Long live Cascadia -- Our home and native land

By GERRY WARNER

Cranbrook DailyTownsman

May 23, 2008

"There's a land, oh it beckons and beckons" and I want to go back and I will . . .

And so spake Canada's greatest bard, Robert Service, more than a hundred years ago in his famous elegy, "The Spell of the Yukon."And Service was right. The Yukon is a stunningly beautiful and unspoiled place as anybody knows who's been there.

But there's another incredible land, not as unspoiled as the Yukon, but just as spectacular and not nearly as remote. It too casts a spell; so much so that some seriously suggest it should become a new country. It borders the Salish Sea, or the Pacific Ocean as it's more prosaically known, and all of us know it well because we live there -- Cascadia -- or the "Republic of the Pacific" as it's sometimes known.

Don't laugh.

Cascadia, as a concept at least, if not a country, is being taken quite seriously in parts of British Columbia, Washington and Oregon. There's also interest in Montana, Idaho and even the Yukon. The term was first coined by Scottish botanist David Douglas, who coined it for all the water falls he saw as a naturalist exploring the area in the 1820's and the man for whom the mighty Douglas fir is named, the forest giant that could well serve as the National Tree of Cascadia. Google Cascadia and you'll come up with all sorts of interesting links such as Cascadia Community College in Bothell, Washington, the Cascadia Centre in Seattle, the Cascadia National Party and the wildest of them all, the Republic of Cascadia website.

The folks at the Republic of Cascadia website are not fooling around. Their slogan is "Independence now! Help us liberate our nation from the tyrannical forces of the Amero-Canadian despots." They have a flag (a green and orange sun setting against a backdrop of blue waves), commemorative stamps featuring some of the prominent mountains in the region, a special "Cascadia Blend" coffee, "free Cascadia" bumper stickers and the like. They even have a Bureau of Sasquatch Affairs and a Sasquatch Militia with plans to annex northern California because historically and spiritually it's really part of Cascadia.

And they're not stopping there. The movement is working towards creating a "Cascadian Commons" that will work towards creating an eco-friendly society and restore the bio-region before the end of the 21st century. The Cascadian Commons is dedicated to defending the region's great temperate forests of fir, spruce and cedar and will make clearcut logging a criminal offence. The sockeye salmon is the national fish of Cascadia and the new republic will work towards restoring all wild salmon stocks and create an independent subnation of piscine brothers and sisters within the borders of the nascent nation. Cascadia is seeking United Nations recognition and is supported by the famous Lonely Planet travel guide.

Promoting tourism is big in Cascadia's economic development plans because we (oops, did I say we?) believe tourism, especially the eco-friendly kind, is the key to developing an environmentally appropriate and sustainable economy in the future. Historically, the resource industries of logging, mining, fishing and farming gave Cascadia a strong economic foundation. But as Cascadia evolves into a post-industrial economy tourism, high-tech and the service industries will take over. The success of such Cascadian companies as Microsoft, Starbucks and "Hollywood North" in Vancouver shows the entrepreneurial and artistic skills of Cascadian residents who can compete with anybody in the world.

A progressive political party is also forming in Cascadia with the specific intent of promoting Cascadian independence and liberating the land by subverting the oppressive political control of Ottawa and Washington DC and stamping out Eastern influences. There's even plans to rid Cascadia of the pernicious effects of negative technology like cell phones, Blackberries and IPods . We (did I say we again?) in Cascadia prefer more natural entertainment like the acoustic guitar and the zither. Already politicians in Victoria, Olympia and Salem are panicking at the prospect of this new nation aborning. But let me assure you that reports of a Cascadian paramilitary organization advocating guerilla war in the rainforests of Cascadia against the Evil Empires of Ottawa and Washington DC and employing catapults and hang gliders (invented in Seattle) to carry out their nefarious schemes - well - those reports are highly exaggerated.

Now, if I may have a moment to remove tongue from cheek, what appears above is not as zany as it sounds. Visioning the Pacific Northwest as it's normally called as a land unto itself like Cascadia makes more than a little sense. We do share in common our great forests, rivers and valleys which tend to run north/south as do our main transportation routes. Most of us are more familiar with Vancouver, Seattle and San Francisco than we are with Toronto or New York. Based on the Pacific Rim, our business connections are increasingly Asian and we share a distinctive, nature-venerating life style that big city Easterners have difficulty appreciating. We even have a rudimentary language of our own - Chinook - which was spoken up and down the coast when the first fur traders and aboriginal peoples started trading.

So let's hear it for Cascadia - the rising Republic of the West and our true home and native land. -- 30 --

Going "negative" brings negative results

By GERRY WARNER
Cranbrook Daily Townsman
May 2, 2008
So it has come down to this -- whether or not you're wearing an American flag pin in your lapel, how patriotic or unpatriotic your pastor is and whether you go bowling with the boys on Friday night. Welcome to politics in the United States of America, the most powerful empire on earth, and where the next Commander in Chief will be the presidential candidate that's best at ignoring policy in favour of personality and "going negative" in the campaign.
Say it ain't so, Martha. Or should that be Hillary?
One thing you say for the Clintons; they didn't get to where they are by overestimating the intelligence of the American public or by walking the high road when the low road is so inviting. Nor did they get there by playing the old cop game of good guy, bad guy. Both Clintons are bad. He the serial philanderer; she the hallucinating traveler who imagines sniper fire when there's nary a weapon in sight. Indeed they only look good when compared to the current occupant of the oval office, a former cocaine user, draft avoider and war monger who sleeps like a baby every night even though he's directly responsible for the deaths of thousands in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere.
Hate to sound so bleak, but I defy anyone to point out a single untruth in the above. Like it or not, this is the world we're living in today.
Now I have to admit I was skeptical myself when Barack Obama first came on the presidential scene. Not being an American, I knew nothing about him, but common sense told me that one term in the Senate is a very thin platform on which to launch a presidential bid. Sure, John Kennedy did that. But that was John Kennedy. His like doesn't come along every day.
But as the campaign wore on - no pun intended - I became more and more impressed with Obama. After all, he had indeed voted against the war in Iraq while his supposedly more "experienced" and worldly-wise opponent joined the braying mob in favour. And I don't mind admitting that the tragic, futile and totally unnecessary wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are my personal political litmus tests for supporting or not supporting presidential candidates, or any other political candidate for that matter. And yes I know that Hillary is now against the war in Iraq too and wants to bring the troops home. Pretty slow learner, don't you think?
But Hillary's flip-flop on Iraq speaks volumes about what drives her as a politician. And that's nothing more than naked ambition and expediency. When she senses public opinion has changed about the war, she changes too. That may be smart politics, but it's not vision. Nor is it honesty, integrity or character. The only character that Hillary's flip-flop on the war demonstrates is that she's a reed in the wind. She will go wherever the mob goes. She won't attempt to lead the mob - or the electorate if you will - down a different path. That would be leadership and Hillary is no leader.
Let me give you another example. When Fidel Castro announced he was stepping down a month or two back it raised the issue of whether the U.S. would change its belligerent foreign policy towards Cuba and end its almost 50 year boycott of the hard-pressed Caribbean nation. Not a chance, said the would-be Iron Lady, catering again to the lowest common denominator and all those God-fearing Americans that still check for communists under their beds every night. Obama, on the other hand, said it's time to re-think America's policy toward Cuba and the rest of its foreign policy too. That took vision, being willing to go in a direction that the U.S. hasn't gone in half-a- century. Don't look for that kind of vision from Hillary. (And if memory serves me correctly, even Bill Clinton said in the past he was willing to re-consider the Cuban boycott too.)
I suppose some solace can be taken from the fact that neither Hillary nor Obama are talking about American troops remaining in Iraq and Afghanistan for another 80 years like Republican war hero John McCain is. But that is pretty thin gruel. These wars, which are costing the U.S. treasury more than $2 billion-a-month, are one of the major reasons the world's only superpower is teetering on the edge of a recession right now and threatening to plunge the rest of the world into the same morass. Having said all this, my only hope is that the Democrats will have a candidate chosen by the end of this month because arguably the worst president in American history doesn't deserve to be followed by another militaristic Republican.
And if push comes to shove, I'd even be glad to take Hillary.
-- 30 --