Holiday Greetings From Hugo

With Saddam Hussein behind bars, Hugo Chavez of Venezuela has to be George Bush's personal enemy number one.  The problem is that he is "democratically elected".  Mr. Chavez returns the favor - so he has taken it upon himself to challenge the Bush administration in its own backyard. Chavez's novel strategy is to "kill with kindness" and he is using the only potent weapon in his arsenal - cheap oil.

Concerned with the growing gap between the rich and the poor in the USA, Chavez is keeping his promise of providing cheap oil to the AMERICAN poor.  Citgo, the Venezuelan owned oil company is providing cheap heating oil to poor residents of Boston and New York and selling gasoline below market price to the city buses of Chicago.  The Bush adminstration must be seething but has made no comment so far.  Some other politicians are not looking this surprise gift horse in the mouth. Instead they are asking  US corporations for matching gifts. Here is an excerpt:

Applause and cheers welcomed the Citgo truck as it pulled up at a South Bronx curbside one icy morning last week. The 9,500-gallon tanker was on a mission for one of the Bush administration's most stubborn adversaries in the Western Hemisphere, but the crowd didn't seem to mind. The big thing was that Venezuela's leftist president, Hugo Chavez, was making good on his promise to help some of New York's poorest residents get through a winter of record-setting oil prices. The Venezuelan firm Citgo has agreed to supply 8 million gallons of heating oil to 75 low-income apartment buildings at a 40 percent discount—and the nonprofit landlords have agreed to pass on the savings to their tenants.

Chavez, a close personal friend of Fidel Castro's, has spent the past five years trading insults with the Bush administration. Senior U.S. aides view him as a dictator in the making and warn that he could destabilize the region. In return, the Venezuelan leader takes Bush to task for the invasion of Iraq, for collateral damage in Afghanistan and—closer to home—for tacitly endorsing the failed coup that briefly removed Chavez from power in 2002. Pat Robertson hardly improved relations last August by declaring that "our Special Forces should take him out." (The "700 Club" televangelist later apologized.) Lately Chavez has discovered a resonant new theme: the growing gulf between rich and poor in the United States.

Finding the right response to Chavez has always been tough for the Bush administration. "There has been a deer-in-the-headlights quality about it," says Michael Shifter of the Inter-American Dialogue, a D.C.-based policy-research group. "Sometimes confrontational, sometimes conciliatory. They've seemed at a loss." Career diplomat Donna Hrinak says Washington takes Chavez's bluster too seriously. "We should consider the source and let it go," she says. At the same time, the administration ought to remember one thing about Chavez, says William Delahunt (D-MA), who has known him for years: "Whether we like it or not, he has been democratically elected."

I wonder what Rev Pat Robertson will say next. After all, nothing can be more galling to a capitalist man of God than a godless communist interfering with the sacred cow of free market forces.

Comments

[a-train]

That story came in under the radar. Wow. And the really cold weather has only just begun. I believe things will change rapidly when people start getting the bills.

Still. Giving cheap gas to the poor. To piss off a nominal follower of Christ. Ha.

[Ruchira Paul]

I was surprised too. I had read that Chavez was "threatening" to help the American poor, especially after Katrina struck. But I did not know that he had carried through on his promise - and so quickly. (Attention, FEMA)

What I found amusing in this story were the US congressmen from the northeast challenging domestic corporations to show some holiday spirit in the manner of Chavez. But whoever said that shame is a corporate culture?