Which side are you on?

It's been another terrible week in the United States as ICE continued its assault – no milder term seems adequate – on the city of Minneapolis. There are glimmers of hope after a general strike shut down the Twin Cities, Trump demoted Greg Bovino, the cos-playing CBP fascist, and national outrage has increased after the murders of Renee Good and Alex Pretti. Bruce Springsteen even composed and recorded a protest song about the feds' mayhem in a matter of days.

Another classic protest song, "Which side are you on?" has me thinking about my role as a journalist and activist.

All this chaos in Minnesota is strategic. Attorney general Pam Bondi this week made that clear by offering to remove ICE goons for the ransom of Minnesota turning over unredacted voter rolls to the feds. Earlier this week, a lawsuit by the feds, attempting to gain access to Oregon's voter rolls, was dismissed by U.S. District Judge Mustafa Kasubhai. Finding the courts unreliable, de facto president Stephen Miller and his administration have decided to employ other tactics to get their grubby fingers on lists of Trump's opponents.

It's not the divide spelled out in the protest song, but I'm increasingly finding myself on the other side of the line between those covering news and those making news. This week I found myself on the steps of the legislative building in Olympia, advocating for new taxes on the wealthy. As I stood on the steps, I watched a reporter from KUOW recording the rally, and I myself took some video of rep. Shaun Scott asserting that it's time to fix one of the most regressive tax systems in the US. I was there with a small contingent from a grassroots organization I helped found, Cascadia Democratic Action, that's pushing a legislative agenda in Washington and Oregon that seeks to protect our residents from the Trump administration's relentless cuts and attacks on the Pacific Northwest.

More and more, I'm finding myself in an awkward position of being both an activist and journalist. I recognize that fairness and objectivity have been a longtime gold standard for journalism. And we all know that FOX News and a cadre of right-wing bloggers have shredded that notion. And reporters have always had their bias, and have been forced to pretend they don't hold certain core beliefs. Yet some of the best journalism ever written wasn't "objective."

Edward R. Murrow, the American journalist and radio broadcaster (who was an alum of Washington State University) broadcast vivid live reporting of the Nazi bombings of London in 1940. Murrow wasn't forced to "both sides" the conflict and offer counterpoint from Joseph Goebbels, Hitler's propaganda minister. Murrow was unequivocally on the anti-fascist side but reported with accuracy and grace.

Hunter S. Thompson's gonzo journalism during the during the 1970s was certainly not objective, but it was entertaining and informative and captured the fever dream of America at that time. And the "muckraker" American journalists at the turn of the 19th century, including Ida Tarbell and Upton Sinclair, were clear about their activist intent: holding capitalists accountable and improving living conditions for workers. Portland's own John Reed reported on the Russian Revolution 0f 1917 but was also an activist aligned with the aims of the revolution

All this is to say that as I continue to write this email newsletter, Cascadia Journal, I will also push forward discussions of autonomy and independence for Oregon and Washington. I won't stand on the sidelines nor pretend that I don't have an agenda. Above all, I seek to protect and defend everyone who lives here.

The only thing that makes one a Cascadian is that you live within the borders of the Cascadia bioregion. You can speak Mandarin, or Spanish, or Tagalog. You can be of Makah or Kwakwakaʼwakw or Irish descent. You can be a recent migrant from Texas fleeing anti-trans hatred. You might have a green card or you might be an immigrant without documentation. Everyone who lives here I will defend and protect, and I will advocate for policies that increase their health and safety.

And that includes resisting fascism.

An essay by Mark Lee Hunter & Luk N. Van Wassenhove defines objectivity in journalism today – in an age of authoritarianism and right-wing propaganda posing as news – as being about an objectivity toward the facts, toward reporting what is true. I try to report what is true in this newsletter, and do my best to correct inaccuracy. But it will not be absent of opinion or provide a platform for those attempting to establish an authoritarian regime in the United States (unlike former journalistic pillars like the Washington Post and CBS News, which have been reduced to mouthpieces for Trump's fascist project).

So, you may see me at a protest shouting "Fuck ICE!" And you may sometimes see me with a press badge asking questions and reporting on Cascadia's pushback against the feds. You can choose to read my writing or not, and choose whether to give it financial support or not. I don't feel I can do things differently at this point.

I know which side I'm on.

--Andrew