BS: Is it time to boycott Citgo?

Subject: BS: Is it time to boycott Citgo?
From: Old Guy
Date: 21 Sep 06 - 09:40 PM

Is it time to boycott Citgo?

It is owned by Hugo Chavez / Venezuela. Gas prices are down and we could afford to just pass them by.

So should we or shouldn't we?

Thursday, 13 Jul 2006
Venezuela has announced it will stop suppying refined gasoline to the US Citgo gas stations that are franchised and independently owned. The nation, which owns Citgo, will continue to provide gas to its own stations.
"Venezuela-owned Citgo Petroleum Corp. has decided to stop distributing gasoline to 1,800 independently owned U.S. stations, shedding a lackluster segment of its business while forcing the owners of those stations to find other suppliers."

Subject: RE: BS: Is it time to boycott Citgo?
From: robomatic
Date: 21 Sep 06 - 09:42 PM

You go right ahead. I think they've been talking about a major donation to Alaska natives, i.e. to pay all or most of their winter fuel bills. I don't think there will be many noses turned up to it up our way.

Subject: RE: BS: Is it time to boycott Citgo?
From: Rapparee
Date: 21 Sep 06 - 09:49 PM

They also supplied less expensive heating oil to poorer folks in the Northeast last winter, I understand.

Subject: RE: BS: Is it time to boycott Citgo?
From: Old Guy
Date: 21 Sep 06 - 09:52 PM

Well, lets take everything they want to give away plus boycott them.

Subject: RE: BS: Is it time to boycott Citgo?
From: Bobert
Date: 21 Sep 06 - 10:05 PM

Heck, makes me wanta go fill up my tank with Citgo gas...

Bush ***is*** the devil... But I don't hate him fir it... Just that way it is... Nobody is perfect...

Boycott Exxon/Mobil/BP... These are the real devils....

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Is it time to boycott Citgo?
From: GUEST
Date: 21 Sep 06 - 10:08 PM

This is the second thread to address the topic.

Subject: RE: BS: Is it time to boycott Citgo?
From: number 6
Date: 21 Sep 06 - 10:43 PM

"Nobody is perfect..."

and Chavez certainly isn't ... even Venezualans are tiring of his dramatic hammed rhetoric .... maybe he should shutup and try to find a remedy for his own country's poverty ... instead of blaming it all on Bush.

That 'devil' speech portrayed the pathetic buffoon that he is.

sIx

Subject: RE: BS: Is it time to boycott Citgo?
From: Old Guy
Date: 21 Sep 06 - 11:29 PM

How do you like that? Bobert always sides with the Chavez / Tookie Williams types.

Subject: RE: BS: Is it time to boycott Citgo?
From: Jeri
Date: 22 Sep 06 - 08:25 AM

They're not gonna sell us gas so we shouldn't buy it? That shouldn't be too difficult.

Subject: RE: BS: Is it time to boycott Citgo?
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 22 Sep 06 - 10:02 AM

Since I found out that Citgo (the franchiser/distributor, not all the stations) was owned by the Venezuelan government (not Chavez personally), I have several times gone out of my way to buy gas at Citgo. (See the Citgo station locator.)

What has he done besides use some annoying (to Bush supporters, not me) rhetoric?

Repeat after me: "Sticks and stones…"

Subject: RE: BS: Is it time to boycott Citgo?
From: kendall
Date: 22 Sep 06 - 11:16 AM

They supplied a huge amount of heating oil to the poor here in Maine.You won't see Exxon doing that, it would impact their billion dollar profits every quarter.

I buy Citgo and I don't care what Chavez says about Bush, that's his opinion. It looks like he is trying to be the big man on campus to impress the rest of the world. Come to think of it, so is Bush.

I decide where to buy gas according to where it comes from. Sunoco, Citgo and Hess do not import oil from the middle east and that's why I buy from them. I'd walk before I'd buy Exxon/Mobil. (well, not too far)

Subject: RE: BS: Is it time to boycott Citgo?
From: Rapparee
Date: 22 Sep 06 - 11:52 AM

I buy what's cheapest. Around here, that gasoline usually originates in the awful, terrible, anti-American, terrorist-loving, country of Canada.
Go ahead, call me a "hoser-lover" and a "Canuck-crawler." I don't care.

Subject: RE: BS: Is it time to boycott Citgo?
From: catspaw49
Date: 22 Sep 06 - 12:11 PM

Like other things, Karen and I would love to show the "courage of conviction" but frankly we don't have the MONEY of our convictions so we go fro the best prices at the time and on the route. Besides, that Marathon or Citgo or whatever you're buying might well be Exxon or BP or vice versa. I'm not going to explain all of that, but it does work that way......moreso in some areas than others.

Spaw

Subject: RE: BS: Is it time to boycott Citgo?
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 22 Sep 06 - 03:25 PM

Hooray for Chavez! A breath of fresh air from a country long dominated by country club millionaires. His government plans to confiscate the country club in Caracas so that a much needed housing development can go forward. A few top execs of the Exxon subsidiary, etc. also were allowed into the club.
Bush is too dumb to be the devil, but the rhetoric will go down well at home, where the people so long have been kept down by the rich land owners and business profiteers. Some of the oil money now may actually go to developments that will benefit the poorer people.

Catspaw is correct. The gasoline your neighborhood station sells often is produced by the nearest refinery regardless of the name on the pumps. My neighborhood station has the Shell sign, but the product comes from a refinery of the Exxon group. The refinery tweaks the additives, octane, etc. to suit the company buying the product.

Pipeline product comes from fields whose ownership is various.

Subject: RE: BS: Is it time to boycott Citgo?
From: Barry Finn
Date: 22 Sep 06 - 04:28 PM

Good for Chavez. Bush would love to bury him but can't seem to figure out a way with out getting himself exposed, again. The man must be doing something right down there & we'd love to put an end to it. He's sent some warmth into the homes in the northeast, Bush hated young Joe Kennedy, or any Kennedy for that matter, for trying & doing that. I guess he gave Bush back his own axis of evil speech & rammed it down the Tush's throat. How's Dem apples Little Georgie?
Let's bring 'em up here & put him in office.Ya.

Barry

Subject: RE: BS: Is it time to boycott Citgo?
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 22 Sep 06 - 06:16 PM

I think this is the real story.


Why Citgo is cutting back the number of distributors.

Subject: RE: BS: Is it time to boycott Citgo?
From: GUEST,Buzzard Breath
Date: 29 Sep 06 - 08:35 AM

7-Eleven dropping Citgo

9/28/2006
        DALLAS (AP) - 7-Eleven Inc. dropped Venezuela-owned Citgo as its gasoline supplier after more than 20 years as part of a plan to launch its own brand of fuel.

7-Eleven officials said Wednesday that the decision was partly motivated by politics. Citgo Petroleum Corp. is a Houston-based subsidiary of Venezuela's state-run oil company and 7-Eleven is worried that anti-American comments made by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez might prompt motorists to fill-up elsewhere.

Subject: RE: BS: Is it time to boycott Citgo?
From: GUEST,Buzzard Breath
Date: 29 Sep 06 - 08:43 AM

http://www3.whdh.com/news/articles/local/BO29695/

Independent candidate Mihos vows to remove Citgo products from his family convenience store chain

BOSTON -- A candidate for governor of Massachusetts adds his voice to those protesting Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.

Independent Christy Mihos says he will remove Citgo products from his family's chain of Cape Cod convenience stores.

His decision comes in reaction to anti-American comments made by Chavez last week.

Citgo is a Venezuelan subsidiary.

Chavez set off a storm of controversy last week at the United Nations when he called President Bush "the devil," "a cowboy" and "an alcoholic."

Since then, Chavez has perfected his cowboy impression and called for Mr. Bush to resign.

Subject: RE: BS: Is it time to boycott Citgo?
From: Charley Noble
Date: 29 Sep 06 - 09:37 AM

It sure steams me that Chavez calls that son of a bitch GWB a devil. Isn't that the same GWB that tried unsuccessfully to orchestrate a coup against Chavez when he was first elected? Well, I still don't like foreigners abusing OUR son of a bitch of a President! So there!

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: BS: Is it time to boycott Citgo?
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 29 Sep 06 - 10:15 AM

From JtS's link:

According to the report on Eluniversal.com, the decision to stop providing fuel to the 1,800 locations in the U.S. came from a loss of $207 million USD in the first half of 2006, when CITGO was forced to purchase finished gasoline to supply its U.S. retail network. To avoid such future losses, the company did not renew supply agreements with gas stations throughout the Midwest.

I don't know where my local station (a chain called Racetrac) gets their gas. They're usually the low price. I also buy Exxon in this area, because it has ethanol in it, and at least they're making the effort, and that should be rewarded. (I check the price at Racetrac first, though.)

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Is it time to boycott Citgo?
From: Donuel
Date: 29 Sep 06 - 12:26 PM

Oh Yeah, well, we are all behind you Old Guy.

Pat Robertson said that Hugo Chavez is getting nukes to use against the USA. Jerry Falwell is expected to come on board soon.

case closed

Not only should we boycott Citgo AND SEVEN 11 ! (who sold Citgo to Venezualia) we should move Fenway Park so it doesn't look onto the huge Citgo sign in Boston.

Subject: RE: BS: Is it time to boycott Citgo?
From: Barry Finn
Date: 29 Sep 06 - 04:04 PM

Donuel- MOVE THE CITGO SIGN!!!!????

Not in your life or in my lifetime! It is Boston's native Beacon Light. If walls could talk they'd have nothing on the Citgo Sign. Hopefully one day Hugo Chavez will speak from underneath it, where we marched in the 60's for peace. He's not saying anything that true Americans don't already know. But that sign is not so much a landmark for us Bostonian Natives as it is for those washed up non Bostonians, those tired, those homeless, those over grown children who come to Boston to make their scholastic years memorable ones.
Of all my 36 years of being born & bred & dwelling there the September season is the same as the flocks coming home to Capistrano or the New England autumn changing colors. Here's a parody of "The Beacon Light" which was found in Gale Huntington's 'Songs The Whalermen Sang'. The tune is to "Mary's Cot" or "The Rose Of Allendale".
I just wrote this after reading your post, thanks for the inspiration.

Home Come the Students

Darkness was deepening on the streets
And still the throng pushed on
No Moving Vans to answer the call
In the Square buskers sang on
Gloomy & clear the walk of fear
BU was like a grave
When full in sight the Citgo Light
Came gleaming through the haze

Then wildly rose the maddening shout
Of all the dizzy crew
Boldly at once they turned about
And from their bowels they spew
Sickness forgot the homesick lot
Then loud the cheer they gave
When full in sight the Citgo Light
Came gleaming through the haze

Over the Charles they came in pouring rain
They marched, they cheered, they fell
From the hills they came & claimed their fame
Stories they'd live to tell
How September morns they come by storm
Those throbbing campus knaves
When full in sight the Citgo Light
Came gleaming through the haze

Barry Finn 9/29/06

Subject: RE: BS: Is it time to boycott Citgo?
From: Charley Noble
Date: 29 Sep 06 - 05:54 PM

LOL!

Really splendid, Barry, but I shouldn't encourage you to dissipate your songwriting talents like this.

Cheerily,
Charley Noble, still in Maine until October 2nd

Subject: RE: BS: Is it time to boycott Citgo?
From: Ron Davies
Date: 30 Sep 06 - 11:10 AM

"..so, in reaction to anti-American comments made by Chavez last week". Are we talking about Bush being called "the devil"?

It seems Bushites on Mudcat are not the only ones who don't read carefully--Bushites elsewhere don't either.

Calling Bush "the devil" is not anti-American--just anti-Bush. There's a BIG difference. Admittedly, I don't call him "the devil"--just probably the worst president we're ever had. Worse than Buchanan--he's next on the list.

Bush started an unnecessary war by choice--he wins the prize.

Subject: RE: BS: Is it time to boycott Citgo?
From: Ron Davies
Date: 30 Sep 06 - 11:11 AM

"we've ever had"

Subject: RE: BS: Is it time to boycott Citgo?
From: Barry Finn
Date: 30 Sep 06 - 11:20 AM

This reaction reminds me a bit of the French, sorry, American Fries' response. And the French didn't even call the Devil an Idiot, they just choose not to back a moron.

Barry

Subject: RE: BS: Is it time to boycott Citgo?
From: Ron Davies
Date: 30 Sep 06 - 11:51 AM

Would that he were a moron.   In propaganda he and his regime are the opposite.

Subject: RE: BS: Is it time to boycott Citgo?
From: Old Guy
Date: 30 Sep 06 - 11:51 AM

Citgo
From Wikipedia

Citgo Petroleum Corporation or Citgo, a subsidiary of Petróleos de Venezuela S.A., the Venezuelan state-owned petroleum company, is a United States-incorporated firm refiner and marketer of gasoline, lubricants, petrochemicals and other petroleum products. PDVSA is controlled by the Venezuelan government. The Citgo gasoline brand was inaugurated in 1965 by the Cities Service Company, a United States based energy company that first rose to prominence in the early 1900s. Cities Service Company was acquired by Occidental Petroleum Corporation in 1982. That same year, Cities Service Company transferred all of the assets of its Refining, Marketing and Transportation division (which comprised its refining and retail petroleum business) into the newly formed Citgo Petroleum Corporation subsidiary, to ease the divestiture of the division. In 1983, Citgo and the Citgo brand was sold by Occidental to Southland Corporation, owners of the 7-Eleven chain of convenience stores; 50% was sold to Petróleos de Venezuela in 1986, and the remainder in 1990. As of 2004, it is headquartered in Houston, Texas, with over 4,000 employees and annual revenue in excess of $32 billion. Citgo has supplied 14,000 retailers, but in July 2006 announced plans to cease serving 14% of their independent retailers in the United States. Before relocating its headquarters to Houston, Citgo was headquartered in Tulsa, Oklahoma. (Cities Service Company continued on under various Occidental names as a part of OXY's domestic exploration and production business, but all Cities Service trademarks are now owned by Citgo.)

Subject: RE: BS: Is it time to boycott Citgo?
From: Old Guy
Date: 30 Sep 06 - 12:08 PM

Florida legislators are considering canceling a contract
with Citgo while Boston leaders want the giant "Citgo"
sign outside Fenway Park removed. Also, New York Governor
George Pataki announced his personal boycott of Citgo
and reports are starting to come in from business leaders
pledging to boycott Citgo

Subject: RE: BS: Is it time to boycott Citgo?
From: Donuel
Date: 30 Sep 06 - 06:54 PM

I never said move the CITGO sign, I said (tongue in cheek) MOVE FENWAY PARK

Subject: RE: BS: Is it time to boycott Citgo?
From: Donuel
Date: 30 Sep 06 - 08:10 PM

Love to hear the Citgo sign song

Subject: RE: BS: Is it time to boycott Citgo?
From: Don Firth
Date: 30 Sep 06 - 08:23 PM

Hey, here's one, folks. Wal-Mart is selling pharmaceuticals for low prices to a) try to improve their image, and b) to just get people into their stores. The low-priced drugs are what's known among merchandisers as a "loss leader." They sell something at a loss to get you into the store in hopes that you will buy other things while you're there.

So--don't absolutely boycott Wal-Mart. Buy your pharmaceuticals there. Only your pharmaceuticals. And then leave.

See how that works?

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Is it time to boycott Citgo?
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 30 Sep 06 - 08:52 PM

Is there an oil-producing nation that doesn't hate us?

Subject: RE: BS: Is it time to boycott Citgo?
From: Old Guy
Date: 01 Oct 06 - 01:07 PM

DF:

Why was the threshold in the Walmart bill set at 10,000 employees?

Subject: RE: BS: Is it time to boycott Citgo?
From: Don Firth
Date: 01 Oct 06 - 03:05 PM

Old Guy, you're one confused geezer! You didn't ask me that question in the first place, you asked Rod Davies. And it was on another thread entirely. Yet you persist in expecting me to answer questions you asked somebody else.

Senility?

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Is it time to boycott Citgo?
From: Old Guy
Date: 01 Oct 06 - 05:13 PM

I think it is pretty claer that I am asking you. But you avoid answering with an AD Hominem attack.

DF:

Why was the threshold in the Walmart bill set at 10,000 employees?


Are you saying we should not to boycott Citgo but we should boycott Walmart?

Subject: RE: BS: Is it time to boycott Citgo?
From: Donuel
Date: 01 Oct 06 - 06:52 PM

I'll save $3 by getting a generic filled at Walmart.
I'll spend $3 in gas going there as opposed to 65 cents nearby.

As a joke I was thinking of posting signs around our nearby shopping plaza and residential streets:

The future site for Rockville Walmart
(small print) by immenent domain.
Sign up now to lock in the current market value for your home.
Do not delay - the longer you wait the more home values may decrease.
CALL
770 651 3224 (Gov. Erlich's phone #)



of course such a prank is more illegal than Walmart taking our homes by immenent domain.

Subject: RE: BS: Is it time to boycott Citgo?
From: Don Firth
Date: 01 Oct 06 - 07:36 PM

I don't really know, Old Guy. I'm not fully acquainted with the Maryland situation. Others are, and they're the ones you don't want to discuss it with because they do know the situation. You're afraid to discuss this with them, that's why you keep acting as if I'm the one you're discussing it with.

Talk to Ron Davies. Or are you afraid of him?

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Is it time to boycott Citgo?
From: Old Guy
Date: 02 Oct 06 - 12:25 AM

RD and DF won't answer that question.

There are Walmart bills in at least 30 states but the employee threshhold is as low as 99 employees in some states. Yet no one can explain why it was set at 10,000 in Maryland. I think setting it at 99 or 100 employees would be fair.

DF: Are you saying we should not boycott Citgo but we should boycott Walmart? No I am not afraid of Ron Davies. He amuses me.

Subject: RE: BS: Is it time to boycott Citgo?
From: Old Guy
Date: 02 Oct 06 - 12:51 AM

"of course such a prank is more illegal than Walmart taking our homes by immenent domain."

Executive Order: Protecting the Property Rights of the American People

By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, and to strengthen the rights of the American people against the taking of their private property, it is hereby ordered as follows:

Section 1. Policy. It is the policy of the United States to protect the rights of Americans to their private property, including by limiting the taking of private property by the Federal Government to situations in which the taking is for public use, with just compensation, and for the purpose of benefiting the general public and not merely for the purpose of advancing the economic interest of private parties to be given ownership or use of the property taken.

Subject: RE: BS: Is it time to boycott Citgo?
From: kendall
Date: 02 Oct 06 - 09:05 AM

Good for Bush, but I have to wonder if he would have done this if Justice Souter's home had not been threatened?

Subject: RE: BS: Is it time to boycott Citgo?
From: Old Guy
Date: 02 Oct 06 - 04:14 PM

Among the Jackal's admirers is the Venezuelan President, Hugo Chavez

By BBC Correspondent Peter Greste

To most of the Western world, Illich Ramirez Sanchez is Carlos the Jackal, the world's most notorious terrorist who masterminded a bloody catalogue of murders, kidnappings and hijackings throughout the 1970s.

But now he has begun writing a column for a weekly newspaper, La Razon, in Venezuela, his home country.

And he has become a leftist hero to thousands of Venezuelans.

From the solitary confines of his French prison cell, where he is serving a life sentence for murder, Mr Sanchez offers his revolutionary thoughts each week in a column called La Bastilla, Spanish for the Bastille.

According to the paper's chief of staff, Luis Delgado, the collaboration began when it published a series of features about Carlos.

After a surge in public support for the Venezuelan prisoner, the paper asked him to write the weekly column, using his famous pseudonym.

Losing touch with reality

By Mr Delgado's own admission, Carlos the Jackal's writings tend to be out of touch with the modern world.

He has been isolated for such a long time, the chief of staff told me, it all tends to be a little unrealistic.

But the paper argues that it is open to all opinions and the column has proved to be a big hit with readers.

In one article, Carlos launched a manifesto for "militant revolutionaries, communists, anarchists, anti-fascists and anti-imperialists held in prisons of the imperialist bourgeoisie".

He also criticised Nato's aggression against Yugoslavia and praised the Yugoslav President, Slobodan Milosevic, as a modern incarnation of the country's founding father, General Tito.

In fact, apart from giving Carlos an outlet to vent his anger at Western imperialism, the column is also helping to rehabilitate the revolutionary's image in Venezuela.

There is a growing campaign, led by his 40-year old brother Vladimir, to bring him home.

A national hero

Among the Jackal's admirers is the Venezuelan President, Hugo Chavez, who has admitted writing to him in prison.

President Chavez addressed Carlos as a distinguished compatriot and defended the letter [on official state stationary] by saying it showed human solidarity not political support.

A group of left-wing figures has also launched a solidarity committee as a rallying point for Carlos's supporters.

They are unlikely to succeed in securing his freedom, but his articles are winning him sympathy amongst his countrymen.

Subject: RE: BS: Is it time to boycott Citgo?
From: kendall
Date: 02 Oct 06 - 07:30 PM

Just goes to show you, no one is all bad.

Subject: RE: BS: Is it time to boycott Citgo?
From: Barry Finn
Date: 03 Oct 06 - 03:05 AM

Ya Kendall, it also goes to show ya what eggs has to do with the price of gasoline??

Barry