The Oregon Experiment by Keith Scribner Page A

to the principles, vision, and strategies is imperative.” He spoke over the heads of everyone in the room, directly to Sequoia, and the more forcefully he spoke, the more her face sparkled.
    And he started feeling his genuine belief that a more just system in which humanity could flourish more fully really was possible, and that it began with groups of people like these before him tonight. Yes, the system had us by the throats. Yes, if it wasn’t good for oil companies and the NRA, it would never happen. But he’d learned from Sam Belknap that life was about embracing contradictions, then working toward something that smelled like truth. For Naomi and their baby, for Sam, for himself, he had to try.
    “Even with all of that,” he continued, “your chances of achieving even the most token sort of secession from the state of Oregon or the United States of America is beyond remote. And I’d add,” he said, “that if you researched successful secessionist groups, you’d know you don’t have much working for you. First you need lots of money. You also need aleader. I don’t see how you can possibly do anything by the consensus of whichever sixty people happen to show up on a given night. You need to elect a leader and a council, give them real authority and then respect and support it. A successful movement will have a coalition of at least eighty percent of the population in the secessionist region. You’re no coalition at all, just sixty individuals. You need to broaden your appeal with good leadership and, again, clearly defined principles and all the rest. But most importantly, at this stage you need publicity and public relations, starting with a decent name. The best ones evoke a martyr or some event that arouses passion. At any rate, a name with a little jing. PNSM, I don’t know, it sounds like a regional association of podiatrists.”
    The beams overhead were massive, milled in an age when Oregon Douglas firs grew to the size of redwoods. Filbert’s occupied an old warehouse—the loft constructed around a two-story stainless steel tank where they brewed the beer Scanlon was drinking.
    “There’s dozens of groups working for secession in the Pacific Northwest,” Hank Trueblood was saying. “Every scenario—separate nation, fifty-first state, aligning with BC. It makes so much goddamn sense, is the thing.” He took a long draft on his IPA. They were on their second beer, having sought each other out after the meeting. Scanlon wished that Naomi could have heard Hank extolling the rain that keeps everything green, the pals he floats the Rogue River with each summer, another bunch who camp together in the Wallowas, friends who smoke salmon, distill gin, and produce biodiesel in their backyards. Last March he skied in powder to his knees at nine thousand feet, mountain biked the next day through old-growth forest on the edge of town and, a day later, in sixty-five degrees and full sun, was eating oysters on the coast.
    Scanlon liked him and felt he possessed secret knowledge about keeping life in balance. Full of energy and drive but low-key about it. He was all to the point—no bullshit. “Is that
really
your first name?” he’d asked right off the bat. Scanlon laughed, then explained it was a family name and that his friends called him Pratt. Hank was as surprised as Clay that the university would have anybody teaching anarchy, and Scanlon told him that his research was on radical action and mass movements, but his bread and butter were the American politics core classes for majors. He then quickly steered the conversation back to tonight’s meeting.
    “Secession can only make us better off,” Hank said. “And I mean
our
bread and butter.”
    Sipping the golden ale, aged in a pinot noir barrel, Scanlon tasted the wine suffusing the beer but could barely pick out the fragrance. He’d try to describe it for Naomi when he got home.
    “Year after year,” Hank said, “Oregon ranks near the top of