a_Cascadian Report This Comment Date: June 29, 2005 09:31PM
Its not what? Shithead! Your phrasing of the question reflects the stupidity of
the Amerikkkan educational system or should I write lack of education in the
Amerikkkan educational system. It is where? Cascadia is a bioregion located in
what Atlantic-centered imperialist call the Pacific NorthWest ... just like the
Greak Lakes is a bioregion, Cascadia transcends political borders.
Cascadia is geographically the Columbia River Watershed & the area around
the Cascade Range. Cascadia’s farthest extent is from northern California to
the Alaskan Panhandle & from the Pacific to the Continental Divide. Cascadia
Minor tends to be the states of Northern California, Oregon & Washington
with the province of British Columbia. The Scottish naturalist David Douglas
named the Cascade mountain range after the powerful waterfalls that carved out
this land & gave it so much biomass. J.M.R. Le Jeune's "Chinook
Rudiments" published on May 3rd 1924 describes the geographical placement
of the use of Chinook Jargon (Chinuk Wawa) and a partical glimpse of the
demographics of who were the Chinook Jargon speakers of the time:
"Chinook, for a century the International Language of the Pacific Coast,
from Northern California to Alaska, from the Pacific Ocean to the Rocky
Mountains."
"Gradually took shape between 1790 and 1810, becoming t(h)e necessary means
of intercourse between natives of twenty-seven different tribes speaking as many
different langauges, as well as between natives, whites and orientals."
This land was called in Chinook Jargon "Chinook Ilahaee" and now
perfectly matches the demarcated "borders" of the bioregion called
Cascadia (which in Chinook Jargon would translate as "Tumchuck
Ilahee"
. In the 1840s the European settlers in Oregon
Territory created their first "western style" government as a
Provisional Government. George Abernethy was elected its first and only
Provisional Governor, but the opposing "party" led by Osborne Russell
favored Independence. Russell proposed that the Oregon Territory not join the
United States, but instead become a Pacific Republic that stretched from the
Pacific Ocean to the Continental Divide. Many favored the idea of Independence
(especially north of the Columbia River).
In the mid 1970s Ernest Callenbach envisioned an emergence of environmental
awareness that would lead the Pacific NorthWest to form the country of Ecotopia.
The 1990s David McCloskey formed the Cascadia Institute. McCloskey describes
Cascadia as "a land of falling water". Historically a nation is a
group of people with common symbolism such as language, culture, religion &
etc that unify them as a group. The group identity called nationalism emerged
out of the Industrial Age as a new form of political group identity & as a
result has became chauvinistic in many respects to any other form of group
identity. Nationalism with all its chauvinsim has become yet another stumbling
block to finding harmony between people & Nature. As an emerging identity
"Cascadian" may evolve into a "nation", but the terms
"national" & "nationalism" are limited &
chauvinistic in their regards to the Cascadian love for diversity. This new
approach to identity through diversity in thinking, in human experience &
ecology is bioregionalism. "Bioregions are geographic areas having common
characteristics of soil, watershed, climate, native plants & animals...A
bioregion refers to both the geographical terrain & a terrain of
consciousness -- to a place & the ideas that have developed about how to
live in that place." Peter Berg. If Cascadians should ever awake to the
ideas of creating an autonomous political entity on the global political area
then hopefully Cascadians should never seek the nation-state model, but instead
have the insight to embrace the model of diversity as a bioregion.
Cascadian love and valueing of our home (Mother Earth/Mother Nature) is
reflected in many of the old policies of "Land Use Laws" in Oregon in
the 1970s under Governor Tom McCall. In the late 1960s into the present many
Cascadians born in the region hated the fact that suburban Southern Californians
invaded Cascadia bringing the problems of urban growth with them. In many ways
the resentment of suburban sprawl and the "Do not Califorinate"
movements can be traced back to attempts to protect the Redwoods and surrounding
environments in Northern California from the onslaught of "white
flight" from Southern California’s urbanization and racial tensions. Many
Californians during the rise of anti-Californianism have attributed Oregon’s,
Washington’s, Idaho’s and Montana’s hostitility as racist and homophobic.
But the reality was often the opposite with the suburban sprawlers using claims
of racism and homophobia as a smoke screen for the fact that they were actually
fleeing modern urban issues which often tended to be racial and gender based
issues wrapped around economic elitism. This is not to deny a history of sexism,
racism, classism and other chauvinsims that have occurred in the Pacific
NorthWest, but these chauvinisms are endemic in all of the Europeanization of
the western hemosphere and rest the world. Yes we as Cascadians must acknowledge
Oregon’s racial eclusion laws of the 1800s; Seattle’s anti-Chinese riots;
internment of Japanese Americans during WWII; Portland’s secret segregation
conspiracy by real estate agents to divide Portland by racial and economic
lines; and all the manifestations of sexism, racism, homophobia, classim,
anthropocentrism and all the other isms of hate that are unfortunately part of
modern civilizations. We, Cascadians, must transcend these institutions of hate
and create a new paradigm that is inclusive, organic and wholistic.
Cascadians must have a new approach... a new paradigm. We have two competing
regional archetypes that now dominate and literally shapes our land and people.
The term "Californication" became of term for fleeing of one place
only to bring the same problems to another place. Californication is a form of
escapism and control of the socio-ecology. Californication projects Nature and
women as objects of beauty to be surgically altered if a "flaw" is
found. Often that "flaw" is "wildness" without the need of
"Man"; "endangerment" to "Man"; or the inablitity
to maintain the outward appearance of "social norms". Californication
becomes the ultimate escapism by the manipulation and reengineering of the
Nature be that the engineered landscapes in the form of suburban sprawl or the
cosmetic surgery to escape the low self esteem. Texasfication which envisions
that archetypical Man as a lone cowboy being honest to himself. Texasfication
projects women as garnish on the platter of the masculine identity. It projects
Nature as a mistress to be used, raped and tamed. Cascadianism offers a new
paradigm to regional archetypes: Ecotopification. Ecotopification is the
realization that the environment around the self is an extension of the self and
the self is an extension of the environoment. Ecotopification is not the
domination of Nature nor the escapism of the natural, but is the embracing of
the natural and the self reflection for internal adaptation to Nature.
Cascadianism is the valuing of "Ecology, Equality and Equity" through
"Respect, Reverence and Responsiblity". Ecotopification is the
manifestation of Cascadianism.
These regional archetypes manifest in the power and political structures of the
institutions and landscape. Texasfication manifests the idea of strong male
leadership without the responsiblity "background" characters who color
the storyline of the lone cowboy fighting for "justice". Those locked
in the mentality of Californication look to popularity of the masses or group
approval substituting majority and prestige over responsiblity and reverence of
the "other". Ecotopification is a process that projects the need for
reexamining democracy and creating a wholistic new paradigm that includes all
called biodemocracy.
"Democracy is not voting nor does it end at the ballot box. Voting and
ballot boxes are tools used in many democratic processes. Democracy is the
continuous dynamic dialogue between the people, all the people!, and the
institutions that they have installed and have an impact on the present, future
and past."
"Biodemocracy is a system of empowerment of all the people with a fully
conscious awareness of the necessity to acknowledge, include and maintain the
socio-ecological fabric that is crucial aspect of the human being. Biodemocracy
differs from democracy in the sense that there is an understanding that humans
can not exist outside the natural world and that Nature is an integral part of
humanity. Where as democracy is an anthropocentric system of colloquy,
biodemocracy is a shift to an ecocentric or holistic system of empowerment and
awareness of interdependent communities. Biodemocratic dialogue is inclusive to
all the communities and systems that are affected in actions and non-actions
alike."
Many in California, Oregon and Washington State after the US-American election
of Novemeber 2004 proclaimed they wanted "Blue State Secession", but
that is a limited approach to a very limiting political system that presents
itself as "American Democracy". But the term "secession" in
the American national mythology conjures up images of Civil War, slavery and
racism. Cascadianism and biodemocracy should not be about exclusion or elitism,
but inclusiveness through respect, reverence and responsiblity. The 2005 general
elections in Canada has left many Cascadians who are north of 49th parallel
feeling that their political imput in the continental wide nation-state is just
window dressing for the political elite in Ontario. Secession in the Canadian
national mythology conjures up images of the French speaking Quebec and fears of
a Balkanization of Canada. In that I suggest that we, Cascadians, need to focus
on "Re-Unification". Cascadians today are divided by the political
borders imposed on them by outside empires and historical events that in a
bioregional worldview must be transcended. We, Cascadians, are physically,
politically and economically divided into states and provinces. Our political
and economic involvement with Atlantic imperial institutons often puts Cascadia
as merely a vassal state with superfical representation. From this history and
current situation it is crucial for all Cascadians to take it on themselves to
generate dialogue and even invitations for visits to learn of our commonalities
and in that sense "Re-Unification".
We need to educate and create networks. We need to create networks to feed,
cloth, house, educate and assist those falling to the streets. We should act now
so as to build a new foundation for a new way ... a new paradigm ... one of
social networks, social responsiblity, true democracy, cooperativism, ecological
sustainablity and sustainable responsible economies ... a future where racism,
sexism, ageism, abilitism, nationalism, classism, specism and all the other
-isms of hate will become merely something we read of in history books and talk
of as being in the bad old days. A paradigm where we become human beings again
as opposed to human "do-ings". A worlview that sees the trees and
other animals as syblings and not as property to be used for profit. Where the
artist, the craftperson, the poet, the cook and all those who endeavour to
create are revered as priest/esses of creativity and not as slaves to a pay
check. We have an oppertunity to become something new ... something different
... a synthesis of the best of the old worlds and with a new vision of what
"we" are as a species ... as members of a biodiverse network of
communities on a living planet. We need an Evergreen Revolution! A revolution
that is of the mind and manifests in our actions, our relations with eachother
and our being part of a dynamic socio-ecological matrix.
Cascadian Bioregionalism
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