Sloughing The Yesteryear Grinches

I had an interesting dialog on Onward Oregon's forums:

Klahowya (hello) Everyone,


My name is Collin Ferguson and I am with a new non-profit called Cascadia Commons. We are working towards a new and innovative approach to building a progressive movement in the Pacific Northwest, and that is ending the duplication of efforts amongst community service and charitable organizations in Cascadia. Cascadia Commons is forming what is called an "umbrella organization" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umbrella_organization) dedicated to bioregional sustainability. Our website is brand new, so it does not have all the necessary information, nevertheless, I encourage you to make regular visits as our organization matures (http://www.cascadiacommons.org).

The idea is to gather progressive organizations from Oregon, Washington, Idaho, British Columbia, and Alaska, and areas within the bioregion in the states of Montana, Wyoming, Utah, Nevada, and Northern California, then bring all these organizations to one table, discuss strategies, and share financial and volunteer resources. The philosophy we adhere to is known as "bioregionalism", which is a very broad topic ranging between environmental efforts to socioeconomic efforts. There is a lot to discuss and like Onward Oregon, we are looking for ideas. We are very interested in working with Onward Oregon, as well as working with several similar organizations in the region.

If we truly want sustainability in our states and in the Pacific Northwest, if we want to mitigate the potential problems of Global Warming, then our efforts must also be efficient. I would like to discuss with all of you how we may best form this collective effort.


Kloshe nanitch (take care and stand guard),

Collin S. Ferguson
Cascadia Commons
Founding Member

to which I replied:

I have thought a lot about Cascadian autonomy lately because I have noticed a lot of good ideas not getting off the ground due to political hurdles thousands of miles away. It occurs to me that a spirit of autonomy could come about regardless of official boundaries and definitions through just the right amount of innovation. The federal government has the prerogative to withhold vital funding unless the centralized policy and ideology is adequately reflected in the constituency. Key to this innovation, however, is the knowledge that many fund raising options are not on the table, even though those fund raising options are themselves leverage to put other things on the table.

For example, how much money could Oregon save and/or raise by:

opting out of the drug war? No reasonable economist can argue with this.

forcing financial transparency on corporations that funnel massive amounts of the local economy into their out-of-state coffers? This gives irrefutable incentive for citizens to divest in the corporate stranglehold and reinvest in community.

supporting a local, digital, debit currency capable of bolstering the integrity of the middle class? This would guard against meaningless market speculation, which is how energy companies are holding the coastlines and Alaska ransom.

rapidly retooling for a carbon-neutral economy using in-state resources? This presents the opportunity to export an entire paradigm!

A lot of this may sound like zany Ron Paul talk but I think it's time to get serious about the abundant possibilities that cannot be ignored as well as opportunities to solve, whole cloth, the problems that came out of the 20th century.

and was responded with:

Gene,

You're on the ball.

Cascadia Commons is a 501 (c) 3, so unlike Onward Oregon, we cannot shape legislation, endorse campaigns or politicians, and we have to take a rather moderate approach to our efforts, i.e. we cannot make any bold political statements. But, this is why we want to have a loose association with a 501 (c) 4, so we can have a left hand and right hand type of movement.

Currently, Cascadia Commons is seeking to form what is called an "Umbrella" or "Coalition" corporation where its members are non-profit organizations. We will also have a general membership, but the emphasis is on 501 (c) 3 corporations joining our cause for bioregional sustainability. This way, we prevent the duplication of efforts and share financial and volunteer resources. Cascadia Commons is also seeking to join a larger umbrella called Community Prosper, which seeks to be a Web 3.0 networking site for Cascadians involved in the bioregional movement. They are partnered with a group called Community Way, which, and you'll be really happy to hear about this Gene, is seeking to establish a community credit trading system in Portland and Cascadia at large. It can be described as a modern bartering system. To learn more, please visit http://www.communityprosper.org. If the site is not up, check back in a couple of days. There will also be a soft beta launch of the Community Way program at the First Unitarian Church in downtown Portland on July 27th, 2008. I encourage all of you to attend.

Now, back to Onward Oregon. I would really love to see Onward Oregon to establish an Onward Cascadia that is a coalition/umbrella 501 (c) 4 corporation representing all other 501 (c) 4's in the bioregion. I have a friend with the Earth Community Alliance (ECA) that might be interested in this process. The ECA is taking an active stance against the LNG pipeline proposal in Oregon, and I am sure many of the members of Onward Oregon are against this effort too. Forming a coalition of political groups in Cascadia would be extremely advantageous, because there is one thing that Cascadia has a lot of, and that is political action groups. There is so much duplication. So much competition for financial and volunteer resources. What if all these political groups were to work together seeking to champion the rights of their localities and the bioregion at large?


Sincerely,

Collin S. Ferguson

P.S. The end goal of course, is to create a model for democracy and sustainability that not only changes the Pacific Northwest, but also changes the United States, Canada, North America, the Earth, the Universe.

So basically we need to defrag the progressive movement in the Pacific Northwest because we know what we're doing and we're damn smart!