Pax Christi, Catholic Worker Vigil

White House sidewalk 4/18/99


But this is your hour,
the time for the power of darkness.
Luke 2:53

When will the American people receive other than blood frenzy and madness from their leadership? When will the President, Generals, and CEOs of the warmaking corporations listen to 71% of our people who desire serious nuclear disarmament and peace? When will those in power retreat from the derangement of stuffing Carlsbad Cavern with nuclear waste, militarizing space and "owning the weather." Do we have nothing to offer the World's people except war, arms sales, sweat shops, and ecological pollution?

Aeschylus was right-in war, the first casualty is truth. In war, the official liars gather around and compete. They use the UN as a cover to poison Iraq with depleted uranium and to slaughter its people. They use NATO as legitimacy to bomb Kosovo and all of Yugoslavia. In the case of Iraq, they lust after its oil. As for Yugoslavia, they want a compliant staging-ground for the Middle East.

Our bombing of Iraq and Yugoslavia degrades to a mockery the nonviolent sacrifice of Jesus on Calvary, where he chose the cross rather than the sword. Accordingly, he enjoins those who "follow" him to have nothing to do with war, economic terrorism and environmental rape. Nothing to do with work at the war department, paying for war or silence before warmaking. Rather, we must say NO! in our hearts and by our lives.

Only our NO! will take back the US from the political charlatans and bosses. Only our NO! will restore this country to its people. Let us therefore take to the streets and war factories, and let us suffer the prisons until the bankrupt old warriors are retired. Then the darkness of violence and death will lift and the dawn of Easter will renew the earth.

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