Chavez dropping oil program for U.S. poor, who's to blame?

Hugo Chávez shuts off discounted heating oil to U.S. poor - MiamiHerald.com

Chávez instituted the low-income heating oil assistance program in 2005 through the help of Joseph P. Kennedy II, a former congressman and a son of the late Sen. Robert F. Kennedy. Kennedy heads Citizens Energy.

Chávez won cheers when he announced during a 2006 visit to a Harlem church that he planned to expand the program.

Critics have lambasted Kennedy for taking Chávez's oil. However, he has always been unrepentant.

''Some people say it's bad politics to do this,'' Kennedy says in a video on Citizens Energy's Web page. "I say it's a crime against humanity not to. Because no one, no one should be left out in the cold.''

Cannot argue with the logic of Joe Kennedy's comments, because, dammit, it's not right to let folks freeze. It seems rather unbelievable that the same thing was not possible through anyone else, that this was even an option for Chavez to use -- ironically, it did some good. I don't like the power-happy guy, as he's religiously self-lauding and stunningly arrogant, but I cannot dislike his doing as he did. That makes every other oil provider, including the U.S. ones, culpable for low ethical standards. If Chavez can do this, what the hell, other oil men? Get off your bloated asses and provide some act of good, however cynical it may be, to the world.

Chavez? He's simply bad news for anyone who even suspects that capitalism, when properly and ethically dealt, works, especially in the U.S.

But the bottom line is, the rest of the industry is to blame for Chavez using this to his very political advantage. Using the poor. Ahh, what a common theme among politicians. Disgusting. Who's going to help now? Not Exxon Mobil, huh? You are all a bunch of "oil-holes." You know what I mean.

- jR

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