Idiom meaning to do something voluntary/unprofitable but needless

11:06 Oct 12, 2009 

Flogging a dead horse is about trying to make something work (a solution, an organisation etc.) when it obviously cannot.
Chasing the wind is pursuing something you can't catch, or trying to achieve something impossible.
Running around like headless chickens is expending lots of energy that can't result in anything useful.

10:47 Oct 12, 2009 

Reading the text carefully shows that the task - although voluntary - was useless, futile. In other contexts, "flog a dead horse", "running around like headless chicken", and "chasing the wind" would be useful". I'm still weighing on the choice to be fair, because it involves voluntary work. Thank you everyone for helping out! I will definitely give max. points for the best answer.

08:36 Oct 12, 2009 

I know the spirit of doing voluntary work is highly admired and a noble act. Most likely it was because the work was futile, and the volunteers were helping others whilst their families and sometimes themselves were not better off. At the time, Vietnam was under French/Japanese occupation - a non-communist country. The famine happened because the Japanese stole all the rice and food and the resources from the South (which was largely unaffected) were burnt accidentally by Allied forces when transported to the North. The needlessness also results from the fact that the Northerners might migrate to the South as it later happened in the 1950s.

08:30 Oct 12, 2009 

Presumably because it had nothing whatsoever to do with the people suffering.

In communist coutries is was commonplace to encourage voluntary "patriotic" (as they called it) work with totally unrelated demagogic slogans.

08:19 Oct 12, 2009 

It might help to know why helping people suffering from famine should be considered needless. Was it because the volunteers work was being (deliberately or otherwise) wasted by the bureaucracy or politicians, so that it never helped the people in the North?