World Poetry Movement: A Leap Forward

                     CALL

The World Poetry Movement (WPM)/Movimiento Mundiale de

Poesia (MMP) is pleased to announce to the world its next major

event, which is called:

 

       A      LEAP      FORWARD

and will take place E V E R YW H E R E on the Leap-year Day

and Night, WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY  29, 2012. The Co-

ordinating Committee of the WPM/MMP urges all poets, groups

involved with poetry throughout the world, to begin organizing

events in their particular areas—-whether it involves cities, small

towns or villages—under the umbrella of A LEAP FORWARD.

 

It may seem only a coincidence but the Occupy Wall Street move-

ment that began of September 17. 2011 occurred within the process

of the call for 100 Thousand Poets for Change, the WPM event that

manifested on September 24 of last year. And we have seen that,

with th Occupy movement bursting out and proliferating all over,

“there’s a poem being written by the people of the world” and it is

filled with cries for justice and real democracy, with all the aspects of

life—-from the economic to the ecological—that were part of the very

formation of the WPM itself, simply because they are part of the fabric

of people’s yearnings everywhere.

Events that will be multiple leaps forward under A LEAP FORWARD

moniker—events with poets who, in the past year, (what with Tunisia,

Egypt, Wisconsin, to name but a few), have been catalyzed by dynamic

inspiration and realize their consciousness of the world has grown by

leaps and bounds, can reveal those passionate leaps as part of the great

flow of events on Leap-year Day and Night, 2012, and collectively move

the whole world forward toward the democracy that all of us are dying

for and want to attain before we die.

         Let the WPM/MMP know where your event will be held by writing:                                worldpoetrymovement@gmail.com

 

Let’s Organize The Greatest Poetry Events In The History Of The Word

                            And The World By Taking

               A LEAP FORWARD

Art, Labor, Politics

I was in my early twenties when I recognized the need to become politically active.  I had entered medical school in the fall, 1964.  When Johnson was elected president that year, it was a response to Barry Goldwater’s jingoistic arguments to expand the war ongoing in Southeast Asia and a defense of his “Great Society” legislation.  Even as the war expanded, a certain ticket for young physicians overseas,  I came face to face with the fact that health care was available to the wealthy and not to the poor.  Training at Los Angeles County Hospital forced me to confront the lessons we were learning:  that our alcoholic, downtrodden, acutely and chronically  ill patients were worthless human beings.  Other students, like me disturbed by the discrepancy in health services to residents of Beverly Hills and Watts, had started a school newspaper.  They’d titled it Borborygmi — presumably the protesting bowel sounds emerging from the shit of our human detritus.  It was here that I first learned about layout and combining art with text.  Here I copied the pictures from the Dover edition of the drawings and etchings and block prints of Kathe Kollwitz.  Some 45 years ago I stumbled on the connection between art, labor and politics that I have been grappling with ever since.

Yes, I had listened to The Weavers, Pete Seeger, and others.  But now I learned to manipulate visual images to enhance the printed word.  And so perhaps this was the first time I considered art as more than spectacle, instead something with which to engage, in which to participate.

Tonight I spent 30 minutes waiting in the Democratic Party HQ in Rogers Park, where I live, waiting to confront the alderman.  The liberal Joe Moore had voted, along with every other alderman, to support the budget of incoming mayor Rahm Emmanuel.  Every alderman, including the liberal Joe Moore, had voted to cut services to the mentally ill and considerably more. As we confronted him, took over his meeting, warned him that we were watching, pictures flashed deep in my brain, remembrances of times when I first found Kollwitz.   When I first saw those wide eyed children with their empty plates gazing upward for food;  the woman being torn asunder and the women grouped together for their collective protection and strength. Tonight one of my cohorts asked how it was possible for artists to respond so quickly to the changing conditions that they find with new and more inventive cartoons at every instance of oppression.

I give thanks to Kollwitz to this very day for making me aware of the importance of combining art and politics, how the artist draws inspiration from the battles of daily life to survive.  And how the artist helps to transform the consciousness, the understanding of the tasks we all have to transform the society in which children have to beg for their next meals.

A number of you-tube videos are available of her work:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AzabzZft6WQ

with a Mikis Theodorakis score:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UJiLp3AUqCY&feature=related

another very dark score:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VB1wbzC13-E&feature=related

Lew Rosenbaum — Monday, 21 November, 2011

Global Poetic Action – 24th September/ World Poetry Movement/100,000 Poets for Change

“ Due to the nature of poetry, the World Poetry Movement supports and will always support the thoughts, actions and measures that can contribute to world peace, the defense of all life on earth, the sustainable development of a new world, the restoration of beauty, dignity and truth, in the process of a persistent strengthening of poetry’s presence in contemporary society worldwide.”

Global Poetic Action – 24th September

Fri, 08/26/2011 – 13:23 — wpm2011

Statement of the World Poetry Movement

   The World Poetry Movement was founded in the context of the World Gathering of Directors from 37 International Poetry Festivals, held in Medellin, Colombia, between July 4-8th, 2011.

   There they discussed the connection between poetry and peace, the reconstruction of the human spirit, the reconciliation and recovery of nature, the unity and cultural diversity of peoples, material poverty and poetic justice, and possible actions to take in favor of the globalization of poetry.

   A month later, the World Poetry Movement has been joined by 86 international poetry festivals and 465 poets from 98 countries from all continents.

   One of the goals is to include most of the strongest international poetry festivals, poets, schools of poetry and printed and virtual publications, to increase our mutual cooperation and thus energize the individual and collective voice of poetry in our time.

   Recently the World Poetry Movement has been joined by the “100,000 Poets for Change” project (www.100TPC.org), a bold initiative by poets Michael Rothenberg and Terri Carrión, in California, who have proposed the implementation of a worldwide poetic action, next September 24th, 2011 in 350 cities worldwide.

   Due to the nature of poetry, the World Poetry Movement supports and will always support the thoughts, actions and measures that can contribute to world peace, the defense of all life on earth, the sustainable development of a new world, the restoration of beauty, dignity and truth, in the process of a persistent strengthening of poetry’s presence in contemporary society worldwide.

   Poetry is knowledge, reflection and enlightenment, liberation, contemplation and action, lightning, creative imagination and brotherhood, spiritual unity of individuals and peoples, past, present and future of humanity.

   World Poetry Movement calls on all its members, poets and international poetry festivals, to plan, develop and spread poetic actions and Simultaneous poetry readings, across the planet, next September 24th, 2011, to consolidate our organizational process, making a formidable display of poetic power possible in the world, in hundreds of cities and villages on Earth.

   We ask you to please inform us shortly on the decisions taken regarding this proposal to the following email: worldpoetrymovement@gmail.com

WORLD POETRY MOVEMENT COORDINATING COMMITTEE

   Peter Rorvik (South Africa), Bas Kwakman (Netherlands), Jack Hirschman (United States of America), Rati Saxena (India), Alex Pausides (Cuba), Amir Or (Israel), Iryna Vikyrchak (Ukraine), Fernando Rendón (Colombia).

Read more here.

Green Corn Rebellion, Then and Now: by Chris Mahin

August 2, 2011

Today is the 94th anniversary of the Green Corn Rebellion. Below is an article about the event, adapted slightly from a labor history piece I wrote several years ago.

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The Green Corn Rebellion of August 1917:
Oklahoma’s dispossessed rebel against ‘rich man’s war’

by Chris Mahin

Some would have us believe that the South, the West, and the rural areas have always been conservative. The month of August contains the anniversary of an event which disproves that claim.

On August 2, 1917, the Green Corn Rebellion began in Oklahoma. This little-known
chapter of history was an armed rebellion led by impoverished tenant farmers and former railroad workers.

The rebellion took place just weeks after the federal government began military conscription. (The United States entered World War I on April 6, 1917.) While the Green Corn Rebellion included African-Americans and Native Americans, the overwhelming majority of the insurgents were white Southern rural people.

Times were hard in Oklahoma in the early 1900s. After the Civil War ended, the “robber barons” made huge fortunes. The expansion of the railroads drove many small farmers into poverty. Farming in Oklahoma was commercial; tenant farmers were wage laborers. Cotton production doubled between 1909 and 1919, making Oklahoma the fourth-largest cotton producer among the states.

Over 60 percent of mortgaged farms were lost to foreclosure during the two years before the Green Corn Rebellion. More than half the farms were worked by tenants. The rates were even higher in the southeastern Oklahoma counties where the rebellion took place.

Conditions were harsh. Even a grade-school education was rare. People were very poor and always in debt.

Far from being conservatives, the tenant farmers and rural workers of Oklahoma of that time were often very radical. Between 1906 and 1917, the Industrial Workers of the World and the Socialist Party recruited many people. In 1914, the Socialist Party had more dues-paying members in Oklahoma than in any other state. (It had 57,000 members in Oklahoma who were organized in 1,500 locals.) That year, Oklahoma elected over 100 Socialists to office. In 1914, the Socialist Party candidate for governor won 21 percent of the vote.

The Green Corn Rebellion was organized by the Working Class Union. The group’s constitution said that all members of the working class over the age of 18, “regardless of race, sex, color, or occupation” could join, and that “any means necessary” would be used to better the conditions of the working people. The group’s first demand was for the “total abolition of the crime, disease, and death-producing practice of rent, interest, and profit-taking.”

Even after two of its leaders – “Rube” Munson and Homer Spence – had been indicted for obstructing the draft, the Working Class Union continued to organize in eastern Oklahoma. By midsummer 1917, it had recruited a membership of between 18,000 to 35,000 people. On August 2, the Seminole County sheriff and some deputies set out to investigate alleged radical activities in an area known for its WCU sympathies. The lawmen were ambushed and forced to flee by five black men who were part of the WCU. That evening, the WCU called a secret meeting on a sandbar in the Canadian River.

Munson and Spence – who were free on bail – urged resisters to arm themselves and prepare for a fight. Opposition to the war and the draft had been on the rise since the spring.

On the morning of August 3, resisters gathered on a bluff near a farm. (The owner had hoisted the red flag of rebellion above his barn a few days before.) During the night, raiding parties went out to cut telegraph and telephone wires and burn railroad bridges in the area. They also blew up some oil pipelines. Other rebels moved into the poor cotton country south of the Canadian River, where they called for armed action against the draft.

The main group of militants on Spears’ Bluff assembled more supporters from the surrounding tenant country. This support included a group of black sharecroppers who were members of the WCU and several Native Americans.
At Spears’ Bluff, “Rube” Munson told the group that other uprisings were taking place and that a large army of Wobblies would march on Washington and put an end to the war and the draft. The Working Class Union should start its own march to Washington and link up with thousands of other farmers and workers.

However, the rebels never started for Washington. After hearing about the insurgents’ activities, a posse of 70 men mobilized and headed for the rebels’ encampment. When the insurgents saw the armed posse moving toward them, they dispersed. “The papers said we were cowards, but we weren’t,” one rebel explained. “Some of the men in the posse were neighbors of ours and we couldn’t shoot ’em down in cold blood. That’s the way we felt ’bout the Germans too. … We didn’t have no quarrel with them at all.”
For the next week, posses hunted down hundreds. They fought several bloody engagements with hold-outs, but within days, the authorities had crushed the rebellion. Of the 450 men arrested, 150 were convicted.

The rebellion’s leaders were given stiff sentences. Some were not released until a presidential pardon in 1921. The supporters of the war and the enemies of labor blamed the Socialist Party for the rebellion. There were cross-burnings all over the state, as the Ku Klux Klan grew.

The attacks on civil liberties in Oklahoma coincided with a nationwide assault on free speech and the labor movement. These attacks destroyed the Socialist Party in Oklahoma and the Industrial Workers of the World throughout the country.
The Green Corn Rebellion has much to teach us. In a time of great turmoil, when the wealth of the country was concentrated in the hands of a tiny group of robber barons, the poor of the South took a stand against economic injustice and a war they felt this country had no business being involved in.

The wisdom of the Green Corn rebels can be seen in the words on one of their posters, found along the country roads in Marshall and Bryan counties: “Now is the time to rebel against the war with Germany, boys. Get together, boys, and don’t go. Rich man’s war. Poor man’s fight. If you don’t go, J.P. Morgan Co. is lost. Speculation is the only cause of war. Rebel now.” While the world is very different today than it was in 1917, one thing hasn’t changed: When this country fights wars, it is still the rich who benefit, and the poor who do the fighting and dying.

There But For Fortune: The Film Bio of Phil Ochs Reviewed By Howard Romaine

SIXTIES SINGER-SONGWRITER-ORGANIZER PHIL OCHS BIO OPENS

By HOWARD ROMAINE, writer, http://www.thetennesseetribune.com/

Just days after its opening in Boston, DC, and other places, the new film biography of Phil
Ochs opened in NASHVILLE at the Belcourt Theatre. If one wants a good, brief biography of the
sixties, taught from the perspective of the ‘singer-songwriter,’ this is the movie. If one wants to see
the origins of the singer-songwriter ‘folk’ crowd before it moved out to places like Nashville, New Orleans, Boston, San Francisco and Macon, and Atlanta, Georgia, Austin, Texas, and Woodstock, New York, this is your movie.
If one is younger, and wants, from lack of personal knowledge,  a puzzled back look
at what all the musical and cultural excitement and horror of the sixties was about – from the perspective of the young and engaged – this is the one movie one should see, and have history classes see.

http://trailers.apple.com/trailers/independent/philochstherebutforfortune/

From the early photos, movies and songs about the election of President Kennedy and his idealistic energy to the spread of this spirit to “Negroes” demanding the vote, or a seat at the table, to images of the death of Medgar Evers, and Malcolm X,  to the dogs attacking demonstrators in Birmingham, one gets the perspective and the reactions of the young folk crowd in New York, and, in effect, literary commentary on those events which were, at least in my case, as a college student of the era, the ‘facts’ as well as the ‘feelings’ about the facts which only songs, and songs from a certain milieu, in this case, Greenwich Village, and the urban sophisticated ‘south’ of ‘the movement,’ and the folk and coffee houses there, could provide.

Omission – the black presence and creative factor

Unfortunately, for me, the movie fails to provide much of the ‘black song’ which also arose from and enveloped these events – songs by Nashville and New York’s Julius Lester, or Cordell Reagon, or LA’s Lynn Chandler, or Albany and Atlanta’s Bernice Johnson Reagon, who met and married Nashville’s Cordell in the SNCC’s ‘Freedom Singers,’ and continued to  create, throughout her career, the musical soundtrack to the resistance to the racist repression of the sixties and ensuing years, rising to a high tide with Barry Goldwater, and his clone, Ronald Reagan.

After an early career with the SNCC Freedom Singers, and a move to DC for a Ph.D. at Howard in Musicology, Dr. Bernice Johnson Reagon’s created and sustained the acapella genius of Sweet Honey in the Rock, and helped Anne Romaine, here in Nashville, and thru the region,  sustain the folk cultural vision for years with events like the Grass Roots Days in Nashville, and concerts with artists around the country as diverse as John D. Loudermilk to Babe Stovall, and the Rev. Pearly Brown, Pete and Mike Seeger, Alice and Hazel, and Lynn Chandler,  and many other artists linked like chains of visionary poets to the principal events sadly and sharply depicted in this movie – from civil rights to Kennedy deaths, to Lyndon Johnson’s war in Vietnam, to its continuation by the two criminals Nixon and Spiro Agnew, shown here as they ascend; and the New York folk scene shifts from vocal opposition to active organizing – a role of Ochs which was new and revealing to me. It would have made a better, and more balanced,  movie to show the black origins of the music and organizing tradition of the era, as best reflected in Dr. Reagon’s long career.

However, many of the other leading lights of the era appear to give commentary, from Joan Baez, to Pete Seeger, to the record company executives of Electra, Ochs early publisher, to A & M, his publisher as he moved to Los Angeles in the second half of the sixties decade and to new alternative musical modes of creativity, to other musicians, friends, and relatives, sister, brother, daughter, whose appearance as a small child is one of the more moving black and white images in the middle part of the film, as her color commentary at the end, about  her father’s life and legacy, is sobering.

The extent of Ochs’ career, as a writer, as well as an activist, which continues with artists like Buono, of U2, is well captured with many later artist-activists, many of which I did not know. The early village scene with artists like Bob Dylan, and Baez, and the concurrent musical themes reacting to the events in the South is very well captured. And the size and diversity of his musical creations are given regular short shots throughout the movie, well paced between song, interview and visuals. Many of Ochs best known performances are available now on UTube, for example -

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L5pgrKSwFJE

Although I had read of the competition between Ochs and Dylan, and it is briefly touched on in the movie, it is not a main theme, and indeed, their complimentary if competitive paths re-coalesce at an Ochs organized benefit after the CIA sponsored military takeover of the Allende democrats in Chile, in which the singer-songwriter, Victor Jara, was led into a stadium, filled with onlookers, and the singer’s fingers and hands were systematically smashed by rifle butts as a warning to the populace.

Ochs was sufficiently political and world traveled to have visited the Chilean singer just before the military coup, and organized a concert in Carnegie Hall to protest the vivid and viscious symbolic smashing of the songwriter’s hands by the Nixon-Kissinger-CIA backed military hunta.

According to the movie, the singer, Victor Jara, walked, his hands bleeding, toward the stands, and began to sing a patriotic song, and was joined by all in the stands, gradually, before he was shot down, murdered by the military.

Ochs and Village friends organized a Carnegie protest of this to bring it to world attention. The reconnection between Dylan and Ochs at this event is emphasized, rather than their sometime brutal competition, as footage of their joining together at the Carnegie Concert is shown, an event, again, which had slipped my ordinarily unrelenting Dylan history memory.

One could continue, as some reviews do, with reflections on Ochs ‘manic-depression’ and growing alcoholism, or marvel at his various incarnations – as an Elvis interpreter, in self-ironic jest – as a co-hort of the ‘yippies’ Ruben and Abbie Hoffman, (another alleged ‘manic depressive’ and drug abuser), or speculate about the lack of support of friends and family as he descended into ‘madness’ which various scenes toward the end capture – but, to me, this tragic aspect of his life is not the centerpiece.

No, that’s the beautiful voice, the tunes seemingly unending from his guitar, his laugh and joy in creation and opposition, and the contrast between a beautiful, if defeated creative life, and various evil, misguided, and murderous policies he dedicated his life and art to opposing.

Go see the movie for yourself. Or read the reviews, then go see it.

http://www.beyondchron.org/articbeles/Film_Review_Phil_Ochs_There_But_For_Fortune__8994.html

It plays two or three more days at the Belcourt. It’s the best movie I’ve ever seen about the sixties, but then, again, I see the era from the vantage point of its early literature – the song!! And, I know tragedy and literary triumph interconnect like earth, rain and spring.

How the Pentagon Turns Working-Class Men into the Deadliest Killers on the Planet

[Some folks have been decrying the torture behind turning dogs into killing machines.  Here David Swanson points out how the pentagon, as an organized force (not an aberration) turn human beings into killing machines.  Perhaps the model we are supposed to follow in society, one that requires "a few good men" to step forward and do their duty, provides the context for violence in the rest of society.  This excerpt from a book by Swanson was published on his blog, Let's Try Democracy,  and on Alternet. -- Lew Rosenbaum]

---

By davidswanson – Posted on 14 December 2010

By David Swanson, davidswanson.org
http://www.alternet.org/story/149165/

The following is an excerpt from David Swanson’s self-published new book War is a Lie (David Swanson, 2010).

Since the Vietnam War, the United States has dropped all pretense of a military draft equally applied to all. Instead we spend billions of dollars on recruitment, increase military pay, and offer signing bonuses until enough people “voluntarily” join by signing contracts that allow the military to change the terms at will. If more troops are needed, just extend the contracts of the ones you’ve got. Need more still? Federalize the National Guard and send kids off to war who signed up thinking they’d be helping hurricane victims. Still not enough? Hire contractors for transportation, cooking, cleaning, and construction. Let the soldiers be pure soldiers whose only job is to kill, just like the knights of old. Boom, you’ve instantly doubled the size of your force, and nobody’s noticed except the profiteers.

Still need more killers? Hire mercenaries. Hire foreign mercenaries. Not enough? Spend trillions of dollars on technology to maximize the power of each person. Use unmanned aircraft so nobody gets hurt. Promise immigrants they’ll be citizens if they join. Change the standards for enlistment: take ‘em older, fatter, in worse health, with less education, with criminal records. Make high schools give recruiters aptitude test results and students’ contact information, and promise students they can pursue their chosen field within the wonderful world of death, and that you’ll send them to college if they live — hey, just promising it costs you nothing. If they’re resistant, you started too late. Put military video games in shopping malls. Send uniformed generals into kindergartens to warm the children up to the idea of truly and properly swearing allegiance to that flag. Spend 10 times the money on recruiting each new soldier as we spend educating each child. Do anything, anything, anything other than starting a draft.

But there’s a name for this practice of avoiding a traditional draft. It’s called a poverty draft. Because people tend not to want to participate in wars, those who have other career options tend to choose those other options. Those who see the military as one of their only choices, their only shot at a college education, or their only way to escape their troubled lives are more likely to enlist. According to the Not Your Soldier Project:

“The majority of military recruits come from below-median income neighborhoods.

“In 2004, 71 percent of black recruits, 65 percent of Latino recruits, and 58 percent of white recruits came from below-median income neighborhoods. “The percentage of recruits who were regular high school graduates dropped from 86 percent in 2004 to 73 percent in 2006. “[The recruiters] never mention that the college money is difficult to come by – only 16 percent of enlisted personnel who completed four years of military duty ever received money for schooling. They don’t say that the job skills they promise won’t transfer into the real world. Only 12 percent of male veterans and 6 percent of female veterans use skills learned in the military in their current jobs. And of course, they downplay the risk of being killed while on duty.”

In a 2007 article Jorge Mariscal cited analysis by the Associated Press that found that “nearly three-fourths of [U.S. troops] killed in Iraq came from towns where the per capita income was below the national average. More than half came from towns where the percentage of people living in poverty topped the national average.” (Click here to read more)

Automation & Robotics News – Dec. 12, 2010, from Tony Zaragoza

[This issue includes information on a robot who could be taking your medical history soon, the wikileaks revelation that drones are on everyone's list to Santa, and, if you thought that China might be the last haven for those pursuing low wage workers, think again:  see below to find the "waiter" who may be serving you in Chinese restaurants.]

The Northrop-built drone touched down late Tuesday night at Edwards Air Force Base in Southern California after spending more than a day aloft.

Automation and Robotics News–Dec 12, 2010

Archives: http://academic.evergreen.edu/z/zaragozt/arnews.htm

TERROR, MILITARY, POLICING, SURVEILLANCE

High-Flying Spy Drone, Powered By Liquid Coal

Jason Paur, November 24, 2010

No unmanned aircraft in the American arsenal flies higher or longer than the Global Hawk. On Tuesday, it soared high and long, powered by a blend of synthetic fuel. The Northrop-built drone touched down late Tuesday night at Edwards Air Force Base in Southern California after spending more than a day aloft. Both the Navy and Air Force have flown numerous other aircraft using other non-traditional jet fuels, but this is both the first for an unmanned aircraft, and the first time any type of aircraft has flown with this type of fuel. JP-8 jet fuel (the kind typically used in the Air Force) was combined with a synthetic paraffinic kerosene derived from liqufied coal, and another derived from natural gas, to make up the blend.

Air Force on Secret Space Plane: Nothing to See Here, Move Along

David Axe, December 7, 2010

The Air Force has news for anyone looking for sinister motives behind the flying branch’s latest orbital gizmo: the mysterious, high-tech X-37B space plane. The 29-foot-long robotic shuttle — vaguely labeled a “test asset” by the Pentagon — returned to earth on Friday after 224 days, nine hours and 24 minutes in space. In those eight months, observers speculated that the X-37 might be a prototype bomber, a satellite-snatching snoop or a speedy, quick-reacting sensor platform. Forget it, Richard McKinney, Deputy Undersecretary of the Air Force for Space Programs, said Monday. “I applaud the ingenuity and innovation of some reports, but really it’s as described. This is a test vehicle, pure and simple.” But a test vehicle for what? Well, for testing, McKinney said. The way he described it, the X-37 should eventually function as an orbital laboratory for new satellite components and other space gear — pricey stuff that today gets boosted into the heavens with very little realistic testing. “If we could place technology in orbit, check it out and bring back to earth, that would be significant accomplish,” he said. “The purpose of this particular mission was the vehicle. In order do the other things we talked about … we’ve got to have a vehicle to do that.”

All the same, the X-37 did carry something in its payload bay during its inaugural flight — something secret, McKinney admitted. “It’s not unusual for us to put satellites into orbit that are classified. This is no different than that.”

WikiLeaks Reveals Everybody’s Christmas List: The World Wants Drones

WikiLeaks Reveals Everybody’s Christmas List: The World Wants Drones

Adam Rawnsley, November 29, 2010

Black Friday has passed, but the holidays are upon us and shopping days are increasingly few. Having a hard time finding the perfect gift for that tiny emirate hoping to psych out Iran or the large NATO ally looking to fight terrorism in Iraq? Fortunately for you, WikiLeaks has revealed the number one item atop seemingly everybody’s wish list: drones. Only a select few close American allies have the export-restricted Predator B (a.k.a. MQ-9 Reaper) armed drones, but that hasn’t stopped countries from the United Arab Emirates to Turkey from pestering & pleading with America to sell them the shiniest new toy, the WikiLeaks document show.

AGRICULTURE AND FOOD PRODUCTION

Strawberry-picking robot knows when they’re ripe

Robots to put ripe strawberries on your table

December 13, 2010 Posted by Tim Hornyak

Japan prepares to unleash a strawberry-harvesting robot on the world.

Robot’s singular job: Cutting flesh from pig bone

Tuesday, December 07, 2010 Posted by Matt Hickey

Some people are scared of clowns, some of zombies. I’m scared of giant robots with knives programmed to slice meat from a pig’s thigh.

Entwistle’s of Ramsbottom sets one-year target to double sauce production

FoodManufacture.co.uk - 12/13/10

While Entwistle said that Lancashire Sauce was looking into taking on another team member, he stressed that the investment in automation was intended to …

SERVICE SECTOR

Robots wait on you in this Chinese restaurant

Robots serving food in this restaurant in . . . China!

Thursday, December 09, 2010 Posted by Juniper Foo

At China’s Dalu Rebot (sic) restaurant, patrons are greeted by robot receptionists and attended by robo-waiters. Fortunately, real-life cooks are on hand in the kitchen.

Personal Robotics Market to Top $19 Billion in 2017

Sales of telepresence and security robots are helping to drive the latest forecast.

Robotics Trends Staff – Filed Dec 13, 2010

While many consumers’ current interaction with robots is limited to those that clean their floors, pools, or gutters, ABI Research, in its market study “Personal Robotics,” forecasts that the personal robotics market will grow to more than $19 billion in 2017, driven in large part by sales of telepresence and security robots featuring high-quality cameras, microphones, and processors that allow the robots to serve as interactive substitutes for human beings.

“Hi I’m a robot. I’ll be your doctor today.”

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel (blog) - Mark Johnson - Dec 8, 2010

The engineers say the technology now exists to design robot assistants competent to perform in the high-stress environment of a hospital emergency room.

GOVERNMENT AND POLITICS

Section 179: Take Advantage of Tax Deduction in 2010

Robotworx.com, December 07, 2010

Considering purchasing robots, workcells, or other robotic equipment soon? Why not make this capital investment now, before the end of the year. This way you can take

Romeo, shown here in a computer-generated rendering, is a French humanoid robot designed to assist elderly and disabled people. Image: Aldebaran Robotics

advantage of Section 179 tax incentives.

BUSINESS OF AUTOMATION AND ROBOTICS

Automate Keynote Speaker Tom Ridge

November 23, 2010

First Secretary of Homeland Security and Distinguished Statesman

Two major automation and logistics shows, Automate 2011 and ProMat 2011, are collocated March 21-24 in Chicago, Illinois at McCormick Place and together bring you a special keynote speaker, Tom Ridge, on Monday, March 21. His topic is, “Fortune Favors the Brave: The Net Gain of Supply Chain Security in a Risk-based World.”

RESEARCH AND NEW DEVELOPMENTS

France Developing Advanced Humanoid Robot Romeo

Erico Guizzo  /  Mon, December 13, 2010

France is set to join the select club of countries that have developed advanced adult-size humanoid robots. Paris-based Aldebaran Robotics, famed for its small humanoid robot Nao, is working with major French research organizations to build a larger and more capable humanoid called Romeo, to be unveiled next March. Designed to assist elderly and disabled individuals in their daily activities, the 1.4-meter-tall robot will be able to walk through a home, fetching food from the kitchen, taking out the garbage, and acting as a loyal companion who helps entertain its owners and keep tabs on their health.

Running robot aims to take on Usain Bolt

Monday, December 13, 2010 Posted by Leslie Katz

Aptly named Athlete, bipedal robot developed in Japan takes a biomechanical approach to running in an attempt to mimic human flexibility and agility.

Buffy St. Marie

“Good mother nature on a luncheon plate/ They carve her up and call it real estate.”

As the person who sent this to us said: “this kicks some butt! Disco/tribal/protest.”

Watch and listen here.

Teachers Condemn FBI Raids on Trade Union, Anti-War and Solidarity Activists

Condemn FBI Raids on Trade Union, Anti-War and Solidarity Activists

Committee to Stop FBI Repression | October 20, 2010 at 12:08 am | Categories: Solidarity Statements |
The following resolution was submitted by San Jose, California Local 6157 of the American Federation of Teachers to the south Bay AFL-CIO Labor Council where it passed by a unanimous vote on October 18, 2010

Condemn FBI Raids on Trade Union, Anti-War and Solidarity Activists

Whereas, early morning Sept. 24 in coordinated raids, FBI agents entered eight homes and offices of trade union and anti-war activists in Minneapolis and Chicago, confiscating crates full of computers, books, documents, notebooks, cell phones, passports, children’s drawings, photos of Martin Luther King and Malcolm X, videos and personal belongings. The FBI also raided offices of the Twin Cities Anti-war Committee, seizing computers; handed out subpoenas to testify before a federal Grand Jury to 11 activists in Illinois, Minnesota and Michigan; and paid harassment visits to others in Wisconsin, California and North Carolina; and

Whereas, one target of the raid was the home of Joe Iosbaker, chief steward and executive board member of SEIU Local 73 in Chicago, where he has led struggles at the University of Illinois for employee rights and pay equity. Brother Iosbaker told the Democracy Now radio/TV program that FBI agents “systematically [went] through every room, our basement, our attic, our children’s rooms, and pored through not just all of our papers, but our music collection, our children’s artwork, my son’s poetry journal from high school — everything.” He and his wife, a Palestine solidarity activist, were both issued subpoenas. The earliest subpoena dates are October 5 and 7; and

Whereas, the majority of those targeted by the FBI raids had participated in anti-war protests at the 2008 Republican National Convention in St. Paul MN, which resulted in hundreds of beatings and arrests [with almost all charges subsequently dropped]. Many of those targeted in the 9/24 raids were involved in humanitarian solidarity work with labor and popular movements in Colombia — “the most dangerous place in the world to be a trade unionist”– whose US-funded government has been condemned by the AFL-CIO and internationally for the systematic assassination of hundreds of trade unionists; and

Whereas, the nationally coordinated dawn raids and fishing expedition marks a new and dangerous chapter in the protracted assault on the First Amendment rights of every union fighter, solidarity activist or anti-war campaigner, which began with 9/11 and the USA Patriot Act. The raids came only 4 days after a scathing report by the Department of Justice Inspector General that soundly criticized the FBI for targeting domestic groups such as Greenpeace and the Thomas Merton Center from 2002-06. In 2008, according to a 300-page report obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, the FBI trailed a group of students in Iowa City to parks, libraries, bars and restaurants, and went through their trash. This time the FBI is using the pretext of investigating “terrorism” in an attempt to intimidate activists.

Therefore be it resolved, that the South Bay AFL-CIO Labor Council denounce the Sept. 24th FBI raids on the homes and offices of trade union, solidarity and anti-war activists in Minneapolis, Chicago and elsewhere; the confiscation of computers and personal belongings; and the issuance of Grand Jury subpoenas. This has all the earmarks of a fishing expedition. The FBI raids are reminiscent of the Palmer Raids, McCarthy hearings, J. Edgar Hoover, and COINTELPRO, and mark a new and dangerous chapter in the protracted assault on the First Amendment rights of every union fighter, international solidarity activist or anti-war campaigner, which began with 9/11 and the USA Patriot Act;

And be it further resolved, that this Council make the following demands:

1.  Stop the repression against trade union, anti-war and international solidarity activists.

2.  Immediately return all confiscated materials: computers, cell phones, papers, documents, personal belongings, etc.

3.  End the Grand Jury proceedings and FBI raids against trade union, anti-war and international solidarity activists;

And be it further resolved, that this Council participate in the ongoing movement to defend our civil rights and civil liberties from FBI infringement; forward this resolution to our affiliates, Bay Area labor councils, California Labor Federation, Change to Win and AFL-CIO; and call on these organizations at all levels to similarly condemn the witch hunt;

And be it finally resolved, that this Council urge the AFL-CIO to ensure that denunciation of the FBI raids is featured from the speakers’ platform at the October 2, 2010 One Nation march in Washington, DC, possibly by inviting one of those targeted by the raids, for example the SEIU chief steward whose home was raided, to speak at the rally.

40th Anniversary of the Chicano Moratorium — Mark Vallen’s Art on the Line

(There is a reason to remember muralist David Alfaro Siquieros on the anniversary of the great march of 30,000 against the Vietnam War in East Los Angeles:)

SIQUEIROS AND
THE GRAPHIC ARTS:
Vallen speaks at Autry National Center sponsored event.

On Saturday, September 18, 2010, Vallen will be speaking about David Alfaro Siqueiros at the Center for the Arts in Eagle Rock, California, at a panel discussion sponsored by the Autry National Center of Los Angeles and the José Vera Gallery of L.A.
Titled A Print Dialogue: Siqueiros & The Graphic Arts, the round-table talk will be moderated by Cynthia McMullen – Senior Curator for the Museum of Latin American Art, with fellow panelists including artists Wayne Healy and Luis Ituarte. Art historian Catha Paquette and curator Lynn LaBate, who collaborated on the Autry’s momentous exhibit Siqueiros in Los Angeles: Censorship Defied (which opens at the Autry on Sept. 24, 2010) will also appear as panelists.
The focus of the panel discussion at the Center for the Arts will be Siqueiros “as a print maker and graphic artist advancing a populist political agenda.” Vallen will spotlight a number of

Ruben Salazar, journalist murdered by LA Police Dept. during the Chicano Moratorium 40 years ago. Print by David Alfaro Siquieros, from the Jose Vera Gallery web site.

Siqueiros’ prints, the stories behind their creation, and why these socially conscious works continue to resonate in today’s world. Vallen will highlight the 1970 lithograph Siqueiros created of L.A. Times reporter Rubén Salazar, printed in the aftermath of the journalist being killed by the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department. Salazar was slain during the Chicano Moratorium anti-Vietnam war demonstration of August 1970, where sheriffs also killed three others involved in the massive protest of some 30,000 people.
On Aug. 28, 2010, up to 3,000 people marched in East L.A. in commemoration of the 40th anniversary of the Chicano Moratorium; this time protesting the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. As the multitudes passed the spot on Whittier Boulvard where Salazar had been murdered, hundreds of people heaped flowers upon the sidewalk in memory of the slain journalist.

The Siqueiros panel discussion is scheduled to begin at 6 p.m. The Center for the Arts is located at 2225 Colorado Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA 90041-1142. Phone: 323-226-1617. For more information on the event, visit the Art For A Change web log.

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