CounterPunch Exclusives

CounterPunch Exclusives

Independent Cascadia? Questions to be Asked, Reasons to be Skeptical

Cascadia has a flag and a strong bioregional identity. Should it become an independent country?

A Cascadian Declaration of Independence

The New York Times has discovered Cascadia. Specifically, it has found news of an emerging Cascadia independence movement fit to print. In the June 13th edition, it published an article, “Independent Cascadia? Greater Idaho? Disunited States Look Toward Divorce.”

Times Northwest correspondent Anna Griffin reported on contrasting movements from the left to declare Cascadian independence from the U.S., and from the right for eastern Oregon to secede and join Idaho. The piece is behind a paywall, but you can read the full article linked here.)

Griffin quoted Andrew Engleson, who has been advocating independence in his Cascadia Journal, “We’re in an abusive relationship with the federal government. Divorce is a valid response.”

Engleson and fellow Cascadian organizer Drew Alcosar recently announced creation of Cascadia Democratic Action (CDA). It is examining the possibility of 2028 Oregon and Washington ballot initiatives to begin moving toward independence

On June 1 they published an article in Cascadia Journal, “It’s time for Cascadia independence from the US.” “One year ago, we wrote about starting conversations on Cascadia autonomy in response to the US descent into fascism. Things have only gotten worse since then. The U.S. constitution is a contract between the people and the federal government. Over the past year and a half, the Trump administration has abrogated that contract many times over. Those offenses are strikingly similar to the American colonists’ complaints against Britain in the 1776 Declaration of Independence.”

Much as that original declaration, the writers spend much of the article documenting those abuses. Among them:

Prosecuting peaceful protestors against ICE in Spokane, Illegally withholding federal money budgeted for the region to support clean energy and scientific research, among other items, even as Oregon and Washington send $36 billion more to the federal government than is returned to them, Gutting the Forest Service while planning on logging a billion board feet from regional forests, Illegally imposing tariffs that have cost the region $4 billion Having the U.S. Postal Service undermine vote-by-mail systems, which were pioneered in Oregon and Washington.

Prosecuting peaceful protestors against ICE in Spokane,

Illegally withholding federal money budgeted for the region to support clean energy and scientific research, among other items, even as Oregon and Washington send $36 billion more to the federal government than is returned to them,

Gutting the Forest Service while planning on logging a billion board feet from regional forests,

Illegally imposing tariffs that have cost the region $4 billion

Having the U.S. Postal Service undermine vote-by-mail systems, which were pioneered in Oregon and Washington.

CDA advocates actions to increase regional autonomy, including the creation of state banks and measures for states to withhold federal tax funds if budgeted funds are not restored. Engelson and Alcosar write, “We want good schools, free college tuition, universal health care, affordable housing, and a robust transportation system. Fiscal autonomy would allow Cascadia to achieve those goals.”

Wisely, CDA has limited itself to Oregon and Washington. British Columbia is considered part of Cascadia, but CDA does not want to associate itself in any way with the Trump assault on Canadian national identity. Though if a secession movement picking up steam in Alberta succeeds, all bets are off. Parts of Northern California are also mapped as Cascadia. But Engleson and CDA are do not support the idea of a Pacifica encompassing all three states out of concern for being absorbed in a state with more than three times the population and its own complex politics.

Three critical questions

Cascadia is a political trendsetter, so what happens here has ramifications far beyond the bioregion. The fact that an independence movement is being boldly forwarded could be a harbinger for the U.S. as a whole. To this point, Texas has had the most active movement for secession from the U.S. It has come from the right. California has an independence movement from the left. Both root in brief histories as independent nations. Cascadia adds to the mix with a movement linking states around a bioregional identity. Its emergence signals a belief that the political system of the U.S. is beyond repair.

The CDA site makes the case. “We are in an authoritarian crisis. The Trump administration has repeatedly demonstrated its contempt for the US constitution by ignoring court rulings, weaponizing the Justice Department against its critics, and kidnapping immigrants without due process, sending them to a brutal foreign prison in a country ruled by a dictator . . . we now realize that the US constitution is a deeply flawed document that has failed to provide the safeguards necessary to protect us from a new tyrant. . . Donald Trump . . . We believe the system of government in the United States is so broken that it cannot bring about the major reforms........

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