Don’t worry- the Buddhists have their own crazies (albeit they have fallen behind in recent years).
Regarding Leon497, if he were actually trying to make either points that (1) you should know where your money goes when you’re sending it overseas or (2) international aid is a limited resource and we should be judicious in how it’s spent- minimizing travel and administrative costs to get the most money out of it, I might agree.
However, comparing the type of problems people on the border in Burma are facing with the needs of the typical person in Mexico is fucking ridiculous.
The whole Christian vs. non-Christan stance is just strange. He talks about “as many Christians doing terror to us as non-Christians”… who the hell is “us”?
It was even better when I misread it, in the spirit of Christmas giving, as “squeezed out a reindeer”. This kind of prejudicial poop is why I seek out non-religious charities for my donations.
There seems to be a bit of confusion as to where the charity I was promoting is located. Just want to make clear it is in Thailand and gives medical assistance to Burmese in Thailand. It does not operate inside Burma, and I can vouch for the legitimacy of its work. As I added in my thread:
"Just so everyone is clear after some of the posts above, this organization, the Burma Children Medical Fund, is in Thailand, not Burma. It helps Burmese refugees or other Burmese who come across the border for assistance (it’s not like, say, the North Korean border; Burmese come over to Thailand a lot, which can be another problem in that the Thais often exploit them for cheap manual labor). No bribes are paid to anyone. I also don’t mean to take away from the urgency of charities closer to your home. Just offering another option."
That’s actually a very good question. As I mentioned in the OP to my thread, I personally believe almost none of the aid that goes to Burma makes it to the intended recipients. Reports are rampant about the junta commandeering any and all aid and selling it, pocketing the profits. That’s one good thing about the BCMF – it is in Thailand and helps the Burmese directly who have fled or even just crossed over for the day. It’s opposite a very poor area of Burma (I mean so poor that even the rest of Burma notices, and that’s saying something). There is no danger of the junta misappropriating anything. The founder and director is a Thai who holds Australian citizenship due to her Aussie journalist husband.
And let’s not forget the red shirts. We’re still having bombings in Bangkok, literally dozens, maybe scores, since May. They’re generally aimed at specific government targets though and (mostly) not intended to cause general mayhem.
What a bullshit charity request. Everyone knows the first thing they do in Burma is print up a hundred signs for a saying that could be written on one. Wasteful bastards.
Oh, speaking of bullshit:
To name just two that do a shitload of good work in Mexico and Latin America (and Africa, etc.). And those are just government bodies, not NGOs.
Then there’s the New Zealand Aid Programme. Not as strong a Latin American presence as Japan, but their economy isn’t the largest. Again, that’s just the government aid agency. Oh, and look at that! Is that the Korea International Cooperation Agency? With programmes in Latin America?! No shit!
Do most of these agencies provide more aid to areas geographically closer to them than Mexico? Sure. Is your incredulous “how much aid for Mexico comes from rich countries near Burma?” steeped in ignorance? Sure.
And really, everyone knows that the people on the West side of Chicago are really the ones that are MOST like us, and should be the ones we help. Those folks in the South, East and North parts are untrustworthy types, and I for one, would not stoop to helping them out. I think all right mined people will agree that they pretty much deserve their fate.
I’m actually somewhat grateful to Leon497 for maximising exposure to the charity I listed. If I were flogging, say, my unopened can of Singha beer with the Rolling Stones concert ad on it, that thread would have probably been buried and forgotten by now.
Remember the Oklahoma City Bombing? Terrorism conducted by a Christian. Olympic Park bombing? Conducted by Christian Terrorist Eric Robert Rudolph.
Just last year a Kansas abortion doctor was murdered by a Christian terrorist. Dr. George Tiller was one of the few physicians in the country who performed late-term abortions for women for health reasons, typically because the pregnancy was a threat to the women’s life, often because the fetus was dead or dying. As Steve Benen noted: “Tiller performed therapeutic abortions for women who wanted children.” But this human service was taken away by an Evangelical Christian terrorist.
That is a statement of such staggering stupidity that it makes me want to adopt you as my pet. It is so impressively wrong that it’s actually cute.
When you are my pet, I will take you to expensive grooming salon. There, they will froufrou you up to make you even more delightful. I will then dress you in human clothing - possibly a sailor suit, or maybe a little dress. I am not sure yet.
That way, when you next make a statement as profoundly ignorant as the above I can say to others “Oh bless, listen to him, he’s trying to talk like a human. Isn’t he just adorable”. They will agree, and tell me what a cutey you are.
So… Tim McVeigh never happened to you? Eric Rudolph never quite made it into your world? All those people who’ve killed doctors never made any impact into your thick skull whatsoever? How about the terror implicit in raping children and forcing the community to keep quiet about it afterwords? Does the rape of children not make an impression on you?
Sometimes, I think I might want to live in your world, but I fear the price involves using a melon-baller to remove most of what’s behind the eyes.
I don’t even know what to do with this. My mother was injured in an IRA bombing at Victoria Station when I was little. I would laugh at how astonishingly wrong this is but I can’t.
If I had been playing the other field, so to say, I think I would have liked to marry you. But you still owe me a new keyboard. The one I have right now is drenched in coffee.
