My wife got mad at me because I wouldn't contribute to the Red Cross's relief effort. I did not because of three reasons:
1) I knew that in a few months no one would be giving anything and figured it would be better served to donate then--when the need was clearly defined and lagging.
2) I knew there would be widespread abuses as we are seeing now. There were both the government issued debit cards and the Red Cross Issued debit cards.....the Red Cross were widely abused because the Red Cross isn't going to go after someone faking need and misspending the money.
3) I knew that many of these people were useless and I didn't want my money going to them.
We have had a good amount of Katrina violence most recently with that murder suicide where the man beat their autistic son so badly that the police couldn't tell he had also been SHOT. Burn in hell buddy.
We also have a bunch of these Katrina victims that have done absolutely nothing in Atlanta for SIX MONTHS to better themselves or get off the dole. Now they want to complain because they didn't get a job (there are PLENTY) and a permanent place to live. So are we supposed to pay for these slobs for the next 70 years of their life at hotels and hope they have a change of heart and become self-sufficient? Don't think so. All many of these people did was relocate their welfare state from NO to other States.
I take that back, we did help the family of a woman my wife works with. Her family evacuated to a hotel inland from NO to survive and then they saw that their home was gone. They decided to move to Atlanta and were staying with my wife's co-worker until they found a place (there was one of her and ten of them
). They lost everything. So we gave them money, clothing, etc. Their son was truly overjoyed at getting our son's used but still in new condition windbreaker and jogging suit along with some new toys and some new clothes we bought. We had saved a LOT of pristine clothes for this year's garage sale and they were boxed up and we just took them. I didn't mind helping people who were generally grateful and had taken proper steps to help themselves. The dad was given a GOOD job arranged by a local church and they now have a home and are doing well. Those are the people I like to help...those who help themselves.
Cal