Green Party endorses Ken Livingstone

Its vote Jenny and transfer to Kenny, no doubt the Evening Standard will be spinning for the bankers they love Boris and don't want fares cut and they are very happy with Bozzer's 50p tax cut victory.

The Green Party in London has made me proud, lets all get out and work for Jenny and transfer the votes to Ken.

Vote Jen 1, Ken 2, says Green Party

Vote decides Livingstone as second preference candidate
Photocall

Who: Mayoral candidate Jenny Jones and Ken Livingstone

What: launch of Green Party’s recommendation of Livingstone as second preference candidate

Where: Rooftop, 56-64 Leonard Street, Development House, London, EC2A 4LT

When: 2pm Wednesday 28 March 2012
An extraordinary meeting of the London Green Party this week decided to recommend Ken Livingstone as second preference choice for Mayor after first choice Jenny Jones.
Livingstone spoke to around 70 members at the Party’s Headquarters on Leonard Street and fielded questions on his record and policies.
After over an hour of discussion, a vote in favour of recommending Livingstone as second choice carried with a clear majority.
Green Party Mayoral candidate Jenny Jones said: "The voting system gives Londoners a chance to make a positive Mayoral first choice for a more equal, healthier and affordable London.
“However, should I not be counted among the top two candidates after the first round, then I want a Mayor who will work with Green Party Assembly Members to deliver on pay equality, less pollution and cheaper fares.
“Ken Livingstone is far from perfect, but we know from his last time as Mayor that we can work with him to make positive changes in a way that would be impossible with either Boris Johnson or many other senior Labour politicians.”
Livingstone said: ”What we are seeing is that as we get closer to the election a broadening alliance of people wants a fairer London.
“The Green endorsement for second preferences is a key building block to winning change on May 3rd. I am very pleased that the Green Party has decided to encourage their supporters to cast their second preference votes for me.
“I look forward to working again with Green Assembly Members, including tackling air pollution, creating a fairer London, and improving pedestrian and cyclists’ safety.”
Discussions focused on the clear desire among members to help prevent a further four years of Boris Johnson’s Mayorship, and the clear differentiation between recommending the Labour Party and Livingstone as a candidate, the man himself frequently opposing Labour Party policy.
Members emphasised that the priority of the campaign was to increase the number of Greens elected to the London Assembly in order to best hold the successful Mayor candidate to account.
Members raised particular concerns over Livingstone’s record on road building, the poorly regulated financial sector and air pollution.
However, the meeting meeting voted to support the recommendation after hearing pledges to curb top pay at City Hall, help the lowest paid workers, end cheats and evasions over air pollution used by the current Mayor and Government and financially support boroughs wanting to introduce 20mph zones.

Sterile sectarianism versus obedient compromise with evil

Sometimes all the models look wrong, the British far left are excluded and marginal but those who compromise are soon swept away too.  Its easy to point to leftists without influence to justify participation with what ultimately is evil.  Its also easy for those who reject such compromises to justify their own impotent failure which too is an acceptance of what is wrong.  Of course some decisions, one thinks of the Irish Green Party coalition with notoriously corrupt Fianna Fail, are obviously untenable.  Achieving necessary change is not easy in European politics at present, what we have has failed and creating an alternative means profound change.  Anyway my almost continuous meditation on this was rewoken when I read the following paragraph:

Here lies the dilemma of the revolutionary within a society unripe for revolution. If he stands aside from the main currents of social change, he becomes purist, sectarian, without influence. If he swims with the current, he is swept downward by the flow of reformism and compromise.

MORE HERE

Mumia Abu-Jamal on Fanon.

Mumia Abu-Jamal on Fanon. Essential, very important video essay, listen, learn, share.

Cuba solves climate change (video)

Great video from my friend Roberto!

Caroline Lucas condemns budget for billionaires which wrecks environment

-        
‘Environment versus economy’ rhetoric and tax breaks for oil and gas
show Osborne still doesn’t get it
-        
Coalition to bulldoze ahead with ‘growth at any cost’ planning reforms
-        
Toxic 50p tax cut for the rich exposes Lib Dem failure to dilute Tory
dogma
-        
Budget offers little for part time workers and people on lowest incomes
The 2012 Budget will do nothing to deliver a greener or more prosperous
economy – and shows the Coalition completely failing the fairness test, said
the UK’s Green MP today.
Caroline Lucas, leader of the Green Party and MP for Brighton Pavilion,
said:
"This true blue Budget is the nail in the coffin for this Government’s
‘greenest ever’ pledge.
"The determination to plough ahead with growth-at-any-cost planning
reforms and aviation expansion, throw money at North Sea oil and gas, and
ignore the potential of green energy shows that this administration’s
environmental policy is blue, not green.
"The Chancellor’s stubborn refusal to accept that investment in clean
renewable energy and energy efficiency can simultaneously tackle the
environmental crisis, stabilise the UK economy and create jobs is depriving
this country of a more prosperous future."
Lucas continued: "Meanwhile, Osborne’s toxic tax cut for the richest is a
slap in the face for the millions of working people across the country fighting
a losing battle against falling wages, job insecurity, rising living costs and
severe public spending cuts.
"Having failed to secure either a genuine mansion tax or a tycoon tax to
compensate for the Tories’ unfair 50p rate cut, disillusioned Liberal Democrat
MPs must once again be asking themselves what purpose they are serving in this
Coalition.
"The fact that public sector net borrowing hit £15.2bn in February is clear
proof that Osborne’s destructive austerity drive is failing even on its own
terms. And given the increasing levels of joblessness, the
Government’s blind belief in the private sector to compensate for huge public
sector job losses – 270,000 last year – looks increasingly delusional.
"We have a youth unemployment crisis of staggering proportions and a
whole section of society trapped in low paid work. While there were some positive
measures to tackle this in today’s Budget, it’s clear that the Government needs
to do far more."
The Green MP concluded: "This Budget is a regressive document from a regressive
Government. It will do nothing to deliver a fairer or more prosperous UK
economy – and it certainly won’t deliver a greener one."
ENDS
News from The Green Party website: http://www.greenparty.org.uk/news/budget-2012-true-blue-is-nail-in-coffin-for-green-government-pledge.html

Don't poison us say SalvaTierra

Please spread the word.

http://salvatierrard.wordpress.com/

Activists demand to ban cyanide in Dominican Republic

The protest took place in front of the offices of Barrick, which prepares to operate the Pueblo Viejo gold and silver mine next year

Dominican Republic.- The group SalvaTierra took a non-violent direct action this morning in front of the building where the multinational mining corporation Barrick has part of its offices in capital city, Santo Domingo. It declared its support to dozens of environmental and social groups that have already expressed their opposition to megamining in the country and joined the campaign by the Latin America Mining Conflicts Observatory (OCMAL) to ban cyanide in the whole region.

In their statement, the group warns that: “Mega open pit mining is an activity whose enormous scale entails major environmental impacts, such as the destruction of large forests, the massive consumption of fresh water and electricity, the production of acid drainage, and above all the use of large amounts of highly toxic substances”. Amongst the latter they highlighted cyanide, which Barrick is planning to use for processing 24,000 tons of mineral daily in the Pueblo Viejo mine currently under construction.

The activists of SalvaTierra asserted that the terrible disasters cyanide has already caused in different parts of the world evidence that there is no way of having absolute safeguards against spills of this toxic substance. They highlighted the cyanide spill that occurred in Romaina in 2000, which motivated a ten years debate that concluded with the ban of cyanide for mining purposes in the whole of the European Union; and that of Ghana, in 2009, which took place in a gold mine certified by the International Cyanide Management Code, which Barrick now pretends to use as a guarantee against spills in Pueblo Viejo.

While a 20 percent of the Dominican population has no access to water according to the United Nations Program for Development (UNDP), the Pueblo Viejo mine is planning to consume 2,500 cubic meters of water per hour. The mine is also putting in risk of pollution with cyanide and acid drainage the Hatillo dam, the largest of the Caribbean region. SalvaTierra expressed their concerns about these facts, specially when it has been announced that climate change could decrease the water supply of the nation up to a 60 a percent.

The group concluded by saying that the decision to take the Dominican Republic on the path of megamining development is not the result of a consensus based on a democratic debate, but rather seeks particular interests and privileges. In addition, they stated that there is crucial information which has been kept from the public, such as the amount of cyanide that Barrick is planning to use in Pueblo Viejo. For all these reasons, they demanded more transparency and access to information from the mining corporations and the government, and the ban of cyanide for mining purposes.  

Capitalism: A Ghost Story (complete movie)

Capitalism is destroying the planet. The two old tricks that dug it out of past crises—War and Shopping—simply will not work http://www.outlookindia.com/article.aspx?280234



Is it a house or a home? A temple to the new India, or a warehouse for its ghosts? Ever since Antilla arrived on Altamont Road in Mumbai, exuding mystery and quiet menace, things have not been the same. “Here we are,” the friend who took me there said, “Pay your respects to our new Ruler.”
Antilla belongs to India’s richest man, Mukesh Ambani. I had read about this most expensive dwelling ever built, the twenty-seven floors, three helipads, nine lifts, hanging gardens, ballrooms, weather rooms, gymnasiums, six floors of parking, and the six hundred servants. Nothing had prepared me for the vertical lawn—a soaring, 27-storey-high wall of grass attached to a vast metal grid. The grass was dry in patches; bits had fallen off in neat rectangles. Clearly, Trickledown hadn’t worked.
But Gush-Up certainly has. That’s why in a nation of 1.2 billion, India’s 100 richest people own assets equivalent to one-fourth of the GDP.
The word on the street (and in the New York Times) is, or at least was, that after all that effort and gardening, the Ambanis don’t live in Antilla. No one knows for sure. People still whisper about ghosts and bad luck, Vaastu and Feng Shui. Maybe it’s all Karl Marx’s fault. (All that cussing.) Capitalism, he said, “has conjured up such gigantic means of production and of exchange, that it is like the sorcerer who is no longer able to control the powers of the nether world whom he has called up by his spells”.
In India, the 300 million of us who belong to the new, post-IMF “reforms” middle class—the market—live side by side with spirits of the nether world, the poltergeists of dead rivers, dry wells, bald mountains and denuded forests; the ghosts of 2,50,000 debt-ridden farmers who have killed themselves, and of the 800 million who have been impoverished and dispossessed to make way for us. And who survive on less than twenty rupees a day.
Mukesh Ambani is personally worth $20 billion. He holds a majority controlling share in Reliance Industries Limited (RIL), a company with a market capitalisation of $47 billion and global business interests that include petrochemicals, oil, natural gas, polyester fibre, Special Economic Zones, fresh food retail, high schools, life sciences research and stem cell storage services. RIL recently bought 95 per cent shares in Infotel, a TV consortium that controls 27 TV news and entertainment channels, including CNN-IBN, IBN Live, CNBC, IBN Lokmat, and ETV in almost every regional language. Infotel owns the only nationwide licence for 4G Broadband, a high-speed “information pipeline” which, if the technology works, could be the future of information exchange. Mr Ambani also owns a cricket team.
RIL is one of a handful of corporations that run India. Some of the others are the Tatas, Jindals, Vedanta, Mittals, Infosys, Essar and the other Reliance (ADAG), owned by Mukesh’s brother Anil. Their race for growth has spilled across Europe, Central Asia, Africa and Latin America. Their nets are cast wide; they are visible and invisible, over-ground as well as underground. The Tatas, for example, run more than 100 companies in 80 countries. They are one of India’s oldest and largest private sector power companies. They own mines, gas fields, steel plants, telephone, cable TV and broadband networks, and run whole townships. They manufacture cars and trucks, own the Taj Hotel chain, Jaguar, Land Rover, Daewoo, Tetley Tea, a publishing company, a chain of bookstores, a major brand of iodised salt and the cosmetics giant Lakme. Their advertising tagline could easily be: You Can’t Live Without Us.
According to the rules of the Gush-Up Gospel, the more you have, the more you can have.
The era of the Privatisation of Everything has made the Indian economy one of the fastest growing in the world. However, like any good old-fashioned colony, one of its main exports is its minerals. India’s new mega-corporations—Tatas, Jindals, Essar, Reliance, Sterlite—are those who have managed to muscle their way to the head of the spigot that is spewing money extracted from deep inside the earth. It’s a dream come true for businessmen—to be able to sell what they don’t have to buy.

MORE HERE

'Shock Poll: Meteorologists Are Global Warming Skeptics'

James Taylor in Forbes argues:

A recent survey of American Meteorological Society members shows meteorologists are skeptical that humans are causing a global warming crisis. The survey confirms what many scientists have been reporting for years; the politically focused bureaucratic leadership of many science organizations is severely out of touch with the scientists themselves regarding global warming issues.

I must admit it would be a huge relief to find that human beings are not causing climate change.  Its also good to get some intelligent arguments challenging ones beliefs (I am a great fan of the Economist magazine in this regard).

However Taylor's seems to have confused the stats, merging those who don't think climate change is happening, with those who do but may be skeptical as to the cause, with those who do think its human in origin but are skeptical of current solutions.  Actually I could be placed in this last category as I feel a lot of the supposed solutions like carbon trading are ineffective.

A majority of those surveyed may or may not be 'skeptical that humans are causing a global warming crisis' but believe it is human in origin.  


'89% of AMS meteorologists believe global warming is happening' and according to Taylor 59% of these believe it is human in origin.  I would highly recommend reading the original article with care if it is representative it is highly instructive.


Taylor works for the Heartland Institute.  Any dodgy argument will do to justify a drill baby drill culture.  Have a look at the actual survey and tell me that Taylor can count! http://www.ametsoc.org/boardpges/cwce/docs/BEC/CICCC/2012-02-AMS-Member-Survey-Preliminary-Findings.pdf


Its interesting that skepticism about how to deal with climate change is merged with skepticism about the science.  Tabloid stuff, the suicide lobby is a stupidity lobby. 


Can you imagine saying don't worry about preventing cancer, the free market and technology will cure your tumour.


Wait a minute this just what the Taylor's were saying about smoking in the 1950s and 60s.


There is a good response in the comments thread to Taylor, its long but worth reading.  Incidentally I would be interested in skeptical arguments about the science but I don't really want to be presented with a lot of dodgy made up arguments about poll data.  


Taylor is essential a pimp for big oil, he doesn't care as long as he gets paid.

Science Denial Machine Scrambles to Distort and Spin AMS Survey ResultsA recent survey of American Meteorological Society members shows that the vast majority of meteorologists believe that human activity is causing global warming. The survey confirms what many scientists have been reporting for years; the official statements of most science organizations accurately reflect what the scientists themselves believe regarding global warming issues.
According to American Meteorological Society (AMS) data, only 1.5% of AMS meteorologists are extremely sure or very sure that global warming is not happening. On the other hand, 74% of AMS meteorologists are extremely sure or very sure that global warming is occurring. Among the 96% of AMS meteorologists who either believe in global warming or are undecided, the vast majority of them are very worried or somewhat worried about the consequences of global warming.
This strong agreement between the great majority of meteorologists who believe global warming is happening and the large majority who are at least somewhat worried about it is consistent with other surveys of scientists. This consistency exposes global warming deniers who variously assert that:
(a) global warming isn’t occurring,
(b) global warming is occurring but human activity doesn’t contribute to it,
(c) global warming is occurring and human activity contributes to it, but not in a substantial way,
(d) global warming is occurring and human activity contributes to it, but the consequences will be beneficial,
(e) global warming is occurring and human activity contributes to it, but reducing our greenhouse gas emissions would destroy the national economy and therefore we should do nothing,
(f) the entirety of climate science is wrong; please believe the information provided by your friendly fossil fuel provider instead,
(g) it’s a conspiracy; please believe the good folks in the fossil fuel industry who have your best interests at heart,
(h) scientists disagree about whether global warming is occurring and what causes it; please wait another 50 years for better data (and in the meantime, keep burning fossil fuels!),
etc…
What this and other scientist surveys show is that an exceedingly large majority of scientists believe in global warming and that the incredibly small minority of scientists who doubt global warming continues to shrink. It also shows that front groups for the fossil fuel industry (like the Heartland Institute) will distort the results of these surveys to try to create the illusion that global warming is a scientific controversy.
Other questions solidified the meteorologists’ belief that humans are contributing to a global warming problem. For example, among those meteorologists who believe global warming is happening, only a small minority (6%) believe that warming is being driven primarily by natural events. More importantly, only a miniscule 2.4% of respondents who believe global warming is occurring say it will have net benefits during the next 100 years.
With a strong majority of meteorologists worried about global warming and expecting harm during the next 100 years, one can easily understand why environmental activist groups are encouraging the public and governments to take action. Does anyone really expect our economy to be powered 100 years from now by the same energy sources we use today? Why delay the transition to cleaner energy sources that will provide independence from unreliable foreign sources, especially as fossil fuel prices are soaring? Starting the transition now will encourage the job growth and technological advances that our country needs, whereas delaying action will dramatically increase the costs to our society.
In another line of survey questions, 53% of respondents believe there is conflict among AMS members regarding the topic of global warming. Only 33% believe there is no conflict. Another 15% were not sure. These results provide strong evidence that, in spite of widespread agreement in the scientific community, the disinformation campaigns of fossil fuel PR firms and lobbying groups (like the Heartland Institute) have been effective in creating the illusion of scientific controversy.
Overall, the survey of AMS scientists is consistent with the official AMS Information Statement on Climate Change. Drafted by the AMS leadership, the Information Statement explains that AMS meteorologists have few doubts about the contribution of human activity to global warming. The Information Statement indicates quite strongly that humans are the primary driver of global temperatures and the consequences are and will continue to be quite serious.
Scientists who have attended the Heartland Institute’s annual International Conference on Climate Change are not representative of the scientific community; many of them have ties to industry groups with a financial interest in climate change denial. The Heartland Institute has a history of disinformation campaigns on behalf of corporate interests; for example, the Heartland Institute helped the tobacco industry mislead the public about the health risks associated with smoking. That’s why surveys like the AMS survey results are useful–they demonstrate that there is widespread scientific agreement about global warming and its harmful consequences.
In contrast to the AMS survey, where all respondents are AMS meteorologists, a majority have Ph.D.s and fully 80% have a Ph.D. or Masters Degree, position statements by so-called think tanks (like the Heartland Institute) carry little weight. Although they claim to carry out research, the truth is that their function is to create political leverage for corporate clients. On the other hand, a position statement recently published by the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is generally considered the “definitive” indication of scientific consensus on global warming. Unlike the staff at disinformation organizations (like the Heartland Institute) that often consists of lawyers, the NAS group that produced the position statement is comprised of scientists and professionals who work in the fields of climate science, environmental science, energy, economics and public policy. Compare the solid, significant credentials of this group to, for example, the credentials of James Taylor, senior fellow for environment policy at the Heartland Institute; James Taylor has a bachelor’s degree (not in science) and a law degree. It’s hard to imagine that anyone would take seriously the frantic squeaking of James Taylor as he regularly complains about how unfair it is that the public is exposed to the scientific views of (gasp!) scientists. He wants equal time for his opinion, even if he doesn’t have any scientific training or knowledge.
Clearly the NAS statement and the results of the AMS meteorologist survey present an accurate picture of widespread scientific agreement about anthropogenic climate change. The background noise supplied by fossil fuel industry front groups (like the Heartland Institute) has no scientific basis; the objective of these groups is to delay action by creating public confusion about the scientific issues. When it comes to climate science, please listen to the scientists, not the lawyers.

Yes! Green socialist wins as leader Leanne Woods is victorious

Ha ha Mrs Windsor!

Leanne Wood was elected leader of Plaid Cymru today on a programme of green politics, socialism and republicanism.

Plaid are a member of the European Green Party group in the European Parliament.

It has been a pleasure to support Leanne who victory is a victory for ecosocialists in Wales and beyond.

So vital to link the green left in different organisations and so vital not to moan on the margins but to organise in the difficult climate of the politics of a country dominated by hedge fund politicians.

In England we have with the exception of Caroline Lucas, three parties led by dull right wing men, lets draw inspiration from the Rhonnda!

The time is right for a Green Party of India

The time has come for a Green Party of India, writes Derek Wall, who recently met with a founder member of the country’s new Green Party


India’s choice of development model is key to the future of the globe. India is currently growing at a phenomenal rate with a GDP target of 9 per cent GDP per year. If the 20th century was the era of the USA, the 21st will be that not just of Brazil and China but also of India. It’s easy to believe that growth is good but there is a downside to the Indian story: hundreds of millions of citizens are not simply being left behind but are under attack. For some the Indian dream is a nightmare.



Environmental degradation, social injustice and war are the negative features of the Indian dream and they are the reason that activists have formed the Green Party of India to create a different sustainable and just path to prosperity. I was lucky enough to meet Daniel Taghioff, a founder member of the party, in London recently. Earlier attempts to create a Green Party have failed to take root but Daniel believes the time is right and that it is vital to construct an alternative Indian reality.



He is passionate about the need to challenge the process whereby corporate interests are increasingly running India for their benefit rather than that of most citizens.



Accelerating growth is causing an increasing demand for metals, minerals and timber. This means that many Indians, particularly indigenous people and peasants, face having their land taken away. Indian politics is increasingly dominated by resource conflicts. In the east of India mining interests are attempting to seize indigenous forestland and have been met with bitter opposition. This ranges from what is a largely unreported war with Maoist guerillas, the Naxalites, to forms of non-violent protest against companies such as the British-based Vedanta.



Arundhati Roy who won the 1997 Booker Prize with her novel The God of Small Things has been vigorously opposing the corporate control of the country. She noted in a recent article:



“Over the past five years or so, the governments of Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Orissa and West Bengal have signed hundreds of memorandums of understanding – all of them secret – with corporate houses worth several billion dollars, for steel plants, sponge-iron factories, power plants, aluminum refineries, dams and mines. In order for the MOUs to translate into real money, tribal people must be moved. Therefore, this war.”



MORE HERE http://www.greenworld.org.uk/page336/page336.html

Alex Phillips why I refused to vote for a Green Party cuts budget.

http://brightgreenscotland.org/index.php/2012/03/why-i-voted-against-the-brighton-budget/
Alex Phillips was the only Brighton and Hove councillor to reject a Green Party budget forced through by Labour and Tory cuts.  Good for her a rising star and we need more of them to keep green and not turn grey.

This blog is to explain my position. In short, I found our amended budget (by Labour and supported by the Tories), which included a Council Tax Freeze, unpalatable. I’ll clarify my thinking below.




First of all, I just want to say that I respect my colleagues, although I do not agree with their decision to vote ‘for’ the amended budget. I recognise that the other parties, who did not reveal their budget amendments until less than 48 hours before Budget Council, put us in an extremely difficult situation. This is despite us having spent almost three months in consultation with the city about our budget proposals.



I know from attending meetings in the run up to budget day that there were several distinct views in the Group on how to respond to the ‘Blue Labour’-Tory alliance’s voting through the tax freeze and all that means for more severe cuts to budgets next year. Some colleagues agreed with me and some did not. It is interesting that in the final days before the budget there must have been a shift among some colleagues in favour of supporting the budget should it be amended by the opposition on council tax as several colleagues had previously shared my position but I was the only councillor who ultimately voted against. I am told that the Unions attempted to put pressure on Labour but to no avail. But we knew that neither Labour nor the Tories would budge on their proposed Council Tax Freeze.



My view is that voting for the amended budget was incorrect, both strategically and in principle. For me it was down to a question of ethics, integrity, consistency of message and bringing our membership with us. In voting for the amended budget, I do not believe we managed to do any of these things – something that could be electorally damaging to us in the future.

MORE FROM THE BLOG AT BRIGHT GREEN HERE.

I'm A Climate Scientist (HUNGRY BEAST)

The ugly nature of the current climate debate, with its increasingly frequent characterization of scientists as opportunists, totalitarians, or downright criminals, is also, unfortunately, not new. Copernicus (posthumously) and his prominent followers through Isaac Newton were all accused of being heretics or atheists. Einstein was derided by his political opponents through the 1920s and 1930s as a Communist—despite his dim view of the Soviet Union—or simply as a fraud. When a group of American women tried to prevent him from entering the US because of his supposed Communism, he quipped, “Never before have I experienced from the fair sex such energetic rejection of all advances, or if I have, then certainly never from so many at once.”⁹ At one point Einstein stopped giving public lectures out of fear for his personal safety, also now a worry for some greenhouse warming proponents.

The reception of new scientific theories has often followed the same course.  Sadly attacks on climate scientists are becoming more violent.  And as temperatures rise and weather patterns become less stable, complicated is used to justify the ostrich position.

The rest of this must read article on the reception of science can be found here, do take a look. 

Mumia Abu Jamal - Whitney Houston 1963-2012

Mumia is still in prison but out of solitary and off of death row.

Nice prison commentator on Whitney Houston from him.

Do spread the word about Mumia, our prophet.

'Facebook is a surveillance engine'

"You know about the two rules right for interviewing Richard?" a volunteer asks before leading us to meetRichard Stallman, the man who fights for free software day in and out. One, don't use the term Open Source to mean free software.
Two, don't say Linux but say GNU/Linux. Dr Stallman, who started the Free Software Foundation in 1985 to promote freedom to create, share and modify software, is extremely sensitive to whether the goals of his initiative are rightly communicated.

A computer engineer and self-proclaimed hacker, the 58-year-old Dr Stallman lives the life of an activist. He lives frugally, like a student, he has said once. The philosophy behind the support for free software reflects in other things too.
During this interview, he gave back a Kinley water bottle, because he doesn't consume Coca-Cola bottles for the way it handles labour. Ditto is his feeling about Walmart. He uses the low-profile Lemote Yeeloong computer, browses the Net only once or twice daily and doesn't own a cell phone, because he believes it creates privacy issues.
He's a Green Party supporter. And can cut down to size all the new age iconic business corporations, which he has done in this interview. In fact, in what raised a storm, he re-quoted the famous lines 'I'm not glad he's dead, but I'm glad he's gone,' after the death of Steve Jobs. 

MORE HERE