A new bullshit propaganda email making the rounds (about Chavez)

[Ghost in the Machine]

Verified with SNOPES

CITGO & CHAVEZ

IN ORLANDO LAST WEEK, AT A CITGO STATION REGULAR GAS WAS PRICED AT $2.82 PER GALLON, NO CUSTOMERS, HOWEVER ACROSS THE STREET WHERE FUEL WAS SELLING FOR $2.85 PER GALLON AND ALL PUMPS THERE HAD CARS WAITING TO FUEL.

Have you noticed how the Citgo signs have disappeared in the past 7-8 months? Very clever move by Chavez. But guess what CITGO IS CHANGING ITS NAME...this is serious Americans...make sure you read.

">-------- NEWS FLASH -------<"

Chavez is NOW getting a Russian Weapons Factory built by Putin. The RUSSIANS are building an AK-47 Kalashnikov Assault Rifle factory in Venezuela, to give armament support to Communist Rebel groups throughout the Americas.

Chavez NOW has IRANIANS operating his oil refineries in Venezuela for him.

It is likely only a matter of time, if not already, before Chavez has Iranian built LONG RANGE missiles, with a variety of warhead types aimed at: Guess Who?

CITGO is NOW in the process of Changing Its Name to PETRO EXPRESS due to the loss of gasoline sales in the USA due to the recent publicity of ownership by Chavez of Venezuela.

Every dollar you spend with CITGO or PETRO EXPRESS gasoline will be used against you, your basic human rights, and your freedoms. He will start wars here in the Americas that will probably be the death of millions.

THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT because Chavez is starting to feel the loss of revenue from his holdings. HE OWNS CITGO. This is a very important move that everyone should be aware of.

ANNOUNCED JUST RECENTLY, CITGO, BEING AWARE THAT SALES ARE DOWN DUE TO U.S. CUSTOMERS NOT WANTING TO BUY FROM "CITGO-CHAVEZ", HA VE STARTED TO CHANGE THE NAME OF SOME OF THEIR STORES TO: "PETRO EXPRESS" DO NOT BUY FROM "PETRO EXPRESS" EITHER!!! "PETRO EXPRESS" IS ALSO 100% OWNED BY "CHAVEZ."

KEEP THIS MEMO GOING SO THAT EVERYONE KNOWS WHAT IS HAPPENING.

BOYCOTT >-------- "CITGO" AND "PETRO EXPRESS" ---------< BOYCOTT

MAKE SURE THIS IS PASSED ON TO EVERYONE IN YOUR E-MAIL LIST IN THE UNITED STATES AND OUTSIDE OF AMERICA.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

:rofl:

[RebelOne]

1. I received this one last year. It's nothing new.

[MADem]

2. You need to put the nitwit who sent you that on your bulk/junk/spam list. NT

[SyntaxError]

3. hahah... now the question is...

Did the person who created that do it for some sort of political reasons, or did he/she do it just to see if he could get morons to believe it.

[Mountainman]

6. Yeah, show me someone who will pay more for gas than they have to because

of politics. I guess this winter thousands of freezing citizens will refuse low cost home heating oil from Chavez too.

Terror terror terror fear fear fear

[northzax]

4. are any of these facts wrong?

Venezuela is, in fact, manufacturing Kalishnakovs under license from Russia. Citgo is, in fact, a wholely owned subsidiary of the Venezuelan national oil company. so what's incorrect?

[Mountainman]

7. What's incorrect is the hidden assumption that we are at risk because of any of it.

[northzax]

11. that's your reading of it

doesn't actually say that, right? if people can try and boycott companies that do business with countries like Saudi Arabia who criticize the US, why can't others boycott companies that are owned by a Latin American country that criticizes the US?

[Mountainman]

14. Right that's my correct reading of it. Why the hell would somone write it other wise

Geez, some people's children!

[Mountainman]

15. You can boycott who the hell ever you want. Pay more for gas if you want

out of ignorance and fear!

[northzax]

16. eh, one dollar goes to buy weapons in Venezuela

the other goes to buy weapons in Saudi. what's the difference?

but then, I'm not a good target for this, I haven't bought gasoline since March.

[Mountainman]

18. Every dollar of your taxes goes mostly for weapons too. When's the last time you paid taxes?

You money is killing people all over the world. Think about it.

[BushOut06]

8. Hmmm - how about the whole hysterical rant behind it?

This is typical 'much-ado-about-nothing'. Take a few facts, and then extrapolate wildly. Do you really think that Chavez is going to be building missiles and aiming them at the US? That whole statement is absurd on the face of it. Nations don't simply point missiles at each other.

[Ghost in the Machine]

9. Did I *say* it was incorrect????

NO! I said it was bullshit propaganda. Part of it *is* wrong though, but I'll leave that to you to figure out.

SO WHAT if Venezuela is building an arms plant to supply their military?

SO WHAT if Venezuela owns Citgo? Hugo Chavez provided affordable heating oil for OUR citizens in the northeast who couldn't afford it otherwise.

Do you have something against a SOVEREIGN NATION doing whatever they fuck they FEEL LIKE doing IN THEIR OWN COUNTRY?

Please provide a link to something showing Venezuelan missiles pointed at us.

Thanks

BTW: Hugo Chavez was DEMOCRATICALLY ELECTED by the people of HIS COUNTRY. Can you say the same thing about our pResident???

[unpossibles]

13. exactly

he doesn't own Citgo - the citizens do. Frankly, we should be so lucky here.

[northzax]

17. I don't.

so why bother buying gas from one or the other?

[silverweb]

10. It's a mixture.

As usual, the people who start/perpetuate these viral emails take a little bit of truth and mix it with a lot of half truths, distortion, and some outright lies.

I've even received ones in which it's stated in the body of the email, "This has been verified by Snopes," when it absolutely has not been "verified" by Snopes -- but many people just accept that and don't bother to check for themselves OR THINK.

If any truth in the email can be verified at all, many people will swallow the whole mix as truth. That's why these viral emails are disgusting and dangerous.

Here's a very good unraveling of the mix in the OP: http://www.snopes.com/politics/gasoline/citgo.asp

[LanternWaste]

21. Doesn't this little passage give you any kind of hint...

Doesn't this little passage give you any kind of hint as to the the originators intentions?

"It is likely only a matter of time, if not already, before Chavez has Iranian built LONG RANGE missiles, with a variety of warhead types aimed at: Guess Who?"

Man oh man... that's some seriously good stuff they're smoking.

"Run for the mountain! The Venezuelans have missiles!!!"

Who are they pointed at?

"Guess Who!!!!!"


:silly:

[treestar]

22. Then Chavez doesn't personally own it

That's what the BS email says.

[northzax]

23. same difference

he controls it and he controls how the profits are spent...

[TheDebbieDee]

5. I think you should send the person that you sent you this

the SNOPES page that de-bunks this propaganda.

Then, maybe the next time this person gets an e-mail he or she will check SNOPES for him/herself before forwarding to lah-dee and dah-dee.

[unpossibles]

12. especially funny since it claims to have been verified with Snopes

heck, reply to all.

Also, Chavez does not own Citgo, the citizens of Venezuela do if I am not mistaken.

[northzax]

20. owns, controls, what's the difference?

Chavez is the state (quick, name one appointment to a government office that Chavez has made that the Congress has refused, name one law he has proposed that the congress has refused, c'mon, please?)

[treestar]

24. Their Congress might agree with him

They don't have to refuse anything merely to prove they can - only if they vote that way on the underlying issue.

[northzax]

28. yes, surely they agree with every single thing

Chavez has proposed for four years. not one bill, not one appointee. not one. wow, that's some good approval, even when the bills are to reduce the power of the legislature and increase the power of the presidency, the legislature votes to reduce their own power! that's some check and balance.

[unpossibles]

26. please.

He has won every election, which have been more thoroughly looked at than our own.

The oil revenue has largely gone to the citizens (and to Americans for that matter), and I hardly see how that is worse than what happens here, where we get screwed for oil prices.

With the country’s oil-based income increasing exponentially, Venezuela has invested heavily in social programs. According to the Venezuelan National Statistics Institute, poverty rates have declined from 49 to 37 per cent since Chávez assumed office.
...
A former colonel who led a failed coup against a corrupt and repressive government in 1992, Hugo Chávez was democratically elected in 1998 with a mandate to overhaul Venezuelan society. Realizing his most important campaign promise, he called a Constituent Assembly to rewrite the Venezuelan Constitution. Over the past seven years, Venezuela has seen a truly impressive number of elections, plebiscites and referendums. All told, Venezuelans have voted 11 times since electing Chávez in 1998. Once key political reforms were passed through the ratification of the new Bolivarian Constitution (named after of Simón Bolívar, the 19th-century independence leader), the Chávez government proceeded with a series of more profound changes aimed at addressing the country’s most glaring contradiction: oil wealth has made Venezuela one of the region’s wealthiest countries, but poverty rates have been brought below 50 per cent only in the last two years.

http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?ItemID=11562

I understand that leftover anti-Communist hardons make it hard for people to understand what is going on, but if he is using the oil revenues to lower poverty in his own country, why is that bad? And as someone who lives in a country which is experiencing a growing divide in wealth, and which has a serious addiction to both oil and consumerism, I don't see how "we" have room to complain about him.

[northzax]

27. again

please note one single time the opposition (defined as anyone not endorsed by Chavez, or the defeat of anything endorsed by Chavez) has won anything in the past five years.

[unpossibles]

29. what exactly does that prove? n/t

[devilgrrl]

19. Hugo Chavez - he bad man - he have pointy tail like the devil - he evil

:sarcasm:

[LanternWaste]

25. That shouldn't have been funny...

That shouldn't have been funny... but I'm chuckling at it. :evilgrin: