Editor's Note: We thank Arthur Shaw for his keen insight and fair treatment of Citgo's provision of discount heating oil to needy citizens of the United States during the brutally cold, 2005-2006 winter months. People of all incomes in the U.S. applaud the Citgo Corporation and the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela for their extension of compassion and good will. In previous winters we have witnessed the many stories of tragic house fires resulting from the use of space heaters and of the poor and elderly sitting long hours in front of open kitchen ovens in order to keep warm. We are not surprised to see the U.S. government react negatively as they perceive a threat - a threat to corporate profits and to the government's image as the richest nation on earth that will not take care of it's most vulnerable people. We have also noted the recoil to this program by the corporate press and even some alternative media websites with their vapid attacks on the Citgo Corporation and the Venezuelan government. Lacking anything of substance, these attacks typically resort to vague, unsupported accusations of "corruption". The Citgo Corporation and the Venezuelan government continue to stand against imperialist oppression and corporate corruption. We stand with them as they support the people's revolution toward world peace and social and economic fairness. - Les Blough, Editor

In a snide letter dated February 15, 2006, from US Cong. Joe Barton (R-TX) and US Cong. Ed Whitfield (R-KY) of the Committee on Energy and Commerce (subsequently "the Committee") of the US House of Representatives to Mr. F�lix M. Rodr�guez, president and CEO of CITGO Petroleum Corporation, the two GOPs began their fishing expedition, trying to find anything that they use to discredit Citgo's oil discount program that helps low-income or the US poor with their winter heating bills.

So far, seven states have received cheap heating oil from Citgo -- Connecticut, Massachusetts, Maine, Rhode Island, Delaware, Pennsylvania and Vermont. The Bronx in New York City also joined the program. Citgo estimates that it will be distributing some 44.5 million gallons of  heating oil at a 40 percent discount and giving another 258,000 gallons free to homeless shelters.

CITGO SCORES WITH US CONSUMERS
By Arthur Shaw

The letter begins.

"Dear Mr. Rodriguez:"

Watch out Mr. Rodriguez, when these creeps call you "dear," they're getting ready to stab you in the back.

"Over the past several months, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has made numerous public announcements about providing discounted heating oil to poor communities and schools within the United States. According to various media reports and company briefings, Venezuela has already signed several agreements to provide discounted heating oil to various not-for-profit entities, primarily in the Northeast, through Houston-based CITGO Petroleum Corporation (CITGO). CITGO is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Venezuelan state-owned oil company Petroleos de Venezuela (PDVSA), with 14,000 gas stations and 8 oil refineries in the United States. While the Committee certainly has no objection to Venezuela assisting low-income Americans, we want to understand whether the beneficiaries are being selected in an objective, equitable fashion, or whether this is merely part of a larger political agenda."

The Committee is obviously lying when it says it has no objection to Venezuela assisting low-income Americans. The purpose of this letter from the Committee to Citgo is to fish around for grounds to support its objection to the assistance. Indeed, the letter itself is an objection to the assistance to low-income US citizens. The Committee in its letter says it wants to be assured that  "the beneficiaries are being selected in an objective, equitable fashion." In other words, the Committee want to know why are high-income and middle-income and other US parasites denied energy assistance under the Citgo program?

Again, there is no truth in the Committee's words that it wants to understand "whether the beneficiaries are being selected in an objective, equitable fashion." US citizens � on all income levels � are not beneficiaries of discounted energy assistance from US-owned oil companies in either an objective or subjective or in either in equitable or inequitable fashion. The US oil companies are mercilessly gouging low-income US citizens and others with the full "understanding" and full support of the Committee which relies and flourishes on bribes from oil industry lobbyists. Joseph P. Kennedy II, president of Citizens Energy Corporation, a Boston firm that helps low-income US citizens and the poor of other countries with energy cost, underlines this fact about the callousness and rapacity of the US oil companies when he writes in defense of  Citgo that "other oil multinationals, despite their enormous profits, have not supplied a single drop of discounted heating oil to struggling families that cannot afford high energy prices."  Not only have US oil companies abstain from supplying a single drop of discounted heating oil during the freezing temperatures, they have jubilantly charged US consumers excessive, unjustified, and unconscionable prices for heating oil. A number of states � like Vermont with House Bill 0762 � in the Northeast of the United States have bills pending in their legislatures that aim to curb the disgusting greed of the US oil companies. A Vermont state senator also introduced a resolution in the legislature thanking Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez for Citgo�s energy assistance to low-income Vermont citizens, but the GOPs in the body reacted like dogs � barking, growling, foaming at the mouth, and biting.

Naturally, the two leading and distinguished degenerates serving on the Committee decided to investigate Citgo, not the indifferent, cold-blooded, and voracious US oil companies.

Citgo, on the other hand, is getting an immense amount of good will with low-income US citizens (and others who admire the laudatory effort by Citgo) that may prove exceedingly profitable to the marketing operations of Citgo in the future. The corrupt Committee is responding to the concerns of US oil companies to the perceived growing competitive advantage of Citgo in the US market. The Committee is also responding to the financial contributions of the political action committees of the US oil companies which "keep," energize, and commercialize the members of the Committee.

The Committee suspects, it says, that the Citgo�s assistance "is merely part of a larger political agenda." Well, there clearly something political about earning the good will of a large sector of US citizens. Since the GOPs and the US oil companies are not doing this, they believe it�s sinister. Unquestionably, these US citizens hope that US oil companies, which are Citgo's major competitors in the US market, will also become more "political" and offer heating oil at discounted prices before the citizens lose their toes to frostbite. But whatever political motive may exist for Citgo�s liberality toward the poor in the USA, there is also an economic agenda too. And the latter also explains the "agenda" of the Committee in nosing around Citgo's competitive tactics � bizarre in the United States � of aiding the poor during hard times.  

A Christian expert on divine beings who saves souls in Texas and boasts an agency relationship with God and with a close relative of God has picked up on the "political agenda" of the Committee. The Texas expert on divine beings has started a boycott  against Citgo, claiming the discounted oil program is immoral and unpatriotic.

"Unfortunately, many of President Chavez�s public statements concerning the United States Government suggest that his purportedly altruistic motives may camouflage his true motivations. President Chavez has repeatedly demonstrated a warped view of the United States and its leaders, as well as bizarre concepts of fundamental justice. Consider, for example, that one day after the September 11 terrorist attacks, President Chavez claimed that ' [t]he United States brought the attacks upon itself.' More recently, during a United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization event in Rome, Italy on October 17, 2005, President Chavez called the United States ' the North American Empire that threatened all life on the planet.' At a November meeting of Venezuelan and Brazilian business executives in Caracas, Chavez declared, 'The people of the United States are being governed by a killer, a genocidal murderer and a madman.' Furthermore, last Christmas Eve, Chavez made the following anti-Semitic remarks:

' Some minorities, descendants of the same ones who crucified Christ . . . took all the world�s wealth for themselves.' "

The "warp" is not in Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez's view of US leaders, rather the "warp" is in the US leaders whom Chavez views. The same "warp" has been noticed by most US citizens and is, at present, the subject of great comment and consensus in the USA.

With regard to the 9/11 tragedy, the Committee, groveling on its knees before George W. Bush, overlooks that both CIA and FBI briefs as early as July 2001 warned the "warp" in the Oval Office that Al Queda operatives were in the United States preparing some kind terrorist attack that would likely involve airplanes. But the "warp" from Texas in the White House didn't do anything but vacation in Texas.

With regard to US complicity in the spreading and deepening global holocaust, or  "the North American Empire that threatened all life on the planet," the contempt of the Bush regime for the threat of global warming and the patent ineffectiveness of the GOP regime's response to the HIV/AIDS pestilence that now afflicts 40,000,000 human beings fully supports Chavez assessment of the regime in Washington.

With regard to the homicidal character of Mr. Bush, ("the people of the United States are being governed by a killer, a genocidal murderer and a madman"), millions of people in the United States and around the world are still waiting for Bush to report the number of Iraqis who have died as a result of the US regime's lies about weapons of mass destruction and lies about Iraqi complicity in the 9/11 conspiracy. We note that US casualties are reported. Some observers of the US-Iraqi war have estimated that over 500,000 Iraqis have perished as a result of the lies Mr. Bush told on that innocent Iraqi people.

With regard to the crucifixion of the Nazarene, whether his execution was by the Jews, Romans, Christians (e.g., Judas and the like) or a combination of all of the above, it is pathetic that the pious Committee has to lower itself into playing its anti-Semitic card in order to score propaganda points against President Hugo Chavez.

"Venezuela also has close ties to several nations that have undisputed ties to terrorism, including Cuba, Syria, Iran, and Libya. In fact, during a September 16, 2005, interview with Ted Koppel on Nightline, President Chavez boasted of being 'friends' with Fidel Castro and other decidedly anti-American foreign political figures."

Well, Venezuela has close ties in the economic field to the USA which is ruled by the GOPs who are terrorizing the people of Iraq and of Haiti, but the ties between the GOP-ruled USA and Venezuela does not show or suggest that Venezuela condones terrorism.

With regard to Cuba, the Cuban government sends its doctors all over the world to save lives and relieve suffering. Cuban doctors were practicing in Pakistan when a powerful US missiles recently slaughtered dozens of Pakistani citizens because Bush regime says it believed that somebody connected with Al Quida was having dinner with them. But  the aftermath of the coldblooded US massacre showed no Al Queda, only dead, innocent Pakistani at their last supper.

With regard to Syria, Iran, and Libya, Syria is partially occupied by Israel, a US ally. Syria has the right under international law and morality to seek and fight for the return of its stolen territories. US imperialism has not for a second paused in its efforts to restore in Iran a puppet regime similar to the US-maintained tyranny of Muhammad Reza Pahlavi which facilitated US oppression and exploitation of Iran for decades. Iranians have a right to exist as a sovereign country too. Libya supports to right of the Palestinian people to statehood free of Israeli oppression and hegemony. Libya has a right and a duty to support the legal and moral claims of the Palestinian people to self-determination regardless of hostility of the arrogant and expansionist Semitic bigots, like Bush and ailing fanatic, Sharon. 

Bush regime should examine its close ties with the rotten and repressive dictatorships in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait.

"Given President Chavez�s clear anti-American sentiments, his current efforts must be viewed with concern that he is attempting to politicize the debate over U.S. energy policy. Indeed, CITGO�s Chief Operating Officer, Jerry Thompson, recently acknowledged as much in an interview with USA Today (January 12, 2006, page A1): 'Being owned by a political entity [PDVSA] ultimately means, from time to time, you have to do things with a political bent to them. Heating oil as an example of that.' "

President Chavez has not displayed even the slightest "anti-American sentiments," rather he has displayed anti-Bush sentiments and such a display of sentiments is pro-American. These sentiments that Chavez displays are shared by the majority of the US people. Only the GOPs among the US people hold an opposing view.

As for big-mouth Jerry Thompson, he seems to be maneuvering opportunistically for a lucative employment discrimination lawsuit after he is fired for open and insolent opposition to the company policies of his employer.

[Photo] The Citgo sign, known by all Bostonians, towering over Boston's beloved Fenway Stadium, home of the Red Sox.

Editor's note: Last year, after meeting with Boston's Mayor Tom Menino, Juan Barreto, Mayor of Caracas, attended the Venezuelan Conference at MIT in Cambridge. Axis of Logic was in attendance and we heard him speak as he extended a hand of good will to the City of Boston by providing the funds for restoring this famous Boston landmark. It was another testament to all who were present that another world is possible - a world in which governments can exist in harmony with one another for the common good of the people they are elected to serve. - LMB

� Copyright 2006 by AxisofLogic.com

ADDITIONAL ARTICLES BY ARTHUR SHAW

Cuba's Marielitos - Imprisoned Without Trial and the Harsh Realities of U.S. Prisons

Is the Bush Regime Planning to "Special Op" Venezuela?

The Cowboy Dictator

Cuba, Venezuela, Liberty and Democracy

Miami Mafia and Venezuelan renegades want to become "official" US Quislings

"Control" which Chavez reportedly exercises over the AN is nothing but a fantasy!

Torture in Cuba ... but it's not the Cubans who torture!

The Southern Iraqi Resistance - Key to Defeat of the Aggressors