Friday, November 16, 2007
Next Portland meeting - and website changes
Dec 11th, 7 pm - Lucky Labrador pub at 915 SE Hawthorne Blvd. Come join us, lift a glass of brew if you’d like, and join in discussion.
Our focus lately has been sustainability and what we can do to make things better locally. Working outward from our own lifestyles, to the neighborhoods, city and region. Putting our actions in line with our most fervently held beliefs, and doing positive, uplifting things to help make the world better. Because that’s the most effective way to take responsibility for each of own lives. We love where we live, and are exploring the possibilities.
We’re currently working on food supply and personal strategies. Taking a cue from the recent experiences of San Diego, what do you take with you when you have to evacuate for 3 days? Non-perishables, necessary meds, clothing, etc. Do you have an earthquake kit? Do you live on a flood plain, and understand exactly what that means?
Last time at our local Cascadian discussion group meeting, we decided to make this site more of a community portal and interactive site. So check back to see what develops, we’ll be adding areas for discussion and emphasizing sustainability and grassroots action.
Cascadian Survivalist Society - PDX chapter
Sunday, November 11, 2007
Cascadia Now Chapters Seek Student Organizers
By: Collin S. Ferguson
Abstract: The Cascadian Independence Project seeks students who want to take on a local and regional perspective in volunteering for community groups and advocates as well as political organizing in their city, county, state, province, region and country.
Students at Northwestern in Bellingham, University of Washington, SCCC, UW Tacoma, Evergreen, and Portland State University, Portland OR, are starting student chapters for the new regional advocacy group, the Cascadian Independence Project, or Cascadia Now. The group is in its infancy, but intends to keep growing and start student organizations at all Cascadian universities.
“We wanted to create an inclusive group that was an umbrella organization for everything Cascadia,” announced the group leader in an email. While the C.I.P. will not deny its inclination towards secession adding that it is the hope of the organization that students will support an investigative platform for Cascadian independence, C.I.P. has stated that it is fully accepting of variation in focus, “We’re not here to form a political group where it’s our way or the highway.” They hope to maintain a loose coalition allowing groups to suit the needs of their communities, and hoping that conferences and conventions will work to keep the focus of the organization as a whole. The C.I.P. wants to emphasize that community engagement is increasingly critical stating “We want our project to fill the gap that our current government(s) has left.”
The fundamental belief is that the Pacific Northwest can do it better and that a distant seat of power cannot properly govern everything that Cascadians witness on a daily basis. The C.I.P. wants to strengthen communities, investigate how to lessen dependence on federal government, and build a base of active citizens resolved to unify the Pacific Northwest.
The Cascadian Independence Project, formally the Cascadian Independence Party, hopes to create organizing committees that will connect the spread out groups and market the formation of new groups at local universities, community colleges, and the public at large.
The organization’s long term goals highlight work towards progressive change: writing and supporting local referendums, legislative policies and initiatives, as well as spreading the base by encouraging volunteer work, calls to political action, and contests for flag designs, anthems, emblems, logos, battle chants, etc. The organization also hopes to support food drives, first-aid trainings, worker retraining programs, creation and operation of info shops, promoting and participating in recycling and environmental clean ups, sponsoring local events and working as an arm in educational outreach.
The organization is attempting to build support throughout the Pacific Northwest by contacting and gaining support from other like minded groups. Much of their website is currently under construction, which is http://cascadianow.org, however an article about bioregionalism is available and you can contact the organization for more information at cascadianow@gmail.com.
Thursday, November 08, 2007
On Torture
One year to the next election - something to think about…
Wednesday, July 04, 2007
J'Accuse!
Finally tonight, as promised, a Special Comment on what is, in everything but name, George Bush’s pardon of Scooter Libby.
“I didn’t vote for him,” an American once said, “But he’s my president, and I hope he does a good job.”
That — on this eve of the 4th of July — is the essence of this democracy, in seventeen words.
And that is what President Bush threw away yesterday in commuting the sentence of Lewis “Scooter” Libby.
The man who said those seventeen words — improbably enough — was the actor John Wayne.
And Wayne, an ultra-conservative, said them, when he learned of the hair’s-breadth election of John F. Kennedy instead of his personal favorite, Richard Nixon in 1960.
“I didn’t vote for him but he’s my president, and I hope he does a good job.”
The sentiment was doubtlessly expressed earlier. But there is something especially appropriate about hearing it, now, in Wayne’s voice.
The crisp matter-of-fact acknowledgement that we have survived, even though for nearly two centuries now, our Commander-in-Chief has also served, simultaneously, as the head of one political party and often the scourge of all others.
We as citizens must, at some point, ignore a president’s partisanship. Not that we may “prosper” as a nation, not that we may “achieve”, not that we may “lead the world” — but merely that we may “function.”
But just as essential to the seventeen words of John Wayne is an implicit trust — a sacred trust:That the president for whom so many did not vote, can in turn suspend his political self long enough, and for matters imperative enough, to conduct himself solely for the benefit of the entire Republic.
Our generation’s willingness to state “we didn’t vote for him, but he’s our president, and we hope he does a good job,” was tested in the crucible of history, and far earlier than most. And in circumstances more tragic and threatening.
And we did that with which history tasked us.
We enveloped “our” President in 2001.
And those who did not believe he should have been elected — indeed, those who did not believe he had been elected — willingly lowered their voices and assented to the sacred oath of non-partisanship.
And George W. Bush took our assent, and re-configured it, and honed it, and sharpened it to a razor-sharp point, and stabbed this nation in the back with it.
Were there any remaining lingering doubt otherwise, or any remaining lingering hope, it ended yesterday when Mr. Bush commuted the prison sentence of one of his own staffers.
Did so even before the appeals process was complete…
Did so without as much as a courtesy consultation with the Department of Justice…
Did so despite what James Madison –at the Constitutional Convention — said about impeaching any president who pardoned or sheltered those who had committed crimes “advised by” that president…
Did so without the slightest concern that even the most detached of citizens must look at the chain of events and wonder:
To what degree was Mr. Libby told: break the law however you wish — the President will keep you out of prison?
In that moment, Mr. Bush, you broke that fundamental compact between yourself and the majority of this nation’s citizens — the ones who did not cast votes for you.
In that moment, Mr. Bush, you ceased to be the President of the United States.
In that moment, Mr. Bush, you became merely the President… of a rabid and irresponsible corner of the Republican Party.
And this is too important a time, sir, to have a Commander-in-Chief who puts party over nation.
This has been, of course, the gathering legacy of this Administration. Few of its decisions have escaped the stain of politics.
The extraordinary Karl Rove has spoken of “a permanent Republican majority,” as if such a thing — or a permanent Democratic majority — is not antithetical to that upon which rests: our country, our history, our revolution, our freedoms.
Yet our democracy has survived shrewder men than Karl Rove.
And it has survived the frequent stain of politics upon the fabric of government.
But this administration, with ever-increasing insistence and almost theocratic zealotry, has turned that stain… into a massive oil spill.
The protection of the environment is turned over to those of one political party, who will financially benefit from the rape of the environment.
The protections of the Constitution are turned over to those of one political party, who believe those protections unnecessary and extravagant and “quaint.”
The enforcement of the laws is turned over to those of one political party, who will swear beforehand that they will not enforce those laws.
The choice between war and peace is turned over to those of one political party, who stand to gain vast wealth by ensuring that there is never peace, but only war.
And now, when just one cooked book gets corrected by an honest auditor…
When just one trampling of the inherent and inviolable “fairness” of government is rejected by an impartial judge…
When just one wild-eyed partisan is stopped by the figure of blind justice…
This President decides that he, and not the law, must prevail.
I accuse you, Mr. Bush, of lying this country into war.
I accuse you of fabricating in the minds of your own people, a false implied link between Saddam Hussein and 9/11.
I accuse you of firing the generals who told you that the plans for Iraq were disastrously insufficient.
I accuse you of causing in Iraq the needless deaths of 3,586 of our brothers and sons, and sisters and daughters, and friends and neighbors.
I accuse you of subverting the Constitution, not in some misguided but sincerely-motivated struggle to combat terrorists, but instead to stifle dissent.
I accuse you of fomenting fear among your own people, of creating the very terror you claim to have fought.
I accuse you of exploiting that unreasoning fear, the natural fear of your own people who just want to live their lives in peace, as a political tool to slander your critics and libel your opponents.
I accuse you of handing part of this republic over to a Vice President who is without conscience, and letting him run roughshod over it.
And I accuse you now, Mr. Bush, of giving, through that Vice President, carte blanche to Mr. Libby, to help defame Ambassador Joseph Wilson by any means necessary, to lie to Grand Juries and Special Counsel and before a court, in order to protect the mechanisms and particulars of that defamation, with your guarantee that Libby would never see prison, and, in so doing, as Ambassador Wilson himself phrased it here last night, of you becoming an accessory to the obstruction of justice.
When President Nixon ordered the firing of the Watergate special prosecutor Archibald Cox during the infamous “Saturday Night Massacre” on October 20th, 1973, Mr. Cox initially responded tersely, and ominously:
“Whether ours shall be a government of laws and not of men, is now for Congress, and ultimately, the American people.”
President Nixon did not understand how he had crystallized the issue of Watergate for the American people.
It had been about the obscure meaning behind an attempt to break in to a rival party’s headquarters; and the labyrinthine effort to cover-up that break-in and the related crimes.
But in one night, Nixon transformed it.
Watergate — instantaneously — became a simpler issue: a President overruling the inexorable march of the law. Of insisting — in a way that resonated viscerally with millions who had not previously understood — that he was the law.
Not the Constitution.
Not the Congress.
Not the Courts.
Just him.
Just - Mr. Bush - as you did, yesterday.
The twists and turns of Plame-Gate, your precise and intricate lies that sent us into this bottomless pit of Iraq; your lies upon the lies to discredit Joe Wilson; your lies upon the lies upon the lies to throw the sand at the “referee” of Prosecutor Fitzgerald’s analogy… these are complex and often painful to follow, and too much, perhaps, for the average citizen.
But when other citizens render a verdict against your man, Mr. Bush — and then you spit in the faces of those jurors and that judge and the judges who were yet to hear the appeal — the average citizen understands that, sir.
It’s the fixed ballgame and the rigged casino and the pre-arranged lottery all rolled into one — and it stinks. And they know it.
Nixon’s mistake, the last and most fatal of them, the firing of Archibald Cox, was enough to cost him the presidency.
And in the end, even Richard Nixon could say he could not put this nation through an impeachment.
It was far too late for it to matter then, but as the decades unfold, that single final gesture of non-partisanship, of acknowledged responsibility not to self, not to party, not to “base,” but to country, echoes loudly into history.
Even Richard Nixon knew it was time to resign
Would that you could say that, Mr. Bush.
And that you could say it for Mr. Cheney.
You both crossed the Rubicon yesterday.
Which one of you chose the route, no longer matters.
Which is the ventriloquist, and which the dummy, is irrelevant.
But that you have twisted the machinery of government into nothing more than a tawdry machine of politics, is the only fact that remains relevant.
It is nearly July 4th, Mr. Bush, the commemoration of the moment we Americans decided that rather than live under a King who made up the laws, or erased them, or ignored them — or commuted the sentences of those rightly convicted under them — we would force our independence, and regain our sacred freedoms.
We of this time — and our leaders in Congress, of both parties — must now live up to those standards which echo through our history:
Pressure, negotiate, impeach — get you, Mr. Bush, and Mr. Cheney, two men who are now perilous to our Democracy, away from its helm.
And for you, Mr. Bush, and for Mr. Cheney, there is a lesser task.
You need merely achieve a very low threshold indeed.
Display just that iota of patriotism which Richard Nixon showed, on August 9th, 1974.
Resign.
And give us someone — anyone – about whom all of us might yet be able to quote John Wayne, and say, “I didn’t vote for him, but he’s my president, and I hope he does a good job.”
Good night, and good luck.
Tuesday, June 05, 2007
Vt. Secession Movement Gains Traction
JOHN CURRAN
June 4, 2007
MONTPELIER, Vt. — At Riverwalk Records, the all-vinyl music store just down the street from the state Capitol, the black “US Out of Vt.!” T-shirts are among the hottest sellers.
But to some people in Vermont, the idea is bigger than a $20 novelty. They want Vermont to secede from the United States _ peacefully, of course.
Disillusioned by what they call an empire about to fall, a small cadre of writers and academics hopes to put the question before citizens in March. Eventually, they want to persuade state lawmakers to declare independence, returning Vermont to the status it held from 1777 to 1791.
Neither the state nor the U.S. Constitution explicitly forbids secession, but few people think it is politically viable.
“I always thought the Civil War settled that,” said Russell Wheeler, a constitutional law expert at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C. If Vermont fought and won a war with the federal government, “then you could say Vermont proved the point. But that’s not going to happen.”
Still, the idea has found plenty of sympathetic ears in Vermont, a left-leaning state that said yes to civil unions, no to slavery (before any other) and last year elected a socialist to the U.S. Senate.
Supporters have published a “Green Mountain Manifesto” subtitled “Why and How Tiny Vermont Might Help Save America From Itself by Seceding from the Union.”
In 2005, about 300 people turned out for a secession convention in the Statehouse, and plans for a second one are in the works. A poll this year by the University of Vermont’s Center for Rural Studies found that 13 percent of those surveyed support secession, up from 8 percent a year before.
“The argument for secession is that the U.S. has become an empire that is essentially ungovernable _ it’s too big, it’s too corrupt and it no longer serves the needs of its citizens,” said Rob Williams, editor of Vermont Commons, a quarterly newspaper dedicated to secession.
“We have electoral fraud, rampant corporate corruption, a culture of militarism and war,” Williams said. “If you care about democracy and self-governance and any kind of representative system, the only constitutional way to preserve what’s left of the Republic is to peaceably take apart the empire.”
Vermont, which was historically conservative, has evolved into one of the nation’s most liberal states since the latter part of the 20th century, a tie-dyed bastion of countercultural dissent and New England self-reliance where folks wear their hearts _ and their anti-war stickers _ on their Subaru station wagon bumpers.
Secession movements have a long history. Key West, Fla., staged a mock secession from America in the 1980s. In Vermont, the town of Killington tried to break away and join New Hampshire in 2004, and Hawaii, Alaska, New Hampshire, South Carolina, and Texas all have some form of secession organizations today.
The Vermont movement has been simmering for years but gained new traction because of the Iraq war, rising oil prices and the formation of several pro-secession groups.
Secession supporters hope to have the question considered in March on Town Meeting Day, when voters gather to discuss state and local issues.
Thomas Naylor, 70, a retired Duke University economics professor and author, wrote the manifesto and founded a secession group called Second Vermont Republic.
His 112-page manifesto contains little explanation of how Vermont would make do without federal aid for security, education and social programs. Some in the movement foresee a Vermont with its own currency and passports, for example, and some form of representative government formed once the secession has taken place.
Frank Bryan, a professor at the University of Vermont who has championed the cause for years, said the cachet of secession would make the new republic a magnet.
“People would obviously relish coming to the Republic of Vermont, the Switzerland of North America,” he said. “Christ, you couldn’t keep them away.”
The Middlebury Institute, a Cold Spring, N.Y., think tank, hosted a North American Separatist Convention last fall in Burlington that drew representatives from 16 organizations. The group is co-sponsoring another conference in October in Chattanooga, Tenn.
Of course, skeptics abound.
“It doesn’t make economic sense, it doesn’t make political sense, it doesn’t make historical sense. Other than that, it’s a good idea,” said Paul Gillies, a lawyer and Vermont historian.
For now, the would-be secessionists are hoping to draw enough support to get the question on Town Meeting Day agendas.
“We’re normal human beings,” said Williams, 39, a history professor at Champlain College. “But we’re serious about this. We want people in Vermont to think about the options going forward. Do you want to stay in an empire that’s in deep trouble?”
___
Second Vermont Republic: http://www.vermontrepublic.org/
Middlebury Institute: http://middleburyinstitute.org/
Free Vermont.net: http://www.freevermont.net
