. It's like trying to reason with with a teabagger.
@djbsquared I agree with this EXCEPT when all of those pro-Israel sentiments are complimented by a hard core anti-Islam sentiment AND a subscription to a Christian End Times rhetoric (all of which are present here.) That has nothing to do with the conventional political argument about a strong Israeli nation.
@Abe Sauer Thank you for the further clarification. I agree that when the Christian End Times rhetoric is included it makes it a different sentiment as well.
Is no one going to talk about how this is killing our forests?
why is obama trying to feed our children HOT WHEELS?
@iantenna Excellent MPG and very low carbon footprint.
I don't mean to be the stupid Tea Party defender, because I sell porn, so I'm next after Planned Parenthood. But the difference, this time, is that, err, oil/gas demand was already off 12.5% (2 million BPD) from '08... alongside electricity demand (down maybe 33%) and so forth. 'Cuz like, the recession ain't ended. Also, freight rail. That's huge.
So, err, the Gas Is Too Damned High. Maybe we should have a real currency or something.
/Not allowing drilling in offshore Arctic was stupid. Seriously, that was stupid.
@Olympia Press No, drilling offshore in Alaska is a non-solution. If we extracted ALL the oil underneath the Alaskan National Wildlife Refuge, it would satisfy 9% of one year's old consumption in the US. So, even if gas prices were perfectly elastic (which they are most definately not), it would drop your per-gallon price $0.35 (for one year). Woo! The economy is saved!
@Olympia Press Don;t sweat it. The Tea Party will never go after porn because that's for men.
@Olympia Press all of this focus on the currency aspects of this is just plain nuts. The USD vs. other currencies has declined slightly over the course of the past few month, but we're talking about a few percentage points. That can't explain this sudden spike in gas prices, which is almost certainly due to mideast unrest.
I finally took the trouble to look up what a gallon is, and it turns out it's about 3.8 litres. So you're paying just over $1 a litre. In Australia I'm paying $1.45 a litre, and I'm pretty sure that in Europe it's usually at least $2 or $3 a litre.
So quit your whining.
What color should we make the Post-It we stick over Sarah Palin's yap that reads, "YOUR WORLDVIEW HERE!"
Arnt there more important issues at hand?
How many of you have fixed-rate debt? If you do, then inflation is good, because it decreases the value of your debt. For me, inflation over 3% means my consolidated student loans become free money, so I say: Bring It On!
Skyrocketing prices mean more profits.
Profits are the triumph of capitalism and ensure business success.
Teabaggers worship capitalism and support big business.
Therefore, they should be proud to be paying higher prices. It spells success!
Do they only support a free market when it doesn't negatively impact them? Socialists!
Before complaining about petrol prices, you should see what we pay in europe!
There's always someone who isn't happy. Sheesh.