Michelle Malkin is talking about boycotting CITGO. I’ll tell you, the second I heard on Brit Hume’s show that CITGO is wholly owned by the Venezuelan government, I resolved that as long as Hugo Chavez is in power, I will never give them another dime.
Pronounced "Patter-EE-koh"
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Shorter Patterico: Royal Dutch Shell can slaughter Nigerians by the thousands, but I’ll be damned if I give my money to a firm owned by a country with a leader who calls the President bad names.
Kimmitt (80218d) — 9/21/2006 @ 10:09 pmHere’s a link to the CITGO store locator. Not all CITGO products are sold under the CITGO name.
DRJ (ccb97e) — 9/21/2006 @ 10:57 pmShorter Kimmitt;
Desert Rat (d8da01) — 9/21/2006 @ 11:09 pm“I don’t care if Hugo Chavez is a terrorist-sponsoring, Jew-hating, dictator whose political opponents ‘disappear,’ anyone who calls President Bush names deserves my support—buy CITGO !”
Shorter Desert Rat: “Damn it, I can’t address the logical inconsistency raised by Kimmet. I better go with a strawman smear.”
It’s so Chavez of you.
Macswain (2aadc0) — 9/21/2006 @ 11:35 pmMacswain said,
Why do you assume he isn’t boycotting Shell too? And the moral “equivalency argument” was made before the “strawman argument”. Why not stay on point and address whether Citgo deserves a boycott? Oh, easier to snark, I see. Well, I won’t go to Citgo either. You want to make a case for Shell? Feel free to suggest that to Patterico as a topic… or do it on your own blog. Surprised you didn’t link it though, sitecount up enough from yesterday?
Stashiu3 (0da7ed) — 9/22/2006 @ 1:20 amSorry, that was Kimmett’s quote that Macswain defended. Still applies in essense, just to both of you.
Stashiu3 (0da7ed) — 9/22/2006 @ 1:22 amI just can’t win. I got a CITGO card a few years ago because they don’t use MidEast Oil.
Now what do I do? Stop buying from someone who as far as the US goes has only shot off his mouth or buy from companies where I know part of my cash will actually be used to fund terrorism?
I can’t boycott ALL Petroleum producers.
Dan Kauffman (b494d1) — 9/22/2006 @ 2:38 amShoter Kimmitt: Exxon Mobil can kill every human being on Earth and every alien in the galaxy, but I’ll just crap on Patterico’s blog!
Pablo (08e1e8) — 9/22/2006 @ 3:42 amMacswain, he would have had to have offered a logical inconsistency for that to be the case. Instead, he offered both a lie and a strawman. Like Chavez.
You’ve got to read this stuff with both eyes open, man.
Pablo (08e1e8) — 9/22/2006 @ 3:45 amI was leaning toward a boycott myself, but Shannity and G. Gordon Liddy pretty much talked me out of it by pointing out that oil is fungible, so less Venezuelan imports to the U.S. just means more to China.
Xrlq (b1ae88) — 9/22/2006 @ 4:20 amBoycotting Citgo stations to protest Chavez makes about as much sense as boycotting Exxon/Mobil stations to protest oil company prices. Gas stations are not owned by the oil companies. Once you stop buying gas at your local Citgo station, you start buying your gas from the Shell, Chevron, Texaco, Arco, Exxon/Mobil, etc., station. The gas that would have been sold at the Citgo station is sold to the other stations to be sold to you. It does not stay stuck in some storage tank somewhere, backing up the pipeline.
Here’s the other thing. If a Shell gas station is 200 miles from the nearest Shell refinery and 10 miles from the nearest Chevron refinery, guess where that Shell station is buying gas from. Unfortunately, if you were buying Citgo gas before, you’re probably still buying it now.
Steve (649c9f) — 9/22/2006 @ 4:21 amPDVSA used to be a safe fiefdom of privilege, keeping the oil money mostly to itself. Chavez busted that up
actus (10527e) — 9/22/2006 @ 5:12 amWhats more interesting is that it takes insulting the president to push Malkin over the line, and not anything else Chavez has done.
actus (10527e) — 9/22/2006 @ 5:23 amActus, if it’s any consolation I’ve been informally boycotting Citgo for some time now. I haven’t been openly encouraging others to, though, because I’m not convinced it would really accomplish anything. Now that Malkin’s on the bandwagon, I’m even less convinced.
Xrlq (f52b4f) — 9/22/2006 @ 6:11 amYep, if Malkins for it, I’ve gotta be against it. That ungrateful wench.
That sounds about right.
Luke (e7acda) — 9/22/2006 @ 6:37 amWhats more interesting is that it takes insulting the president to push Malkin over the line, and not anything else Chavez has done.
In my case it was pure ignorance of CITGO’s ownership.
Patterico (de0616) — 9/22/2006 @ 6:43 amKimmitt: Royal Dutch Shell can slaughter Nigerians by the thousands, but I’ll be damned if I give my money to a firm owned by a country with a leader who calls the President bad names.
The only gripe anyone has against Chavez is that he called Bush bad names? you say that while presenting yourself as if you’re on some moral high ground? You’re the only apologist for evil I see in this thread, after you the evils of an authotitarian regime and the harm he’s doing to Venezuela.
Furthermore, if the Hard Left’s paranoid imaginations about “Fascist Bush” were actually true, he’d be doing a lot of the things Hugo Chavez is doing to his country. You seem okay with Hugo Chavez, so you’d be okay with an American president being an authoritarian-becoming-a-dictator, too, so long as he/she were a Marxist.
I do go to Shell, as my repair shop told me both Shell and Sunoco have the best fuel for my car. But a CitGo boycott is worthwhile considering the ostentatious way Hugo Chavez is aligning himself with the worst dictators in the world, from Lukashenko in Belarus, to the Predident of Iran, to Fidel Castro. There should be consequences for it. And while I don’t think the loser can actually do much harm to the USA, he does intend harm to my country, so I don’t wanna spend a penny at CitGo and I’m okay with them being singled-out. 🙂
As far as Shell, I took a quick look at the semi-reliable and not very in-depth Wikipedia and didn’t see anything about Shell murdering thousands of people in Nigeria. It talks about 80 people killed by the government’s police over a decade ago. Shell’s guilty ties to the matter look murky…though disturbing. I’m not excusing them (particularly since I’m ignorant about the details); I’m just noticing how you both hype matters and downplay matters depending on how you think it fits your political agenda, thus you can’t claim to be someone coming at this from concerns about human rights.
I have no illusions about the oil industry in general. Which is why I’ve been riding a bike a lot more, while hoping the world runs out of oil sooner rather than later. When oil is controlled by governments it seems to almost invariably lead to authoritarianism, as those governments have too much money to throw around without having to worry about advancing freedom and entreprenuership.
LoafingOaf (a90377) — 9/22/2006 @ 6:50 amI wrote: after you the evils of an authotitarian regime and the harm he’s doing to Venezuela.
SHOULD’VE READ: You’re the only apologist for evil I see in this thread, after you *downplay* the evils of an authoritarian regime and the harm he’s doing to Venezuela.
LoafingOaf (a90377) — 9/22/2006 @ 6:54 amUngrateful for what? I don’t think Malkin owes me, or anyone else, anything. My objection to Malkin is that she has a habit of allowing her knees to jerk well ahead of her brain.
Xrlq (f52b4f) — 9/22/2006 @ 6:57 amThis was first mentioned on the Michael Savage Show 2 nights ago.
-joe (d18863) — 9/22/2006 @ 7:51 amI for one will be boycotting citgo whenever their price is higher than another gas station. But I reserve the right to patronize them if the price is reasonably comparable and citgo is on the right side of the street. Actually now that I think of it I’ll also reserve the right to buy gas from citgo if its the only fuel provider around and I’m low on gas too. Otherwise…I’m boycotting citgo.
Joel B. (2051bb) — 9/22/2006 @ 7:59 amI think a boycott is appropriate, and certainly less objectionable than one nation fomenting political unrest in the streets of another sovereign nation.
Patricia (2cc180) — 9/22/2006 @ 8:34 amWhat some people fail to realize is that this Third World dictator, Hugo Chavez, doesn’t just “own” Citgo, he actually “nationalized” all of the oil companies operating in Venezuela.
“Nationalized” companies are privately held companies that go into these Third World countries and set up business, which includes a huge cash outlay to build infrastructure to produce the product. Once set up and operating, if the company/industry appears to be turning into a cash cow, the dictators simply nationalize them and take them over. Instant cash income without the cash outlay/investment. And usually with no compensation to the company’s owners for absconding with their assets.
The has been done regularly in Central and South American countries, and still businesses don’t learn. Whatever “power” Chavez exercises internationally as the “owner” of Citco and other stolen oil companies was power that was stolen rather than earned. Recently President Evo Morales of Bolivia, seeing how wealthy and powerful this move made Chavez/Venezuela on the international stage, moved to nationalize Bolivia’s natural gas and oil industries operating there.
CayuteKitt (e8328a) — 9/22/2006 @ 8:35 amShell in Nigeria
PDVSA bought CITGO the old-fashioned way — with money on the open market; Chavez was opposed.
Kimmitt (80218d) — 9/22/2006 @ 11:05 amCayuteKitt — the same holds true for most of the state-run oil companies in the middle east; they were largely foreign owned-and-operated until they were nationalized. Of course, that wave of nationalizations mostly happened in the 1950s, so we’ve forgotten about it, as the nationalized companies have become more or less status quo.
aphrael (e0cdc9) — 9/22/2006 @ 11:11 amIt might be nice to keep the refineries in Venezuela working for us.
RJN (e12f22) — 9/22/2006 @ 1:09 pmA boycott of CITGO wouldn’t hurt Chavez much, if at all. I usually like reading Malkin’s blog, but I was disapointed in this post. I see no difference in her statement and the similar statements of Alec Baldwin and Robert Altman.
ClericalGal (a7ca4f) — 9/22/2006 @ 1:43 pmOf course you will not give them a dime. You are a true patriot. If Bush chooses to give the finger to his poor people but a foreign leader does not do so, the only logical response for a right winger is to attack the foreign leader. After all, any good war must first be laid with righteous propaganda.
The right wing is just itching for another war right now. Their little war of choice did not go as planned in Iraq so they must now redeem themselvses. For our holier than thou American right, civilian deaths can always be justified by the greater good.
OK. The greater good. I have no doubt that if our glorious leader were to call for war today with Venezuela, North Korea, Iran, Cuba, or any number of countries you have so willingly been brainwashed into beleiving are the current Great Satan, Patterico’s site would be filled with recent reasons for just such a war. It is sad how willingly you all bastardize yourselves to any war Big Brother calls for.
I don’t know if you are able any longer to differentiate between fact and fiction. If Bush tells you that Pakistan ( who housed a scientist selling information on how to make nuclear weapons to axis of evil nations ) and Saudi Arabia ( who has a country full of schools teaching hatred of America and from which the 9/11 terrorists came from ) are our allies, yet Cuba and Venezuela are now our sworn enemies, well sheeple, the writing is on the wall. You are simply puppets for your government.
Paul (155719) — 9/22/2006 @ 2:42 pmPaul,
With your writing, there is no need to be able to tell fact from fiction as you offer no facts, just opinion (moronic ones no less). There is treatment available for Bush Derangement Syndrome. You just have to admit you need help.
Stashiu3 (404f9e) — 9/22/2006 @ 5:39 pmPaul talks about the baddies in Pakistan and Saudi Arabia — a common lefty complaint. Does he want us to go to war with them? Somehow I think not.
He has no doubt about a lot of stuff that is 100% not true. He simply comes on here without having read me for any period of time and makes insulting assumptions about me. Do you know why I supported the war, Paul? No, you don’t. So you just reveal yourself to be a guy who shoots off his mouth without doing research.
You sound like Glenn Greenwald to me.
Patterico (de0616) — 9/22/2006 @ 5:48 pmNo. PDVSA was the national oil company before he came to power. However, it operated as a fiefdom witihn the government — keeping much of the oil wealth within its control. Chavez busted that up and spread the oil wealth around.
This is worth boycotting.
actus (10527e) — 9/22/2006 @ 6:06 pmGreat… now I have to re-think this. Back to more research. Actus being for it is a huge red flag. Might be right still, but odds are against it.
Stashiu3 (404f9e) — 9/22/2006 @ 6:29 pmSarcasm is too.
actus (10527e) — 9/22/2006 @ 6:46 pmNot only should we boycott CITGO but we should also boycott CONICO/PHILLIPS becuase they dont believe in our second amendment
krazy kagu (31c771) — 9/22/2006 @ 6:53 pmTry this Department of Energy site. It looks like we import from Venezuela roughly what we export of our own production. Our customers are interesting and I would not want to cut them off. And I did not look up the price we’re getting for our exports. We know the price we’re paying. Global economy, guys.
nk (41da82) — 9/22/2006 @ 6:53 pmI know actus… mine was right back at you.
Stashiu3 (0da7ed) — 9/22/2006 @ 8:40 pmDon’t boycott Citgo. You know Bill O’Reilly will jump on the bandwagon and claim that the boycott was because of him.
Veeshir (dfa2bf) — 9/23/2006 @ 7:46 amI don’t think I could take that again.
Let HUGO CHAVEZ drink his damn oil he is a demon himself
krazy kagu (91408b) — 9/23/2006 @ 1:12 pmThis is one Boycott that needs us to follow through till we make a difference. Some ideas in the link provided
clonecire (733ce1) — 9/23/2006 @ 1:45 pmSorry, folks, not a hope.
Cruise over to mostlycajun.com and go back through the archives to where he’s bringing his new boat home… and can’t, because the intracoastal waterway’s closed. Why? Well, the CITGO refinery had a blowout.
That single refinery outage, which went on for a month, was all by itself responsible for at least fifty cents, if not more, of the runup in gas prices. It’s not just the oil. It’s the refineries, and the pipelines, and the trucks, and the plastics feedstocks, and and and. Buy a jug of milk. There’s a good chance that the ethylene the jug is made of came from Venezuelan oil, and a better one that it was refined in a CITGO facility before being sent to be made into plastic.
Buy gas from the cheapest and/or best provider. Trying to do a boycott of any given one will just involve cutting off your nose to spite your face.
Regards,
Ric Locke (c109ff) — 9/23/2006 @ 2:17 pmRic
I’m joining the fight! BOYCOTT CITGO!
tomo
TOMO (14e676) — 9/23/2006 @ 4:09 pmhttp://thetomoreport.blogspot.com/2006/09/boycott-citgo_21.html
It is important to boycott Citgo to demonstrate to Chavez that America will not take his slimy hateful screed sitting down. Sure, in today’s conditions he can always sell his oil, but there will be a cost to him in seeing his US marketing arm shrivel and die.
Doug Burns (d50522) — 9/23/2006 @ 6:58 pmWow, for the most part this is a poorly informed conversation. First of all, the Citgo station may get their gas from Exxon, and the BP station may get their gas from Citgo. By not going to the Citgo station you may be buying more Citgo gas for all you know.
Secondly, it’s really sad and pathetic that Malkin and other far right wingers are this mad about Venezuela while they don’t seem to care about funding the Saudi government, who is far more oppressive, especially to women, than Chavez. Finally, all the oil companies are bad in some way, Shell with their Nigerian massacre, Citgo for obvious reasons, Exxon is a terrible company. The only practical option is the one that people like Malkin never discuss, try to use as little oil as possible. Decreased consumption, especially in the US which consumes more oil per capita than any other nation, is the only realistic way to quit supporting oppressive regimes and dishonest business practices.
Drew (8e6984) — 9/24/2006 @ 10:22 pmDrew, I missed the story about Shell Oil massacring Nigeria and Exxon being terrible. Got any links? In any event, you are wrong to say that decreased consumption is the only way to stop supporting bad regimes. Another is to increase production, by drilling offshore, ANWR, etc.
Xrlq (6a68a2) — 9/25/2006 @ 3:40 amDrew,
Your comment about oil companies buying oil from eachother brings up an interesting point:
The other oil companies buy their gas from Arab countries which use them to fund terrorism. The companies buy them INIDRECTLY from Iran, Saudi Arabia, and even Libya through third party distributors. Even officially, 4% of Libya’s oil goes to to the US. 3% of US oil comes from Colombia, the most bloody violator of human rights in Latin America. Saudi Arabia gives its profits to the “royal family” (eg Bin Laden). The US corporate media will mention a joke of Chavez about Bush, but how about Saudi Arabia’s serious attacks on human rights. Have you heard of its new $50 million “Martyrs” Fund?
This is far worse than a democratically elected Venezuelan president who conflicts with the Bush administration over globalization.
The area I live in Eastern Pennsylvania has the highest unemployment in the state. All the jobs are going to Mexico and Latin America because people are getting paid 1 an hour for a job that would pay a US worker 20$ an hour.
The first time I heard Venezuela criticized on the news, it was CNN saying Chavez spoke at an “anti-American” rally in Argentina. Then she cut over to a reporter actually at the protest. He said, no, the protest is not anti-American. They like the American people. This is an anti-globalization protest, and the people are protesting the system that gives them horrible working conditions. Van Sustren, the CNN moderator replied, “Anti-globalist, Anti-American, whatever,” totally ignoring the fact that the reporter said they were not anti-American!
The corporations who move to Venezuela don’t like it now that the government is regulating them to make them pay decent wages. And if Latin American countries paid people decent wages, Mexicans would not be pouring across the border, and jobs would not be pouring out of America.
If Chavez has a conflict with Bush and the corporate news about globaliztion, that’s fine- our country would be better off without it.
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