Grassroots Aid for Tsunami Victims

Here is an interesting followup to Wednesday's charity discussion. How do we ensure that our relief donations are being spent most efficiently (with minimal waste, corruption, etc.)? Is the advance of modern technology and communications helping to answer that question?

Have a look:
NPR : Grassroots Aid for Tsunami Victims

Also, as some background to the argument, here's an article by Bill O'Reilly (of FOX News fame) on the Red Cross Scandal surrounding 9-11. Then here is the Red Cross press release addressing the same issue. Excerpt:

"Americans have spoken loudly and clearly that they want our relief efforts directed at the people affected by the September 11 tragedies," said Harold Decker, who was appointed CEO of the American Red Cross two weeks ago. "We deeply regret that our activities over the past eight weeks have not been as sharply focused as America wants, nor as focused as the victims of this tragedy deserve. The people affected by this terrible tragedy have been our first priority, and beginning today, they will be the only priority of the Liberty Fund."


Tie all this in with our midterm project discussion (see earlier post) and the uphill search for "perfect" solutions. Is it better to accept a level of waste, inefficiency, and corruption and give anyway? What are the arguments for not doing so?

There is a classic argument that say that since the good play by the rules and the bad don't, the bad will always be able to take advantage of the good. Either that or they diminish the efforts of the good by making them cynical and less generous. Mother Teresa's famous poem, Anyway (The Paradoxical Commandments), touches on this a little.


Please comment (either online or in your journal).

“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good [people] to do nothing.”
--Edmund Burke