From Aljazeera.net:
Venezuela has said it will expand a programme to provide cheap home heating fuel to poor Americans, helping low-income families in Vermont and Rhode Island, as well as four Indian tribes in Maine.
Venezuela’s Citgo Petroleum Corp has already begun selling millions of litres of discounted fuel in Massachusetts and the Bronx in New York City as part of a plan by Hugo Chavez, the Venezuelan president, to aid poor communities that he says are neglected by Washington.
Bernardo Alvarez, Venezuela’s ambassador to the US, said he would sign an agreement on Thursday in Maine to start providing heating oil to four Indian tribes – the Penobscot, Micmac, Passamaquoddy, and the Houlton Band of Maliseet Indians.
Such imperialist pretensions! Such oil-fueled hegemony! Such baldfaced bribery! Surely the international and domestic left will not let such outrageous colonialist adventurism stand?
Great papier mache puppet heads must be plaster molded at once! Sloganed T-shirts printed! Placards stenciled to capture our collective outrage at Hugo’s arrogant, unilateralist overreach: “One Two Three Four! We Don’t Need Your Stinking Oil!”
…Or not. After all, if a few, key impoverished Blue States being oppressed by Chimpy’s low tax rates and growth economy can’t turn to a Latin American socialist state hostile to the US and its foreign policy and accept assistance to augment the assistance already provided domestically, then the terrorists will have won.
Notes Tim Blair:
Those poor Vermonters, all shivering and ruined after Howard Dean bankrupted their state. Actually, Vermont has the fifth highest minimum wage in the US; Rhode Island is seventh highest, and Maine 12th (the Venezuelan Santa has previously sent aid to Massachusetts, eighth on the list of minimum wage overpayers).
Why these relatively well-off states? Well, perhaps they have extraordinary energy needs that can only be met with Hugo’s help. Except … they don’t. Maine ranks 16th out of all the states in terms of energy consumed per capita; Vermont is way down in 40th; and Rhode Island, gobbling only 215 million Btu per capita, is the least-consuming state of them all. Chavez is draining his busted nation to assist folk who don’t need assistance. It’s grotesque.
Not “grotesque,” Tim! Rather, the apotheosis of glorious collectivism!—manifested in a willingness to give to the “needy” (only the Northeast still uses heating oil for heat in such high concentrations, the poor li’l global warmers), particularly when such showy largesse might potentially buy you politcal influence down the line should you ever launch your plan to “liberate” Latin America—or, at the very least, should you wish nothing more than to shore up admiration from certain ideological fellow travelers who will doubtless council us that we not be so quick to judge Hugo’s peculiar brand of fiery rhetoric and firm, fatherly “management” of both dissent and Venezuela’s ”Jewish problem.” After all, who are we to judge?
Viva la revolucion! Power to the people!
(h/t Tim Blair)
Over at LGF, Chavez’s [disloyal]citizen’s are stuffing the ballot box with their votes for Hugo as “idiotarian of the Year”.
a Latin American socialist state hostile to the US and its foreign policy
Seems to me he’s quite friendly towards Americans, if not their government. Perhaps he doesn’t buy into the “Ein volk, ein reich, ein Fuhrer” line being pushed by Bush and his supporters?
Chavez is draining his busted nation
Uh-huh.
If Hugo wants to subsidize a few blue states at the cost of bankrupting Venezuela I say let him do so.
nothing parts faster than a fool and his money.
the bright side of a broke Venezuela is a flood of very hot Latinas to our shores.
Phoenician:
How about this? Caracas marooned because Chavez didn’t listen: http://www.publiuspundit.com/?p=2089
Pictures of the collapsing viaduct: http://blogs.salon.com/0001330/2006/01/05.html#a2670
And this? Urugay chooses free trade: http://www.publiuspundit.com/?p=2090
Food and electricity shortages because of government price controls: http://www.publiuspundit.com/?p=2086
Just because you dislike Bush is no reason to support a dictator like Chavez.
What an incredible example of inverting reality.
I don’t understand the “how” of this. Can states make deals with foreign countries independently?
Phlebas (the phoenician),
that would explain why you can’t read.
read a few of the emails and see how prosperous venezuela lots from a citizen’s POV.
pardon, looks, not lots.
I agree, let Venezuela send all the oil it can ship to us at a discount, whether or not it’s a blue or red state.
Phony is back! I guess this troll can’t can’t understand even the most obvious political theater.
As for citing cherry picked info, how’s this?
From, <a href=”http://www.heritage.org/research/features/index/country.cfm?id=Venezuela” target=”_blank”>
Let’s try that again.
So who supplies the heating oil currently used by those states? Are they locally owned? Do they employ locals in management or distribution centers?
So if the market is flooded with oil from Venezuela, wouldn’t that depress prices, potentially leading to layoffs for residents of those states?
..just trying to work through this whole socialist economy thing.
…of course, the locals could compensate with a new Hugo/Che t-shirt industry.
Ah-HA! But is he listening to their phone calls?
:chuckle:
You know, Phoney, I can just stomach American leftists who can’t muster even one tenth the bile they regularly spew at Bush for, oh, Slobodan Milosevic. At least some of them honestly do believe that, since they’ve got a better chance of changing ‘pretty good’ to ‘better’ in their own country than they do of changing ‘festering hellhole’ to ‘just livable’ in someone else’s–they might as well devote all their energies (and overblown hyperbole) to scourging their own government. And, of course, let’s not forget the whole ‘mote in your brother’s eye’/’cultural imperialist guilt’/’Prime Directive’ complex. I can even see something perversely admirable in the impulse to be loath to judge others before yourself, or other countries before your own.
But there’s nothing especially admirable on any level about a pathetic jackass who’s turned a childishly ill-informed caricature of one single other country into his personal Satan. This is what people who want to avoid moral responsibility, not to mention moral ambiguity, do–it’s useless and cowardly.
“Perhaps he doesn’t buy into the “Ein volk, ein reich, ein Fuhrer†line being pushed by Bush and his supporters?”
What an incredible example of inverting reality.
Uh-huh.
<i>From, a href=”http://<b<www.heritage.org</b</[…]”
Uh-huh.
Piator,
I clicked on the Orincus link, and would argue that it makes some well-reasoned points. However, for the life of me, I can’t see what that has to do with your “Ein volk, ein reich, ein Fuhrer” riff.
Unless, of course, you’re trying to set some sort of Godwin’s Law sprint speed record.
Could you help me out a bit and flesh out the connection you were seeking to make?
Thanks,
BRD
“http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/ […]”
Uh-huh.
BRD: PIATOR just serves up red herrings. There’s no real point other than to derail the comments and get everyone running around after meaningless posts.
APF,
While I may have my reservations about the extent to which Piator is posting and arguing in good faith, I will continue to assume, for the purposes of posting here, that he is making a good-faith effort, rather than just trolling.
Which is the major reason that when he fails to answer a direct question, that I assume that he is surrendering the point.
Best,
BRD
It is nothing less than fascinating to see Phoenician’s fantasy version of America as it emerges, bit-by-overblown-bit. Inspirational, even – there’s a template there that some enterprising venture capitalist could use to create a theme park – Amerikkka World! Phoenician and their ilk could flock from around the world to see their fever dreams brought to life – Mr. Cheney’s Wild Ride! It’s An Oil World After All! Pirates of l’Hegemon! Chomsky’s Haunted Tenure! Plame Mountain! Fun for the whole collective!
Guys, the Bush=Hitler/Chavez=Jesus thing is perfectly reasonable. Just break it down:
There’s a questionably elected, nominally socialist dictator who came into power after an earlier failed putsch, and he invariably dresses in military garb (because you need a uniform to stand up to those worldwide Jew cabals and shit), and he’s criminalized dissent, and he’s cozied up to what some call an “Axis”â€â€and it’s all, y’know, for the people. He’s the good guy.
On the other side, there’s an utterly average U.S. President who’s succeeded at nothing but implementing the policies of his predecessor (which predecessor was almost as awesome as Chavezâ€â€and sexy, too!). This latter guy, he’s Hitler.
See? Country simple.
However, for the life of me, I can’t see what that has to do with your “Ein volk, ein reich, ein Fuhrer†riff.
It helps if you contemplate the purpose of the “Ein Volk” motto in the context it was applied, prior to WWII. Anyone halfway intelligent with a sense of irony can note the parallels between that and the use of eliminationist rhetoric by Bush supporters in a supposed democracy, especially if they read the commentry on that link.
Wingnuts, however, may have a problem. Which is why I’m not here to educate you, but to laugh at you.
Well, yes, Phoenician, the halfway intelligent do see the parallel.
Its the fully intelligent who think it is a vapid line that only illustrates your detachment from adulthood.
<style</a> (see point 2 in the post).
Psst. Anyone half-way intelligent and with a sense of irony would note that Dull in a time of Really Sharp is the one being laughed at.
By the way, I’ve read on other threads that Pig in a time of Blankets is from New Zealand. That’s cool. Means eventually the windmill stops spinning and it goes away til the breeze picks up, giving us some rest and respite from being chastised. On the other hand, I’ve also read on other threads that it’s a female. I refuse to believe this. I refuse to accept that any woman could make such an ass of herself.
Well there’s that whole Mother Sheehan thing, but still…
Bugger.
Der Fuhrerprinzip in action, the American version (see point 2 of the post)
Nan – Phoenician seems to get his/her jollies by imagining and inhabiting an alternative reality that’s a bizarro reverse image of the world the rest of us occupy. It takes a mighty effort for him/her, however, to ignore that one little voice deep within that’s continually admonishing “You know this is not true. You don’t really believe what you’re saying. Grow up.”
Irony, Phoeny darling, is evidence of the ability to conceive of doing other than you are, or believing other than you do.
As for Greenwald’s commentary on the Weekly Standard essay–very scary! So many ominous bolded phrases. I suggest you read Fareed Zakaria’s ‘The Future of Freedom’. And feel free to put certain phrases in bold and make scary noises and ghostly hand-gestures while you’re at it. But the idea that a strong executive branch was intended by the founding fathers as a check on the excesses and guard against the weaknesses inherent to pure democracies is only novel and frightening (let alone evidence of incipient fascism) to morons whose knowledge of history is confined to the single paragraph on Hitler from their fourth-grade social studies textbook.
I do find it ironic that, if things were to keep going the way of kneejerk anti-Bush hyperventilators’ worst, most feverishly-spun fears of his use of executive power… we may in some distant future come close to approaching the totalitarian dictatorship known as modern-day France.
Anyway, isn’t this post about Chav–OH LOOK! A shiny red herring! *pretty*
In light of what happened on September 11th, Bush’s mild steps to prevent such a situation
were very mild. There was the detention of a
number of Arab americans, but that was partially
to protect them from any backlash that could have
occurred. The NSA was returned to the status it
held at the outset, as well as its predecessor
agency, the ASA, as its godfather James Forrestal
intended. Some people may be suspicious of
Rumsfeld, he’s a puddycat compared to old James.
The CIA was unshackled from the delusions wrought by Torriceli’s courting of ex sandinista-Bianca Jagger, and McNamara’s protege; John Deutch.
The loosening of interrogation rules, vis a visthe Geneva convention, was necessated by our
experience with Akim murad (the first flier who
worked with KSM, as well as Muhammed Quahtani;
the last candidate for 20th hijacker) The problem
with Iraq, is that we were bound by our status
as an ‘occupying power’ thanks Kofi! to abide by
rules that the terrorists had no intention of following. Plus we were stuck with the likes of Lindy England and Jessica lynch, because our force was too big, for the purposes of the operations(By the way did anyone catch the irony of having ol’ Quagmire “Bob”, commenting on Vietnam. That’s kind of like Custer commenting the Phillipines campaign, or Lord Cardigan, commenting on Sudan).Still there have been considerable restriction, and more importantly,
a number of inopportune leaks of classified information;the leak of the rendition charters, the interrogation centers in Afghanistan, then S.E. asia, and now Europe, the disclosure of the new director of covert operations, by a Boston paper, the naming of every operational designation by Mr. Arkin, the in depth description of our regional information warfare programs,and most recently, the first name disclosure of every top official, pre and immediately post 9/11 by Mr. Gary Bentsen;
just to prove a point, By comparison, Wilson
passed the Sedition act, which would put the
NY Times,Washington Post, Jesse Jackson. . .
well you’d need another Gitmo to fit them all
in jail. FDR did not only the Japanese intern
ments, but that of significant numbers of German,
and Italian American nationals, the execution after military tribunal of the New Jersey 6, and
the interning of German nationals in Nationalist
China, till war’s end (if I read Eisentrager v. US
right. Lincol of course, suspended Habeas Corpus
completely, and the father of the modern Democratic party, responding to minor threat,
deported a whole tribe, half way across the country. So any complaints are relatively small
beer, in my estimation. Am I concerned that Hilary could one day have said powers, well yes,
mostly because they would misuse and ultimately
squander it, in futile attempts, like the way he handled the line item veto gift, and presidential
immunity issues.
Carthaginian,Phoenician, among the half a dozen problems with your comment—other than, of course, the silly example of Godwin’s Law—is the fact that neither you nor Greenwald seems to have half a historical clue. Greenwald because he can’t seem to figure out that Bush isn’t asserting any privileges that haven’t been asserted by previous opresidents of both parties, you because you don’t seem to have much of a grasp of what the context for the “Ein Volk, Ein Reich” campaign was.Gosh, Charlie, “Ein Volk, Ein Reich†involved Hitler, doncha know? That’s Phoney need know. The rest is spin from his/her imagination.
TW: The past is what Phoney says it is.
Piator,
I would like to ask you forebearance if I may.
I engage in each and every democratic discussion with (what I hope is) the finest of the tradition of discussion and debate. I would at least like to claim that failures of debate are failures on my part. That being said, I hope to aspire to the level of one who can be swayed by logic, reason, and sound debate.
I have, in past, asked that you extend to me the courtesy that I have been extended by a large number of people with whom I disagree – the courtesy of a civil and honest response.
So, at the risk of being blunt, are you here to engage at least one person in this forum, or are you tied up in some sort of self-indulgent nonsense?
Before you answer, I would like to point out that you make some points I feel that are very worth discussion – I ask merely if your interest in vitriol exceeds your interest in making a difference.
Regards,
BRD
Mr. Delta, you can FIND people with whom honest disagreement and reasonable discussion is possible, as in those who reach conclusions through good faith reasoning rather than a “Bush is an evil idiot and all who vote for him are fools” thing?
Yes he does spy on his political opponents. But he always gets a warrant first.
Anyone halfay intelligent with a sense of irony can note the parallels between Hitler and Charlie Chaplin. So what?
And BTW, when you concede that a sense of irony is required, you’re indicating that you don’t take the poiunt very seriously yourself.
chimpy’s growth economy hasn’t been very good to working people. wages are down. its capital that’s been getting the goods. and at a pretty unprecedented level compared to other recoveries. I don´t know, however, to what extent chimpy is responsible for this.
Therefore, Bush is Hitler. Ipso facto.
Phoney, you’re a absolute fucking tool. Please just shut up. I know pixels are cheap, but there’s really no sense in wasting them like this. Shouldn’t you be rereading Chomsky?
tw: just
How do you do that, Jeff?
Nonsense. They’re up more than 3% over the last 12 months. And unemployment is under 5%.
Did you get that wrong honestly, did you know it wasn’t true when you said it, or did you just not bother to check before you pulled that fallacious factoid from your posterior?
Guys, the facts have to fiigure in here somewhere – the economy is booming, and Bush has won two difficult wars in five years. Come on – what did Clinton do for us in his two terms? Sudan? The Balkans?
And to poor, undeveloped Massachusetts, do you feel that manicured hand sneaking down the back of your underwear? Nevermind, it’s just a central American dictator fondling the hem of your fruit-of-the-looms on the way to wrapping his fist around your jewels.
-Steve
Piator: Where do you stand on the whole BARRETT REPORT issue?
Chavez is annoying the far right, as well as the current administration.
Which is all for the good. But cheap heating oil ain’t bad either.
What a world.
We have to put up with Chavez’s brand of socialism and Saudi Arabia’s brand of Islamic fundamentalism. All to get our hands on cheep oil.
Disgusting……
OHNOES,
There are some people who post here who I think are actually interested in intelligent discussion, among them Jake, law_jockey, and MF. Some other folks fade in and out, and then there are just those for whom no engagment is the best engagement.
So, yeah, it does happen, and I try not to squish it when I see it. Doesn’t help much, but I try.
Best,
BRD
Hey Carl, I’m confused. Where’s that cheap oil at again? It doesn’t seem to be at the gas stations I frequent.
No doubt he’s completely ignorant of it.
Is this a private discussion, actus, or are others free to join in?
Actus, I’m usually not one to comment on someone’s grammer, but holy shit, that quote is almost entirely illegible.
Aw, geez – another revolution in Venezuela? That makes over 200 so far doesn’t it?
These guys are in a noticable rut…
‘Ipso facto’? I think where Phoeny’s concerned it’s always ‘eo ipso’.
Anyone who reads like the product of an unholy union between Barrett’s quotations, e.e. cummings, and an unsuspecting Hallmark card is hard not to dismiss on general principle no matter how earnest they seem to be. Not mentioning any names, of course, but. . .
Pablo:
Real wages. Sorry for the ambiguity.
I used the phrase ‘chimpy’s growth economy’ because jeff used it. I don’t know to what extent he is responsible for this recovery or its lopsidedness.