Who knew? This is the first I’ve heard about Chavez’s largesse extending to the United States. Read the whole of AKM’s excellent post here:
For the past three years, Venezuela President Hugo Chavez has been donating free heating oil to Alaska villages, and economically depressed communities in 23 states across the country. This has the effect you might imagine in Alaska. Some are deeply grateful. Those are usually the cold people. Others are furious at the gesture from this unapologetic socialist, and either accept the gift begrudgingly, or have outright refused to take it. Those in the latter category are starting to rethink their position facing the hard reality of the coming winter, and the fact that some rural families will be spending in excess of 40% of their income on heating fuel.
I am unsure if the irony of the socialist free fuel dilemma is lost on Alaskans. While some state leaders are squawking that
a) Chavez is a Socialist
b) Socialists are evil
Therefore we should reject them and all they stand for.
They seem to be OK with the fact that
a) Sarah Palin also gave away money for free fuel to all Alaskans in the form of an energy rebate check.
b) This sounds awfully…..socialist
c) Sarah Palin was openly railing against socialism and all things socialist across the country on the campaign trail.
Many say, “We we shall forget this comparison because we don’t like cognitive dissonance and we shall not ever admit that a socialist idea has any merit at all, nor that any Alaskan might think we need to be doing the same thing as Hugo Chavez. Humph.”
The main difference, of course, is that Chavez is providing the fuel to rural communities that have at least a 70% Alaska Native population, and Sarah Palin gave it to everyone, including wealthy Anchorage residents who spent it on…whatever.
It’s so ironic that any state in the union would need heating fuel assistance, when there’s a 200+ years supply of natural gas in the Gull Island Bay Reserve, that has been tapped into and continuously gets pumped back into the earth with pumps powered by 747-type engines.
Let’s use our own resources first.