This Week on GRadio
by C.L. Cook - GRadio.Substack.com
The ascendancy of the American president is the largest story of last year. Fear, loathe, or fear and loathe him, Trump’s retaking of the Imperial seat of power - and concomitant immiseration of much of the World this past year, and doubtless more to follow in the next - must be that. Because behind the suffering in Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, and Yemen; underlying the destabilization wars of Africa, and South America; pulling the strings of Ukraine and the disintegration of the European Union is Trump’s America. All these, and others besides, are the works in concert, building toward the completion of their Magnum Opus: Bringing down China to restore unrivaled World dominance.
The booty and loot pillaged along the way is all so much gravy for the Coalition of Killers; the blood and horror the costs to be borne by the people trammeled under the boot of the grander ambitions of greater men. Or so they would have it.
But before getting to tales of the plotters; as promised, a musical punctuation with David and Ai Tsuno.
David Rovics & Ai Tsuno - ‘Class War Zone’ - Class War Zone
History instructs, “Empire always comes home”, and perhaps for the first time Americans are experiencing what American power feels like for those in the far-flung lands where their men and women in uniform operate?
Lawlessness and criminal impunity reign for agents of ICE, the so-named border patrol tasked with protecting the homeland from foreign hordes; the “invaders” constructing America’s houses, working in its factories, picking its produce, slaughtering the livestock, and generally doing the necessary dirty work making a middle-class, affordable life, possible.
Daily, stories of raids on schools, churches, grocery stores, and workplaces by masked goons with guns appear on social media. Clips of these yahoos pointing weapons at citizens, blasting those recording their recklessness with tear gas and pepper spray, and running them off the road are legion online too.
But it’s much worse than just the 1st and 4th Amendment breaches committed by these mouth-breathers; kidnappings of citizens and migrants, legal and unpapered alike, with victims being disappeared and transferred - in many cases contrary to court orders - to who knows where are becoming common. As are cases of copycat criminals, impersonating the masked men to target women and children. It’s beginning to look a lot like Damascus in America today - running full trot to reproduce at home other of the Empire’s grim outposts tomorrow.
Orbital - ‘The Box’ - The Fire This Time soundtrack (b/g)
David Rovics/ Ai Tsuno - ‘Amazon’s Army of Robots’ - Army of Robots
Israel seems to have succeeded. After twenty-seven months of horror in Gaza, the wanton murder and destruction carried out by the combined powers of the West and its Arab satraps have produced the desired effect: the Gaza Strip is uninhabitable, and the West Bank and Jerusalem are fast being “cleansed” of Palestinian natives. Likewise, Syria and Lebanon are defeated, with the high-ground and borderlands being destroyed and depopulated to make room for colonization. Only lran remains functionally intact.
It’s a New Year’s celebration for the Empire, but beneath the popping champagne corks resentment seethes, and the real cost of “victory”: alienation of the Global South, sacrifice of international law, and immolation of all pretense to moral authority is yet to be calculated.
Meanwhile the killing continues apace, while survivors are left exposed to the merciless elements. A million will be among the 21st Century Holocaust in Palestine, Lebanon, and Syria when the dead are finally counted.
David Rovics/Ai Tsuno - ‘To Hide a Genocide’ - Army of Robots
Worse than the current genocide of Gaza is the Holocaust to come. That is enabled by a population which remains sanguine, largely, as a million people are slaughtered; brutalized and starved before their eyes. Next it will be tens of millions - then hundreds. But for now there are the relatively few who rail into the maelstrom warning and damnation; fewer still who throw their bodies into the gears of the machine; and fewest who go to the killing floors to save what can be saved from the Gaza atrocity.
Dr. Deidre Nunan is a Canadian orthopaedic surgeon who has spent years in humanitarian medicine, working in the field in Central and West Asia, Africa, and the Caribbean. She spent three weeks of her Summer in Nasser Hospital, Gaza, and came back to tell Canadians from coast to coast to coast just what the cost of their nation’s continued support of Israel means for the people where its bombs land. I spoke to Dr. Deidre in September of 2025.
Dr. Deidre Nunan from September 2025
David Rovics/Ai Tsuno - ‘We Say Cease, They Say Fire’ - Army of Robots
In another age, another American president promised to make of the USA again what it had never truly been; an exemplar of peace and liberation for oppressed peoples - a net exporter of the promise of equality and opportunity, where each could enjoy the basic human hopes of dignity and the chance to raise oneself and ones family to fulfill their greatest aspirations free of favouritism, prejudice, and corruption.
But what had been slick, if cynical, salesmanship in Ronald Reagan’s time, forty years later has recurred as a deadly, cancerous malignancy metastasizing now from Central America, aiming straight for the heart of Bolivarian Revolution, Venezuela.
I spoke with Ricardo Vaz in mid-November this year. Ricardo is a journalist, political analyst and contributor with the communication collectives Tatuy Tv and Utopix, and his articles appear regularly at Venezuelanalysis. Though events are evolving rapidly, his assessment of the big picture there, and Venezuelan attitudes towards the threatened invasion remain cogent.
Ricardo Vaz from November 2025
David Rovics/Ai Tsuno - ‘Terrorizing Venezuela’
Volodymyr Zelenskyy breezed through Canada last week en route to Mar-a-Lago. While here, he met with Canadian prime minister, Mark Carney who pledged further billions to the Ukrainian dictator’s war chest. This despite the constant peace refrain heard in the press.
In reality, none profiting the death and carnage in distant Ukraine and Russia care for an end to the war as it nears the start of its fifth year - least of all “peace president”, Donald Trump, who said after his meet-up with the Ukrainian proxy a deal with Russia was, “getting a lot closer, maybe very close.” Meanwhile both the graves and oligarch’s bank accounts continue to overflow.
I spoke with Russia expert, John Helmer last February, when peace was too “at hand”. Helmer is the most-frequently appearing guest in Gorilla Radio’s history. He’s too a frequently sought out commentator on all things Russia, appearing on myriad online programs. His analyses can too be found at his website, Dances with Bears. Here’s John on prospects for peace back in February, 2025.
John Helmer from February 2025
David Rovics - ‘Invisible Rulers’ - Songs for Zahid
Gaza is not the only place visited by the plague of Western interests. Millions have been killed in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in the service of transnational capital. The Rwanda dictator, Paul Kagame is the spear’s point, who’s military and its militia groups - most notably the savage M23 - has murdered more than ten million Congolese in pursuit of the country’s immeasurable mineral wealth. His overseeing the slaughter has continued unabated through the presidencies of Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Barack Obama, Donald Trump, Joe Biden, and as he’s done in other conflict zones of America’s making the current president Trump has promised “peace”, on his terms, even as the outrages go on.
Judi Rever is a Montreal-based journalist and author. We spoke in December about Kagame and DRC president, Felix Tshisekedi meeting-up with Trump in Washington to talk peace, and her Canadian Dimension article, ‘No End in Sight to Rwanda’s War in Congo, Despite Peace Deal’. Rever’s book, ‘In Praise of Blood: The Crimes of the Rwandan Patriotic Front’ examines the Rwandan genocide of the last century and subsequent flourishing of its primary progenitor, Paul Kagame.
David Rovics/Ai Tsuno - ‘Little Orange Toys’ - Best of Ai Tsuno
Early in his second administration, Donald Trump forced the takeover of TikTok, the popular, Chinese-owned international online app with millions of American users. Most are familiar with the dance videos, and other kooky stuff uploaded. But TikTok too served as a platform for subversive political messaging outside the purview of the online monopolists, Google/Youtube, Facebook/Meta, and Twitter/X. This was especially irksome to Israel-defenders who couldn’t control the withering posts regarding that entity’s genocide-cum Holocaust in the Gaza Strip. So, owners ByteDance were forced to cede control of US operations to companies acceptable to the government.
First among these is Oracle. Oracle-owner Larry Ellison is a big supporter of Israel, and especially the IDF, or Israeli Defense Forces. He’s doled out hundreds of millions to both it and the rogue nation. Oracle, the same that through subsidiary, Skydance/Paramount recently purchased CBS News, (and is reportedly vying for CNN too) is now TikTok America’s “trusted security partner”, charged with, “securing and auditing the social media platform’s algorithm and user data”. To aid in that task, Oracle has hired on teems of apparatchiks from Israel’s notorious military intelligence outfit, Unit 8200. (Past Gorilla Radio guest, Alan MacLeod has written on this at MintPress News).
What it means is a further fettering of information through algorithmic and editorial gatekeeping policies guaranteeing the platforms employing Unit 8200 alumni don’t feature the crimes committed by Israel and its Western sponsors; platforms like: Google/Youtube, Facebook/Meta, Twitter/X and TikTok USA.
You may have noticed familiar voices disappeared from your TL’s; you may have disappeared yourself, like David Rovics, author of all the music on today’s show. David, who’s been on this program many times over the years, had his entire catalogue wiped from Youtube without so much as a “how do you do?” recently. If you consider his immense musical prolificacy, hundreds of songs and commentaries, the scope of the erasure begins to become clear. David says,
“In so many ways I’m unable to effectively promote gigs -- barred from using the “Invite” feature on Facebook Events, [and] catalog of albums deleted from YouTube Music, creating a whole cascading effect of suppression in terms of where my gigs are listed and how likely people are to hear about any of them...”
David Rovics/Ai Tsuno - ‘They Deleted David Rovics’ - Best of Ai Tsuno
That’s a wrap for Gorilla Radio’s Year-Ender. Of course there was lots more happening this year past; go to GRadio.Substack.com for the complete story. Happiest New Year’s to all, and “Adio to you, 2025!”
David Rovics/Ai Tsuno - ‘Watching the World Burn’ - Army of Robots
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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/
and on Telegram at: https://t.me/gorillaradio2024
