Political Quotes

“when I was traveling the country, I had the opportunity to visit many areas around America. I would stand in front of plant gates that were padlocked. I saw grass growing in parking lots which were once filled with cars, where workers would go into a plant and they would make steel, cars, washing machines, sewing machines, truck bodies. And now their plant gates are padlocked and there is grass growing in the parking lots. All of America is littered with the rusting hulks of huge manufacturing plants. Yet there are many people who remain in those communities who have the ability to do the work. It is not that there is no work to be done. It is not that we are not consuming the very products which were made once in America. But they are being made now elsewhere at a fraction of the price, where workers are underpaid, where they have no rights. {time} 2200 When we started years ago challenging these trade agreements, some of us were told, well, you are being an isolationist; we have to have trade. Well, it is true, we do have to have trade; but we have to have fair trade. We have to have trade which respects the undeniable fact that all people are interdependent and interconnected. These trade agreements create a divide, a chasm, between the very wealthy and the increasingly poor. These trade agreements have helped to bring about the destructive undermining of America's middle class.…”