 40 days of moral resistance as part of the Poor People's Campaign, a national call for more revival. Every week since after Mother's Day, we still have weeks ago. This is a powerful movement happening all over the country, and you are part of it. My name is Avery Bilk. I'm part of the Poor People's Campaign Coordination Committee, and I'm also with the Vermont Worker Center. I wanted to introduce our first speaker, the Reverend Joan Javier Duvall of the Unitarian Church of Montpelier. I've been a supporter of this campaign from the from the get-go, and that church has really been a hub of local activity. So everyone please welcome Reverend Joan Javier Duvall. It's a national call for moral revival. Our theme and focus this week is the right to health and a healthy planet, ecological devastation, and health care. We join thousands of people all around the country today in state capitals, from Maine to Mississippi to Minnesota in public witness and action. And it's wonderful to be here on the steps of our Vermont State House this afternoon. Now if you've come out in previous weeks in support of the Poor People's Campaign, make some noise. In support of the campaign, make some noise. I'm going to borrow a phrase from Zilla Wesley, a member of the DC Coordinating Campaign Committee, and say that this is a movement making and movement changing moment. Do you believe that? Our presence here and all over the country makes it clear that there is a movement afoot, a new and unsettling force made of people from all walks of life united in our belief that the moral narrative of our nation must change. United in our belief that it is time to lift up and call out the connected evils of poverty, systemic racism, the war economy, and ecological devastation. It is time to declare that we will not be silent anymore. We are here as a beautiful, beautiful array of justice seekers. We are young and old. We are able-bodied and disabled. We are women, men, trans women, trans men, and gender queer. We are poor. We are working. We are unemployed and underemployed. We are black. We are white. We are Asian, Latinx, and Indigenous. And we are here. Keep returning here until all are fed. We'll keep coming back until we study war no more. We'll keep on moving forward until all are able to get the healthcare they need to survive and to thrive. We will continue witnessing and speaking and singing out until we live in harmony with our planet and at peace with our siblings around the world. As we gather today, I hope that you will listen closely, listen to the truth, the pain, and the determination in the stories that are shared here. This is the reason we are here. We are here for each other and we will not be silent anymore. We're now going to sing a song as we often do here in the Poor People's Campaign, a national call for more revival. Would someone be willing to pass these around? Anyone hasn't got them yet? So this one is calling response. You'll catch on quick enough. It's the neighbor, neighbor one. Neighbor, neighbor, can't you see? Why healthcare is what we need? Ain't no way we're bucking down. We're rising up, the time is now. Neighbor, neighbor, can't you see? Neighbor, neighbor, can't you see? Why clean air is what we need? Ain't no way we're bucking down. Up the time is now. Neighbor, neighbor, can't you see? Why clean water is what we need? Ain't no way we're bucking down. Up the time is now. Neighbor, neighbor, can't you see? Neighbor, neighbor, can't you see? Climate justice is what we need. Climate justice is what we need. Ain't no way we're bucking down. Up the time is now. Rising up the time is now. We're rising up the time is now. The time is now. Rising up the time is now. I'm also on the coordinating committee of the Vermont Poor People's Campaign and I'm an organizer with the Vermont Worker Center. Thank you all for being here. I think that it's very important that we're here today because we know that the problems we face in our communities, the experiencing, the suffering, the racism, the poverty, the ecological devastation, the damage to our health, the war economy, that these things are connected. And the only reason why we have these problems right now is because those of us who are impacted by them, the vast majority of us, the 140 million poor people in this country, rather than being united as one force, we are divided and often pitted against each other. And so when we come here today, when we stand here in solidarity, when we say we are going to put an end to systemic racism and end to poverty and end to the war economy and end to ecological devastation, we're going to do that united and taking care of each other and changing the moral narrative that is exactly what is needed to get at the root of all of these problems. And I bring that up partially because I think many of you know the organization I work with, the Worker Center, has had a campaign for universal health care for health care as a human right for the last 10 years. And we chose that not because we think health care is the most important issue or the biggest problem, but we think it's something that's so basic to everyone's humanity that it might have the capacity to bring people together in that way. And so I'm really proud to see a lot of health care as a human right campaign members in the crowd today and to stand up. It's a stand up for that. Yeah, as we've heard, this is, as Joan said, we're in the fourth week of this national campaign. The first week we showed up around the theme of somebody's hurting the people and has gone on far too long. We talked about the impact of poverty on people with disabilities, on children, on women. The second week we came and we spoke out against racism and the connections between systemic racism and poverty and her powerful testimony about racism here in Vermont in efforts to overcome that and build this force, this fusion movement. And then last week we came together around the war economy and militarism and heard the ways in which we're impacted all over the world, how poor people and people of color are particularly impacted, heard from directly impacted people from veterans and really spoke out about the ways in which the war economy has been intertwined with all these different issues. And as you've heard today, we're here again with the theme of health and the environment. And this isn't just a list of issues. This is about a system where these issues are intricately intertwined and about a moral fusion movement when we come together around these intertwined issues, we can really challenge the 1% of the top and change the system. So it works for all of us and it works for the planet. Introduce our next speaker who is a member of the Vermont Worker Center and the Health Care is a human right campaign who's going to talk about her personal experience with the human right to health care and with the problems that our communities face with the connection to poverty, health care and the poor people's campaign. So Christine Smith, would you join me up here? From Tennessee, try to get health care down in Tennessee. I was denied because I have no kids, had a place to live quite a few times in front of my mom, my family and got laughed at by doctors, EMTs, you name it. I come up here, I get health care, I get services I need, but there's too many people who can't afford co-pays and who make too much money over the Social Security and they have to pay $50, $25 or higher just to get what they need. I have one neighbor that can't afford hardly anything. She cannot get Medicaid, they turn her down after she had it. I take care of my mother who gets Medicaid and it's very hard for me to take care of her. I do have help but sometimes help is just not enough. You need more and more coming out of words to say, but you know this campaign I came into, guess it's almost two years ago, a year and a half ago and I've had so much support since I've been in it. I have stepped up and try to get things going. It's just amazing but the health care that we need, we need everybody to be on it, not just the people that other people think don't need it. Yeah, that's right. If you're a drug addict, if you're pregnant, if you're on disability, everybody needs it. No one needs to be excluded, nobody. It don't matter the sex, it don't matter the color if you're religious or not. We all need to step up and get this going and get it pushed so everybody in the United States can have it. I'm just lucky enough I still have mine and I have only just been out of the hospital maybe going on three weeks and I'm doing a lot better. Thanks to Kate that come and see me in the hospital. Everybody, we all need to stick together as brothers and sisters of both Vermont Worker Center and the Four Peoples Campaign. Stick together and work together and get the senators and everybody to push to where everybody has this. Thank you. Thank you. Give it up for Christine again. I wanted to read a couple facts about health care. Did you know that health care costs are the leading cause of personal bankruptcy in this country? That's a shame. So did you know that in Vermont, one in three people are either on Medicaid or rely on some program funded by Medicaid? That's 218,000 people. That's one in three of us. I'm on Medicaid. One in three of us are on Medicaid. And we know that all over the country they've been attacking Medicaid. They've been trying to attach work requirements to it. Even while about 80% of families who have Medicaid have someone who is working. And even for those who aren't on Medicaid, there's this amazing shocking statistic. By 2019 the average premiums out of pocket expenses for the average family in the U.S. will equal about half of average family's income. And by 2029, gets even more shocking, it'll equal the full amount of the average family's income. Health care is impoverishing us in this country and it should be a human right. We also here to speak about and to stand up around ecological devastation and the next speakers are going to be speaking to that. These are both moral witnesses who've been courageously part of the actions that have happened in past weeks and taken part in civil disobedience. So I want to call up both, first we'll hear from Karen Bixler. She's a member of the Upper Valley Affinity Group, Vermont Climate Union, and a Pagan. And then after that we'll be hearing from Rick Barstow, the resident of Adamant and got involved in the Poor People's Campaign about a year ago, really seeing this as a way to finish unfinished work and he's a member of 350 Vermont. So Karen and then and then Rick, give it up for them both. I'm more nervous about speaking than I am about getting arrested. So I guess Vermont's kind of singular in the world and I'm really proud of that and I'm really proud of the fact that an interfaith thing is going to have a Pagan speak because that doesn't happen all that often. And I'm a proud witch. I'm a descendant of those that they could not burn. And I'm here to tell you that we are rising. So our big thing today is the environment. Who but the Pagans, the indigenous people have the most to say about the environment because it is our religion. This is the earth is sacred. The earth is alive. We are a part of a living system. And all parts of it are sacred. Water is sacred. Selling water is immoral. Is calling us to change our ways. The Penobscot have a vision. Yeah, they have a vision that when the earth is really, really hurting, the cannibal giant comes out of the forest and wrecks destruction. And they say that's what's happening now. And we have to turn it around. We have to get that cannibal giant back under control. And knowing that the earth is safe and that we are no more plundering her and raping her. Mini Wikoni. Thank you all for being here. It's good to see a bunch of people coming out on a cloudy day. Anyway, I like to talk a little bit about the earth environment and health and how they relate to each other. Even though we look out here and everything looks green and beautiful and lush in this state, we're so fortunate to have it that way. There are so many aspects of the planet that are really hurting are really in very dire straits. And the rest of the planet is headed in that direction. Unless we take the actions necessary to turn that around. Climate change is going out of control. And we're kind of behind on that front and need to really get busy. We need to unite and build a movement that's strong enough to turn that around. We need to come together in a way, and I sort of hate to make this analogy, but in World War II, when this country was very divided, once people realized that there was something that we were up against, that we had this common purpose, and people were able to unite and work hard to overcome the forces of Nazism. Now, we have something very similar in terms of how the corporate elites have taken control right now and are devastating the health of this planet, as well as the health of people, and taking away health care for all those who need it. And this is not right. It's time to change that. And so I think a lot of what I'm saying, you all already know. And I think the job of people here today is to go out and talk to your friends and neighbors and get people involved in building this movement. Because it's only by building this movement, day by day, stronger and stronger, will we begin to gain some measure of strength and control in turning around the problems that are before us right now that we're in the midst of. Sometimes it's hard in our daily lives to see that we're really in the midst of a crisis. But it's through conversations with all the people we know and saying, listen, let's get busy here. We have a job to do. So I guess that's what I have to say is let's get on it and work together. This 40 days is only the beginning. This is the introduction. And once this 40 days is past, there'll be many, many things to work on. So choose something that that grabs you, that you feel drawn to, and get busy. Connected, right? Healthcare and the electricity. And two months later, more than half of the island's residents still lacked power and about nine percent. It's immoral and it's shameful and it's also proof about how interconnected our human health and our bodies are to the earth that we live on and the environments around us and the attacks on the environment are attacks on us as human beings, right? That's right. And that those of us who are already struggling the most, our heart is hit when these things happen. So I'd like to introduce our next speaker, Sylvia Knight, who has been on top of it. Sylvia is an earth care advocate, a volunteer with migrant justice and has been fighting pesticides for the last 20 years and I'm going to invite her up to speak next. My name is Sylvia Knight. You know here? All right. Thanks for being here today. I greet you all as family, as fellow members of earth community, that wondrous interrelated community of life, people and wildlife, water, air, sun and soil that we all share. What we do to earth, we do to ourselves. For 20 years I studied the harmful effects of pesticides. I brought research to state officials and I saw the failure of state systems to limit our exposures to pesticides or to recognize the connection with human illness. I have seen destruction of forests in Vermont and blue-green algae just boiling our lakes. I have learned of deformed frogs, mud puppies disappearing from our streams and chemical contamination of water needed for all life. Working with migrant justice for human rights, I have also seen the failure of regulatory systems to protect vulnerable immigrant farm workers from exposures to toxic pesticides. Vermont is awash in pesticides with many uses increasing despite legislation passed in 1970 requiring a reduction in pesticide use. Pesticides are used on corn fields, in livestock barns, on lawns, gardens, golf courses, on rights of way for highways, railroads, transmission lines, and in lakes and streams. Also in schools and other buildings. Is that what we want? Pesticides are meant to inhibit growth or to kill or to kill living things and cannot be considered harmless no matter what they say. If they can kill one life form they will harm others as well. Everything is connected. Pesticides don't stay where they're applied. What is used on land ends up into the water. Pesticides can also become airborne and drift to other locations even to mountain tops. Pesticides can also contaminate our food. Let's talk about our right to health. Centers for Disease Control National data show that Vermont's breast cancer rates are in the third highest category, the third highest of four categories. In 2013 the last year where you can get data on the egg website, almost 62,000 pounds of atrazine were used in Vermont, most of it in Edison and Franklin counties. Atrazine can cause frog deformities. What does it do to us? AstraZeneca co-owns syngenta which manufactures atrazine which increases the risk for breast cancer, breast ovarian and prostate cancers. AstraZeneca produces a drug used to treat breast cancer. Our aromidex, interesting connection, they also made tamoxifen. So if we drink water, breathe air and eat food contaminated with atrazine then AstraZeneca has a remedy if we get cancer. We get the cancer, they get the money. What we do to earth community we do to ourselves. It's time to stop the atrazine habit. Let's find healthy safer ways to live with earth community in Vermont. Thank you. Sylvia, for hearing of a theme here, the ways in which the environment and our health are being targeted. And they're not just being targeted because just because it's because our health and the world around us is being turned into profits by those who would rather profit than to provide a healthy environment and a decent human right to healthcare. It's interesting that nationally we see someone who hates the environment has been appointed as the head of the EPA. And here in Vermont we have someone deeply embedded in the health insurance world has been appointed in charge of healthcare. So we see these themes across the nation. I wanted to lead another song before introducing the next speaker. This sort of speaks to the theme. This is a song that we both have sung in the healthcare movement and the climate movement. It's a strange things one. You may recognize the tune from the Hunger Games. Our health, our lives, our bodies not for sale. We struggle to change a system that has failed. Strange things have happened here. No stranger would it be. If healthcare was a human right or right for you and me. The earth, the air, the water is not for sale. We struggle to change a system that has failed. Strange things have happened here. No stranger would it be. If we built a system good for you and me one more time. Health, our bodies not for sale. We struggle to change a system that has failed. Strange things have happened here. No stranger would it be. If healthcare was a human right or right for you and me. The earth, for sale. We struggle to change a system that has failed. Strange things have happened here. No stranger would it be. If we built a system. The next speaker you may have already recognized. He is a national figure in the movement for climate justice with 350 nationally and has been a real thinker and outspoken activist around the urgent issues that face us when it comes to climate justice. Please welcome Bill McKibbin. Y'all today I just want to continue this discussion of connections for a minute. Connections between environmental destruction and bad health and poverty. I want to talk about them at different levels. Let's think about Vermont first and think about what's going on here right around us. You know as the temperature warms one of the things that's happening is we see every year the ticks get a little further up the mountain and a little further up the valley and to the point now where we have a whole set of diseases we didn't even think about 10, 15 years ago. Now we not only have to deal with them. We have to deal with them psychologically. There are people who do not want their children out in the woods anymore. Nobody quite goes for a walk across the meadow with just the same sort of ease that they did a decade ago. In Vermont when the temperature got too high and the water off the Atlantic seaboard got too warm and we had hurricane, our hurricane in 2011 one of the things we learned in Vermont was who lived in the flood plain in Vermont and who lived in the flood plain were people who lived in trailer parks and that's who got washed away in our greatest natural disaster. Now this same lesson applies at the next level up the level of the nation. Think about the last year or so in our country. We had in Texas the biggest rainstorm in American history. Hurricane Harvey dropped four and a half feet of rain 54 inches of rain on parts of Texas and what did we learn right away again we learned who lived down low we learned who was really in the way and we learned whose houses didn't get rebuilt inside of a few months. We learned who got dislocated and lost and then two weeks after Harvey Hurricane Maria comes to Puerto Rico. We never quite seen anything like that. A category five hurricane goes straight across the middle for right down the middle of the big populated part of the United States. By the time it was done it had done unbelievable economic damage cementing the poverty of Puerto Rico. The GDP of Puerto Rico in 2016 was 101 billion dollars. We think that Hurricane Maria so far done about 90 billion dollars worth of damage. That's a year wiped away the economist say it'll be another 25 years before Puerto Rico was back to where it was economically last summer and that's if it doesn't get hit by another hurricane in the meantime. But of course that wasn't the worst of it. The worst of it was what we learned this week which was while nobody in the federal government was paying the slightest bit of attention people were dying and dying not by the tens and not by the hundreds but by the thousands. The Harvard study that came out last week showed that 4,645 people had perished as a result of that hurricane making it the biggest natural disaster in America in a century except it's not really a natural disaster which we can't really use that phrase anymore you know when you look at the insurance policy it talks about acts of God anymore this is not what we're talking about our thumb is on the scale when we talk about keep it in the ground that's why because there is a direct relationship between that which we dig up and burn and that which comes back to haunt us in a hundred ways in fire and in flood and in disease take it on up to the next level the last level the level of the entire globe and you realize precisely the same thing you know dr king who started the poor people's campaign at the end of his life he was not just launching the poor people's campaign he was talking more and more and more about connections around the planet about the need for a kind of international solidarity we started 350.org in Vermont but it now a decade later works in 188 countries around the world and one of the things that became incredibly clear very early on was that the idea that I'd heard over and over in my life that environmentalism was something that rich white people did and if you didn't know where your next meal was coming from you wouldn't be an environmentalist that that was nonsense that most of the people we work with most of the people who lead this fight around the world are poor and black and brown and asian and young because that's what most of the world is made up of right and there is an almost perfect inverse correlation between how much of this problem you caused and how quickly and how badly you feel its effects I remember being 15 years ago in Bangladesh when this really struck me Bangladesh a very beautiful fertile country and the delta where the great sacred river of that part of Asia the Brahmaputra pours out of the Himalayas into the Bay of Bengal and I was there to do some reporting because it's suffering over the long run from climate change as the waters of the Bay of Bengal rise as those glaciers dwindle but while I was there they were having an acute problem they were having their first big outbreak of dengue fever a um disease that the world health organization says is the emergent disease of this century because the mosquito that spreads it aides a gypti dearly likes the warm wet world that we are building on its behalf okay so everybody there was very freaked out because they'd never seen dengue before and so there were big posters out to show people what the mosquito looked like and what the symptoms were I spending a lot of time in the slums in Dhaka so eventually I got bit by the wrong mosquito and I was as sick as I'd ever been but of course I was healthy and strong and well fed going in so I didn't die but lots of people were dying I remember being in the clinic that they'd set up in downtown Dhaka and there were beds stretched out as far as you could see with people's cots with people just sort of shivering on it there's no treatment there is no treatment for dengue because only poor people have ever gotten it so why would you bother to have a treatment for it but but what struck me most looking at that was just how unbelievably unfair it is the UN tries to measure every year how much carbon each country on the planet emits he can't even really get a number for the 180 million people who live in Bangladesh they're pretty much a rounding error in the calculations okay when I saw that when I came back home it struck me all the much harder that the four percent of us who live in this country have put 25 percent of all the carbon that ever got put in the atmosphere up there and that we're going to have to figure out how to take responsibility for that do something about it so these questions about poverty and health care and the environment are deeply and irretrievably linked it makes so much sense that we are here talking about those three things in the same breath um you know dr king was killed before the environmental movement was at its absolute apogee before the first earth day but one of the things about being a prophet is you can see a little further into the future and he could um dr king said once it really boils down to this that all life is interrelated we are all caught in an inescapable network of mutuality tied into a single garment of destiny whatever affects one destiny affects all that's where we are that's why we're here together that's why this fight has to go on thank y'all for a month quite an accident some of the stories we're hearing today some of the things we're hearing right because the same system that creates these problems it's one system right it's one system that creates an immense amount of wealth for a powerful few while leaving the rest of us fighting for crumbs and under attack i'm actually going to share another dr king quote before we move forward he said thank you there are 40 million poor people here and one day we must ask the question why are there 40 million poor people in america and when you begin to ask that question you are raising a question about the economic system abroad a broader distribution of wealth when you ask that question you begin to question the capitalistic economy and i'm simply saying that more and more we've got to begin to ask questions about the whole society we are called upon to help the discouraged beggars in life's marketplace but one day we must come to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring it means that questions must be raised and you see my friends when you deal with this you begin to ask the question who owns the oil you begin to ask the question who owns the iron ore you begin to ask the question why is it that people have to pay water bills in a world that is two-thirds water these are words that must be said okay next i'm going to introduce another uh wonderful uh leader in our communities um elisa lakosi who is the pastor at the united community church in st johnsbury good afternoon thank you for being here so you've heard a lot of people speak about the connection between health care and the destruction of our environment in fact killing the environment we are killing ourselves thank you karen wherever you are thank you for saying that much more eloquently than i could here's a little bit of what's going on nationally that i think we should know i'm going to say this fact again because i think it's really important for people to hear medical debt is the number one cause of personal bankruptcy medical debt insurance premiums have spiked so much that people who may have an opportunity to access health insurance can't afford it we know that right did you know that 10 000 and two people died while waiting for a judge's decision about the disability benefits in 2017 10 000 people died waiting for a decision so again as was pointed out tax cuts who's getting those tax cuts that's right not us you know who's getting them pharmaceutical companies for profit hospitals and of course insurance companies all this while our current administration is allowing states to reshape medicaid with waiver provisions things like work requirements drug screening and testing eligibility time limits and premiums with disenrollment for non-payment for traditional medicaid population yeah it is a shame i want to talk for a minute more about the state specifically saint johnsbury the community that i serve do you know what it's like to sit with somebody who says to you i rather just die than put my family into bankruptcy with my medical bills yeah or to have somebody say to you i have to stop working so that i can get medicaid to treat my illness because i make just a little bit too much just a little bit too much but not nearly enough to pay premiums or copays do you know what it's like to sit with somebody who says to you i don't know how i'm going to feed my family and also get the medication that i need i see a lot of head shaking out there this has got to stop it's got to stop in my faith tradition i follow somebody named jesus jesus healed the sick he never asked them if they had a pre-existing condition he never asked for money he set them free of their illness so that they could go and do good in their communities imagine if we could do the same imagine we can exactly that's the way to bring the hope right there we can indeed so i want to invite you all personally on june 16th in conjunction with the poor people's campaign and the vermont workers center we are holding a medicaid march in saint johnsbury we're bringing the march right to the place in the state that's most affected that's right so june 16th at 11 a.m we will meet outside of united community church and we will gather we will hear speakers and we will march and we're going to do that in conjunction with another activity that's happening in town that day the caledonia county relay for life is happening that same day and i can't think of a better combination than those folks many of whom went bankrupt to treat their cancer in order to survive it are going to be doing the relay for life so we'll be joining up with them and i invite you all to join us it's been taking our health care and it's gone on far too far i wanted to share some of the demand that the national poor people's campaign a national call for more revival for this week we demand 100 100 clean renewable energy and a public jobs program to transition to a green economy that will put millions of people in sustainable living living wage jobs jobs we demand a fully funded public water and sanitation infrastructure that keeps these utilities and services under public control and that prioritized poor rural and native communities that have been harmed by polluting and extractive industries we demand a ban on fracking mountaintop removal coal mining coal ash ponds and offshore drilling we demand a ban on all new pipelines refineries and coal oil and gas export terminals we demand the protection of public lands and the immediate cessation of opening up public lands for polluting and extractive industries we demand fully funded public resources and access to mental health professionals and addiction and recovery programs expansion of medicaid in every state and the protection of medicare and single-payer universal health care and equal treatment and accessible housing health care public transportation adequate income and services for people with disabilities yes we demand the repeal of the 2017 federal tax law and the reinvestment of those funds into public programs for housing health care education jobs infrastructure and welfare for the poor we demand decent safe public housing for the poor demand a budget that promotes the general welfare a lot of people say a budget is a as a moral statement it's a statement of what we want to see in our society right it's how we raise and spend revenue and where we put our collective resources as a community right and so we want to see that work for all of us so we have a couple more speakers and then we'll be transitioning to the next section of our agenda I want to welcome up Lawrence Seiler he's a local journalist and wants to speak about his experiences as a person with a disability and around health care just welcome Lawrence good afternoon come on you guys can do better than that good afternoon welcome to the poor people's campaign uh for the last couple of weeks i've been here taping uh through arcon media i'm a journalist my wife and i um thanks to arcon media host and produce a television program for people with special needs called abled and on air the program that focuses on the needs concerns and achievements of the differently abled not disabled uh but um we don't suffer with disabilities we're abled people in 1964 fat these are facts in 1964 president kennedy signed the act for mental retardation and mental health services um for people we don't want to get rid of those services we need them okay why is it that people in certain states have to wait for hospital care and not one hour but they have to remain in the hospital for about 15 or more hours that's immoral tomorrow why is it that we in the state of vermont have to pay for copays for medicare and medicare why is it that people sometimes have to go to other countries like israel for free health care why can't the united states give us free health care we want free health care let's say it we want free health care we want free health care why is it that social security when you pass away doesn't give your family enough death benefit and you have to pay thousands of dollars for a funeral why that's immoral it is immoral why is it that disabled veterans are homeless when they come home from there um from helping the united states why is it that disabled veterans are also hungry why is it that people like my wife who is a survivor of the world trade center who survived 68 flights why is it that people who survived the world trade center who cannot get their compensation because of the fact that the world trade center compensation fund said they have to wait for first responders first that's a shame and the last several other things here why is it that president trump who is supposed to be our president still mocks people with disabilities and yeah and why is it that we are um during the national anthem they say that we are the land of the free and home of the brave we still live in a slavery state let's repeat we still live in a slavery state give us what we need thank you folks feeling a little chilly out here all right let's get the energy up a little bit we're almost done we just have a couple more things to say and then we're gonna we're gonna move into the next phase but i want to get the energy up a little bit so please join me i'm gonna say what do we want do we really want and you're gonna say justice and then what do we need do we really need and you're gonna say power okay what do we want do we really want justice what do we want do we really want justice what do we need do we really need power what do we need do we really need power what do we want do we really want justice what do we want what do we want do we really what do we need do we one thing because i think it's a little bit of an elephant in the room but i think all folks know that in Vermont, this building, we, and on these very steps, several years ago, the former governor signed into law a universal health care law, right? A little, yeah, I think people are aware of that, and hasn't been implemented still, and the economic studies around it at the time showed that the vast majority of people, over 93% of families in Vermont would see their incomes go up and have full universal access to health care if that law was implemented according to the governor's own studies, and yet that would be an economic shock to our state, and I think that tells us what we need about, tells us what's going on about what the priorities are in this state and who gets taken care of, right? It would be too much for the wealthiest people in this state to pay a little more in taxes so that we could all see our incomes collectively go up, reduce inequality, and have universal access to health care for everyone, a little too much to ask, but I think that tells us a little bit about the power balance, so if we want to change that, there are many more of us, the vast majority of us, over 90% that would benefit from this, so that tells us we are not strong enough and united enough, but I think we're getting there. Does it look like we're getting there? And we're going to keep getting there, we're going to show up in St. John's Barriers one step along the way, someone just reminded me that this year Blue Cross Blue Shield is requesting, yet again, another rate increase of over 6% to what they get paid every year. Anyone here getting a 6% raise this year? What about 13% last year almost is what they requested, okay so we're going to be showing up for that too, so we're getting stronger in this fight. I want to introduce a member of the Health Care is a Human Right campaign, one of our last speakers for today, Denise Rikste, to tell her story. And a supporting member of the Vermont Poor People's Campaign, a national call for moral revival. I came to Vermont in 2009 after 25 years of uprooting ourselves and moving from state to state due to the lack of security and stability in the manufacturing industry. Although we have been fortunate to have health care through various employers, I have gone without a health care provider for long periods of time. I also have family members who have not had health insurance or not able to pay the high cost of premiums or deductions even when they did have health insurance. I stumbled upon the Health Care is a Human Right campaign on the Vermont Workers' Center website and felt the need to get involved. It has been one of the best decisions I've ever made and a life-changing experience. I am also a cancer patient of UVM Medical Center, been in remission, been in remission for close to two years and have three more years to go of scans and endoscopic tests before I can say that I am free of cancer. Throughout my treatment, surgery and recovery, I have made so many connections with the nurses at UVM and they have always gone above and beyond for their patients. Here in Vermont, UVM nurses are currently in negotiations for safer staffing and under tremendous stress in their struggle. When I was in ICU recovering from my surgery, my nurse took the time to braid my hair to keep it from falling out. Although this is probably not in her job description, it is what UVM nurses do out of compassion. They are at the front lines of when it comes to the care of their patients and should be treated with the dignity and respect that they deserve. The fight for healthcare as a human right is vital to all Vermonters and our unifying forces is what will make it a reality. Thank you. So thank you again to all of our powerful speakers for sharing your pain, your truth, your conviction and your vision. Give it up again for our speakers. One of the most powerful things that we've heard this afternoon is the connection, right? The connection between all of these issues. One of the reasons all of our issues are connected is because of the system, right? That's designed to keep its own power, to keep its own profits over people. The other connection though is the sacredness of life, which we've also been lifting up. The sacredness of the earth, all of its creatures and all of us, our humanity that is sacred. And finally the connection, really the thread that's moving throughout this movement is us and is our power. And that is what is on display today all over the country and here in Montpelier and we are going to use that power and move that power now into this grand house behind us, which is our house. So you're all invited to join us now as we move into a procession into and through the state house. We'll be joining in song, in movement, our moral witnesses wherever you are, if you would come forward to lead the way. And Avery has one announcement as we transition. As you transition, the theme next week is everybody has a right to live with a breakthrough focus on livable wages, workers and social security. We're going to be meeting, instead of rallying here, starting here as usual, we'll be meeting at 1.30 to stand in solidarity with the union faculty over at CCV. We'll be meeting at the Vermont State College's offices on Stonecutt's way next to the co-op. Next to the co-op. No, 1.30 next Monday. So that will be the next time we're rallying. And then we'll march here to the state house for our normal rally, forever out there at 2.30. All right, but now let's get up here and get going. And yeah, just as a reminder, there's no sticks inside the house, our house, but we'll be out of it too, pretty soon. So while we're marching, let's get singing, let's sing out. Everybody has a right to live. Everybody's got a right to live. And before this campaign fails, we'll all go down to jail. Everybody's got a right to live. Everybody's got a right to health. Everybody's got a right to health there. Every children is criminal. Every children is violent. Racism is immoral. Society racism is immoral. Destroying the earth is not acceptable. I feel right to live. Environmental racism is violence. Environmental racism is violence. It's suicidal. Destroying the earth is suicidal. Earth is immoral. Concentration of wealth while the rest of us suffer is immoral. Coveting on the health care is immoral. Coveting on the pollution is immoral. Earth is immoral that we want. Ignoring PFOAs is murder. Ignoring PFOAs is murder. When you're afraid to die, you'll be a slave. When you're afraid to die, you'll be a slave. Using my tax dollars to kill the babies and families of the rest of the earth. Stop using my tax dollars to kill the babies and families of the rest of the earth. We're all in this together. No more co-pays with Medicaid. No more co-pays with Medicaid. Struggle against poverty, not the poor. No more mocking people with disabilities. No more mocking people with disabilities. Try not to hate, only love can. Everything is connected. We are a new, unsettling force. We are new, unsettling. Keep on talking. Treating like second-class citizens are our entire lives. Those of us who have just been asking just for a reasonable shake, if you will. And I think part of that, let me tell you why it is, is because there is a moral narrative in this nation. That somehow or another doesn't really speak to poverty. Never really had to. In fact, in this nation, if you go back and you take a look at all, as some of the old movies you see, like The Bugsie, Malone, The Shooter Bang, Danny, The Stage Production, a lot of these stuff, yes, really nice. You look in the background, what you usually see is what people, what we never really talked about is poverty. Because in this nation, poverty has always been criminalized, but it's also been manufactured. It's also been manufactured. When you start thinking about $800 billion that's being dropped into the military on an annual basis, $800 billion on an annual basis. What is that? What is that? These operations, the biggest one of which is the Department of Defense polluting the globe to the extent that 70% of the pollution on the planet comes from the Department of Defense in the United States. That's just a client shame. And why they get away with it is because government regulations have been relaxed or not even implemented to be able to keep them from doing so. And what happens is that these impact, this pollution, this toxicity impacts those folks who are poor and who are black and brown around the globe. And why is that? The reason why is so those who are producing it can continue to generate revenues so they can meet their numbers so they can continue to check other people's rich. So I think it's been far too long that we've remained silent about some of these things. And some of us, we're just becoming aware of some of these things, right? But there are many of us here and many of us around the United States who have known some of these things that I'm telling you about. Some of us in this room have known a lot of this stuff. And what we've done is we've chosen to remain silent, but I came to tell you today that when Dr. King said it's time to break the silence, I think what he was saying is he's saying, you know, it's time for you to stop thinking about whether you're going to be ridiculed. It's time for you to stop thinking about whether you're going to be whether you're going to be kind of single out, okay? Whether you're going to, whether somebody is going to try to give you an opposing opinion or whether you feel bad or maybe your family is going to disown you or all of the other things that folks wrestle with when they're trying to stand up against things like systemic racism, poverty, ecological devastation in the war economy. At some point or another, we as the people have to come together and make a conscious decision that we are not going to be silent anymore. We have to speak out on this at some point or another. Black Christian fundamentalists, generally usually white Christian fundamentalists, the message that they have, the TQIA community is wrong and women shouldn't have abortions. And that's it, that's what we get. We're the same people in place making these policies are the folks that are creating legislation that are passing a racial gerryman conversation and pray...