The most abhorrent thing found during my research has been the discrepancy between the effects of prosecution of those who have stolen from the federal and state governments versus those who have stolen from individuals or other corporations. The most disconcerting fact is that many of the corporations that have been convicted of anti-trust violations, fraud, environmental crimes, as well as campaign financing fraud are still in business. Many of the corporations are thriving, because they were able to claim their fines and criminal penalties as "net loss" and avoid tax liability. Others, the ones I call most devious, used a calculated bankruptcy claim to avoid payment of the penalties imposed. And, other devious corporate executives simply changed the name of their corporation and avoided the public forum as well as the civil and criminal obligations directed by the courts.

To address the discrepancy, I would like to differentiate between the types of settlements involved. In most of the cases brought against corporations for defrauding state or federal government agencies (including military), there were monetary reimbursements for the amount

This article was co-written with Jeff Cohen

The U.S.-centric nature of American politics often affects the U.S. left. It's hard to get out of USA mindsets long enough to grasp the global implications of decisions made here at home. Yet the effects of U.S. government policies are so enormous across the planet that some people have suggested -- with more than a little justification -- that every person on Earth should get to vote in U.S. presidential elections.

On the international left, no one has more credibility as an unwavering opponent of U.S. foreign policy than Tariq Ali. Raised in Pakistan, he was a leader of Britain's Vietnam Solidarity Campaign in the 1960s, and is now a prominent London-based writer and an editor at New Left Review. His recent books include "Bush in Babylon" and "The Clash of Fundamentalisms." As progressives in the United States try to make sense out of the current presidential campaign, Ali's perspective on the global significance of Bush's electoral fate deserves serious consideration.

"I travel a great deal, all the continents, and I think

It's time to draw a line in the sand of Wyoming's Red Desert. The White House is proposing to let some of their biggest campaign contributors in the oil, gas and coal industries drill more than 1500 wells across a wilderness that was once a famous passageway for the Pony Express - the Jack Morrow Hills in the Red Desert in Wyoming. The Hills are also home to North America's largest antelope and desert elk herds and the site of rare prehistoric rock art painted over 2,000 years ago.

I wish I could tell you that this proposal is just about drilling in one place, but it's not. It's a trial balloon to test our strength. If the polluters can get access to an area as historically and ecologically sensitive as the Jack Morrow Hills, they'll know that with enough political pressure and campaign donations, they'll be able to drill, mine, and log just about anywhere – even in national monuments.

In 1900, the great African-American scholar W.E.B. Du Bois, predicted that the “problem of the twentieth century” would be the “problem of the color line,” the unequal relationship between the lighter vs. darker races of humankind.  Although Du Bois was primarily focused on the racial contradiction of the United States, he was fully aware that the processes of what scholars today describe as “racialization” – the construction of racially unequal social hierarchies characterized by dominant and subordinate social relations between groups – was an international and global problem.  Du Bois’s color line included not just the racially segregated, Jim Crow South and the racial oppression of South Africa; but also included British, French, Belgian, and Portuguese colonial domination in Asia, the Middle East, Africa, Latin America, and the Caribbean among indigenous populations.