Political Articles | Political Notes | Talks | Airlines | Anti-Glossary | Archive | Ban face recognition | Books | Comics | Empire of the Megacorporations | Fiction | Glossary | GPG Key | Humor | Humorous Bio | Links | Media/Press/Bio | Non-Political Articles | The Four Factors of the Apocalypse | There Ought to Be a Law | Travel Experiences | Travel Photos | RMS personal FAQ | Sayings | Scientific Links | Stallman on Love | Thanks |
Send comments/questions about the search engine to: rms at gnu dot org
RSS site feed for the most recent
political notes and new material.
This is the personal web site of Richard Stallman.
The views expressed here are my personal views, not those of
the Free Software Foundation or
the GNU Project.
For the sake of separation, this site has always been
hosted elsewhere and managed separately.
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.
Canadians: I suggest you seek election advice at a local chapter of a group that pushes to curb global heating and has the courage to say, "Canada should stop exporting fossil fuel." It will at least use the right goals to suggest who to vote for in your area.
Join a Friday climate strike.That page is made by scraping Fridays for Future so you can get the information without running any Javascript code. I would be very glad if they made the information on their own site accessible from the Free World; then we could simply refer people to their site and do without the scraping etc.
The largest part of the site is the political notes, and they are typically updated every day.
[ No upcoming talks. ]
The proposal is ironic but I think it is seriously proposed.
If you phone, please spread the word!
The White House comments lines are +1-202-456-1111 and (TTY/TDD) +1-202-456-6213.
If you phone, please spread the word!
The White House comments lines are +1-202-456-1111 and (TTY/TDD) +1-202-456-6213.
If you phone, please spread the word!
The White House comments lines are +1-202-456-1111 and (TTY/TDD) +1-202-456-6213.
If you phone, please spread the word!
The Capitol Switchboard numbers are +1-202-224-3121, +1-888-818-6641 and +1-888-355-3588.
If you phone, please spread the word!
If you phone, please spread the word!
The name of that proposed law is badly formulated, since we don't want everyone to take insulin! Most people don't need to.
The Capitol Switchboard numbers are +1-202-224-3121, +1-888-818-6641 and +1-888-355-3588.
If you phone, please spread the word!
The Capitol Switchboard numbers are +1-202-224-3121, +1-888-818-6641 and +1-888-355-3588.
If you phone, please spread the word!
Messaging applications that involve through nonfree client software are unjust, and endanger your privacy, regardless of whether they do end-to-end encryption, because the encryption could be ineffective or snoop on users.
The White House comments lines are +1-202-456-1111 and (TTY/TDD) +1-202-456-6213.
If you phone, please spread the word!
The Capitol Switchboard numbers are +1-202-224-3121, +1-888-818-6641 and +1-888-355-3588.
If you phone, please spread the word!
Boycott Chevron, in the name of Steven Donziger.
There should be a law requiring online services, if they close a user's account, to permit the user to continue to download whatever information perse had left in the account.
To be sure, it is foolish to rely on an online service to hold any data for you; you should store it locally, and use online services only as backups (encrypted). Preferably more than one online service in parallel, for redundancy. But we should not allow online services to cite this as an excuse for arbitrarily causing people great avoidable harm.
It should be a crime to knowingly approach a person while maskless inside a building or vehicle.
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.
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.
Here are some quotations that I particularly like.
US citizens: call on Biden to appoint Kyrsten Sinema ambassador to Italy.
The proposal is ironic but I think it is seriously proposed.
US citizens: call on Attorney General Garland to automate marijuana pardon applications.
US citizens: call on Congress to reject the Republican plan to replace income tax with a big sales tax.
The result of that change would be to tax wealthy people much less and tax poor people a lot more. This is what sales taxes always do; we should get rid of them. The Capitol Switchboard numbers are +1-202-224-3121, +1-888-818-6641 and +1-888-355-3588.
If you phone, please spread the word!
*Angry Fox News chief said [in 2020 that] fact-checks of Trump’s election lies "bad for business."*
Rep. Gaetz hired a convicted murderer as an aide. But not just any murder — that one murdered a prisoner of war in Afghanistan.
I expect that this was no coincidence — that Gaetz did this to demonstrate his support for political murder.
The Tories' planned law to punish refugees will especially punish those who have been enslaved and trafficked.
The bullshitter has been indicted for secret payments to Stormy Daniels.
I think that paying her, as such, was not a crime. I think the crime was using campaign funds for this personal purpose, but I wish that were made clear.
Robert Reich rebuts the ways the wrecker will claim that it was unfair to indict him.
Comparing the US and other democracies in regard to how they treat criminal accusations against former presidents.
*Trump appointees interfered to weaken EPA assessment of [a type of PFAS].*
Biden reversed the damage they had done, but they remain in positions of authority in the EPA.
Calling for radical replacement of the London thug department.
US citizens: call on Biden to declare a climate emergency now. This would give him powers he could use effectively without Congress.
The White House comments lines are +1-202-456-1111 and (TTY/TDD) +1-202-456-6213.
If you phone, please spread the word!
US citizens: call on Bayer to stop manufacturing neonicotinoids.
US citizens: call on the Biden administration to hold Silicon Valley Bank executives accountable — to claw back some of their profits from its failure.
The White House comments lines are +1-202-456-1111 and (TTY/TDD) +1-202-456-6213.
If you phone, please spread the word!
Finland's schools systematically teach how to identify misinformation and ungrounded accusations of conspiracy.
I think this would be wise to adopt everywhere.
TikTok's intense collection of data about each user is a threat to Americans and to US national security. As EPIC points out, TikTok is far from the only such.
The same is true for many other "social media" platforms, and school education programs, and other proprietary programs. If you can't modify the program to send whatever made-up data you want to send, instead of true facts about you, it is not safe to use.
The ADPPA bill that EPIC recommends would reduce the existing massive internet surveillance, but it starts with the usual mistake: systems can collect data that is "reasonably necessary and proportionate to provide or maintain a product or service". That is too lax and will fail to protect privacy.
My article, linked above, provides a key test. Does the rule prohibit systems that charge for parking which make every driver enter per car's license plate number? That practice is dangerous surveillance; any law that fails to prohibit it is too weak.
The ADPPA's stricter rule for children and teenagers should apply to everyone, but even that could be interpreted in a way that is too weak. We can be sure companies will press for the weak interpretation. This requirement must be bulletproof.
Will we open our eyes to the past and its implications, or drown them out by shouting?
*The campaign to "protect our [British] history," in other words, is about protecting the past from historians — and protecting the present from dangerous new ideas about how we got here. Because when an organisation like the Guardian researches its own historical links to transatlantic slavery — and then apologises and embarks on a substantial project of restorative justice — the newspaper is not primarily presenting a different past, but its ambition for a different present.*
The article linked to just above displays symbolic bigotry by capitalizing "black" but not "white". (To avoid endorsing bigotry, capitalize both words or neither one.) I denounce bigotry, and normally I will not link to articles that promote it. But I make exceptions for some articles that I consider particularly important, such as the one linked to above.
Right-wing fanatics in Wisconsin ordered a first-grade class not to sing the song Rainbow land.
The song's words advocate tolerance instead of hate in a very general way, but the word "rainbow" was more than the censors could stand for.
The Pentagon should include, in its planning for where to put military bases, the predictable extra cost of putting the base in a state which prohibits abortion.
I'd go further. I'd suggest a policy of actively restationing units and activities from abortion-restricting states to abortion-tolerant states, with a goal of moving moving nearly all to the latter in 10 years.
The CHIPS act is intended to discourage US semiconductor companies from outsourcing of chip manufacturing to hostile countries such as China. A look at the details of how it is supposed to achieve this shows the weakness and timidity of the US government in dealing with any sort of big business.
The US government hasn't got the gumption to prohibit US companies from doing things that put the nation in danger, or even to penalize them to discourage doing so. The best it can manage is to offer subsidies if they avoid those actions.
For this reason and many others, making America great again starts with slapping down the businesses that think they own it.
Here's the White House statement lauding the law.
Exxon scientists in the 1970s and 1980s presented executives with a fairly accurate projection of what global heating caused by fossil fuels might do to the world in a few decades. But they presented it as a possibility;
with all the gaps in the scientific knowledge of that time, they could not determine whether those things would really happen.
By around 2000, the science had resolved the uncertainty and fossil-fuel executives could not honestly deny the damage they were going to cause.
(satire) *Prisoner Given 10 Extra Years For Good Behavior To Serve As Role Model For Fellow Inmates.*
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 order copies of my book, Free Software, Free Society, 3rd edition', signed or not signed.
"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".
A song parody, Colors of the Lisp, by Jefferson Carpenter.
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.
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.
Copyright © 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003,
2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013,
2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023
Richard Stallman
Verbatim copying and redistribution of this entire page are
permitted provided this notice is preserved.
Verbatim copying and redistribution of any of the photos in the
photos subdirectory is permitted under the
Creative
Commons Noderivs license version 3.0 or later. You can copy and
redistribute the photo of me playing music to
the butterfly under the
Creative Commons Noderivs
Nocommercial license version 3.0 or later. Any other photos of
me in this (the toplevel) directory may be copied and redistributed under
the
Creative Commons Noderivs license version 3.0