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Rochester's Inaugural Bawl -A Counter-Witness
Even if you won't be traveling to Washington, DC for Inauguration Day, you can still mourn the occasion. Join Rochester's counter-inaugural.
Pax Christi Rochester is taking up the suggestion for an Inaugural Bawl on Inauguration Day, January 20th. We invite others to join in a Vigil of Regret this Thurs.,at 4pm at the corner of Main and State Sts., downtown.
Our focus will be the on-going U.S. war on Iraq- a premptive war of aggression, an international crime of untold magnitude. We hope to represent the voice of many Americans, an alternative to the U.S. greed-based policies of regime change abroad and callousness toward the needs of our own impoverished U.S. citizens. We will speak our profound repentance regarding the slaughter of Iraqis- including the 100,000 killed Iraqi civilians ,mainly women and children, as estimated in October by the prestigous British medical journal ,The Lancet. We further express our concern for living Iraqis condemned by our policies to suffer without the necessities of potable water, adequate nutrition, sufficient electricity, and condemned to increased violence, a devastated culture and a ruined educational system.
We acknowledge our nation's failed policies of domination, we call for the withdrawal of troops, and we declare our responsibility to rebuild what we have destroyed in Iraq. Included in our concern are our brothers and sisters in the military in Iraq, whom we as a country are condemning to an agony of body and spirit during their time in service in Iraq, and an emotional agony which will continue for many long after their military service.
We entreat our fellow citizens, our educators, our government leaders and especially our members of the clergy to bravely and continuosly demand an end to war!
"To attain the good of peace there must be a clear and conscious acknowledgement that violence is an unacceptable evil and that it never solves problems." World Peace Day Message".
Signs are welcome, but please keep the focus on the war!
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