Brownsey Family

From today's Boston Herald. I posted the whole thing because It won't be accessible by Wednesday. If you want to have fun call Dad and ask who Joe Kennedy is and how much he makes running a non-profit heating oil company.

For Dad: Video of Joe's Ad

"Tapping Venezuela’s oil without guilt
By Joseph P. Kennedy II
Monday, January 22, 2007 - Updated: 03:34 PM EST

All those who claim the poor should not heat their homes with discounted Venezuelan oil or that I should not distribute it are setting a moral standard they don’t apply to themselves or to other countries sending oil to the United States.

If we consumed oil only from those whose morality we agree with, we’d come up with a very short list.

Critics say no to Venezuelan oil for the poor but yes to Saudi Arabia and Kuwait and to so many other Middle East countries that rule with an iron fist. It’s easy to say yes if you’re a short-sighted moralist, but maybe not so easy if you’re concerned about how those societies treat women or alarmed at their hostile stance toward Israel.

If discounted fuel from Venezuela is somehow unfit for the needy, then full-price Venezuelan oil shouldn’t be good enough for the cars, boats, jets and furnaces of the wealthy.

More than 558 million barrels of Venezuelan oil made its way to the United States last year. Why just go after the small slice that helps senior citizens and struggling families? Why not take on those who make money off Venezuela as well - GM and Ford, who sold 300,000 cars there last year, and Shell, BP, Conoco Phillips and other oil interests who, unlike Venezuela and CITGO Petroleum, spurned our requests for assisting the poor?

If objections to Venezuelan oil are about democracy, then critics should look at the December elections won by President Hugo Chavez with nearly 70 percent of the vote. Venezuelans have now spoken four times in his favor.

I’m not going to defend or demonize Chavez for his moves toward socialism, but it does seem like we favor selective socialism here in the United States for big corporations that get to socialize risks and privatize profits.

As for nationalizations in Venezuela, it’s hard for Americans to argue with turning private utilities into public ones. America’s investor-owned utilities charge more for power than companies owned by the people.

Why doesn’t our own federal government collect a fair share of royalties from energy companies taking resources from public lands and use some of the revenues, along with windfall taxes from oil and gas interests, to help the poor?

Or why don’t our lawmakers in Washington fully fund federal fuel assistance, which has been cut by a third in spite of the fact that heating oil prices have doubled over the last couple of years?

I won’t defend everything Hugo Chavez says or does, but neither will I accept a system of socialism for the rich and free enterprise for the poor that turns its back on those in need.

Joseph P. Kennedy II is president of Citizen’s Energy."

I don't have a problem with Hugo selling oil below market price. It's the Kennedy's that are the problem here.

-Paul