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"Richard_Stallman_at_LibrePlanet_2019" by Ruben Rodriguez
The photo comes from
wikimedia.org
"Richard_Stallman_at_LibrePlanet_2019" by Ruben Rodriguez
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If you want to send me GPG-encrypted mail, do not trust key servers! Some of them have phony keys under my name and email address, made by someone else as a trick. See gpg.html for my real key.
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 stop jailing children in deportation prisons.
I edited the sample letter to avoid associating myself or my views with religion, and to reject terms such as "detention" and "ICE". You might want to do likewise.
I condemn the jailing of children and families in deportation prison, and I call on you to put a stop to it. (The word "detention" is too bureaucratically unfeeling to fit this cruel practice; please join me in shunning it.)
Since 2025, LICE (Lethal Instruments of Cruel Expulsion) has jailed more than 6,200 children -- including at least 500 babies and toddlers.
As a member of Congress, you have the legal authority to enter LICE deportation prisons without advance notice, inspect conditions, and demand accountability.
I call on you to conduct immediate, unannounced inspections of jails holding children and families -- and use every oversight and funding tool available to end jailing of children.
A nation that cares about children does not put them in cages.
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 Congress to pass the Youth Voting Rights Act, which would eliminate obstacles to registering and voting by young voters who are of voting age but lack experience.
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 the Pentagon not to silence overseas voters.
US citizens: call on the US Treasury not to subsidize private schools.
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 Congress to restore fuel economy standards that the saboteur's officials weakened.
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 the DOJ to stop dropping school desegregation cases and stick to Brown v. Board of Education.
US citizens: Thank the Judges Who Ruled Out Deportation to Countries Unrelated to the Deportee.
US citizens: call on Congress to strictly limit the R&D Tax Credit.
I used this as the text of my letter.
Please legislate stricter rules for the research and experimentation tax credit, so that the companies that want to impose Alleged Intelligence on everyone cannot label datacenters for production use as "research and experimentation", even if part of their use will be research or experimentation.
The page gnu.org/philosophy/words-to-avoid.html#ArtificialIntelligence explains why we should not lend support to the marketing hype campaign which that term promotes.
Meta’s use of this credit illustrates the need for congressional action. A New York Times investigation reported that the company is classifying Alleged Intelligence data centers as experimental pilot models and claiming costly computer chips as research supplies. Meta’s total research credits increased from $700 million in 2023 to $3.9 billion in 2025.
Given the corrupter's deliberate corruption of the IRS, counting on it to do its job honestly is self-delusion. I urge Congress to change tax law so that any claim of "research expenses" over a certain amount must be evaluated by a court, with a presumption of rejection unless it is proved valid.
Thank you,
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 Congress to protect reimbursement of Planned Parenthood by Medicaid (for services that Medicaid covers) from arbitrary revenge and interference.
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.
US citizens: call on your congresscritter and senators to stop jailing children in deportation prisons.
I edited the sample letter to avoid associating myself or my views with religion, and to reject terms such as "detention" and "ICE". You might want to do likewise.
I condemn the jailing of children and families in deportation prison, and I call on you to put a stop to it. (The word "detention" is too bureaucratically unfeeling to fit this cruel practice; please join me in shunning it.)
Since 2025, LICE (Lethal Instruments of Cruel Expulsion) has jailed more than 6,200 children -- including at least 500 babies and toddlers.
As a member of Congress, you have the legal authority to enter LICE deportation prisons without advance notice, inspect conditions, and demand accountability.
I call on you to conduct immediate, unannounced inspections of jails holding children and families -- and use every oversight and funding tool available to end jailing of children.
A nation that cares about children does not put them in cages.
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 Congress to pass the Youth Voting Rights Act, which would eliminate obstacles to registering and voting by young voters who are of voting age but lack experience.
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 the Pentagon not to silence overseas voters.
US citizens: call on the US Treasury not to subsidize private schools.
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 Congress to restore fuel economy standards that the saboteur's officials weakened.
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 the DOJ to stop dropping school desegregation cases and stick to Brown v. Board of Education.
US citizens: Thank the Judges Who Ruled Out Deportation to Countries Unrelated to the Deportee.
US citizens: call on Congress to strictly limit the R&D Tax Credit.
I used this as the text of my letter.
Please legislate stricter rules for the research and experimentation tax credit, so that the companies that want to impose Alleged Intelligence on everyone cannot label datacenters for production use as "research and experimentation", even if part of their use will be research or experimentation.
The page gnu.org/philosophy/words-to-avoid.html#ArtificialIntelligence explains why we should not lend support to the marketing hype campaign which that term promotes.
Meta’s use of this credit illustrates the need for congressional action. A New York Times investigation reported that the company is classifying Alleged Intelligence data centers as experimental pilot models and claiming costly computer chips as research supplies. Meta’s total research credits increased from $700 million in 2023 to $3.9 billion in 2025.
Given the corrupter's deliberate corruption of the IRS, counting on it to do its job honestly is self-delusion. I urge Congress to change tax law so that any claim of "research expenses" over a certain amount must be evaluated by a court, with a presumption of rejection unless it is proved valid.
Thank you,
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 Congress to protect reimbursement of Planned Parenthood by Medicaid (for services that Medicaid covers) from arbitrary revenge and interference.
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.
*[The editor of the Wall Street Journal] said the tactic of suing newspapers before they had published a story had become an established PR strategy of the powerful amid greater distrust of the established media.*
The Federal Reserve is changing the rules to help big banks take dangerous risks, and risk causing nationwide harm.
A summary of mass surveillance in the US, and how the data thus collected is used against everyone.
I protect myself from most of these systems by never using them. But there are a few I can't avoid, such as cameras used to track the public.
*Heatwaves and wildfires are setting back air quality improvements, UN finds.
WMO report details extreme weather events causing climatic feedback loop with serious health consequences.*
An article seems to say that an airline passenger was tied to a seat, and then arrested, for uttering statements of bigotry.
Bigotry is nasty and I will rebuke people for that, but I don't think people should be tied up, let alone arrested, just for saying nasty things.
There is a brief hint that he may have done something worse than speak words of bigotry, but the article gives no details — as if they made no real difference. I think we are intended to go away feeling that that passenger deserved to be tied up and arrested for speaking words of bigotry.
*[Driverless] cars should be taxed to offset job losses, thinktank urges.*
If the worst problem the cars cause is loss of jobs, taxing them could be sufficient to deal with the problem. Today's driverless cars have other, worse problems: identifying their passengers, blocking traffic, blocking emergency responders, and snooping on everyone that the car spies. These call for prohibiting them.
*The "war on terror" weakened the first amendment. Now we desperately need it.*
(satire) *[The Corrupter] Promises to Take $5,000 From Every American If Democrats Win Midterm.*
ChatGPT encouraged a user' delusional religious tendencies to the point that he tried to commit suicide, by telling per perse was Jesus.
Meta (formerly known as Facebook) engineers its platforms to lead people to stay on its platforms almost compulsively, treating human minds as a resource to be mined for profit.
A documentary presents anonymous interviews with Israeli intelligence agents about the systems of killing Palestinians, sometimes because heuristics suggested they are HAMAS agents, sometimes merely for disobeying invisible boundaries.
More about the film.
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:
Please send comments on these web pages to rms at gnu period org.
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