With hurricane season only a few short months away and the rebuilding of the most devastated areas after Hurricane Katrina not even begun yet, a Senate inquiry into the federal government’s response to Hurricane Katrina has finally concluded and issued its official report to the American public. Not surprisingly, it managed to get to the bottom of the issue and comes out with strong words and questions for the White House to answer, as by and large the executive branch (from the White House down to FEMA) failed to keep itself informed of the situation, on top of what was being done, and at all act appropriately to assist or take on any responsibility for the events taking place in Louisiana as Katrina blazed ashore and New Orleans was swallowed by water.

The senators who issues the report knowingly admitted that few of their suggestions would likely come to pass before another hurricane season was here to be dealt with, especially considering that one of their suggestions was to completely abolish FEMA as an impotent and ineffective organization and to replace it with a stronger authority with the training, personnel, and ability to respond appropriate to national disasters, even when state and local governments drop their own ball in the process. (as admittedly New Orleans and Louisiana did)

The report was bipartisan, and concluded that the Department of Homeland Security, the already incredibly funded and bloated bureaucratic morass, has either failed to understand or refused to follow the National Emergency Response Plan, and that a great number of federal officials in the White House and in FEMA had never even read it, much less have any disaster response experience of their own. Additionally, the report concluded that New Orleans for years had known that a hurricane like this could take place and knew the damage it could cause, but did nothing to appropriate resources and funds to prepare for such a disaster. It wasn’t a matter of if, but when-and the State of Louisiana and New Orleans did nothing to prepare. Even so, the federal government didn’t do anything to assist, and didn’t particularly help fund their disaster preparedness initiatives either.

The report, titled Hurricane Katrina: A Nation Still Unprepared, had these choice words:

“The suffering that continued in the days and weeks after the storm passed did not happen in a vacuum; instead, it continued longer that it should have because of — and was in some cases exacerbated by — the failure of government at all levels to plan, prepare for and respond aggressively to the storm.”

Stories like this make me wonder about the Department of Homeland Security, and exactly what’s going on in there that’s supposed to be keeping us safe. If we can’t take care of ourselves against mother nature when we have days of lead-time as warning and we know how we should react and what should be done before, during, and after the disaster, when hell-we even have a comprehensive emergency response plan for just such emergencies, I worry significantly about this massive, resource rich organization that is supposed to be ready to protect us against the worst unexpected and human-created or disasters as well.

[ Katrina Report Rips the White House Anew ]
Source: The Associated Press

César Cuauhtémoc García Hernández isn’t the only one who’ll be taking part of a nation-wide boycott on May 1st. In what’s been dubbed something of a “Day without Latinos,” a large segment of the Latin American community, legal and illegal, will remove themselves as much as possible from society, staying home from work, school, and other activities, in order to put on display the importance and relevance that both illegal and legal immigrants have in American society. Businesses will close, shops will shutter their windows, and many companies are reporting that significant segments of their workforce will be away from their jobs on Monday May 1st.

All the better; for a group of people who contribute so much to our society, and many of which pay taxes just as the rest of us do, but take so much blame, prejudice, and hatred even from short sighted people within the progressive community, nationalists and nativists in the conservative community, and are exploited by business interests by being encouraged to circumvent the citizenship process and come here illegally and be essentially guaranteed work, these people on nothing more than the short end of the American stick (a place that they’re most certainly not alone on) come to America in pursuit of a better life, either legally or illegally, only to be labeled criminals, face stiff predjudice from even those people who would claim to support them, and are told that they can’t possibly assimilate fast enough.

Their work, their sacrifices, and their footpower behind the American economy, makes all of our privilege possible; it makes the cheap goods we enjoy available, the roads we drive on smooth, and the buildings we work in clean. And to be perfectly honest, I’m not so stingy and stodgy with my contribution to our civil and compassionate society (read: taxes) that I’m horrifically concerned with their impact on our health care system and educational system. If the conservatives in power would, for a change-heaven forbid, fully fund our health care and educational systems and make them a priority over bombs, guns, and their and their friends’ own deep pockets, then perhaps we wouldn’t have anything to be concerned with.

I would like to boycott on May 1st, but I’ll be in the office. Why? Because I want to experience first hand where my privilege lies; I want to go without for a day, and I want to miss it. I want to see, right in front of my face, how important these people are to the luxury of American life, and I want to see what that life is without it. In the meantime, I’ll be cheering them on.

César Cuauhtémoc García Hernández has his story:

[ Why I Will Boycott on May 1 ]
Source: Alternet

But as I said, Hernández is by no means alone. Perhaps one of the most uplifting stories I’ve heard in a very very long time is the story of Dov Charney runs American Apparel, the largest single garment factory in the United States, and his mostly immigrant (legal) workforce. He’ll be shuttering his plant and allowing his workers May 1st to participate in the boycott, and he too will stand with them in order to make it known that at least some American businesses realize that these workers, illegal or legal, are the foundation of the American economy, and without them business cannot continue. He chooses also to stand with them, and I’m proud of him and his company for doing so. The story is amazingly inspiring, and gives me faith in the American marketplace.

[ American Apparel, an Immigrant Success Story ]
Source: National Public Radio