Cascadia

Back in the 1970's, when LA was stealing our water and insane Liberalism was at its peak with that wacko Moonbeam Brown trying to force through a Periferal Canal and kill all the salmon just so LA could have green lawns because they had more population and more dead to vote in the elections, back then, there was serious talk of voting to split California into the North and South at the Grapevine and Mohave desert. It would have legally cutoff LA's water, ending the "negotiated by pointed guns" water rights contracts. It would have been a real nightmare for the Federales in DC, so they nixed it. The thing is, the sentiment remains. When people are most angry, they draw the line further north, cutting off Sacramento and the Bay Area into the South and making NorCal that much smaller, with my home town the largest remaining city in the new state. As its only got 130,000 people that's not much. But Alta California (as some wanted to call the Northern portion) was only part of the picture.

Cascade is named for the Cascade mountains, which run from the Mohawk Fault (Feather river in California) all the way to the Rockies in British Columbia. This name is also used to designate the Cascadia Subduction Complex, which is where the Juan De Fuca plate slides under the North American Plate from the Triple Junction near Petrolia all the way to the Vancouver Island in British Columbia. This complex provides the source of the lava for the volcanoes and the super-quakes that have caused some big tsunamis, including the 10 pointer in January of 1700 that destroyed coastal towns in Japan.

Cascadia as a rational fair trade group is a more international deal than NAFTA, but specific to the north Pacific. Done right, Cascadia would be the wet part of California, Oregon, Idaho, Washington (state), British Columbia (itching to escape French-Canada since BC speaks english), the Yukon, and Alaska. It would also offer some trade with Baja Mexico and Southern California/LA via ship, and Nevada and probably Montana and Wyoming via train. It would tarriff trade with the rest of the USA, but offer tit-for-tat deals based on fair trade and free trade agreements, particularly with the rest of the Pacific Rim, which is easier for us to deal with than the rest of the USA. We're 10 days by containership from Japan and 12 from China, for example. Something like that. Rail across the USA takes just as long, longer for freight. Cascadia is openly hostile towards DC taxation, since we don't get the benefit from it. For every dollar we send East, we get only 60 cents back. That's a well known fact. And its very irritating, since the East openly mocks us for paying. They are parasites. We are better off without them.

Would Cascadia work as a country? Well, yes. It has within its state borders significant agriculture, hydroelectric capacity, irrigation, refineries, some oil supply, steel mills, shipyards, military bases, gun makers, armor makers, machine shops, welding, ports, ferries, roads, railyards, railroads, computer companies, biotechs, dairies, slaughterhouses, even junkfood bakeries, brewers, canneries and all that stuff you need for modern civilization is made here. We even make cars. We don't NEED the east, or the MidWest to be honest. We don't mind the MidWest, but we don't need them. Garrison Keillor can GFH along with PBS pledge month. Shipping costs and delays cross country are enough to justify making it here, and we have been for over a century. What do we need you Easterners for?

If Cascadia formed, that would be it for the extorted tax dollars of 50 million people and that extra 40% they steal from us to subsidize their Eastern Interests and their annual hurricane rebuilding sprees on the Eastern shore and Florida. Federal dollars weren't rebuilding California when we had our big quakes. They just laughed on national TV, then pretended to be repentant. 99% of Easterners make the rest look bad.

If we declined further participation if the multilevel marketing scheme that is the root of American "capitalism" (Fascism: state supported capitalism), we'd stop paying for that. The NYC childishness would be off our TV. If you want to live in New York: go there. With our blessing. Just don't come back. We don't want you. New York is a playground for a certain kind of sociopath, breeding worse sociopaths. We have enough trouble with our Hollywood psychos and the lunatics prancing around with their vaporware claims in the Bay Area, called Venture Capitalists or CEOs. We don't need yours telling us, in the West, how to live. We are a different country. And that's the crux of the division, beyond the obvious continent between us.

Cascadia is built on very different values. Less destructive and divisive, more constructive and practical without being mean. That's possible here because the only resources we fight over are land and water, and there's a lot of land. If we form our own country, that missing 40% could go to those century-scale public works projects so we'd have more water, opening up more land for our use. Like the Columbia River Canal into Oregon and Nevada. Refill Lake Lahontan. Reno is already turning into a Ghost Town. More than half empty. It's a glorified truck stop. Eventually it won't even be that. Peak Oil kinda ruins the place. The big Lake Lahontan project would flood a fair bit of Nevada, but it would also cause a real estate boom and would make for great fishing. I'm in favor of that. Run a railroad around the rim, some bridges, its still passable, but it would be wonderful for houseboats and bass fishing and lake trout. 8500 square miles, and 900 feet deep at its deepest point in Pyrimid Lake, 500 feet deep at Black Rock Lake, where they hold Burning Man every summer. I'm pretty sure they'd either move it or build a raft for the festival.

Cascadia, keeping its OWN taxes, could build electric passenger and freight rail, powered by solar. Our roads would be better because we wouldn't be skimming it past the low bidder so evil fat cats got big mansions in Virginia. Haven't you wondered why the roads are crap here? There you go. Our hospitals could have their legal requirements changed so we weren't serving the illegals who walk out without paying, which ended up killing taxpayers after the emergency rooms bankrupted and closed, leaving heart attack victims too far from hospitals to arrive before dying. Many people in SoCal are really ANGRY about that, btw. Many fled SoCal for that specific reason. The hospital law had unintended consequences of increasing racism. Thank you Federales! You suck.

I would like to see DC deal with its troubles without my taxes to bail them out every year. They do nothing for us, here in the West. They're more like the British. If its unfair, add another law so its more unfair. We're more like Pioneers: solve the problem, move on. They want to be how they are, fine. Stop pointing a gun at me and demanding 40% of my wages. I would laugh my a55 off if the Governor made it law that only state authorized agencies can demand taxes, and then refused to authorize the IRS agents in that capacity. It would then be a reportable crime if the IRS demanded money from you. Neatly cutting them off.

Naturally, this would mean we'd lose those few matching funds, which mostly impacts "federal programs" which are for roads, military, and useless eaters. As I'm in favor of full employment, cutting off the useless eaters is a major win. Have to offer a carrot, but the stick is "no work, no eat".

If the State shifts funds to the roads, they stay paved, a bit longer. Pavement is a luxury we can't afford much longer anyway. The East is going to stop funding our road repairs soon anyway.

America is a Cult. It has cult behaviors: fanaticism, misplaced loyalty, strong hateful division, violent political disputes, and unresolved tensions. This is not healthy, and could lead to violence. I don't want that. Revolutions always kill the good people first, and the result is generations of hatred and violence. The only healthy solution to a cult is to leave. Think of it as a divorce from a codependent drug addicted Spouse, an abusive spouse we'll call Debra Caine (DC). She got really fat after the marriage and we're much too handsome to stay with her when all she does is eat bon-bons and sit on the couch watching soap operas and complaining about how the house is dirty and why can't we afford a nice Mexican maid? It's exhausting supporting the useless fleshbag.

Cascadia is standing up for ourselves. Its saying goodbye to the bad ex-wife. Its ending this biased arrangement before it kills us. We don't have to sink with the ship. Cults either implode or explode, and the wars around the world suggest its exploded. The current president thinks starting more wars is a good way to avoid any domestic examination of his failures. Of how little he's accomplished. The Russians warned the FBI about the Chechen bombers in Boston. Twice. The Obama Administration shut down the inquiry. Said it wasn't important. Does that Administration deserve further respect? I say no. Time to split. Politely but effectively split.