THOSE WHO DON’T BUILD MUST BURN

Ray Bradbury wrote his dystopian novel Fahrenheit 451 in 1950. Most kids were required to read this book when they were seventeen years old. Having just re-read the novel at the age of forty-seven makes you realize how little you knew at seventeen. It is 165 pages of keen insights into today’s American society. Bradbury’s hedonistic dark future has come to pass. His worst fears have been realized. The American public has willingly chosen to be distracted and entertained by electronic gadgets 24 hours per day. Today, reading books is for old fogies. Most people think Bradbury’s novel was a warning about censorship. It was not. It was a warning about TV and radio turning the minds of Americans to mush.

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Challenging the Model of the North. Where is the World Economy Headed?

Last Thursday Michael Hudson addressed the Council of Economic Advisors to the President of Brazil (CDES) . He offered an unsparing description of how the global economy is being shaped and exploited by Northern bankers. Then he outlined the ways in which Brazil and other major “BRIC” economies – Russia, Chinas, India – can steer an independent path and thus preserve and improve their nations’ condition . CounterPunch is delighted to feature here Dr Hudson’s very striking address. AC/JSC Brasilia

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Corporate Lobbying Is Blocking Food Reforms, Senior UN Official Warns

Lobbying by "powerful" big food [1] companies is blocking reforms which would improve human health and the environment, a director of the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) [2] has warned.

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The 'Rightwing Backlash' That Never Was The consensus is that angry voters are moving rightward. But it's nothing Democrats couldn't fix with a dose of economic populism

Is America in the grip of a rightwing backlash that will hit the November elections like a hurricane? This narrative is gathering steam. It is fed not only by the minority partisan rightwing media, but also its majority "liberal" counterpart, which loves a horse race and is fascinated with the Tea Party, even if it isn't so eager for the Republicans to take congress.

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That 'Official' Poverty Rate? It's Much Worse than You Think

While the shocking new poverty statistics from the Census Bureau indicating that a record 43.6 million Americans lived in poverty in 2009 emphatically demonstrates the severity of the economic crisis, the Census is drastically undercounting this demographic. Apparently the government's poverty statistics are as accurate as its unemployment statistics.

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Michel Chossudovsky: "Manufacturing Dissent": the Anti-globalization Movement is Funded by the Corporate Elites The People's Movement has been Hijacked

While the "Globalizers" may adopt a few progressive phrases to demonstrate they have good intentions, their fundamental goals are not challenged. And what this "civil society mingling" does is to reinforce the clutch of the corporate establishment while weakening and dividing the protest movement.

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UN Asks for Action on Nature Loss, Citing Poverty

Governments must protect nature better in order to safeguard their countries' wealth, says the UN, as ministers meet for a day of talks on biodiversity.

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10 Terrible Things Republicans Will Try to Do If They Take Over in November

Democrats are in trouble come November. If current polling is any indication, Republicans have a good chance of reclaiming a majority in the House of Representatives and perhaps even the Senate (though the Senate is a less likely prospect). Perhaps Americans should know what's really at stake if this batch of Republicans takes over Congress in November.

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In U.S. Transition Towns, the Big Challenge is Bringing People Together

Michael Brownlee, co-founder of Transition Colorado, says U.S. Transition Towns are based on the original British model and attract the same kind of people. What’s different about the United States—what Brownlee calls “ground zero for climate change”—is that there’s more work to do here than anywhere else to achieve food independence, freedom from fossil fuels, and the network of relationships necessary in a Transition Town.

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Robert Parry: This Country Just Can't Deal with Reality Any More

As Election Day 2010 approaches – as the United States wallows in the swamps of war, recession and environmental degradation – the consequences of the nation’s three-decade-old decoupling from reality are becoming painfully obvious.

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