[Video] Richard Stallman, "I Saw You Playing Your Recorder in Paris" (Due to Proprietary Software Only)
Video: Stallman receiving Torvalds award at LinuxWorld conf 1999
Today's short video clip (0:13-1:38 of this classic old video) is a reminder of the principled stance of Dr. Stallman, who insisted that Free software should be used for his talks.
Dr. Stallman isn't disliked because of his political views but because of his work and vision in the area of software. They hope that by 'killing' the man they can discredit his ideas.
As The Atlantic put it earlier this week [1,2], "the Chinese concluded that the physical elimination of dissenters was insufficient. To prevent the democratic wave then sweeping across Central Europe from reaching East Asia, the Chinese Communist Party eventually set out to eliminate not just the people but the ideas that had motivated the protests. In the years to come, this would require policing what the Chinese people could see online."
What we've witnessed in recent years isn't just a personal attack on Dr. Stallman but an attack on the underlying ideas. Corporate autocrats do not want counterparts or alternatives to even exist. █
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The plot to discredit democracy
The simpler but more ominous truth, Anne explains, involved “China’s systematic efforts to buy or influence both popular and elite audiences around the world; carefully curated Russian propaganda campaigns, some open, some clandestine, some amplified by the American and European far right; and other autocracies using their own networks to promote the same language.”
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Russia and China Are Winning the Propaganda War
Also on June 4, 1989, the Chinese Communist Party ordered the military to remove thousands of students from Tiananmen Square. The students were calling for free speech, due process, accountability, and democracy. Soldiers arrested and killed demonstrators in Beijing and around the country. Later, they systematically tracked down the leaders of the protest movement and forced them to confess and recant. Some spent years in jail. Others managed to elude their pursuers and flee the country forever.
In the aftermath of these events, the Chinese concluded that the physical elimination of dissenters was insufficient. To prevent the democratic wave then sweeping across Central Europe from reaching East Asia, the Chinese Communist Party eventually set out to eliminate not just the people but the ideas that had motivated the protests. In the years to come, this would require policing what the Chinese people could see online.