Spread the word!

 

 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 -- not Saudi Arabia or the Middle
East. 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)