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Richard Stallman's Political Notes

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Emperor penguins' climate

dimanche 3 septembre 2023 à 11:32

A scientist who has studied emperor penguins for a career expects them to be extinct in our lifetime, due to global heating.

Rightwing feeds, US effects

dimanche 3 septembre 2023 à 11:32

Alan Singer: *Trump Insanity on the Right*

Tibetan culture vs China

dimanche 3 septembre 2023 à 11:32

China is trying to erase the Tibetan culture and Tibetans as an ethnic group, with forced assimilation.

Polar bears' climate

dimanche 3 septembre 2023 à 11:32

The loss of sea ice is endangering polar bears in some regions of the Arctic, but in other regions they have adapted to the changes … so far.

Whether the species will survive this century somewhere is not clear. Since we don't know exactly what changes will result from global heating, we can't assert with certainty that it will be wiped out. But we also cannot assert it will survive.

We can be sure that more heating makes more chance of extinction.

Labour courting big business

samedi 2 septembre 2023 à 14:46

*When a British politician discusses “tough choices”, [person] invariably [reveals] whose side [perse is] really on. A tough choice tends to involve emptying the pockets of those with little, or slashing a service ordinary citizens depend on.*

In any country, the plutocratist politicians are the ones that do this. Labour's string of "tough choices" shows it has become a plutocratist party. The Tories, formerly the reasonable-sounding plutocratist party, has become the incompetent nutso party, and Starmer has moved Labour into the Tories' old spot. Now Labour is competing with the Tories for breaking promises to correct horrible problems. The most recent Labour pledge to be dropped is the wealth tax.

In the US, plutocratist politicians since Reagan have allowed dooH niboR to transfer ever more of the working people's previous share of national income to the rich. Progressive proposals to return some of that to the non-rich always provoke squeals of exaggerated pain from the rich, claiming that that would be unfair and intolerable. The politicians who heed them do so because they are plutocratist. Clinton, the first plutocratist Democratic president since a century ago, continued on that path, and so did Dubya and Obama.

Biden has made efforts to help the non-rich. I expected another Obama but I was favorably surprised. He would have done more but plutocratists in Congress (including some Democrats) blocked him.

*Biden says white supremacy has no place in US after Florida killings.* That shows some moral leadership.

Nonetheless, he is no Bernie Sanders.

However, one difference between political parties in the US and political parties in Britain is that a US party does not have veto power over candidates for federal office. The voters choose them. That is why we see increasing numbers of progressive Democrats elected to Congress. We can, by supporting them, convert the Democratic Party step by step into a progressive party again.

Britons can't do that any more in the Labour Party. Starmer's strict measures to exclude non-plutocratists from running as Labour candidates block that completely, so there is no hope down the Labour path any more.

Compare today's Labour leadership with the leaders that set up the National Health Service and made it work. What a shame.