Standing Rock Is Us

Image Credit: REUTERS/Andrew Cullen

Standing Rock Is Us

If you have been laid off due to corporate downsizing.

If your job is now being done in another country.

If your job is being done by a machine.

If your home was foreclosed upon.

If your children’s school is falling apart.

If the road to your house is filled with pot holes.

If you have enormous student debt.

If you lost your pension in the Economic Crisis.

If you are a disabled veteran.

Standing Rock is you.

If you voted for Trump, Standing Rock is you.

Fed up with years of mistreatment by their employers, an army of some 10,000 union miners marched on Blair Mountain in Logan County and clashed with 3,000 coal company supporters and police deputies.

blair

“One thing the Tea Party folks and the Occupy Wall Street people can and should agree on is tackling the rampant problem of crony capitalism. We've already seen how big time campaign donors all got sweetheart loans and deals and stuck taxpayers with the bill. I love capitalism enough to protect it. There has to be a level playing field where everyone can compete fairly. The guy swinging a hammer all day shouldn't have the government reaching in his pocket and handing his taxes to big shot donors. It's wrong and unfair.” Donald Trump

If you voted for Hillary, Standing Rock is you.

The Triangle Shirtwaist fire came on the heels of several years of efforts to bring about reform in the garment industry. In 1909, a large strike of women, makers of women's garments, went on strike to protest working conditions in what became known as the Uprising of the Twenty Thousand. The immigrant girls were joined on the picket lines by some higher society women who were politicized by the suffrage issue, but a bitter winter and dwindling resources soon took its toll. This strike was followed by a large strike involving the makers of men's garments and cloaks, which forced the company owners to the bargaining table. Few concessions were won there, however, and some companies, including the Triangle Shirtwaist Company, had refused to sign the agreement at all.

“Let’s start holding corporate America responsible, make them pay their fair share again. Enough with the corporate welfare. Enough with the golden parachutes. And enough with the tax incentives for companies to shift jobs overseas.” Hillary Clinton

If you voted for Bernie, Standing Rock is you.

"U.S. Steel was once the largest employer in Alabama. The suburb of Fairfield was designed by the company in the early 1900s. "It was the most elaborate company town in the United States, but with increased foreign competition, the iron and steel industry dwindled over the decades. Smaller mini-mills have replaced the giant furnaces and smokestacks that once dominated the city's skyline."

“I think everybody is in agreement that we are a great entrepreneurial nation. We have to support small and medium-sized businesses. But you can have all of the growth that you want and it doesn't mean anything if all of the new income and wealth is going to the top 1 percent.” Bernie Sanders

If you voted for Jill Stein, Standing Rock is you.

The Dakota Access pipeline would transport 570,000 barrels of crude oil through four states and 1,172 miles. The pipeline's construction had been occurring through sacred tribal land that is protected by U.S. treaties. When — not if — the pipeline leaks, it will pollute drinking water for millions of people in the Midwest. The Standing Rock Sioux and countless other people from tribes around the country have converged at the site of construction.

“The owners of the big corporations are enjoying historic profits, with a record $2 trillion in cash reserves at home and $1.4 trillion overseas. Though the corporate elite are richer than ever, they are contributing less than ever to the tax base that keeps the infrastructure going that their profits rely on--schools, transportation, clean air and water, safe food, the legal system, the police, and the military. In fact, 30 major corporations paid no corporate income tax at all over the last three years, despite making $160 billion in profits.” Jill Stein

If you voted for Gary Johnson, Standing Rock is you.

Americans are fed up with politicians who lie, who don't really want to change anything, and for whom being elected and re-elected are ends in themselves.

“Meanwhile, the federal government is spending us deeper and deeper into debt while we shell out billions in foreign aid we can no longer afford and trillions more for foreign wars in which our national interest is just not apparent to me. Republicans and Democrats have both failed to respond to this reality. In order to create jobs now, we need radical surgery, not a haircut.” Gary Johnson

If you didn’t vote,

You should have.

It's not too late to do what you can for yourself, for your family, for your future, for the Standing Rock that is in all of us. Are you banking against the Sioux? These people are and they aren't doing it for you. This is a moment in time when we can push back, not just for one group of people but for all of us who have been a victim of corporate greed.