Whatever. The real explanation is simpler, even though it doesn't reflect well on the white voters of New Hampshire. There is a well-established phenomenon that there is a certain percentage of white US voters who will tell pollsters that they're voting for a black candidate, but then behave otherwise in the voting booth. This pattern couldn't work in Iowa, since it's a caucus system and everyone's vote is known to others. It has obviously worked out this way in New Hampshire. White Democrats are less racist than whites in general, especially white Republicans, but they are still racist, so it seems likely that that's what we're seeing here.

On another note, and while the issues had nothing to do with how people voted, it seems to me that Obama has said very next to nothing over the past week, and yet has left a lot of people "inspired." I don't quite understand why. On a substantive level there really is little difference between him and Hillary Clinton; if anyone spots a real difference, do let me know.

Edwards, by contrast, has sounded very different indeed, and has made a distinct appeal to the left. Unfortunately there's little mass movement or constituency left to support that, and the labor movement -- which could have -- was divided on his candidacy.

So we're left with pretty much the same old shit. And very likely a President McCain.

Colin knows what to do, and barks not twice but thrice: "Buncombe! Balderdash! And tommyrot!"

I'm at best tepidly in favor of her run against Nancy Pelosi, not because it would do any harm (there is no danger of an even worse warmonger winning in Pelosi's district), but because I don't think it's the sort of thing that will accomplish much. Sheehan is also targeting Pelosi specifically on the impeachment stuff, which I think is a tactical mistake. We should focus on the war itself, not to mention other issues; the very nature of impeachment proceedings does not move things politically in our favor, I think. Not that I wouldn't have voted for the pending resolution that Kucinich proposed if I were in Congress myself (ha!).

Sheehan's steadfastness as an activist has been impressive, even after the peak of her usefulness to the movement. To the extent that she's been isolated politically, it is less because of her own mistakes and more because the enemy attacked her so ferociously precisely because she was such a threat.

The freedom veterans fought for, perhaps?

Since and as a result of the storming of the Winter Palace, Russian rural landlord peonage and illiteracy were wiped out; hundreds of millions were freed from colonial bondage in Asia and Africa and the back of Jim Crow was broken in the United States; and workers in Europe, the United States, Japan and elsewhere were able to move beyond the horrors of the early industrial revolution and its "dark satanic mills." All of these achievements were conceded by capital in direct proportion to its fear of being wiped off the face of the earth forever by the concerted actions of the people -- and to the extent that we have backslid, sometimes drastically, it is because no one is instilling that proper fear in the hearts of the capitalists.

Our decades- and centuries-long transition is not inevitable and will not happen by accident. It requires the conscious action of people who are ready to "storm heaven." And it will happen again, no matter the defeats of recent years. Tomorrow the revolution will rise up again, clashing its weapons, and will proclaim with trumpets blazing: "I was, I am, I shall be!"

Dear Editor:

During Michael Vick's trial for dog-fighting, your letters page was filled with vituperation from readers against Vick and against anyone who questioned the hype surrounding his case. One reader called Vick "subhuman" and even compared him to Jeffrey Dahmer.

I wonder if these same people will now expend even one-tenth of that moral indignation for the sake of 14-year old Martin Lee Anderson. Anderson was sadistically beaten to death last year by Florida boot camp guards, and an all-white jury just acquitted his thuggish assailants, despite unmistakable and horrifying videographic evidence. Can Vick's critics spare so much as one word on Anderson's behalf? Will they even lift a finger for the teenagers in Jena, Louisiana, who face prison time for having the temerity to retaliate against racist death threats?

Or could it be that some of white America puts a higher value on the lives of dogs than on the lives of young black men?

JOHN LACNY
Overbrook

You can read the whole article for more analysis from that fire-breathing Marxist publication, the Financial Times.

Technorati tags: predatory lending, subprime lending, class analysis, class warfare

Liberated Woman, Build Socialism! -- 1920

Biden, of course, recently disparaged the incipient Barack Obama presidential campaign as a superficial media creation (which, by the way, it is) by saying: "I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy. I mean, that’s a storybook, man."

This incident forces me to make two predictions with respect to Obama:

(1) Over the course of the presidential primary season, there will be others besides Biden who are mystically drawn to the word "articulate" as a way to describe Obama.

(2) The supposedly "out-of-the-mainstream" Jesse Jackson got more votes for president in 1988 than Barack Obama ever will.

I'd like to suggest this humble blog post as a repository for forthcoming examples of prediction (1) -- post 'em in the comments. As for prediction (2), I suppose I could start taking bets, though I admit that the odds are closer on that than they would be on a prediction that Jesse Jackson got more votes for president than Joe Biden ever will.

Technorati tags: articulate,
Biden, racist, racism, Obama, Jesse Jackson, Rainbow