The big boys
Of the ten largest corporations on earth, nine are either oil companies or automobile manufacturers. The other - Wal-Mart - owns one of the largest private trucking fleets on earth.
| Company | Revenue | Profits |
| (US$ billions) | (US$ billions) | |
| 1) ExxonMobil | 339.9 | 36.1 |
| 2) Wal-Mart | 315.7 | 11.2 |
| 3) Royal Dutch Shell | 306.7 | 25.3 |
| 4) BP | 267.6 | 22.3 |
| 5) General Motors | 192.6 | -10.6 |
| 6) Chevron | 189.5 | 14.1 |
| 7) DaimlerChrysler | 186.1 | 3.5 |
| 8) Toyota | 185.8 | 12.1 |
| 9) Ford | 177.2 | 2.0 |
| 10) ConocoPhillips | 166.7 | 13.5 |
The offering plate
All this money comes from somewhere. Every dollar spent on conventional transportation - whether at the gas pump or ticket counter - is a contribution to the oil cause. Every dollar fuels the apparatus. Imagine Donald Rumsfeld at the service station walking from vehicle to vehicle with an offering plate.
Clout
I bet you can't name more than one of the CEOs of the top ten corporations. And I bet Donald Rumsfeld has met them all.
Non-participation
The point is not to demonize the power brokers of petroleum (we could probably find better things to do), but to opt out. The point is non-participation - bit by bit, in the spirit of Gandhi, to withdraw one's support for, and participation in the oil apparatus. The point is freedom.
Sources: Fortune Magazine's 2006 Global 500 and Wal-Mart.