Don't watch TV coverage of Covid-19!

graphic by Susan Henson
Americans, you may wish to copy this icon to your own page, as a way of showing what patriotism means to you.

Urgent action items

• Everyone: call on John Kerry and the US Congress to include military greenhouse gas emissions in agreements to reduce emissions.

  If you call, please spread the word!

• Everyone: call on companies to stop funding extremist US candidates.

  If you call, please spread the word!

• Everyone: call on the US to drop charges against Julian Assange.
• US citizens: call on your senators to vote no on Neera Tanden.

  This petition has trouble when Javascript is disabled, but here is a workaround for the trouble.

  When you sign the petition with Javascript disabled, it will display a page containing a URL. That URL will start with the text "[URL]" — literally "[", "U", "R", "L" and "]". That text needs to be replaced with the proper hostname.

  The address bar of the browser will contain the proper hostname. Thus, what you should do is to erase all the text in the address bar except the host name. Then copy the text from the page contents, except for "[URL]", into the address bar after the host name.

  If you made the mistake of including two slashes, or no slashes, after the host name, fix that manually.

  Then visit that page, fill in the form, and finish signing.

• US citizens: state your support for the Green New Deal.
• US citizens: call on your senators to vote against Tom Vilsack for Secretary of Agriculture.

  This petition has trouble when Javascript is disabled, but here is a workaround for the trouble.

  When you sign the petition with Javascript disabled, it will display a page containing a URL. That URL will start with the text "[URL]" — literally "[", "U", "R", "L" and "]". That text needs to be replaced with the proper hostname.

  The address bar of the browser will contain the proper hostname. Thus, what you should do is to erase all the text in the address bar except the host name. Then copy the text from the page contents, except for "[URL]", into the address bar after the host name.

  If you made the mistake of including two slashes, or no slashes, after the host name, fix that manually.

  Then visit that page, fill in the form, and finish signing.

• US citizens: call on senators to support Sanders in filibustering the military spending bill to demand passage of $2,000 stimulus payments to Americans.

  If you call, please spread the word!

• US citizens: call your congresscritter and your senators to tell them to remove the copyright and trademark changes from the Covid-19 relief bill.

  The wrecker's veto, while surely intended for manipulation, offers the chance to fix this. Let's seize the opportunity.

  Why the copyright repression of the CASE Act is so bad.

  Increasing the relief payments would also be a good thing, but if the wrecker were sincere about wanting that, he could have said so two weeks ago and got it with much less fuss.

• Boycott Chevron, in the name of Steven Donziger.

Recording of Guantanamero

There Ought to Be a Law

• *The pandemic has taken surveillance of workers to the next level.*

  The extreme of this is represented by the Amazon warehouse, where a worker's every move is controlled by the computer system. This is one of many reasons to refuse to buy from Amazon.

  Unfortunately, surveillance of workers is not limited to Amazon. I think states should pass laws to limit surveillance of workers. It should cover independent contractors as well as employees.

  The law should completely forbid demanding that workers run any specific software on their own computers (keep in mind that portable phones are computers); the employer who wants that must furnish the computer at no charge.

• A hundred years ago, having your face photo circulated as a suspect could direct persecution at you — for instance, making it impossble to get a job.

  Now it can cause you to be arrested randomly for walking down the street.

  If stores use face recognition inside the store, they should not be allowed to use photos for matching against people in the store except for photos they have taken in that store, and photos of people convicted of theft and fraud.

• The corrupter has pardoned his former agent, Michael Flynn, who was convicted for lying to the FBI about what he did for the corrupter.

  This is a corrupt practice. I think we need to limit the president's power to pardon so that presidents cannot do this in the future.

• *Despite CDC Moratorium—and With Help From White House—Corporate Landlords Have Gone on Eviction Spree.*

  I think we should have a law putting a real-estate tax on corporations owning more than a few rental houses, or more than a few apartment buildings, and likewise on the corporations that own them, etc.

• 200 Google workers have formed a union. They are determined to include contractors, so they have decided not to apply for formal recognition. We need to change US law so that contract workers, even subcontracted workers, can unionize.

Quotes

Here are some quotations that I particularly like.

Most recent Political Notes and News Items

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.)

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.

Support the Green Party

Republican Election Rigging Tactics

Evoting

The Olympics

Why everyone has a reason to fear massive surveillance

Churchandstate.org.uk

E-books

Non-oppressive Commercial E-books

Don't use Facebook

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.

Boycott Harry Potter Books, Movies, etc.

Internet Music EULAS

Business Supremacy Treaties

Countries to Stay Away From

No national identity cards

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.

Borders

Stay away from certain countries because of their bad immigration policies.

Flight connections

Avoid flight connections in these airports because of their treatment of passengers.

The Lifelong Activist

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.

Bob Chassell

Solidarity Economy and Free Software

Personal Declaration of Richard Stallman and Euclides Mance on Solidarity Economy and Free Software.

Falkvinge articles

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.