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Protesters Use Visit to Criticize Several Issues
By Patrick Flanigan and Jeffrey Blackwell, Rochester D&C
May 25, 2005
Demonstrations against President Bush's visit Tuesday to the Rochester area ranged from peaceful sign-holding to civil disobedience.
Two people were arrested outside Greece Athena High School minutes after the president's motorcade entered the campus.
Several more protesters, opposed to a variety of Bush policies, lined the roads leading to the high school, while a formal demonstration took place in downtown Rochester after the president left.
Sister Grace Miller, director of the House of Mercy homeless shelter, and Harry Murray, a Nazareth College professor, lay down in the road at the entrance to the high school and were taken away by police.
Miller and Murray, who have been arrested for anti-war protests in the past, were charged with disorderly conduct and obstructing governmental administration. Murray also was charged with resisting arrest.
"I just wanted to register my opposition to the illegal invasion and occupation of Iraq," Murray said. They were released after an arraignment in Greece Town Court and are due back in court June 14.
Wahli Djazziique, 36, and Tisha Green, 29, simply stood along the motorcade route with a sign that read: "Rochester says NO to Bush's war."
Protesters also held signs in support of gay and lesbian rights. And about three dozen disability-rights activists who oppose cuts to Medicaid and federal housing programs stood outside the school holding giant foam scissors labeled "the only tool in Bush's belt."
Members of AARP, a national association for older Americans, held a news conference after the speech announcing the start of a campaign asking state residents to send postcards to Bush and other members of Congress stating their opposition to Bush's plan to reform Social Security.
About the same time, about 750 opponents to the plan gathered at the First Universalist Church downtown. They had planned to meet at the Liberty Pole but moved to the church because of the rain.
Evan Engel, 19, of Brighton seized on Bush's promise that the reforms won't affect people born before 1950.
"What about my generation?" he asked. "This plan is going to take trillions of dollars. That's a debt my generation is going to be stuck with."
Karen Lee-Byfield, political chairwoman of the United Auto Workers Local 1097, said Bush is trying to "sell a bill of goods," based on the false premise that Social Security is on the verge of collapse.
Jim Thompson worried that the protest's message would get lost in the glow of the visit.
"Bush seems to have a hypnotic allure," he said.
PFLANIGA@DemocratandChronicle.com
JBLACKWELL@DemocratandChronicle.com
Staff writer Enid Arbelo contributed to this report
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