As the aftermath of hurricane Katrina continues towreak mayhem and havoc amid reports of mass looting, shooting at rescuehelicopters, rapes and murders, establishment media organs are promoting the Red Cross as a worthy organization to give donations to.

The biggest website in the world, Yahoo.com,displays a Red Cross donation link prominently on its front page.

Every time there is a major catastrophe the Red Crossand similar organizations like United Way are given all the media attentionwhile other charities are left in the shadows. This is not to say that the vast majority of Red Cross workers are not decent people who simply wantto help those in need.

But what the media fails consistently to remember in their promotion of the organization is that the American Red Cross havebeen caught time and time again withholding money in the wake of horribledisasters that require immediate release of funds.

The Red Cross, under the Liberty Fund, collected $564million in donations after 9/11. Months after the event, the Red Cross had distributed only $154 million. The Red Cross' explanation forkeeping the majority of the money was that it would be used to help 'fightthe war on terror'. To the victims, this meant that the money was goingtowards bombing broken backed third world countries like Afghanistan andsetting up surveillance cameras and expanding the police state in US cities,and not towards helping them rebuild their lives.

Then Red Cross President Dr. Bernadine Healy arrogantly responded when questioned about the withholding of funds by stating, "TheLiberty Fund is a war fund. It has evolved into a war fund."

Despite the family members of victims of 9/11 complaining bitterly to a House Energy and Commerce Committee's oversight panel, the issue seemed to be brushed under the carpet and the mud didn't stick.

The Red Cross' scandalous activities reachback far before 9/11.

After the devastating San Francisco earthquake in 1989,the Red Cross passed on only $10 million of the $50 million that had been raised, and banked the rest.

Similar donations after the Oklahoma City bombing in1995 and the Red River flooding in 1997 were also greedily withheld.

Insight Magazine reported,

“The first days after the bombing,”says one family member, “people from all over the country were sending checks in lieu of flowers and we were getting a lot of checks and cash everyday — hundreds, even thousands, of dollars. Then the Red Cross wentdown to the post office and made arrangements to collect the mail and theywould deliver it to us in bulk. All the mail had been opened, and from thatpoint on there never was a dime, even in letters that said money was enclosed.”

The Red Cross has been caught engaging in rampant corruptionon an all too regular basis.

3,000 people died after thousands of Canadians wereinfected with HIV and hepatitis C from tainted blood supplies.The Canadian Red Cross pleaded      guilty to the charges earlier this year after they had beendirectly caught knowlingly shipping out the infected blood.

Smaller charities that were involved with the 2004Tsunami relief project went public to say that large charities like Red Cross and United Way were engaged in secret backroom negotiations with eachother that meant a large portion of the donation money was purposefullyrestricted from reaching the most needy areas affected by the disaster.

The history is clear, the Red Cross and other largeso-called charities are in actual fact front group collection agencies for the military industrial complex.

Many informed historians have even alleged that theRed Cross was used as a Skull and Bones cover to overthrow The Russian Czar and pave the way for the rise of the Bolsheviks.

Do not give any money to the Red Cross unless you support the expansion of empire abroad and police state at home. Find a smaller trustworthy organization in the local area of New Orleans and make yourdonation to them.

Below are a listing of Black/ Minority relief efforts courtesy of writer/activist Kevin Powell: