Step One: Get Rich. Oil works well in this regard.
Step Two: Get into a position of political power. Coup, failed coup whatever works for you. Survive coup attempts against you made by the Super Power in your hemisphere.
Step Three: Get cozy with the Super Power in the other hemisphere.
Step Four: Open up your Marxism 101 textbook and an annotated history of Broadway and start spending capital on some excellent political theater:
Rafael Ramirez, president of Venezuela's oil company PDVSA, offered some details of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez's offer to provide cheaper gasoline and heating oil to U.S. poor communities.Speaking shortly after a press conference held by President Chavez and U.S. Reverend Jesse Jackson, Ramirez said that CITGO Petroleum Corp., the wholly owned subsidiary of PDVSA, is currently refining up to 664.000 barrels of oil through the refineries it owns and operates in the United States.
Venezuela is the world's fifth largest oil exporter and the fourth largest supplier of oil to the United States. Venezuelan oil accounted for 12% of U.S. oil imports.
Ramirez said that under the Venezuelan government plan, CITGO will set aside up to 10% of its refined oil products to be sold directly to organized poor communities, and institutions in the U.S. without intermediaries.
The plan calls for the sale of heating oil and gasoline to hospitals, nursing homes, schools and organized poor communities in U.S. soil, according to Ramirez.
Other Venezuelan government officials, who asked not to be named, said that Venezuela will not lose any money with this program because the idea is to "cut the middle-man", the intermediaries.
How that gasoline is going to be distributed is still a mystery since Citgo stations aren't owned by Venezuela. But the proposal is worth any embarassment that might ensue if it fails simply because we get to read the phrase "orgainized poor communities" attached to a plan of action obviously rooted in self-interest. That's got to be giving the US power elite the shakes.
Look for lots more stories in the corporate media linking him to terrorism, Communism, Commu-terrorism, incubator tossing, gassing his own people and yellow cake from Africa.
Step Five: Reach out to a neighbor in need.
If you want to get some good background on Chavez, I recommend the following sources:
Venezeula Analysis for that leftier perspective
Beautiful Horizons, where Randy Paul writes about all of Latin America. These two Chavez posts are my favorites: here and here.
Author and blogger Marc Cooper is always a good read. He talks about Chavez and the media here. The comments on that post are good as well.
Bloggings by Boz has a comprehensive Venezuela post up in the wake of the Robertson insanity. Lots of links to various voices in the discussion.
On an unrelated topic, Mike Pia...who?
Posted by: Scott Lemieux | August 30, 2005 at 10:07 PM