Richard Stallman's Personal Site
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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.
Our next rally for Julian Assange is Saturday, March 4 at 11:30 to
12:30pm. We will gather at Park St. Station on the Boston Common to speak
out for Assange and gather signatures on our petition to our senators.
(See how the media failed Julian Assange at Harper's Magazine.)
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.
Is your bank pressuring you to use biometric ID?
If so, please write to rms at gnu dot org.
It could be useful if you document what is happening.
Link Policy
The largest part of the site is the
political notes, and they
are typically updated every day.
- send me examples of how proprietary programs have been
designed to be addictive.
- I'm looking for people to check a few sites for me regularly
and show me any new articles that I would like to see or link to.
If you would like to help me
in this way, please write to rms at gnu dot o r g.
- send me examples of how proprietary programs have been
designed to cause programmed obsolescence of products.
- write
site-specific Firefox extensions
or local scripts to operate specific web sites.
- help
maintain and operate savannah.gnu.org.
- experiment to find good ways to attach
fruits to a Grav-mass tree.
- help web sites put free licenses
on their Javascript code.
Civil Liberties Minute:
![[America Means Civil Liberties / Patriotism Means Protecting
Them / www.aclu.org/safefree ]](flag_set_vectorized.png)
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.
-
In Connecticut: support the campaign to
legalize leaving a child alone
even for minutes in public places such as the public library.
-
US citizens: phone your congresscritter and ask per to sign on
to Rashida Tlaib's letter to Merrick Garland calling for
dropping charges against Julian Assange.
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!
-
US citizens: call on the Florida legislature to reject the bill to
censor bloggers.
-
US citizens: call on Biden to ban government contracts for pharmacies
that refuse to carry Mifepristone.
-
US citizens: call on Congress to admit Washington DC as a state.
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!
-
US citizens: call on the House Ethics Committee to investigate Speaker
McCarthy for giving Tucker Carlson the complete security video of the Jan 6
attack.
-
US citizens: call on state legislatures to continue participation in
ERIC, an organization of states which help each other reconcile their
voter lists.
-
Everyone:
call on Amazon to start negotiating
with the Amazon Labor Union.
-
US citizens: Support the
Insulin for All Act.
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!
-
US citizens: call on Congress to
repeal the 1991 and 2002
authorizations
for the US to send forces to fight in Iraq.
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!
-
Everyone:
call on Big Tech
to implement end-to-end encrypted messaging now.
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.
-
US citizens:
call on Biden to protect communities
from the effects of railroad companies' greed.
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: phone your congresscritter and your senators
reject right-wing budget cuts and pass Biden's budget.
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.
Recording of Guantanamero
Listen to the
recording
of
Guantanamero,
a protest song written in Spanish. The recording is in
Ogg Vorbis format. To install an Ogg Vorbis player,
see
the FSF's Ogg Players page.
-
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 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 impossible 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.
More items where there
ought to be a law.
Quotes
Here are some
quotations that I particularly like.
(
RSS Feed)
-
Which approaches for limiting Covid-19 did work, at the beginning, and
which did not?
-
In Connecticut: support the campaign to
legalize leaving a child alone
even for minutes in public places such as the public library.
-
Workers at 100 Starbucks stores walked out
ahead of the company's annual meeting.
-
Rep. Tlaib has proposed a law to remove debts incurred for medically
necessary treatments
from people's credit reports.
It would be a change for the better, but a very small one. What Americans
need is a national medical system funded by the government, rather than
a little less hassle when they are forced to borrow the money.
Rep. Tlaib supports that too. So why propose this bill? She must be
hoping that some Republicans will support it, and allow it to pass.
But is there really any chance they will do so?
-
Bernie Sanders proposes to ban some bank executives from serving on
regional federal reserve boards,
since those regulate the banks those
people are executives of.
I support this.
-
Starmer's policy of vetoing candidates
applies to local councils as
well as the UK parliament. This has caused a major rebellion in a
city where almost half of the current Labour councillors were vetoed.
Several of them are going to run again outside the Labour Party.
I surmise that the vetoed candidates were more leftist.
-
Which approaches for limiting Covid-19 did work, at the beginning, and
which did not?
-
Toilet paper contains PFAs,
and since sewage treatment does not break it down, it gets into waterways and sewage sludge.
-
*Why We (Still) Need a
Federal Reserve for the People
— Not [for] Wall Street.*
-
On many measures of how people live, including life expectancy, the US
is not exemplary, and it is because it imposes poverty on more people,
and worse, than
other developed countries.
To truly make America great again, tax the rich and lift everyone out
of poverty.
Prejudice against disprivileged groups "weathers them" and
causes
them to die younger.
-
The Society for
Personality and Social Psychology
states in its home page that it is an academic scientific society
that aims to advance a field of science.
However, that has changed. The organization has taken up
anti-racism
so intensely that campaigning against racism is its primary purpose
and research is secondary.
It is proper for any organization to try to avoid racism in its
activities. It is proper for any organization for research about
human beings to try to study a variety of groups of humans, because
not all humans are alike. In particular, not all societies are alike,
and in any one society people with different roles may be
systematically different.
However, the SPSP seems to have decided that every research project is
supposed to campaign against racism, and research which doesn't do
that is not worth publishing.
That is going too far, because it means that the ostensible purpose of
the organization is now of minor importance.
I could support an organization whose sole purpose is to campaign
against racism — depending on what methods it uses to do so. But we
should not convert a scientific organization into a political
campaign.
-
*I live near the East Palestine chemical spill. Officials who say
we’re safe
are lying.*
-
The Australian Labor and Green parties have made a disappointing
compromise which will allow some new fossil fuel developments but
could cap total fossil fuel extraction and
total gross greenhouse
emissions.
-
An elite Putin forces unit, made up of Russian veterans of the 2014
invasion of Ukraine, suffered great losses and tried to retreat.
Other units of the Putin forces were ordered to
threaten to kill them.
They made a video to denounce this treatment.
-
Netanyahu is desperate to subject the Israeli judiciary to his power
so that it cannot convict him of corruption. The army won't stand for
that change, and the defense minister (a former general) called on
Netanyahu to compromise. Instead he fired the minister. Meanwhile,
100,000 protesters came out and pole-wielding thugs
attacked them on
horseback.
A general strike has
been announced.
I've predicted this confrontation for many years. Ultra-orthodox Jews
have special privileges which they use to increase their numbers, and
they have joined with the extreme right-wing. That increase, across
the decades, has brought the right-wing to a position where control of
the state is in the balance. Even if the supporters of democracy win
this time, the demographic trand will sooner or later deliver victory
to the right-wing.
The only path I see for its survival is for the democratic Jews and
the Palestinians to unite to support liberal democracy. But I don't
see how there could be enough trust between them for that to happen.
Maybe Uri Avnery could have united them if he lived, but it would have
been a tall order even for him.
If Israel's democracy falls, many Israeli Jews will have to search for
countries to move to where they can be safe from repression.
-
US citizens: phone your congresscritter and ask per to sign on
to Rashida Tlaib's letter to Merrick Garland calling for
dropping charges against Julian Assange.
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!
-
Republicans in Congress passed a bill to help
right-wing
parents pressure schools
to remove books from the library and subjects from the curriculum.
It is designed to attack sex education and education about treatment
of minorities.
-
The wrecker is trying to intimidate US prosecutors out of arresting
him by threatening that his followers will start
violence in response.
So far, it has worked. But if we allow such a plan to go
unpunished, it will keep escalating.
-
Republicans in Congress passed a bill to help
right-wing
parents pressure schools
to remove books from the library and subjects from the curriculum.
It is designed to attack sex education and education about treatment
of minorities.
-
The wrecker is trying to intimidate US prosecutors out of arresting
him by threatening that his followers will start
violence in response.
So far, it has worked. But if we allow such a plan to go
unpunished, it will keep escalating.
The four factors of the apocalypse:
global heating, global hating,
global eating, global mating.
[More Cartoons]
Copy this button (courtesy of R.Siddharth)
to express your rejection of Facebook.
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.
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
Writing (mostly science fiction) by my
friend Bob Chassell who recently died.
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.
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."
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.
Media/Press/Bios
Richard Stallman's bio and publicity photos, and other things
of interest to the press, have been moved to a
separate page.
The berry torture.
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.
Futon Physics
A Spanish cartoon: La Ruleta
Española. 
The
Night before M-x-mas
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 Cartoons
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 Portuguese
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.
Pre-Zen Studies.
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.
Un malentendido gracioso.
ESR's favorite programming language:
Objectivist C.
American
Extremists
My Small Mouth
The huns and the writs.
No Kludges in Cluj (June 2014)
Hammer into Anvil
Made for You (December 2012)
(local
copy) Esperanto
translation
A science fiction story: Jinnetic
Engineering (
in
Portuguese,
Farsi,
Spanish,
Armenian,
Russian,
French, and
Italian).
The Right to
Read
My book of essays about the philosophy of Software Freedom,
is available from the
GNU Press.
Love and Dance
My Childhood Sweetheart
Made for You
My Former Personal Ad
Am I Doctor Stallman?
Avec des
chapeaux French song parody.
My radio program of Music from
Georgia, originally broadcast on WUOG in Athens, Georgia on
Oct 13, 2014.
Resolving the trolley
problem
Quantum Theory and
Abortion Rights
A
proposal for gender neutrality in Spanish, suitable for both
speech and writing.
Origin of the POSIX name.
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".
My Childhood Sweetheart
Love and Dance
Predicting the attack on Pearl Harbor
Certificate of confusion
I would like to thank:
- Positive Internet for hosting this web site.
- Graziano Sorbaioli for improving the layout of the main
page.
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
