GUEST,Different One, you seem to put quite a slant on what I have posted, and maybe you aren't aware that in the many years I have been a member here, I have repeatedly referred to the roles I played in the Red Cross. I've often identified myself as a former chapter manager, not to avoid the appearence of a conflict of interest-- there is none-- but to let people know that my opinion comes from working in the trenches to provide exactly the kinds of service that are most needed anywhere, immediately following catastrophic disaster. And I know the realities of providing aid to large numbers of people, whereas most people don't. That's why, for instance, a Red Cross volunteer must take Disaster Services training before being deployed to work a disaster, large or small.

I'm not sure what you have against the Red Cross, or which unit of it has you so het up, because you don't specify, but in the end it doesn't matter. People are going to make up their own minds, and despite your accusation that I am lobbying for Red Cross, I think you're actually the one doing the lobbying. You certainly have an agenda of some sort-- dunno what it is, but it doesn't have much to do with the Red Cross.

For one thing, there are many national organizations within the Red Cross federation, each one governed by people from that country. They all work under an umbrella of shared principles (such as neutrality and assisting with the most urgent needs first in disater), but there are 5 distinct service programs (blood, disaster, health & safety, aiding military familes with emergency communication, and international services). When you multiply those 5 programs by the number of lcoal chapters and national Red Cross organizations, there are bound to be differences of persepctive on how things have been handled in one regard or another. And in a disaster like the present one, all the units collect funds to send to the Red Cross IN the affected area, and that localized unit makes the decisions, govenred by people elected to govern it. It just isn't the monolith you seem to make it out to be.

I think, actually you know very little about how it is all structuresd and managed, and that having worked for them, I know a little more about that end of it than you do. Unlike you, I trust people to make the right decision for themselves about donating, and I don't have a need to accuse you of bad motives in order to inform people. So I hope you will stop trying to pick a fight with me, because there isn't anything to fight about.

~Susan