Cascadia Independence Movement - State of Mind or Future Nation State? What does ATS think?

I could see us seceeding if the rest of the country keeps getting more and more regressive.

If we have a giant economic collapse, as many predict, it could be that us Northwesterners survive while the rest of the country descends into chaos.

There is a definite problem with Eastern Washington though, it is full of Republicans who hate the politics and culture of Western Washington and wouldn't want to be joined with us in a country.

originally posted by: Simmderdown

originally posted by: JadeStar

originally posted by: Simmderdown

originally posted by: Granite
a reply to: JadeStar

Your OP says nothing of 100% of "cascadia" land was stolen from 100's of indigenous tribes from 1804 thru present day.

Are "cascadians" going to the Hague to answer for MASSIVE crimes against humanity?

Well they did name the Red Skins after them, come on what do you want

Wrong Washington. (Facepalm)

NO no same premise lol its ok

Seattle is named after Chief Sealth from the Duwamish tribe.

originally posted by: seagull
a reply to: JadeStar

Yep. Automatically citizens, who get to pay taxes. It's a nice neat way to solve the problem. Just make sure the new borders are secured so it doesn't become a problem again in the future.

The border with California?

originally posted by: CB328
I could see us seceeding if the rest of the country keeps getting more and more regressive.

If we have a giant economic collapse, as many predict, it could be that us Northwesterners survive while the rest of the country descends into chaos.

There is a definite problem with Eastern Washington though, it is full of Republicans who hate the politics and culture of Western Washington and wouldn't want to be joined with us in a country.

I guess it would come down to who they identify with more: their neighbors or their political part leaders taking orders from the Bible Belt?

Not all Republicans are the same. There's a big difference in some of the ideology of eastern Washington republicans and those from say Alabama as an example.

Eastern Washington is conservative but tends towards traditional libertarian conservativatism whereas much of the leadership of the national Republican Party are either neo-conservative or evangelical.

a reply to: JadeStar

it was written in the 70s with all that comes with that (good and bad).

Indeed. It was not all that well received at the time and quickly vanished from popular consciousness. In a way it was almost a manifesto, a blue print tossed out to appeal to rebellious youth and basically that was me at the time and I loved it.
Now? Not so much anymore. In any event I thought you might find it interesting in one form or another.

This place can and will only be a cultural state of mind at best, to address this well written OP.

In sad likelihood though, the embedded white supremists and the leftist would be at war within 24 hours if an actual nation were to form.

Someone always wants to grab power in paradise.

originally posted by: Simmderdown
Traitors! Bigots! how dare you want to leave the US!



If Texas is a bigot for wanting to do it, SO ARE YOU

I've always supported the idea of Texas seceding from the union. I'm not the only liberal who did, either.

This may also be of interest: A New Map Of The U.S., Created By How Our Dollar Bills Move




Clearly California and Cascadia can be seen as distinct entities. Texas too:

Using a site that tracks dollar bills, a theoretical physicist noticed that our state boundaries are rather arbitrary, but that money tends to stay within new, more realistic boundaries.

Brockmann took data for how the dollar bills traveled, and used network theory to draw lines where dollar bills are less likely to cross. In places they follow state borders, but not always; Missouri is divided into East and West, as is Pennsylvania. The "Chicago catchment area" includes a big chunk of both Indiana and Wisconsin.

The resulting map shows how "effective communities" don’t necessarily follow state lines. "I don’t know so much about the culture of the U.S.," says Brockmann, who grew up in Germany. "But when I give talks on this, normally someone in the audience says, 'Oh, this makes perfect sense."

originally posted by: TerryMcGuire
a reply to: JadeStar

it was written in the 70s with all that comes with that (good and bad).

Indeed. It was not all that well received at the time and quickly vanished from popular consciousness. In a way it was almost a manifesto, a blue print tossed out to appeal to rebellious youth and basically that was me at the time and I loved it.
Now? Not so much anymore. In any event I thought you might find it interesting in one form or another.

Oh I do plan to read it for historical context. There are several texts which have historical relevancy to the whole Cascadia thing and that book is often cited as one of them.

Sounds rather lovely to me, like it would be a wonderful place to live, but I imagine they wouldn't let too many people in.

But then, on the other hand, when I think too much, it kind of reminds me of a lot of those movies where what seemed to good to be true, was, and behind the shiny was a furnace then were marching old people into or expiring them on their 60th with an injection.

All that aside, great, great job of putting the OP together. I had no clue about any of this. Lots of stars!

originally posted by: ~Lucidity
Sounds rather lovely to me, like it would be a wonderful place to live, but I imagine they wouldn't let too many people in.

If it were a disaster recovery scenario I suspect anyone willing to put in some sweat to rebuild would be welcome. If it were as a result of the US going bankrupt of something along those lines then I suspect you'd be right. People would want in as it is a naturally beautiful and resource rich area.

But then, on the other hand, when I think too much, it kind of reminds me of a lot of those movies where what seemed to good to be true, was, and behind the shiny was a furnace then were marching old people into or expiring them on their 60th with an injection.

While assisted suicide is legal in Oregon, Washington and British Columbia I don't think your scenario would be all that likely. A new nation would depend on the wisdom of older generations.

All that aside, great, great job of putting the OP together. I had no clue about any of this. Lots of stars!

Thanks!

As with all those that want to leave the USA, it sounds great on paper, however, there are several major problems that are not addressed here:

1) No one really knows how to separate out an economy. The economy of the states in that are are interlocked with the USA. It requires as much as it gives, and to separate without some plan makes it fool hardy and ultimately could be disasterous to the people there.

2) The people, what if the majority of the people do not want such, then any attempts would result in them not wantint or even being upset. Too often it is either a small minority or people from outside of the region that are spurring this one and not the actual people inside of the state making that determination.

3) Law: The law is quite clear on doing such, and each time it is brought up, it is always that it is not really either supported or permissible by such.

4) There are 4 natural disaesters that hit that area and without a strong backing or means to support if not help clean up and relief, it would be bad for the people: Earthquakes and Tsunami's were mentioned. However, what was not mentioned, is that there is also wildfires that devistate the area and one other big problem. That part of the country has sleeping volcano's that dot the area. And right now it is also going through major drought that is affecting the area. Now if they are wanting to leave the United States, then one might ask what are the diseaster plans for relief going to be?

originally posted by: sdcigarpig
As with all those that want to leave the USA, it sounds great on paper, however, there are several major problems that are not addressed here:

1) No one really knows how to separate out an economy. The economy of the states in that are are interlocked with the USA. It requires as much as it gives, and to separate without some plan makes it fool hardy and ultimately could be disasterous to the people there.

There have been studies by the Sightline Institute among others which show that the region while economically interlocked with the US and Canada is less so than most other regions of either nation.

This has also been highlighted in several of these articles including one in the Economist from 1994 (the year before I was born).

2) The people, what if the majority of the people do not want such, then any attempts would result in them not wantint or even being upset. Too often it is either a small minority or people from outside of the region that are spurring this one and not the actual people inside of the state making that determination.

Cascadia would never happen unless a large majority of people wanted it to. The Cascadia movement is entirely a local/regional one from what I can tell.

3) Law: The law is quite clear on doing such, and each time it is brought up, it is always that it is not really either supported or permissible by such.

Most scenarios which would result in an autonomous Cascadia region or independent nation involve either a) declining economic power or governmental authority by the powers that be in D.C. or Ottawa thus allowing Cascadia to naturally govern itself or a disaster such as the 9.0+ megathrust earthquake and tsunami which might make it too expensive for either the US or Canada to rebuild an already geologically isolated region. Remember how long it took for help to arrive in New Orleans? Imagine that times 1000 with major highways out, no electricity or other infrastructure and widespread devastation of not one but three major cities. Cascadia would have to take care of Cascadia until the feds arrived and even afterwards there might not be the economic capital or political will in the US and Canada to rebuild our region.

So don't think of an autonomous or independent Cascadia like the ideas put forward by some other secessionist movements, it likely to happen as a result of traditional politics or traditional political pressure but more out of necessity either if the US somehow fell apart economically or the region fell apart as a disaster.

4) There are 4 natural disaesters that hit that area and without a strong backing or means to support if not help clean up and relief, it would be bad for the people: Earthquakes and Tsunami's were mentioned.

Of course. Disasters are ALWAYS bad for the people. No one is hoping for such to happen but it is a geological reality that we will be hit by a 9.0 or greater again and when that happens the US and Canada will have to make a tough decision unless both are flush with the resources and wealth to rebuild our region and everyone thinks that's a great idea.

However, what was not mentioned, is that there is also wildfires that devistate the area and one other big problem.

That's true.

That part of the country has sleeping volcano's that dot the area. And right now it is also going through major drought that is affecting the area. Now if they are wanting to leave the United States, then one might ask what are the diseaster plans for relief going to be?

Cascadians doing what they did before there was a United States. Taking care of themselves. There are plenty of people in this region who are very adept at firefighting and many people are very outdoors and nature oriented. Additionally there are indigenous native tribes which have lived here since before the United States who have long traditions and lifestyles of self sufficiency which many have learned from.

What won't happen at least not for a couple months or more are supplies brought in on trucks because the highways, bridges and overpasses would be devastated in an already geographically isolated area, making such over the ground relief efforts impossible even in the rosiest scenarios immediately after a massive Cascadia subduction zone quake. The best case scenario would have us waiting a month for any sort of relief via road or rail.

Airlifting (expensive) would be the only way initially to provide relief and supplies and depending on the state of the ports and areas around them, they could perhaps come by water eventually but the tsunami would likely have made that a treacherous prospect according to emergency management people.

So we know we won't be able to depend on outside help perhaps for a long time (months) and that is why there is a lot of study and preparation for when such a disaster eventually strikes us.

One thing to note is you mentioned the other potential disasters with wildfires and volcanos. That would not be lost on people elsewhere in the US and Canada asked to help rebuild. You hear the sentiment of "why should we pay to rebuild a place that is just going to be hit again", every time a hurricane creates a disaster in along the eastern seaboard or Florida.

The difference is the price tag of this disaster would be enormous and the logistics and resources to provide relief from outside would have to be unprecedented.

It could just be too much to ask anyone to do. That's a fact everyone who grows up here knows and why a lot of thought goes into preparing for it by the people tasked with that.

originally posted by: CB328
I could see us seceeding if the rest of the country keeps getting more and more regressive.

If we have a giant economic collapse, as many predict, it could be that us Northwesterners survive while the rest of the country descends into chaos.

There is a definite problem with Eastern Washington though, it is full of Republicans who hate the politics and culture of Western Washington and wouldn't want to be joined with us in a country.

You acually sound more hateful than the Conservatives you say that live in that area

my guess is youd be pushed out far before they are, with that attitude

a reply to: JadeStar

As a Texan, all I can say is you have my complete support.

originally posted by: intrptr
Seceding from the Union isn't allowed. Remember the last time they tried that?

Recently they even did away with the historical flag that symbolized the rebellion in the South.

You may try to form a more perfect Union and I may agree with you, according to the US government theirs is the only perfect Union. Their United States.

Its not yours, its theirs.

COnsidering LINCOLN HIMSELF broke THE LAW to preserve the STATUS QUO the civil war was a illegal action because it wasnt for the good of the nation it was for the good of the north making billions of dollars. Anything passed after that should had been deemed un constitutional because Lincoln broke his oath and that includes the amendment saying no to secessions.

a reply to: yuppa

Anything passed after that should had been deemed un constitutional because Lincoln broke his oath and that includes the amendment saying no to secessions.

Remind me again what letter or spirit of the Constitution hasn't been ripped to shreds?

originally posted by: intrptr
a reply to: yuppa

Anything passed after that should had been deemed un constitutional because Lincoln broke his oath and that includes the amendment saying no to secessions.

Remind me again what letter or spirit of the Constitution hasn't been ripped to shreds?

Thats the sad part. everyone past George washington have selectively obeyed the constitution,which makes me wonder what right the feds have to tell anyone they cant leave.

There was an article published by The New Yorker a month ago regarding the earthquake I've referenced. It is entitled The Really Big One and it is a very grim read which reminds us all of just what lay ahead. This article as you can imagine caused many here to think again: "What would I do, how would I live, what would we value as a community if we survived?"

Here are some excerpts:

We now know that the Pacific Northwest has experienced forty-one subduction-zone earthquakes in the past ten thousand years. If you divide ten thousand by forty-one, you get two hundred and forty-three, which is Cascadia’s recurrence interval: the average amount of time that elapses between earthquakes. That timespan is dangerous both because it is too long—long enough for us to unwittingly build an entire civilization on top of our continent’s worst fault line—and because it is not long enough. Counting from the earthquake of 1700, we are now three hundred and fifteen years into a two-hundred-and-forty-three-year cycle.

It is possible to quibble with that number. Recurrence intervals are averages, and averages are tricky: ten is the average of nine and eleven, but also of eighteen and two. It is not possible, however, to dispute the scale of the problem. The devastation in Japan in 2011 was the result of a discrepancy between what the best science predicted and what the region was prepared to withstand. The same will hold true in the Pacific Northwest—but here the discrepancy is enormous. “The science part is fun,” Goldfinger says. “And I love doing it. But the gap between what we know and what we should do about it is getting bigger and bigger, and the action really needs to turn to responding. Otherwise, we’re going to be hammered. I’ve been through one of these massive earthquakes in the most seismically prepared nation on earth. If that was Portland”—Goldfinger finished the sentence with a shake of his head before he finished it with words. “Let’s just say I would rather not be here.”

And that article's statement no doubt lead to this response from Representative Suzanne Bonamici who represents Portland among other areas: Uncle Sam can do more to prepare Oregon for Cascadia quake which is critical of what have been somewhat feeble efforts from those in D.C.

Excerpt below:

A lot of people read "The Really Big One," Kathryn Schulz's recent New Yorker article about the Cascadia earthquake and tsunami that are forecast to strike the Pacific Northwest. The article caused shockwaves of its own across our region. The information is not new to most of us here at home, but the vivid description of the risk to lives and the regional economy has generated a really big amount of anxiety in Oregon.

It's alarming to read that the largest natural disaster to hit North America might happen right here at home. But as a lawmaker, I am also deeply concerned about the article's reminder that we are nowhere as prepared as we can and should be given how much we know about this threat. In the article, OSU earthquake expert Chris Goldfinger discusses the growing gap between what we know and what we should do about it. I have made closing this gap a priority in my work in Congress. I've supported additional research, advocated for federal investment in resilience, and raised awareness among my colleagues. But there is still work to be done.

Many Oregon communities are already taking action. For example, Cannon Beach set up cache sites in evacuation areas where residents can store food, water and supplies in barrels. Last year, I participated in their Race the Wave 5K walk/run, which followed the tsunami evacuation route from the beach to the cache site so residents and visitors are familiar with the route.

At the state level, Oregon lawmakers authorized the Oregon Resilience Plan. This comprehensive plan recommends policies to protect lives and the economy during and after a Cascadia event. Oregon Emergency Management is working with FEMA on Cascadia Rising, an earthquake and tsunami functional exercise that's planned for next summer. And the Legislature just passed several resilience-building bills, including provisions for seismic rehabilitation of schools and other critical infrastructure.

The state is making progress, but the federal government can and should do much more. FEMA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration are engaged in earthquake and tsunami research and education, but these efforts are not nearly enough. Oregonians face the complicated task of needing to prepare for an event on a scale not experienced in more than 315 years. Unfortunately, federal funding for hazard mitigation and resilience is generally limited to events that have already occurred and caused damage, like Hurricane Katrina or Superstorm Sandy. This tendency to be reactive rather than proactive is shortsighted, and I'm committed to doing what I can to work on prevention.

Again the theme here is that those of us who live in Cascadia already are the ones who understand the true gravity of what lay ahead while D.C. based agencies like FEMA and NOAA are somewhat slow.

So, why would anyone think it would be any different in the wake of a crisis which for those of us who live here is the SHTF scenario, our regions apocalypse which could happen today, tomorrow, next week, next year, 10 years from now, or 50 years from now??

It almost certainly will happen during my lifetime (if I live to be 100) since we were overdue for it well before I was even born and we were all taught this.

How bad could it get you wonder? Back to the New Yorker article….

In the Pacific Northwest, the area of impact will cover some hundred and forty thousand square miles, including Seattle, Tacoma, Portland, Eugene, Salem (the capital city of Oregon), Olympia (the capital of Washington), and some seven million people. When the next full-margin rupture happens, that region will suffer the worst natural disaster in the history of North America. Roughly three thousand people died in San Francisco’s 1906 earthquake. Almost two thousand died in Hurricane Katrina. Almost three hundred died in Hurricane Sandy. FEMA projects that nearly thirteen thousand people will die in the Cascadia earthquake and tsunami. Another twenty-seven thousand will be injured, and the agency expects that it will need to provide shelter for a million displaced people, and food and water for another two and a half million. “This is one time that I’m hoping all the science is wrong, and it won’t happen for another thousand years,” Murphy says.

So how prepared is our region for such a disaster?

Until 1974, the state of Oregon had no seismic code, and few places in the Pacific Northwest had one appropriate to a magnitude-9.0 earthquake until 1994. The vast majority of buildings in the region were constructed before then. Ian Madin, who directs the Oregon Department of Geology and Mineral Industries (DOGAMI), estimates that seventy-five per cent of all structures in the state are not designed to withstand a major Cascadia quake. FEMA calculates that, across the region, something on the order of a million buildings—more than three thousand of them schools—will collapse or be compromised in the earthquake. So will half of all highway bridges, fifteen of the seventeen bridges spanning Portland’s two rivers, and two-thirds of railways and airports; also, one-third of all fire stations, half of all police stations, and two-thirds of all hospitals.

The shaking from the Cascadia quake will set off landslides throughout the region—up to thirty thousand of them in Seattle alone, the city’s emergency-management office estimates. It will also induce a process called liquefaction, whereby seemingly solid ground starts behaving like a liquid, to the detriment of anything on top of it. Fifteen per cent of Seattle is built on liquefiable land, including seventeen day-care centers and the homes of some thirty-four thousand five hundred people. So is Oregon’s critical energy-infrastructure hub, a six-mile stretch of Portland through which flows ninety per cent of the state’s liquid fuel and which houses everything from electrical substations to natural-gas terminals. Together, the sloshing, sliding, and shaking will trigger fires, flooding, pipe failures, dam breaches, and hazardous-material spills. Any one of these second-order disasters could swamp the original earthquake in terms of cost, damage, or casualties—and one of them definitely will. Four to six minutes after the dogs start barking, the shaking will subside. For another few minutes, the region, upended, will continue to fall apart on its own. Then the wave will arrive, and the real destruction will begin.

And that's just how it would begin. As we saw in 2011 with the tragic earthquake and tsunami in Japan the quake itself touched off a myriad of other disasters including the one at the Fukushima nuclear power plant. In a Cascadia quake our entire region's energy infrastructure would go down. We'd be plunged back into a world without electricity not for a few days or weeks as in the case of storms but in the very least -three to six months-. The coast would be hit by a tsunami rivaling that which hit Japan in 2011.

Continuing….

Those who cannot get out of the inundation zone under their own power will quickly be overtaken by a greater one. A grown man is knocked over by ankle-deep water moving at 6.7 miles an hour. The tsunami will be moving more than twice that fast when it arrives. Its height will vary with the contours of the coast, from twenty feet to more than a hundred feet. It will not look like a Hokusai-style wave, rising up from the surface of the sea and breaking from above. It will look like the whole ocean, elevated, overtaking land. Nor will it be made only of water—not once it reaches the shore. It will be a five-story deluge of pickup trucks and doorframes and cinder blocks and fishing boats and utility poles and everything else that once constituted the coastal towns of the Pacific Northwest.

To see the full scale of the devastation when that tsunami recedes, you would need to be in the international space station. The inundation zone will be scoured of structures from California to Canada. The earthquake will have wrought its worst havoc west of the Cascades but caused damage as far away as Sacramento, California—as distant from the worst-hit areas as Fort Wayne, Indiana, is from New York. FEMA expects to coördinate search-and-rescue operations across a hundred thousand square miles and in the waters off four hundred and fifty-three miles of coastline. As for casualties: the figures I cited earlier—twenty-seven thousand injured, almost thirteen thousand dead—are based on the agency’s official planning scenario, which has the earthquake striking at 9:41 A.M. on February 6th. If, instead, it strikes in the summer, when the beaches are full, those numbers could be off by a horrifying margin.


How much all this will cost is anyone’s guess; FEMA puts every number on its relief-and-recovery plan except a price. But whatever the ultimate figure—and even though U.S. taxpayers will cover seventy-five to a hundred per cent of the damage, as happens in declared disasters—the economy of the Pacific Northwest will collapse.

As you can see, the numbers are so big that FEMA does not like to even mention them and many of us here have real doubt that the U.S. taxpayers would readily cover 75 to 100 percent of the damage. This would not be a normal disaster. This would be something on a scale which would eat into and strain the resources of two of the richest countries on Earth. Neither the US nor Canada have very experienced anything close to that.

And of course we'd be on our own for months anyway….

OSSPAC estimates that in the I-5 corridor it will take between one and three months after the earthquake to restore electricity, a month to a year to restore drinking water and sewer service, six months to a year to restore major highways, and eighteen months to restore health-care facilities. On the coast, those numbers go up. Whoever chooses or has no choice but to stay there will spend three to six months without electricity, one to three years without drinking water and sewage systems, and three or more years without hospitals. Those estimates do not apply to the tsunami-inundation zone, which will remain all but uninhabitable for years.

And in the wake of all of that would anyone blame us if we left? I suspect there would be plenty of sentiment from outside of our region for that to happen. After all, when the rebuild cost is not likely measured in billions but trillions it would cost a lot more for you all to keep us than let us go. Those of us who were lucky enough to survive the disaster would have been plunged back into the 1800s perhaps for a half a year or more with little if any federal government help. As a result, Cascadian autonomy or independence might not be an act of politics but an act of mother nature herself.

We human beings like to draw lines on maps but the ones which our planet draws typically have more relevance over time.