Don't watch TV coverage of Covid-19!

graphic by Susan Henson
Americans, you may wish to copy this icon to your own page, as a way of showing what patriotism means to you.

Urgent action items

• US citizens: phone your congressional representative and ask per to pressure Biden to stop construction of the Line 3 pipeline.
• US citizens: call on Congress to pass Senator Warren's wealth tax.
• US citizens: call on Merrick Garland to investigate and prosecute Trump and his network.
• The New Enlightenment And the Fight to Free Knowledge, a book by Peter Kaufman, describes the forces that have purposely crippled efforts to share knowledge widely and freely, and proposes how to defeat them. In the interest of full disclosure I have to admit that the book says very nice things about me. But it's about a lot more than me.

  The book is being published on line one chapter at a time, under CC-BY; eventually the whole book will be there. Nicely printed copies are also available.

• Everyone: call on McDonald's to stop snooping on workers' advocacy of raising the minimum wage.

• US citizens: call on Congress and the president to stop all transfer of military weapons to US thug departments.

  To sign without running nonfree JavaScript code from the web site, use the Salsalabs workaround.

  If you call, please spread the word!

• US citizens: call on Congress to pass the Voting Rights Advancement Act.

  If you call, please spread the word!

• US citizens: Support the Black Maternal Health Momnibus Act.

  This bill would do many things to reduce death in childbirth in the US — which is shockingly frequent in the US. Contrary to its name, its benefits would expect to all poor women; they would not be limited to blacks.

  If you call, please spread the word!

• US citizens: call on the Department of Justice to investigate the Rochester thug department for civil rights violations and racist violence.

  If you call, please spread the word!

• Residents of Massachusetts: call on Massachusetts legislators to enact the VOTERS act and require public meetings to be accessible virtually

  I added the following text:

  I ask you push to amend HD2828 (Garlick/Lewis) in two ways:

  * To require virtual meetings to be accessible by phone as well as by internet.

  * To require the state to use its own servers for this purpose, rather than any company's servers, starting no later than June 2023.

  The companies such as Zoom that offer the use of their servers for virtual meetings impose their own rules about what may be said and who may participate. It is intolerable for any governmental activity or state entity to be covered by commercial censorship, so the state must have a firm policy not to use commercial servers for its meetings except in an emergency. However, recognizing that the state will need time to set up its own facilities, I propose a transition period of two years before the requirement to use them becomes effective.

  If you call, please spread the word!

• US citizens: call on Congress to cancel Americans' college loan debt.

  I entered this text.

  I advocate cancelling student debt for undergraduate education, and for postgraduate education except when it is for a professional degree and the person has or will become employed in that profession. We don't need to forgive doctors' and lawyers' expenses for medical school and law school.

  If you call, please spread the word!

• US citizens: call on Congress to stop providing military weapons to US thug departments.

  To sign without running nonfree JavaScript code from the web site, use the Salsalabs workaround.

  If you call, please spread the word!

• US citizens: call on the Fish and Wildlife Service to restore the protections of the Migratory Bird Protection Act.

  If you call, please spread the word!

• US citizens: call on the Fish and Wildlife Service to restore the protections of the Migratory Bird Protection Act.

  If you call, please spread the word!

• US citizens: call on Biden to take executive action to cancel student debt.

  If you call, please spread the word!

• US citizens: call on your senators to vote to confirm Deb Haaland for Secretary of the Interior.

  If you call, please spread the word!

• Boycott Chevron, in the name of Steven Donziger.

Recording of Guantanamero

There Ought to Be a Law

• *The pandemic has taken surveillance of workers to the next level.*

  The extreme of this is represented by the Amazon warehouse, where a worker's every move is controlled by the computer system. This is one of many reasons to refuse to buy from Amazon.

  Unfortunately, surveillance of workers is not limited to Amazon. I think states should pass laws to limit surveillance of workers. It should cover independent contractors as well as employees.

  The law should completely forbid demanding that workers run any specific software on their own computers (keep in mind that portable phones are computers); the employer who wants that must furnish the computer at no charge.

• A hundred years ago, having your face photo circulated as a suspect could direct persecution at you — for instance, making it impossble to get a job.

  Now it can cause you to be arrested randomly for walking down the street.

  If stores use face recognition inside the store, they should not be allowed to use photos for matching against people in the store except for photos they have taken in that store, and photos of people convicted of theft and fraud.

• The corrupter has pardoned his former agent, Michael Flynn, who was convicted for lying to the FBI about what he did for the corrupter.

  This is a corrupt practice. I think we need to limit the president's power to pardon so that presidents cannot do this in the future.

• *Despite CDC Moratorium—and With Help From White House—Corporate Landlords Have Gone on Eviction Spree.*

  I think we should have a law putting a real-estate tax on corporations owning more than a few rental houses, or more than a few apartment buildings, and likewise on the corporations that own them, etc.

• 200 Google workers have formed a union. They are determined to include contractors, so they have decided not to apply for formal recognition. We need to change US law so that contract workers, even subcontracted workers, can unionize.

Quotes

Here are some quotations that I particularly like.

Most recent Political Notes and News Items

See the current pol-notes page for more.

(You may need to scroll down for more text if there is blank space in this column.)

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.

Support the Green Party

Republican Election Rigging Tactics

Evoting

The Olympics

Why everyone has a reason to fear massive surveillance

Churchandstate.org.uk

E-books

Non-oppressive Commercial E-books

Don't use Facebook

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.

Boycott Harry Potter Books, Movies, etc.

Internet Music EULAS

Business Supremacy Treaties

Countries to Stay Away From

No national identity cards

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.

Borders

Stay away from certain countries because of their bad immigration policies.

Flight connections

Avoid flight connections in these airports because of their treatment of passengers.

The Lifelong Activist

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.

Bob Chassell

Solidarity Economy and Free Software

Personal Declaration of Richard Stallman and Euclides Mance on Solidarity Economy and Free Software.

Falkvinge articles

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.