Billionaires For Bush at Dupont Circle in Washington, DC, January 20, 2005: R. Laws, Mimi Knot-Yiu, Anonymous Billionaire, Robin Eublind, the Lady More K'Ching, and Noah Countability. To celebrate the occasion of the inauguration, the Billionaires also auctioned off Social Security to the highest corporate bidder at the FDR Memorial and held a Re-Coronation Inaugural Ball. Photo: Ivana Moore-Enmoore, Boston Billionaires for Bush chapter, www.billionairesforbush.com.

2 From the Editor's Desk

4 Attorney General Gonzales: Justifying Torture
By Human Rights First
When asked if he still believed that torture wasn't torture unless it was, "equivalent in intensity to the pain accompanying serious physical injury, such as organ failure, impairment of bodily function, or even death," Gonzalez replied, "I don't have a disagreement with the conclusions then reached by the department."

5 We Oppose Confirmation
By The Mexican American Political Association
We can only support a candidate who has a demonstrated commitment to the rule of law, most especially during trying times and circumstances of social unrest, war, civil disturbances, protest, and real or supposed threats to our security.

6 Basic Training: Basic Cruelty, Basic Misogyny
By Tyler Gilbert with Sam Diener
Shark attacks are when four drill sergeants surround one of us, swearing and yelling and spitting, each with their faces inches away. They'd yell, "You're a girl. You're a wimp."

8 "I Can't Be Part of That:"US Navy Objector Refuses Deployment
By Luc Schuster
I realized that war is not something I'm about. I realized that the military is something I'm completely against, especially the way this country has used it throughout history.

10 A Turning Point for the Anti-War Movement?
By Rick Jahnkow
By countering military recruitment, people can actually nonviolently stand in the way of what is being done in Iraq.

12 Supporting Florida Farmworkers: Boycotting Taco Bell
By the Coalition for Immokalee Workers
Farmworkers average yearly salary? $7500 per year.

14 Tsunami: Waves of Devastation & Hope
By AFSC, East Timor Action Network, the Nonviolent Peaceforce, and UNICEF
The Indonesian military has killed 120 Acehnese, most of them civilians, since the tsunami. While supporting relief efforts, oppose any new US programs for the Indonesian military.

16 Abu Mazen's Greater Jihad
By Daoud Kuttab
The greater jihad (or struggle) is the internal jihad. By running and winning the elections on a platform of nonviolence and against military acts, Abu Mazen has, in his own eyes, overcome the smaller jihad and has promoted himself to the much more difficult, greater, jihad. It is the difficult soul searching in which you have to struggle with yourself.

17 Israelis & Palestinians Petition for Peace
By Sari Nusseibeh and Ami Ayalon
Over 240,000 Israelis and 160,000 Palestinians have signed a petition calling for a peaceful two-state resolution.

18 Moving Beyond Silence: Reconciling Palestine and Israel
Introduced by Hilda Silverman, one member of a 14-person International Quaker Working Party. The Working Party produced a book, When the Rain Returns: Toward Justice and Reconciliation in Palestine and Israel, excerpted here.
On the one hand, there was the fairly visible "cycle" of violence, a process wherein egregious violence undertaken by one side would inflict pain on members of the community, and this suffering would then be used to "justify" a highly escalatory response. However, behind the more visible cycle of violence is a second, parallel process in which Israel's settlement-building project continued to expand their control over Palestinian land.

20 Two Congresspeople Take Stand of Conscience Object to Certification of Ohio Electoral Votes
By Congresswoman Stephanie Tubbs Jones
If they are willing to stand at the polls for countless hours in the rain, as many did in Ohio, then I can surely stand up for them here in the halls of Congress.

21 Code Pink's Voter Bill of Rights
It is clear that our electoral system is in dire need of an overhaul. To build a more just, secure and robust democracy, I support….

22 Pieces (Events, Campaigns, Opportunities, Resources)

24 Compelling Insensitive Majorities to Listen
By Shirley Chisholm
Prejudice against blacks is becoming unacceptable. But it is doomed because, slowly, white America is beginning to admit that such prejudice exists. Prejudice against women is still acceptable.

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