Brandon Letsinger
sasquatch of bioregion - department of bioregion
resident in: Seattle
Cascadian Since: 2004
Pronouns: he / him
Diplomat Bio:
I am the founding director of the Cascadia Department of Bioregion.
Cascadia is an idea and ethic that has inspired me since I was a community college student in 2004. I fall in love with the idea the more I learn, challenge and connect with bioregionalism and the creative community of people making it happen.
Over the years, I have been a part of or launched many different Cascadia organizations, groups and projects. This includes founding CascadiaNow! in 2004, being on the board for the first Cascadia Poetry Festival at Seattle University, launching Rainingman (now Convergence), partnering with Cascadia NW festival, founding Yes Cascadia and the Cascadia Underground, and helping the Cascadia Association Football Federation send a 31-person team to London for the CONIFA World Cup. My work has been featured in Time Magazine, Vice, USA Today, the Atlantic Monthly, NPR, the BBC, National Journal, Wall Street Journal, Business Insider, Canadian Broadcasting as well as a host of local newspapers and radios segments.
With the Department of Bioregion, I am excited to bring that work home and to turn my knowledge into resources and networks for direct, actionable change.
Why my work with Cascadia is important:
Cascadia and bioregionalism are one of the most powerful, yet least understood organizing philosophies for our world today. It is relevant for every person, organizer and movement, regardless of background or political belief. Through the Department of Bioregion, I am creating new resources and educating about this powerful philosophy, defining its principles and the values for which it stands, and seeding a network of bioregional organizers and movements within Cascadia and around the world.
We can do better in our world today.
Our planet - for the sake of the people and environments living on it - needs rapid & radical change. Current movements and leaders are failing us; attempted solutions are too often enmeshed within the colonial framework of the nation state, the mental borders of capital, or reacting on a case-by-case basis.
I am tired of seeing great ideas and great organizers split and fragmented by issue, background, belief or ability - each responding and working within a reality that has pre-established their failure. I am tired of watching great ideas fail not because it was a bad idea, but because they didn’t have the tools they needed to succeed. If we want real change, we must be visionary in our approach, build real systems of community and aid, and be brave enough to demand the future we need.
An independent, democratic and autonomous Cascadia is what we need. A place where people aren’t dying on street corners, losing their house because of medical bills, or indenturing themselves for decades because they choose to go to school; where policy is based on science and fact, and where we don’t cut down old growth rain forests or drive the last of our fish and wild animals to extinction; where government is democratic, transparent and accountable for its actions; where we treat each other with compassion, respect and understanding; where we work to make the world a little better and right the wrongs of the past.
Something better is possible. Cascadian bioregionalism inspires each of us to challenge the status quo, envision something different and act on what could be.
What is the world that you would want to live in if all reality were stripped away? Whether or not it’s accomplished in our lifetimes, I am excited to work with each of you to make your visions, your dreams, a reality, and to build an amazing, multi-generational movement toward Cascadia.
Contact Me
Do you have a question or a comment for me? Feel free to reach out below. Thank you!
