Richard Stallman

Richard Stallman's Political Notes -

Republicans resume pushing state voter ID laws - 2025-05-09T20:54:42+00:00

Republicans resume pushing for voter ID laws in states they control, even as they try the same at the federal level.

Their position is that one can't make too sure that marginalized citizens don't vote.

Harvard shows resistance is possible - 2025-05-09T20:54:42+00:00

*Harvard shows resistance is possible. But universities must join forces.*

Potential for medical cannabis to fight cancer - 2025-05-09T20:54:42+00:00

*Medical cannabis shows potential to fight cancer, largest-ever study finds.*

Hawaii bill to raise tourist taxes - 2025-05-09T20:54:42+00:00

*First-of-its-kind Hawaii bill raises tourist taxes to fund climate relief.*

The approach for raising funds is a good one, but it falls into the fashionable error of prioritizing protection against the current level of global heating over avoiding future global heating.

Protective measures can be effective today, but if we allow global heating to continue, it will eventually overwhelm the defense we can do. We must prioritize stopping it from getting worse.

Yes, we should bail the water our of our lifeboat. But the most important thing is to plug the holes through which water keeps flowing in.

Australia may head for broad decarbonization - 2025-05-09T20:54:42+00:00

Australia may have voted to head for broad decarbonization.

The doubt in my mind is whether Labor really will change fossil fuel tendencies of the last year or two.

Ralph Nader's articles of impeachment for the corrupter - 2025-05-09T20:54:41+00:00

Ralph Nader's articles of impeachment for the corrupter.

Alas, we learned in his first term that no crime, no matter how heinous, will convince Republican senators to vote to remove him. His personal power is their primary loyalty because without him they are nothing.

Cost of pardons to white-collar criminals - 2025-05-07T20:37:00+00:00

*{The corrupter's] white-collar criminal pardons cost public $1bn, says ex-DoJ official.*

Assuming he profited from this in some way, it amounts to a transfer from America's account to his account.

Confusion on deported mothers and their children - 2025-05-07T20:36:59+00:00

While some groups of deportation thugs told mothers being deported that they had to take their US-citizen children with them, another group told another mother that she could not do so.

I conjecture that they have been given vague and confusing instructions, written in a hurry by inexperienced people, so in similar situations various officials draw different conclusions. That tends to happen when those who write the instructions don't think carefully about them.

(satire) Do your own research on Dragons - 2025-05-07T20:36:59+00:00

(satire) *RFK Jr. Encourages Americans To Do Their Own Research About Dragons.*

Closure of scientific centers that monitor US waters - 2025-05-07T20:36:59+00:00

* The saboteur in chief has ordered the closure of 25 scientific centers that monitor US waters for flooding and drought, and manage supply levels to ensure communities around the country don't run out of water.*

From now on, if your region has floods or water shortages, the saboteur will be partly to blame.

British defeat of one increase in repression of protests - 2025-05-07T20:36:58+00:00

British human rights defenders have defeated in court one increase in repression of protests. The increase was serious but the Tories treated it as minor.

I wonder whether this will free any of the UK's political prisoners who were convicted of protesting.

Ship carrying aid to Gaza attacked - 2025-05-07T20:36:58+00:00

There is once again a fleet of unarmed ships carrying aid to Gaza. Someone used drones to attack one of the ships, half the Mediterranean sea away. The suspicion is the attack was done by Israel.

I agree it was probably the Israeli army , because Israel had means, motive and opportunity. Some other countries had the means, and perhaps an opportunity, but No other country had a motive.

Israel used to seize aid boats and arrest the people on them. The change to attack the boats and maybe kill the people on them reflects how Israel has changed since then.

Was that attack terrorism? I think it was. Terrorism means making war on noncombatants, and those unarmed aid workers are clearly not combatants.

Labour bill threatens protected habitats - 2025-05-07T20:36:58+00:00

*Labour's planning bill threatens protected habitats [in Britain], says environment watchdog.*

Buddha's burial gems going to auction - 2025-05-08T03:00:45+00:00

Some Buddhists are making a big fuss about the auction of ancient gems that belonged to a man who found them and excavated them. They claim that the gems were mixed with a kind of relic — some of the dust remaining from Buddha's cremation — and this makes them sacred so they can't be auctioned.

I can imagine what the Buddha would say about this obsession:

I invite all of you to learn to be less attached
to physical things, including gems and
derivatives of parts of my former body.
Attachment generates suffering, and that
includes attachment to those things. If my
former body has any importance, it is only in
the advice that it once spoke to you, which I
now repeat.

Please join me in focusing on things that
really matter and you will become more enlightened.

Lobby group pushing for censorship of ethnic studies classes - 2025-05-06T20:37:05+00:00

A Zionist lobby group is pushing for California to impose state censorship of the ethnic studies classes that are mandatory in high school there.

I think these classes should teach Uri Avnery's Truth Against Truth and follow that with the work of today's bridge-builders, such as Mohsen Mahdawi and his Israeli colleague Mikey Baratz

But that should not be enforced by government censorship.

Disturbing plan to bring back serfdom - 2025-05-06T20:37:05+00:00

*Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick laid out a disturbing plan to bring back serfdom.*

RFK jr. rejects Germ theory - 2025-05-06T20:37:05+00:00

*RFK jr. rejects cornerstone of health science: Germ theory.*

He also endorses the implausible theory that "chemtrails" are made intentionally and by DARPA.

It is dangerous to let an ignoramus mess with America's medical system. He will order the use of useless "treatments" for imaginary problems while rejecting the real treatments for real medical problems based on imaginary reasons.

NYU's repressive punishment of nonviolent protests - 2025-05-06T20:37:03+00:00

On NYU's repressive punishment of nonviolent student protests, which it improvises from week to week and enforces in a biased and haphazard way.

Mohsen Mahdawi was released on bail - 2025-05-06T20:37:02+00:00

Mohsen Mahdawi was released on bail and defended democracy for all Americans.

*Once the repression of dissent, in the name of security, becomes a key objective of a government, authoritarian rule and even martial law are not far off. When they look at my case, all Americans should ask themselves: what is left of our democracy, and who will be targeted next?*

The US needs more citizens like him.

Arbitrary restrictions on the press - 2025-05-06T20:37:02+00:00

Many countries have passed laws that label journalists that criticize the state as "foreign agents". This enables arbitrary restrictions on the press.

The challenge is how to distinguish foreign-organized influence campaigns from campaigns for journalistic freedom.

Protests with important political effects - 2025-05-06T20:37:02+00:00

Rebecca Solnit talks about protests that have had important political effects, even if the target doesn't explicitly agree to any demands.

One example, was the protests in Seattle in 1999, which blocked a global "free trade" initiative.

"Free trade" tends to mean that companies can get away with whatever they wish and rich people can hide all their wealth from taxation, so it is very harmful. I have a feeling that some super-rich people and companies are using the example of the wrecker's reckless and sudden tariff increases to teach the public that "tariffs are bad, we must eliminate them", but that idea would be as harmful now as it was in the 1990s.

Call for charges with complicity in war crimes - 2025-05-06T20:37:01+00:00

The U.N. special rapporteur for the occupied Palestinian territories calls for more European leaders to be charged with complicity in war crimes for supporting Israel's bombardment of Gaza.

Revulsion of many Labour voters against right-wing policies - 2025-05-06T20:37:01+00:00

A former Labour shadow minister, now in Parliament as an independent, calls on Labour to listen to the revulsion of many Labour voters against Starmer's right-wing policies.

British insect population decline - 2025-05-06T02:37:05+00:00

The population of flying insects in Britain fell by half from 2021 to 2023. In 2024 it did not bounce back. The cause is not known, but it can cause disaster for many kinds of plants, as well as birds, frogs, and other things that eat insects.

Trump cancels HIV elimination funding - 2025-05-06T02:37:04+00:00

Just as the world came to have a chance to eliminate HIV through medicines that prevent its spread, the wrecker showed up and cancelled US plans to pay for doing that.

If civilization falls due to global heating, we are likely to lose the technology to make medicine to treat and prevent HIV. What a shame to prevent us from getting rid of it first.

Eliminating patents on medicines is very important. The three fields where patents are most harmful are agriculture, medicine and software.

El Salvador's Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT) - 2025-05-06T02:37:04+00:00

El Salvador's CECOT prison is more cruel than Guantanamo. The prisoners are kept incommunicado and have no legal rights. Anyone there can be sent to that prison on the "president"s whim. Other, older prisons there are (reportedly) even more cruel.

Israel and Red Cross - 2025-05-06T02:37:03+00:00

*Israel must give Red Cross access to jailed Palestinians, Britain tells ICJ.*

The crimes of HAMAS are grave, an many, but the crimes of Israel are comparably grave and far more numerous. Citing one side's crimes does not justify the other's.

US-Ukraine minerals deal - 2025-05-06T02:37:03+00:00

*US and Ukraine sign minerals deal* that sets up a way for Ukraine to pay the price of the military aid that the US has already donated.

This agreement is not really a deal; rather, it is a general roadmap to reach a deal. This will give the cheater at least one excuse to start demanding that Ukraine sell the whole store for one dollar. But since he doesn't feel the need a valid excuse, the cheater won't hesitate to break it anyway to demand more money. You should prepare for any deal with him to be cancelled at any moment.

Nonetheless, if this deal results in continued US military aid and that stops the advance of the Putin forces ( please don't call them "the Russians"), it is better than no agreement at all.

Trump environment onslaught - 2025-05-06T02:37:03+00:00

*Charting 100 days of [the saboteur in chief]’s onslaught on the environment.*

Trump vs clean air - 2025-05-06T02:37:03+00:00

*[The wrecker] has launched more attacks on the environment in 100 days than his entire first term.*

US cruelty - 2025-05-06T02:37:02+00:00

*I witnessed US cruelty as a Guantánamo lawyer. [The bully's] deportations are disturbingly familiar.*

Paramount and CBS - 2025-05-06T02:37:02+00:00

Paramount wants to do a merger, and Paramount owns CBS. That relationship enabled the represser to impose censorship on CBS.

Last year, the FTC might have blocked the merger to preserve competition, but it would not have demanded power over CBS programming.

It is clear that the purchase of news publishers by much bigger businesses is bad for the freedom of the press. These larger companies are vulnerable to many kinds of government pressure, and they have no tradition of seeing censorship as bad.

If we get out of this mess, we should ban such mergers and break up those mergers.

RFK Jr's false vaccine claims - 2025-05-06T02:37:02+00:00

*RFK Jr and [department of HHS] falsely claim MMR vaccine includes "aborted fetus debris".

Mohsed Mahdawi bailed - 2025-05-06T02:37:02+00:00

Mohsed Mahdawi has been freed on bail. There was never any reason to jail him except the Republican policy of intimidating all opposition into submission.

Mercenary spyware - 2025-05-06T02:37:02+00:00

Italian journalists that have exposed fascist-leaning members of Melonu's right-wing governing Party have been attacked with spyware on their snooping devices. (They don't by default snoop for anybody and everybody.)

"Carbon bombs" - 2025-05-06T02:37:01+00:00

*[London Banks] have poured more than $100bn (£75bn) into companies developing “carbon bombs” -- huge oil, gas and coal projects that would drive the climate past internationally agreed temperature limits with catastrophic global consequences.*

Robert Reich: Trump's next 100 days - 2025-05-06T02:37:01+00:00

Robert Reich: If leaders stay silent, the US won't survive [the corrupter's] next 100 days.

An American's democracy plea - 2025-05-06T02:37:00+00:00

An American pleads for other countries to adopt policies that can lead/press the US back to democracy.

*I firmly believe that the European Union, the United Kingdom, Canada and Japan have a historic obligation to the American people to do what they can to help us preserve our democracy. An America descending into authoritarianism also poses a threat to the democracies they lead.*

I hope that they share these feelings, despite the disadvantage that they must scramble to protect themselves from the right-wing extremists in the United States while resisting similar extremists in their own countries.

Urgent: Pass the Social Security Expansion Act - 2025-05-05T02:39:59+00:00

US citizens: call on Congress to pass the Social Security Expansion Act.

If you phone, please spread the word! Main Switchboard: +1-202-224-3121

Groundwork for privatizing some space and satellite operations - 2025-05-05T02:39:58+00:00

The muskrat *appears to be laying the groundwork to privatize some space and satellite operations now under the authority of National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa), or steer lucrative contracts toward his SpaceX and Starlink companies, former agency employees say.*

This shows us a directly corrupt potential in the DOSE (Depredations of Sabotage and Evisceration).

Israel abuse of UNRWA staff - 2025-05-05T02:39:57+00:00

*UNRWA says Israel has abused [jailed UNRWA] staff and used some as human shields.*

UNRWA says that Israeli prison guards subjected some of them to brainwashing techniques and obtained some forced confessions. This is what Israeli prisons generally do to Palestinian prisoners.

Time for US to guarantee healthcare to all - 2025-05-05T02:39:56+00:00

Bernie Sanders: *It's time for the US to guarantee healthcare to all.*

Switch to no-till farming - 2025-05-05T02:39:55+00:00

US farms switched to no-till farming to reduce loss of topsoil, which prevents harmful environmental degradation. Friends of the Earth warns that this has led to much more use of dangerous herbicides.

So what should we do? The loss of topsoil is permanent and we need to prevent that. We need to keep people safe from the herbicides too &mdash but how do we do both?

Muskrat wants to end subsidies - 2025-05-05T02:39:55+00:00

The muskrat's companies benefited greatly from government subsidies. Now he wants to end such subsidies for the future.

But I don't think we should continue being ripped off to subsidize businesses.

In my view, no government should ever subsidize a business without getting a fair amount of debt or shares in exchange. This includes manufacturing, stadiums(including Olympic games), movies, and other things. Otherwise, the people are being cheated. In the case of paying for research, the government should make sure that the discoveries can be used by anyone.

Putin forces held a Ukrainian civilian journalist prisoner - 2025-05-05T02:39:54+00:00

The Putin forces kept a Ukrainian civilian journalist prisoner almost totally incommunicado, Eventually they handed over her dead body, which showed signs of torture.

I am puzzle by the people on the left who are included to excuse this. They would not excuse Israel for torturing Palestinian civilians in its jails.

Warning of extremism in Israeli government - 2025-05-05T02:39:53+00:00

Former Israeli military chiefs warn Israelis that their government is threatened by extremism.

This is one of the things that are gravely wrong in the Israeli government. The other is repression and persecution of Palestinians. I think the two are causally related.

Let Benevolence Shine
Richard Stallman, 2023-12-14

Twixt the river and the sea,
Palestine nigh Israel be.
Both in peace, let both be free;
Be lands of democracy.

We should not get so caught up in how to take the difficult next step that we forget where we are trying to get to.

Deportation thugs seek out immigrant minors - 2025-05-05T02:39:52+00:00

*Deportation thugs seeking out unaccompanied immigrant [minors] to deport or prosecute them.*

The article's title says "children", but I think that is an example of the misleading practice of calling adolescents "children". If I am right about that, the fact that the victims are over 18 does not make the actions any less wrong. But real children are the ones least likely to be able to stand up to such pressure.

Using "welfare checks", supposedly meant to protect people, to find excuses to persecute them is even more vicious. That will teach people to distrust real efforts to protect them, much like the fake "vaccination campaign" which the US set up to look for Osama bin Laden.

Deported women separated from US citizen children - 2025-05-05T02:39:51+00:00

*Two women who were deported to ]Honduras alongside their US citizen children were held in “complete isolation” and denied any opportunity to coordinate the care and custody of their children before being put on a flight, according to one of the lawyers representing them.*

The effect was to forcibly deport their US citizen children too.

They experienced several other forms of unjust treatment from the US government, described in the article. The government is using its mistakes as excuses for unjust treatment.

But that's Republicans for you. If a person is in a group they have decided to start, when some nasty treatment gives them an excuse to do more harm, they grasp the opportunity gleefully.

Instances of cruelty by deportation thugs - 2025-05-05T02:39:50+00:00

A survey of noteworthy recent instances of cruelty by the US deportation thugs.

(satire) Gavel and black gowns ties to MS-13 gang - 2025-05-05T02:39:50+00:00

(satire) *FBI Claims Gavel, Black Gowns Prove Ties To MS-13 Gang.*