I'm coming out of the closet. Yes, I am fundamentally, a socialist. And I'm still defining what that means for myself politically. It does mean that I wasn't afraid to defend the public housing in New Orleans, as our "leaders" have proposed, and are currently, demolishing viable housing in our city at a time when there is a crisis lack of affordable housing in our city.

I was drawn to the Edwards campaign precisely because he at least acknowledged class differences, whereas Obama seems to have based his campaign on blurring those distinctions.

Economic class is the taboo subject in American politics, to the point where the word "class" itself has been made into something of an epithet by politicians deriding opponents for supposedly waging "class warfare." Of course, most often, those deriding "class warfare" are the corporate elite, Washington insiders and their Punditburo spokespeople within the major media institutions - that is, the six and seven-figure-salaried upper class that is waging a vicious class war on the rest of us. At a time of increasing economic inequality and decreasing social-class mobility in America, these people will do anything to avoid class taking center stage in American politics. But as I show in my new nationally syndicated newspaper column today, class is forcing its way into the 2008 presidential contest - and that's a good thing.