 It is nice to block the jail. The Constitution begins with the ringing declaration. We the people of the United States in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, ensure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity. Do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America. High ideals surely. The problem is that what the framers meant by the people were people like them, white male landowners, owners of property. Everyone else was left out with any rights of citizens. Many as slaves written to the Constitution as three-fifths of a person. The great history of this country has been the ongoing expansion of who constitutes the people. Former slaves, workers, women, Latinx people, people of color, people with disabilities, LBGTQ people, immigrants from every land have organized and struggled mightily to be included as the people. They were in turn ignored, ridiculed, beaten, thrown in jail. Many were killed, and then they won. The work is far from over, but all these people over the long decades of struggle have bent the arc of history toward justice. We stand on their shoulders, putting our muscle into the effort to make this nation finally live up to its lofty ideals. There has always been resistance to this expansion of democracy. The forces of reaction have come primarily from those who dominate our society and economy, who are flush with the wealth created by working people from all backgrounds and conditions. They have never rested and are never content until they appropriate all that wealth and the power which it buys. And today they occupy the highest seats of power in this nation. Donald Trump, you, your sycophant minions, the billionaires who support you, and those who are enthralled by your glitz, are only the latest iteration of this attempt to reverse the hard-fought victories of the people of this country. And we are putting you on notice. We the people are here to say no. You will not turn back our movement for true democracy. You will not impose a fascist state in America. Your reckless and violent actions to divide, suppress, and control has unleashed the greatest force you will ever encounter. We the people will join together all our movements of resistance. We will stop you. And with a vision of justice, peace, and a restored earth, we will triumph. I finish with the final words John Lewis, whom we recently lost, left us in his article in the New York Times that appeared on the day of his funeral. And these are John's words. So I say to you, walk with the wind, brothers and sisters, and let the spirit of peace and the power of everlasting love be your guide. So folks, this is something about us the people. So rather than having a roster of speakers, what I want to do is invite any of you to come up and speak for up to three minutes. We have timers here who will keep you on track. And we ask that you keep within that time so that as many people as we have time for can speak, tell us why you're here and what your concerns are. And after each speaker, Paul will wipe the mic so that the next person has a clean microphone to work with. So you're invited. Good morning. I'm Will Peary. So I became very horrified when I traveled a lot in Central America and the fascist dictatorships that our country supported. Guatemala in particular really broke my heart. That when you ask Americans, is fascism a bad thing? They'll mostly say, yeah, it's a bad thing. And they're probably thinking of Germany or Hitler, I mean Mussolini. They're not thinking about American fascism. There's been a strong streak of fascism since the beginning that over 40 million Native Americans died in the invasion of Europeans. We call it manifest destiny that God determined that America should belong to white Christian Europeans. And most of the Indians died from our diseases, but many of them were hunted down. My friend Will Miller graciously mentored me back in the 90s. He went to Germany just after World War II and he asked a lot of the people who lived not too far from the death camps what they thought about. And they declared that they knew nothing about anybody actually dying in those camps. They were just work camps as far as they were concerned. A lot of Americans are very willfully unaware of a lot of the darkness that's going on. Our country has supported a lot of really horrific fascist dictatorships. Indonesia, Guatemala, Greece, country after country. We overthrew democratically elected governments and installed fascist military dictatorships that terrorized people, that indiscriminately killed people. They called them communists, but the people in Guatemala, they weren't really communists. They were nationalists. They just wanted to go along with their lives and grow corn and feed their children. They didn't have any interest in politics very much. They just wanted to not be terrorized by the military. Fascism loves wonder weapons. Hitler built some of the most incredible weapons systems way above the cutting edge of technology at the time. The first jet fighter plane was the Messerschmitt ME, flew three times faster than the prop planes. They couldn't shoot the thing down. He built cannons that could shoot fire shells over the English Channel. They built walls. They built a Ziegfried line to wall off Germany from the rest of Europe. They built a 3,000 mile long wall from the north of Norway all the way down to Spain to try to, with thousands and thousands of bunkers and millions and millions of land mines. They built giant tanks the size of small houses. Burlington is being blasted pretty much every day by the F-35, which is not really much use as defensive. We have other planes that can do most of the defensive jobs better than the F-35. But what it is really good at is delivering bombs through air defense systems, which makes it much more of an offensive weapon. Plan to spend $1.4 trillion on this F-35 plane. This is amount of money that's pretty much inconceivable. A trillion seconds is over 32,000 years. Good morning, my name is Audrey Femette, and I represent Vermont Yankee Decommissioning Alliance, or VYDA. Thank you. We oppose Vermont shipping its high level nuclear waste to communities in Texas and New Mexico, many of whom are poor, indigenous communities, and black. So what about Vermont Yankee's high level nuclear waste? It's a high product of nuclear power plants and is extremely dangerous for thousands of years. The Vermont nuclear power plant located in Vermont has been shut down since 2014, and the high level nuclear waste it produced over the years of operation must be dealt with. Currently our federal government has not come up with a permanent site to store this toxic waste safely over time. For a star, the corporation which owns Vermont Yankee wants to transport this toxic waste to an interim storage site it owns in Texas. To transport this waste is a dangerous proposition, since an accident would likely result in great damage to the environment and the life forms in the surrounding area. We should only be moving the material once to a permanent repository. Also, if Vermont Yankee's high level nuclear waste is allowed to be transported across the country to a temporary parking lot dump on our highways, railways, and waterways, such a precedent would likely result in thousands of shipments as other nuclear power plants are shut down over the coming four decades. Communities in the Southwest are speaking out in opposition to accepting our toxic waste. We support their concerns and are against the transportation and interim storage of Vermont Yankee's waste. We feel it's safer to keep our waste within our state in hardened onsite storage in stainless steel and concrete dry casks while a scientifically based permanent storage site is located. For the above reasons, join us in contacting Congressman Peter Welch and urge him to vote against any bill that would authorize centralized interim storage. You'll sometimes hear it labeled as CIS. We have a table with more information by Shannon's called Environmental Injustice. Thank you. So I think everyone's aware that this is the 75th anniversary of the dropping of bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. So 75, that's a big year. That's three quarters of a century. Is it time for celebration or what? What I would like us to do in the three minutes I have is look back at 75 years ago. What was born then? What got created? And when you look at 1945, you see that there were actually twins that were created. Twins that had lived with us today and they want to kill each other, frankly. One is the United Nations was born in 1945 and the bombs were dropped in 1945. So those two forces have been in competition, in struggle, all of those years. So what I'm proposing here is that what we need to do is we need to retire one of them. We need to retire the nuclear weapons. We need to cut them up and put them in boxes and let them molder in a repository somewhere. And we need to rejuvenate the other one. We need to listen to the United Nations. We need to give it more power. We need to hear what Secretary General Gutierrez has been saying. Support the global ceasefire. This is an amazing concept and many countries apparently are putting down their weapons during this virus. And you know, he also says the folly of war cannot really compete with the fury of the virus. So that is my message today to support the ceasefire, support ending war, and come to the procession in Burlington on Hiroshima Day, which is Thursday. Thursday at 6pm we're going to meet at the head of Church Street with bread and puppet, walk to the waterfront and sing and float the candle boats. And so we would love to have a big crowd there and you are all invited. Thank you. Hello, my name is Marguerite Adelman and I'm a member of People for Peace and Security. Cancel the F-35s, the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, and the Champlain Valley Chapter of Amnesty International. The harrowing scenes of paramilitary style units in the streets of American cities like Portland has shocked so many of us in America. And ironically, while we're shocked, those who work and report on border security and immigration here and internationally will tell you that this is actually how the U.S. has and is operating around the world. A recent international poll listed the U.S. as the most feared nation in the world. We need to own up to our rights violating war-based foreign policy and its connections to militarized policing and racism here at home. And we need to remember Martin Luther King Jr.'s radical call to action against the giant triplets of racism, extreme materialism, and militarism. Since the beginning of the Trump administration, U.S. military spending has increased by more than 100 billion, almost 20 percent. And there's no other part of the federal budget that has increased by that much, not education, not housing, and not public health. The images of the news of police and federal agents wearing helmets and masks, toting assault rifles and riding in mine-resistant armored vehicles are not isolated incidents. They represent a national trend towards militarization. Federal programs provide surplus military equipment to police departments and have outfitted officers with firepower that is far beyond what is necessary for their jobs as protectors of our communities. The change in equipment parallels the corresponding change in attitude. Police and federal agents conceive of themselves at war with communities, rather than as public servants concerned with keeping our communities safe. We need to advocate for a return to a less dangerous, more collaborative style of policing. We should not be mistaking our police officers for soldiers. For many of us locally in Vermont, the F-35 stands for what is wrong in the U.S. in terms of militarization and capitalism. The communities surrounding the Burlington International Airport voted against placing the F-35s. An exorbitantly expensive, dangerous, health-damaging instrument of war in our densely populated communities where a crash or an accident is sure to result in death and toxicity to the environment. Our voices and our votes have not been heard or acknowledged. Instead, the industrial military complex has won out, taking more than half of our tax dollars, dollars that we cannot spend on mental health, education, health care, environmental programs, economic justice programs and more. Follow the money, folks. It's going to the military industrial complex. Many individuals have told us that we should just give up the fight against the F-35s. It's a done deal. But you see, that's the good thing about being an American. We don't have to give up fighting for what we believe in and what is right. On this 100th anniversary of women's suffrage, it's good to remember that we must fight for what we believe and value. And, of course, we must vote in November. We must vote against those who would support policies that deploy Gestapo-like tactics on the streets of American cities. Instead, we must vote for those who give money to peace, to policies that benefit people and our planet. Thank you. My name is Howard Jennings. I live in Bristol, and I'm here with a personal example of this creeping fascism coming home to Vermont in a way. I don't know how well you can see this dark photo, but it's a picture of the bloodied-up face of my son, Tripp Jennings. Tripp is a photojournalist who has done work and created films all around the world. He's covered protests all across the country. And Saturday night, he was covering the protest in Portland, and he got shot in the face by Trump's federal agents. It's possible he's going to lose his left eye and may end his career as a photojournalist. I'm not sure yet, but it's a pretty insane situation where these federal agents are out there supposedly protecting the federal courthouse, but they shot my son and others two and a half blocks from there. They weren't protecting the federal courthouse. They were taking over the streets of Portland. They were indiscriminately firing all kinds of impact munitions and stun bags into the crowd. And as soon as my son, who was retreating following the dispersal order, turned around to see how close they were to him, they shot him in the face because that was the most vulnerable part of his body. He had on a helmet and other things, and busted his gas mask and put shards of plastic into his face and his eye. So he created a post on Facebook. Gotta get this story out there, right? And it's gone viral. It's probably been seen, he calculates by about a million people since Saturday. If you want to see the bloody photos up close and hear the story, which is very eloquently put, just Google Portland protests, journalists shot in face, and you'll see all kinds of stuff. He's been interviewed in the New York Times, CNN, Business Insider, The Hill, various TV and radio stations, and the message is this. It's a twin message, really. The federal government and all governments have no business taking over our streets, especially the federal governments, against the will of the local authorities, taking over streets and attacking our citizens. The military denied Trump his request to deploy troops against our citizens, and the military said, no, we're not going to support deployment of our troops against Americans in American cities to their credit on one score. But Trump got around that by sending the border patrol and homeland security people, and these are the meanest of the mean, this Bortak group that's out there on the front lines. And they are told by their superiors, you're basically above the law. You don't have to follow due process. You can attack journalists even though there's a court order saying you cannot target journalists. Basically you're above the Constitution, and that's the message going out to these militarized federal agents to indiscriminately shoot people in the streets. So that's the message that my son's getting out there. We're all trying to get that message out, but let's keep it succinct and honed very well. One, stop this creeping fascism and taking over our streets by unauthorized use of force. And two, the much broader message which Tripp is saying this is really brought home to him. As a white journalist, he's usually enjoyed certain privileges and protections. But he knows that people of color are not afforded those kinds of privileges every day, and they're shot and killed with lethal weapons. So write the White House, write our members of Congress and tell them those two things. We are outraged, and even though our members of Congress are on our side, they need to hear from us that we are mad, and they're getting their inboxes filled up with outrage from their constituents. So thanks, keep up the good fight. Good morning folks. My name is Tom Kelly, and I've recently moved to Plainfield, Vermont after spending a half century in education at the high school collegiate level focusing on, in particular, democratic education. And undoubtedly, like all of you, I've been trying to identify what it means to be anti-Trump in the context of the terrifying realities that we've observed and just recently heard about. And those realities, in brief for me, as a certain kind of summary of them, or selection of them, is polarizing demonization of the other, the chaotic undermining of democratic institutions and norms, his poisonous eradication of complexity and nuance, his incessant lies and distortions, and his authoritarian pretense to infallibility. So it is one thing potentially to identify what you're against. It is not the same thing to identify what you're for. And as my thinking leads me to be, hope to aspire to be on a daily basis for such dynamics as humility, curiosity, generousness, political agency for universal social justice, a search for commonality, identifying and as need, as appropriate, dignifying difference, promoting a bam or both and mentality towards ideas and others, and cultivating a sense of collective responsibility. I want to say one thing about the notion of commonalities, and it might sound paradoxical, but it seems to me actually recently Roger Cohen wrote about two fundamental conditions of the human condition, fallibility and our contradictory nature. For me, that contradictory nature is manifested in such tensions as our desire to favor freedom while shouting security, curing consensus while courting conflict, craving certainty while savoring surprise, exalting equality while sanctifying superiority, glorifying the good while desiring the devilish. I mention these because from my point of view, the pursuit of democracy is about trying to understand the tensions, not to repress or eliminate that which is fundamental to our nature, but rather to overcome them in the sense of moderating and where possible transcending and reconciling them. All of these concepts to me could be reduced into the other side of selfishness, variation on the narcissism that we see at the top, and that selfishness might be contrasted to a spirit of generosity towards others. I'm putting this in the context that perhaps all of us might identify with as democratic activists and educators. At the beginning, I just briefly posed a good faith but skeptical question on the part of those who might be listening or attending, seeking to deal with our message, who might be doubtful and short about the virtues of generosity. It goes like this. In a jungle world of usurpers and depleting resources, is generosity foolhardiness? Shell Silverstein's giving tree, the ultimate sap? Given that I'm not rich, what and why do I have to give anyway? Now, putting the perspective on democratic educators' activists. Exemplary democratic educators relish these questions, the important issues they raise of reciprocity and responsibility, scarcity and solidarity, the intriguing insights they invite about the abundant wealth all humans possess. Modeling such wealth, these democratic educators seek to help students see that all humans have the capacity to dignify the other, that is to listen, to hear, to be empathic, witness to another's experience, to suspend prejudgments, particularly dismissive ones, to thoughtfully consider the worth of ideas heard, regardless of how initially strange, unsavory, shallow or senseless they may appear, to engage in questions, to seek clarification, to respectfully pose alternatives and objections, to request a further rendezvous. Such gifts of time and intention are arguably universally accessible, perpetually on-call, groundbreaking, priceless, an incipient revolutionary act at the catalytic core of a vibrant democracy. Thank you. Good morning, everybody. My name's Gwendolyn Halsmuth, and I represent Vermonters for a New Economy and Extinction Rebellion. I'm also running for the legislature. So I'd like to talk a little bit about the economics of fascism and its consequences for humanity and nature. And with three minutes, I thought I'd focus on the most important things. The dramatic increase in oppressive state violence we've seen over the last few weeks is the logical outcome of a militarized economy that's been increasingly unjust for a century now. To roll back fascism, we need to demilitarize Vermont and we need to demilitarize the United States. One F-35 plane cost between $94 and $112 million. This year, the state of Vermont lost $89 million in the tax revenue we need to support our schools. One F-35 plane would close that gap. As a country, we spend $98 billion a year on nuclear weapons, maintaining them, upgrading them, keeping them operational. For what? For a nuclear war we're going to fight? It's collective insanity. The annual appropriations for nuclear weapons would pay for every Vermonter to have a comfortable universal basic income for almost seven years. Now the Pentagon has put forward a modernization plan for nuclear weapons that includes $234 billion for strategic nuclear delivery systems, weapons and submarines, $15 billion for tactical nuclear weapons, $106 billion for weapons laboratories and production facilities, and $77 billion for command and control. This total is $432 billion. Eliminating that program could provide Vermonters with a comfortable, universal basic income for almost 30 years. We are the proverbial frogs in the pot, which has been getting hotter and hotter throughout our lifetime. As a municipal employee, I've watched as the federal government has provided military gear to our police departments here in Vermont while social services, special education and environmental programs go unfunded. In the last four years, we've watched as the federal government builds a wall between us and our southern neighbors while we violate international conventions by taking children from their parents and putting them in cages. It's here in Vermont too. You can go through any border crossing now and see the cages that they've put there for people who they deem less than human. It's monstrous. It's monstrous. And it needs to stop. We have choices. Yes. We have choices as Americans. We need to reject the fear and scarcity-based logic of the fascist state and choose peace and prosperity. I'm reminded of Sitting Bull, who told of two wolves who lived inside of him and were constantly fighting. One was evil, which is anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego. Does that sound familiar? The other is good. Joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith. When asked which wolf would win the fight, Sitting Bull said the one you feed. Right now we're feeding the wrong wolf. And if I'm elected to the legislature, I'll make sure that I work to keep Vermont feeding the right one. Thank you. I didn't expect to be up here, but here we are, all as upset as we are about this. I want to give you away when you get home that you can make a difference. There is this amazing Vermont-based program called LeanLeft.org. Type that in, and you can become part of changing gerrymandering, voter suppression in states you cannot drive to today. You can make a difference both with your pocketbook, your voice, you're on the telephone texting, and there's training through August. The training ends at the end of August, so your ability to step up and just link in here and see what's happening. You have a way, an avenue to make a profound difference. Thank you. Good morning. Thank you all for coming. My name is Richard Shiplinski, and I'm president of the Vermont Chapter of Veterans for Peace, the Will Miller Green Mountain Veterans for Peace. I want you to take a few seconds to listen to what you hear. The message that the universe is giving us isn't audible, but it's all around us. It's COVID-19, and COVID-19 is showing us that we're all in this together. Don't need to say it, but I'm going to just say it again. We're all in this together, and we've got to work together. And that's going to take a bit of work because there's division in the country. And one thing we do at Veterans for Peace is first look into our own heart and mind to see if we're at peace. And if we're not at peace here, it's very hard to foster peace and work for peace on the outside and the outside world with other people. So our speech is very important. If you have anger and you speak without recognizing that anger, it may not be a great outcome. But if you recognize it, there's great energy and anger. And when you speak and pause before you speak, you might have an impact. Somebody said before this that human beings are really complicated. We've been at war amongst ourselves since there were clans and since we were here. We all come from the same root, so now we're fighting, but we've got to recognize that same root. One of the things someone said here before is that you have to follow the money. One of the things that's happening is money is a problem. If you are in debt at all, you're an indentured servant. And being an indentured servant, you've got to keep working. You don't have really time to do other things like maybe even this, coming here and talking with people. So maybe the first thing to do is get out of debt. Become a free person. Not easily done in this society because it's stacked against us. Everything is made easy so we go into debt. Another thing we've got to watch out for and Veterans for Peace has been working with the congressional delegation on not only the F-35s, but on reducing the military budget. Congress has given away its power. Authorize the president to use force. Authorize the use of military force against terrorists and now we see what's happening. There's a terrorist in every part of the world. So look for the money. Look for where the money is. And also money in politics has got to go. So anyway, my time is up. Look in here. Be careful about your words and work for peace. Thank you very much. Can you hear me? All right. I'm a big mouth from Chicago that just moved to Vermont. Thank you for having me. This is a beautiful, beautiful, beautiful state. I've seen a lot of ugly stuff in Chicago. All the things you see on the news. I worked 30 years on the street as a social worker. Saw injustice every day. Really horrible things done to people with substance abuse issues, homelessness, disabled people being locked up, not being able to make cases about being raped because the state's attorney didn't think they would make good witnesses and they were all about winning cases. So injustice has been going on for a really long time. I'm not a person who meditates. I don't go to the bubble bath to chill out. I'm somebody that would rather chop wood or break some shit. That other stuff doesn't work for me. So I'm looking for those people that feel like that when the name of Trump comes up because I'm on that border of what am I going to do with my rage? I go back and forth. I know the way I should be, but I am so mad every day. I watch too much MSNBC. I'm a card-holding member of the ACLU and Amnesty and Southern Poverty Law. It's not enough. I'm still pissed. So I am voting. And today, thank you for having this event so I can come and let some of that hostility out because I have dropped all my wood. Thank you. My name is Stan Hills. I live in Burlington, the east side. Almost every day we are interrupted by the F-35s and as loud and annoying as that is, there's a lot of other issues. I'm here to talk about, ask everybody here to boycott Burlington Airport. Use a different airport if and when we ever fly again. But Burlington Airport is hosting the F-35s. In the 1980s, Vermont led the world in being against nuclear war. Back then, the Soviet Union and the U.S. had 10,000 nuclear weapons each. The little example, Vermont set, became a worldwide movement. Helen Caldicott in Australia and so on. By 1986, we had the START agreements and so on going. Trump is now breaking those agreements. The F-35s are first strike nuclear weapons. The Pentagon is arming them with a variable nuclear missile. They are placing them in different places and they are training our National Guard to fly them. Whether they'll be used in Venezuela, Iran, or World War III is just a question if we don't oppose these things. Every, talking about climate change, every time they fly, they burn a thousand gallons of fuel. They're the biggest carbon emitters in Vermont. So they're here to destroy the world. They're here to destroy the world in a nuclear way. They're here to destroy the world in an environmental way. And they are helping, you know, if you want to fight fascism, you have to talk about the military. It's not just defund the police, not just get rid of ICE. Our military budget has gone up over $200 billion since Trump was elected. We now spend more than the next 10 countries combined. You feel any safer because public safety is getting rid of poverty, getting people medical care, and so on. Public safety is not arming the military. Anyway, at that table over there, Marguerite, behind the piece is the best shield, shield has information on the boycott if you're interested, but please don't fly out of Burlington. Thank you. Thank you. Just hold it. There you go. You've got to swallow it. Okay. Yeah, thank you all for being here. And obviously this is a moment that's really unprecedented in all of our lives. It's not just a slide towards authoritarianism. We see, you know, for the first time since the late 1930s, the growth of an actual fascist fringe that's been building, you know, particularly around the demagoguery of the Trump administration around our immigrant brothers and sisters, while it's not likely that this administration is going to continue after the November election. There's a danger that what he's already done is he's cohered a far right in this country, and as we know it's a far right that's increasingly armed. It's a far right which has no respect for the lives of people of color, black people. Frankly, you know, it's beyond patriarchal. It certainly has no rights, no respect for the lives of our lesbian and gay brothers and sisters. So our task, as we see it, and I'm speaking as a member of the DSA, that's the Democratic Socialist of America. Many of you know of that organization. It's taken off, you know, from a marginal group of maybe 5,000 folks, you know, a few years ago. It's well over 70,000 now. It's grown out of the movements, the movements in the street primarily, Occupy, Black Lives Matter. This is the most massive uprising we've seen in this country in any of our lives, and that's, of course, for great optimism. It's also grown out of Bernie's campaigns, and thank you. Thank you, Bernie Sanders, for bringing the question of Democratic socialism to millions and millions of Americans. So we're building an organization that's not just focused on any one issue. We understand the capitalist system is in crisis. We're facing, and in this state, we're facing a situation of unprecedented austerity. We're going to hear, you know, about the $300 million that we're short in revenue about how we have to lay off more people, how we have to cut essential social services at the same time as the billionaires are making more money. Now we have trillionaires in this country. Isn't that wonderful? We can thank the COVID crisis for the fact that some of our billionaires are now trillionaires. We asked you to organize with us. We have a table over there and, you know, sisters, I'll tell you the sister who spoke about how pissed she is. That's exactly the kind of person that we want to be building and organizing with us. People with fire in their belly. Yes, people that are in it for the long haul and know that this is a system that has to be fundamentally changed by building mass movements. And I do want to mention we're active in many movements, but we play a leading role in the labor movement, what's left of a very weak labor movement, that's rising up in the state. And we want to invite you. The School Workers Action Committee is holding a rally here to support Vermont's teachers, students, and families here on Monday evening at 5 p.m. on August 3rd. And they're demanding that Governor Scott, Secretary of French and Vermont legislature do what. This is an act of resistance all around this country on August 3rd. Teachers are organizing in their masses, and they're demanding a delay in the start of schools until a comprehensive plan for reopening safely statewide is developed. They want school workers at the table to create plans for safe and just school reopening. They want to protect vulnerable workers and students. They want to support Vermont's families. They demand canceling rent and mortgage payments, providing free childcare, extending unemployment benefits, and pay sick leave for all workers for the duration of the crisis. We ask you to join with our brothers and sisters in the schools. Hi, I'm Duncan, and I'm a social worker, but my political work has been mostly around resistance to pipelines locally and everywhere, and that's starting to really come to some fruition in the world. But I'm here because I was watching a baseball game with my sons Henry and Alden last night on Zoom. We were all watching our own computers watching the game on Zoom separately in different places. Well, Henry lives in Burlington, and Henry lost his job like so many other people. But I said I'm coming today, and I said I don't know what to write on a sign, and he says write the war on terror comes home. And I said okay, but not terror because that makes it more specific. The war comes home, so we can see it. So I don't have anything else to say except that I represent the union, the not yet formed union of youth baseball, what's it called, people who love to watch baseball. And I guess that includes older folks. But the other reason I'm here personally besides my son, for my son Henry who is now working putting cones out on the highway and he's happy to have the job. I'm here because the man's son over there may lose his eye and he's a journalist. He's a photojournalist. Hi, my name is Jeffrey Gardner and I want to say this is an incredibly beautiful Vermont day. And I know that because you're here and because of what we've heard that this is a dedicated, committed group of hardcore activists. And I'm grateful that you're here. I want to say a number of things that I think are just below the surface of a lot that we've heard. Most of the people we've heard from are already engaged with groups, acting to bring some sanity and reasonable policy in a number of areas. Anti-militarism, climate change and energy use, black lives matter and all that that implies income inequality and all the other issues that we've heard about. We all do know because we are a group of committed hardcore activists that all of these things are connected and they all are connected too in our commitment to face down the fascism that no longer is creeping but is galloping. And that's true here in Vermont as well as elsewhere and everywhere across the country and actually across the world. But I think it's our duty to go on with the particular issues that each of us are involved in but perhaps with more attention to the connections between our particular issues and all of the other issues that we're hearing about and we continually hear about as well as their connection to galloping fascism. Now, that means that we have to do something because fascism is galloping somewhat different from what we usually do. As a rule, we talk to people in authority as here in the state house. Many of us have done lots of that perhaps way too much of that. But when we do that and when we speak to ourselves we imagine and I think correctly that we're really speaking for everybody and for the interests of everybody. But I believe that what right now we need to do more than we usually do is actually speak not just to authority not just to and among ourselves but to everybody else. And I think for us what that means is that gatherings like this have to become bigger, more public and more regular than they have been. I think we really do have to take the example of cities like Portland and be in the street on a regular basis and the overwhelming important thing about that right now is that the full force of the United States government the Trump government was to bring overwhelming violent power to the streets of Portland and it did incredible devastation that comes home not just in terms of the journalist who's a Vermonter who we heard about but many other ways as well. That power has bowed, failed because of the multitudes of peaceful people in the street. This is a time to rededicate to non-violence and this also is a time to rededicate to what's best in the Constitution of the United States flawed though it is because in fact if we do that we will help to improve it so it's time to get together get in the streets and keep going, thank you. Hello, it's great to see all these dedicated people I think Jeffrey said some of what I wanted to say much more eloquently we have this incredible murky soup of problems and this incredible bands of people working on all those problems I think while it won't solve everything the first step is to decisively change who's in Washington we have the election coming this fall not everybody can drive an hour or two to get to a city where there's a demonstration but I'm sure all of you have friends that could help there's an organization called Vote Forward you can go on their website and you can sign up to send letters to people in other states like the tipping point states asking them to vote not asking them to vote a particular way but just asking them to vote you can read all about it on their website so if you have people that are like oh I really believe in your issue but I don't have time and I'm too involved in other things, that's me they can sit in their homes and send out these letters and they actually are effective in getting people to vote and have an effect on the outcome keep up all the good work and all your friends that can't totally be involved in your issue they can help get out the vote thank you good morning choir I am so happy that you're here my name is Sarah Franklin I am one of hundreds of in migratory grandparents who come to this beautiful state because of our beautiful grandchildren I know there are some of you out there with me right now because you have become my friends it is so good to be in Vermont in this beautiful beautiful place where all of the values that we hold are so evident this morning just look at the wonderful people around you my friends the material at these tables over here is life saving these are the gifts that we're going to give to our grandchildren these are the gifts that we give to each other I am here to say that it is a great pleasure to have made friends with some of you who are here today and to partner with you in this effort I know from the people that I talked to in my short time here that there are converts waiting to be made there are allies in the wings it is our job as the speaker right before me said to activate them let us deactivate Bill Barr and reactivate all of our friends all of the people that we know who will work for peace and freedom in this whole globe this endangered globe I salute you I thank you I am glad to be here cheers everyone I'm Bud Haas from Bradford a member of Vermont Chapter 57 Will Miller's Veterans for Peace I'm a member of Will Miller Chapter 57 Vermont Veterans for Peace if you folks know any younger veterans a lot of us in our chapter are veterans of the Vietnam War the Korean War and the other continuous number of wars that have occurred over the last 200 years anyway there are some cards over there that you can pick up and you can pass them on to your friends I just came here today because I want to thank Joseph for calling this about fascism and I have four words to say it can happen here I'm Carolyn Shapiro and we're holding up the sign for the old labor hall I want to mention that the full name of the labor hall is the Socialist Labor Party Hall it was built back in 1901 by the Italian granite workers from Italy because of all the chaos in Italy and built the labor hall and made it a place that is a meeting place for discussions for arguments, for debates for demonstrations and I want to just say that we all stand on the shoulders of these incredible people that have come before us as workers, as people and the community fighting to make a just society to make laws about child labor to make laws about the time that people could work and the pollution and the granite factory so I just want us to acknowledge that we are a part of that history so that feels really good that we're carrying that on and the other thing I want to say is that it's true that we could all be united even those that we feel really divided against us because in a sense we are all in it together and fascism knows no one to sort of save we're all going to be affected so if we all look at the resources like we've been told about the military and all and come together around the fact that it's not a question of Black Lives Matter which of course it is it's a question that we all have this kind of dignity to our lives and they certainly have suffered along with other people of color more so than we have but that is we're all in that together and just to end with what John Lewis said let's look for the good trouble and find out where that good trouble is that we can work on hello again everybody this is a sing-along you all know the words Bernie Carver I live in Burlington I've been involved with the peace movement we're about 56 years now where am I getting old I just wanted to share a couple of data points I've discovered recently in my research about the F-35 I was curious about what we get for our 100 million dollars we spend on airplanes and I looked up how many times the US has been involved in aerial combat in the last 30 years and according to Google it's twice both occurred in 2017 we had to shoot down one of our own drones that had gone errant in Afghanistan so that one doesn't really count we shot down a jet fighter in Syria that year also so we know how well that's turned out the other things our planes do is rain death and destruction on poor brown people on the other side of the world that's a strategy that didn't work in World War II we tripled down on it in Vietnam we know how that worked out as well and ever since then we've found that raining death and destruction on other people it's not a good way to persuade them over to your point of view teaches them to hate and want to kill you the same is true with violence on our streets here the other data point I discovered that I thought was interesting is that the Defense Department spends a year on advertising I just want to think it might be if we spend a billion dollars a year advertising the Peace Corps I doubt that's going to happen anytime soon and if you've noticed the ads for the military shows young people looking at computer screens fighting fires and doing disaster rescues doesn't show them dropping bombs and killing people on the other side of the world I think there should be a disclaimer also if you sign up for this 22 of you are going to commit suicide each day in the future so there should be disclaimers and truth in advertising and all of this I think well anyway thanks for being here and thanks for listening I just have a couple of announcements to make just a reminder about the Thursday August 6th at 6 p.m. the 75th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki ahead of Church Street in Burlington and there will be there with bread and puppet and there will be a boat float and the candlelight boat float as is traditional in Japan to send the souls of the dead to the other world so that's again August 6th this Thursday at 6 p.m. the other thing Rachel Grossman just told me something I will speak louder that Rachel Grossman just told me that I did not know that last night was the first night in Portland, Oregon that the federal thugs were not there and there was a rally and it was totally peaceful and there were 2,000 people there so folks they are giving us our marching orders but I do want to keep people in memory of what President John F. Kennedy did say and we have to keep this in mind he said when you make peaceful change impossible you make violent change inevitable we have to make sure that the change is swift and peaceful otherwise it's not change at all okay is there anyone else that wishes to speak we have 5 minutes the price of democracy is eternal vigilance our vote is our voice and we have to and the Trump's government is on the defense we have to work to make sure that everybody can vote that everybody can vote that's the most important thing we can do right now that's the most direct way to participate in our democracy and if we can ensure that and work for that in every state then our democracy can survive hi my name is Ed Stanek and I'm from Barry City I wanted to make you aware of specific action that some of us are asking the people in the building behind us to take when the legislature reconvenes on August 25th to try and put up a shield to protect us from the fascism in Vermont it involves two topics number one establishing a bright line on the limits of federal criminal jurisdiction in Vermont number two to prepare for the potential federalization of Vermont National Guard now what we've asked is that the senate and the house judiciary committees with the assistance of the attorney general and there are detailed requests to them on all this that they convene hearings to establish the extent of criminal jurisdiction it is not carte blanche we've provided them with legal authorities dating back to the 1800s I'm not making this up the root of this is a famous supreme court decision which affirmed the Fugitive Slave Act how incredibly coincidental is that and Henry David Thoreau and others pointed out and the supreme court agreed that there are steps that states can take to limit federal jurisdiction criminally so the legislature is coming back on August 25th they're going to have all reasons why they should not do something they can suspend rules if they want to they should convene public hearings and take testimony on us and attorney general Donovan should get off his ass and do something in a creative and proactive way why should we do this now some of them are going to say we can wait until January you know what some of us think there may not be legislative sessions in this country come January better to be proactive and creative now one is we're urging people to contact their senators and house reps to ask the judiciary committees to have hearings on limiting federal criminal jurisdiction in Vermont topic number two the national guard we like to feel folksy and romantic in the state of Vermont that the Vermont national guard are the green mountain boys and girls there are militia the harsh reality is in this country during the cold war of the 1950s the federal government subsumed the national guard into the federal forces we go through this charade every couple of years where the legislature quote-unquote elects the adjunct in general of the Vermont national guard meanwhile they're deployed to Afghanistan and Iraq so the point is this we've asked the senate government operations committee and the house committee on general affairs the military affairs to convene joint hearings to bring in the adjunct in general and other people and put the question to them if President Trump federalizes the national guard to whom will the adjunct in general and his forces have fidelity and loyalty to Vermonters or to Donald Trump now some of us unfortunately know the answers to that question but it has to be put out in public these hearings are not all about just passing legislation they're about fact finding and informing Vermonters I think Vermonters need to know what is the answer on the potential federalization of the national guard so people can prepare to take appropriate action in the state if necessary so again in closing I urge you to contact your senators and your house reps ask them to have these committees have hearings come August on these two topics limit federal criminal jurisdiction in Vermont number two what is going to happen God help us if the Vermont national guard is federalized thank you okay friends well and thank you all for coming here and just to remind you that the Constitution begins with we the people we are the sovereigns we are the one who will make the changes necessary so organize vote talk with your neighbors vote talk with your friends and organize again and vote thank you very much for being here while you're leaving we're going to do a reshima day here on Thursday the 6th and we gather at 6 o'clock in front of the Kellogg Hubbard Library and we're going to walk through Montpelier down to the high school where we will have a boat float that's at 6 o'clock this Thursday Kellogg Hubbard Library