Among his first customers is Joseph Kennedy and his company, Citizens Energy. Kennedy admires Chavez for selling his company heating oil at discount prices . . .

“It’s not only morally righteous, it’s good business,” Kennedy said in a telephone interview yesterday. “When you’re selling to the world’s largest market a gigantic percentage of your overall sales in crude oil, you take a little percentage and show that you have concerns about how low-income people are going to keep up with the enormous price of keeping warm.”

Is it “morally righteous” to send political opponents to jail for calling for a free election?

Chavez’s concerns for poor people? Chavez’s concerns for poor people begin and end with getting and keeping political support. He shows his concern with government grocery stores, where a typical day at the government grocery store would be the “store has run out of chicken, milk and sugar,” but you might be pleased to “find rice, margarine and pasta at exceedingly low prices.” With in-store signage and slogans like this “When the people have needs, its revolutionary government responds!” it is easy to see how socialists exploit the poor for political advantage. A sample of Chavez’s ‘good’ business expertise I guess.

Joseph Kennedy buys it, hook, line, and sinker. When Americans have needs, Kennedy looks for welfare, even if it’s from a socialist dictator with an agenda. Having an energy policy that gets energy, while looking for alternative fuels, is the way out, but the left doesn’t want ‘out.’ Kennedy’s way solidifies ignorance and dependence on the government to be our surrogate parents.

It is not a stretch of the imagination to see similarities in the way the left exploits it’s ‘victims’ and the way Chavez exploits his own.

ref: Oil money aids Venezuela’s poor, for now, Joseph Kennedy, Meet Maria Corina Machado, Mother of three faces 100-year jail term after campaign for free elections, Citgo Brings Discounted Heating Oil to Region, Dial Joe-4-Oil