Published on Monday, May 16, 2005 by CommonDreams.org
Buy Your Gas at Citgo: Join the BUY-cott!
by Jeff Cohen
Looking for an easy way to protest Bush foreign policy week after week? And
an easy way to help alleviate global poverty? Buy your gasoline at Citgo
stations.
And tell your friends.
Of the top oil producing countries in the world, only one is a democracy
with a president who was elected on a platform of using his nation's oil
revenue to benefit the poor. The country is Venezuela. The President is Hugo
Chavez. Call him "the Anti-Bush."
Citgo is a U.S. refining and marketing firm that is a wholly owned
subsidiary of Venezuela's state-owned oil company. Money you pay to Citgo
goes primarily to Venezuela. There are 14,000 Citgo gas stations in the US.
(Click here
http://www.citgo.com/CITGOLocator/StoreLocator.jsp to find one
near you.) By buying your gasoline at Citgo, you are contributing to the
billions of dollars that Venezuela's democratic government is using to
provide health care, literacy and education, and subsidized food for the
majority of Venezuelans.
Instead of using government to help the rich and the corporate, as Bush
does, Chavez is using the resources and oil revenue of his government to
help the poor in Venezuela. A country with so much oil wealth shouldn't have
60 percent of its people living in poverty, earning less than $2 per day.
With a mass movement behind him, Chavez is confronting poverty in Venezuela.
That's why large majorities have consistently backed him in democratic
elections. And why the Bush administration supported an attempted military
coup in 2002 that sought to overthrow Chavez.
So this is the opposite of a boycott. Call it a BUYcott. Spread the word.
Of course, if you can take mass transit or bike or walk to your job, you
should do so. And we should all work for political changes that move our
country toward a cleaner environment based on renewable energy. The BUYcott
is for those of us who don't have a practical alternative to filling up our
cars.
So get your gas at Citgo. And help fuel a democratic revolution in
Venezuela.
Jeff Cohen is an author and media critic (www.jeffcohen.org)