Richard Stallman's Political Notes' Journal

Denying climate commitments

* Governments meeting for [Cop27] climate talks have been accused of making positive commitments in public but denying them later in the privacy of the negotiating rooms.*

History of opposing abortion rights

The UK's principal ministers have a history of quietly opposing abortion rights.

School workers on strike in Ontario

55,000 school workers in Ontario have gone on strike, showing they refuse to be intimidated by the law to fine them CAN 4,000 per day for striking.

Perhaps it would be better tactics to quit their jobs instead of striking. I suppose they can't be fined for quitting.

Iranian suppression forces beating students

Iranian suppression forces are grabbing students as they leave universities, beating them so badly that some are gravely injured, then taking them away and not telling anyone what happened to them.

Many reporters have been arrested.

The government is preparing to execute some of the protesters.

Corporations trying to block bills that stop gouging

US corporations are lobbying Congress at feverish pace to block bills that would hamper them from gouging.

It could be more effective to do that by increasing competition, which requires breaking up the oligopolies that mergers have saddled us with. My proposal for a progressive tax on gross income could do this.

Ralph Nader on importance of voting

Ralph Nader: Americans, it is very important for you to vote this year.

You may think you can "leave politics alone", but the real effect of that is to let the worst plutocrats mistreat you at their ease.

Hiring people that acted like thugs

British thug departments have a pattern of hiring people who acted like thugs even before they were hired.

Homeless commit crimes to sleep in jail

It is not unusual for homeless people in the US to commit crimes so they can sleep in jail.

Homeless shelters are very uncomfortable places, and have painful rules, such as that you must go out and spend your day on the street. I expect that you are forced to sleep in a small room with several strangers.

Per inmate, a prison is far more expensive than a shelter. I expect that even a comfortable shelter with all the advantages of a jail, giving a person a small room to call per own and lock behind per when going out, would be much cheaper to build and run than a prison.

Sadism is what gets in the way. The US is unwilling to spend money on helping the homeless, but it pays millions for prisons.

Peat bogs releasing carbon instead of absorbing it

Global heating is on the verge of making the vast Congo peat bogs start releasing carbon instead of absorbing it. That would tip the Earth into disaster.

Netanyahu back in power

Netanyahu seems to have got back into power with the help of Israel's right-wing religious extremists. They aim to undermine democracy in Israel, much as Republicans are trying to do in the US.

I wonder where secularist Israelis will find a country where they can be safe from persecution.

Republican claims to never losing elections again

The Republican candidate for governor of Wisconsin says that the Republicans will never, ever lose an election there if he wins.

Since no one can predict the reversals of history, he cannot mean that they would always win honestly. He is stating, in typical deceptive Republican language, that they would rig, swindle or steal all future elections.

Roadblocks cleared to travel to soccer games

Brazilian soccer fans cleared the roadblocks of Bolsonaro supporters so that they could travel to watch games.

Peace agreement between Ethiopia and Tigray

Ethiopia and Tigray have announced a peace agreement. The Amhara region, which has its own army (puzzling since the capital of Ethiopia is in the Amhara region and Amharas have dominated Ethiopia for a long time), says it is not part of the peace deal. This makes me wonder how long the peace deal will last.

Israel's far-right kingmakers

*Israel's Far-Right Kingmakers Draw on U.S. Funding — Despite Terror Classifications.*

Urgent: Impose a code of ethics on the Supreme Court

US citizens: Because of Justice Barrett's secrecy about conflicts of interest, call for Congress to impose a code of ethics on the Supreme Court.

Excessive fuss about North Korea's missile tests

An example of making excessive fuss about North Korea's missile tests.

The author insists we "cannot ignore" North Korea's "nuclear threat", but it's the just opposite: ignoring these missile tests is exactly what we should do.

It is a fact that North Korea has nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles. We have to recognize that fact. But then what?

It is clear that diplomacy, offering deals, cannot convince Dictator Kim to give them up. To start a war would not improve anything; it would risk a response with some of those nuclear weapons.

Fussing about how horrible this situation is useless too, so and we only make ourselves look foolish. Until there is some course of action that would lead to a good reasons, let's ignore him.

Urgent: Cancel the Willow project

US citizens: call on Biden to cancel the Willow project — a large new oilfield in Alaska.

Urgent: Protect the rusty patched bumblebee

US citizens: call on the Fish and Wildlife Service to Protect the rusty patched bumblebee.

To sign without running nonfree JavaScript code from the web site, use the Salsalabs workaround.

Urgent: Support Big Oil Windfall Profits Tax

US citizens: call on Biden to support a Big Oil Windfall Profits Tax.

"Catastrophic Outcomes" for workers as Interest Rates climb

*Progressive Economists Warn of 'Catastrophic Outcomes' for Workers as Fed Hikes Interest Rates.*

Social media forming our views

* The big social media platforms don’t reflect back our views so much as form them.*

I am leading to the view that we should regulate recommendation algorithms by law. Perhaps that regulation should include offering each user a choice between different recommendation algorithms, each one regulated by law.

We could even requiring that platforms allow users to program their own recommendation algorithms, in a limited language to avoid risk of breaking the server.

Use of Google and Apple products to Russia

Ukraine called on Google and Apple to deny Russia the use of their services and products.

Extended patent monopolies on drugs in proposed business-supremacy treaty

A leaked draft of a proposed business-supremacy treaty between India and the UK would impose extended patent monopolies on drugs. This means that drugs will not become generic in the future.

It is no surprise that the draft treaty uses the propaganda term "intellectual property". It is unfortunate that the critics of this treaty fell into using that term too, instead of rebuking the treaty for that.

Snowden calls for elimination of DHS

Responding to plans stated by the Department of "Homeland Security" to control disinformation online, Edward Snowden called for elimination of the DHS.

To eliminate fake news would be a good thing; inventing lies is wrong. However, when governments try to block what they call "fake news", that tends to turn into a campaign of censorship. Whatever news the government dislikes, it calls "fake". Egypt is the latest example to be mentioned here.

Marketing guns toward right-wing extremists

A former gun company lobbyist testified to Congress that he left that job because gun companies wanted to market guns directly to right-wing extremists and would-be mass murderers.

Since Biden was elected, they market directly to right-wing extremists that have in mind political violence.

Egypt holding tens of thousands of political prisoners

An interview with one of Egypt's few independent journalists. He reports that Egypt holds tens of thousands of political prisoners, most of them charged with "spreading false information" and "belonging to a prohibited organization". Egypt is using the Cop27 climate conference to appoint itself global negotiator for poor countries,

Activists that might criticize the repressive Egyptian state have been excluded. Raising environmental issues is not allowed when that implies criticizing the state.

Protests aimed at the event are limited to a far-away "free speech zone", as they were called in developed countries around 2000. The idea is that no one will notice protests there, but it will serve as an excuse to prohibit protest anywhere else.

Holding an international meeting in a repressive country is a standard technique for silencing the public about it, and this seems to be an example.

The terms "global south" and "global north" are bogus, empty buzzwords. I'd rather speak of wealthy countries and poor countries.

Plans for coping with global heating

Only 1/3 of the world's countries have made quantitative plans for coping with near-term global heating in coming decades.

I maintain that reducing global heating must take priority over coping with its effects. Countries' efforts for that have been inadequate too. We must demand they do a batter job; if they can do a good job of both, that's ideal. But if it is a choice of one or the other, we must insist on long-term survival of civilization rather than just postponing the end.

Haitians denounce US-backed intervention

*Haitians, Peace Activists Denounce Plan for Another US-Backed Intervention.*

Republican efforts to control courts

Republicans are spending a lot of money to control the courts of many states.

Calling a deadly heat wave "extreme"

Is it valid to call a deadly heat wave "extreme", now that extremes are pushing further than that?

Law that restricts sharing food with homeless

A US appeals court upheld a St Louis law that imposed such strict conditions on sharing food with homeless people that it became effectively impossible.

(satire) Ability to pretend U.S. a democracy

(satire) *Biden Warns Americans That Ability To Even Pretend U.S. A Democracy At Stake.*

That item is funny, but when you look at the bills that Democrats fought hard to pass this year, and the parts that Sinema and Manchin defeated, this shows that two more real Democrats in the Senate could have made a big difference.

Affirmative action for admission to universities

Robert Reich says that the Supreme Court will surely eliminate affirmative action for admission to universities.

More about the affirmative action issue.

Problems with obsolete decrepit dams in the US

Thousands of obsolete, decrepit and hazardous dams on US rivers cause floods and block fish migrations. Some are being demolished.

Eritrea's tax on expatriates

Eritrea charges a tax on expatriates, and some of the income is currently being used to fund Eritrea's war with Tigray. Does that make the tax a bad thing?

We don't have enough information about that war to formulate an opinion about which sides are right or wrong. So we can't conclude that we should use economic sanctions on that very poor country to make it drop out of that war.

But there are worse things about Eritrea that we do know. For instance, conscripting just about all adults into slave labor. That is why so many Eritreans flee and seek asylum in other countries, no matter how big the obstacles.

Perhaps that is a good reason to stop Eritrea from collecting the tax on expats.

Overfishing in the UK continues with or without EU

One of the supposed benefits of bringing the UK out of the EU was that it would have the sovereign power to limit fishing and thus manage fish stocks according to science. But the government disregards the opportunity and permits overfishing just as before.

Having plentiful cod in British waters may also require curbing global heating. The increased temperature of the ocean is making cod move north.

Plan to allow internet voting in Washington, DC

A proposal to allow internet voting in Washington, DC, now has the lobbying muscle of a rich venture capitalist.

In addition to the inherent insecurity of this procedure, it would naturally be set up so that you vote while watching political disinformation ads on the same screen.

I am not impressed by making it "open source", because

If the client program as released by its developers is free/libre, that won't guarantee that the version voters run is free/libre. The former could be released under a pushover license and the latter could be a nonfree version of it.
Even if the version voters run is free/libre, that won't guarantee you don't get a corrupted version to use for your vote. That can always happen — there is always someone in a position to do it.
As for the server part of the system, you can never be confident that someone won't corrupt it in the server. Inevitably either the election authority or the developer of the program can do it.

Plan to raise interest rates

An official of the Federal Reserve suggests a plan to raise interest rates until most Americans' bank accounts are empty.

Australian system to take "overpayments" from the poor

When Australia adopted an automated system to demand people (typically still poor) refund supposed "overpayments" in their benefit payments, this caused great suffering for hundreds of thousands of victims. Some committed suicide. In other words, exactly the results that a right-wing government would desire, to show how harsh it is on those greedy, grasping poor people.

One government employee asked for legal advice about the plan when he read about it, before it was adopted, and got a report saying that it was illegal.

An inquiry has found that the government kept the details of the report secret, and repeatedly cited its existence as justification for the program. That's right-wing politicians for you.