2016 Postmortem
Related: About this forumFrom His Home in Russia, #Calexit Leader Plots California Secession
Louis Marinelli heads the secessionist group Yes California. Following the election of Donald Trump to the presidency, the organization has gone from an unknown fringe group to one discussed seriously in mainstream media.
What has not been discussed as prominently is Marinellis deep ties to Russia.
A former right-wing activist from Buffalo, New York, Marinelli first moved to Russia almost a decade ago. He studied at St. Petersburg State University, the alma mater of Russian President Vladimir Putin. He returned to the United States to campaign against LGBTQ rights as part of the National Organization for Marriage.
Marinelli then returned to Russia. He would marry a Russian citizen, and the couple moved to San Diego, where Marinelli launched a political career based on a platform of California secession.
I immigrated to California, and I consider myself to be a Californian, Marinelli says from his apartment in Yekaterinburg, a city of about 1.4 million just east of the Ural Mountains and about 1,000 miles from Moscow.
In an interview with The California Report, Marinelli confirms hes living and working in Russia as a teacher.
More in link plus audio: http://ww2.kqed.org/news/2016/12/13/from-his-home-in-russia-calexit-leader-plots-california-secession/
Cal exit opens "embassy" in Russia
http://www.notey.com/blogs/calexit
There is Louis Marinelli in burgundy suit!
SEP 2016. Moscow welcomes the (would-be) sovereign nations of California and Texas:
The speaker was calling for Californias independence from the United States.
Alexei Gavrilko nodded approvingly. A burly, bearded, camouflage-wearing separatist from eastern Ukraine, he said he had come to the posh Moscow hotel just outside the Kremlin to communicate with colleagues representing separatist and secessionist groups from the United States, Europe, the Middle East and the former Soviet Union.
During a conference dubbed the Dialogue of Nations, Gavrilko listened carefully to Louis Marinelli, head of the Yes California group that is determined to hold the Golden States independence referendum in 2019.
For the first time in history, we, the people of California, who were conquered and annexed by the American military about 170 years ago, will have a chance to express our voice to either remain a state in the American union, or instead, to pursue a path toward a nationhood, Marinelli said solemnly.
Gavrilko, who is from the unrecognized but de facto independent Donetsk region, and the entire separatist crowd cheered and applauded. They did it again, louder, when Nate Smith, a self-proclaimed foreign minister of the Texas Nationalist Movement, promised that one day, the independent Lone Star state can formally exchange ambassadors with your free and independent countries.
The arrival of Californian, Texan, Puerto Rican, Northern Irish, Catalan, Italian and Lebanese secessionists to mingle with activists from several unrecognized separatist territories in former Soviet republics is becoming a tradition as Moscow turns to belligerent, anti-Western nationalism coupled with a readiness to take up arms against its former Soviet vassals.
Moscow uses these gatherings to promote its political agenda, gain more political leverage in the West and push for the lifting of Western sanctions imposed on Moscow after its 2014 annexation of Crimea and support of the separatists in eastern Ukraine, a former lawmaker with the ruling United Russia party said.
The more the West is disunited, the more beneficial it is to Russia, Sergei Markov said, adding that the secession of California and Texas a prospect that would appear to be something of a long shot would undoubtedly benefit the Kremlin.
http://www.latimes.com/world/europe/la-fg-russia-separatists-snap-story.html
The more the West is disunited, the more beneficial it is to Russia,
The more the West is disunited, the more beneficial it is to Russia, Sergei Markov said, adding that the secession of California and Texas a prospect that would appear to be something of a long shot would undoubtedly benefit the Kremlin.
http://www.latimes.com/world/europe/la-fg-russia-separatists-snap-story.html
pbmus
(12,438 posts)DonCoquixote
(13,700 posts)should call his California cred into question as a large part of the reason California is thinking of leavng is because they are sick and tired of having to be controlled by texans and the rest of Dixie. Not to mention he campaigned against gay rights (that will win you support in San Francisco, really, rolls eyes)
budkin
(6,849 posts)We're the "United" states for fuck's sake.
msongs
(70,137 posts)DemocratSinceBirth
(100,188 posts)former9thward
(33,424 posts)What does your nominal resident of Berkeley have in common with your nominal resident of Bakersfield?
Response to former9thward (Reply #14)
DemocratSinceBirth This message was self-deleted by its author.
TheFrenchRazor
(2,116 posts)TheFrenchRazor
(2,116 posts)i form my opinion; i check with facts, logic, and evidence. why don't you give this up? if you had any real case against secession, you wouldn't have to keep saying "Look, Russia wants you to do this!!!"
Warren DeMontague
(80,708 posts)posting from the Beltway and thereabouts, I've noticed.
DemocratSinceBirth
(100,188 posts)Madam45for2923
(7,178 posts)Warren DeMontague
(80,708 posts)As they try to figure out how to better appeal to "megachurch moms" by opposing pot reform and full frontal nudity on HBO.
Starry Messenger
(32,375 posts)Stripping the CA delegation from Congress would reduce its numbers considerably and we'd still have to share a landmass with the other 49 states, who have the military. We can fight Trump in the courts.
Warren DeMontague
(80,708 posts)but what is gonna happen hopefully is our party will start finally listening to our west coast leadership on everything from individual liberty/freedom to technology issues.
TheFrenchRazor
(2,116 posts)NobodyHere
(2,810 posts)DemocratSinceBirth
(100,188 posts)I also wonder if the seminal poster is acquainted with the ecological fallacy.