Seattle Embassy - Meeting Notes - November 7, 2019

Date: 11.7.2019

Attendees: Trevor, Brandon, Wesley, Jay, Uriah, Matthew, Alex (Remote), Aaron (Remote), Claire, David (FB thread)

Meeting Leader: Trevor

Klahowya! Tillicum: friends, people, folx. When Chinook was spoken more widely, it was sometimes pluralized, but this is incorrect. It is already a plural word so does not need an “s” on the end (like “fish”).

Wouldn’t It Be Skookum If…?

• Trevor: If “Flag Day” was co-opt’d by Cascadians as a Doug Flag day

• Brandon: If we had a 15-20 min presentation that had a synopsis of the DOB

• Wesley: If we recognized tribal treaties

• Matthew: If we had a ski club

• Uriah: If we had vertical gardens downtown

• Claire: If everybody had a safe place to lay their head to rest; what if we raffled off a tiny house to a person in need of a home

• Jay: If we Cascadian communion! (and other ritualistic behaviors that are fun to plug in with, create shared language and actions, plug people in with each other at events and meetings)

• Aaron: If we had more representation of people north of the 49th at Cascadian events (Canadians/Alaskans)

• Alex: If the Doug Flag was known more as Cascadian and less with sports association

Things to do today:

• List of Indigenous groups and First Nations within Cascadia

  • Thanks to Matthew for an awesome starter list of Cascadian First Nations!

  • Information on BC First Peoples’ groups and mapping: http://www.fpcc.ca/ and interactive map: https://maps.fpcc.ca/

• Cascadian voting results report back (Note: all data is not in yet for WA/OR)

  • Jay - OR, Brandon - BC, Uriah - WA

• Fleshing out new bioregional/movement pages on the DOB website

  • Alex (currently working on multiple pages)

  • Wesley: filling in relevant information on existing pages based on interactions/interviews from this week with First Nations persons

    • Part of a larger project of Indigenous perspectives on de-colonization

  • Claire: Helping with editing on the website

• Aaron: working on social justice lens

• Outstanding diplomat onboarding with Trevor

Politics / Political Outreach:

• Pro-Cascadian people have been voted in (final vote count pending) locally that are friendly to us. TASK: follow up on these leads

  • Note: one of them took a PAC :(

• Political outreach advice: research the candidate and see what their few key issues are (Wes). Running topical campaigns can also be effective (network activation rather than singular person engagement - such as lobbying day).

• Importance of finding pan-Cascadian political issues (includes Canadian Cascadians!). What should we focus on?

  • Trevor: pipeline impact

  • Brandon: Gov’t accountability, increase access to governance, anti-corruption and money-out-of-politics movements, real food into schools/gov’t buildings

  • Wes: Something win-able and that can be mobilized

  • Uriah: Environmental issues / climate initiatives, partnering with NOAA

  • Matthew: What about the anti-BLM people? Land management in general?

Summary: Pre-meeting Call with Brett Pike (California National Party, aka the CNP)

• About: how CNP got to the legislature of California

  • Real value in making Senators look smart when they are int heir own meetings

    • They don’t have a lot of time to get data and information that supports their ideas about how they are going to vote

    • BIG TAKE AWAY Finding sympathetic legislators and provide them with information that they can use in meetings, as soundbites. They will use it!

  • Note: CNP did not focus on independence - instead focused on being a 3rd-party political party with political impact (progressive policies in line with the CNP platform)

    • Climate change and growth density strategies (zoning, rent control)

  • ADDITIONAL TAKE AWAY: Easy guide/info about the CNP so it can be easily understood (show they are not crazy, sympathetic views) - can also be done in video form

    • What separates us from the general democratic party? Independence and autonomy as our niche

  • Reaching younger generations through YouTube - we are already moving in this direction (Claire)

  • GROUP FEEDBACK:

    • Good idea to identify bills that support our views, then finding support with supporters of those initiatives and find support from the inside (finding allies in this way rather than cold-email)

      • Face-to-face: is it a doomed strategy?

      • How do we grow solidarity without being divisive?

      • Will there be people who are pro-independence that aren’t willing to say it out loud? What does that mean and how do we handle it?