lining the pockets of Big Oil

from Oil Fat Cats vs. Hugo Chavez, by Juan Gonzales:

...Last year, Exxon/Mobil, the world's largest corporation, posted the highest profits of any company in history - more than $25 billion. The oil giant, based in Irving, Tex., is on track to shatter that mark this year, with revenues that now approach $1 billion per day.

Which brings me to Pat Robertson and Hugo Chavez.

Robertson, the right-wing evangelist and friend of the Bush family, publicly called this week for the U.S. government to kill - or at least kidnap - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.

'This is a dangerous enemy to our south, controlling a huge pool of oil, that could hurt us badly,' Robertson said. His less-than-Christian remarks ignited an outcry and forced him to issue an apology of sorts, though he still insisted that he had at least 'focused our government's attention on a growing problem.'

That 'problem,' quite simply, is that Chavez, a radical populist who has been voted into office repeatedly by huge majorities in his own country, controls the largest reserve of petroleum outside the Middle East.

Neither Robertson, nor former oil executives George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and Condoleezza Rice, nor their buddies at Exxon/Mobil, Chevron, etc., are happy about all this.

Even more scandalous for Big Oil, Chavez is using Venezuela's windfall not to fatten his own country's oligarchy but to benefit the Venezuelan poor and help neighboring countries.

Yesterday, while Robertson was issuing his half-baked Chavez clarification, the Venezuelan president was in Montego Bay, Jamaica, where he announced a new oil agreement with that country's prime minister, P.J. Patterson.
...
[T]he Chavez plan means more than half a million dollars a day in savings for Jamaica on oil imports.

Chavez also announced his government will provide $60 million in foreign aid to Jamaica and finance the upgrading of that country's oil refineries.
...
Pat Robertson looks at Chavez and sees a devilish danger. He wants our government to "take him out." Over at the White House, Bush and his aides may use more restrained language, but their goals are not much different.

But there's a whole different view down in Latin America, where a half-dozen nations have seen liberal and populist governments swept into office in recent years.

Down there, Chavez has become the new miracle man of oil. Unlike Exxon/Mobil and the Big Oil fat cats, who wallow in their record profits while the rest of us pay, Chavez is spreading the wealth around.

A dangerous man, indeed

Connect the dots, people! Pat Robertson doesn't speak for Jesus Christ and he doesn't speak for Christians. He speaks for a comfortable way of life, a fat wallet, and the adolation of all his fans - especially his fans, I mean, friends, in power. Remember this encounter with Jesus?

A certain ruler asked him, ‘Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?’ Jesus said to him, ‘Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone. You know the commandments: “You shall not commit adultery; You shall not murder; You shall not steal; You shall not bear false witness; Honor your father and mother.”’ He replied, ‘I have kept all these since my youth.’ When Jesus heard this, he said to him, ‘There is still one thing lacking. Sell all that you own and distribute the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.’ But when he heard this, he became sad; for he was very rich. Jesus looked at him and said, ‘How hard it is for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God! Indeed, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.’

If Pat Robertson heard this or one hundred other teachings of Jesus straight from his Savior's lips he, too, would be sad: for he is rich, he is comfortable, and he is blind to the real teachings of our faith.

*Emphasis added in both quotes.