Letters to the Editor

Don’t be fooled

Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez recently decided that Citgo should continue its oil assistance program, reversing his previous decision to end the program that aids poor families in 23 U.S. states.

This is the same Hugo Chávez who called former President George W. Bush a devil at a meeting of South American countries at the U.N. over two years ago. At the time, there was a short-lived moment when a few local Bush supporters called for the destruction of the Citgo sign in Kenmore Square. It never came to pass.

Although Mr. Chávez has been called a communist dictator by his critics, nothing could be further from the truth. He was elected to office in internationally supervised elections by the citizens of his country.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, head of the “do-nothing” Congress and a favorite of Washington lobbyists, has gone so far as to call Chávez a “thug.”  But she has yet to criticize U.S. Big Oil interests with the same passion, and never opened a forum to address the issue of giving consumers a discount on gasoline prices this past summer when oil profits skyrocketed. Are we supposed to forget the shafting we got because the prices are now lower?

When Citizens Energy Chairman Joe Kennedy approached American oil companies requesting aid for distressed homeowners this winter, they showed their callousness and lack of humanity by refusing to respond. Meanwhile, they spend millions on advertising to get us to believe that they’re working for the good of America by giving us clean energy. Are we supposed to forget about liquid natural gas, which already fuels transit busses? Whatever happened to electric cars?

They’re masters of deception, trying to convince us that our 401(k)s give us ownership rights in their companies. Let’s carry that lunacy to its conclusion: Are they implying that everyone enrolled in a retirement plan profited from the high gas prices? Or are they implying that we share the same values and morals and greed prevalent in their boardrooms? Either way, the markets are dropping like a limbo pole.

I don’t care if there’s enough oil under the oceans to keep us in the same rut for another 60 years: I want a change in the nation’s priorities. I’m not a tree hugger, but if we allow companies to keep plundering the environment in search of the last drop of oil, what does that say about us?