Reuters: Official Press Organ of Venezuela

No sooner do I see reports that Hugo Chavez is in the process of crippling his nation's main source of revenue do I see a puff job about it by Reuters!

This morning, I noted briefly that Chavez, through state mismanagement of Venezuela's petroleum industry, was responsible for its oil output dropping by 60%, necessitating its import of oil from Russia. (See clarification below.)

Do I see these stories picked up by the MSM when I return home from work? Of course not. The sheltered workshop that is Reuters is staffed by mouth-breathers who can't get past the fact that Venezuelans get gasoline for only a dozen cents a gallon -- never mind that they live in a slave pen under the thumb of a man many there call El Loco.

While U.S. consumers struggle with soaring energy prices, Venezuela's gas is now the world's cheapest at 12 cents a gallon and Washington's regional foe, President Hugo Chavez, vows to maintain subsidies that keep fuel dirt-cheap.

"Those gringos have everything -- so why does their gas cost so much?" asked Tinoco between chuckles as he navigated a midday traffic jam. "Don't they have oil reserves?"

Chavez, a self-proclaimed socialist and critic of President Bush, has even begun subsidizing fuel for poor U.S. neighborhoods as U.S. consumers brace for average summer gas prices of $2.71 a gallon -- 34 cents higher than last summer.

Forget why gasoline is so high in America. That would take an attention span -- on the part of this reporter -- of more than 15 seconds. And trying to figure it all out would probably make his head hurt anyway. Aside from that, it was probably easier on the shoe leather to stand still and knock on car doors during the above traffic jam until someone who actually liked Chavez would deliver a juicy quote.

Too bad. Consider on whose backs this "cheap" gasoline has been purchased, from the oil hands, whom Chavez has kept down with troops ...

Venezuela's generals have announced that troops, along with helicopters and patrol boats, have been rushed in to troubled Zulia state in the west to combat 'CIA sabotage.' It sounds like martial law. Venezuela's west is full of oil workers. The Lake Maracaibo area in Zulia state is a critical oil producing area. It's also the most dangerous, rebellious state in the entire nation for dictator Hugo Chavez. It's one of two states so anti-Chavez that it has an opposition governor. Chavez didn't dare stack that regional election in Zulia last Oct. 31. Like a heavy sea, there has been something churning under the ooze there for some time. The gigantic Paraguana refining complex in Zulia, capable of producing nearly a million barrels of oil a day, saw a key refinery, Amuay, shut down last month due to an 'electrical shortage' amid rumors of oil worker sabotage. ... Now, there are rumors of firings of 12,000 oil workers, following the firing of 40 managers, contributing to potential labor unrest. Some of the workers hired, according to Veneconomy, were hired as contractors just before the recall referendum last August, as part of Hugo Chavez's spoils system to ensure their votes. Having consolidated power, perhaps he doesnt need them any more. [links dropped]

... to the owners of gas stations, whom he is preventing from earning a living.

Fearing that he might lose support in the barrios, Chavez has decreed that nobody can sell petrol for more than 3 cents a litre. Sounds great, except that the petrol stations, burdened as all businesses in that country with rising taxes, minimum wages and so on, cannot make a living.

About half of them have told the ministry that they would like to close. At that point the joy of having petrol at a fraction of the cost that Americans pay for it will disappear. If nobody is selling the stuff, the cars will have to stop and that will cause some hardship in the country.

Contrast this to what the reporter from Reuters came up with, after apparently interviewing only leeches like Tinoco -- or unhappy people who have to shut it for fear of landing in jail -- who filled up at these stations: "At Venezuelan gas stations, however, there are few complaints about low-cost fuel or fuel efficiency."

"Few complaints?" Damn straight there were few complaints. Near-free gas, for one thing, and a dictator who tramples all over freedom of expression and humiliates -- on national television -- private citizens who cross him. But useful idiot and Reuters reporter (but I repeat myself) Brian Ellsworth "Toohey" assumes the lack of complaints are an honest assessment of conditions in Venezuela and hops on the first available flight home to America. Pathetic!

But what do I know? I'm just a blowhard scientist who comments on the news for the fun of it. I obviously haven't the benefit of a journalism degree, and so am completely unqualified to say anything ill of a hero like Hugo Chavez.

-- CAV

Updates

5-11-06: Clarification: It was the output of Venezuela's state-owned oil company, and not Venezuela itself, that dropped by 60%.