Cascadia today: Seattle police chief is fired + OR on pace for worst wildfire season + poetry by Marc-Anthony Valle
Can I ask you a favor? As wildfires burn across Oregon, Washington, and British Columbia and air quality drops across the region, the organization I'm working with on Cascadia autonomy, Cascadia Democratic Action, is conducting a drive for bottled water and N-95 masks for people who don't have a choice about staying indoors, whether it's those without shelter, or farm workers harvesting our food in central Oregon and Washington. Please donate funds via CDA's Ko-Fi or stop by Cal Anderson park to donate from noon to 4 pm Saturday, Aug 1.
Sources say Seattle police chief has been fired
PubliCola reports that multiple sources within Seattle city government say mayor Katie Wilson has fired police chief Shon Barnes. Barnes is at the center of a quickly spiraling controversy about his time away from Seattle, which came to light after Erica Barnett broke the news that Barnes was out of town and planned to be through mid-August at the time of this week's mass shooting in Seattle Center. PubliCola also found that Barnes, already this year has spent at least 47 days in Chicago, where his family still resides. Barnes had a heated confrontation with South Seattle Emerald reporter Conor Nash after the Nash asked him questions about his frequent absences from the city.
In related news, at the South Seattle Emerald, Marcus Harrison Green writes passionately about gun violence in Seattle, which didn't start with the mass shooting Seattle Center, but has been impacting the lives of Black families and youth in places ignored by the media for years. Even though violent crime is down in the city, we've done little to get behind real solutions that get results: not more cops, surveillance, and security but good schools, good jobs, and a sense of meaning and purpose.
"If you are only capable of outrage when the blood spills in Lower Queen Anne, your outrage was never about the blood. It was about which neighborhood is forced to watch it senselessly spilled."
– Marcus Harrison Green
OR on track for worst wildfire season
OPB reports that Oregon is on pace for the worst wildfire season on record after one million acres have already burned in late July. Thirty-four fires are currently burning, including many near Bend and massive fires crossing the Idaho border. Idaho governor Brad Little declared a wildfire disaster emergency and activated the National Guard to help with containing the 300,000-acre Big Grass fire burning in both Idaho and Oregon. Boise is facing unhealthy levels of smoke, with an air quality index (AQI) of 200.
Because it's a red state that generally votes Republican, Idaho will likely receive abundant disaster aid, unlike New Jersey, New York, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island – which are blue states and as Politico reported yesterday, after analyzing internal FEMA documents – did not receive requested disaster relief because Donald Trump personally overrode FEMA's advice to issue the aid.
This regime will do nothing to help Cascadia, and as David Roberts said yesterday in response to the FEMA news, "The whole Cascadia thing is starting to seem less like a fantasy and more like a necessity."
Outrage in Salem over secret city deal to build data center
Salem Reporter looks at an emotional community meeting in which hundreds of Salem, Oregon residents expressed outrage over the city of Salem signing a non-disclosure agreement with a company that is seeking to build a $5 billion data center on 75 acres of state-owned property. In response, the Salem city council voted to establish a task force on data centers and a study to explore banning NDAs associated with data centers. One passionate speaker was Hannah Shooting Bear, who is Sioux and founder of the Salem-based organization Indigenous Now:
Raider
Unions a growing part of Eugene's anti-war movement
Eugene Weekly looks at how unions are increasingly a part of opposition to the US war in Iran and Israel's war in Palestine. The Springfield Education Association, the Teamsters, SEIU Local 085, and others have teamed up with Veterans for Peace to organize rallies and generate opposition to the war in Eugene as well as a bloated $1.1 trillion military budget.
Poetry by Marc-Anthony Valle
Poetry Northwest has a poem online by Cascadia-raised poet Marc-Anthony Valle, [His Features Unfold in Front of Me], a beautiful pastoral in remembrance of his father, and the gritty details of dealing with ashes as well as observing deer in the wild. Read it online:
Marc-Anthony Valle
Thanks for reading. Keep loving and keep fighting. --Andy
