Buy Your Gas at Citgo?

Jeff Cohen is the founder of Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR), an ultra left progressive organization that proudly “believes that structural reform is ultimately needed to break up the dominant media conglomerates, establish independent public broadcasting and promote strong non-profit sources of information.” In other words, he believes as a pure socialist that corporate media is a barrier to achieving socialist goals. Jeff Cohen is the mastermind behind the latest activist tactic circulating around Madison. It is a call for all those who profess to hate the Bush administration to Buy Your Gas at Citgo: Join the BUY-cott.

“Looking for an easy way to protest Bush foreign policy week after week? And an easy way to help alleviate global poverty? Buy your gasoline at Citgo stations.

Citgo is a U.S. refining and marketing firm that is a wholly owned subsidiary of Venezuela's state-owned oil company. Money you pay to Citgo goes primarily to Venezuela -- not Saudi Arabia or the Middle East.

Instead of using government to help the rich and the corporate, as Bush does, Chavez is using the resources and oil revenue of his government to help the poor in Venezuela. A country with so much oil wealth shouldn't have 60 percent of its people living in poverty, earning less than $2 per day. With a mass movement behind him, Chavez is confronting poverty in Venezuela. That's why large majorities have consistently backed him in democratic elections. And why the Bush administration supported an attempted military coup in 2002 that sought to overthrow Chavez.”

The problem as I previously discussed here is that Hugo Chavez is plundering the economy of Venezuela and using the cash to buy the votes of the poor in an effort to create a Fidel Castro inspired socialist state. While the world was focused on the Islamofascist murder spree in London yesterday, Hugo Chavez continued Attacking Democracy In Venezuela and demonstrating More Aggressive Moves by Chavez to Consolidate Power.

“Today an outrageous court hearing will take place in Caracas, Venezuela. Organizers of last year's recall referendum against President Hugo Chavez are facing potential charges of treason. Their crime? Taking a U.S. National Endowment for Democracy grant to advance democracy. It's not just political revenge from a victorious Chavez. It's also an attack on civic institutions and, if successful, opens the door to dictatorship and anarchy.”

Fidel Castro is intent that his legacy lives on in Latin America and he has found a ruthless heir to his vision: One great man leading a socialist society with a literate but docile population and without great wealth for anyone except the ruling party and the drug lords. The Dr. Evil brilliance of Hugo Chavez’s strategy is that he will let the existing rich get out and leave the poor to his tending. How else do you explain Chavez borrowing Venezuelan banking assets at 14% and depositing it back in the same banks at 5%. The rich will soon figure out it’s best to take the money and run leaving only peasants, civil servant lackeys and the occasional traitors.