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"Richard_Stallman_at_LibrePlanet_2019" by Ruben Rodriguez
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"Richard_Stallman_at_LibrePlanet_2019" by Ruben Rodriguez
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Richard Stallman has cancer. Fortunately it is slow-growing and manageable follicular lymphoma. Treatment put it into remission, and he can expect to live many more years. However, he now has to be even more careful not to catch Covid-19.
The largest part of the site is the political notes, and they are typically updated every day.
I'm looking for people to
US citizens: call on your congresscritter and senators to investigate Paramount's takeover meant to control most news media.
See the instructions for how to sign this letter campaign without running any nonfree JavaScript code--not trivial, but not hard.
US citizens: Join with this campaign to address this issue.
To phone your congresscritter about this, the main switchboard is +1-202-224-3121.
Please spread the word.
US citizens: call on your congresscritter and senators to stop the Department of Hostility and Suspicion from surveilling unions, churches, activists, and other peaceful political activism.
See the instructions for how to sign this letter campaign without running any nonfree JavaScript code--not trivial, but not hard.
US citizens: Join with this campaign to address this issue.
To phone your congresscritter about this, the main switchboard is +1-202-224-3121.
Please spread the word.
US citizens: call on your state's Secretary of State to Refuse the wrecker's Voter-Data Grab.
See the instructions for how to sign this letter campaign without running any nonfree JavaScript code--not trivial, but not hard.
US citizens: call on the Senate to stop the permanent integration of American military tech with Israel.
See the instructions for how to sign this letter campaign without running any nonfree JavaScript code--not trivial, but not hard.
US citizens: Join with this campaign to address this issue.
To phone your congresscritter about this, the main switchboard is +1-202-224-3121.
Please spread the word.
US citizens: file a comment calling on the Forest Service to preserve the Roadless Rule that protects much of our national forests from being cut down.
US citizens: call on your congresscritter and senators to pass the Tax Excessive CEO Pay Act.
See the instructions for how to sign this letter campaign without running any nonfree JavaScript code--not trivial, but not hard.
US citizens: Join with this campaign to address this issue.
To phone your congresscritter about this, the main switchboard is +1-202-224-3121.
Please spread the word.
US citizens: call on your senators to vote for the Faster Labor Contracts Act, which would stop companies from stalling contract negotiations forever.
See the instructions for how to sign this letter campaign without running any nonfree JavaScript code--not trivial, but not hard.
US citizens: Join with this campaign to address this issue.
To phone your congresscritter about this, the main switchboard is +1-202-224-3121.
Please spread the word.
I'm looking for a cartoonist who would like to draw cartoons for me once in a while. If you're interested, please write to rms, which refers to me, at the location gnu period org.
Boycott Chevron, in the name of Steven Donziger.
* Abandoned coalmines and oil and gas wells are now one of the biggest sources of the powerful greenhouse gas methane, new data shows, and little effort is being made to clean them up.*
I expect that the fossil fuel companies to divest themselves from old mines and wells in ways that will avoid liability for them — just as they sometimes disconnect themselves from responsibility for supporting former workers.
So I suggest making it a felony to implement a restructuring of business or assets in a way that is likely to result predictably in strand assets that carry financial responsibilities with no one capable of shouldering the responsibilities.
A pitifully weak attempt to solve a real problem: asking for a federal law that would permit victims of domestic abuse and stalking to demand that data brokers delete information about them.
Data, once collected, will be abused. The way to prevent that abuse is to facilitate refusing to hand it over in the first place.
Here is my proposal for protecting the specific people known to be in particular danger, and everyone else who could be harmed if individuals, businesses or governments use their personal data against them without a search warrant: require services to be available anonymously.
The selfish interest of those who keep trade secrets is rational but antisocial. In many cases the only harm it does is to hold back the general advance of technology. But sometimes it does really nasty things. For digital hardware and software, it often gives companies a way to subjugate their users. Regarding use of toxic chemicals, it endangers public health.
Why would legislators pass laws to "protect" companies instead of protecting the people they harm? I suspect it is partly because these companies are influential and the legislators seek their support, and partly because the legislators ask them for campaign funds.
But it is also partly the result of the mindset of "trickle down", which assumes that the only way to get more funds for the state is to let increase the size of the economy by letting companies have what they want. Unfortunately, what they want is often to be allowed to harm the public.
Most Democrats in Congress got corrupted this way in the 80s and 90s. (The exceptions are the progressive Democrats.) Now in the UK Starmer is guiding Labour into that sort of corruption.
Clearly our laws should say that any public need to know about the presence of toxic substances in a business facility overrides the desire to keep them secret.
Whether the owners are Chinese is a question that there is no need to ask, because the state should never give money to a business "to support it." Instead it should offer to lend money to the company for suitable repayment, or else buy equity at a fair price.
These two ways of supporting a company avoid giving the owners an opporunity to rip off the state -- which the company's owners are likely to try to do, if they can, regardless of which country they are from.
With a policy like this, it wouldn't matter which country the company's owners are from.
Here are some quotations that I particularly like.
You can now read the political notes on Mastodon.
Global heating is an intentional outrage, not a natural calamity.
It is being done to us knowingly.
The US has participated since the Revolutionary War in efforts to curb the worst excesses of war. The sadist has declared his total opposition to that goal.
The US has not always lived up to that stated intention. The distribution of disease-laden blankets to indigenous people is one extreme example. We must recognize that the US has many wrongs to be ashamed of, even as it has many admirable traits to be proud of.
Comparing US history to the future that the sadist and his magats desire shows how vicious he and they are.
*U.S. Central Command maintains a secret directory of journalists who have been blacklisted by the press office.*
* Republicans who deny Joe Biden won the 2020 election are running for governor and secretary of state across the US.*
Each state's secretary of state is in charge of that state's elections. A secretary of state who endorses lies about recent past elections is likely to try to rig future elections.
It is clear that magats are organizing to eliminate honest elections in the US.
*Top US firms that backed Voting Rights Act [(in 2021) now] donate to groups working to undermine it.*
A wind-driven fire near Reno, Nevada is spreading so fast that it is hard for people to evacuate fast enough to get away. It is even spreading across fire trucks, carried I suppose by blowing embers.
This is part of the consequences of global heating, and if we don't curb greenhouse emissions fast, fire will become a frequent danger.
Ever since most Democratic officials abandoned New Deal-style support for the non-rich, environmental protection, climate defense, and equal rights, the candidates who seek to return the party to those causes have been tarred as "divisive".
We can't make the US livable for non-rich Americans by electing politicians who serve mainly the elites. Better to have a division over these issues than to ignore them.
*Millions in India stripped of vote before critical state election, as government seeks to "purify" electoral roll.*
The BJP passed two laws, a decade ago, with the combined effect of denying citizenship to Indian Muslims who lacked certain documentation for their ancestors. Hindus were not required to produce that documentation, only Muslims.
*[The saboteur's henchmen have] shut down more than 100 climate studies.*
The long-term plan may be to prevent the education of future climate scientists in the US. Since the saboteur in chief, and his billionaire oligarchs, reject the results of climate scientists, and they know (though they won't admit it) that climate scientists all warn about the danger of global heating, they would see no reason for climate research to be done or for anyone to think about it.
The bully's henchmen have fired the publisher and editor of the military newspaper Stars and Stripes for defending its traditional editorial independence.
The bully wants to convert every news medium in the US into his own house organ.
Hong Kong freedom activist Chow Hang-tung as been jailed for five years for trying to talk publicly about the Tien An Men square massacre in Beijing.She keeps her spirits up by writing about being in prison. Her motive:
A stubborn freak like me can only march on and fight my case till the end … Having a chance to exhaust oneself is better than living a purposeless life, isn’t it?
*"Darth Vader" comes out in favor of Flock cameras at San Diego city council meeting.
The dark lord – or someone dressed like him – said the technology would aid the empire in tracking "rebel scum".*
Many countries have imposed, or tolerated, practices of lawfare that make it possible to crush journalists that question the official line.
Republicans' long-term strategy, since Reagan, is to spend a lot of money (mainly on things that won't benefit non-rich Americans), refuse to raise taxes, and therefore greatly increase the national debt.
Subsequently, when Democrats were in power, they lambasted the Democrats for not cutting the spending that helps the non-rich to reduce the national debt.
What the corrupter is doing is basically more of the same, but with a change in details: he can count on nearly all Republicans in Congress to be so mindlessly loyal that they will rubber stamp even the most gratuitous and corrupt excuses to increase the debt.
*Trump nominates abortion opponent Heidi Overton to be head of FDA.* Those bastards live to make the people they hate suffer or die.
Israeli army has admitted that its soldiers fired at the car carrying Hind Rajab and her family, which is what killed them all. Also that it fired at the ambulance which was trying to reach them, killing some medics.
Previously the army lied about the circumstances to try to pass the blame to the medics.
* Wildfires are projected to burn 39% more of Europe by the end of the century even in the best-case scenario for stopping the planet from heating, a study has found, unless action is taken to manage them better.*
*[UK] Ministers are in denial about the scale of the [local climate] crises we face.*
*Having just 20 Defra staff working on climate adaptations show the government is not taking the challenges of heatwaves, wildfires and droughts seriously.*
(satire) *Todd Blanche Vows To Remain Fully Independent Of The Law.*
He was recently confirmed by magat senators as the Attorney General, but he remains effectively the corrupter's personal lawyer.
The four factors of the apocalypse:
global heating, global hating,
global eating, global mating.
Copy this button (courtesy of R.Siddharth) to express your rejection of Facebook.
Non-oppressive Commercial E-books
Facebook's face recognition demonstrates a threat to everyone's privacy. I therefore ask people not to put photos of me on Facebook; you can do likewise.
Of course, Facebook is bad for many other reasons as well.
I'd like to make a list of countries that do not require a national identity card, and have no plans to adopt one. If you live in or have confirmed knowledge of such a country, please send email to rms at gnu.org.
Here's my list of countries with no national ID cards and no plans for one: Australia, Canada, New Zealand, UK. Australia's previous government tried to institute national ID cards, but the Labor government dropped the plan.
India has mostly finished imposing a national biometric ID number in a grand act of oppression.
Switzerland has national ID cards which are optional, but they or some other government ID card are needed for some purposes.
Iceland doesn't have ID cards as such, but they have ID numbers that citizens are forced to use frequently. For example, the national ID number is often required to rent a video or use a gym.
Denmark issues non-photo ID cards with a "person number", and many services use this card to identify people.
Norway will impose a national biometric ID card.
Ireland - national ID card by stealth.
ACLU: the five dangers of national ID cards.
Wikipedia has a list of identity card policies by country.
Stay away from certain countries because of their bad immigration policies.
Avoid flight connections in these airports because of their treatment of passengers.
People often ask how I manage to continue devoting myself to progressive activism (such as the free software movement) for years without burning out. The best way I can answer is by recommending a book, The Lifelong Activist by Hillary Rettig.
I disagree with the book on one theoretical point in the last part of the book: we shouldn't think of political activism as being marketing and sales, because those terms refer to business, and politics is something much more important than mere business. However, this doesn't diminish the value of the book's practical advice about borrowing techniques from marketing and sales.
Disclosure: I am friends with the author.
Personal Declaration of Richard Stallman and Euclides Mance on Solidarity Economy and Free Software.
I have reposted some of Rick Falkvinge's articles. As posted on his site, you can't see them in a browser without running some nonfree Javascript code which is apparently non-free. These versions show the same text, without the obstacle.
These are my political articles that are not related to the GNU operating system or free software. For GNU-related articles, see the GNU philosophy directory. You can also download copies of my book, Free Software, Free Society, 3rd edition.
"Those who profess to favor freedom, yet depreciate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground. They want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters. This struggle may be a moral one; or it may be a physical one; or it may be both moral and physical; but it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will."Frederick Douglass, American Abolitionist, Letter to an associate, 1849
Here are notes about various issues I care about, usually with links to
more information. The current notes are
here. For all previous
notes, see this page.
See this page for information on efforts to maintain links in the political notes.
Political notes about the 2001 G8 summit in Genoa, Italy are being archived on their own page.
Richard Stallman's bio and publicity photos, and other things of interest to the press, have been moved to a separate page.
The Free Software Song, by Richard M. Stallman. You can listen to a performance of the song: Free Software Song performed by Thor Here is a variant of this song called "The Free Firmware Song".
Earth under attack from planet Koch.On doxing, and how to spell it.
A Spanish cartoon: La Ruleta
Española. 
Here I am wearing my "power tie".
Wine snobs get their comeuppance.
Here I am struggling to open a bottle of water.
My application to an join Marian Henley's ex-boyfriends list.
My funny poetry and song parodies.
A song parody, Colors of the Lisp, by Jefferson Carpenter.
The text to a filk song, Johnny v. N., by Paul Rubin.
My Puns in English (Little Leaguer, August 2019).
My Puns in Spanish (New pun: Apostasía April 2019)
My Puns in French (New pun: Microsoft à l'école July 2019)
My Puns in Italian (New pun: Quale pesce fa starnutire? New 10/2018)
My Puns in German (New 02/2016)
Linguistic Swifties (Now with: Wintu, Penutian, Cochiti, Taos, and Towa.)
--Saint
IGNUcius-- The Church of Emacs will soon
be officially listed by at least one person as his religion for
census purposes.
There are no godfathers in the Church of Emacs, since there are no gods, but you can be someone's editorfather.
Stallman Does Dallas: "I have to warn you that Texans have been known to have an adverse reaction to my personality…"
The Dalai Lama today announced the official release of Yellow Hat GNU/Linux.
I found a funny song about the Mickey Mouse Copyright Act (officially the Sonny Bono Copyright Act) which extended copyright retroactively by 20 years on works made as early as the 1920s.
If you are a geek and read Spanish, you will love Raulito el Friki, who said "Hello, world!" immediately after he was born. Here's an archive of this now-defunct comic strip.
Sleeping with Stallman at MIT.
ESR's favorite programming language: Objectivist C.
No Kludges in Cluj (June 2014)
Made for You (December 2012) (local copy) Esperanto translation
A science fiction story: Jinnetic Engineering (in Portuguese, Farsi, Spanish, Armenian, Russian, French, and Italian).My book of essays about the philosophy of Software Freedom, is available from the GNU Press.
Avec des chapeaux French song parody.
My radio program of Music from Georgia, originally broadcast on WUOG in Athens, Georgia on Oct 13, 2014.
Quantum Theory and Abortion Rights
A proposal for gender neutrality in Spanish, suitable for both speech and writing.
On Hacking: In June 2000, while visiting Korea, I did a fun hack that clearly illustrates the original and true meaning of the word "hacker".
Predicting the attack on Pearl Harbor
I would like to thank:
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