Limited Time Only Act now to own your piece of the Pacific Ocean off the Mendocino Coast

Yes, folks, act now! Your friends at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) will give you piece of the Pacific Ocean. All you have to do is file an application to reserve your piece of the ocean. Chevron and PG&E have filed applications creating potential rights that constitute a claim over the ocean surface, similar to staking a mining claim. If they "mine" these "claims," the necessary structures would occupy the surface to the exclusion of others, including whales.

The California Energy Commission web site has some information on wave energy leading one to believe that this State Commission might be involved.  But Bob Aldrich of the California Energy Commission's Media and Public Communications Office stated: "We do not have any “experts” to speak of on wave energy at the Commission. I wrote the page, which was created based on information from a number of places." He also reflected a naive view: "You may also need Coastal Commission approval for such a wave energy device.

In fact, the filings are with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, the people who allowed California to be ripped off by energy companies a few years ago. Thus the claims are likely to be outside the regulatory scope of State of California agencies such as the Coastal Commission. Legal challenges would inevitably end up in the Bush Supreme Court which has already established its sympathies against state regulation.

PG&E is seeking to have two 40-megawatt wave farms up and running off the state's north coasts within a few years, according to documents it has filed with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, or FERC.

The Mendocino County wave farm will be located off Fort Bragg in open ocean a half mile to 4.5 miles offshore. A 68-square-mile area will be assessed. PG&E essentially will turn the zone into a wave-energy testing ground, spending up to $3 million to try out various technologies from up to four manufacturers. "A number of different device concepts are being pursued by independent device manufacturers, and there is no industry consensus at this time on the optimal energy conversion technology," PG&E execs wrote in an application for a preliminary permit for the project. "The initial ... devices to be used will be selected from device manufacturers who have sufficiently mature technologies available for deployment."

On July 2, Chevron California Renewable Energy, Inc. filed a preliminary permit application with the FERC. The Town of Mendocino would be dead center in the claim area, although wave energy plants are not normally visible from shore. It would avoid the Van Damme State Marine Area. The large study area is framed in order to locate a smaller project area. That larger area is a rectangle that runs from three miles offshore to less than a mile from shore, from Point Cabrillo to a spot halfway between the mouth of Little River and Albion.

Like PG&E, Chevron plans to evaluate alternative designs and locations of wave energy conversion devices.

"These devices would be combined in arrays for demonstration scale or commercial scale power production," Chevron said in a July 5 letter to local government agencies.

Wave energy technology is moving from the idea stage to the practical at breakneck speed.

Chevron's proposal is nearly identical to PG&E's, including a competition among manufacturers and technologies, which could make the Mendocino Coast the world's leading spot for wave energy research, at least as the world stands now. Wave energy plants proposed all over the world generally come with a single technology.

PG&E is in preliminary discussions with Ocean Power Technologies of New Jersey, the U.K's Ocean Power Delivery and Ireland's Finavera Renewables. While wave energy technologies vary, they essentially involve a device that floats on the ocean's surface and that harnesses the power produced by the surf to drive a turbine that generates greenhouse gas-free electricity. PG&E will deploy multiple wave-energy devices in an array moored to the ocean's floor and connected to the shore by a transmission cable.

Chevron, however, has picked a company and a technology to start with The Pelamis which resembles a chain of bobbing giant redwood trees or wriggling giant sea serpents. Waves jostle the links between Pelamis sections, pushing hydraulic rams to provide the energy.

Chevron estimates the power range from a tiny 2 megawatts to 60 megawatts, about twice as much as needed to power the entire coast. The PG&E plan hopes for 40 megawatts.

Chevron is making substantial investments in alternative energy. Although the Chevron company has California in its name, all the mailing addresses are in Houston, Texas.

Chevron would connect the power via undersea cable to an unnamed PG&E substation. Chevron promises public meetings and "extensive public process."

On August 14, 2006, Roger Bedard, Ocean Energy Leader, Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI), gave a presentation to the Fort Bragg City Council about the benefits of wave energy which, according to minutes of the meeting, included the following points:

• Wave energy is clean with no pollution or emission of greenhouse gases.
• It is a sustainable and renewable source with high power density and creates working class jobs.
• This new technology, with proper maintenance, will be one of the most benign energy-producing technologies around.
• He described three of the dozens of different types wave energy devices made today.
• Fort Bragg is considered a possible site for wave energy because it has the infrastructure: an outflow pipe from the former mill site with an easement; a PG&E substation nearby on Walnut
Street; and a harbor with machine shops and docks that could possibly provide device deployment.
• Other fishing communities have formed a port liaison project where engineers and scientists get together with fishermen and crabbers and come up with a solution for the greater good.
• National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) reimburses fishermen for their time spent on the project.
• Hal LaFlash, Director Renewable Energy Policy & Planning, PG&E, stated that PG&E is working toward 20% renewable energy by 2010.

The minutes of that meeting show some signs of discussion:

The following was noted in response to question from the public:
• The effect of tsunamis is very small as the devices are located about three miles offshore.
• The Coast Guard, which must approve installation of the plant, has rules about beacons,
transponders and lights. Wave machines are also indicated on their charts.
• Wave energy devices are modular and installed in small increments. If there are no unforeseen effects, another modular can be installed.
• Typically waves that reach the shore are reduced by 10%.
• Ocean Beach was not a viable site because it would have been very costly to upgrade power from the west side of San Francisco to the east.
• Three California communities – Morro Bay, Eureka, and Fort Bragg will be considered as potential sites September 20, by PG&E, the California Energy Commission, and the Public Energy Commission.
• It costs $100 million to $150 million to build a plant which employs about 30 people full time. Independent developers invest in wave energy plants.
• Government subsidizes the first plants to get the market going. Production tax credits are offered.
• There is no history on how long units last because the technology is so new; however, they are designed to last 20 years.
• The mooring is similar to mooring a ship with anchors, clump weights, and cables.
• LaFlash added that PG&E has an open solicitation for renewable energy.
• The on-shore facility might be at PG&E’s Walnut Street site depending on voltage.

The following was noted by Council during discussion of this item:
• Councilmember Melo suggested that research be done on the Fort Bragg Local Coastal Plan, in particular Environmentally Sensitive Habitat Area restrictions. The easement for the wastewater treatment plant goes out 600’. He believes that outfall was blasted into the bedrock, not buried in sediments. He stated that he supports finding out more about this.
• Councilmember Hammerstrom said that he appreciates the depths of answers from Bedard and the fact that he also admits when he does not know the answer. He asked if the site could be relocated from time to time to distribute its effects. Bedard replied that it could be done, but there would be cost impacts. It would have to be a really good reason to move it.

The President and CEO EPRI is Steven R. Specker, a PhD in nuclear engineering, whose primary work background was with General Electric's nuclear power division. The company's Strategic Vision is described on its web site as follows:

The Electricity Technology Roadmap initiative began in 1997. Although spearheaded by EPRI, over 200 organizations contributed to the framing of this vision and the development of an initial report in 1999. It was organized around five Destinations that are critical milestones on the path toward achieving a sustainable global energy economy by 2050. The five Destinations are:
(1) Strengthening the Power Delivery Infrastructure
(2) Enabling the Digital Society
(3) Boosting Economic Productivity and Prosperity
(4) Resolving the Energy/Environment Conflict
(5) Managing the Global Sustainability Challenge

One of its related reports is entitled Limiting Challenges Report #12: Ecological Asset Management which in its Preface contains the following paragraphs:

Eco-asset management harnesses market forces to preserve, enhance, restore, and create the natural capital life itself depends upon. In this report, eco-asset management is described within the context of the societal objectives defined by the Electricity Technology Roadmap, a collaborative exploration of the future of the global electricity enterprise. Eco-asset management is characterized as a market-based approach with promise for maximizing the productivity of natural resources to promote economic vitality, protect environmental and public health, improve the human condition, and accelerate global progress toward a sustainable future.

For companies in the energy, agriculture, mining, timber, real estate, land management, and other resource-based sectors, eco-asset management oilers significant opportunities for increasing revenues, reducing compliance costs, eliminating liabilities, and managing risks. Improving environmental quality, protecting public health, and demonstrating corporate citizenship represent additional—and substantial—benefits. For government agencies and other stakeholders, market-based approaches promise solutions for achieving environmental goals more efficiently and at lower cost, as well as for addressing complex challenges such as climate change, water shortages, and biodiversity loss.

The Institution of Engineering and Technology, a British research organization, noted the following about wave energy in a "fact file" publication entitled Environmental Effects of Electricity Generation: Renewable Sources:

Wave Energy

There are, basically, two types of wave energy device. The first utilises the essentially up and down movement of the sea’s surface and is usually located well away from a shore-line where the average power of some 50kW per metre of wave front. The other type utilises the action of the waves on the sea-shore. Clearly, which of these devices is used has a considerable effect on the type of environmental impact of wave technology.

Off-shore devices have received the most attention in the UK and will therefore be considered first. As wave energy devices extract energy from motion, the water surface behind the device is essentially calm. There is, therefore, a reduction in the sea’s action on the seashore, and hence an effect on its ecology. How effective this change is depends on how far offshore the device is moored and how long it is. The devices themselves could be a navigation hazard, particularly if they broke their anchors. Seals and predatory sea birds may also be attracted to the devices. Although the actual method of energy extraction, the conversion of this energy into electricity, and its subsequent transmission to population centres have not been agreed, it is already clear that the cabling ashore and the siting of transmission facilities, in what would generally be areas of high scenic value, would cause the greatest environmental concern about potential wave energy exploitation. The impact of transmission facilities is, in fact, common to many types of renewable energy sources.

What hasn't been discussed is that the Mendocino County proposals would place electrical generation and transmission facilities electromagnetic fields in or near the Pacific Coast whale migration routes. It would likely take a decade after full installation to know the real effects.

Are we really ready to do this? If you are and want to get in on the action, you'd better hurry as FERC is likely to fast track these applications to approval before 2009 when a new President takes office.

OUR WEBSITE

Originally Posted in the Redwood Guardian

Welcome to the Pacific Progressive Message

Our Core Message

The core Progressive Pacific Message is that individual freedom is bound to one's personal responsibility to assure equitable communities. The ongoing mission is:

As knowledge and technology evolve in the 21st Century, the day-to-day customs and practices of individuals, their organizations, and their governments should be adjusted to assure the creation and maintenance of equitable communities which permit every person the opportunity to pursue personal productive goals while sharing with all other humans equality in personal dignity and human rights while enjoying freedom with responsibility.

"Progressive" in the 21st Century does not mean any "liberal" or "socialist" or "leftist" or "rightist" or "populist" ideology. It means addressing, through individual action and public policy, significant inequities resulting from prejudice, industrialization, urbanization, and corruption much as it did beginning in the late 19th Century and early 20th Centuries. Solutions to the problems were, and are, to be addressed in a balanced, pragmatic approach not dependent upon ideology.

Perhaps no mid-20th Century Progressive worked harder to achieve the ideal of securing human rights than "The First Lady of the World" Eleanor Roosevelt.

After the end of WWII she led the international process that resulted in the adoption of The Universal Declaration of Human Rights in December 1948. At the time of her death on November 7, 1962, she was the first Chair of the Presidential Commission on the Status of Women.

It is time for Progressives to pick up her sword-of-persuasion to defend Progressive policies in the Progressive Pacific States of Hawaii, Washington, Oregon, and California.

Also, it is time for Progressives to pick up her sword-of-persuasion to restore Progressive polices within all the states of these United States.

The 70-Year Systematic Destruction of American Progressivism

Beginning in the U.S. in 1947, a political movement that in 2016 most Americans had never heard of - the Neoliberal movement - sustained by billionaires such as the Koch Brothers, began the task of displacing the Progressive message established by Republican President Teddy Roosevelt. Neoliberals have successfully ended “trust-busting,” the breaking up of large corporations that had controlled prices and prevented competition.

They succeeded in displacing the Progressive message advocated by Democratic Presidents Franklin Roosevelt, Lyndon Johnson, and Jimmy Carter by eliminating or reducing the impact of fair trade and pro-worker laws and by minimizing the economic safety-net programs.

As the result, they restored late-19th Century income inequality in the United States. After their  beginnings in 1947 it took American Neoliberals 70 years to solidify the map below, though as we explain elsewhere it was a surprisingly short 33 years after 1947 when we elected an avowed admirer of Neoliberalism to the Presidency in 1980.

Progressives now must be willing to commit to a similar effort. That won't be easy. As you might note, the map above does not use the terms "Republican" and "Democrat" but rather "Neoliberal" and "Third Way." The reason for this is simple. While American Neoliberals such as the Koch brothers have been able to gain an ideological dominance in the Republican party, they have also established an ideological beachhead in the Democratic Party.

In 1992 Democrat Bill Clinton was elected President ushering in the era of Third Way Democrats and ushering out of the Democratic Party power structure true Progressives. As explained in Wikipedia:

    In politics, the Third Way is a position akin to centrism that tries to reconcile right-wing and left-wing politics by advocating a varying synthesis of right-wing economics and left-wing social policies. The Third Way was created as a serious re-evaluation of political policies within various centre-left progressive movements in response to international doubt regarding the economic viability of the state; economic interventionist policies that had previously been popularized by Keynesianism and contrasted with the corresponding rise of popularity for economic liberalism and the New Right.
    ..."Third Way" presidents "undermine the opposition by borrowing policies from it in an effort to seize the middle and with it to achieve political dominance."
    ...The Third Way think tank and the Democratic Leadership Council are adherents of Third Way politics.

This was partly the result of the realization by some Democratic intellectuals that their party was losing ground because the core message of Progressivism is that "individual freedom is bound to one's personal responsibility to assure equitable communities." And if Bill Clinton is anything, he is an intellectual deliberately shrouded by using his childhood poverty.

Which brings us to the ironic problem of the successful attack on "intellectuals" being expanded by American Neoliberals who, focused on their narrow goal of unleashing unfettered capitalism, set out to create a distrust of science and particularly to discredit the climate science advocated by Al Gore.

The late George Wallace, Alabama Governor and 1968 Presidential candidate pictured at the left,  gained notoriety for tapping into an anti-intellectual bias that many politicians have used (though the quote shown is somewhat inaccurate as he said: "Pointy-head college professors who can't even park a bicycle straight ....").

That anti-intellectual bias, particularly when coupled with racial prejudice and/or class distrust,  makes it is difficult to explain to far too many Americans the complex history that created the 21st Century United States. It is that history which resulted in a significant cultural divide between the Pacific States and the 33 Neoliberal controlled states shown on the map above.

The crisis is that the American "anti-intellectual class" bias based on perceived snobbery has been used by politicians representing corporate interests to create an "anti-science" bias. Unfortunately, the problem lies in the definition of "science."

As explained by Wikipedia (emphasis added):

Contemporary science is typically subdivided into the natural sciences which study the material world, the social sciences which study people and societies, and the formal sciences like mathematics. Disciplines which use science like engineering and medicine may also be considered to be applied sciences.

With this understanding, we can then see the potential problem of the "intellectual." Per Wikipedia (emphasis added):

An intellectual is a person who engages in critical thinking, research, and reflection about society and proposes solutions for its normative problems.

As further explained by Wikipedia:

Normative generally means relating to an evaluative standard. Normativity is the phenomenon in human societies of designating some actions or outcomes as good or desirable or permissible and others as bad or undesirable or impermissible.

In other words, an "intellectual" is a person who ponders under the guise of engaging in the social sciences, matters related to politics, economics, religion, and philosophy, and then offers opinions supported by logic based upon observation of groups of people using preconceived values, opinions frequently offensive to many regarding human beliefs, human behavior, government, and law.

This has allowed goal-oriented Neoliberals to deliberately create a political atmosphere that confuses "intellectuals" with "scientists" in natural science fields. Those scientists use "scientific method" as described by the Oxford Dictionaries Online as (emphasis added):

...A method or procedure that has characterized natural science since the 17th century, consisting in systematic observation, measurement, and experiment, and the formulation, testing, and modification of hypotheses.

Unlike the social sciences, before a hypothesis in natural science can become published as fact, experimental and theoretical results must be reproduced by many others within the scientific community - an arduous process referred to as "peer review".

Social "science" has not retained that approach. Statistical studies are the core of the social sciences when the "social scientist" attempts to prove a hypothesis. But instead of the arduous process of peer review prior to publication, the conclusions of literally thousands of social science statistical studies appear in the popular press as support for some assumed arguable truth. This has allowed intellectuals to insult the beliefs of thousands of voters. Thus, it becomes clear to many Americans that all scientists are in the businesses of offending people, a truth then used to undermine natural science when it serves a political purpose.

The Task Facing Progressives

In truth, both Neoliberalism and Progressivism are the result of the pondering of intellectuals, using data from the social sciences - sociology, economics, political science - to support normative views. The weakness of Progressivism is that historically Progressives have been more transparent in their activities, more thinly spread while advocating for numerous disparate goals, and more focused than Neoliberals on national politics rather than on state and local government.

Neoliberals retain a late 18th Century view of these United States - that the states are empowered to govern and they allocated only very limited powers to the new national government. In fact, this is a correct take on the Constitution as it was viewed not by "the Founding Fathers" but by the vast majority of state politicians who voted to ratify it, and by their constituents.

In these blog posts (and the Progressive Pacific Message web pages) we offer some insight into the Neoliberals who, despite the fact that they are well-educated (many economic philosophers), have abandoned all conscience piggy-backing on the appeal of that anti-intellectual bias, plus racial bigotry, religious dogmatism, and class prejudice, in order to create that map above, solely to achieve their narrow goal of unleashing unfettered capitalism.

In our website a narrative on American Neoliberal activity is offered in order to help Progressives organize for winning elections over the next 30 years. But Progressives need to create their own future narrative for the 21st Century.

Whether to interface with the existing political parties or bypass them will be one of the first decisions.

You are encouraged to go to our website. The information contained in those web pages and this blog are not a "short read." It is, however, far from a comprehensive history/geography textbook. It simply offers some insight into the 21st Century amplification of a deep American cultural split - useful if you want to do something about what has happened to the Progressive movement of the late-19th-to-mid-20th Centuries.

Table of Contents WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT THE PROGRESSIVE PACIFIC MESSAGE

Welcome to the Pacific Progressive Message Our Core Message The 70-Year Systematic Destruction of American Progressivism The Task Facing Progressives Statement of Obligations and Rights of People and their States History Matters: The 2016 Bi-Partisan Attack on the Pacific States People, Beliefs, Economy, Defense Why is it a "Pacific" Message??? History Matters: The Significance of the Spanish Pacific in North American Historical Geography New Spain (1521-1849): The Real History of American States How the Spanish Created the 21st Century Pacific States Worldview History Matters: Conquering the Transcontinental Divide by Amplifying the Racial and Cultural Divide History Matters: Defending the Endangered Basic Human Rights of the People of the Pacific States It's not Roger Williams' American Dream About that Star Spangled Banner National Anthem Economics Matter, Stupid! Combating the Bi-Partisan Assault on the Enduring Economics of the Pacific States Wealthy Neoliberals Matter: How an Economic Ideology Took Control of U.S. State and National Legislative Agendas History Matters: Neoliberalism comes to America History Matters: The Loss of the Progressive Message in America History Matters: After Reagan, Neoliberals continue to win Organization and Drudgery Matter: The Neoliberal Advocacy Network The Future Matters: Restoring the Lost Progressive Message by Advocating for a Warm, Big-Hearted World Overcoming the Neoliberal strategy An Alliance does not equal assimilation or multiculturalism History Matters: To win it's State Party Politics, not Celebrity A Goal: Learn to use 21st Century technology to win

OUR WEBSITE

History Matters: The 2016 Bi-Partisan Attack on the Pacific States People, Beliefs, Economy, Defense

Why is it a "Pacific" Message???

The word "Pacific" is included in The Progressive Pacific Message because the beaches of the four Pacific States - Hawaii, Washington, Oregon, and California - are on the Pacific Ocean. This is a different orientation culturally resulting in:

• a history based upon not being anywhere near the Atlantic Ocean,
• an economy built upon Pacific trade routes,
• a majority population that includes persons who identify themselves as Hispanics, Asian,  Indigenous, Black, and/or Mixed Race, and
• for the second time in a century, inadequate defense preparation and activities because of an Atlantic-focused myopia.

In 2016 leaders and voters of both major political parties openly embraced a 21st Century...

• attack on the human rights of the 51 million people of the Pacific States,
• denial of the Progressive beliefs of the Pacific States majority,
• assault on the economy of the Pacific States, and
• failure to provide defense planning to protect the Pacific States.

Population by Race/Ethnicity

Additionally, the traditional Progressive Message that...

individual freedom is bound to the personal responsibility of all citizens to assure equitable communities

...still remains a dominant value in the Pacific States. Thus it is those in the Pacific States who are most likely to advocate for that Message.

Before exploring...

1. how American Progressivism was lost and
2. how to advocate for its restoration,

...in order to provide some shared context we will note what makes the Pacific States different and Progressive. History, geography, and economics matter far more than ideals.

1. Consider that the Louisiana Purchase in 1803 passed in the House of Representatives by a vote of 59-57 because...
   1. the power of the Atlantic seaboard states would be threatened by the new citizens in the West, whose political and economic priorities were bound to conflict with with those of East Coast merchants and bankers, and
   2. the Atlantic seaboard voters (white male landowners) opposed the granting citizenship to the Catholic French and Spanish speaking residents, as well as free Black residents, of New Orleans as the treaty required.
   The Pacific State residents who in the 21st Century take a hard look at U.S. history and politics recognize that those attitudes took root westward as "pioneers" displaced the indigenous people until reaching the Intercontinental Divide. The 2016 Presidential Election turned on deportation proposals based on prejudices against religion, language, and skin color.
2. Consider that California has a larger Hispanic population than 44 other states each have people (yes, total people, everyone in each of those states) and a larger Asian population than 25 other states have people; non-Hispanic white people and black people* (the 13 Colonies Races) together make up only 39% of California's population.
3. Consider that in Hawaii non-Hispanic white people and black people* together (the 13 Colonies Races) make up only 20% of the population and that Asian residents make up 36% of the population.
4. Consider the pie charts without the white and black segments, the 13 Colonies Races.*
5. Consider that imports and exports at the 28 ports along the West Coast totaled over $630 billion in 2014, including smaller ones like Kalama , Washington (total 2014 trade $3.0 billion, top export Soybeans, top import Rolled iron and steel); and consider that the voters in states like Michigan which has a population that is 88% 13 Colonies Races have abandoned trade patterns and proposals that benefit such ports.
6. Consider the terrorist threat that so worries those East of the Intercontinental Divide. The fact is the country with the largest Muslim population in the world is a Pacific Rim country. The country which provides the most crew members on merchant ships delivering goods - both necessities and fripperies - to the United is  home to the worlds 30th largest Muslim population (larger than Somalia) is a Pacific Rim Country that has been engaged in a war with the Islamic State East Asia (ISEA) for two decades in which U.S. troops participated from 2002 to 2015; most 13-Colonies-Race Americans are ignorant of these facts.
7. Regarding a significant military threat, in addition to China and Russia which are both Pacific Rim countries, North Korea has had the ability to attack the Pacific States with missiles since the beginning of the 21st Century, first with submarines and by 2013 with ICBM's.

We will explore all these facts and more in the following posts. Admittedly it is a lot of information to take in, but without knowing this information one cannot understand the nature of the 21st Century U.S. political divide.

The Pacific States came with views west from San Francisco towards China, North from Seattle towards what was originally Russian Alaska, and South from San Diego towards Mexico. You can walk the Pacific Coast of the continent from the Southern tip of Chile to Alaska. You can sail from a harbor directly across an ocean to Japan,  North Korea, or China because it is the Pacific Ocean.  Yes, it is 2,827 driving miles from San Diego east to New York City. But, it's also only 2,819 driving miles from San Diego, California, to San Salvador, El Salvador. Here we are in the 21st Century and here are some troubling aspects of the worldview from the Pacific States:

• The history of the Pacific States is ignored by Americans living east of the Transcontinental Divide who have a North Atlantic cultural orientation and who misrepresent their region's history.
• The history derived from the 18th Century U.S. policies of slavery, religious bigotry, and genocide is misrepresented, literally resulting in discrimination and recriminations against Pacific State people who protest established U.S. politicians and institutions continuing those misrepresentations.
• An extreme cultural separation from those east of the Transcontinental Divide exists resulting in continuing discrimination against Pacific State residents the majority of whom are descendants of indigenous peoples of the Americas and the Pacific and Asian immigrants.
• The economies of the Pacific States are under attack from Americans who live east of the Transcontinental Divide.
• The defense of the Pacific States, through both strategies in international relations and the military, ranges from secondary-in-importance to incompetent to non-existent.

The lack of a blunt, honest, full, and open discussion about the issues that particularly impact on the Pacific States and their people continues. A key goal of the Progressive Pacific Message is to force that discussion.

__________________________

^*In a future post, we will explore the fact is that the 1790 Census counted white males and white females separately, plus all other free persons in a single category, and slaves in a single category. The United States Constitution Article 1 Section 8 also did not recognize indigenous people as being part of the new country. Before the Civil War most Black Americans were slaves but were included along with White in 1790 as a "13 Colonies Race." For purposes of allocating among the States seats in the House of Representatives, a slave was recognized by the United States Constitution Article 1 Section 8 as three-fifths of a person which endorsed the concept of black persons as less than persons, officially permitting white folks a point of reference - a black person is 60% of a real human. Today three U.S. States have majority populations that do not include their "13 Colonies Races" residents. Two are Pacific States and the other state is New Mexico.

Table of Contents WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT THE PROGRESSIVE PACIFIC MESSAGE

Welcome to the Pacific Progressive Message Our Core Message The 70-Year Systematic Destruction of American Progressivism The Task Facing Progressives Statement of Obligations and Rights of People and their States History Matters: The 2016 Bi-Partisan Attack on the Pacific States People, Beliefs, Economy, Defense Why is it a "Pacific" Message??? History Matters: The Significance of the Spanish Pacific in North American Historical Geography New Spain (1521-1849): The Real History of American States How the Spanish Created the 21st Century Pacific States Worldview History Matters: Conquering the Transcontinental Divide by Amplifying the Racial and Cultural Divide History Matters: Defending the Endangered Basic Human Rights of the People of the Pacific States It's not Roger Williams' American Dream About that Star Spangled Banner National Anthem Economics Matter, Stupid! Combating the Bi-Partisan Assault on the Enduring Economics of the Pacific States Wealthy Neoliberals Matter: How an Economic Ideology Took Control of U.S. State and National Legislative Agendas History Matters: Neoliberalism comes to America History Matters: The Loss of the Progressive Message in America History Matters: After Reagan, Neoliberals continue to win Organization and Drudgery Matter: The Neoliberal Advocacy Network The Future Matters: Restoring the Lost Progressive Message by Advocating for a Warm, Big-Hearted World Overcoming the Neoliberal strategy An Alliance does not equal assimilation or multiculturalism History Matters: To win it's State Party Politics, not Celebrity A Goal: Learn to use 21st Century technology to win

History Matters: The Significance of the Spanish Pacific in North American Historical Geography

New Spain (1521-1849): The Real History of American States

 The images above are the continent of "L' Amerique" mapped by by Jean (aka Robert) Janvier, a Paris-based cartographer active in the 18th century. By the late 18th century Janvier was awarded the title of "Geographe Avec Privilege du Roi" and this designation appears on these maps. Janvier worked with many of the most prominent French, English and Italian map publishers of his day.

The map at the top was completed and sold in the 1760's before the Revolutionary War, the one at the bottom in 1790, during the first year of the United States government.

From the maps one can see that to the west of the continent of "L' Amerique" is the "Mer du Sud ou Mer Pacificque." While Janvier didn't see a need to provide the name for the "Mer du Nord" (Atlantic Ocean) on the map, he found it necessary to provide the name of the Pacific Ocean.

That was because in the 18th Century the Pacific Ocean was an unknown curiosity and irrelevant to most Europeans other than the Spanish. (From this point on, Spain and Spanish will be emphasized to help the reader understand that Britain and English were unimportant to the Pacific Coast of North America.)

Effectively, the Pacific Ocean did not exist for Europeans prior to the 16th Century. And in the 16th, 17th, and 18th Centuries (1500's through the 1700's), it was not important to Americans as well as to most Europeans other than the Spanish.

Though the peoples of Asia and Oceania have traveled the Pacific Ocean since prehistoric times, the eastern Pacific was first sighted by Europeans in the early 16th century when Spanish explorer Vasco Núñez de Balboa crossed the Isthmus of Panama in 1513 and discovered the great "southern sea" which he named Mar del Sur (in Spanish), a designation indicated on the maps above.

However, it was Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan who in 1521, during the his circumnavigation of the world on behalf of Spain, upon encountering favorable winds named it Mar Pacífico, which in both Portuguese and Spanish means "peaceful sea." The word "pacific" derives from the Latin pācificus meaning "peace-making." During that 1521 voyage, Magellan "discovered" the Philippines and claimed them for Spain.

Also in 1521 the Spanish conquered the Aztec Empire and, following some additional conquests, in 1535 Spain created the Viceroyalty of New Spain. In fact, in 1789 when the U.S. Constitution became effective, contrary to the 1790 map above created by a French citizen, the map of New Spain looked like this...

 ...because in November 1762 in the secret Treaty of Fontainebleau, France handed over Louisiana and the Isle of Orleans to Spain. Over the years, this treaty was contested. But the point of presenting this map is that in 1789 those in the United States had no claim nor apparent interest in the land along the Pacific Ocean. In fact, the United States had no coastline on the Gulf of Spain - what we now know as the Gulf of Mexico.

On October 1, 1800, First Consul of the Republic of France Napoleon Bonaparte, reacquired Louisiana from Spain by the secret Treaty of San Ildefonso. To the distress of the United States, Napoleon held title to the Mississippi River and the port of New Orleans.

In 1803 with some sense of urgency, President Thomas Jefferson and Secretary of State James Madison secured the Louisiana Purchase in the face of considerable opposition. As explained in part in Wikipedia:

    Both Federalists and Jeffersonians were concerned over thepurchase's constitutionality. Many members of the House of Representatives opposed the purchase. Majority Leader John Randolph led the opposition. The House called for a vote to deny the request for the purchase, but it failed by two votes, 59–57....
    The Federalists also feared that the power of the Atlantic seaboard states would be threatened by the new citizens in the West, whose political and economic priorities were bound to conflict with those of the merchants and bankers of New England....
    Another concern was whether it was proper to grant citizenship to the French, Spanish, and free black people living in New Orleans, as the treaty would dictate. Critics in Congress worried whether these "foreigners", unacquainted with democracy, could or should become citizens.

Slaveholder President Thomas Jefferson placed a special importance on declaring U.S. total sovereignty over this land occupied for centuries by the many different indigenous Native American communities. Immediately after the Louisiana Purchase he commissioned fellow slaveholders Meriwether Lewis and William Clark to carry out the Lewis and Clark Expedition; the three year Corps of Discovery Expedition (as it was known then) crossed the Transcontinental Divide of the Rocky Mountains, camping near the Pacific Ocean in the winter of 1805-1806.

It should be noted that William Clark went on in official positions to implement President Andrew Jackson's Indian removal (aka genocide) policy, even issuing an extermination order that read:

    The faithless and treacherous character of those at the head of our Indian enemies appear now to be so well known and understood, as to permit the expression of the hope, that their wanton cruelties will eventually result in their own destruction; and aa they have afforded sufficient evidence not only of their entire disregard of Treaties, but also of their deep-rooted hostility in shedding the blood of our women and children, a War of Extermination should be waged against them. The honor and respectability of the Government requires this: - the peace and quiet of the frontier, the lives and safety of its inhabitants demand it.

At that time there were still conflicting claims on the area designated as "Oregon Country." However, despite having fought the Revolutionary War and the War of 1812 against England, the area of what are now the states of Oregon and Washington were included in the Oregon Territory, initially defined by the Treaty of 1818 that set up a "joint occupation" between the United States and the British over the region. In 1848 the Oregon Territory became an organized incorporated territory of the United States. The Washington Territory was split off in 1853.

After a protracted struggle (1810–21) for independence, New Spain - including the current U.S. states of California, Nevada, Utah, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, and parts of Oklahoma, Kansas, Colorado and Wyoming - became the sovereign nation of Mexico, with the signing of the Treaty of Córdoba.  (At this point, terms related to "Mexico" will also be emphasized to help place that country's context in U.S. history.)

California was part of Mexico for 27 years until the Mexican-American War beginning on May 13, 1846, ending with the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848. California was admitted to the Union as a state in 1850. But it should be noted that prior to the War, Pío de Jesús Pico IV, the last governor of Alta California, as with a significant number of influential Californios, was in favor of British annexation.

Thus, by the beginning of the Civil War the map of what is now the "continental" United States looked like this:

And so the United States attacked the sovereign nation of Mexico allowing the American military, and subsequently its citizens, to occupy lands all the way to the Pacific Ocean. This was done though in 1803

• nearly half the people in "the Atlantic seaboard states would be threatened" by the new westerners as confirmed by a 49% "no" vote in the House of Representatives,
• they didn't want to grant citizenship to "French, Spanish, and free black people living in New Orleans" as they were foreigners, and
• a "War of Extermination" against the indigenous population would be necessary because of the "faithless and treacherous character of those at the head of our Indian enemies."

Then, of course, Americans fought a civil war as 13 of the 30 states wanted to not be part of the United States. And that included the entire Gulf of Mexico U.S. coastline and ⅔rds of the U.S Atlantic coastline.

After that Alaska was purchased from Russia in 1867.

That leaves the last Pacific State - Hawaii. A Kingdom run by indigenous Pacific Islanders until 1887, the U.S. military leased Pearl Harbor for a military base. Then some wealthy white families from the United States displaced the ruling monarchy and formed a Republic after setting up barriers to voting that disenfranchised the majority indigenous and Asian populations.

Hawaii became a U.S. territory in 1898 during the Spanish-American War.

In passing, it should be noted the after the Spanish-American War, in 1898 Spain ceded the Philippines to the United States. Keep this in mind, because as explained later, in 1565 hundreds of Manila galleons began sailing from the Philippines in Asia to New Spain, establishing a trade pattern that has continued for 450 years.

If by now it hasn't entered your consciousness, you should notice the number of times words involving Spain and Mexico appear above highlighted. That is to emphasize the importance of the Spanish in the history of the western side of the area we call the Continental United States.

But you probably were fully aware of that since the United States launched two foreign wars in the 19th Century - the Mexican-American War and the Spanish-American War. Your history books taught you that Jefferson's successors wanted to gain access, and ultimately control of, the Pacific Ocean by occupying Alta California after starting the Mexican-American War and Hawaii and the Philippines after starting the Spanish-American War.

How the Spanish Created the 21st Century Pacific States Worldview

"PACIFIC" as in "Pacific States" reflects a worldview - about the weather, ecology,  history, economy, and people - that derive from living in the Pacific States of Hawaii, Washington, Oregon, and California. Additionally, it is an economic worldview created by the Spanish guided by nature.

 The Pacific States have coastlines along the North Pacific Subtropical Gyre, the largest ecosystem on Earth, located between the equator and 50° N latitude, and comprising about 8 million square miles.

Most Americans don't know what the Kuroshio Current is, much less why it is important. That is because it is critical to understanding the economic history of the Pacific States, so that history not taught in U.S. public schools.

In 1620 about 100 Puritan Separatist Pilgrim religious bigots settled the Plymouth Colony arriving on the Mayflower at what is now Cape Cod Bay, Massachusetts.

That was 100 years after Ferdinand Magellan discovered the Philippine Islands. And the Mayflower was 55 years after Miguel López de Legazpi established the first Spanish settlement in the Philippine Islands in 1565 seeking to develop trade between the East Indies and the growing Catholic Spanish colonies in the Americas across the Pacific Ocean.

In 1565 the Manila-Acapulco galleon trade finally began when Spanish navigators Alonso de Arellano and Andrés de Urdaneta discovered the eastward return route. Reasoning that the trade winds and currents of the Pacific might move in a gyre as was the case in the Atlantic, they sailed north to the 38th parallel off the east coast of Japan, before catching the Kuroshio Current and winds that would take them back across the Pacific. Reaching the west coast of North America, Urdaneta's ship the San Pedro reached the coast near Cape Mendocino, California, then followed the coast south to San Blas and later to Acapulco, arriving on October 8, 1565.

For 250 years - starting 49 years before the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock and 205 years before the American Revolution - hundreds of Manila galleons traveled between the Asia and New Spain. That trade pattern has continued since, an additional 200 years, creating...

 "Mayflower" and "Pilgrims" have been terms drilled into U.S. school curriculums. Miguel López de Legazpi and the Philippine Islands not so much.

From that alone, one might infer that the "Pacific States" designation would reflect a substantive historical, cultural, economic, and physical separation from the area of the United States located east of the what we call the Transcontinental Divide. And indeed, the next post will focus on the Transcontinental Divide in the continuing effort to assure a full and open discussion about:

• the attacks on the people of the Pacific States by the people east of the Transcontinental Divide,
• the assault on the economy of the Pacific States by the people east of the Transcontinental Divide, and
• the failure of the United States to provide an adequate military defense for the Pacific States because of the North Atlantic focus of the people east of the Transcontinental Divide.

Table of Contents WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT THE PROGRESSIVE PACIFIC MESSAGE

Welcome to the Pacific Progressive Message Our Core Message The 70-Year Systematic Destruction of American Progressivism The Task Facing Progressives Statement of Obligations and Rights of People and their States History Matters: The 2016 Bi-Partisan Attack on the Pacific States People, Beliefs, Economy, Defense Why is it a "Pacific" Message??? History Matters: The Significance of the Spanish Pacific in North American Historical Geography New Spain (1521-1849): The Real History of American States How the Spanish Created the 21st Century Pacific States Worldview History Matters: Conquering the Transcontinental Divide by Amplifying the Racial and Cultural Divide History Matters: Defending the Endangered Basic Human Rights of the People of the Pacific States It's not Roger Williams' American Dream About that Star Spangled Banner National Anthem Economics Matter, Stupid! Combating the Bi-Partisan Assault on the Enduring Economics of the Pacific States Wealthy Neoliberals Matter: How an Economic Ideology Took Control of U.S. State and National Legislative Agendas History Matters: Neoliberalism comes to America History Matters: The Loss of the Progressive Message in America History Matters: After Reagan, Neoliberals continue to win Organization and Drudgery Matter: The Neoliberal Advocacy Network The Future Matters: Restoring the Lost Progressive Message by Advocating for a Warm, Big-Hearted World Overcoming the Neoliberal strategy An Alliance does not equal assimilation or multiculturalism History Matters: To win it's State Party Politics, not Celebrity A Goal: Learn to use 21st Century technology to win

History Matters: Conquering the Transcontinental Divide by Amplifying the Racial and Cultural Divide

A review of the history of the U.S. reaching the Pacific is not complete without discussing the Transcontinental Railroad. Building the Transcontinental Railroad achieved a goal of creating a fast and easy economic and migrant connection between the two coastlines by crossing the Transcontinental Divide, a physical barrier which in earlier times would have assured the existence of a different country on the west side of the divide.

In order to assure a permanent occupation of the area west of the Transcontinental Divide on the map above, during the Civil War President Abraham Lincoln signed the Pacific Railroad Act of 1862 authorizing the creation of two private railroad companies, the Central Pacific in the west and the Union Pacific in the mid-west. The companies were created June 28, 1861, two months after the Civil War began. With the secession of the South, the modernizers in the Republican Party founded in 1854 controlled the US Congress wanted to build the First Transcontinental Railroad.

The 1,912-mile continuous railroad line that connected the existing eastern U.S. rail network at Omaha, Nebraska/Council Bluffs, Iowa with the Pacific coast at the Oakland Long Wharf on the San Francisco Bay was completed in 1869. The new line crossing the Transcontinental Divide reached the Pacific and connected in Omaha to railroads serving the Atlantic Seacoast.

The implementation of that construction is a symbol of the evolving cultural difference between the Pacific States and the states east of the Transcontinental Divide.  The construction could not be done without immigrant workers.

On the east side of the Divide to work for the Union Pacific Railroad came immigrant workers from British-occupied Ireland. They came across the Atlantic from Northern Europe, landing in former British colonies.

Soon signs would appear saying "No Irish Need Apply" partly because of Catholic religion of the Irish and partly because the British cast a discriminatory shadow over the Irish as non-English speaking natives in a colony.

As noted in When the Irish Weren’t White:

    Like finding out a song you thought was new is actually a 100-year-old remake, the Irish were simultaneously accused of stealing all the good jobs and branded as 'lazy' and 'shiftless.' They were also thought to be the nonwhite 'missing link' between the superior European and the savage African based on stereotypes from the early American media....

In British eyes, the Ireland and its indigenous population was not significantly differently from their other colonies such as India or Rhodesia (Zimbabwe). Simply, the Irish weren't WASP.

As early as 1798 Congress passed laws targeting Irish immigrants. In the 1840's the Know-Nothings, a nationalist political group, was the result of a populist movement of poor whites who were dissatisfied with the two-party system and started their own political party, intent on preserving America’s culture by restricting immigration, especially from Catholic countries.

When his party disintegrated over his signing of the Fugitive Slave Act, Whig President Millard Fillmore in 1856 accepted the nomination for President of the Know Nothing (or American) Party, thereby setting a precedent for running as a Know Nothing President.

The immigrant workers on the west side of the Divide came from Asia across the Pacific to what was former Catholic-Spanish Mexican territory to work for the Central Pacific Railroad. They were Chinese, of a different race who spoke a language even stranger than Irish Gaelic.

Ultimately, in the spring of 1882, the Chinese Exclusion Act was passed by Congress and signed by President Chester A. Arthur. This act provided an absolute 10-year moratorium on Chinese labor immigration.

The Chinese Exclusion Act was the first law implemented to prevent a specific ethnic group from immigrating to the United States. It was repealed 61 years later by the Magnuson Act on December 17, 1943. That was after the United States rounded up descendants of immigrants from Japan and put them in concentration camps.

The deliberate effort to have Irish and Chinese workers come to the United States was viewed by those living east of the Transcontinental Divide in much the same way as the 49% viewed the 1803 Louisiana Purchase - those workers were a threat like the free black people and the Catholic French and Spanish living in New Orleans.

Anything about this sound familiar, similar to today?

Table of Contents WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT THE PROGRESSIVE PACIFIC MESSAGE

Welcome to the Pacific Progressive Message Our Core Message The 70-Year Systematic Destruction of American Progressivism The Task Facing Progressives Statement of Obligations and Rights of People and their States History Matters: The 2016 Bi-Partisan Attack on the Pacific States People, Beliefs, Economy, Defense Why is it a "Pacific" Message??? History Matters: The Significance of the Spanish Pacific in North American Historical Geography New Spain (1521-1849): The Real History of American States How the Spanish Created the 21st Century Pacific States Worldview History Matters: Conquering the Transcontinental Divide by Amplifying the Racial and Cultural Divide History Matters: Defending the Endangered Basic Human Rights of the People of the Pacific States It's not Roger Williams' American Dream About that Star Spangled Banner National Anthem Economics Matter, Stupid! Combating the Bi-Partisan Assault on the Enduring Economics of the Pacific States Wealthy Neoliberals Matter: How an Economic Ideology Took Control of U.S. State and National Legislative Agendas History Matters: Neoliberalism comes to America History Matters: The Loss of the Progressive Message in America History Matters: After Reagan, Neoliberals continue to win Organization and Drudgery Matter: The Neoliberal Advocacy Network The Future Matters: Restoring the Lost Progressive Message by Advocating for a Warm, Big-Hearted World Overcoming the Neoliberal strategy An Alliance does not equal assimilation or multiculturalism History Matters: To win it's State Party Politics, not Celebrity A Goal: Learn to use 21st Century technology to win

History Matters: Defending the Endangered Basic Human Rights of the People of the Pacific States

It's not Roger Williams' American Dream

Roger Williams

America's First Progressive

If you have any memory of learning about him in school, you likely remember Roger Williams as the founder of Rhode Island.

In 1636 Williams (c. 1603-1683), an English Reformed theologian, was expelled by our celebrated founding Pilgrim bigotry leaders from the Massachusetts Bay Colony because local Puritans, who we celebrate each year at Thanksgiving thought that he was spreading "new and dangerous ideas" to his congregants. His views on religious freedom and tolerance, coupled with his disapproval of the practice of confiscating land from Native Americans, resulted in his fleeing the Massachusetts colony under the threat of impending arrest and shipment to an English prison.

Williams and his followers purchased land from the Narragansett Indians and established a new colony governed by the principles of religious liberty and separation of church and state. Offering freedom of conscience, Rhode Island became a haven for Baptists, Quakers, Jews and other religious minorities.

If you are like most Americans, you probably did not remember much about Williams, America's First Progressive  and one of the first abolitionists in North America. On the other hand you probably remember that by 1692 the traditional real American folks in Salem, Massachusetts - the ones Williams had to flee from - held their Witch Trials.

And thus before Eleanor Roosevelt, before Teddy Roosevelt, in fact 250 years before the "Progressive Era", the Progressive tradition of defending human rights against the bigoted silent majority began in America. And by 1790 it was the bigotry that was institutionalized as the United States.

The 1790 Census provided the first interaction between the new Government of the United States and the people of the United States. Listed in the Census tally above are the 16 original Census Districts which were the original states.

The first six listed plus Pennsylvania were not slave states. Slavery was legal in the other nine states. At the time of its founding, in most of the states of the United States by population and area, slavery was a legal institution and was recognized as so in the United States Constitution.

It was no random happenstance that the columns containing numbers in order of listing are:

1. Free white Males of 16 years and upwards, 
2. Free white Males under15 years, 
3. Free white Females, including heads of families, 
4. All other free persons, 
5. Slaves, and 
6. Total.

Most white male Americans in most states at that time would have been  quite comfortable traveling around their state performing the census.

It is also a fact that of the first 18 Presidents, 8 (in red) owned slaves during their Presidency, 5 (in purple) owned slaves some other time in their lives (slavery was illegal during the post-Civil-War terms of Johnson and Grant), 5 (in blue) never owned slaves:

1. George Washington
2. John Adams
3. Thomas Jefferson
4. James Madison
5. James Monroe
6. John Quincy Adams
7. Andrew Jackson
8. Martin Van Buren
9. William Henry Harrison
10. John Tyler
11. James K. Polk
12. Zachary Taylor
13. Millard Fillmore
14. Franklin Pierce
15. James Buchanan
16. Abraham Lincoln
17. Andrew Johnson
18. Ulysses S. Grant

Our current President Donald Trump's favorite among his predecessors is Andrew Jackson. Jackson was, and continues to be, a popular hero of white supremacy. He was the President who most successfully advocated for the inclusion of the genocide of Native Americans in U.S. policy. He was a rabid, cruel slave owner as indicated in this ad to recover one of his slaves who ran away offering an additional "ten dollars extra for every hundred lashes any person will give him, to the amount of three hundred dollars":

Without the Pacific States, Donald Trump beat Hillary Clinton by 2.7 million votes. Ignoring all other things, his admiration for genocide and slavery reflects the policies he advocated in the election, gaining him those votes from the majority of non-Pacific-State Americans who fundamentally have no problem with his views.

So why the "Pacific" in The Progressive Pacific Message?

In 2016 leaders of both major political parties and a vast majority of the States openly embraced a 21st Century attack on the human rights of the people of the Pacific States.

Within the Statement of Obligations and Rights of People and their States of the Progressive Pacific Message are the following:

    A "nationality" is the legal relationship between a person and a state which affords the state legal jurisdiction over the person and affords the person the legal protection of the state; gaining "citizenship" status assures a person the right to participate in government through voting and standing for election to office.
    Within these United States of America it is understood that "state" refers separately to the federal government, each of the 50 state governments, and the various territorial governments; therefore a person derives a nationality relationship from the state or territory in which they reside, and incidentally from the United States of America.
    If at any time the government of the United States of America acts to deprive persons of one or more of their rights recognized herein, individual state and territorial governments through which those persons derive nationality by virtue of their residency shall afford such persons the protection of their rights; if at any time the government of any individual state or territory acts to deprive such persons of one or more of their rights recognized herein, the government of the United States of America shall afford such persons the protection of their rights.

The right to a "nationality" separate from "citizenship" comes from Article 15 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights ratified by the world after World War II, the deadliest military conflict in world history in absolute terms of total casualties. Over 60 million people were killed, which was about 3% of the 1940 world population.

The brother of Republican Senator Orin G. Hatch of Utah was among the 420,000 U.S. troops who died in battle in WWII. Ostensibly, they were sent to war to assure that all humans would have the right to the Four Freedoms.

But just 75 years later, U.S. politics have become so "un-Progressive" that, after a recent white racist incident in Virginia where Donald Trump appeared to be defending Neo-Nazis, Senator Hatch lamented: “We should call evil by its name. My brother didn’t give his life fighting Hitler for Nazi ideas to go unchallenged here at home.”

As noted in a previous post, in 1803 the Louisiana Purchase faced considerable opposition and was nearly defeated in the House of Representatives where the vote was 59–57.  The oppostion feared the new citizens in the West whose economic priorities were bound to conflict with those of the states along Atlantic Seaboard and vehemently did not want to grant citizenship to the French, Spanish, and free black people living in New Orleans as the treaty required.

Those who in 1803 made up that 49% vote against the Louisiana Purchase would today say "We told you so!" Here are some facts about the Pacific States:

• Less than a third of the population of Hawaii has an exclusive white or black heritage as most of the population has an Asian, Native Hawaiian, or Other Pacific Islander heritage.
• California has more than 6 million residents who are Asian or Asian American and more than 16 million residents who are Hispanic, totaling to more than half the state's population. Those two California demographic groups total to more people than the total population of any other single state but Texas (which itself does not have a white majority population).
• About 27% of California's population is foreign born - that's about 10.2 million people, more people than live in each of the 39 least populous states, more people than live in the 11 smallest states combined. In contrast, the Rust Belt states of Indiana and Ohio only have 5% of their population foreign born, while Michigan has 7%, Pennsylvania 8%.
• About a fifth of the population of Washington and Oregon has a Hispanic, American Indian, Asian, or Pacific Islander heritage.
• In total within the Pacific states:
• Only 45.7% of the population was Non-Hispanic White in 2015;
• Hispanics made up 32.0% of the population;
• Non-Hispanic Asians made up 12.6%;
• At 1.2%, the indigenous peoples - American Indian, Alaska Native, Native Hawaiian, or Other Pacific Islander - totaled to more than the total population of each of three states east of the Transcontinental Divide:  North Dakota, Vermont, and Wyoming;
• Non-Hispanic Blacks were 4.9% of the population.

This is the context in which the embracing of the Andrew Jackson bigotry by Trump and his supporters has become intolerable to the Progressive Pacific.

At this point it needs to be made clear that the term "Hispanic" is not reflective of anything other than the legal Spanish language spoken in one's ancestors' countries of origin in the Americas. But even then, Spaniards from Spain are not Hispanic. The bigotry expressed in the United States against Hispanics derives not from the language spoken, but from where the immigrants come from and it is because of their race.

In the second article of its Constitution, Mexico recognizes that its indigenous peoples are the country's original foundation. When citizens of the United States engage in bigotry towards illegal immigrants from Mexico, they are reflecting the fact that the population of Mexico is (to use that country's preferred designations) about 62% mestizo (Amerindian-Spanish), 21% predominantly Amerindian, and 7% full Amerindian, totaling about 90% of the population.

In Honduras 97% of the population has indigenous Native American blood. In Guatemala, 80%. In Nicaragua, 74%.

Or to put it another way, almost all of the immigrants who cross the Mexican-U.S. border have indigenous Amerindian blood - Native Americans, the indigenous race against which the white folks east of the Transcontinental Divide engaged in government-sanctioned systematic genocide creating the largest genocide victim group in world history.

Much like those Founding Fathers who embraced the U.S. North Atlantic culture that included slavery and genocide, many in the U.S. continue aggressively to engage in bigotry and hatred towards those with an African and/or indigenous Native American heritage including immigrants from other countries south of the U.S. in the Americas such as Mexicans and Central Americans.

To put it bluntly, when the President of the United States attacks people whose ethnicity is Hispanic, to those in the Pacific States he is attacking a third of our people and might as well be attacking those whose ethnicity derives from Sweden, Wales or France. To put it bluntly, when the President of the United States defends police officers shooting black citizens for no justifiable reason, he is attacking 13% of the American population and 2.7 million Pacific State residents and might as well be attacking those whose race derives from Norway, Ireland or Germany.

From a Pacific State point of view, the majority of voters in Ohio or Georgia who share President Trump's bigotry are of another culture, perhaps akin to Germany in 1938. That attitude isn't just unacceptable, it is deplorable.

For Progressives, that bigotry passed down from generation-to-generation is a cultural attitude that must be erased because it is a denial of the first Article of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights: "All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood."

Finally, one recent attack on a Pacific State person must be included if only to point out just how well the U.S. indoctrination system can teach American tradition lies that have their sustaining foundation in that 1803 anti-Louisiana Purchase 49% vote.

About that Star Spangled Banner National Anthem

Let us consider an example of a deplorable situation in which a Pacific State citizen - Colin Kaepernick - effectively has been ostracized from his NFL career by deplorable Americans either...

• because their education has left them ignorant of American history or 
• because they are racist 

...as there is no choice in between - you are ignorant or a racist, that's your choice if you are upset about the knee taking.

As with most of the things that make up the U.S. system of nationalistic indoctrination, The Star-Spangled Banner is something most Americans think they know about but don't because it's pro-slavery core is deliberately hidden.

Kaepernick does have a 21st Century anti-racism protest cause. But....

It was 1814, during the War of 1812, when the British attacked these United States, including the slave state of Maryland, where the verses of the song were written by Francis Scott Key. Consider the following history from a Smithsonian article:

    In 1814, Key was a slaveholding lawyer from an old Maryland plantation family, who thanks to a system of human bondage had grown rich and powerful.
    When he wrote the poem that would, in 1931, become the national anthem and proclaim our nation “the land of the free,” like Jefferson, Key not only profited from slaves, he harbored racist conceptions of American citizenship and human potential. Africans in America, he said, were “a distinct and inferior race of people, which all experience proves to be the greatest evil that afflicts a community."

So now let's at look some lines in the final two verses of the Star Spangled Banner, versus you don't know and we deliberately don't sing for fear some literate 10-year-old among us might ask questions. Consider carefully the words highlighted in italics:

No refuge could save the hireling and slave
From the terror of flight, or the gloom of the grave,
And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave,
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave.

O thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand

The British attackers had many American ex-slaves in their ranks, persons who had been promised liberty and demanded to be placed in the battle line "where they might expect to meet their former masters."

After the U.S. and the British signed a peace treaty at the end of 1814, the Americans - trying to make America great again - demanded the return of American “property,” which by that point numbered about 6,000 people. The British refused and helped the former slaves settle in Canada, with some going to Trinidad.

In context of the century, Key understood that the British were free. In fact the only persons who weren't free were slaves, including those he owned. Quite literally in his mind and in his words, the star-spangled banner was the flag of "the freemen" not that "distinct and inferior race of people" he owned. And so he clearly wrote "O thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand."

Why would anyone expect descendants of slaves to stand when that song is being played? In fact, why would anyone with a conscience stand? In fact, why is that the National Anthem of the United States?

By all means, everyone proudly sing that poem of bigotry and hatred at every important event here in 1938 Germany 21st Century America at the behest of the NFL as you've been taught to by your state's education system. After all, Black citizens are being shot randomly by agents of the state because of they are descendants of slaves, that "distinct and inferior race of people" as the writer of the song's words stated. Why wouldn't a Deplorable celebrate that?

Kaepernick is from a Progressive Pacific State so no wonder he gets it right. And it's time for the rest of the United States population to get it right. It's time we force a blunt, honest, full, and open discussion about these human rights issues that particularly impact on the majority of Pacific States people.

It's time that Americans learn that history matters and they need to acknowledge just how big the lie they've been told about American history has been. For instance....

Most Americans sort of recognize this from the Declaration of Independence:

    We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.

The governments in the colonies allowed only white male property owners to vote - that was the "consent" of that part of "the governed" who were formally recognized by the very people who signed the Declaration.

With regard to all men are created equal with all those cool unalienable rights, the male slave owners signing the Declaration agreed that all men - other than slaves and Native Americans and other different folks and women - had those rights.

In a curious truth, slaveowner Thomas Jefferson included in his draft of the Declaration...

    he [the King] has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating it's most sacred rights of life and liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivating and carrying them into slavery in another hemispere, or to incure miserable death in their transportation hither. this piratical warfare, the opprobium of infidel powers, is the warfare of the Christian king of Great Britain.

...which was regarded by fellow Founding Fathers as an anti-slavery rant and was dropped like a hot potato.

Then there is the preamble of the Constitution which says:

    We the People of the United States, in Order to...secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

Again, at the time of its founding in most of the United States (by area and population as you can see from the graphics above) the only persons allowed to vote were white male property owners. The Constitution provided for slavery and the separation of the Native Americans, so that "We the People" was a very closely defined group.

It is in this context that the 21st Century Progressive must ask:

Is it possible for that portion of the population that supported Donald Trump to accept a society of equitable communities which permit every person the opportunity to pursue personal productive goals while sharing with all other humans equality in personal dignity and human rights while enjoying freedom with responsibility?

Because that is the goal of the Progressive Pacific Message, it is not acceptable to continue the government-sanctioned bigotry reflected by such things as the Trump Administration's Neoliberal ideology and "The Wall" or the Clinton Administration's "Third Way" ideology and mass incarceration program.

Our people must be defended against these attacks.

Table of Contents WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT THE PROGRESSIVE PACIFIC MESSAGE

Welcome to the Pacific Progressive Message Our Core Message The 70-Year Systematic Destruction of American Progressivism The Task Facing Progressives Statement of Obligations and Rights of People and their States History Matters: The 2016 Bi-Partisan Attack on the Pacific States People, Beliefs, Economy, Defense Why is it a "Pacific" Message??? History Matters: The Significance of the Spanish Pacific in North American Historical Geography New Spain (1521-1849): The Real History of American States How the Spanish Created the 21st Century Pacific States Worldview History Matters: Conquering the Transcontinental Divide by Amplifying the Racial and Cultural Divide History Matters: Defending the Endangered Basic Human Rights of the People of the Pacific States It's not Roger Williams' American Dream About that Star Spangled Banner National Anthem Economics Matter, Stupid! Combating the Bi-Partisan Assault on the Enduring Economics of the Pacific States Wealthy Neoliberals Matter: How an Economic Ideology Took Control of U.S. State and National Legislative Agendas History Matters: Neoliberalism comes to America History Matters: The Loss of the Progressive Message in America History Matters: After Reagan, Neoliberals continue to win Organization and Drudgery Matter: The Neoliberal Advocacy Network The Future Matters: Restoring the Lost Progressive Message by Advocating for a Warm, Big-Hearted World Overcoming the Neoliberal strategy An Alliance does not equal assimilation or multiculturalism History Matters: To win it's State Party Politics, not Celebrity A Goal: Learn to use 21st Century technology to win