New Orleans Activist Malik Rahim Blasts Mayor Nagin

Lest anyone think I'm being unfair by attacking only the Federal Government, from Democracy Now, an interview with a former Black Panther and longtime New Orleans activist about the failure of local authorities:

The very first thing he should have done is made sure that one, that the medical assistance he knew it was going to be needed was made available. He should have had that in place. He should have had food in place. He should have had water in place. He should have had ice in place. He should have had generators in place. That's something that the city could have done. Even if they had to commandeer them from these stores. You know, you have backup generators in every one of these high rise buildings. What's in them? People not living in them? So, why couldn't he take them? Or he could put people in them. You know, he didn't do either. You know? It's all about property. Everything is about property. I tell you what, look at Cuba. Any time a hurricane -- when that -- when Hugo was passing through Cuba, and it was about to hit Havana, Cuba -- the Cuban government came through there and took everybody out of Havana. I mean, everybody was safe. They didn't have this kind of madness. So, I mean, so why are we going through it?

Click here to read, listen to, or watch the rest of the interview.

I've been very clear, I think, about the fact that the disaster response for New Orleans was riddled with failure from top to bottom. So why go after the feds as unmercifully as I have? In the wake of the emergency response failures and chaos of 9/11, Bush decided that it had to be the Federal Government that would make sure that such a thing never happened again. Billions of tax dollars have flowed into DHS since then for that very purpose. The long and the short of it all is that, since the spring of 2003, the Federal Government has "primary responsibility" for coordinating and dealing with disasters such as Katrina. When Governor Blanco declared a state of emergency in Louisiana on August 26th, days before the hurricane actually hit New Orleans, it was DHS's show. They were in charge. And they were nowhere to be found for many days. That's why it's their fault. There's simply no debate here. There's no discussion as to responsibility for the overall failure. It was DHS's job to make sure that the system didn't collapse, and they failed to do so.

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