Posted on 12/24/2006 7:05:23 AM PST by A. Pole
THERE'S BEEN a lot of controversy lately over whether Citizens Energy Corp. should distribute -- and the poor should accept -- discount heating oil from Venezuela while that country is under the leadership of President Hugo Chávez.
But those who have no problem staying warm at night should not condemn others for accepting Venezuela's oil. Rhetoric means little to an elderly woman who has to drag an old cot from her basement to sleep by the warmth of the open kitchen stove or give up food or medicine to pay her heating bill.
For nearly 30 years, Citizens Energy has provided senior citizens and low-income families with affordable fuel oil, gas, electricity, pharmaceutical drugs, and other basic necessities. Citgo Petroleum is a US company owned by the people of Venezuela. The oil it provides to Citizens Energy, the nonprofit that I lead, acts as a safety net for hundreds of thousands.
[...]
Criticism of our program isn't about cheap heating oil. It's all about Hugo. While conservative interests in this country don't like him, US businesses don't mind his money and his marketplace.
Otherwise, why would General Motors and Ford sell more than 300,000 cars a year in Venezuela? Why would Chevron Texaco, Exxon Mobil, Shell, and other major corporations [...] invest and earn billions every year off of petroleum exploration, production, refining, and transportation in the country? Why would US insurance companies, banks, telecom firms, entertainment conglomerates, and consumer product manufacturers flock to our Latin American neighbor?
American consumers certainly don't mind doing business with Venezuela. More than 558 million barrels of Venezuelan crude and oil products were shipped to the United States last year. Just one-half of 1 percent of that goes into our organization's program, but that's the only portion that draws criticism.
[...]
(Excerpt) Read more at boston.com ...
Chavez should be gone by now.
I wonder what it means to the Venezuelan family going hungry on $300/year, while their madman leader subsidizes the richest poor people in the world.
Sounds like a made up anecdote to me.
From a Kennedy, no less!!! As* kissing of the Communist party!
Isn't this supposed charity supplying some six figure jobs for the Kennedy Clan?
"I wonder what it means to the Venezuelan family going hungry on $300/year, while their madman leader subsidizes the richest poor people in the world."
Those poor people don't count, however, they don't vote in American elections.
CITGO stations around here are feeling the effects. Keep it up.
Well isn't that sweet. And the poor people of Venezuela don't get the goods and services that that oil would bring from selling on the open market suffer too!
Note to Joseph P. Kennedy II: Their poor are poorer than our poor. Ever think of that you asshat liberal!
--was some years ago for the one that skiied into a tree-- (he was the one who had been doing the 14 year old babysitter)--
When will be rid of Kennedys?
Drunken bores.
Another traitorous, defeatist Kennedy with the same traitorous defeatist name as his pathetic grandfather.
Only a dumb ass like this Kennedy seems to overlook the fact that this is a political tool being used by Venezuela.
Typical Liberal useful idiot..."They just want to help us, out of the goodness of their hearts...why should we assign poor motives to this good deed they do?"
You're right, Joe. Maybe you should open your trust fund and skim off a few billion dollars to help keep Grannie warm. Oh, that's right: your "compassion" is only rhetorical, and only extends to those moral obligations you can impose on OTHERS.
Wasn't it Kruschev who warned that "The west will sell us the rope with which we will hang them"? We seem to want to support the dictators that will bury us. What better use is there for our "strategic reserves"?
Whatever intelligence Joe Kennedy was destined to have... dribbled down the crack of his momma's...
Maybe Joseph P. Kennedy II should tell his relations in Congress to get out of the way of development of domestic oil sources.
Excatly. The poor of Caracas live in hillside shanties, and Boston's poor live in...?
I'm touched another Kennedy standing up for the poor. Now if only we get the Kennedy's to stop killing them after they rape them.
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