Cascadia today: Seattle cops get sweet deal + do states have sovereignty? + an interactive theater piece in Portland
Harrell gives Seattle cops get a sweet contract
PubliCola reports that the city of Seattle and the union representing police officers, SPOG, agreed to a new contract through 2027 that gives officers a 42% pay raise over five years, bringing police officers' base salary to $126,000. The contract apparently does lower the standards for finding an officer guilty of misconduct, allows investigators to look into a broader range of issues, and simplifies deadlines for investigations – but offers few other accountability measures.
Meanwhile, Katie Wilson, who's running for Seattle mayor, can barely afford to live in the city on her earnings of $73,000 per year as a transit and affordability activist, KUOW reports.
Guard deployments raise sovereignty concerns
Washington State Standard published an article looking at how Trump's efforts to federalize and deploy state National Guard troops is reshaping notions of state sovereignty and resurfacing concerns the creators of the US constitution had about states keeping military forces and using them to invade other states.
"It’s really like, you know, a little bit like invading another country."
– Claire Finkelstein, professor at the University of Pennsylvania
Thankfully, governor Bob Ferguson was proactive for once, and passed a bill in the last session that prevents military forces of other states from entering Washington.
Cascadia needs to continue to assert its sovereign rights to protect and serve the residents of Oregon and Washington – and if the feds continue to threaten us and withhold funding already allocated by Congress then the two states need to collectively take steps toward autonomy or outright independence.
US Dept of Warfighting™ buys stake in BC mining company
The Tyee has quite a story on how the US Department of Defense (referred to in Cascadia Journal's style guide as the US Department of Warfighting™) has bought a 10 percent stake in the Vancouver-based private company Trilogy Metals for $35 million. It's apparently a move for the US government to lock up access to rare earth metals, such as lithium, critical to producing military jet fighters, armaments, and other Ass-Unloading and Civilian-Killing implements of destruction.
An interactive theater piece about surveillance
The Portland Mercury has a review of what sounds like a fascinating interactive theater piece put on by the group Shaking the Tree called Dancing the Sabbath. It's based on a tale by the Brothers Grimm, and involves the audience in the plot, in which twelve princesses are watched and potentially punished by a mysterious Center of Compliance. Sounds appropriate for the times. Dancing the Sabbath shows in Portland until Nov 8.
