Wednesday, October 30, 2024

Gorilla Radio with Chris Cook, Ken Stone, Ingmar Lee October 30, 2024

This Week on GR

by C.L. Cook - GRadio.Substack.com

 
October 30, 2024

Welcome to Gorilla Radio, recorded October 30th, 2024

Listen. Hear.

No thinking person needs convincing this Halloween of the reality of monsters. Ghouls and murder goblins are apparent all around us like never before; the ongoing slaughter of innocents over the past year in Gaza bearing grim witness to that. The real monsters however are cleverly disguised, their masks making them harder to recognize; but, in their monstrous deeds they are evidenced.

In a few weeks time, NATO will convene its 70th Parliamentary Assembly. Held this time over the weekend commencing November 22nd in Montreal, Peace groups and citizens of all kinds opposed to the alliance’s serial wars and international bellicosity will greet delegates there with manifestations, demonstrations, and other forms of creative protestation. One of those will be the Canada-Wide Peace & Justice Network-organized, ‘No to NATO, Yes to Peace’, a Counter Summit Against NATO’s Parliamentary Assembly.

Ken Stone is an activist and author working for peace with the Hamilton Coalition to Stop the War, and the Syria Support Movement International. Ken’s associated with the CWPJN too. Ken Stone’s book, ‘Defiant Syria: Dispatches from the Second International Tour of Peace to Syria’ is available, and is a compilation of his dispatches from his 2016 tour there.

Ken Stone in the first half.

And; the heinous destruction of life and limb in Gaza and now Lebanon by Israel could not be continued, or even contemplated in the first instance, without the material and diplomatic support of those same nations meeting in Montreal soon. While all weaponry ceded to it is illicit – given the State’s lawless nature – some of the weapons being deployed against Palestinian and Lebanese populations are so morally vile and the effects so nefarious, their use exceeds violation of mere humanitarian law; they are in themselves crimes against nature, both human and animal, present and future.

Ingmar Lee is a long-time BC-based environment defender who describes himself as a “rotten, belligerent, iconoclastic, ungrateful, unrepentant, and unpleasant treehugger.” He’s been a friend of this show for more than twenty years – appearing more times than I can remember – speaking on vital environmental and humanist topics. His articles have appeared as long online at CounterPunch, among other places, where I found his recent piece, ‘Bludgeoning by Block-Busting Bunker-Buster Bombs’.

Ingmar Lee and the not sane Netanyahu claque going nuclear in the second half.

But first, Ken Stone and greeting NATO not kindly in Montreal.

 

Song: Jabaliya Remix

Artist: David Rovics

 

Chris Cook hosts Gorilla Radio, on the internet at: GRadio.Substack.com. Check out GR on Telegram: https://t.me/gorillaradio2024 and the blog at: https://gorillaradioblog.blogspot.ca/

Thursday, October 24, 2024

Dropping DU on Gaza and Lebanon

Bludgeoning by Block-Busting Bunker Buster Bombs

by Ingmar Lee - CounterPunch.org

 
October 4, 2024

Throughout the current Genocidal State of Apartheid Israel’s Gommorah-ization of Gaza, gargantuan American-made and supplied “Bunker-Buster”  bombs have been used to level hospitals, schools, universities, mosques and churches, aid-distribution sites, United Nations compounds, tent encampments, orphanages and anywhere else that Gaza’s defenceless, exhausted and innocent citizens gather. 


Biden’s lavish and non-stop gifting of weaponry to Israel includes hundreds of Bunker Busters bombs. Bunker Buster bombing has become an iconic emblem of the American, and by their proxy, Israel’s cooperative ATROCITY now being visited on the strip.

Bunker Busters, also known as “Guided Bomb Units,” (GBU’s) weigh in, on average, at one ton each, but some of them, such as the GBU 28’s and GBU 37’s weigh as much as 5000 lbs. and have the added acronym’s “Massive Ordnance Penetrator” (MOP) and “Mother Of All Bombs” (MOAB). From Wikipedia:

“…The initial batch of GBU-28s was built from modified 8-inch (203 mm) artillery barrels (principally from deactivated M110 howitzers), but later examples are purpose-built with the BLU-113 bomb body made by National Forge of Irvine, Pennsylvania. They weigh 5,000 pounds (2,268 kg) and contain 630 pounds (286 kg) of tritonal explosive. The GBU-28 C/B version uses the 5,000-pound BLU-122 bomb body, which contains AFX-757 explosive in a 4,000-pound (1,800 kg) casing machined from a single piece of ES-1 Eglin steel alloy. The operator illuminates a target with a laser designator and the munition guides itself to the spot of laser light reflected from the target. When the GBU-28 hits the ground, a short-delay time fuze is activated which triggers detonation when it has penetrated deeply enough to completely destroy the target…”

More recently no less than 83 of these massive weapons were fired in a gargantuan block-busting bombardment in the heart of Beirut, which blasted through 6 hi-rise apartment blocks, and then bludgeoned down through solid rock to assassinate Hezbollah Secretary General Hasan Nasrallah. This laser-focused monstrous attack simultaneously killed 100’s of innocent Lebanese civilians. And although the gruesome American bunker buster bomb is, on the WMD destruction cline, only surpassed by the utterly apocalyptic Nuke, methinks these bunker- busters currently being dropped on Palestine and Lebanon are actually, already radioactive.

According to the “How Stuff Works” website:

“…One way to make a bunker buster heavier while maintaining a narrow cross-sectional area is to use a metal that is heavier than steel. Lead is heavier, but it is so soft that it is useless in a penetrator — lead would deform or disintegrate when the bomb hits the target. One material that is both extremely strong and extremely dense is depleted uranium. DU is the material of choice for penetrating weapons because of these properties..”

The one most hideous aspect of the American Bunker-Buster bomb that is, as far as I can see, not being discussed anywhere, is the very real probability that these voracious weapons derive a considerable degree of their massive destructive power from Depleted Uranium. By many accounts, the assassination of Nasrallah was conducted in close consultation with American military intelligence. Clearly, by the sheer size and focus of the assault they knew they were going to have to penetrate deep. It is highly likely that Depleted Uranium-enhanced Bunker Busters were unleashed in that attack.

The American military’s shameless, most cowardly and liberal use of Depleted Uranium munitions, in their Attack, Invasion, Occupation, Torture, Rape and Massacre (never was a “war”) of Iraq, not only caused unprecedented devastation, but has left a lasting Nuclear contamination of the country. The hideous miasma of Depleted Uranium irradiation has been spread not only in Iraq, but everywhere in the world where American weaponry is spewed. Again, from Wikipedia:

More than 782,414 DU rounds were fired during the 1991 war in Iraq, mostly by US forces. In a three-week period of conflict in Iraq during 2003, it was estimated that between 1,000 and 2,000 tonnes of depleted uranium munitions were used.[43] More than 300,000 DU rounds were fired during the 2003 war, the vast majority by US troops. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) estimates that between 170 and 1,700 tonnes of depleted uranium was dropped in Iraq by the US military since 2003, whereas the UK reported firing 1.9 tonnes of depleted uranium weapons in said country.

The American irradiation of Iraq has resulted in a subsequent legacy of gruesome birth defects see here . Although there is a vast body of research linking the use of Depleted Uranium in weaponry and grotesque human birth defects, there’s no indication that its use has ever been curtailed by the American for-profit War Machine.

The good people of Gaza, Lebanon and, no doubt, now imminently, Iran, need to be immediately forewarned that they are, almost certainly being, or about to be  irradiated by DU Bunker-Busters being rained down by America and their awful proxy, the Israeli state. Everyone in Beirut needs to be aware that their beautiful city is now most probably blanketed with Geiger-gagging radioactive dust.

Americans, with Hiroshima and Nagasaki already contaminating their national conscience, should not be happy by being joined-at-the-hip to the Israeli warmongers. I would like to assume that by the total absence of any national polling that directly asks Americans (or Canadians, Australians or Europeans) if they support their government’s grovelling obeisance to the Genocidal State of Apartheid Israel, that a considerable majority are opposed. Somehow, in spite of the best efforts of the Israel lobby, I’ve still got some shred of faith in a general goodness of humanity.

It is beyond horrifying that the use of Depleted Uranium munitions continue being normalized by these incessant warmongering belligerents. But it is ever more terrifying right now to see America’s interminable ally, -the Bunker Buster Berserker, Netanyahu- for whom the immense destructive power of American Bunker Busters are not enough, has now gone right off the deep end with Iran, with his twitching finger hovering eagerly over his Nuke trigger…

 

Wednesday, October 23, 2024

Gorilla Radio with Chris Cook, Alan MacLeod, Catherine Coumans October 23, 2024

This Week on GR

by C.L. Cook - GRadio.Substack.com

 
October 23, 2024 

Welcome to Gorilla Radio, recorded October 23rd, 2024

 
The old saw says, "no news is good news", but in the free world today, where media is divided across platforms, and nuanced by hues along the credibility continuum, it may be fairer to say, "some news is no good at all". But, where it comes to the disaster of Gaza and its near neighbours, there's little comedy in subtlety of meaning and wry word play: Now, no real news means genocide.

Dr. Alan MacLeod is Senior Staff Writer for MintPress News and author of the books, 'Bad News from Venezuela: Twenty Years of Fake News and Misreporting', and 'Propaganda in the Information Age: Still Manufacturing Consent'. MacLeod has also contributed to the online publications: FAIR.org, The Grayzone, and Common Dreams, among others. His recent piece at MintPress, 'Revealed: The Israeli Spies Writing American News' reveals to readers the moles and spooks behind news and social media platforms their publishers knew where there all along.

Alan MacLeod in the first half.

And; Barrick Gold is a titan in the global mining business. A Canadian giant - of a sort - that doesn't brook interference in either its digging in the dirt, or dirt being dug up about its political field salting. The litigious Barrick went after American "reporting investigator" Greg Palast and The Guardian, as he reported in the year 2001, for "quoting an Amnesty International report, which alleged that 50 miners might have been buried alive in Tanzania by a company now owned by Barrick."

Almost a quarter of a century later, MiningWatch Canada reports, hearings commencing in the Ontario Superior Court of Justice in Toronto "…on behalf of 32 plaintiffs from Tanzania against Barrick Gold Corporation."

The Indigenous Kuria people are Barrick’s neighbours, who claim the North Mara Gold Mine's police force have committed "acts of extreme violence" against them. Acts that include: beatings, torture, and shootings that have resulting in the deaths of some of the villagers.

Catherine Coumans is a Research Coordinator with MiningWatch Canada and contributes in bringing its report, 'Barrick in Toronto Court over Allegations of Acts of Extreme Violence at North Mara Mine in Tanzania' into the open.

Catherine Coumans and the Kuria people, feeling the weight of Barrick's heavy hand in the second half.

But first; Alan MacLeod and Israel's spies providing your views of the modern Holocaust.

 

Song: Jabaliya

Artist: David Rovics

 

Chris Cook hosts Gorilla Radio, on the internet at: GRadio.Substack.com. Check out the GR blog at: https://gorillaradioblog.blogspot.ca/

 

Wednesday, October 16, 2024

Gorilla Radio with Chris Cook, Dimitri Lascaris, Dan Kovalik October 16, 2024

This Week on GR

by C.L. Cook - GRadio.Substack.com

 
October 16, 2024

Welcome to Gorilla Radio, recorded October 16th, 2024

As difficult as it is to imagine after a full year of atrocities visited by Israel upon the heads of the civilians of Gaza, the West Bank, and now Lebanon too, greater and more horrible new crimes continue to be devised and executed. Knowing devastation like the erasure of tent encampments at al Aqsa Hospital will be repeated and waiting out the inevitability of by magnitude worse horrors to come is the dictionary definition of terrorism. State terrorism in this instance, and a terror campaign supported and sustained by Israel’s allies in the United States, Europe, and Canada.

Dimitri Lascaris is a lawyer, activist, and frontline journalist, whose been producing intensive on the ground reports from West Asia over the last year, and created the new podcast, Reason2Resist in the lead up to the all out war witnessed there today. He’s recently returned from Beirut, where he walked the rubbled streets of that great city, to his home-base in Greece.

Dimitri Lascaris in the first half.

And; it’s accepted now; journalists and activists can expect to be harassed when they arrive home to the countries of the “free World”. Their phones, cameras, and recording equipment may be seized, and they themselves detained, questioned, intimidated, and even arrested. All this for the crime of not toeing the line on stories deemed sensitive to either their own government, or one of its allies. And, it’s not just upon arrival this treatment is meted out; as discovered in Britain by long-time Palestine activist, Sarah Wilkinson, whose home was violated by a platoon of balaclava-clad, machine gun toting security men, and she roughly arrested.

Dan Kovalik’s a lawyer, educator, labour, peace, and justice activist, democracy defender, journalist, author, and filmmaker. He’s been back and forth to the Donbass region of Russia five times in the last couple of years, talking to the people there and relaying their stories to his fellow Americans. And that has not gone unnoticed.

Dan’s book titles include: ‘Cancel This Book: The Progressive Case Against Cancel Culture’ the “Plot to” series on American efforts to undermine the governments and economies of Iran, Venezuela, and Russia, ‘No More War: How the West Violates International Law by Using ‘Humanitarian’ Intervention to Advance Economic and Strategic Interest’, and ‘Nicaragua: A History of US Intervention & Resistance’. His latest is the recently released, ‘The Case for Palestine: Why It Matters and Why You Should Care’.

Dan Kovalik bringing it home in the second half.

But first, Dimitri Lascaris bearing witness to the wreckage in Beirut.

 

Chris Cook hosts Gorilla Radio, on the internet at: GRadio.Substack.com. and at Telegram: https://t.me/GorillaRadio2024. Check out the GR blog at: https://gorillaradioblog.blogspot.ca/


Wednesday, October 09, 2024

Gorilla Radio with Chris Cook, John Helmer, Ray McGinnis October 8-9th, 2024

This Week on GR

by C.L. Cook - GRadio.Substack.com


October 9, 2024

Welcome to Gorilla Radio, recorded October 8th and 9th, 2024.

 

October marks the Olive Harvest throughout the Mediterranean. That essential tree is revered there not only for its place at the centre of the Mediterranean Diet, but also symbolically as the herald of peace and prosperity nearly everywhere else. One must, you see, have faith in the future to nurture and bring a slow-growing olive orchard to fruition. But today is too October 7th, and there's little optimism for replacing the orchards torched in Gaza and West Bank, or in dousing the fires defining our times.

The other major war, still fought but largely forgotten in the Western presses, grinds on in Ukraine; though there is some hope the talks begun in Istanbul in 2022 may yet resume, promising perhaps a peace of a sort to come before Christmas.

John Helmer is a journalist and author who’s spent decades living in and reporting from Russia. He serves as principle behind the web news site, Dances with Bears, has been a professor of political science, sociology, and journalism, and advised governments politically at the highest levels.

Among his many book titles are: ‘Skripal in Prison,’ ‘The Man Who Knows Too Much About Russia,’ ‘The Lie That Shot Down MH-17’, ‘SOVCOMPLOT: How Pirates Tried to Capture the Treasure of the Russian Seas, and Were Caught Out’, and his lately released autobiography, ‘Dunce Upon a Time: A Life of Mistakes’. His recent article at Dances with Bears, 'SENDING A BOY TO DO A MAN’S JOB – VLADIMIR MEDINSKY TO NEGOTIATE ISTANBUL II' examines the failure of Istanbul in the first instance, and prospects for a peace agreement in a renewed process.

John Helmer in the first half.

And; two and half-years on, the trauma created by the Canadian government response to the Covid-19 outbreak is yet to be adequately addressed. The shock suffered the system due to that reaction, it can be argued, was more devastating than the pandemic itself, and few in the government responsible seem anxious to either acknowledge mistakes made, or provide remedies for the dangerous legal precedents it created.

Ray McGinnis is an author and retired educator who, concerned about the unprecedented invocation of the Emergencies Act in 2022, attended and began reporting on the Public Order Emergency Commission hearings, and was one of the only journalists in Canada to follow the subsequent 'Coutts Four' case, publishing numerous articles on its traducing of Canadian legal norms.

Ray's book titles include, 'Writing the Sacred: A Psalm-inspired Path to Appreciating and Writing Sacred Poetry', 'Unanswered Questions: What the September Eleventh Families Asked and the 9/11 Commission Ignored', and the newly released, 'Unjustified: The Freedom Convoy, The Emergencies Act, and The Inquiry That Got It Wrong'.

Ray McGinnis on righting the Trudeau covid response, and restoring Canadian Justice in the second half.

But first, John Helmer and planting again the seeds for peace in Ukraine.

 

Chris Cook hosts Gorilla Radio, at: GRadio.Substack.com.  Check out the GR blog at: http://gorillaradioblog.blogspot.ca/

Wednesday, October 02, 2024

Gorilla Radio with Chris Cook, Andy Worthington, Yves Engler October 2, 2024

This Week on GR

by C.L. Cook - GRadio.Substack.com

 
October 2, 2024
 
Welcome to Gorilla Radio, recorded October 2, 2024


 Listen. Hear.

Well it's "war and rumours of war" again today on the show, and as in the past I'll remind: this is not the end, nor beginning of the end, not even the end of the beginning of the beginning of the end, but merely the sound and fury of business as usual.

That is not to diminish the horror and depravity of what we're seeing in Gaza and Lebanon, and Yemen - and even moreso the same for what is not being witnessed there, and in all the elsewheres similar - but is meant only to emphasize the great work in front of us to bring finally a finish, for God's sake!, to the global economic paradigm of perpetual warfare.

The obstacles to that work are many though, and they're arrayed and ready, waging war against the good with not only bullets and bombs, but with the pen and writs of law too; arresting movements in the street, and stoppering the mouths of those making media.

Andy Worthington knows. He's an English journalist, activist, author, photo-historian, filmmaker, musician, song-writer and principle of The Four Fathers band. He is too co-founder of both the ongoing Close Guantánamo campaign and successfully completed We Stand With Shaker campaign. Andy's book titles include: ‘The Guantánamo Files: The Stories of the 774 Detainees in America’s Illegal Prison’, ‘Stonehenge: Celebration and Subversion’, and ‘The Battle of the Beanfield’. His articles appear at his website, AndyWorthington.co.uk, where he’s inviting support of the effort to Close Guantanamo.

 

Andy Worthington in the first half.

And; as a Canadian, I'd like to say my country at least is doing its utmost to stay the terrible hand of its friends and allies supporting and waging wars against the civilians of Gaza, Lebanon, Yemen and elsewhere. But that would be untrue. Just as it is a lie when the Canadian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Melanie Joly says that is the case. Sadly, Canada is up to its pointed elbows in war profiteering and the real politik of hard power in the aforementioned benighted locales, and in other places too.

None perhaps know more about that than Canadian journalist, author, and activist Yves Engler. Yves' written a baker's dozen of books about Canada and the perfidity of its foreign policy. His latest, co-authored with Owen Schalk, is the recently released, 'Canada’s Long Fight Against Democracy', described as a "sweeping overview of Canadian-backed coups since 1950 [documenting] Canada’s contribution to the ouster of over 20 elected governments from Mohammad Mossadegh in Iran to Patrice Lumumba in Congo, Salvador Allende in Chile to Jean Bertrand Aristide in Haiti."

 

Yves Engler confronting Canada's black actions past, and current dark actors in the second half.

But first, Andy Worthington and singing the songs of Albion that Britons be awakened!

 

Song: All About Love

Artists: The Four Fathers

Chris Cook hosts Gorilla Radio, at: GRadio.Substack.com.  Check out the GR blog at: http://gorillaradioblog.blogspot.ca/

Wednesday, September 25, 2024

Gorilla Radio with Chris Cook, Laith Marouf, Joseph McGhee September 25, 2024

This Week on GR

by C.L. Cook - GRadio.Substack.com

 
September 25, 2024

Welcome to Gorilla Radio, recorded September 25th, 2024

More than a thousand civilians have been killed in southern Lebanon over the last few days, as the cross-border war between Hezbollah and Israel continues to intensify. Last week's "pager attack" seems now to have been Israel's Rubicon moment in initiating a greater war with its regional nemesis, and the introduction of the tactics used to such devastating effect in Gaza to Lebanon. The question now is: Will the World community of nations stand idly by while Israel attempts, as its own government ministers have promised, to "turn Lebanon into another Gaza"?

Laith Marouf is founder and Executive Director of FreePalestine.Video. He's a long-time multimedia consultant, producer, and frontline reporter who's been chronicling the escalation to war from his base in Beirut.

Free Palestine says its purpose is to provide coverage of the region, “…in the absence of media supporting the resistance forces in the English language due to the ban in the West.

Laith Marouf in the first half.

And; for good and ill we little people are all subject to the law. For most of us, though fighting the courts isn't possible without incurring massive legal costs; costs that carry no guarantee of success. This is why more than 90% of criminal cases in the United States are now settled with plea bargains. That's where the innocent plead guilty to lesser charges, rather than risking draconian penalties should they lose the case.

Joseph McGhee knows all too well about that. He's been through the judicial ringer down there. And it cost him plenty. But McGhee knows a thing or two about the law; and the former paralegal professional is a fighter. His ongoing appeal has taken him into uncharted legal territory; challenging not only a conviction, but the authority of the US Supreme Court itself.

Joseph McGhee v. The State of Arizona et al in the second half.

 

But first, Laith Marouf from Lebanon at war.

 

[Ed.’s note: Laith and FreePalestine.Video need your help. They’re on the ground in an extremely dangerous environment, as journalists are beginning to be targeted in their homes and workplaces in Lebanon, just as those in Gaza. They are also broadcasting the news from the front through a swiftly closing window. Online media companies are shuttering sites featuring voices of dissent and revelatory journalism, depriving them of the means to generate revenue for operations; even as western governments arrest the press and harass social activism in the “Free World”. See below to find out how you can help. - Ape]

Follow our socials: X (Twitter) | YouTube | Rumble | Telegram | Instagram

 

Song: Hind's Song 2

Artists: MACKLEMORE - feat. Anees, MC Abdul, Amer Zahr

 

Chris Cook hosts Gorilla Radio, broad/webcasting since 1999. Check out the Archive at GRadio.Substack.com, and the GR blog at: https://gorillaradioblog.blogspot.com/

 

Wednesday, September 18, 2024

Gorilla Radio with Chris Cook, Sathish Balasunderam/Pitasanna Shanmugathas, David Rovics Sept. 18, 2024

This Week on GR

by C.L. Cook - GRadio.Substack.com

 
September 18, 2024

Welcome to Gorilla Radio, recorded September 18th, 2024

Few in Canada will likely have heard of Neelan Tiruchelvam, but for those in the ex-patriot Sri Lankan community, the Harvard-educated human rights lawyer, mediator, and champion for peace was, at the end of the last century, the best hope of bringing together the Tamil minority community with the Sinhalese ruling class to avert civil war. His assassination in 1999 put an end to those hopes, and history records what happened next.

Sathish Balasunderam is a Canadian Tamil and lawyer involved in "left politics" out east. Sathish is also a collaborator with Pitasanna Shanmugathas, the writer, director, producer, and editor of the acclaimed documentary series, 'Truth to the Powerless: An Investigation into Canada’s Foreign Policy' - on a new project based on the life of Neelan Tiruchelvam.


Pitasana Shanmugathas and Sathish Balasunderam in the first half.

And; while the news is fresh: Yesterday, Israel attacked Lebanon. That's hardly news; Israel has been bombing there for nearly a year, (and much else besides for decades more) but what is new is the nature of the attack. Everyone has heard by now of the "pager bombs". As I write, eleven are confirmed dead, with many hundreds more injured. After nearly a year of horrors and crimes never witnessed, it seems we've got further to descend yet.

But, David Rovics is not cowed. He says, "Whatever's happening next, I aim to be singing about it!" David's an itinerant singer/songwriter, essayist, and anarchist. Fresh from the anti-climactic Democratic National Convention in Chicago, Rovics and partner in musical rhymes, Kamala (the Good) Emanuel, a.k.a. 'The Ministry of Culture' are touring the continental Northwest, with gigs in Washington State, Oregon, and right up here in B.C.

 

David Rovics and Titanic entertainment amid the icebergs in the second half.

But first, Sathish Balasunderam and Pitasanna Shanmugathas on the life and times of Neelan Tiruchelvam, Sri Lanka's hero for peace.

 

Song: Aysenur

Artist: David Rovics

 

Chris Cook hosts Gorilla Radio, at: GRadio.Substack.com.  Check out the GR blog at: http://gorillaradioblog.blogspot.ca/


Gorilla Radio with Chris Cook, Dimitri Lascaris, Salam Hamdan September 11, 2024

This Week on GR

by C.L. Cook - GRadio.Substack.com

September 11, 2024
 
Welcome to Gorilla Radio, recorded September 11th, 2024

 

Eleven months in to Israel's genocide, and every day brings news of atrocities that can mean nothing less than the determination to erase entirely the Palestinian people from their homeland. Watching governments, and the institutions of the West obfuscate and obscure the truth of this disaster - as grotesque as the worst crimes of the last century - while too allowing war profiteers flourish by it, is a new kind of evil; one that damns us all.

Last night, the candidates for the presidency of the United States presented to the People their case for election; but neither Donald Trump, nor Kamala Harris could utter a word of condemnation of what Israel is doing, or provide any promise of bringing this horror to a stop. How could they, when America is the engine driving this Holocaust?

Dimitri Lascaris is a journalist, lawyer, and long-time activist for social justice. He’s been traveling extensively in and reporting from West Asia for several months; most recently in Lebanon. His articles from there, around the region, and from his home base in Greece are available at his site, DimitriLascaris.org, and you can tune in to his interview program, Reason2Resist on Rumble, Youtube, and Twitter.

Dimitri Lascaris in the first half.

And; as Gaza suffers bullets and bombs, deprivation and disease, its chief tormentor has turned an eye to the West Bank. Thousands have been rounded up as prisoners already; sent away to the infamous concentration camps, where unspeakable crimes are committed every day - as they have since the beginning - only amplified many hundred-fold times. That method of Israel's genocide, its modus operandi as seen these terrible months in Gaza, is repeating itself now in the rest of the Occupied Territories.

Salam Hamdan is a Palestinian political activist and Social-Feminist. She's been reporting the increasingly desperate situation in her West Bank home for months, where arbitrary arrests and random assassination are the first and favourite tools of the terrorist state.

Salam Hamdan from the centre of the malestrom in the second half.

But first, Dimitri Lascaris and finding reason to resist.

Chris Cook hosts Gorilla Radio, on the internet at: GRadio.Substack.com. Check out the GR blog at: https://gorillaradioblog.blogspot.ca/

Wednesday, September 04, 2024

Gorilla Radio with Chris Cook, Joe Bissett, Diana Johnstone Aug. 28/Sept. 4, 2024

This Week on GR

by C.L. Cook - GRadio.Substack.com

September 4, 2024

 Welcome to Gorilla Radio, recorded Aug. 28/Sept. 4th, 2024


The United States Monday seized Venezuela's "Air Force One", the country's presidential jet, as it awaited maintenance in the Dominican Republic. The Americans insist their appropriation legitimate because the jet's purchase violated sanctions placed on Venezuela and its president, Nicholas Maduro. It's not the first time the U.S. has intercepted vessels and cargo, (and people) under this precept. Naturally, the Venezuelan government is outraged, charges the move was theft, and says America is nothing less than a pirate state.

Welcome to the waning days of Empire.

James "Joe" Bissett is a former Canadian Ambassador whose tenure in Yugoslavia coincided with that country’s 1991 dissolution. At century’s end, he was one of the few government insiders to oppose NATO’s 78 day bombardment of Serbia in the name of “humanitarian intervention.”

Joe Bissett in the first half.

And; August is not the time to be in Paris; the weather tends to mugginess, and Parisiennes' harden their attitude towards the seasonal throng of tourists run now too long. This year is the same as all years, only moreso. The Olympics disruption has worn, and all are eager for the coolness of the Fall and return to normalcy; but even as the last of the Summer visitors depart, things will still not be normal in Paris, nor in France. The country is in political turmoil, and though not visible to the parades of foreigners, just below the surface a dirty political fight, as oily as the bottom of the Seine, roils.

Diana Johnstone is an author and journalist. Her book titles include ‘ From MAD to Madness: Inside Pentagon Nuclear War Planning,’ ‘Circle in the Darkness: Memoirs of a World Watcher,’ and ‘Fools’ Crusade: Yugoslavia, NATO and Western Delusion.’ Diana’s articles can be found at ConsortiumNews.com, where her recent piece, 'D-Day 2024’ appears.

Diana Johnstone and if not burning, Paris IS smouldering in the second half.

But first, Joe Bissett and whither the diplomat's art in World affairs today? 

 

Chris Cook hosts Gorilla Radio, on the internet at: GRadio.Substack.com. Check out the GR blog at: https://gorillaradioblog.blogspot.ca/

Thursday, August 29, 2024

Pushing the UN to End Palestine Genocide

Hanging On with Gaza

by Kathy Kelly - World Beyond War

August 30, 2024

We must join with the call of the South African government which bravely upheld international law. We must clamor for the General Assembly to enact the “uniting for peace” resolution.

During a week of action focused on UN potential to end Israel’s genocidal attacks, I was part of a coalition that met with twelve different permanent missions to the United Nations. We urged that if countries that are parties to the Genocide Convention or the Geneva Conventions stop trading with Israel as international law demands, (cf. the July 19th advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice), the genocide will end quickly.

In each encounter at a Permanent Mission to the UN, its staff asked if we, as U.S. citizens, have addressed our government’s unwavering support for the genocide against impoverished and forcibly displaced people.

It was a deeply meaningful moment when the Irish Ambassador to the United Nations showed our delegation a miniature replica of John Behan’s poignant statue depicting the Irish exodus – it showed weary, hungry people disembarking from a boat after a stormy ocean voyage.

“You have to see each one of these as a human being,” he said.

My mother was an Irish indentured servant first in Ireland and then in England. As things go, she was among the more fortunate. She never endured being chained day and night in the Middle Passage of a slave ship carrying captives here, or in a human trafficker's overcrowded, lethally airless truck container. Nor did she have to cling to the remains of an overcrowded ship to keep from drowning after it capsized in the Mediterranean.

Life in Gaza is a desperate moment-to-moment ordeal of clinging to such wreckage, trying to stay above water, to stay alive, while both major U.S. political parties struggle to push you under.

In an article published by The Guardian, Israeli-American Omer Bartov, an eminent Holocaust historian and expert on genocide, lamented the unwillingness of many Israelis—some of whom are his friends, neighbors, colleagues, and even former students—to see Palestinians as human beings. He comments: “Many of my friends…feel that in the struggle between justice and existence, existence must win out…it is our own cause that must be triumphant, no matter the price… This feeling did not appear suddenly on 7 October.”

Is it futile to ask Israelis to reconsider this vengeance – avenging hundreds of civilians with several hundred thousand, half of them children – while the U.S. continues to arm Israel for the task?

Bartov continues: By the time I travelled to Israel, I had become convinced that …Israel was engaged in systematic war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocidal actions. … the ultimate goal of this entire undertaking from the very beginning had been to make the entire Gaza Strip uninhabitable, and to debilitate its population to such a degree that it would either die out or seek all possible options to flee the territory. In other words, … as the 1948 UN Genocide Convention puts it, … Israel was acting ‘with intent to destroy, in whole or in part’, the Palestinian population in Gaza, ‘as such, by killing, causing serious harm… inflicting conditions of life meant to bring about the group’s destruction’”.

How can United States citizens cope in a nation not just gone mad on war, but gone mad on genocide? We do not have to cope with lingering, state-enforced starvation or the memory of our lifeless children pulled from under rubble. But we must cope with our complicity.

When we can, we must act.


We cannot say we did not know. The United Nations member states watch the entire edifice of international law crumble as a genocide is broadcast across our screens. Israeli military forces may have killed close to 200,000 Gazans although only 40,000 bodies have been recovered for counting. The Israeli government’s siege is starving Palestinian children and has brought Gaza to the brink of a full-blown famine. Meanwhile, polio has made a return.

From September 10 – September 30, World BEYOND War, Code Pink, Veterans For Peace, Pax Christi and other coalition partners will leaflet, demonstrate, and nonviolently act to expose and oppose Israeli and U.S. actions which flout international law. We will gather before both the United States' U.N. Mission and the Israeli consulate demanding both nations desist from further massacres, forcible displacement, and the use of starvation and disease as weapons.

We will remind people that Israel possesses thermonuclear weapons but refuses to acknowledge this fact and thereby avoids any assessment or safeguards by the International Atomic Energy Association and any involvement in the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty.

We will express earnest concern both for Hamas' prisoners and the more than a thousand Palestinians incarcerated without charge by Israel, many of them women and children.

Currently, the United States and Israel have effectively decided on death for the remaining hostages rather than a settlement that would free Palestinian women and children. In a reckless bid to spark a U.S.-Iran war, Israel recently assassinated, in Tehran, the chief Hamas negotiator for a hostage release.

And still the U.S.' arms flow continues.


Last week, the world watched as the Democratic Party leadership, at its convention, squelched voices of the uncommitted delegates. DNC speakers repeated the lie that their party was seeking a ceasefire, while flatly refusing to stop replacing the guns and missiles Israel has used to shed blood and destroy infrastructure.

We all should rely on the covenant virtues of traditional Judaism, those virtues celebrated as essential for survival: truth, justice, and forgiving love. We should appeal to secular and faith-based people across the United States as we face precarities of nuclear annihilation and ecological collapse. Securing a better future for all children requires bolstering respect for human rights, searching always for ways to abolish war.

The U.S. government is complicit in genocide, and we, in whose name it is acting, are also complicit if we remain silent.

It is time for the United Nations to liberate itself from a Security Council structure giving five permanent, nuclear armed members a vise-like grip on the world's ability to counter the scourge of war. We must join with the call of the South African government which bravely upheld international law. We must clamor for the General Assembly to enact the “uniting for peace” resolution.

As the forthright Jewish delegate at last week's DNC, after he and two others unfurled a banner "STOP ARMING ISRAEL", said, "Never again means never again!"

We invite you to join us. https://events.worldbeyondwar.org/



A version of this article first appeared on World BEYOND War’s website. https://worldbeyondwar.org/hanging-on-with-gaza/

Kathy Kelly (Kathy.vcnv@gmail.com) is board president of World BEYOND War and a co-coordinator of the Merchants of Death War Crimes Tribunal.

Wednesday, August 28, 2024

Gorilla Radio with Chris Cook, Laith Marouf, John Helmer August 25/27, 2024

This Week on GR

by C. L. Cook - GRadio.Substack.com

 
August 28, 2024

Welcome to Gorilla Radio, recorded Aug. 25/27th, 2024. 

Claiming it had information on impending attacks, Israel Saturday launched what it called "preemptive strikes" against targets in southern Lebanon. Hezbollah returned with rocket barrages and drone strikes aimed at enemy radar installations and army barracks in the Golan Heights and against the AMAN military intelligence Headquarters, located outside Tel Aviv. It was, the Islamic Resistance says, the first of a two phase response to the assassination of senior Hezbollah figure, Sayyed Fouad Shukr in Beirut last month.

Meanwhile, non-Western mediated information about what's going on in the region is becoming more difficult to come by for those in the West as local journalists are murdered in Gaza, independent reporters arrested and harassed by thuggish police services in Britain, and news platforms blocked and their principles arrested in France.

Laith Marouf is founder and Executive Director of FreePalestine.Video. He's a long-time multimedia consultant, producer, and frontline reporter who's been chronicling the escalation to war from his base in Beirut. Free Palestine Video says its purpose is to provide coverage of the region, “…in the absence of media supporting the resistance forces in the English language due to the ban in the West.”

 

Laith Marouf in the first half.

And; much is being made in the Western press of Ukrianian military success in its latest offensive in the Kursk Oblast. Though Russian media admits towns near the border have been overrun and prisoners taken, President Vladimir Putin is strangely sanguine about the lost territory, waving the incursion off. Newsweek quoted Putin as telling the governors of Kursk, Belgorod, the Bryansk regions, and Kremlin officials in a teleconference last week losses of territory to Ukrainian forces were, "...problems that are the responsibility of the security agencies."

Putin's apparent disengagement follows his back-pedaling last month on previous Russian demands of Ukraine that began the "Special Military Operation" in 2022. Specifically, Putin passed on to unofficial emissary to America, Hungarian president Victor Orban a message to former - and presumptive next - American president, Donald Trump stating he would abandon demilitarization and denazification conditions for peace in return for “the complete withdrawal of all Ukrainian troops from the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics and from the Zaporozhye and Kherson regions.”

John Helmer’s a journalist and author who’s spent decades living in and reporting from Russia. He’s the principle behind the web news site, Dances with Bears, and has too been a professor of political science, sociology, and journalism, and served as advisor to governments at the highest levels.

Among his many book titles are: ‘The Man Who Knows Too Much About Russia,’ ‘The Lie That Shot Down MH-17’, and the lately released autobiography, ‘Dunce Upon a Time: A Life of Mistakes. His recent article at Dances with Bears is, 'KURSK, BELGOROD, BRYANSK — IS PRESIDENT PUTIN PREPARING FOR ISTANBUL-II?'

John Helmer and trying to make sense of President Putin's byzantine Ukraine policy in the second half.

But first, Laith Marouf and watching the war for West Asia expand from Lebanon.

 

Chris Cook hosts Gorilla Radio, on the internet at: GRadio.Substack.com.  Check out the GR blog at: https://gorillaradioblog.blogspot.com/

Monday, August 26, 2024

David Rovics LIVE in Victoria!

David Rovics in Concert: Folk Icon Visits Victoria

by C.L. Cook

August 27, 2024

Guthry, Seeger, Peter, Paul, and Mary: It's not often one gets to see a legend perform up close. For folk and peace fans alike, that chance is coming in September, when David Rovics touches down for his West Coast Tour. 
 
Plan to be there!
 
 

Wednesday, August 21, 2024

Gorilla Radio with Chris Cook, David Rovics, Victoria Gaza Solidarity March (Day #317 Streeters) August 21, 2024

This Week on GR

by C.L. Cook - Gorilla-Radio.com

 
August 21, 2024
 
 Welcome to Gorilla Radio, recorded August 21st, 2024

The Democratic National Convention commenced Monday in Chicago. The convention looks to be a coronation of vice-president Kamala Harris, who steps into the role Joe Biden vacated suddenly and strangely. The whole business is shady, and there's a lot of grumbling among rank and file Democrats, but Harris seems assured to stand against Donald Trump in the November poll.

There are too comparisons being made to the infamous DNC convention 56 years ago, when thousands of Americans opposing the continuation of America's war in Vietnam travelled from across the nation to demonstrate. There are thousands there again, this time to try to stop the genocide in Palestine; responsible now for the death and maiming of hundreds of thousands, and displacement of millions more.

David Rovics is a self-described: "Singer/songwriter, writer, anarchist, dad, and lover of life". David is in Chicago right now, singing at the centre of history as usual; this time in Union Park as The Ministry of Culture with Kamala Emanuel.

David's newest album, 'I Heard a Rumor' is freshly out and follows closely his twenty-song compilation, ‘Notes from a Holocaust’, written he said to, "...bear witness to the genocide of the Palestinian people that continues by the hour as I publish this album." Incredibly, that genocide grinds on still.

David Rovics in the first half.

And; some of Victoria's good people have gathered in protest on the lawns of British Columbia's seat of power, the Legislative Buildings every week since October. They've speechified, rallied, and marched through the downtown streets to bring attention not only to what Israel is doing in Palestine, but also to make more widely known what Canada is doing to support the slaughter of innocents.

I joined the march this past Sunday, Day #317 of the horror and talked to some of those taking part.

Marching in solidarity with Palestine in the second half.

But first, David Rovics not fearing loathing at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago.

 

Song: Boycott, Sanction, and Divest

Artist: The Ministry of Culture

(David Rovics & Kamala “The Good” Emanuel)

 

Chris Cook hosts Gorilla Radio, broad/webcasting since 1999. Check out the Archive at Gorilla-Radio.com, GRadio.Substack.com, and the GR blog at: https://gorillaradioblog.blogspot.com/