December 30, 2004

Tsunami: America Stingy?

Blogger Chuck Simmins has done some real digging - the kind mainstream journalists could do but probably won't - and has identified $127 million in donations for tsunami relief from American individuals and corporations - over and above funds offered by the U.S. government. Among the donors: Pfizer - one of those evil pharmaceutical companies, they only pledged $35 million) - along with Merck & Co., Johnson & Johnson, Abbott Laboratories, Coca-Cola, Wal-Mart, Cisco Systems, Exxon Mobil, CitiGroup, Catholic Relief Services, Wells-Fargo, a handful of Silicon Valley companies you probably never heard of, Kaiser Permanente, CARE, and the rock/rap group Linkin Park. (They kicked in $100,000, almost enough to make me want to buy one of their records.)

And, as of this writing, tens of thousands of individual Americans have donated more than $6.7 million to the American Red Cross via Amazon.com. (Click the link for the latest total, and to donate.)

America is stingy? I think not. The UN bureau-rat who charged otherwise was wrong on two counts. First, the U.S. government's initial monetary announcements was just "seed capital" to get relief efforts going. Second, much of what Americans do for charities and disaster relief is done by individuals and private-sector businesses and organizations, not through the government. When the rest of the world gets that, they'll understand the true source of American wealth, power and generosity.