Winona LaDuke Quotes

More than half the world's largest 100 economies are corporations. They have no loyalties to place or citizens.

We have got to put a human face on the global economy.

The equal right of all men to the use of land is as clear as their equal right to breathe the air—it is a right proclaimed by their very existence.

At Standing Rock, we experienced, first-hand, people coming together in their communities and trying to use the levers of representative democracy to try and say, 'We don't want this in our community; we don't want this in our backyard,' and corporations using their monetary influence to completely erode that process.

We will either defend the rights of people and the earth, and for that we have to dismantle the rights that corporations have assigned to themselves, or corporations will in the next three decades destroy this planet, in terms of human possibilities.

We have to speak out now on behalf of our community and on behalf of the land and say they're the same thing and say No, we are not rolling over and No, this is not a corporate enterprise. This is democracy in the fullest sense and we must have regard and reverence and those are the cornerstones of a just society.

The 'Occupy' movement seems to have found a central theme to its 2012 movement around overturning 'the corporation as a person,' and some legislators are supporting that concept.

The earth is the mother of all people, and all people should have equal rights upon it.

Transnational, gigantic industrial companies no longer operate within political systems, but rather above them.

Today there are people trying to take away rights that our mothers, grandmothers and great-grandmothers fought for: our right to vote, our right to choose, affordable quality education, equal pay, access to health care. We the people can't let that happen.

We live in a nation where corporations are people.

There can be no equality or opportunity if men and women and children be not shielded in their lives from the consequences of great industrial and social processes which they cannot alter, control, or singly cope with.

The way to reduce pollution in Detroit is to make automobile company executives drive in non-air-conditioned cars during summer rush hours. The way to get business to join the war on poverty is to make corporate executives drive through Harlem every day instead of going home on air-conditioned trains drinking martinis.

One aspect of modern life which has gone far to stifle men is the rapid growth of tremendous corporations ... The disappearance of free enterprise has led to a submergence of the individual in the impersonal corporation.

You cannot turn the clock back, you cannot give the island of Manhattan back to the indigenous, but on the other hand, you can ensure that the indigenous can maintain their way of life.

I think I'm a critic of corporate power, whether locally or globally. And the term 'globalization' I've never found all that helpful.

Exxon Mobil and JPMorgan Chase each made more in profits in the first quarter of 2012 alone than the entire state budget of Montana. Without a doubt, multinational corporations like these have the resources to overwhelm the voices of the people.

Very often, I think about the people that I represent. I meet people who have thousands and thousands of employees and millions and millions of customers - and also make a lot of money. But I think about the millions of Europeans that I represent in order to try to balance that so we can meet on more equal terms.

Because of my politics, I don't necessarily think that the independent capitalist is that much better than the multinational capitalist; it's just that the independent capitalist hasn't grown as big yet.

I am honored to continue the fight for equal economic opportunities, the right to choose, and an end to gender-based violence by serving as an ACLU Celebrity Ambassador.

I don't want to be involved with just the environment because I think other issues tie so much into the environment, like native issues, children's issues, women's rights - I think they all completely tie into each other, even the economy.

So whether that's taking a bunch of people from Chicago down to Standing Rock or being in Flint, Michigan, or being in Palestine or Baton Rouge after Alton Sterling's killing, I've been trying to, just as a man, be present and stand with the struggling and oppressed people around the world.

I believe Native Americans, women, and all of us deserve representation, and that we all need to fight with everything we have to make it so.

Clean air shouldn't be a privilege dictated by where you can afford to live but a right to which we are all entitled.

Why is it that we ask the question about whether or not Indigenous people should have clean drinking water? We've got to take a minute and think why is that even a question. Yes, they deserve clean drinking water.