"We found each other."

This was author Naomi Klein's opening message to a group of hundreds during her speech at Occupy Wall Street five years ago. Many of those present had almost certainly just recently met.

Although it took place half a decade ago, the Occupy Movement was protesting the same forces as the water protectors are today at Standing Rock. Although their message was broader and more abstract, they too were fed up with corporate greed taking precedence over the human lives. They took to gathering in public spaces to show their discontent. With that came new relationships. Instant friendship formed between individuals who's paths had previously never crossed.

In time, of course, the Occupy Movement faded. Many of the connections, however, remained. Countless people who met at Occupy later worked together with other various movements and will continue to indefinitely.

The same can be said of some of the other major movements recently. Relationships have spawned out of the Black Lives Matter movement and Bernie Sanders campaign that will last for a long time to come.

Within the last week or so, word of the treatment of the water protectors has caught the attention of a sizable percentage of the United States' population. Naturally, frustrations are at an all time high. The encampment is on countless people's news feeds as well as on their minds. Momentum is on the side of those who are passionate about making the world a better place.

Now is the time to capture that momentum and channel it towards long-term struggles that we will certainly be forced to continue to fight.

The truth is, regardless of what happens with this specific pipeline, the issue of ensuring clean drinking water will still remain. Standing Rock is simply the tip of the iceberg.

Here in Michigan, for example, we are almost completely surrounded by fresh water. If there is body of land that has more access to it, I am unaware of such a place. Yet somehow, roughly 200,000 of our residents don't have access to this basic necessity. The situation in Flint is obviously notorious, but Detroit has also chosen to deprive some of its residents clean water if they fall too far behind on their bill. On top of that, we have hosted the largest inland spill in the U.S., which contaminated a significant portion of the Kalamazoo River, we are home to Line 5, an aging pipeline in the Mackinac Straight that is in danger of rupturing and devastating the Great Lakes, and the disastrous practice of fracking is now being pushed in urban areas.

Michigan is certainly not an outlier though. These injustices are taking place all throughout the country. They are also not going away anytime soon seeing that we live in a culture that values profit over people. If you are outraged by what is unfolding at Standing Rock, you are not alone. Now is the time to find others who are just as furious.

Not everyone can make it out to Standing Rock and that is quite alright. We all have a part to play. The standoff in North Dakota is merely one of the countless battles we will have to continue to fight from here on out. The good news is that anyone can make a difference by organizing in their own community. The front-lines are everywhere. Let us find each other and get to work.