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For all of you who have ever been frustrated or angered with politicians who ignore the needs of working folks, you have come to the right place!

Why should I care about politics; I hate politics, and I don’t much care for politicians…sound like anyone you know?  READ ON!

Fury with political leaders is nothing new. Politicians have long been accused, with some accuracy, of only taking care of themselves (and their class), while they glad-hand and pacify their constituency with double-speak and empty promises.

Working people know right from wrong; we play by the rules, and we expect others to do so as well – regardless of their wealth or power. That’s a Steelworker value, fair play.

We’ve learned to depend on simple, every-day common sense to guide us through life’s challenges. We understand that its wrong to force children to labor in industrial work environments; we understand that workers should not have to sacrifice their health or their environment to put food on the table, and we recognize the importance of skills and education and the value of ever-improving technologies to better our lives and the lives of the generations to follow.

Corporations exist for a single purpose - to make money, and that as such, they cannot be relied upon to automatically act in our best interests. Politicians are often seduced by money and power and, therefore, cannot be relied on to provide the countervailing force needed to protect citizens from corporate greed. Something other than a well-intentioned politician is needed. That’s pretty simple stuff.

Steelworkers understand that people, to protect themselves from the harmful effects of these greed-driven corporate entities, created tools to check corporate power and influence. One such tool was collective action, out of which came organized labor. Organized Labor – unions - gave people a democratic means to direct their actions to accomplish specific goals, i.e., secure from an employer commitments to improve technologies, wages and working conditions, to pass laws to provide cleaner air and water, and to provide all children with access to good educations to improve their opportunities to make fulfilling and satisfying contributions to society.

The puppets of corporate dominance have constantly attacked Organized Labor; their corporate controlled media minions use every lie and twisted truth imaginable to strip power and influence from the hands of working people. Despite the attacks, unions remain the most powerful tool of working people and are the most democratic institutions in existence today. 

Workers understand that their liberty and prosperity grows and recedes in lockstep with their influence in government and politics. The American experiment of self-government is being seriously threatened today – it is under attack by faceless, greed-driven, national, multi-national, and trans-national corporations. These hierarchically controlled, un-democratic institutions are stealing our democracy by projecting their influence over politicians with money and think-tanks, and by diverting the American public from the crime scene by use of their unprecedented control of the media.

Rapid Response creates a network of people who understand Labor’s role in safeguarding our society from greed-driven corporations and misguided politicians; we want to make a difference in our futures, rather than rely on soul-less corporate entities and heart-less politicians to dictate to us what our futures will be.

Rapid Response is a tool to help working people take back our democratic society and re-direct our government to do the good things that it was created to accomplish.

The future we leave for our children will be determined by either us working together through our democratic institutions, i.e., unions and politics, or the future will be shaped by the corporate entities rapidly gaining power and influence over us today.

I’ll leave you with a quote: District 12 Director Terry Bonds has a saying that gets right to the point, “There is nobody for us, but us.”  That about sums it up.