Submarine   USS Wahoo  ss238

I dont know of any Citgo's in Oregon, of course I take the
bus and Max here everyday, dont use the car much, only on weekends
and evenings

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=6567707029&rd=1&sspag...

I've always gone to citgo gas. Now that I see this article it make me feel even better that I do buy it. I'll spread the word!

but i ended up spending $1 on a lottery ticket.

thanks for the info.

Since I bought a Prius I just laugh at the price of gas and I can, and have, driven out of my way to find a Citgo.

..........................YYYEEEEEEAAAAAAAARRRRRRGGGHHHH !!!!!

I see that you are a 1-hour member. Calling someone "stupid" is not very civil now is it? Please read the rules of this blog:

http://www.democrats.com/rules

Several of your links are to articles by Reporters Without Borders. Another node is questioning their motives. What's your take on this?

See http://www.democrats.com/node/4677

Thanks for your understanding...

Don't know a whole lot about Chavez, but if a hypocrite like Pat Robertson wants him dead, he can't be all bad.

Chavez has said that he will provide subsidized gas to poor Americans in an interview he did on Democracy Now.

Very appropriate on July 4th :o) Blind faith from any side is not critical thinking. Thanks for the wake-up call!

Personally , I buy my gas at the cheapest place in town. If I'm going to save any money, it's going to be mine!

The fact that you're an Independent newbie with a strong message
may get you flamed here, but you bring up many good points.

And it sounds like you've been there,recently.
Is that true?

This is the first I've heard of Chavez's weapons arsenal, threats of war and his disregard
for human rights in Venezuela.

I, too, was under the impression that he was helping the poor as demostrated
by his gift of heating oil to low income families in the US.

I will check it out.

PS. You're right, everyone is a newcomer at some point in time. ;-)

I will say that I agree totally and completly with you that Chavez is no angel, and definately not the kind of person that you want to admire. That being said, I think he has been demonized some by the right for being a "Leftist Dictator". To me, a dictator is a dictator, they are all bad. Chavez did sell poor Americans heating oil at un-gouged prices and that deservedly won him praise in some circles. I don't buy Citgo gas either, because around here they are just as high. So how does this sound, I won't buy Exxon, Shell, or Citgo!!!!

We have an unwritten rule at Democrats.com: You are entitled to your own opinions, but not your own facts.

When you make wild accusations about topics such as those listed in your points 1, 2, and 3, you need to post links to facts to back them up. And please, do not reply with "facts" as reported by Reporters Without Boarders, as they are a biased right-wing group most likely funded by the CIA.

Actually, you sound more like a Libertarian, or a Republican, than an "Independent." What do "Independents" stand for as a Party? Do they have an agenda, or are "Independents" just wearing the label of free thinkers on their foreheads and spouting opinions rather than facts? Or could it be that you are hiding behind the "Independent" label as many trolls and freepers do?

And I agree with Karin, your tone sounds very familiar, and I think that you have been here before under a different name. Care to share that with us?

I am not defending Chavez, but neither am I willing to throw him under the bus based on the rantings of an "Independent" who has no facts to support his diatribe.

Latin American is turning left. The latest convert may be Mexico, where the populist Obrador is fighting to win election as president in a contest that brings back memories of Gore's situation in 2000.

The people of Latin America seem to have had it with the Washington Consenus (which has continually made the people more impovershed and the tiny comprador elite more wealthy), right-wing military dictatorships, death squads and US multinationals raping their countries of resources and suppressing the wages of workers. Argentina was the poster boy of the Washington Consensus until they defaulted on their debt in 2001. Kirchner forced the US banks to get back only 30% on the dollar, an unheard of settlement that detrimental to the US banks.

Chavez said in an interview on Democracy Now! that he's arming to defend Venezuela from a Bush invasion, which he says he has documenary evidence of the plans for. He's providing subsidized oil to Carribean and other Latin American nations often for barter; Cuban doctors to treat the poor for oil, for example. Chavez subsidized heating oil this past winter for some of the poor in Chicago, Boston and New York and was ready to offer help to the Katrina victims before FEMA went active. Unlike Bush, Chavez is popular with a significant majority of the population who mobilized in the streets to bring-down the Bush-backed coup in 2002. As cited in one of the articles below, Venezuela topped the list of Latin American countries whose population thought they lived in a democratic country. Chavez has even been working out an agreemet with Bush's favorite, Uribe of Colombia, to build a pipeline through Colombia to better serve the Asian energy market. As Bush is pouring in military aide, equipment and Special Operation Forces 'advisers' into Colombia, beefing-up the military in Venezuela would only be prudent. Chavez is also using his petrodollars to try to diversify the economy of Venezuela.

Venezuela has just joined Mercursor, a Latin American trading group that includes Brazil and Argentina, among other countries. Lula from Brazil has led the charge to sink Bush's Nafta-like Free Trade Agreement of the Americas. Lula's also in the forefront to develop strong economic ties with China and India, the economic growth dynamos of the 21st century. He's also organized resistence in the WTO to Bush bullying.

Morales of Bolivia plans on effectively nationalizing Bolivia's natural gas industry and get a higher royalty from only those multinational energy companies that will meet his conditions. A number of the mutinationals have opted-out, but are being replaced by the Chinese and Indians, which have at least talked of joining forces to provide there countries with energy security.

The dream of the Bolivarian Revolution is to integrate the economies of Latin America into something resembling the European Union. There's even talk of setting-up a multi-country parliament, again fashioned after the EU.

Latin American unity and independence falls afoul of US policy since the Monroe Doctrine. The Bush propaganda machine, the echo chamber of the MSM and the right-wingnuts have organized a Rovian smear and fear campaign against Chavez because he is the most flamboyant spokesman of the Bolivarian Revolution and has the petrodollars to set it in motion.

For a brief expose on Bush's policies in Latin America, you might want to pick-up the short book by Brig. Gen. Smedley D. Butler entitled "War is a Racket."

It is truly ironic for Bush and his thugs to talk about human rights violations. Bush and his father before him have harbored in the US the Cuban terrorists, the Contra terrorists and members of the Central American death squads sponsered by Negraponte in the 1980's. The latest is the US refusal to extradite a terrorist who blew-up a plane full of civilians back to Venezula where he was being imprisoned for his crime before his escape from custody because Venezuela might torture him. It would be laughable if it wasn't so sick with Gitmo and the other gulags, the extraordinary renditions, the casual torture of detainees who have neither been charged or convicted of any crime under Rumsfeld's and the military brass' written direction, Gonzales' memos and Bush's executive order authorizing disappearing anyone anywhere at Bush's whim and the massacres of civilians by occupation forces, all as part of Bush's so-called 'war on terror'.

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20060501/cook

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20060501/grandin

Your boasted liberty, an unholy license; your denunciations of tyrants, brass fronted impudence; your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your sermons, hypocrisy-a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages.

Most of this material is so old that it is in archives or the links do not work.

A mind once expanded can never return to its original dimensions.

Anne Hathaway: 1556-1623

The greatest derangement of the mind is to believe in something because one wishes it to be so.