Chavez not dropping oil program, but the way to pay was questionable

Chavez says US heating oil program never suspended - Americas AP - MiamiHerald.com

At a news conference, however, Kennedy said Citgo made it clear the decision was not a cancellation of the program. "But at the end of the day, the tankers are not going to be in front of this building," he said.

Citgo Chief Executive Alejandro Granado later said in Boston that the company had found a way to continue paying for oil shipments.

On Saturday, Chavez poked fun at analysts who said he was cutting the assistance to make relations difficult with President-elect Barack Obama, saying they made him laugh.

"They build this analysis on a lie," he said.

I still hold to my anger that a U.S. oil company, and a nonprofit, and our country, cannot buck up and cover this and tell Chavez "thanks, but no thanks." As I wrote a few days ago in this post: Like, Totally Political, Dude!: Chavez dropping oil program for U.S. poor, who's to blame?

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.

You should recognize that the oil for poor program is a perfect, and self-serving, way for Chavez to appear to be a benefactor to U.S. poor. It is only honorable on the face of it. If I rna everyone's lives, this is the least I would do. But I do not, fundamentally and wholeheartedly, believe in any system where one-party, one dictator rule serves the greater good. On the whole, it does not. It is a simple truth. Those who wish to live in such a system are welcome to. Don't even address it in this country -- this country is and God-willing will always be about ridding the world of stupid people with stupid ideas like dictatorships, fascism, communism, and socialism. People will still try, and it might make for insteresting reading (Karl Marx did well with it) but it isn't a system that can properly fix itself. Our is dangerously close to being an elitist-ruled country that cheats the poor for the good fo the rich, we can't fix that with socialism. Not the answer.

There has never been any good consistently carried through in a country that was ruled over by one person or one party. The USSR was a disaster. China is still, more than not, a screwy, impoverished backwater. Europe is full of nations that are struggling under the weight of their too-generous welfare-type programs, leaving not enough room for helping when a crisis hits. Why do we want more of that in the world?

One ruler nations run the great risk that individuals are limited throughout. Ass-kissers excel in dictatorships. I hate ass-kissers. We have lots of little dictatorships -- companies -- in America. I don't like that kind of company, or even one office of any company, and I don't like that kind of nation. Such systems are effective for killing inventiveness -- thus why many sectors in the U.S. lack ingenuity these days. It is that simple.

As for nations, any socialist leaders ever came to power through manipulation and exploitation of the poor. They pulled down the educated and many highly effective people, ultimately making the country, on the whole, less than it would be under a free society sort of leadership. Look at Cuba, for crying out loud.


Chavez is an ultimate arrogant politician. That is a simple fact. I am glad he is not the ever-loving-the-killing Pinochet or similar autocratic South American socialist-communist. He's only politically dangerous to a free, liberty-loving, democratic society. For now, at least.

But this shows the gritting teeth underneath the smile of the supposedly concerned oil and other wealthy leaderships of the U.S. They all ought to be put to task for leaving such a basic and obvious hole opened for Chavez to serve our poor.

I can't fault Chavez for this -- I fault us for being to uncreative to squash his ability to do this BY DOING IT OURSELVES.

Shame on the rhetorically wealthy oilmen in the U.S. who, along with their snob friends, choose to argue that the poor, uneducated, struggling and fundamentally overlooked in this country ought to just get off their duff or they deserve to freeze throughout the winter. Social conservatism fails completely when it enters the realm of choosing to not create a clever way to afford to help the tragically poor to get through the cold winters that half the nation faces


- jR

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The People's Voice: a babbling manifesto for the rest of, umm, them

Part 2 of series:
Blogs with no purpose except to whine about the world not fitting their fantasy
Label to look for: slobbering blog

The People's Voice

Need proof of the systemic rot eroding the very cores of our souls? Look no further than the meteoric rise of the grossly under-qualified, hyper-ambitious, morally retarded narcissist who still has a realistic chance to be one heart-beat away from ostensibly ruling the most powerful nation in the world. Palinesque tendencies to “drill, drill, drill,” exploit obscene technological advantages to “cull predatory species,” employ our “justice” system to accelerate the extinction of yet another species (to advance the interests of Big Oil no less), and perpetuate the murderous “sport” of hunting with the intellectually dishonest and morally bankrupt justifications of “necessity” and “cultural tradition” serve to shred our ridiculously thin façade of humanity and reveal the truly barbarous nature of Western “civilization” and the “American Way of Life.”

I'm sorry, were you saying something? I was busy watching the paint dry on my secret tree house.

If you think that I am simply anti-liberal, try again.

This site includes among its troupe of sensible activists a pack of mixed nuts who say the Internet as we know it will cease to exist in 2012, maybe sooner. One of them, a gal who wears a near dominatrix (but friendlier) outfit, was earlier offering to have sex with guys who sign on to the activist effort to keep the Net free. Virgins only, though. Sorry, Noam Chomsky.

And these people are taken seriously by someone out there. Awesome.

These people are genuine kooks! These are the folks that gun laws are created to protect... to protect others from them should their nut-job ideas and worries turn into urban assaults on the dangerous "enemy others" with their legally-procured guns (if you aren't diagnosed, you're still considered sane, sadly).


- jR

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Daily Banter: possibly the butt of progressive thought jokes

A new series:
Blogs with no purpose except to whine about the world not fitting their fantasy
Label to look for: slobbering blog


THE DAILY BANTER.COM

Ben Cohen is a ... progressive. Check that, he's a Democrat. No, no that's not it. Perhaps he's a whiner with severe daddy issues. No, that might be too generous, assuming there's some deep cause for his mental myopia. Cohen dislikes anyone who has a record of doing something that is not highly radical -- to the extents of Noam Chomsky-like psychobabble. Or so it would appear. Judge for yourself:

Professor Noam Chomsky has influenced my thinking more than any single person on earth. His speeches, interviews, articles, and books have profoundly changed the way I see the world, and I feel forever indebted to him for his contributions to human knowledge.

The MIT linguistic professor is regarded as the world's leading intellectual for good reason.

So Cohen calls the Bush legacy -- now a legacy is everything one has done, in this case an entire administration -- tragic. Not the usual -- and slightly rational -- war-mongering, or stumbling, but TRAGIC. He's young, his Cohen guy: it's cute to see how the adults fool the young ones so thoroughly.

This guy, and perhaps his cohorts on Banter, either read(s) too little or react(s) too dramatically and emotionally. I think it is likely they read too much in one direction, but mostly the latter. This is a far left, socialist-leaning pack of knee-jerkers. In other words, mistaken liberals who are actually socialist utopian cry babies.

He's such a whiner that independent senator Joe Lieberman is on his list of ten Democrats who need to go not once, but twice. And the second time, he actually calls the senator a "d**k head." Thanks for the commentary, Mr. Cohen.

I think he could have included the pathological denier, Barney Frank, in that list, with Chris Dodd, too (the king of "their fault" politics in the midst of this economic crisis). I find it strange, actually, that seeing as Pelosi and Reid are on his list, that these two contributors to the do-nothingness of the recent Democratic leadership were not included.

Here's what anyone can do to decide for themselves about Daily Banter: Read this post, then the related post regarding Republican leaders. If you don't notice the holes, in content and members, of both listings, then... well, enjoy reading Daily Banter. I suppose this one must be for you.

-jR

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