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"Richard_Stallman_at_LibrePlanet_2019" by Ruben Rodriguez
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This is the personal web site of Richard Stallman.
The views expressed here are my personal views, not those of
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For the sake of separation, this site has always been
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I am thinking of making another trip to Europe during February - April. If you would like to invite me to speak during that trip, please write to me at rms-invitation@gnu.org with "feb-apr" as the subject.
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 Congress to impeach Kristi Noem.
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 for limiting denaturalization to people who committed atrocious crimes before gaining US citizenship.
US citizens: call on Congress to restore USAID humanitarian funding — help poor countries against hunger and plagues.
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 world leaders to turn climate pledges into enforceable action and build a livable future instead of climate disaster.
US citizens: call on Congress to impeach Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chair Brendan Carr.
US citizens: call on the UN Security Council to condemn Israel's killing of journalists.
Demand accountability, and defend the right to report news, by protecting the people who do that.
US citizens: Denounce the bully's proposed deep surveillance of visitors to the US.
Here is a list of some consumer boycotts mounted by progressives. I mostly support them, but sometimes for different reasons.
I have boycotted Amazon absolutely for many years. If a friend wants to give me a gift, I ask per to please not obtain it from Amazon (and not tell _any_ company my name or address, even for delivery purposes!).
I have always avoided Spotify since it was first set up, because it requires the customer to run nonfree software (for DRM!) and to identify perself. Likewise all other streaming dis-services.
I would boycott Home Depot except I don't know anywhere else around here where I could buy some of their products. However, I don't buy there often.
I support the boycott of Starbucks, to support the union, but that makes no direct economic difference since their products don't appeal to my tastes.
I support the boycott Tesla, not just because of I detest the musket but especially because of its surveillance and remote control, which ought to be illegal. However, since I do not have a car and don't intend to have one, my support does not make direct economic difference.
The article says that some progressives choose to buy from Costco because it has stood up to the bully. I appreciate that, but Costco's practice of demanding that customers identify themselves makes it unacceptably unjust.
Most stores invite people to identify themselves, either by registering their identity or using digital payments or both. But most of them continue to permit a customer to pay cash anonymously. This builds an enormous database of personal activities, which the persecutor's henchmen are now using to build up an "enemies list".
Don't be tracked -- pay cash, and insist on anonymity!
US citizens: call on the EPA to restore the truth about climate [disaster] on its web sites.
US citizens: call on the Pentagon to stop trying to punish Senator Mark Kelly for upholding the Constitution and rule of law, and start helping to uphold them.
US citizens: Applaud U.S. diplomats standing up for the rule of law instead of trumpish arbitrary rule.
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.
Snoop-phone cameras "adjust" all photos by default to make them more visually attractive. This falsifies everyone thus photographed.
I think that this contributes one more factor that would lead people to prefer to interact through phones rather than in physical presence.
A father writes that he told his children the truth about Christmas presents, rather than the usual Santa Claus lie, so they won't feel judged if some year he can't afford to get them any presents.
I think that is a good reason. But I still feel that telling the usual lie is wrong as well. And when parents bully me into speaking to their children as if Santa Claus existed, it puts me in a painful moral dilemma: either butt in and cause a family crisis, or join in lying. I don't want to do either.
Migrants from Mauritania in the US fear being deported back there to live under a form of apartheid system with slavery.
*60 Minutes episode on brutal El Salvador prison, pulled from air by CBS, appears online.* This article summarizes much of its description of the torture in the Cecot prison. It is clearly meant to destroy the prisoners' bodies and minds, though not quickly.
US citizens of foreign origin have been terrorized by the deportation thugs' violence, and their rush to deport people without allowing time for justice or even fact-checking. Many now carry their passports all the time, hoping the thugs will check those before brutalizing or jailing them.
Violence against news reporters increased greatly this year. In many cases they were attacked while covering actions of the deportation thugs. Many of the attacks were committed by thugs.
A US general, ultra-loyal to the bully, said he would obey orders to attack people that the bully calls "terrorist" inside the US.
The phrase "confident in the lawful order" is not clear. It invites us to comfort ourselves by believing that this general would make sure the order is lawful, but doesn't explicitly say so. I distrust that vagueness.
Leading world economists call for going easy on Sri Lanka's debt after the recent devastating storm. Even before that, Sri Lanka's debt was crushing and unjust.
For the moment, Iranian women have the government's clothing rules enforcers cowed even as it continues to bluster.
Violent mobs have rampaged across Bangladesh, and destroyed by fire the offices of two important newspapers.
The article does not say what cause or side the mobs support, but they may be Islamist extremists.
Medicines are terribly expensive in the US because the US helps Big Pharma gouge on medicine and does little to resist them. The bullshitter claims that the prices are high in the US because other well-off countries have national medical systems that negotiate lower bulk prices. Prices are high in the US because it fails to do that. By attacking those countries' bulk prices with economic warfare, he helps Big Pharma in yet another way, while distracting and confusing the Americans who heed him.
Biden made a start at using government power to reduce drug prices in the US. He was limited in what he could do, because Congress was dominated by Republicans and plutocratist Democrats. Nonetheless, his price-reduction measures helped millions of non-rich Americans afford the medicines they needed to stay alive.
Please join me in supporting a national medical system in the US. We also need to stop the ways Big Pharma corrupts the medical system and medical research, take controlled experiments on drugs' effectiveness and safety out of the hands of Big Pharma, and weaken the time span and power of patents on medicines.
After the antisemitic killings in Australia follows a wave of antimuslimist threats.
These two forms of hatred are aimed at different religions, but they are basically similar in form: stirring up hatred of an "other" to make people panic and start to fertilize fascist movements with more hared.
Let's be mature enough not to bite that hook.
The adoption of the "peace plan" for Gaza has not brought peace or a cease fire, nor ended the siege of Gaza, but governments around the world have made it as an excuse to remove all pressure on Israel and Netanyahu to cease their crimes.
*Trump and Putin share a craving for status. That's why they both want to destroy Europe.*
The US has dropped its politically-motivated plan to deport whistleblower Guan Heng to China.
US citizens: call on Congress to impeach Kristi Noem.
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 for limiting denaturalization to people who committed atrocious crimes before gaining US citizenship.
US citizens: call on Congress to restore USAID humanitarian funding — help poor countries against hunger and plagues.
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.
Madrid and Barcelona present a contrast between right-wing and left-wing approaches to the problem of high rents for housing.
Right-wingers claim that radical deregulation will bring rents down. That article shows that it doesn't have that result.
It also shows that countries should block the sell-off of public housing to private entities. Under Thatcher, Britain started selling public housing houses and apartments to their residents, who then resold them. The long-term result has been disaster. Madrid has sold off public housing en masse to private equity. The result is disaster.
*The [Supreme Court] decision means TikTok now operates under the threat that it could be forced offline with a stroke of [the bully's] pen.*
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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