You will no doubt have read about CITGO selling cheap (ie Venezuelan government subsidised) oil to poor US households.

Whilst this undoubtedly shows off Chavez in a good light versus Bush, it lets the US regime off the hook and continue its real business concerns as normal, such as subsidising US oill companies as reported by Oligopolywatch:

Big petroleum companies are showing record profits through windfall gains thanks to supply shortages and increased demand. Top oil companies announces record profits, while consumers and businesses outside the energy segment, both big and small, suffer from higher energy prices.

Yet it turns out that US is giving away $7 billion in royalty payments for natural gas and oil the federal government owns in the Gulf of Mexico.. This money is going to major oil companies over the next five years […]

Technorati Tags: venezuelan, oil, subsidies

American Civil Liberties Union: Stop the Abuse of Power

Dear Friend,

Americans continue to be outraged by the Bush Administration’s illegal NSA spying program.

But when you look deeper an even more troubling pattern is clear: this president really believes he is above the law. The illegal spying is just a small part of a pattern of abuse that’s undermining the Constitution and abridging our civil liberties.

Unauthorized domestic wiretapping…illegal detentions and flagrant violations of human rights at Guantanamo…secret CIA kidnappings that transport victims to countries that engage in torture…the use of the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Forces to chill peaceful dissent…the refusal to hold high-level officials accountable for abusing prisoners at Abu Ghraib.

I’m writing to ask for your support in our work to uphold the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, in the face of this ongoing abuse of presidential power. By donating now to the ACLU, you can help break this pattern of abuse and deliver a clear and unequivocal message: no one — not even the president — is above the law…

This is wrong headed of course.

Look at each of the illegal doings listed above; each one of them involves spending taxpayers money:

• illegal NSA spying program. Funded by US TAXPAYERS
• illegal detentions Funded by US TAXPAYERS
• flagrant violations of human rights at Guantanamo Funded by US TAXPAYERS
• CIA kidnappings Funded by US TAXPAYERS
• FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Forces to chill peaceful dissent Funded by US TAXPAYERS
• abusing prisoners at Abu Ghraib Funded by US TAXPAYERS

It’s clear that if you cut off the funds for these nefarious deeds, that they could not take place. If the ACLU is not willing to address this, then they will fail, just as all pressure groups have been failing since ‘The VietNam War’.

The ACLU should be funded so that they can execute a plan of financial strangulation; the cutting off of funds supplied by the 50% of Americans who want a permanent end to all the shenanigans that uncle sham has been getting up to. Anything less is a waste of time; the pointless marching, petition writing and lobbying has to stop, and be replaced with action that has a concrete and real effect.

I’ve said all this before of course.

Furthermore, the Federal Reserve and its printing press must be shut down. That is where they get unlimited funding for their adventurism, no matter what anyone says or how loud they protest.