Desobediencia Civil - Spanish translation by Hernando Jiménez

While Walden can be applied to almost anyone's life, "Civil Disobedience" is like a venerated architectural landmark: it is preserved and admired, and sometimes visited, but for most of us there are not many occasions when it can actually be used. Still, although it is seldom mentioned without references to Gandhi and King, "Civil Disobedience" has more history than many suspect. In the 1940's it was read by the Danish resistance, in the 1950's it was cherished by people who opposed McCarthyism, in the 1960's it was influential in the struggle against South African apartheid, and in the 1970's it was discovered by a new generation of anti-war activists. The lesson learned from all this experience is that Thoreau's ideas really do work, just as he imagined they would.

"Civil Disobedience" in three parts: One - Two - Three

(Originally published as "Resistance to Civil Government")

"I became convinced that noncooperation with evil is as much a moral obligation as is cooperation with good. No other person has been more eloquent and passionate in getting this idea across than Henry David Thoreau. As a result of his writings and personal witness, we are the heirs of a legacy of creative protest." - Martin Luther King, Jr, Autobiography, Chapter 2

Did Thoreau change his mind later? Because this essay is often associated with passive civil disobediance, some have assumed that Thoreau's later support of John Brown was a change from his earlier position. But Michael J. Frederick, in "Transcendental Ethos: Thoreau’s Philosophy & Antebellum Reform," explains why this was not the case.

Was Tolstoy influenced by Thoreau? Lawrence Rosenwald, in a footnote for The Theory, Practice, and Influence of Thoreau's Civil Disobedience, points out that "Tolstoy is actually a questionable case ... Passages from Thoreau, like passages from Emerson, turn up in Tolstoy's A Circle of Reading, and Tolstoy sometimes refers to Thoreau, but almost always as part of a formulaic list including Adin Ballou, Emerson, William Lloyd Garrison, and Theodore Parker."

"when, in the mid-1950's, the United States Information Service included as a standard book in all their libraries around the world a textbook of American literature which reprinted Thoreau's 'Civil Disobedience,' the late Senator Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin succeeded in having that book removed from the shelves — specifically because of the Thoreau essay." - Walter Harding, in The Variorum Civil Disobedience

Much more information: Links to other "Civil Disobedience" sites

"Civil Disobedience" originated as a Concord Lyceum lecture delivered by Thoreau on January 26, 1848. It was published as "Resistance to Civil Government," in May of 1849, in Elizabeth Peabody's Aesthetic Papers, a short-lived periodical that never managed a second issue. The modern title comes from Yankee in Canada, with Anti-Slavery and Reform Papers, an 1866 collection of Thoreau's work. It's not known if Thoreau ever used the term "civil disobedience."

Copyright © 2005 Richard Lenat, All Rights Reserved

[...]

http://eserver.org/thoreau/civil.html

Blair opposes EU's directive to outlaw up to 5,000 vitamins

Published: 30 June 2005

Up to 5,000 vitamin and food supplements could be swept from the shelves of health-food shops under an EU directive due to come into force on 1 August.

Campaigners warn that despite a European ruling that the Food Supplements Directive is illegal, an amended version could be used to ban products used by a third of British women and a quarter of men.

Tony Blair, who raised the issue in talks with EU leaders this month, is known to oppose the directive on the grounds that consumers should be free to choose and the state should not interfere in products that do not cause harm. "He is driven on this by his anti-regulation instincts. But he is probably also influenced by Cherie," a source said.

Cherie Blair is reportedly a user of vitamins and supplements and her former personal assistant Carole Caplin campaigns on the issue.

Opponents of the directive say the Government is leaving it too late to influence the European Commission before a ruling by the European Court of Justice on 12 July.

Jenny Seagrove, the actress, said: "In the past fortnight we have heard new evidence about ibuprofen's link with heart attacks, yet here we have vitamins and supplements being swept off the shelves that never harmed anybody. Who is going to benefit when the supplements market shrinks? The pharmaceutical companies. "

Sue Croft, of Consumers for Health Choice, said: "We can't sit and wait for the EU Commission to make a decision. We need to persuade them now. The Government promised before the election that it did not want to see products lost that were legitimately on the market. There are 200 nutrients and nutrient sources that could be banned, affecting 5,000 products."

The EU directive is designed to tighten controls on the market for products sold as natural remedies, vitamin supplements and health foods. Instead of allowing a vitamin or mineral to be sold unless it has been proved harmful, the directive insists that only those proved safe can be sold. Permissible doses will also be capped.

The directive approves 140 substances for use in supplements – fewer than half of those in use. Substances can be added to the list only if a scientific dossier has been compiled and approved by the European Food Safety authority. That would cost from £80,000 to £250,000 per product.

In April the Advocate-General at the European Court of Justice, Leendert Geelhoed, declared the directive illegal. He found that the procedure for adding supplements to the approved list was confusing and said the directive had "the transparency of a black box". But he said the principle of an approved list conforms to EU law.

The directive was approved by EU governments in 2002 and manufacturers given until the end of July 2005 to prove their ingredients safe. More than 300 doctors and scientists wrote a letter of protest to Tony Blair, one million people signed a petition, and there were motions opposing the law from both the Commons and the Lords. [...]

http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/health_medical/article295756.ece

What will happen next is that from August 1st, we will be gettting spam for Solgar products as well as Viagra, and someone in the united states is going to make millions fulfilling mail order for these products.

If any of my vitamins come off of the market because of this, I will be ordering them from outside the EU, or even better, buying them from a pharmacist that is flaunting these absurd regulations.

You are allowed to consume as many food preservatives as companies can pump into food without changing its taste, you can drink yourself into an alcoholic stupor, indeed, until you die, all without regulation, BUT vitamins you cannot take? I think not.

Oh yes, and Bliar is full of shit.

Mr Clarke dismissed as "fantastic" claims that people could be charged up to £300 for an ID card. He said they would cost £25-£30 more than the projected £63 cost of new biometric passports. He said he was prepared to limit the cost of a card. He also raised "the possibility of cheaper cards for poorer citizens which many of my colleagues have pressed as necessary."

Alberta Premier Ralph Klein has suggested that his province may get out of the marriage business altogether in the wake of the passage of same-sex marriage legislation in the House of Commons Tuesday.

• INDEPTH: Same-sex Rights

Alberta Premiere Fascisto Ralph Klein. (File photo)

Klein was meeting with his members of the provincial legislature Wednesday morning to decide how to continue the fight against same-sex marriage.
But he acknowledged Tuesday that he had few options.
''There are no legal weapons. There's nothing left in the arsenal,'' Klein said. ''We're out on a lurch.''
Klein repeated that using the notwithstanding clause is not an option because the definition of marriage falls under federal jurisdiction, and the province can't affect that.
Instead, Klein proposed that the province might withdraw from sanctioning marriages and just recognize civil unions, leaving marriage to religious orders.
''We simply wouldn't be involved in the solemnization of marriage,'' he said.
The Liberals' controversial same-sex marriage legislation passed final reading Tuesday night, sailing through in a 158-133 vote.

FROM JUNE 28, 2005: Same-sex marriage law passes 158-133

Richard Nixon said of The Bohemian Grove:

"the most faggy goddamned thing you could ever imagine..."

Walking the Streets

A Traffic Wardens Diary

Seriously guys; anyone who believes that ID cards are a good idea needs their head read. In IT terms it’s a disaster waiting to happen. For the money wasting bureaucrats it's a dream come true. For the rest of us a nightmare. [...]

"but nobody cares"

We dont care about what you do in Germany, or that you are willing to live in a police state; that has absolutely nothing to do with the people of the United Kingdom.

The first german resident in these comments said 'where's the problem?' The problem is very clearly explained everywhere you care to look, most recently in the report created by the LSE, which no doubt, you have not read or even heard about.

The Belgians, the Germans and all people who are inured to ID cards talk about them in a way that feels like they want other people to give up what they have given up, just because they have had to do so, "who do you think you are that you can live like free men whilst we cannot?" is the gist of all their comments. The people who are for ID cards are almost always computer illiterates and unaware of the true nature of identity theft. Either way, I totally discount and reject the idea that the British have to live in a certain way just because people in other countries do so. This is completely absurd and insulting; should we all live under Sharia law if the Germans decide to do so? I think not, and this is not a bad analogy, because when Turkey joins the EU there will be elements of thieir law that, using the 'its ok for us so it is for you' thinkers logic, should be brought into UK law simply because thats the way it is in Turkey.

No one with any self respect is for ID cards and the compulsion to carry one whenever they leave their house. Its simply a violation of your right to travel and interact freely. Those that have lost this right or who never had it or who do not understand what human rights are, can see that the sky has not fallen because they have ID cards, yet, they are dehumanized nonetheless. You can get used to any situation; just ask the people from the former soviet union or the former east germany. They are so inured to being slaves that they want those bad sytems back because they are familiar and comforting.

I will not register for this ID card should it pass into law, and I do not know a single other person who will do so either.

Once again, if you live in Germany and like that sort of dehumanized system, you are free to live there and to suffer it for your entire life. We on the other hand, do not want to be dehumanized, and will not suffer this ID card being foisted upon us.

Finally, have you not understood the part of the post saying that the UK Government wants to sell ID card data to private companies to fund the system? Just how low have you sunk living there in Germany, that you cannot see that this is a fleecing operation pure and simple? They changed the reasons for briinging in an ID card from stopping terrorism to stopping identity fraud, and now, at the end the TRUE reason is leaked; private companies are pushing for this so that they can fleece the populations data from a single vendor.

Only the most stupid and slave minded fool would think that this is 'not a

26 June 2005

No liberal can feel comfortable with the idea of the state requiring law-abiding citizens to have their fingerprints taken and stored on a national register. Some people may be surprised, therefore, that this newspaper does not oppose the Identity Cards Bill currently going through the House of Commons. When people say that they object to identity cards on principle, it is often difficult for them to say what that principle is. It cannot be that we should never be obliged to prove to the authorities that we are who we say we are. The questions that matter are when the state has the right to demand to know our identity, for what purposes and what it does with the information it holds on us. [...]

http://comment.independent.co.uk/leading_articles/story.jsp?story=649698

This has to take the prize for the most stupid headline of the year.

The case is unproven, but its "worth a try"???!!!

If we were talking about a new experimental medicine to be compulsorily injected into every man woman and child in the country, would it be acceptable to say that its 'worth a try'...'suck it and see' ???

The Independent, whose cover is constantly plastered with false articles about proportional representation, the erosion of rights, the lies of the Iraq invasion, now proposes that its 'ok' to use the whole UK population in a dangerous, commercially driven, useless and damaging experiment (which the punters will have to pay for).

I want to smoke the crack that they are smoking.

And what if, you stupid idiots, it (by any measure) 'doesnt work'? Will the hundreds of databases, both private and public, be purged of all the data in them? Will the government willingly give up its system of complete surveillance and control?

Of course they will not. Once this Pandora's box is opened, thats it for everyone who was stupid enough to register. Short of a revolution, nothing will be able to completely dismantle all the databases and purge alll the scans NIRs and other information that has both leaked and been deliberately sold.

I simply cannot believe the ignorance, illiteracy and flat out stupidity of the editors of The Independent and all the other sensible papers.

It looks like a grass roots total rebellion is the only way this is going to be defeated, and even if this wrong headed legislation passes, when no one registers, the system will die, just like the poll tax did.

This will mean people travelling on expired passports, and people without passports travelling on birth cirtificates and drivers licences or passports from other jurisdictions. It will mean refusing to transact with anyone that unreasonably demands ID from you.

I have personally seen this being done already. A man walked into a bank to withdraw £1000 cash, The teller demanded ID. The customer refused; he had banked at the same branch for 20 years, and refused to jump through this hoop. The teller said he could give him £999 pounds without ID. The customer stood fast; £1000 or he closed the account there and then. About five minutes later, he got his cash on the order of the manager. Everyone, including the teller and the manager admitted that the requirement was absurd, and they collectively agreed not to obey it; a known customer collecting his own money should not have to jump through hoops to do it. This is common sense, and the stance of this customer is what is going to be adopted everywhere.

OR

Suffer the consequences.

Personal details of all 44 million adults living in Britain could be sold to private companies as part of government attempts to arrest spiralling costs for the new national identity card scheme, set to get the go-ahead this week.

The Independent on Sunday can today reveal that ministers have opened talks with private firms to pass on personal details of UK citizens for an initial cost of £750 each. [...]

The Independent

Blantant and Brazen. Literally selling the population of the UK to the highest bidder, harvesting the data on each person compulsorily and then selling the shearings. Astonishing.