iTunes Store Facilitating Red Cross Donations for Haitian Earthquake Relief

[phillipduran]

I gave it a negative.

Money donated through The Red Cross doesn't go directly to disaster relief efforts. Most money donated there goes to helping them get out of their $200million+ debt. Donate through Mercy Corps or Oxfam or some other organization. Not the Red Cross. They're scammers.

And this is why I will give it a negative as well. During 9/11 a gazillion dollars went to the Red Cross by people who were donating to help the 9/11 disaster and they were sending that $$ all over the world. I don't think they have a focused donation process. They should have "Donate to Haiti Red Cross Help" and "Donate to General Red Cross" options. I know any donations will help but I think they should make a point to make sure money donated from movements like this are sent to the affected area and not put into general Red Cross funds (or at least as best they can, I understand there may be administrative overhead etc).

Here's a strange occurance there. Some Hatians are setting up roadblocks to protest aid not reaching them fast enough. They are using bodies and rubble to make them. WTF is that all about? From what sense of entitlement does this come from. Protesting aid relief. Seriously? Roadblocks? Sounds like they are creating more problems that will prevent relief.

 

[50548]

I gave it a negative.

If the do-gooders wished to really help Haiti, they would give money to family planning initiatives in Haiti. That's a long term solution that would benefit all future generations of Haiti.

The devastation seen is due to the fact that the building standards are so low in Haiti[1]. The reason for low building standards are extreme poverty. The reason for extreme poverty is over-population and corruption. Fix those things, and the rest will follow.

Pay money to the relief organisation now, and you will help out in the short term. It will not fix the root of the problem, although it might give you a warm fuzzy feeling, that you're "doing something". Look how far emergency relief has gotten Africa.

Apple seems to get a lot of good PR due to their initiative. That's fine, but it doesn't help the Haitian children of tomorrow.

Oh, and finally: To the religious people following this, can you please explain why a benevolent deity would create such an earthquake? Is it just to test your faith, like the friendly God did with Job?

[1] http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/americas/01/13/haiti.construction/index.html

So next time you think about "helping", try telling your own government to stop meddling in other countries' affairs against their own will or worse, supporting animals like Papa and Baby Doc Duvalier via the legal aberration called CIA.

 

[50548]

Dude, you have NO clue. He plans to do some serious WHUPPIN up on this planet in the future. Read Revelation. In the past He's ordered his followers to destroy entire nations. Kill all people who disobey him etc. What knitting club did you mistake the history of god and the method in which he works.

If now is the time described in Revelation, you can expect a WHOLE lot more earthquakes.

What do you think religion and god is? Carebears, My Little Pony and rose petals? Just read the one book of Revelation and you'll learn quite a bit. Made me decide which side I want to be on.

Hopefully you're not one of those who think He also ordered the "chosen" US to support "chosen" Israel in wiping the Iranian civilization off the map, right?

 

[champ01]

Guess what? There is a difference between saying that you don't believe in the divinity of a dude called Jesus born around two thousand years ago and saying that you don't believe in the historicity of there being a guy by that name from that time period executed by the Romans. The former is something that you have to decide for yourself but saying the latter makes you sound as loony as those "moon landing" deniers because there is considerable archeological evidence to back up the historical figure.

I'm not interested in having a debate with you or anyone else on that matter but your post makes you look like an uneducated fool who believes what crackpots on the internet say.

You wanna trow me some historical facts?
(its gonna get way off topic )

There is not one piece of historical evidence to backup a so called jesus, god or whatever.
Also with historical facts I don't mean someting written on a piece of paper or what the church, internet, or television is telling us.

 

[Journojulz]

I gave it a negative.
If the do-gooders wished to really help Haiti, they would give money to family planning initiatives in Haiti.

Did you say the same thing about New Orleans after Katrina?

 

[racketeer71]

So next time you think about "helping", try telling your own government to stop meddling in other countries' affairs against their own will or worse, supporting animals like Papa and Baby Doc Duvalier via the legal aberration called CIA.

I happen to be from Denmark. As far as I know, CIA is a an organization based in the US.

Please check the facts, before posting the next time, thanks.

 

[phillipduran]

Hopefully you're not one of those who think He also ordered the "chosen" US to support "chosen" Israel in wiping the Iranian civilization off the map, right?

The US isn't mentioned. Only thing even close is a reference to the heavy weight carried by those who support Israel. The Israelites were told to take land from the people who were currently occupying it thousands of years ago. I don't know where anyone is getting any idea that the US is was ordered to do anything.

 

[Journojulz]

P.S. There are NO gods. And even if they were - they are big enough to look after their own battles and will judge those on how nice they were to others.

Are you drawing a conclusion that us selling guns makes us bad? What about guns being sent to oppressed nations to help them liberate themselves?

What about when you sell them to the oppressing side?

If you sell them to both sides - does that make it fairer?

You may as well the columbians are doing a good thing selling crack to the US to liberate the poor from boredom.

 

[inkswamp]

In addition to the link on the iTunes store, I hope Apple also makes a substantial corporate contribution, as many other companies (including Microsoft and Google) have already done. Frankly, I'm a bit disappointed that they have not already done so.

How do you know they haven't?

Quite a few wealthy people and organizations/companies choose to keep donations of that sort very quiet so as not to be inundated with similar requests or to avoid the appearance of grandstanding.

 

[guerro]

Where were all the "helping hands" before the earthquake hit Haiti? Haiti was a hell hole before the earthquake. Something tells me, no matter how much $$ anyone pours into that bottomless pit, it will still be a hell hole. I am not saying Haiti doesn't need help or that people should not be helping. It is just funny to look at all the people saying,"oh this is so beautiful that a company is helping out" when the truth of the matter is, this is just a PR stunt by Apple and many other companies, celebrities, and other organizations to feed their egos and make people like them.

 

[cumanzor]

Wow, the cynicism of some people is just sickening.

* It is a known fact that the Red Cross doesn't give out the 100% of the total donations. Indeed, some good part of it goes to cover their current debt.

I find amazing that everyone is joining forces. Hell, even Cuba opened up their airspace for the US. Whether there are other intentions on the charity of corporations or groups, is not relevant at this point.

 

[ChazUK]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (Linux; U; Android 1.6; en-us; Archos5 Build/Donut) AppleWebKit/528.5+ (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.1.2 Mobile Safari/525.20.1)

Superb move imo. Those poor souls need all the help they can get.

I just hope the international community don't let them down.

 

[econgeek]

The Red Cross is a scam. I refuse to give money to them. Most of the money they take in is consumed by overhead. (they get away with this by reclassifying money so that they can pretend to be a charity.) They are really not a "boots on the ground helping people" outfit.

They used anticompetitive tactics to take over the blood supply in this country, and now happily take blood donations which they then turn around and sell to people who need blood at monopoly rates. There is virtually no competition, so they can get away with it. They use their profits to run smear campaigns against plasma outfits.

And whose going to go after the red cross? Most people know nothing about them, they get massive free advertising from government money (via the ad council) etc. They constantly play on people's pity.

I think they are able to continue this way because people don't really care-- They are meeting a capitalist need.

Whenever a disaster happens, the red cross is there to take your money and let you feel like you did something to help. And of course, everyone who gave them money wants to believe they were helping, so none of them want to believe they got scammed. (Kinda like people who buy windows pcs.)

 

[sammich]

People need help. NGO's give help. To provide help NGO's need money. To get money companies like Apple (with it's 500 million accounts with credit cards) make it easy for people to give money to those NGO's in a few clicks.

But like in the Boxing Day Tsunami of 2004, the entire world donated hundreds of millions of dollars to the major charities. That's more money than they can possibly put to use for that region with the man power they have. So they put it use for future in their investments so they can with other problems.

 

[Porco]

I was initially shocked at the amount of negative votes on this... but then it just highlights the fuzzy manner in which people interpret the positive/negative voting on threads I guess...

I do think there is a difference between voting negative on this because you think the help would be better directed through another route and voting negative because you're an uncaring selfish idiot though. I would hope most of the negative votes are from the former group rather than the latter.

Personally I think it makes the chances of more help reaching those who need it higher, so it's very positive. I donated through http://www.dec.org.uk/

 

[happydude]

I gave it a negative.

Money donated through The Red Cross doesn't go directly to disaster relief efforts. Most money donated there goes to helping them get out of their $200million+ debt. Donate through Mercy Corps or Oxfam or some other organization. Not the Red Cross. They're scammers.

provide proof please?

 

[Journojulz]

So far i have heard bad things about the red cross

What about Oxfam or the DEC?

Either of those i should avoid?

 

[Surely]

If you want to check up on a charity, go to:

http://www.charitynavigator.org/

 

[itsthenewdc]

Since credit card companies take out a % for each transaction, are they really getting 100% of what you donate.. it'd be around 96-98% wouldn't it? Or is it different in donation cases like this?

 

[rdowns]

Since credit card companies take out a % for each transaction, are they really getting 100% of what you donate.. it'd be around 96-98% wouldn't it? Or is it different in donation cases like this?

It's not different. The credit card companies a making a friggin fortune on this. They rarely waive their fees.

 

[PlayRadioPlay]

I gave it a negative.

If the do-gooders wished to really help Haiti, they would give money to family planning initiatives in Haiti. That's a long term solution that would benefit all future generations of Haiti.

The devastation seen is due to the fact that the building standards are so low in Haiti[1]. The reason for low building standards are extreme poverty. The reason for extreme poverty is over-population and corruption. Fix those things, and the rest will follow.

Pay money to the relief organisation now, and you will help out in the short term. It will not fix the root of the problem, although it might give you a warm fuzzy feeling, that you're "doing something". Look how far emergency relief has gotten Africa.

Apple seems to get a lot of good PR due to their initiative. That's fine, but it doesn't help the Haitian children of tomorrow.

Oh, and finally: To the religious people following this, can you please explain why a benevolent deity would create such an earthquake? Is it just to test your faith, like the friendly God did with Job?

[1] http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/americas/01/13/haiti.construction/index.html

And every problem you just stated can be blamed on *GASP* capitalism!

Why do you think Haiti is such a poor country? Because they're lazy or apathetic? No. Because the rest of the world (especially the US) ***** on them and uses them for cheap labor and goods. We pay them crap for their coffee and work and then resell it so that business people can make huge amounts of money. Beautiful, beautiful unregulated capitalism.

If you really want to get to the root of the problem, support International economic reform, not better building codes.

A healthy economy will lead to a more educated country, which will eventually lead to slower population growth, as population explosion and education are inversely proportional.

 

[bradl]

So what. I'm not going to be sympathetic about this cuz we have enough stuff to worry about, on our turf....like let's see...WAR! recession! This isn't the first earthquak on the planet. Much worse has hit on our soil many of times, especially being in LA.....did we get any relief support from Haiti? Didn't think so......I'm really not going to count on Haiti for when the future quakes hit either.

Let them figure it out

Then don't ask for a single bloody cent the next time a Northridge comes through and drops your house down a sinkhole.

I would say that I won't donate anything to the city of Los Angeles if when the next big one hits Southern California...

But that would drop me down to your level, and I'm bigger and better than that.

also, it must be a real kick in the nuts for those Americans on the street holding up a sign asking for $1, but when a quake hits in a country they'll never go to has problems a lot of people jump at the chance to give $10 or more.

You assume people don't give a crap about those holding up those signs. You assume wrong and justly make an ass of yourself. Personally, I not only had given a homeless couple an Andrew Jackson, but bought them dinner. You may think it's a kick in the nuts to those here, but to that couple, that 3 course meal at Chili's was the best they had had in a long time.

So don't go soapboxing on what people here in this country do.

BL.

 

[Poll Smoker]

Actually he was, and MAN created "religion" Christ didn't come to earth to set up 50 different franchises (many religions) Jesus is a person of Love and Life and he loves ALL PEOPLE, he just doesn't approve with certain lifestyles we choose that arn't in accordance to what he teaches... I'm deeply sadden you feel that way but know Jesus LOVES YOU <>< ... but this isn't the area to discuss such, if you want to PM then feel free and we can have a healthy debate.

I apologize to the Moderators if you feel this is inappropriate

What a shock that a weirdo Mac fanatic is also a weirdo religious fanatic.

You just go from one delusion to the next...

 

[HLdan]

I gave it a negative.

Money donated through The Red Cross doesn't go directly to disaster relief efforts. Most money donated there goes to helping them get out of their $200million+ debt. Donate through Mercy Corps or Oxfam or some other organization. Not the Red Cross. They're scammers.

That's outrageous that you'd actually say that out loud.

 

[AidenShaw]

Then don't ask for a single bloody cent the next time a Northridge comes through and drops your house down a sinkhole.

One heckuva earthquake if it moves your house from LA to Florida and drops it in a sinkhole!

(Sinkholes are not seismic events, especially in a dry climate like SoCal.)

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion...mar28,0,2169993.story?coll=la-home-commentary