Jim Hightower, over at Nation of Change published quite a long and detailed article on Cooperatives as a practical and desirable alternative to the usual Corporations. Cooperatives Over Corporations has a lot of valuable information about the size of the movement here in the United States and some terrific comments about why Cooperatives are so preferable to Corporations.
Just about the only timely thing in the article is a reference to the International Year of Cooperatives which will go stale after 2012. Otherwise, the article is a good, folksy, fact-packed introduction for folks uncomfortable with the movement and its aims and successes. The only criticism I might level is that Hightower doesn't point to as many of the Associations or any other sources of additional information. Anyone making it to this site has plenty of places to go from here but the Hightower article doesn't offer those jumping off points. Still, I highly recommend it as a go-to article to introduce the value of the Cooperatives to the US economy.