Who's the wacko?

I had noticed in the past few weeks or so (by which I apparently mean months as I tend to telescope time around the holidays) there were several news items about Venezuelan oil. Specifically, I noticed stories about Venezuela offering discounted fuel oil to low income areas in New England.

Venezuela Gives US Cheap Oil Deal
BBC News November 23, 2005
Officials from Venezuela and Massachusetts have signed a deal to provide cheap heating oil to low-income homes in the US state. The fuel will be sold at about 40% below market prices to thousands of homes over the winter months. Local congressman William Delahunt described the deal as "an expression of humanitarianism at its very best"
...
The deal involves shipping some 45m litres of heating oil from Venezuela to Massachusetts at a discounted rate via Citgo Petroleum, a US-based subsidiary of the Venezuelan state-owned oil company.

I kept seeing more reports of communities that elected to benefit from this program. A January 19, 2006 story in the Boston Globe (reporting from Vermont's Rutland Herald) gave a list of areas offered discounted heating oil to date. It includes Vermont, Maine, and Rhode Island as well as "parts of Massachusetts and New York City".

But today, I saw an AP blurb about what McCain (who is starting to sound like he's campaigning again) thinks of the Venezuelan heating fuel assistance deal.
"We better understand the vulnerabilities that our economy, and our very lives, have when we're dependent on Iranian mullahs and wackos in Venezuela," said McCain
(see Bloomberg.com for a slightly different quote)

I do agree with McCain that it is fucked up and scary how dependent our economy is on the price of a barrel of oil. I don't agree with McCain's base appeal to the ignorant - Eeek! Iranians and Venezuelans and Bears, Oh My!

Hey Senator McCain, can you say "Saudi Arabia"?

Indeed, Venezuela's discounted oil program threatens not only to show up the US politicians' inability to advocate for their constituents. It threatens a new record profit for the oil companies by diluting the panic driven market with cheap oil for the needy. I can't help feeling like the Republican Senator's comments reflect less concern about our country's economic stability and national security than a deep commitment to protecting the interests of US oil profiteering. I am pretty fairly convinced (based on the last year's oil money "windfall") that oil people, which include the ruling families of the United States and their friends, were looking forward to making the mostest money ever based largely - if not entirely - on speculations about what oil prices would do after a winter of tv images of pipes breaking in the homes of freezing poor Americans.

McCain is not the only or first person to complain about these crazy Venezuelans and their evil ne'er do well plan to help poor people afford to heat their homes this winter. Pretty much any news story on the deals reached to buy Venezuelan oil includes comments like: Larry Birns, executive director of the progressive think tank, Council on Hemispheric Affairs, said Chavez is trying to counter Bush administration criticisms with"petro-diplomacy". [1] and Chavez's opponents accuse him of using Venezuela's oil wealth to win friends while trying to one-up President Bush. [2]

What these stories don't all include is information about what the alternatives might have been to the Venezuelan discount heating fuel plan. They don't mention what alternatives were proposed and rejected by our own government. They don't mention what steps could have been taken which might have, among other things, allowed "Patriotastic as fuck" fellas like McCain to not have to witness our excessive dependence on the kindness of South American socialists (Heaven Forbid!).

Let's go way back to early Fall when the gas prices seemed like they would never come down. People confided in one another about the cheapest gas in a 50 mile area, made gloomy speculations about whether it would hit $4 a gallon before it came back down. People wanted to know why costs were so high. People were PISSED OFF, and our lawmakers heard us. At least for a little while. Unfortunately, they didn't really DO anything about it.

In November 2005, Fox News had one of their "fair and balanced" stories about how the Senate Republicans "beat back" Democrat attempts to "pinch" oil and energy companies posting record profits. But it wasn't just Democrats who were asking the oil companies to share the wealth back then. From a November 22 Bloomberg.com report: Senator Charles Grassley, an Iowa Republican, has asked oil companies to donate 10 percent of their profits to help families pay heating bills.
CNN Money reported in October 2005 that... The (record oil company) profits have led even some Republicans...such as Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist and House Speaker Dennis Hastert, to call for hearings into the profits gushing from the nation's energy producers.
And in November 2005 that ...A number of lawmakers, including Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine)...have called on oil companies to donate some of their profits to boost heating subsidies to aid low-income Americans who can't afford their heating bills.

The windfall taxes did not pass, at least not in any form where consumers saw rebates or lower prices. What about the call for oil companies to donate to low income heating program subsidies of the types proposed even by Republican lawmakers this past Fall?

According to this recent local report in the Pawtucket Times, it seems those calls went unanswered . Last October US Senator Jack Reed (D-RI) had written ...a letter to the CEOs of the nine largest oil companies, asking them to donate a portion of the record high profits they had just recorded to help low-income families, disabled citizens and the elderly pay their heating bills.
So did the 9 largest oil companies, who seem to have dodged the bullet on government mandated largesse, do the right thing? According to the Pawtucket Times story, Senator Reed claims Venezuelan owned Citgo was the only company who responded to his letter.

McCain is concerned about the vulnerabilities in our economy produced by a dependence on the second and third largest OPEC producers. His reference to "our very lives" is clearly a thinly veiled attempt to connect OPEC producing countries with countries which threaten national security. But what a glaring omission that McCain didn't mention our dependence on OPEC's largest producer, Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia, outpost of liberty and democratic principles, the country which gave us 15 of 19 hijackers who walked onto planes the morning of September 11th, 2001. Saudi Arabia, which supplies more crude oil to the US than Venezuela.

I'd really like to ask Senator McCain "Who's the wacko?"

Hani Saleh Hanjour, Saudi Arabian citizen and 9/11 hijacker believed to have flown American Airlines flight 77 into the Pentagon.
public domain image wikipedia


Hugo Rafael Chávez Frías, Venezuelan President who implemented the Bolivarian Missions. From Wikipedia: Aims of the Bolivarian Missions have included the launching of massive government anti-poverty initiatives, the construction of thousands of free medical clinics for the poor, the institution of educational campaigns that have reportedly made more than one million adult Venezuelans literate, and the enactment of food and housing subsidies.
(Foto: Victor Soares/ABr - hor-58)