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"Richard_Stallman_at_LibrePlanet_2019" by Ruben Rodriguez
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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
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.
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.
I urge you to vote in Democratic primaries for the progressive candidate, if there is one. And in the final election I urge you to vote for Democrats, unless a liberal independent had a good chance of winning.
The largest part of the site is the political notes, and they are typically updated every day.
I'm looking for people to![[America Means Civil Liberties / Patriotism Means Protecting
Them / www.aclu.org/safefree ]](flag_set_vectorized.png)
US citizens: call on Biden to end the broad sanctions against Venezuela.
Maduro has no respect for democracy, but the sanctions against Venezuela harm the people rather than the rulers.
If you phone, please spread the word! White House: +1-202-456-1111 and (TTY/TDD) +1-202-456-6213
US citizens: call on Biden to extend the "pause" on new fossil gas export facilities into a permanent ban.
If you phone, please spread the word! White House: +1-202-456-1111 and (TTY/TDD) +1-202-456-6213
US citizens: call on Biden to end all fossil fuel subsidies.
US citizens: call on Clarence Thomas to recuses himself in Trump's immunity case.
US citizens: call on Congress to pass Biden's budget for the IRS.
If you phone, please spread the word! Main Switchboard: +1-202-224-3121
US citizens: call on Congress to pass the Billionaire Minimum Income Tax to limit the political power of America's richest families.
If you phone, please spread the word! Main Switchboard: +1-202-224-3121
US citizens: support the Resolution Recognizing the Human Right to Utilities.
Everyone: call on Universities to divest from the war industry.
US citizens: call on Discussion and comment platforms to protect election integrity.
The petition misuses the term "AI".
US citizens: call on the DOJ to investigate Ted Cruz for apparent campaign finance violations
US citizens: call on Congress to rename the closest federal prison to Mar-a-Lago as the "Donald J. Trump Federal Correctional Institution."
Let's look forward to seeing him as an inmate there.
If you phone, please spread the word! Main Switchboard: +1-202-224-3121
US citizens: call on Maj Leader Schumer not to give Netanyahu a platform in front of Congress.
If you phone, please spread the word! Main Switchboard: +1-202-224-3121
US citizens: call on the Federal Reserve to support curbing global heating.
US citizens: call on the major media to make sure voters know the stakes for Social Security in this year's election.
US citizens: call on Congress to ban members of Congress from buying and selling individual stocks.
If you phone, please spread the word! Main Switchboard: +1-202-224-3121
US citizens: call on Congress to pass the State-Based Universal Health Care Act.
If you phone, please spread the word! Main Switchboard: +1-202-224-3121
US citizens: support Biden's latest effort for student debt relief.
If you phone, please spread the word! White House: +1-202-456-1111 and (TTY/TDD) +1-202-456-6213
US citizens: call on Biden to do all he can to avoid devastation in Rafah.
If you phone, please spread the word! White House: +1-202-456-1111 and (TTY/TDD) +1-202-456-6213
US citizens: call on Facebook to preserve the CrowdTangle analysis tool.
I refuse to let Facebook use me, and I hope you do likewise; but since Facebook exists, we should preserve methods to analyze how it uses people.
US citizens: call on Congress to pass clean energy transmission legislation — to speed the connection of new renewable energy generators to the power grid.
If you phone, please spread the word! Main Switchboard: +1-202-224-3121
US citizens: call on Congress to pass the bill to improve prenatal and maternity support for women who are poor or disprivileged.
The bill's name is misleading, but its substance is good.
If you phone, please spread the word! Main Switchboard: +1-202-224-3121
US citizens: call on states not to divert public school funds to private schools.
US citizens: call on university administrators and boards to end the repressive tactics used against Gaza solidarity encampments.
US citizens: call on Congress to do everything it can to fight voter suppression.
If you phone, please spread the word! White House: +1-202-456-1111 and (TTY/TDD) +1-202-456-6213
US citizens: call on Congress to pass the Public Housing for the 21st Century Act. It will set up information-sharing to help the many cities that want to build more public housing.
If you phone, please spread the word! Main Switchboard: +1-202-224-3121
US citizens: call on Biden to oppose use of the national guard to crush protests.
If you phone, please spread the word! White House: +1-202-456-1111 and (TTY/TDD) +1-202-456-6213
US citizens: call on news networks not to give election deniers a platform.
US citizens: state your disgust for the fascist's Project 2025.
US citizens: call on the Senate to pass the Fourth Amendment Is Not For Sale Act.
If you phone, please spread the word! Main Switchboard: +1-202-224-3121
US citizens: call on state attorneys general to investigate the antiabortion mills (self-called "crisis pregnancy centers") for mistreating clients and abusing their personal data.
US citizens: Call on Congress to let parts of the corrupter's 2017 tax cuts expire.
If you phone, please spread the word! Main Switchboard: +1-202-224-3121
US citizens: call on the USPS Inspector General and Board of Governors to protect vote-by-mail from DeJoy.
US citizens: call on Congress to cancel Boeing's nuclear weapons testing contract.
If you phone, please spread the word! Main Switchboard: +1-202-224-3121
US citizens: call on Congress to investigate Mercedes's union busting.
If you phone, please spread the word! Main Switchboard: +1-202-224-3121
US citizens: call on the DOJ to break up UnitedHealth's medical monopoly.
US citizens: call on Democrats in Congress to reject AIPAC, which supports enemies of US democracy.
If you phone, please spread the word! Main Switchboard: +1-202-224-3121
US citizens: call on Biden to declare a climate emergency.
If you phone, please spread the word! White House: +1-202-456-1111 and (TTY/TDD) +1-202-456-6213
Boycott Chevron, in the name of Steven Donziger.
It is exciting that SB 976 turns towards restricting recommendation algorithms. But these options should not be limited to minors — every user should have this choice. (Please do not refer to teenagers as "children"; that feeds the US tendency to treat them like children and retard their development.)
However, I suggest taking a step beyond just choosing to use or not use the platform's addiction system. Recommendation algorithms should be completely separated from platforms!
If you want to use a nontrivial recommendation algorithm, you should be able to choose it yourself and use it anonymously. You could send it the URLs you want it to base its choices on. These might be some of the pages you had visited, and perhaps pages you had not visited.
Then it should send you its recommendations. You could pass all, or just some, or none of those recommendations to the platform to look at them.
AB 1949 is admirable because it gives a small boost to privacy for users of all ages, not only for children. It isn't enough, though — users should also be guaranteed the right and possibility to access through the Tor network and to use aliases. And collection of a user's data by the state should require a warrant against the user.
The door plug that blew out of a Boeing 737 Max 9 airplane was missing four bolts meant to hold it in place. They were missing because Boeing maintenance removed them and did not put them back in again.
Some workers actually made the mistake, but they were working as part of a work system that Boeing management was responsible for setting up and running. That's where the real fault is.
I suggest passing a law to require aircraft manufacturing and repair companies to have a certain fraction of licensed commercial pilots on their boards. Perhaps 66%.
Private equity is gobbling up large parts of the US nursing home business. This puts patients in danger since private equity can amass lots of money, create an oligopoly, and get away with abuses.
The study suggests that "regulation may be needed." I will take a stronger stand and call for firm limits — perhaps even prohibiting private equity combinations from owning home nursing businesses.
I'v also proposed prohibiting private equity from buying up lots of rental housing.
It should be illegal for a store to charge different prices to customers depending on whether they identify themselves and/or hand over demanded personal data.
Here are some quotations that I particularly like.
You can now read the political notes on Mastodon.
*"Solidarity over hatred": the small band of Israelis stopping settlers obstructing aid trucks.*
*Ocasio-Cortez Says Biden Must Suspend Israeli Aid After "Indefensible Atrocity" in Rafah.*
I deplore the article's use of the name "X" to refer to Ex-Twitter.
US citizens: call on Biden to end the broad sanctions against Venezuela.
Maduro has no respect for democracy, but the sanctions against Venezuela harm the people rather than the rulers.
If you phone, please spread the word! White House: +1-202-456-1111 and (TTY/TDD) +1-202-456-6213
US citizens: call on Biden to extend the "pause" on new fossil gas export facilities into a permanent ban.
If you phone, please spread the word! White House: +1-202-456-1111 and (TTY/TDD) +1-202-456-6213
US citizens: call on Biden to end all fossil fuel subsidies.
Another nasty thing men do to dump women who have immigrated so as to be with them: "exit trafficking".
Another instance of hairtrigger violence by a uniformed thug against a black man has led to the resignation of the thug.
Is this enough to teach other thugs not to do this in the future?
*[The insurrectionist] has spent years complaining that American police and the criminal legal system should be "very much tougher," arguing that some criminals should not be protected by civil liberties, police should rough up suspects, and that a much wider range of people should face the death penalty for breaking the law.*
How about you, Mr Felon?
He should not be executed, though, because the death penalty is inherently unjust regardless of what the crime.
The University of Chicago, like several other US universities, withheld the degrees of some student protesters pending possible worse punishment.
"We must shut down your protest For the sake of safety" is a veiled way of saying, "If you keep up this protest, right-wing provocateurs or our security forces may do you violence, so we must do you violence now to protect you."
Biden's cease-fire deal failed because he thought to gain Netanyahu's agreement using influence alone. Netanyahu told him, contemptuously, to buzz off.
Biden could succeed if he dares to use real pressure, not merely influence.
Starmer tried to purge Diane Abbott MP along with the rest of the Labour left, but he had to retract this after it blew up in his face.
This purge accompanies many plutocratist policy commitments, such as not to raise taxes on the rich. But the purge is worse, because it threatens to convert Labour forever into a less radical version of the Tory Party.
Resisting purges is the only way I can envision to enable Labour to be once again the "moral crusade" it was meant to be. Corbyn is resisting his purge by running as an independent, against a Labour candidate who is so right-wing that he epitomizes what's wrong with Starmer Labour. (He has a business which competes against the NHS — just the sort of person you do not want in Parliament.) Abbott convinced the party to un-purge her. Both count as successes.
But there have been several other purges that have not been resisted yet, including Faiza Shaheen.
*Neighbors say Alitos used security detail car to threaten them after dispute.*
US citizens: call on Clarence Thomas to recuses himself in Trump's immunity case.
Britain's post office, privatized by Tories a decade ago, is now threatened with a leveraged buyout by a foreign billionaire.
*Samsung Requires Independent Repair Shops to [report] Customer Data, and Snitch on People Who Use Aftermarket Parts — Leaked Contract Shows.* Furthermore, the nominally independent repair shop is then required to "disassemble" the phone which was repaired with truly independent parts.
All of those practices ought to be forbidden by law.
It is perverse to refer to systematic surveillance as "sharing" of the data that is collected. Please join me in reserving the word "sharing" to refer to voluntary cooperation.
Cory Doctorow conjectures why Biden doesn't talk much about the good things he has done — it is to avoid alienating his plutocratist supporters.
US citizens: call on Congress to pass Biden's budget for the IRS.
If you phone, please spread the word! Main Switchboard: +1-202-224-3121
US citizens: call on Congress to pass the Billionaire Minimum Income Tax to limit the political power of America's richest families.
If you phone, please spread the word! Main Switchboard: +1-202-224-3121
US citizens: support the Resolution Recognizing the Human Right to Utilities.
Coca Cola publicity usually shows the old-style reusable glass bottles that in reality it uses for only 10% of sales.
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".
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.
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Richard Stallman
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