OK, unpopular take that will probably make both pro- and anti-Cascadianists hate me:

Independence is both necessary and insufficient.

The biggest problem is that the most likely process of independence is one of *secession*, which preserves significant aspects of existing institutions. The other problem is that dissolution of the national bond doesn't undo the legal and social legacy of colonization.

Two of the most significant criticisms of Cascadianism are that it is a "laundering" of the Cascadian region's colonial history, and that it constitutes an abandonment of marginalized populations still subject to US rule.

To some extent, I agree with both of these - so why still support independence?

Independence also creates an opening for broader possibilities of larger change.

The USA finds itself in a similar position to the end stages of the USSR. It is at once both an unassailable military and economic superpower and a rotting zombie state made of hollowed-out institutions.

Cascadia is both a distinctive cultural unit and one of the most economically viable breakaway regions. Independence would begin a process of orderly dissolution, and potentially avert the most catastrophic outcome: a drawn-out, many sided, low intensity civil conflict.

On the other hand, an emergence of a Cascadian *hegemony* is unlikely. Therefore, the end of US economic, military, and cultural hegemony in Cascadia creates space for autonomous movements to assert themselves in turn.

Ultimately, this opening up of the possibility for further revolutionary processes is the goal - not the formation of a Cascadian nation-state *as such.*

Independence is only a means to an end.