The photo comes from wikimedia.org
"Richard_Stallman_at_LibrePlanet_2019" by Ruben Rodriguez
The photo comes from
wikimedia.org
"Richard_Stallman_at_LibrePlanet_2019" by Ruben Rodriguez
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 | How I Do My Computing | 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.
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
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
US citizens: verify that your voter registration has not been purged. Republicans are doing their usual voter deregistration drive and you may have been targeted.
US citizens: call on Biden to respect the International Criminal Court and reject sanctions against it.
US citizens: call on Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen to endorse a global minimum tax on billionaire wealth ahead of the G20 summit.
US citizens: call on The Senate to investigate Justice Alito's public support for insurrection.
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 BATL and TERM acts to regulate membership of the Supreme Court,
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 take the steps necessary to replace Postmaster DeJoy.
If you phone, please spread the word! Main Switchboard: +1-202-224-3121
US citizens: call on US intelligence agencies: no national security briefings for the corrupter.
Whatever information he gets, he is likely to send to his friend, Putin.
US citizens: Thank members of Congress who supported ending Israel's use of US-supplied weapons in Gaza.
If you phone, please spread the word! Main Switchboard: +1-202-224-3121
US citizens: Thank reps that voted against unconditional military aid to Israel.
If you phone, please spread the word! Main Switchboard: +1-202-224-3121
US citizens: call on Your senators to reject S. 4136, which would authorize officials to eliminate any nonprofit organization by accusing it of vague "support for terrorism".
For instance, any organization that protests against Israel's atrocities in Gaza could find that people show up and chant, "HAMAS we love you", and it could be wiped out of existence for that.
If you phone, please spread the word! Main Switchboard: +1-202-224-3121
US citizens: call on Congress to defeat the GOP bill to restart weapons shipments to Israel.
If you phone, please spread the word! Main Switchboard: +1-202-224-3121
US citizens: call on Biden to use every possible means of influence to get Israel to accept a ceasefire in Gaza.
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 give no arms to Israel that it could use to attack Rafah.
Stop denying obvious implications!
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 stop trying to protect Israeli war criminals from the International Criminal Court.
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.
*The corrupter has been found guilty of all 34 counts of falsifying business records in a criminal hush-money scheme to influence the outcome of the 2016 election.*
This means his efforts to bully and intimidate the court did not succeed.
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
*Vermont becomes first state to require big oil to pay for climate damages.*
US citizens: call on the Federal Reserve to support curbing global heating.
The world has enough fossil fuel resources in existence and in development to last until 2050, without licensing any more.
After 2050, if civilization is to survive, it will have reduced consumption to the point where no more will be needed.
The report provides *“a rigorous scientific basis” for global governments to ban new fossil fuel projects and begin a managed decline of the fossil fuel industry, while encouraging investment in clean energy alternatives.*
Spotify sold a product to make cars listen to Spotify's dis-service. Now Spotify plans to make them all stop working.
The customers who ask Spotify to release free software to power those devices are on the right track, but as long as they call it "open source" instead of "free software", they will undermine their own efforts.
US citizens: call on the major media to make sure voters know the stakes for Social Security in this year's election.
Columbia University has abruptly changed its hearing rules to make it harder for students accused of protesting to defend themselves.
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
*Republican activist with ties to DeSantis and Rubio indicted over January 6.*
Kenneth Roth, former head of Human Rights Watch: *The ICC spying revelations show the Israeli government to be a lawless regime.*
Israel's army now controls the whole border of Gaza, including the whole border with Egypt.
If the flow of humanitarian aid is insufficient for the people of Gaza, Israel will be completely and directly responsible. (Aside from the meager quantities delivered by air and sea, but they are not enough to change who survives.) Other governments must hold Israel responsible for any shortfall.
Let's not lose sight of where we want to end up.
The UK has jailed asylum seekers from some very dangerous countries as preparation for sending them to Rwanda. These include Sudan, Eritrea and Afghanistan. A refugee from one of those countries has a good chance of qualifying for asylum.
The UK has become incompetent at all sorts of ordinary government transactions. I don't know why, but I suspect (1) budget cuts have left insufficient staff to do the job and (2) a desire to punish asylum seekers and drive them away. Perhaps also bureaucratic rigidity and unwillingness to give those staff any responsibility.
The result of this is that judging an asylum case takes years, so the number of asylum seekers grows and grows.
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
The US is considering a law to bail out farmers whose land was contaminated by PFAS in sewage sludge.
I sympathize with those farmers, and bailing them out is fair, since they were not themselves to blame for the problem. But what happens to those farmers is a secondary issue. If it turns out that those PFAS make food unhealthful, the main problem will be how and where to grow safe food.
Meanwhile, the most urgent measure to take, in this domain, is to prevent ruining any more farmland this way.
Ships switched to cleaner fuel in 2020. The resulting decrease in air pollution resulted in a jump in global heating.
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.
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.
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