Re: join me this evening in lifting a glass

Let's take a moment to remember some of Hugo's deads from the heart;

http://www.progressive.org/mag_intv0706

You’d think George Bush would get down on his knees and kiss Hugo Chávez’s behind. Not only has Chávez delivered cheap oil to the Bronx and other poor communities in the United States. And not only did he offer to bring aid to the victims of Katrina. In my interview with the president of Venezuela on March 28, he made Bush the following astonishing offer: Chávez would drop the price of oil to $50 a barrel, “not too high, a fair price,” he said—a third less than the $75 a barrel for oil recently posted on the spot market. That would bring down the price at the pump by about a buck, from $3 to $2 a gallon.

http://www.policymic.com/articles/3357/hugo-chavez-gives-heating-aid-to-u-s-p...

Congress and the president have decided to cut 25% from the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, (LIHEAP) showing once again their preference to default on the needy and vulnerable rather than asking the most powerful and wealthy to make even the smallest sacrifices.

Far more welcome news came from Citgo Petroleum Corporation, a subsidiary of Venezuela’s state-owned oil company, which announced that it would be continuing its six-year-old program of providing heating oil to poor Americans free of charge. The contrast between the values displayed by the American and Venezuelan governments – the “good guys” and “bad guys,” respectively, of the American political consensus – could not be more striking.