It is good to see that some folks are willing to stand on principle.:thumbs:
ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) -- In Alaska's native villages, the punishing winter cold is already penetrating the walls of the lightly insulated plywood homes, many of the villagers are desperately poor, and heating-oil prices are among the highest in the nation.
And yet a few of the small communities want to refuse free heating oil from Venezuela, on the patriotic principle that no foreigner has the right to call their president "the devil."
The heating oil is being offered by the petroleum company controlled by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, President Bush's nemesis. While scores of Alaska's Eskimo and Indian villages say they have no choice but to accept, others would rather suffer.
"As a citizen of this country, you can have your own opinion of our president and our country. But I don't want a foreigner coming in here and bashing us," said Justine Gunderson, administrator for the tribal council in the Aleut village of Nelson Lagoon. "Even though we're in economically dire straits, it was the right choice to make."
- rest at www.cnn.com/2006/US/10/09/alaska.oil.chavez.ap/index.html
Alaskans to Hugo Chavez: Keep Your Oil
Discussion in '2006 Archive' started by KenH, Oct 10, 2006.
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On the other hand, the article continues:
About 150 native villages in Alaska have accepted money for heating oil from Citgo. The oil company does not operate in Alaska, so instead of sending oil, it is donating about $5.3 million to native nonprofit organizations to buy 100 gallons this winter for each of more than 12,000 households.
"When you have a dire need and it is a matter of survival for your people, it doesn't matter where, what country, the gift or donation comes from," said Virginia Commack, an elder in the arctic village of Ambler, an impoverished Eskimo community of 280 where residents are paying $7.25 a gallon for fuel.
For years, Alaska natives have accused the state and federal governments of sending too little money to their tiny, far-flung communities, where fuel and grocery prices are bloated by the high costs of delivery by plane and barge.
An editorial last month in the Anchorage Daily News bashed the Legislature's rejection in March of an $8.8 million state supplement to a federal program that helps poor Alaskans with home heating costs.
"It's embarrassing that residents in a state with so much oil wealth should be looking to a foreign nation for help," the newspaper said. "It's hard to blame villagers for accepting the gift."
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The reals story is still those who turned it down because they consider themselves to be patriotic Americans first.
I applaud them.:applause: -
I will applaud that sentiment!
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Makes me proud.
It's just an easy way out. "Well, someone's gotta help us or else!"
The natives that I know work for what they have, either by working at a job, or hunting, fishing, picking berries, and growing crops.
But, then again, most of the natives that I know left the villages because of all the lazy, alcoholic, drug addled people in the villages. -
pinoybaptist Active MemberSite Supporter
Still, if the Federal government does not sit up and take notice of the Alaskan people's complaints about being "left behind", the likes of germs such as Hugo Chavez will continue to insult the patriotism of Americans while at the same time pretending to be benevolent to the poor.
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So, the answer is to pay off the leeches?
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take care. -
You would think that, with all the profits American oil companies have raked in in the past few years, due to overpricing in the futures market and corporate greed, that American companies, not a Venezuelan company, would step up to the plate and help.
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Nah, no wrath from me. The oil company I work for makes lots of charitable contributions - of its own and also matching that of we employees - including 2-for-1 to educational institutions. :)
I imagine other oil companies do something similar. -
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What principle, exactly, are these folks standing on?