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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.
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.
The largest part of the site is the political notes, and they are typically updated every day.
I'm looking for people to…
Please email rms at the gnu site if you want to volunteer for any of those activities. For the Grav-mass decorations, please write if you come up with a good way.
US citizens: call on Congress to preserve the Johnson Amendment: don't allow churches to spend money on election campaigning.
US citizens: tell Senator Schumer to stop supporting pro-coal Senator Manchin with pro-coal ads.
US citizens: call on Congress to handle infrastructure development the progressive and useful way, rather than through privatization giveaways.
Everyone: call on UNESCO to protect world heritage sites by pressure against locating coal mines near them.
US citizens: call for justice for Charleena Lyles, killed by thugs after she called for help.
US citizens: phone your senators to oppose the Dontcare bill.
It is useful to urge them to delay the vote until after the July 4 recess. More time, more public scrutiny of the bill, will improve our chances of blocking it.
The Senate's Dontcare bill is basically just like the one passed by the House of Representatives.
Its cuts to Medicaid start slower but eventually go deeper.
The Capitol Switchboard numbers are 202-224-3121, 888-818-6641 and 888-355-3588.
In the US: participate in a Resistance Summer Community Cookout.
US citizens: phone your senators at 1-844-334-5514 and say they should not have imperiled the nuclear deal with Iran by voting for more sanctions.
This applies to all senators except the two, Bernie Sanders and Rand Paul, that voted against the sanctions.
For more info: http://act.moveon.org/go/10694
US citizens: call on Senate democrats to do all they can to block the progress of the Dontcare bill.
To do this all the time would be sabotage, and wrong. As a response to the sabotage manner that Republicans are using to push the Dontcare bill through fast without scrutiny, using this approach for a few weeks is justified. Once people have a chance to confront them on what the bill says, and what it would do, the Democrats could go back to usual practices.
In the US: tell Kroger to stop food grown with neonicotinoids.
Here are some quotations that I particularly like.
See the current pol-notes page for more.
(You may need to scroll down for more text if there is blank space in this column.)
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, Ireland, New Zealand, UK, the Philippines. Australia's previous government tried to institute national ID cards, but the Labor government dropped the plan.
India is now trying to institute national ID cards.
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.
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.
The Mimi and Eunice book by Nina Paley is great.
Personal Declaration of Richard Stallman and Euclides Mance on Solidarity Economy and Free Software.
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."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.
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.
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".
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
New song (06/2016) - Si la face ay pale.
My Puns in English (Response to commentary, June 2017).
My Puns in Spanish (New pun: nata June 2017)
My Puns in French (New pun: cathéters sanguins May 2017)
My Puns in Italian (New 09/2014)
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.
The huns and the writs. I don't know who wrote this, but I hope he does not object to sharing it here.
No Kludges in Cluj (June 2014)
A science fiction story: Jinnetic Engineering (in Portuguese, Farsi, Spanish, Armenian, Russian, French, and Italian).
Made for You (December 2012) (local copy)
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:
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Richard Stallman
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