What would readers think if I provided an admission in writing from a medical doctor as to a reason why the medical profession should consider administering #flu#vaccines? What would readers think if one of three reasons for doctors giving flu shots is “the financial health” of a medical practice?
Reflections on 2013: "After the assassination of Pavlos Fyssas by the murderous 'blackshirts' of Golden Dawn, it seems that the Greek elite has decided to get rid of the neo-Nazi party and its dark structures. But can Dr. Frankenstein ever kill the monster he created? And can Pandora put the evil back into her box?"
It seems that the Greek elite has decided to get rid of the neo-Nazi party following Pavlos’ killing. But can Pandora ever put the evil back in her box?
The German publication Der Spiegel has revealed new details about a secretive hacking unit inside the National Security Agency called the Office of Tailored Access Operations, or TAO. The unit was created in 1997 to hack into global communications traffic. Hackers inside the TAO have developed a way to break into computers running Microsoft Windows by gaining passive access to machines when users report program crashes to Microsoft. In addition, with help from the CIA and FBI, the NSA has the ability to intercept computers and other electronic accessories purchased online in order to secretly insert spyware and components that can provide backdoor access for the intelligence agencies. American Civil Liberties Union Deputy Legal Director Jameel Jaffer and journalist Glenn Greenwald join us to discuss the latest revelations, along with the future of Edward Snowden, who has recently offered to assist U.S. targets Germany and Brazil with their respective probes into NSA spying.
The retired American military commander who earlier said in a statement released to WND that Americans need to confront Barack Obama’s tyranny now is recommending the Egyptian model through which to do that.
The Egyptian model, Maj. Gen. Paul E. Vallely explained on a podcast of an Internet radio show, was that 33 million people stood up to their government and told officials no.
The result was that the Egyptian Muslim Brother was removed from power and then-President Mohammed Morsi was removed from office, Vallely explained,
His call for a massive march on Washington came recently on the WBTM (We Become The Media) show.
He was asked whether America can be restored as the shining light on the hill for freedom when the electoral process, which resulted in two presidencies for Obama in 2008 and 2012, “are known to be corrupt.”
NaturalNews) Yet another vaccine researcher has been caught faking research on a bogus AIDS vaccine, adding to the pattern of scientific fraud and criminality that characterizes the modern-day vaccine industry. Dr. Dong-Pyou Han from Iowa State University has resigned this week after admitting he spiked rabbit blood samples with healthy human blood to falsely show the presence of antibodies that would "prove" his AIDS vaccine worked.
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) was so convinced by the fraud that they gave Han $19 million in research funding. The NIH later found the fraud after attempting to replicate Han's work and figuring out something was terribly wrong with the research.
Newly-released federal documents reveal the stunning breadth of the fraud. As the findings state:
[The investigation] found that the Respondent falsified results in research to develop a vaccine against human immunodeficiency virus-1 (HIV-1) by intentionally spiking samples of rabbit sera with antibodies to provide the desired results. The falsification made it appear that rabbits immunized with the gp41-54 moiety of the HIV gp41 glycoprotein induced antibodies capable of neutralizing a broad range of HIV-1 strains.
A summary of the fraud was also posted on RetractionWatch.com, a site that frequently posts details of Big Pharma research fraud.
What few people in the United States realize is that the U.S. Government is in the vaccine business. Much of the information regarding the governments ties to pharmaceutical companies is shrouded in secrecy.
For example, in 2010 Dr. Eric Suba, who works with HPV prevention in Viet Nam and developing countries, submitted a Freedom of Information Request to the Office of Government Information Services to discover the amount of money the U.S government earns in royalties from Merck’s sale of Gardasil. His request was denied (read it here), on the grounds that the National Institute of Health was “protected from disclosure.” Dr. Suba was one of the authors of a study published in the Lancet that year: HPV vaccination: waiting for evidence of effectiveness.
Then there is the issue of the revolving door between the government and the pharmaceutical industry. For example, Julie Gerberding was in charge of the CDC from 2002 to 2009, which includes the years the FDA approved Gardasil as a vaccine. Soon after she took over the CDC, she reportedly completely overhauled the agency’s organizational structure, and many of the CDC’s senior scientists and leaders either left or announced plans to leave. Some have claimed that almost all of the replacements Julie Gerberding appointed had ties to the vaccine industry.
I'm an avid label reader. In fact, I was given the nickname "Inspector Label" many years ago because of my passion for calling out harmful ingredients lurking in our foods (and because it would take me three hours to walk through a grocery store because I had to read every single label on every single product I was interested in buying).
As consumers, we want to believe that food manufacturers have our best interest at heart, but the truth is, as we learn more about the foods in the grocery store, we realize these companies are more concerned with taste and shelf life than with our overall health.
Thousands of chemicals are used to make our food taste better, look better, and last longer, but most of these food additives, preservatives, and colorings are synthetic. Even the term “natural food” – once used to describe whole fruits and vegetables and unrefined grains – has now been expanded to include packaged, processed foods, many of which contain a wide array of chemicals.
David Cameron has warned the press that it runs the risk of facing "hideous statutory regulation" in the future if the Independent Press Standards Organisation declines to seek recognition under the terms of the new royal charter.
In an interview with the Spectator's editor, Fraser Nelson,, a strong campaigner against the royal charter, Cameron said a "less liberal, less enlightened government" of the future could impose statutory controls unless the press acted now.
David Cameron has warned the UK press that it risks further, more severe regulation in future if it does not sign up to new royal charter now. Photograph: ZUMA/REX
Fisa court submissions show broad scope of procedures governing NSA's surveillance of Americans' communication
• Document one: procedures used by NSA to target non-US persons
• Document two: procedures used by NSA to minimise data collected from US persons
The documents show that discretion as to who is actually targeted lies directly with the NSA's analysts. Photograph: Martin Rogers/Workbook Stock/Getty
Have you ever purchased a computer online? Do you use Microsoft Windows? Well, you should sit down for a moment and listen to this report.
“The goal of the NSA really is the elimination of privacy worldwide — not hyperbole, not metaphor, that’s literally their goal — to make sure that all human communications that take place electronically are collected and then stored,” explains journalist Glenn Greenwald.
We also ask Greenwald about Edward Snowden’s request for amnesty and this is what he told us: “The United States government constantly gives ‘amnesty’ to its highest officials, even when they commit the most egregious crimes — and yet the idea of ‘amnesty’ for a whistleblower is considered radical and extreme.”
“Here’s Michael Hayden: He oversaw the illegal warrantless eavesdropping program implemented under the Bush Administration and he oversaw torture and rendition as the head of the CIA. James Clapper lied to the face of Congress. These are felonies,” he says, “much worse than anything Edward Snowden is accused of doing.”
London, May 2009. A small experiment involving thirteen homeless men takes off. They are street veterans. Some of them have been sleeping on the cold tiles of The Square Mile, the financial center of the world, for more than forty years. Their presence is far from cheap. Police, legal services, healthcare: the thirteen cost taxpayers hundreds of thousands of pounds. Every year.
That spring, a local charity takes a radical decision. The street veterans are to become the beneficiaries of an innovative social experiment. No more food stamps, food kitchen dinners or sporadic shelter stays for them. The men will get a drastic bailout, financed by taxpayers. They'll each receive 3,000 pounds, cash, with no strings attached. The men are free to decide what to spend it on; counseling services are completely optional.
Big thanks to our comrades from Popular Resistance (Stop the Machine! Create a New World) for their dedicated support to our campaign: "ROAR Magazine is always strong in its analysis of the resistance movement and global revolt around the world. They have excellent writers who put forward analysis you do not read anywhere else. We urge you to support their fundraising campaign on indiegogo."
Shortly after the earliest articles sourced to Edward Snowden appeared, Americans newly aware of the cell phones in their pockets started wondering: Would the NSA ever collect the location data that all of us generate? The possibility proved worrisome to the public and privacy experts alike. A surveillance state that routinely tracked our movement would feel dystopian and enable abuse, as various TV, web, and print commentators noted.
Even Congress seemed to be concerned. A letter signed by 26 senators declared that NSA bulk collection of phone records has a significant impact on privacy.* "This is particularly true if these records are collected in a manner that includes cell phone locational data, effectively turning Americans' cell phones into tracking devices," it stated. "Has the NSA collected or made plans to collect Americans’ cell-site location data in bulk?"
2014 is upon us. For a person who graduated from Georgia Tech in 1961, a year in which the class ring showed the same date right side up or upside down, the 21st century was a science fiction concept associated with Stanley Kubrick’s 1968 film, “2001: A Space Odyssey.” To us George Orwell’s 1984 seemed so far in the future we would never get there. Now it is 30 years in the past.
Did we get there in Orwell’s sense? In terms of surveillance technology, we are far beyond Orwell’s imagination. In terms of the unaccountability of government, we exceptional and indispensable people now live a 1984 existence. In his alternative to the Queen’s Christmas speech, Edward Snowden made the point that a person born in the 21st century will never experience privacy. For new generations the word privacy will refer to something mythical, like a unicorn.
More: "Every nation has implicitly the right to decide their future" In the institutional Year message, the President of the Government asks state that "let us vote" for "the Catalan people prefer to govern themselves than be governed"
The President of the Generalitat, Artur Mas, has used his New Year message from institutional to make a request to the Spanish government, "let us vote," considering that the Catalans "have earned the right to decide" . Indeed, Mas argued that "every nation has implicitly the right to decide their future," adding that "the Catalan people govern themselves rather than be ruled." In addition, the president has insisted that 2014 will be "a year to remember history, people and roots, but mostly will be a year to decide future and open horizons," recalling that the year is about to begin will meet on the third anniversary of the end of the War of Succession, "at which Catalonia lost their rights in their constitutions, their institutions and their freedoms," and added that, three centuries later, "held almost a miracle: a people who had everything to lose not only still exists but raises more than ever to win a battle is completely democratic and peaceful: the freely decide their future as a country and as a nation as a society. " "The Catalonia and the Catalans have won the right to decide their future," said the president, because "they have kept alive their identity, their culture, their language and their rights, often against rules and unjust laws. " He also noted the ability of Catalonia inclusive and welcoming, "a land where what really matters is the destination you are looking for and the source from which it comes." But above all, Artur Mas has stressed that the Catalans "have known and wanted to maintain his standing desire to govern themselves, against all historical circumstances that they wanted to stop now or you want to limit or reduce" . "The Catalan people govern themselves rather than be ruled, and I want to do in Europe more united, stronger, and federal," he reaffirmed. Urges the State not to silence the voice of the Catalan For this reason, the head of government stressed to ask the state to "let us vote, you hear the voice of the Catalan people and raise walls to silence it." The president also urged the Spanish government "will look like an adversary, much less as an enemy," because "we want to be now and in the future can be an ally, a good ally, but for freedom." From the Hall of Our Lady of Montserrat in the Palau de la Generalitat, the chief executive said that "solving the major issues at the polls may not cause or remorse or fear," and added that "it is clear that Our future and the relationship we have with Spain and Europe is an issue in case. " In this regard, the President of the Government said that all positions around the right to decide are "legitimate and respectable" and "must be defended with respect and peaceful coexistence." Artur Mas also referred to people who are living in Catalonia process "the best way to build a country worth, you get to do a lot of joy for their modernity, their welfare, their sense social justice, his civility and democratic quality. " The President concluded that "beyond the personal position of each, are the votes and the ballot must determine the proportions and size of majorities and minorities in the country." An instrument at the service of people The head of the government has initiated and closed his speech by referring to the economic situation and expressed his affection for the families who are suffering and their commitment to "work as necessary to ensure that all people in our country have a decent life. " Artur Mas pointed out that 2013 was the sixth year of a recession "has caused real damage," but added that "it appears that for the first time, we can start talking about recovery." In this sense, the president Mas expressed confidence that "all know find out how to fix the mistakes and transform learning strengths and collective successes." I pointed out that as the incremental successes "we know offer them to all those people, our fellow citizens, who have come out of shock more battered and injustices of recent years."
More than three hundred years ago, at 9 PM on January 26, 1700 one of the world’s largest earthquakes occurred along the west coast of North America. The undersea Cascadia thrust fault ruptured along a 1000 km length, from mid Vancouver Island to northern California in a great earthquake, producing tremendous shaking and a huge tsunami that swept across the Pacific.
These events are recorded in the oral traditions of the First Nations people on Vancouver Island. The tsunami swept across the Pacific also causing destruction along the Pacific coast of Japan. It is the accurate descriptions of the tsunami and the accurate time keeping by the Japanese that allows us to confidently know the size and exact time of this great earthquake.
The recognition of definitive signatures in the geological record tells us the January 26, 1700 event was not a unique event, but has repeated many times at irregular intervals of hundreds of years. Geological evidence indicates that 13 great earthquakes have occurred in the last 6000 years.
Reflections on 2013: "Despite the different contexts across Brazil, Turkey, and Chile, as in Greece, Spain, Portugal, and the United States, people are taking to the streets to stand in the way of the rule of local and global elites. Seeing all these revolutionary moments within one frame means that popular rule is moving to the street and out of institutions and government offices. We are at a global turning point. We must fight on."
The revolution lives. Even if we face a serious threat of its co-optation, popular rule is clearly moving out of the institutions and into the streets.
"With this image, [photographer] Amy Toensing captures what she set out to find in this story: A spirit presence in the land and our closer understanding of the Aboriginals’ sustained state of awakening to that spirit," says David Whitmore, Design Director.
See more of our photo editors' favorite images from National Geographic's story on Australia’s Aboriginals. #NatGeoProof
Friends of Lampedusa. Early December a call: "The group" Lampedusa in Hamburg "would reveal how wide is the support for the group and their demands. For this purpose, a list of "Freund_innen of Lampedusa" will be published on the website of the group. " Darufhin already more than 170 networks, political groups, institutions, associations, institutions, businesses, alliances and associations have been reported. This is great! The list is still open. So if you want to be counted among the friends of the group Lampedusa in Hamburg, write to: fcsphilftlampedusa@gmx.de
Christine Bimansha, a medical doctor from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), is one of the experienced emergency staff working with Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) in South Sudan. She is currently working at a camp in the capital, Juba, where 35,000 people have gathered to seek safety following a wave of violence. Here, she describes the climate of fear in the camp and the considerable health risks.
“I am currently working in an MSF mobile clinic in a United Nations Mission in the Republic of South Sudan (UNMISS) camp in Juba—this is the UN camp where a lot of people have gathered, probably 15,000 people.
Another 20,000 are gathered in another UN camp in the city, about 35,000 people in total. The population density in the camps is very high—our field coordinator calculated that it is up to ten times more than Mumbai.
The situation in Juba is back to a relative calm for the moment. We can move. Even if there is a curfew we can move around, but for the national people, people from the Nuer community in particular, they’re scared to go out. Even in the UN camp, especially the men, they don’t move out. The women will go in and out, but only during the day.
Rimon Albeer Misattr, a defender of the Iraqi Christian minority
In October 2010 a Christian church during Mass on Sunday was attacked, leaving 94 people dead or severely injured, according to 33-year-old Rimon Albeer Misattr, who is a member of the Christian minority in Iraq.
“The lives of nearly half a million Christians in Iraq are constantly in danger,” says Rimon. “Since 2003, dozens of churches and houses of worship were targeted, killing 900 people and injuring 6,000.”
Attacks on Christians in Iraq, often force them out of their homeland to Central and Northern Iraq, specifically Erbil, the capital of the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, Rimon explains. “While we are internally displaced, it is often difficult to find work because of over population in many of these cities.”
Rimon says that education is another area of concern for Christians internally displaced in Iraq. “Many have been out of education system for 7 years, waiting for their situation to get settled,” he says. From Central and Northern Iraq, Rimon explains that the Christians then often seek asylum in Turkey, Jordan, Lebanon and Europe.
As one of the 13 Fellows selected to participate in the 2013 Minorities Fellowship Programme of the UN Human Rights Office in Geneva, Rimon was given the opportunity to learn about the UN system, human rights instruments and mechanisms. After completing the training programme, which was first launched by the Office in 2005, the Minority Fellows also took part in the 6th session of the Forum on Minority Issues, titled "Beyond freedom of religion or belief: Guaranteeing the rights of religious minorities".
The annual Forum provides a platform for promoting dialogue and cooperation on minority issues, as well as an opportunity to share best practices, examine challenges and create opportunities for the further implementation of the Declaration on the Rights of People Belonging to National or Ethnic, Religious and Linguistic Minorities.
Rimon, who is a TV correspondent for the ISHTAR TV Broadcasting channel in Iraq, participated in the Programme to learn about the human rights mechanisms and to deliver the message of his people. “As a journalist, I strive to expose the problem,” he says.
As Rimon explains, after 2003, new sectarian and doctrinal factions created tensions and heightened security issues in Iraq, including for the Christian minority. Furthermore, the State has not been providing the necessary security and protection to its citizens, he says.
Rimon also says that many, particularly in the Iraqi city of Mosul, suffered from the inability to sell or rent their houses when they were evicted from their homeland.
In Rimon’s presentation at the UN Human Rights Office Minorities Fellowship Programme in Geneva, he called for an integration of a human rights education in the Iraqi school curriculum and urged the receiving countries to provide decent living conditions for the Iraqi Christian asylum seekers.
After participating in the five-week Minorities Fellowship Programme, Rimon plans to use his newly acquired knowledge to increase global awareness of the issues pertaining to Iraq’s Christian minority.
According to reports, on Christmas Day this year, about 30 people were killed in Christian areas of Baghdad, Iraq. One of the several attacks that day included a car bomb, which exploded as worshippers were leaving a Christmas mass.
Carmen Forcadell: "It is time for the truth." "We will vote yes and yes yes yes to democracy and independence."
Carmen Forcadell independence vote: 'Now is the moment of truth'
A year ago they wanted to make us afraid to vote now want to prevent the referendum · · · But we vote regardless Today, Carmen Forcadell
'We have shown that fear, we do not have,' says the president of the Catalan National Assembly, Carmen Forcadell. And remember that two million people took to the streets on Via Catalan asking independence, despite threats and discourses of fear proferits from Spain. But now, he says, 'the time has come for the truth', time to vote in a year will be one of the most important in our history. " 'We will vote yes and yes yes yes to democracy and independence.'
VilaWeb are invited the participants of the series 'No fear' last year, when Quim Masferrer , Lloll Bertran , Salvador Cardús and a dozen voices from civil society issued a call to vote without fear, answering with wit and irony apocalyptic discourse of political parties and Spanish institutions.
Besides Carmen Forcadell, some of the stars of this series are Cardús Salvador, Pedro Mas Tree Matthew, Vincent Partal Lloll Bertran Marius Serra Txe Spider.
CDC says the report Margallo will turn against the government
The nationalists see the document "explicit recognition of proceedings"
The secretary of CDC, Josep Rull, believes the report sent by the Foreign Ministry to its embassies on Catalan sovereignty Affairs process involves "explicit recognition of proceedings" and that, in any case, cause a "reverse effect "the expectation in the international community.
"There is an extraordinary disproportion between the story that there is no problem and the tools and arguments used by the Government to combat this problem. And that will create the opposite effect. But the interesting thing is that they accept that there is a problem, a lawsuit, and have entered the no campaign '"said Rull told Efe.
Rull According to the report "is the unequivocal recognition of proceedings, which we raised in strictly democratic terms. That's the positive side, there is a clear and explicit recognition that a problem exists in Catalonia, one challenge above table must be resolved and an aspiration for freedom in Catalonia ".
Given the comparisons of this plan to be driven by the British Government in the Scottish case, Rull has urged the Spanish government "is inspired (in the latter) with all the consequences, because the prime minister, David Cameron, allows the next consultation in Scotland, committed to democracy after year and put the arguments to remain in the UK ".
For ERC spokesman in Congress, Alfred Bosch, the campaign is a contradiction. "The government could have saved money because basically all the report says business as usual, that the Catalans do not want to vote." He adds that he has "nothing against" the Government to campaign against independence, but believes that this action should be followed by the call for a referendum. "If they want to do as the British Prime Minister David Cameron should campaign against independence, but then must put the polls for people to vote," says Bosch.
In the republican leader review "the worst way to question the democratic nature of this movement is banning or removing the polls." For this reason it has been suggested that the Government should maintain its international campaign in defense of the right of the Catalans to vote on their collective future.
Ciutadans see "harmless and unnecessary" manual sent by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to the embassies and consulates to have grounds to act against the Catalan sovereignty debate. According to the secretary general of the party, Matias Alonso, diplomats "have very clear the environment in which they move."
"Never since the recovery of freedom, Catalan society had experienced episodes of tear fracture and risk of social conflict as today. [...] The independence option causes the confusion and consternation of the whole of Spanish society, including much of the Catalan. [...] The independence implies a secure economic impoverishment [...] The European vocation of Catalonia would be truncated [...] There is no emancipation to consider, at this stage of the XXI century, like the Separatists, that the fact to become fellow citizens abroad is the solution for being [...] Who will threaten harmony are those that promote a political project that does not have the other, but without it, a project that intends to maintain the good of living, but pursues separation, connecting with the more serious moments in our recent history [...] The government is convinced that together we all win and we all lose separated. "
It is customary to refer Foreign sales arguments on diplomatic issues today-from labor reform-Syrian conflict, so that those responsible know firsthand the government's position and adhere to it. But those telegrams rarely exceed a couple of pages, while the paper on Catalonia occupies 210 pages and the idea is to expand and update it as circumstances require.
Catalan society has never experienced tearing and social fracture as now
The central thesis of the text, peppered with quotes, mostly Catalan authors, but also the rest of Spain and abroad, is that separatism is not a democratic choice, but represents instead breaking the frame of concord and coexistence that the Spaniards were in transition, when they decided to settle their differences through dialogue and agreement. "When a unilateral policy action that is pursued to coexistence is proposed, it is improper to speak of a democratic principle," he argues.
Faced with the strategy of the Catalan President Artur Mas present itself as a champion of dialogue as opposed to wild intransigence Madrid, Foreign policy highlights the outstretched hand of Mariano Rajoy, "no expiration date" whose only limit is loyalty; that is, respect for the law. "It is incongruous to accuse the government of unwillingness to dialogue with those who promote a project that wants to end the dialogue."
The report is more than a year developed where with input from various departments and experts, but the minister José Manuel García-Margallo has decided to distribute after the put date and nationalist parties announced referendum question. "It's been a second phase, internationalization, and we could not sit idly by," government sources allege.
Here are some highlights paragraphs of the manual:
The Constitution: " The Constitution is not an idol or an arcane [but] embodies the best we've done together. The popular ratification of the Constitution reached 91.9% of the vote in Catalonia, with 68% participation. Never citizens of Catalonia have exceeded this level of participation and support any other standard. "
Constitutional reform: " While it is obviously possible to amend the Constitution , the channel is complex in all countries, also in Spain. [...] A constitutional amendment that results in a substantial change in the state model must be the product of a decision of the Spanish people, holder of national sovereignty, and in accordance with the procedures laid down in the Constitution itself. "
Catalan self-government: "We can say, with all historical rigor, never Catalonia, in its democratic history, has achieved greater degree of self-government in all spheres, political, economic and cultural, [...] as the day, under the Constitution and the Statute, Catalonia recovered its institutions of self-government. "
Catalonia against Spain: "There is no confrontation with the Spanish State Catalonia but the usual discrepancy in politics, as in any other democracy. [...] The symmetric independence movement is expulsionista, that of those who are trying to Catalonia. expel from Spain. This is a movement on the rise and thus also impoverishing himself and regressive. [But] both are thankfully minority. Most commitment to harmony. "
International law: "The principle of territorial integrity is a core element of international law the right of self-determination is only allowed when very precise assumptions are met. Former colonies, oppressed and massive and flagrant violations of the rights humans. Given these requirements, separatists try to present Spain as a colonial and totalitarian country, only by force prisoners kept some of its citizens. Only if the international society that is the true reality of Spain can be persuaded , in his view, self-determination according to law be achieved. "
Outside the EU: " An independent Catalonia would ipso facto outside the European Union . It would be, for all purposes, a new state would have to undergo the procedure of accession. Your income should be adopted unanimously, ie, any of the current 28 Member States would veto. In light of the foregoing, the negotiations could take years. Meanwhile, citizens of the new state, national, not enjoy, except in cases of dual nationality, the nationality of any State of the Union and therefore not the status of European citizenship ".
Reflections on 2013: "At first glance, beautiful Bulgaria has a lot of democracy going on — laws, elections, a parliament, a president, EU membership, free will, the works, we have it. Look from the outside, and it’s clearly there. The inside of this strange hologram, though, feels very different, especially if you’re a Bulgarian."
If you had 24 years to change and refine a country’s policies, would you twist those to your benefit? Bulgaria’s corrupt politicians most certainly did.
Resistance to Civil Government (Civil Disobedience) is an essay by American transcendentalist Henry David Thoreau that was first published in 1849. In it, Thoreau argues that individuals should not permit governments to overrule or atrophy their consciences, and that they have a duty to avoid allowing such acquiescence to enable the government to make them the agents of injustice. Thoreau was motivated in part by his disgust with slavery and the Mexican–American War.
In 1848, Thoreau gave lectures at the Concord Lyceum entitled "The Rights and Duties of the Individual in relation to Government."[1] This formed the basis for his essay, which was first published under the title Resistance to Civil Government in 1849 in an anthology called Æsthetic Papers. The latter title distinguished Thoreau's program from that of the "non-resistants" (anarcho-pacifists) who were expressing similar views. Resistance also served as part of Thoreau's metaphor comparing the government to a machine: when the machine was producing injustice, it was the duty of conscientious citizens to be "a counter friction" (i.e., a resistance) "to stop the machine."[2]
In 1866, four years after Thoreau's death, the essay was reprinted in a collection of Thoreau's work (A Yankee in Canada, with Anti-Slavery and Reform Papers) under the title Civil Disobedience. Today, the essay also appears under the title On the Duty of Civil Disobedience, perhaps to contrast it with William Paley's Of the Duty of Civil Obedience to which Thoreau was in part responding. For instance, the 1960 New American Library Signet Classics edition of Walden included a version with this title. On Civil Disobedience is another common title.
The word civil has several definitions. The one that is intended in this case is "relating to citizens and their interrelations with one another or with the state", and so civil disobedience means "disobedience to the state". Sometimes people assume that civil in this case means "observing accepted social forms; polite" which would make civil disobedience something like polite, orderly disobedience. Although this is an acceptable dictionary definition of the word civil, it is not what is intended here. This misinterpretation is one reason the essay is sometimes considered to be an argument for pacifism or for exclusively nonviolent resistance. For instance, Mahatma Gandhi used this interpretation to suggest an equivalence between Thoreau's civil disobedience and his own satyagraha.[3]
Summary
Thoreau asserts that because governments are typically more harmful than helpful, they therefore cannot be justified. Democracy is no cure for this, as majorities simply by virtue of being majorities do not also gain the virtues of wisdom and justice. The judgment of an individual's conscience is not necessarily inferior to the decisions of a political body or majority, and so "[i]t is not desirable to cultivate a respect for the law, so much as for the right. The only obligation which I have a right to assume is to do at any time what I think right... Law never made men a whit more just; and, by means of their respect for it, even the well-disposed are daily made the agents of injustice."[5] He adds, "I cannot for an instant recognize as my government [that] which is the slave's government also."[6]
The government, according to Thoreau, is not just a little corrupt or unjust in the course of doing its otherwise-important work, but in fact the government is primarily an agent of corruption and injustice. Because of this, it is "not too soon for honest men to rebel and revolutionize."[7]
Political philosophers have counseled caution about revolution because the upheaval of revolution typically causes a lot of expense and suffering. Thoreau contends that such a cost/benefit analysis is inappropriate when the government is actively facilitating an injustice as extreme as slavery. Such a fundamental immorality justifies any difficulty or expense to bring to an end. "This people must cease to hold slaves, and to make war on Mexico, though it cost them their existence as a people."[8]
Thoreau tells his audience that they cannot blame this problem solely on pro-slavery Southern politicians, but must put the blame on those in, for instance, Massachusetts, "who are more interested in commerce and agriculture than they are in humanity, and are not prepared to do justice to the slave and to Mexico, cost what it may... There are thousands who are in opinion opposed to slavery and to the war, who yet in effect do nothing to put an end to them."[9] (See also: Thoreau's Slavery in Massachusetts which also advances this argument.)
He exhorts people not to just wait passively for an opportunity to vote for justice, because voting for justice is as ineffective as wishing for justice; what you need to do is to actually be just. This is not to say that you have an obligation to devote your life to fighting for justice, but you do have an obligation not to commit injustice and not to give injustice your practical support.
Paying taxes is one way in which otherwise well-meaning people collaborate in injustice. People who proclaim that the war in Mexico is wrong and that it is wrong to enforce slavery contradict themselves if they fund both things by paying taxes. Thoreau points out that the same people who applaud soldiers for refusing to fight an unjust war are not themselves willing to refuse to fund the government that started the war.
In a constitutional republic like the United States, people often think that the proper response to an unjust law is to try to use the political process to change the law, but to obey and respect the law until it is changed. But if the law is itself clearly unjust, and the lawmaking process is not designed to quickly obliterate such unjust laws, then Thoreau says the law deserves no respect and it should be broken. In the case of the United States, the Constitution itself enshrines the institution of slavery, and therefore falls under this condemnation. abolitionists, in Thoreau's opinion, should completely withdraw their support of the government and stop paying taxes, even if this means courting imprisonment.
Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also a prison.… where the State places those who are not with her, but against her,– the only house in a slave State in which a free man can abide with honor.… Cast your whole vote, not a strip of paper merely, but your whole influence. A minority is powerless while it conforms to the majority; it is not even a minority then; but it is irresistible when it clogs by its whole weight. If the alternative is to keep all just men in prison, or give up war and slavery, the State will not hesitate which to choose. If a thousand men were not to pay their tax bills this year, that would not be a violent and bloody measure, as it would be to pay them, and enable the State to commit violence and shed innocent blood. This is, in fact, the definition of a peaceable revolution, if any such is possible.[10]
Because the government will retaliate, Thoreau says he prefers living simply because he therefore has less to lose. "I can afford to refuse allegiance to Massachusetts…. It costs me less in every sense to incur the penalty of disobedience to the State than it would to obey. I should feel as if I were worth less in that case."[11]
He was briefly imprisoned for refusing to pay the poll tax, but even in jail felt freer than the people outside. He considered it an interesting experience and came out of it with a new perspective on his relationship to the government and its citizens. (He was released the next day when "someone interfered, and paid that tax.")[12]
Thoreau said he was willing to pay the highway tax, which went to pay for something of benefit to his neighbors, but that he was opposed to taxes that went to support the government itself—even if he could not tell if his particular contribution would eventually be spent on an unjust project or a beneficial one. "I simply wish to refuse allegiance to the State, to withdraw and stand aloof from it effectually."[13]
Because government is man-made, not an element of nature or an act of God, Thoreau hoped that its makers could be reasoned with. As governments go, he felt, the U.S. government, with all its faults, was not the worst and even had some admirable qualities. But he felt we could and should insist on better. "The progress from an absolute to a limited monarchy, from a limited monarchy to a democracy, is a progress toward a true respect for the individual.… Is a democracy, such as we know it, the last improvement possible in government? Is it not possible to take a step further towards recognizing and organizing the rights of man? There will never be a really free and enlightened State until the State comes to recognize the individual as a higher and independent power, from which all its own power and authority are derived, and treats him accordingly."[14]
An aphorism sometimes attributed to either Thomas Jefferson[15] or Thomas Paine, "That government is best which governs least...", was actually found in Thoreau's Civil Disobedience. Thoreau was paraphrasing the motto of The United States Magazine and Democratic Review: "The best government is that which governs least."[16] Thoreau expanded it significantly:
I heartily accept the motto,—“That government is best which governs least;” and I should like to see it acted up to more rapidly and systematically. Carried out, it finally amounts to this, which I also believe,—“That government is best which governs not at all;” and when men are prepared for it, that will be the kind of government which they will have. Government is at best but an expedient; but most governments are usually, and all governments are sometimes, inexpedient.
Does the concept of a living planet uplift and inspire you, or is it a disturbing example of woo-woo nonsense that distracts us from practical, science-based policies?
"The TPP would rewrite wide swaths of our laws. It’s mainly not about trade," said Lori Wallach of Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch.
"The whole approach of the Obama administration has really been some combination of heartbreaking and infuriating, because when he was a candidate, President Obama promised he would replace the NAFTA model, and instead they’ve doubled down."
We're not surprised this interview ranks #7 on our top 20 most-viewed segments of the year. It was very popular when it first aired in October.
Most doors are closed when the European Commission is negotiating with the U.S. government on genetically modified foods have been banned or chicken chlorine EU. The goal is a free trade agreement with the United States. It is much at stake. German courts and the EU to be removed from power to impose the interests of the industry.
After years of speculation that electronics can be accessed by intelligence agencies through a back door, an internal NSA catalog reveals that such methods already exist for numerous end-user devices.
Editor's note: This article accompanies our main feature story on the NSA's Tailored Access Operations unit. You can read it here.
When it comes to modern firewalls for corporate computer networks, the world's second largest network equipment manufacturer doesn't skimp on praising its own work. According to Juniper Networks' online PR copy, the company's products are "ideal" for protecting large companies and computing centers from unwanted access from outside. They claim the performance of the company's special computers is "unmatched" and their firewalls are the "best-in-class." Despite these assurances, though, there is one attacker none of these products can fend off -- the United States' National Security Agency.
DPA
Entering through the back door: A State Trooper truck is seen in front of the Fort Meade, Maryland headquarters of the National Security Agency.
The insert method and other variants of QUANTUM are closely linked to a shadow network operated by the NSA alongside the Internet, with its own, well-hidden infrastructure comprised of "covert" routers and servers. It appears the NSA also incorporates routers and servers from non-NSA networks into its covert network by infecting these networks with "implants" that then allow the government hackers to control the computers remotely. (Click here to read a related article on the NSA's "implants".)
In this way, the intelligence service seeks to identify and track its targets based on their digital footprints. These identifiers could include certain email addresses or website cookies set on a person's computer. Of course, a cookie doesn't automatically identify a person, but it can if it includes additional information like an email address. In that case, a cookie becomes something like the web equivalent of a fingerprint.
Mexico's Secretariat of Public Security, which was folded into the new National Security Commission at the beginning of 2013, was responsible at the time for the country's police, counterterrorism, prison system and border police. Most of the agency's nearly 20,000 employees worked at its headquarters on Avenida Constituyentes, an important traffic artery in Mexico City. A large share of the Mexican security authorities under the auspices of the Secretariat are supervised from the offices there, making Avenida Constituyentes a one-stop shop for anyone seeking to learn more about the country's security apparatus.
The NSA's TAO hacking unit is considered to be the intelligence agency's top secret weapon. It maintains its own covert network, infiltrates computers around the world and even intercepts shipping deliveries to plant back doors in electronics ordered by those it is targeting.
Details of how the division, known as Tailored Access Operations (TAO), steals data and inserts invisible "back door" spying devices into computer systems were published by the German magazine Der Spiegel.
The magazine portrayed TAO as an elite team of hackers specialising in gaining undetected access to intelligence targets that have proved the toughest to penetrate through other spying techniques, and described its overall mission as "getting the ungettable". The report quoted an official saying that the unit's operations have obtained "some of the most significant intelligence our country has ever seen".
NSA officials responded to the Spiegel report with a statement, which said: "Tailored Access Operations is a unique national asset that is on the front lines of enabling NSA to defend the nation and its allies. [TAO's] work is centred on computer network exploitation in support of foreign intelligence collection."
Der Spiegel has previously reported on documents leaked by the former NSA contractor Edward Snowden. The report on Sunday was partly compiled by Laura Poitras, who collaborated with Snowden and the Guardian on the first publication of revelations about the NSA's collection of the telephone data of thousands of Americans and overseas intelligence targets.
Der Spiegel reported that TAO's areas of operation range from counter-terrorism to cyber attacks. Photograph: Getty Images
At least 14 people have been killed in a suicide bombing on a trolleybus crowded with morning commuters in Volgograd, less than 24 hours after another deadly suicide attack at the main train station in the same city.
The authorities initially said 15 people were dead, but a statement from local authorities subsequently put the toll at 14. Dozens were reported injured. A one-year-old child was critically injured.
The blast ripped the trolleybus apart, leaving a disfigured carcass without the roof and walls.
Several people were killed on Monday in a bombing that destroyed a packed trolleybus in Volgograd, the second attack in the city in two days. Photograph: RIA Novosti/Rex
An ambulance leaves the site of a trolleybus explosion in Volgograd, Russia, Monday, Dec. 30, 2013. The explosion left 10 people dead Monday, a day after a suicide bombing that killed at least 17 at the city's main railway. The explosions put the city on edge and highlighted the terrorist threat that Russia is facing as it prepares to host the Winter Games in February. Volgograd is about 650 kilometers (400 miles) northeast of Sochi, where the Olympics are to be held. (AP Photo/Denis Tyrin)
Reflections on 2013: "If, at the end of these protests, the political class of Brazil and its army of capitalist crétins, its journalists who prostitute themselves in the interest of the elite, its policemen who kill without hesitation, if all these oppressors are removed from power and forced to recognize that an era of real democracy has arrived, then I will be very happy to pay 20 cents more for my bus rides."
If Brazil’s oppressors are forced to recognize that an era of real democracy has arrived, I will be very happy to pay 20 cents more for my bus rides.
Missile Waterline theses Unionists Spain Catalonia without also being outside the European Union, the DUI is illegal and Catalonia could negotiate directly with the distribution of international financial institutions debt
The lawyer specializing in process independence, Slovenian Ana Stanic, in a newspaper interview Monday NOW aquets says that if Catalonia becomes independent from Spain would cease to exist as it is now and the states derivative must be considered heirs of the dissolved state. According Stenico "or both territories remain in the European Union or left out" because no Catalonia Spain would be a different country and that it was in Spain, like Catalonia should request readmission to the Union. In this regard, the lawyer recommended that Catalonia has insisted it is not a secession, but a dissolution of Spain.
It should be clear that the assets and liabilities we divide with Spain According to the expert, it is very important to analyze the distribution of assets and liabilities that we divide with Spain, and if necessary, if Spain refuses to negotiate the distribution of assets and liabilities could negotiate directly international financial institutions, without the intervention of Spain. In this regard, remember Stanic Serbia did not want to negotiate the deal with the new republics, but once it was clear Slovenia's independence, were the banks who negotiate directly with the authorities of the new future state. "There is nothing in international law that prohibits a DUI" and the application of Article 155 Grinding Stanic said that in no case can be argued that international law considers illegal unilateral declaration of independence, because it includes the right to secede, but it prohibits. Regarding the suspension of autonomy under Article 155, the lawyer recalled that the constitution states that the article can be applied "to interest" and wondered if it would keep the unit of general interest Spain and claims that this argument is not used in international law.
Casalsrepresenta sanity and Forcadell, rapture.Ancestral characteristics Catalans
, "Artur Mas is led by the people." Editorial of the prestigious British newspaper Financial Times analyzed this strength is playing the role of civil society in all traffic to the query. Citizenship pushing from below, as demonstrated in 2012 when a million and a half people marched to demand independence and did tack the course of the Catalan government, which at that time had put the bow pact tax.
This village which speaks the Financial Times is set to stone hundreds of associations that itch for years, but the two main standards are Òmnium and Catalan National Assembly (ANC), led by two women, Muriel Casals (Avignon , 1945) and Carmen Forcadell (Xerta, 1956), which are becoming the icons of the claims sovereignty driven from outside Parliament. This year the two organizations have strengthened ties and easy to see Casals Forcadell together in the same consultation events defending the new state or Catalan. Another actor who often joins this duo is the president of the Association of Municipalities for Independence (AMI), Josep Maria Vila Abadal.
Muriel Casals represents the break, serenity, tranquility and wisdom. The historical organization of more than 50 years, as Omnium, which recently was not far from independence, but has been following the evolution of many Catalans or the government itself, which found that the fit with Spain is impossible and that the only way is to build a new state or Bendit A normal country, as it says the last campaign of the organization. "The process is unstoppable (...). The dynamics towards independence is on track enough to not derailed, "Casals stood in a interview in this newspaper.
The change of chip Omnium occurred in 2010 with the mutilation of the statute and the subsequent demonstration that was organized and brought together nearly one million people in Barcelona.
If Casals is common sense, and the NAC are Carmen Forcadell rapture. Therefore represent the two characteristics that have been linked with the Catalan character. The yin and yang. The perfect combination of many strokes are required to face the challenges with confidence.
The ANC was founded in 2012 with a clear objective: to ensure the independence of Catalonia. The association draws directly query sovereignty that took place from 2009 to 2012 and its success is based on the networking area. In a few months he created a successful infrastructure that allowed him to mount the demonstration of independence on 11 September 2012 in Barcelona, a million and a half people. The death of the fiscal pact.
This outburst Forcadell, who was former councilman ERC Sabadell has enabled him to avoid having to balance as many Omnium and was able to show from the first minute a more forceful. "Without our own state we are doomed to disappear," remarked another interview at The Point today. But this does not prevent abraonament FORCADELL excited and cry in some of his speeches, as occurred during the human chain of September 11.
Indeed, the role of the 2013 Casals Forcadell has been linked to two major events that have co-organized: the Concert for Freedom in Camp Nou and the Catalan way towards independence . Omnium took the reigns of the first event, which was held on 29 June, when 90,000 people claimed that Catalonia to hold talks in 2014. The festival will go down the annals of history and Catalan nationalist sentiments in addition to other important events such as the football stadium concert of Appeal (1981) or by Lluís Llach (1985).
If the Concert for Freedom did get goosebumps, which was live on September 11, under the shelter of the ANC, is indescribable. A yellow wave over 1, 6 million Catalans shook hands along 400 kilometers from the North Catalonia to Valencia. Trace and scarf.
This unity of action between ANC and Omnium between Casals and Forcadell continue. The two organizations will continue pushing for the executive and resilience for the Catalans to vote on the request. Even more of a leadership skills have seen political Casals Forcadell and left their names on a list topped by some sleepers for European unity. Both, however, have autodescartat.
The profile Muriel Casals and Carmen Forcadell Òmnium and the Catalan National Assembly, the two most important institutions sovereignty of the country, have close ties during 2013.Its two presidents, Muriel Casals and Carmen Forcadell have become the spearhead of civil society that pushes politicians in the transition to the national consultation and also have been visible faces of two events that have proven the process is unstoppable: Concert for Freedom in Camp Nou and the Catalan Way to Independence.
First Australians, June 2013 
“The lives of nearly half a million Christians in Iraq are constantly in danger,” says Rimon. “Since 2003, dozens of churches and houses of worship were targeted, killing 900 people and injuring 6,000.” 
