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WASHINGTON: At a Shell petrol station in Washington, Rocky Twyman
and an unusual group of activists were mad as hell about soaring
fuel prices.
“Last week, this station was $3.51. Now it’s
practically $3.60. So it’s gone up nine cents in one week,”
Twyman said as he pumped $5 worth of petrol into his thirsty
American car.
“Someone’s making a lot of money and it’s
really, really wrong,” added Twyman, who founded the Prayer at the
Pump movement last week to seek help from a higher power to bring
down fuel prices, because the powers in Washington haven’t.
The half-dozen activists—Twyman, a former Miss
Washington DC, the owner of a small construction company and two
volunteers at a local soup kitchen—joined hands, bowed their heads
and intoned a heartfelt prayer.
“Lord, come down in a mighty way and
strengthen us so that we can bring down these high gas [petrol]
prices,” Twyman said to a chorus of “amens.”
“Prayer is the answer to every problem in
life. We call on God to intervene in the lives of the selfish,
greedy people who are keeping these prices high,” Twyman said on
the forecourt of the petrol station in a neighborhood of Washington
that, like many of its residents, has seen better days.
“Lord, the prices at this pump have gone up
since last week. We know that you are able, that you have all the
power in the world,” he prayed, before former beauty queen Rashida
Jolley led the group in a modified version of the spiritual, “We
Shall Overcome.”
“We’ll have lower gas prices, we’ll have
lower gas prices,” they sang.
At the weekend, Twyman had led a group of around
200 people in prayer at pumps in San Francisco, where petrol is
nearing $4 a gallon (3.8 liters).
On Thursday, US lawmakers and experts at a
congressional hearing on Capitol Hill painted a grim picture of how
Americans are being hammered by record fuel costs and the steepest
food price spikes in 17 years. “We pay more to drive to the
supermarket, and then get hit with higher prices when we get
there,” Sen. Charles Schumer told the hearing.
Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney said Americans
have been forced by soaring prices to go on a “recession diet.”
“In some areas of the country, people are
paying four dollars for both a gallon of milk and a gallon of
gas,” and are substituting meats fish and vegetables with cheaper
pasta and canned foods, Maloney said.
On the forecourt of the Washington Shell
station, retiree Rufus Simpkin was feeling the pain at the pump and
praying for relief.
“I’m having to spend much more on gas, and I
am retired,” he told AFP. “It is really hitting me and my family
hard.”
Marcia Frazier-Foster was filling up her car for
the long drive home to Laurel, a suburb from which she commutes 35
miles (53 kilometers), four days a week to work in a Washington soup
kitchen, serving hot meals to scores of men who have fallen on tough
times.
“The cost of food has gone up, quantities we
get from the food bank have gone down. The cost at the gas station
has gone up and that means I spend more money to get here,” she
said after joining the prayer for fuel prices to come down.
“Yet I don’t see anyone in power really
concerned about the high gas prices—President Bush doesn’t even
think we’re in a recession,” she lamented.
Americans have turned to prayer because the
earthly powers-that-be don’t seem to give a hoot, said Judy Dugan,
a research director at Consumer Watchdog, a nonprofit group based in
California.
She described Prayer at the Pump as “the
ultimate Hail Mary.”
“It’s what you do when you feel you have no
one on your side, and they certainly don’t have the US government
on their side on this,” Dugan said.
At the Shell station, Twyman had dire words of
warning for those who are raking in profits from high fuel prices.
“Woe be unto those people that are really
greedy and taking advantage of American families,” he proclaimed
from his pump pulpit.
“These prices will come down, just like the
walls of Jericho came down in the Bible,” he said, as another
chorus of amens punctuated the sound of cash flowing out of the
pumps.
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