Richard Stallman

Richard Stallman's Political Notes -

Urgent: Block the bombs - 2025-07-16T02:38:06+00:00

US citizens: call on Congress to pass the Block the Bombs Act.

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

Tariffs 101 - 2025-07-15T14:38:12+00:00

Democrats should condemn the wrecker's wild and destructive use of tariffs but must refuse to support the demand from business to make international trade completely easy.

Tariffs can be effective for promoting specific industries in a country, but the tariff plans the US has adopted in recent years have been foolishly designed.

I object to the way the author uses the word "liberal", meaning "in favor of letting businesses do whatever they like". That is not what liberals stand for when we had political influence, and it is not what Liberals stand for now. Liberal policies adopted in the 1960s and 70s included Medicare, Medicaid, prohibiting racial discrimination, protecting voting rights, protecting the air and the water, protecting endangered species, and protecting workers from injurious working conditions. You can tell from the way the right-wing Supreme Court has attacked these that they do not bow to business.

Contaminated flowers can ruin bees - 2025-07-14T08:38:10+00:00

Wildflowers growing on contaminated soil can absorb arsenic, cadmium, chromium and lead from it, and pass them on to bees. It damages he bees' memory, which can wipe out the hive.

Urgent: Protect funding for public media - 2025-07-14T02:38:11+00:00

US citizens: phone your senators and urge each one to protect the funding for public media.

Here's a suggested script that I am passing along with changes. Of course, you can say what you wish to say.

Hello! My name is [First Name]. I'm a constituent and am calling to
ask Sen. [Name] to oppose any action that cuts funding
to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

Public media are among our nation’s most important media, with
overwhelming support among people from all 50 states and all political
leanings.

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

Palantir's use of personal data from US government - 2025-07-14T02:38:11+00:00

Everyone: write to Palantir's board of directors and call on them to explain what they are doing with personal data from the US government.

In my letter I called on Palentir never to process that data together with any personal data obtained in any other way. That would include, for example, location data.

I used the following Subject field:
You must tell us what Palantir is doing with personal data from the US government and NEVER process it together with any other data you have.

I used the following message body:

Others are demanding that Palantir be transparent about what it does
with personal data from the US government. I join in that demand, but
that does not go far enough.

Palantir must never combine, or process together, any of that
government data with any other data it has or obtains about people.
To do so would establish a China-like system of total repression.

I want to be able to continue to love my country. I want it to remain
"the land of the free and the home of the brave." I hope you don't
want Palantir to be responsible for converting the US into a place
that people must flee for their freedom's sake.

Sincerely,

It is most effective if you write your message in your own words. If you are in a demographic that tends to support the bully, it is good to mention that.

Here's how to make the actionnetwork.org letter campaign linked above work without running the site's nonfree JavaScript code. (See https://gnu.org/philosophy/javascript-trap.html for why that issue matters.)

First, make sure you have deactivated JavaScript in your browser or are using the LibreJS plug-in.

I have done the next step for you: I added `?nowrapper=true' to the end of the campaign URL before posting it above. That should bring you to a page that starts with, "Letter campaigns will not work without JavaScript!"

They indeed won't work without some manual help, but the following simple method seems adequate for many of them, including this one.

To start, fill in the personal information answers in the box on the right side of the page. That's how you say who's sending the letter.

Then click the "START WRITING" button. That will take you to a page that can't function without nonfree JavaScript code. (To ensure it doesn't function perversely by running that nonfree code, you can enable LibreJS or disable JavaScript by visiting that page.) You can finish sending without that code By editing its URL in the browser's address bar, as follows:

First, go to the end and insert `&nowrapper=true'. Then tell the browser to visit that URL. This should give you a version of the page that works without JavaScript. Edit the subject and body of your letter. Finally, click on the "SEND LETTER" button, and you're done.

This method seems to work for letter campaigns that send the letters to a fixed list of recipients, the same recipients for every sender. Editing and revisiting the URL is the only additional step needed to bypass the nonfree JavaScript code. I'm sure you'll agree it is a small effort for the result of supporting the campaign without opening your computer to unjust (and potentially malicious) software.

Iran deporting Afghan refugees - 2025-07-14T02:38:11+00:00

Iran is deporting 4 million Afghan refugees in a hurry. Many are single women, who under Afghanistan's repressive laws can't even leave the border post.

With their prospects, death is an escape. Why, I wonder, do they obligingly walk to the border post, when they could instead drop on the ground and say, defiantly, "You can carry me or you can kill me"?

There may be other opportunities to fight their guards, for those who would rather die fast than be driven to death or slavery.

Australia's oldest rock art - 2025-07-14T02:38:10+00:00

Australia wants some of its oldest rock art to be listed as a World Heritage site.

Advisors say Australia should first end industrial development and damaging air pollution, and then it could be listed. I agree Australia should end those, but I wonder if the committee could issue conditional approval.

Charges against Mario Guevara dropped - 2025-07-14T02:38:10+00:00

Charges against Mario Guevara have been dropped. When brought to court, they proved to be garbage.

Bangladesh's ousted leader charged with crimes against humanity - 2025-07-14T02:38:10+00:00

*Bangladesh's ousted leader Sheikh Hasina has been formally charged [in Bangladesh] with crimes against humanity after being accused of ordering a deadly crackdown against anti-government protests last year that left more than 1,400 people dead.*

Tesla stays afloat as a seller of greenhouse gas offsets - 2025-07-14T02:38:10+00:00

Greg Palast: Tesla stays afloat as a seller of greenhouse gas offsets.

*So, my dear green friends, when you buy a Tesla, you're not reducing your carbon footprint by a quarter inch, because Musk is selling your good intentions to General Motors so they can pollute more.*

Money for inaugural fund from fossil fuel industry - 2025-07-14T02:38:10+00:00

*The corrupter's inaugural fund got $19m from fossil fuel industry, analysis shows.*

The corrupter used the electoral fund as an opportunity to pressure the rich for bribes.

If we ever win back democracy, we should make it illegal for any elected or appointed official to raise funds for anything similar in spirit to an inaugural fund. If its purpose is per glorification, perse must have no direct relationship with its operations, with its fund-raising, or its money.

National climate assessment web site deleted - 2025-07-14T02:38:10+00:00

The US saboteur in chief deleted the web site that published national climate assessments, including the most recent one which is from 2023. A copy of that is available here.

Much worse, he has shut down the preparation of the next edition, due in 2027. This will surely please his sponsors, the fossil fuel companies.

Scotland in drought - 2025-07-14T02:38:09+00:00

Scotland is in drought, due to global heating, and the government has asked people to limit water usage.

That is the right first step, but to avoid making things worse they must use less fossil fuel.

Floods in Texas - 2025-07-14T02:38:08+00:00

People in part of Texas have suffered a disaster that they partly brought on themselves. That includes the flood itself — many years of voting for climate denialists have permitted more global heating and that enabled the flood. And it includes the wrecker's efforts to weaken and abolish FEMA.

How should we express our disgust for those political policies in relation to the resulting non-natural disasters?

A doctor in Texas wished for Republican voters in the flood region to suffer the bad consequences of their votes. That is not the right ethical position.

Many Kerr County voters are getting the consequences most of them voted for — but we should be sad for that, not wish for that. Their votes were foolish because of their bad consequences; we should regret both those foolish votes and their bad consequences.

People get the government their behavior deserves, but people always deserve good government.

We can say that people brought disaster themselves without wishing for disaster to harm them. We can wish that they learn to make wise decisions without wishing for a disaster so "to teach them" that lesson.

Moreover, disasters don't always get people to be compassionate towards each other.

Meanwhile, while she was being fired for wishing that right-wingers suffer the harm they have caused, a group of right-wing fanatics seek to impose that harm on non-right-wing Texans.

Soaring profits in private prison industry - 2025-07-14T02:38:08+00:00

*The Private Prison Industry Looks Forward to Soaring Profits Thanks to [the persecutor]'s Budget.

Democrats and climate groups "too polite" - 2025-07-14T02:38:07+00:00

Senator Whitehouse accused *Democrats and climate groups [of being] "too polite" in fight against "malevolent" fossil fuel giants.*

I agree. The planet-roasters have grounds to know that they are risking destroying civilization and most living humans for their own profit. We don't owe them the benefit of the doubt.

Asian friends of US will increase trade with China - 2025-07-14T02:38:07+00:00

Asian friends of the US are aiming to increase their trade with China as a replacement for the US.

This is a natural consequence of the bully's tariff threats.

Cory Doctorow: How Canada should respond to tariffs - 2025-07-12T20:38:06+00:00

Cory Doctorow: Instead of retaliating towards US tariffs with its own Tariffs, it should retaliate by repealing the Canadian equivalent of the DMCA. And it should follow up by publishing jailbreaks for various US companies that are jails.

Doctorow argues that that would do far more harm to oppressive US companies that sell people jails, including Apple, Google, John Deere and car companies, and would avoid raising prices for Canadians.

I criticize the article's choice of terminology. When talking about copyright laws such as the DMCA, it refers to them by the over-general and vague term "IP". That term is always an overgeneralization and we should never use it.

It also refers to digital handcuffs as "digital locks". The most important thing about DRM and other digital handcuffs is that they are fundamentally unlike locks.

Locks, in general, are not nasty or unjust in that way. The lock on your door doesn't oppress you — because you have the key. Your password is a lock on your computer that does not oppress you because you choose and you have the key (password) to open it.

Protecting your control over your home or your computer is not an injustice.

The systems that companies use to restrict what you can do with your computer are handcuffs, not locks. The handcuffs are unjust towards you because the companies put them on you.

Digital handcuffs are an injustice because they give a company control. If we call them "locks", that tends to legitimize them — so let's not!

American academic researchers' chance to move to French university - 2025-07-12T20:38:05+00:00

Some of America's best academic researchers are being chosen for the chance to move to a French university.

300 researchers have applied, but there are only 38 finalists. I don't know how many will actually be chosen, but I would estimate not more than 10. What will the others do?

Open letter by EPA employees - 2025-07-12T20:38:05+00:00

140 EPA employees who signed an open letter criticizing the management *dismantling the EPA office of research and development, canceling environmental justice programs and grants, making employees fearful, undermining the trust of the public, and "ignoring scientific consensus to protect polluters."*

In other words, of acting against its official mission.

Those administrators suspended those employees and said, "The Environmental Protection Agency has a zero-tolerance policy for career bureaucrats unlawfully undermining, sabotaging, and undercutting the administration's agenda…"

And when the "administration's agenda" is to make the EPA fail totally, who then ought to be suspended?

Journalist ordered released but still being held - 2025-07-12T20:38:05+00:00

Journalist Mario Guevara was arrested covering a protest, and handed to the deportation thugs. A judge ruled to release him on bail, but the thugs are playing silly games to keep him in jail.

Project 2025 seems to have planned a general campaign to probe the law at every possible weakpoint, seeking ways to negate people's legal rights. Among those, the authority of judges to order officials to correct their abuses.

Iranian student stranded in US - 2025-07-12T20:38:05+00:00

Amazingly, US immigration persecutors were able to see the case for mercy for Mandonna Kashanian, an Iranian student who was stranded in the US when the Islamic revolution took power. Her family mobilized people in her community to convince their congresscritter, who had influence with the deportation thugs.

Her name leads me to speculate that she may be of Armenian ethnicity and not Muslim. That would be a reason why returning to Iran would have implied oppression.

The fact that it is possible gives reason to hope they might feel the stirrings of human decency more often.

Executions in Salafi Arabia - 2025-07-12T20:38:05+00:00

Salafi Arabia executed over 100 people in 2024, and over 100 people in the first half of this year, for nonviolent drug offenses.

According to Amnesty International, the trials are inadequate as proof that the accused even committed those crimes (though perhaps some did so).

Big Bad Bill will kill renewable energy projects - 2025-07-12T20:38:04+00:00

The Big Bad Bill will kill many renewable energy projects, which will make electricity substantially more expensive a few years from now. To compensate for this, the saboteur in chief plans to subsidize existing fossil-fuel generating plants.

Bill introduced to prohibit deportation thugs wearing masks - 2025-07-12T20:38:04+00:00

*Democratic senators introduce bill to prohibit [deportation thugs] from wearing masks.*

I don't think many Republicans will vote for this, but their opposition could show people how slavish and cruel they are.

Toxic sewage sludge as fertilizer - 2025-07-12T20:38:04+00:00

The use of toxic sewage sludge as fertilizer produces crops that contain small amounts of many different chemicals, some of which are toxic.

What is not known is whether the amounts of various chemicals present in actual food is a significant danger to people who mostly will die anyway before reaching the age of 100 years. Each chemical poses a separate question.

One lesson of this, which I've stated before, is that we must absolutely reject the idea that a company has a right to conceal data about its processes and outputs that is pertinent to public health. A government of the people, by the people, for the people tells companies, "Document what we need to know, or shut down."

Court case on deportation thug violence - 2025-07-12T20:38:04+00:00

Lawyers are trying to prove in court that the deportation thugs are using wanton violence against whoever they encounter, citizens or not.

US measles epidemic - 2025-07-12T20:38:03+00:00

The US measles epidemic is petering out, after around 1270 known cases. There may have been hundreds of thousands more cases not reported.

This is what used to happen every year when I was a child. Every year, 400-500 people died from measles in the US. The article does not say how many developed a weakened immune system or lasting disability, but I'd expect it was in the thousands.

All of that could be coming back — but we could avoid that by kicking out the trumpets.

Governments not powerless with deep sea miners - 2025-07-12T20:38:03+00:00

*Governments are not powerless in the face of deep sea miners colluding with [the wrecker].*

Deportations to South Sudan - 2025-07-12T20:38:03+00:00

The US travel warning for South Sudan says "Do not travel" and warns people to make a will first if they do go there. But the persecutor had 8 people deported there, a country they did not know, after lying to them about where they were being taken.

The US deportation thugs feel no obligation of decency or proportionality. Now that they have got away with deporting people to South Sudan who don't know that country or its culture, can't speak the language, and mostly don't adhere to the dominant religion there, and cannot make a living there, they will try to expand the practice to include people who had no criminal records, are entering with apparent permission, and get refused incomprehensibly at the arrival airport.

Canada bullied over "digital taxes" - 2025-07-12T20:38:03+00:00

Joseph Stiglitz: *[The bully] bullied Canada over "digital taxes" — and Ottawa submitted.*

It's too bad, because these would have meant more taxing of companies that are dangerously powerful.

"Palestinians fear razing of villages - 2025-07-12T20:38:02+00:00

*Palestinians fear razing of villages in West Bank, as [colonizers] circle their homes.*

(satire) Eating in front of surveillance state - 2025-07-12T20:38:02+00:00

(satire) *Insecure Woman Doesn't Like Eating In Front Of Surveillance State.*

Land under Alaskan village eroding - 2025-07-12T20:38:02+00:00

The land under the Alaskan village of Kipnuk is slowly eroding and buildings are falling into the ocean. The sadist's men have just canceled the climate adaptation grant that was going to pay for a retaining wall to protect it.

Many such grants have been canceled. The victims are suing.

Why the wrecker is trying to crush universities - 2025-07-12T20:38:01+00:00

Robert Reich explains why the wrecker is trying to crush universities and make them submissive agents of his control over thinking.

All parties believe people don't care about climate defense - 2025-07-12T20:38:01+00:00

All the parties in Britain believe that the people don't care about climate defense, so they can abandon the effort. This article argues that they are mistaken.

If you recognize that the survival of civilization depends on curbing global heating, so failure is likely to kill billions, you will realize that you must do that even people fail to demand it.

Genocide as a profit machine, UN report - 2025-07-12T09:13:14+00:00

The US put sanctions on Francesca Albanese, UN special rapporteur for the occupied Palestinian territories. The report inculpates Alphabet/Google, Facebook/Meta, and Microsoft, plus others in various countries.

Urgent: Tainted campaign money - 2025-07-12T09:13:13+00:00

US citizens: call on all Democratic candidates to pledge not to accept oligarch money.

Seemingly profiteering in Israel, US - 2025-07-12T09:13:13+00:00

*UN Gaza investigator Francesca Albanese says US sanctions against her a sign of "guilt".*

I don't think what the persecutor feels is guilt, as such. He seems to be impervious to the moral self-criticism that is essential for avoiding wrongdoing. I think he realizes that the condemnation will carry weight with the public, and lead some to despise him, so he seeks to silence or discredit those critics.

Societal improvements and wealth tax, UK - 2025-07-12T09:13:13+00:00

A billionaire who switched from supporting the Tories to supporting Labour evidently thought he was joining Tory Lite. Now he is worried that Starmer might get the idea he is head of the Labour party.

Attacking the poor is profitable, UK - 2025-07-12T09:13:13+00:00

George Monbiot: Attacking the poor creates a power base for right-wing fanatics when "centrist" plutocratists are in power, they do this; when the fanatics get into power, they can continue doing it.

Housing as corporate profit, US, Europe - 2025-07-12T09:13:13+00:00

In Europe, as in the US, governments have encouraged and fed the corporate takeover of housing. This is the root cause of unlivable prices.

Tax cuts for the rich, Europe - 2025-07-12T09:13:13+00:00

Europe spent the "peace dividend" from the end of the Cold War mostly on tax cuts and mostly for the rich. It can rearm and protect the non-rich now by returning tax levels to previous levels.

I suggest putting a withholding tax on business's payments to stockholders and creditors, which for EU taxpayers would count as withholding towards their personal tax payments. Non-EU taxpayers would not be able to get it back.

National Hwy traffic safety Admin. - 2025-07-12T09:13:12+00:00

*Tesla asks NHTSA to hide its response to Robotaxi questions.*

Businesses employ people but they are not people. They are not entitled to keep secrets from the public in matters that rightly concern the public's well being.

Even more abusive non-disclosure agreements - 2025-07-12T09:13:12+00:00

*UK bosses to be banned from using NDAs to cover up misconduct at work.*

This is a step forward, but it should go further. Businesses should not be allowed to compel employees to cover up harm to the public either.

Call for jury-free criminal trials, UK - 2025-07-12T09:13:12+00:00

The UK is considering abolishing jury trial for some subset of criminal charges.

If the system is "collapsing" it is probably traceable one way or another to budget cuts, made "necessary" by tax cuts for the rich.

Labour forces to decrease poverty - 2025-07-12T09:13:12+00:00

Economic forecasting predicts that the changes that the Labour Left forced on Starmer will convert a predicted increase in poverty into an predicted decrease.

That's good, but will it last? Some other change that hurts the non-rich could convert the positive forecast into negative again.

US weapons for Ukraine - 2025-07-11T14:37:58+00:00

The US suspended weapons shipments to Ukraine, claiming that its stockpiles of weapons were running low. However, there is no evidence that such a thing is happening — that justification seems to be just bullshit.

Deportation boondoggle - 2025-07-11T14:37:58+00:00

A Canadian woman has been living in the US since childhood, with her husband and their children, without official authorization. Her husband voted for the persecutor, and now that his wife has been targeted for persecution, he says he regrets his vote.

United Nations itself, in peril - 2025-07-11T14:37:58+00:00

*The UN is our best defense against a third world war. As [the wrecker] wields the axe, who will fight to save it?*