Support Chavez; Buy CITGO Gas - Join the BUYcott; It doesn't go to Bush, Saudia Arabia etc

So instead of purchasing gas from a big oil company, you purchase gas from a big oil company who is state owned by Venezuela? It's still a big, friggen oil company-- only this time it's owned by a Socialist State with a dubious human-rights record?

It should be known that Venezuela has owned Citgo for 10 years. What have they done in that time to help the people in poverty? Are they better off today then 10 years ago?

Anyone have an alternative take on this?

Revolution, suggests radical educator Paulo Freire, is “the ultimate teacher … giving first place to the indispensable role of education in the process of forming the New Woman and the New Man.” Although Freire wrote these words almost 30 years ago, in his preface to Jonathan Kozol’s book “Children of the Revolution,” he could have been writing about Venezuela today.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez devoted a May 15 call-in television program to education. Attending the inauguration of a new high school, he presented a “new educational model for a new citizen.” Competition and individualism in schools, he said, must give way to unity, brotherhood and solidarity. “We are all a team, going along eliminating little by little the values or the anti-values that capitalism has planted in us from childhood.”

Chavez noted the country’s new constitution calls for a democratic, free education characterized by “inclusion, activism, participation and opportunities.” Article 103 of the Constitution states, “Every person has the right to a full, high-quality, ongoing education under conditions and circumstances of equality.” Education, Chavez said, is a “human right and a fundamental social duty.”

Crediting Education Minister Aristobulo Isturiz for defining the nation’s educational philosophy, Chavez went on to say that education is more than “Isturiz’s responsibility [and] not only the responsibility of the government, but is everyone’s.”

Isturiz, also at the ceremony, talked about “co-responsibility” as an alternative to paternalism. “The democracy that we are constructing is a participatory democracy,” he said. “We would not have been able to teach 1 million people to read and write if we had not had the help of 100,000 volunteers.”

Until now, Isturiz said, education in Venezuela has been “responding to the neoliberal model,” which he called “profoundly elitist and exclusive.” The new curriculum includes gender equality from preschool onward, and today Venezuela boasts more women than men with a university education.

In an April interview with venezuelanalysis.com, Isturiz described the process of setting up “Bolivarian schools,” free public education, meals for all students and increased educational funding. Over the past five years the educational segment of the Gross Domestic Product rose from 2.8 percent to 7 percent. The government now devotes 20 percent of its spending to education.

In their new schools, children learn actively and collectively. Practical experience and academic instruction are joined. Families participate as classroom helpers, food providers and community advocates. Teachers receive a 70 percent add-on to their salaries to encourage nearly full-time involvement with students — eating, playing and sharing.

Nearly 1.4 million children are enrolled in mandatory preschools, the “Simoncitos.” Isturiz said that early education works to overcome social inequalities and promotes self-esteem and language skills. The curricula of Bolivarian high schools now group academic subjects in “areas” as a means of helping students correlate information and solve problems. The recently formulated Decree 3444 aspires to transform Venezuelan universities, and the education ministry is developing a system of “small university villages” in outlying areas.

Over 1 million children are enrolled in 3,780 new Bolivarian schools, among them 350 secondary schools. The government has refurbished 8,750 of the nation’s 20,000 schools, and has built 700 new elementary schools and 80 technical schools.

An outreach program called “Mission Robinson,” which has received Cuban support, has enabled almost 1.4 million people, including prisoners in Venezuelan jails, to read and write in less than two years. Over 1.2 million people, mostly adults, are studying to complete the sixth grade, and in another program, 800,000 adults are studying at the high school level.

These programs have enabled millions of poor and uneducated Venezuelans to improve themselves. The United Nations predicts that in 2007 Venezuela will meet its millennium goal of elementary education for all, eight years ahead of schedule.

The name Mission Robinson comes from Simon Robinson, who served as director of education in Bolivia under Simon Bolivar, the 19th century South American revolutionary. Robinson’s message resonates in Venezuela today: “We have to educate everybody, with no distinctions of race or color. We are not off in the clouds: without popular education there will never be a true society.”

http://www.pww.org/article/articleview/7279/1/275/

because the poorest people in Venezuela are clearly better off as a result of Chavez' rejection of neoliberal economic policies:

http://oilwars.blogspot.com/2005/06/how-does-he-do-it.html

what a strange notion, hard to believe that Venezuelans would be better off by using the profits from their oil for themselves instead of allowing foreign multinationals to take it insteads

--Richard

"Revolution, suggests radical educator Paulo Freire, is “the ultimate teacher......" The French often used lofty ideals like Fraternite', Egalite', and Liberte', to disguise the Reign of Terror and base murder of their own people. Propaganda has always been the first defense of Dictators. Regardless of what they say Socialist Regiemes are some of the perpetrators of the most heinous crimes in human history. Supporting such men to satisfy some petty spite for a man who's position will only last a few more years is callous and small.

(BTW I know France was not a Socialist state at the time of the Reign of Terror, but the parallel is still their.)

The President of Venezuela has declared war on 'American Imperialism' and is anti American.Why should we buy Citgo gas when he feels this hatred of America?

When I have to buy gas, I buy Citgo. For no other reason than to support Chavez, a Latin American leader w/ the courage to stand up to the corrupt gang of corporations and politicians (they go back and forth anyway) and as a way to say "fuck you" to the current good-ol-boy network of the crimninal Bush administration.

Read this:
http://www.snopes.com/politics/gasoline/saudigas.asp

Wow, I never knew Citgo gas came from Venezuela. I'm going to try from now on to only buy gas from Citgo, regardless of the price. I fully support this BUY-COTT! :)

Are you people mentally challenged? Buy Citgo? Why do you think they are so poor there? Maybe because of their corrupt government? So let's support them. Sounds like a plan, you fools. The problem here is that you lemmings read a little article from some pot smoking liberal and think it's gospel. You wouldn't know the country of origin with these gas companies if oil was spewing out of your backyard. And don't go saying "Bush Lover" because I am independent and didn't vote for him. I am not Republican or Democrat...I am an AMERICA. You really think that buying Citgo will help the poor there and/or hurt Bush, than you are a bunch of losers...At least buy Sunoco for Christ sakes...Pathetic.

Not that anyone will read this, but this BUY-cot is a completely moronic gesture toward a goal that is dubious at best.

Let me see if I got this article right:
Chavez good/U.S. bad
U.S. = Big bad oil industry run by Bush and his cronies
Venezuela = Oil biz has not contributed to wiping out towns/villages and poisoning rivers and wildlife with all the great in-corruptible and well managed and controled government run oil company.
CitGo Profits = The few benefits to the poor have not been orchestrated 'media moments' to gain political capital
Middle East Oil = goes into Bin Laden's pocket for killing American Troops
CitGo = Not a Big Oil Industry run by anti-American socialist regime bent on cooperation with Iran and Russian interests

Hmmm. Mr. Cohen - author & media critic, put down the pipe and do some REAL research instead of buying into the propaganda on either the right or left side. Opinions are like a$$holes . . . . . you know the rest. Uncommon is the person who does the work to present a fair and balanced view.

What an overly simplistic view of the world, obviously honed by all the 'in depth' analysis of the latest blockbuster film sensation.

Best idea - reduce the use of and help promote alternative fuels.