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/


Wednesday, August 14, 2024

Gorilla Radio with Chris Cook, Yves Engler, Joe Emersberger August 14, 2024

This Week on GR

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

 
August 14, 2024 

Welcome to Gorilla Radio, recorded August 14th, 2024
 

The everyday horrors visited upon the civilians of Gaza and the West Bank, and neighbouring Lebanon and Syria by Israel is difficult to keep up with. It muddles the mind and shocks the consciousness of those trying to first stop the massacres, and secondly catalogue the atrocities so those committing these heinous crimes are called to book. That confusion is not an accident, it's a strategy; a cynical ploy to ensure the killing can go on for as long as the rest of the World allows. It's clear: Israel will not stop; it must be stopped.

 

Thursday, August 08, 2024

Oppose Israel Before It’s Too Late

We Must Oppose Israel’s Dangerous Gamble Before It’s Too Late

by Kathy Kelly - The Progressive.

 

Failure to stop Israel’s genocide of Palestinians gambles with the fate of humanity as a whole.

 

Following World War II, Albert Camus posed a “formidable gamble” to those who had survived a tragedy of immense proportions. “We’re in history up to our necks,” he observed, yet we must wager that “words are more powerful than munitions.” 

Wednesday, August 07, 2024

Gorilla Radio with Chris Cook, Dave Lindorff, Andy Worthington August 7, 2024

This Week on GR

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

 
August 7, 2024
 
Welcome to Gorilla Radio, recorded August 7th, 2024

 Listen. Hear.

Washington says it was made aware ahead of time of the assassination of high-ranking Hezbollah co-founding member and senior commander, Fuad Shukr in Beirut last Tuesday, but was entirely ignorant of the attack six hours later that killed Hamas political leader and lead peace negotiator, Ismail Haniyeh in Iran. Secretary of State, Antony Blinken told reporters Wednesday the United States, “had not been involved in, or even informed of, the operation in Tehran.”

As of writing, Israel has not confirmed it was responsible for killing Haniyeh, but Iran's leadership is in no doubt as to who pulled the trigger and vows its revenge on Israel for murdering an honoured guest. And it's not alone in believing Israel did it. But, what does Blinken's assertion mean, if true, and if Israel did kill Haniyeh, about the state of relations between the two inseparable allies?

Dave Lindorff is an Izzy Award-winning investigative journalist, author, and founder of the web news site, This Can’t Be Happening. Dave's latest article at This Can't Be Happening's new Substack site is, ‘Has the US 'Lost Control' of the Israeli war on Gaza, Lebanon and possibly Iran?

Dave Lindorff in the first half.

And; today marked another vigil in London to Remember the #Guantanamo 16, men still held at the infamous American prison for years, even after having received approval for release. Included at that place are also three men, so-called "high value" prisoners, who had struck a plea deal for release after having spent decades incarcerated there. The deal for alleged 9/11 mastermind, Khalid Shaikh Mohammad and two others, who confessed to being behind the World Trade Center attack plot following extensive "enhanced interrogation" sessions had their hopes of release quashed in the eleventh hour by the American Secretary of Defense, Lloyd Austin. Austin's interference has elicited reaction from both civil liberties organizations, and constitutional scholars in the US.

Andy Worthington is an English journalist, activist, author, photo-historian, filmmaker, musician, song-writer and principle of The Four Fathers band. His 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’. Andy’s articles appear at his website, AndyWorthington.co.uk, where I found his latest, ‘Lloyd Austin Cynically Revokes 9/11 Plea Deals, Which Correctly Concluded That the Use of Torture Is Incompatible With the Pursuit of Justice’.

Andy Worthington and resisting still the legal barbarism of the Global War on Terror in the second half.

But first, Dave Lindorff and has Israel slipped the American leash?

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/

 

Thursday, August 01, 2024

Ode to the Israeli Economy on the Occasion of Its Dying

Ode to the Israeli Economy

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

 
August 1st, 2024

 


Down the rat-lines they ran, headed for New York, London, & Milan.

But, no matter how fast they fled, the economy bled freely;

Pools of money streaming down the drain, stained and stinking, 

As they stood watching the wretched ship reeling, and

Sinking, silently to the bottom of the sea.

Wednesday, July 31, 2024

Gorilla Radio with Chris Cook, Dan Kovalik, Laith Marouf July 31, 2024

This Week on GR

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

 
July 31, 2024
 
Welcome to Gorilla Radio, recorded July 31st, 2024
 

Sunday past in Venezuela was doubly blessed; being both the birthday of the late Hugo Chavez, leader of the Bolivarian Revolution there, and the scene of the reelection of his successor, Nicolas Maduro to the Presidency. It was no sure thing, though in the end Maduro's nearly 7 percentage point lead won the day; but that doesn't mean the fight is over. Maduro is not Washington's man; nor is he the man for Washington's client states, who sicced their media machines and NGO democracy "guardians" on Venezuela before and during the election, and have continued now, hoping to thwart the victory after the count.

Dan Kovalik’s a lawyer, educator, labour, peace, and justice activist, democracy defender, journalist, author, and filmmaker. He's also served as an elections and human rights monitor in South America before, though he was on assignment in Cairo Sunday, where we'll too talk to him from today.

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 in the first half.

And; not content with the fires set in Gaza and the West Bank, Yemen, Iraq, Venezuela, and elsewhere, the World's greatest arsonists now seem determined to burn down Lebanon. Yesterday, the regional aggressor bombed again its northern neigbour, this time in Beirut's Haret Hreik neighbourhood, in an apparent attempt to assassinate Hezbollah military commander Muhsin Shukr. And last night assassinated Hamas leader, and lead peace negotiator, Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran. Hezbollah has promised to match attacks against it, and now people on both sides wait for Iran and the next bomb to drop in a disastrous escalation.

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 this burgeoning calamity 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 Beirut in the second half.

 

But first, Dan Kovalik and Venezuela's still standing Bolivarians.

 

Song: ‘Lines Are Drawn’

Artist: David Rovics

 

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/

Wednesday, July 24, 2024

Gorilla Radio with Chris Cook, Tim Norman, Dorotea Gucciardo July 24, 2024

This Week on GR

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

 
July 24, 2024
 
Welcome to Gorilla Radio, recorded July 24th, 2024
 
  

"Where's Yulia?" is a question the answer to which could uncover much more than the fate of a Russian woman disappeared from the public eye by the UK government more than six years ago. Knowing what happened to Yulia and her father, Sergei Skripal could too begin to reveal the machinations creating the conditions for the war in Ukraine, currently grinding up the flower of a generation there, and threatening too an escalation of possibly nuclear proportions effecting everywhere.

Tim Norman is a veteran English journalist and editor, working in local, national and international media for daily, weekly and monthly publications. Tim's followed the Skripal case from its beginnings, and his recent article at Propaganda in Focus, 'The Tragedy of Yulia Skripal' picks up the thread six years on, as the story heads again for the frontpages in Britain with the commencement of the Sturgess Inquiry, scheduled for the Fall.

Tim Norman in the first half.

And; polio has been detected in water samples taken in half a dozen locations in the Gaza Strip. Friday, Gaza's Ministry of Health said "highly infectious poliovirus had been identified at six locations in sewage samples collected by UNICEF on June 23 from Khan Younis and Deir al Balah." UnicefUSA blames the "ongoing bombardment of the Gaza Strip" which has targeted and destroyed more than two-thirds of the enclave's water and sanitation infrastructure. But, Israel's introduction of one of the most-feared human pathogens into the genocide struggles today to find press exposure amidst the daily atrocities being committed against the captive population.

Dr. Dorotea Gucciardo is Research Coordinator for the Starling Centre for Just Societies and Technologies at Western University, where she also teaches History. Dorotea too volunteers with the Glia Project, serving as its Director of Development, overseeing "capacity building" projects in Gaza. She writes, her latest project, The Open Gaza Initiative was "interrupted by Israel's genocidal war on Gaza...shift[ing] much of her focus on organizing and leading medical missions into the besieged Gaza Strip."

Dorotea Gucciardo and Gaza from eye level in the second half.

But first, Tim Norman and finding Yulia Skripal.

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/

Wednesday, July 17, 2024

Gorilla Radio with Chris Cook, Victoria Gaza Solidarity, Glenn Michalchuk July 17, 2024

This Week on GR

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

 
July 17, 2024
 
Welcome to Gorilla Radio, recorded July 17th, 2024

Impossibly, the genocide in Gaza grinds on; killing now for more than nine months, leaving scores of thousands dead, and many hundreds of thousands more wounded, made homeless, and facing the prospect of death themselves through privations created by Israel and its allies, including Canada.

Citizens in Victoria gathered at the seat of the provincial government Saturday for the fortieth week in a row to express their disgust and outrage at the ongoing crime of crimes being enacted before the eyes of World. Gorilla Radio too went down to bear witness with between 150 and 200 other stalwarts.

Victoria’s Gaza Solidarity demonstrated at the Legislative Buildings in the first half.

And; the Canadian political class support of the genocide in Palestine is reiterated in its active collusion in starting and sustaining the Ukrainian conflict, currently wiping out a generation. Prime Minister Trudeau recently bolstered further that support with promises of hundred of millions more Canadian dollars to ensure the fighting will continue for another year; and, at last month’s G7 meetings in Italy promised “$5 billion to [the] G7 Extraordinary Revenue Acceleration Loans for Ukraine” fund.

Meanwhile, inheritor of the 2014 coup Canada helped engineer, Volodymyr Zelenskyy has shuttered Ukraine’s political opposition parties, and nixed elections entirely; while too closing down all but regime-friendly media outlets, and criminalizing online critics.

Glenn Michalchuk is President of both Peace Alliance Winnipeg, and the Association of United Ukrainian Canadians, or AUUC. He’s been active in the peace movement for forty years, going back to Reagan’s Dirty Wars in Latin America.

Glenn Michalchuk on how Canada effected Ukrainian democracy, and vice versa in the second half.

But first, marking Day #281 of the slaughter of innocents in Gaza.

 

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/

Wednesday, July 10, 2024

Gorilla Radio with Chris Cook, John Helmer, Andy Worthington July 9/10, 2024

This Week on GR

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

 
July 10, 2024
 
Welcome to Gorilla Radio, recorded July 9th and 10th, 2024

Listen. Hear.

Summer was once called Politics’ “silly season”, but that was before irony died and silliness gave way to the ludicrous killing joke passing for leadership today. Beyond tragically comic, President Joe Biden’s disastrous first debate with Donald Trump last week makes the former president appear Napoleonic; destined to return to the throne on the Potomac in November.

Not wasting a moment, Trump has promised to settle the Russia problem upon election, (before even Inauguration Day) and the rest of the World’s issues by Easter following, (or some such). It’s a message Americans, and the rest of the World wants to hear, weary of the wars and rumours of which have smoldered and raged for the entirety of our 21st Century. But there are others, powerful interests profiting immensely the immiseration and martial ruination of the people and planet who like things just the way they are.

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’, the lately released autobiography, ‘Dunce Upon a Time: A Life of Mistakes’, and ‘Skripal in Prison,’ the first and perhaps only book to follow the Skripal saga from its beginnings through to the Sturgess Public Inquiry. His recent article at Dances with Bears is, ‘NATO’S Plan for Permanent War in Ukraine and on the Fareast Front — Putin Has Stalin’s Hitler Problem‘.

John Helmer in the first half.

And; because people have better things to do this time of year, general elections are seldom held in summertime; but, these are no ordinary times. Both Britain and France have held snap elections over the last week, the results of which could have far-reaching global consequence – moreso than the two former colonial Titans have exerted in more than a century.

Andy Worthington is an English journalist, activist, author, photo-historian, filmmaker, musician, song-writer and principle of The Four Fathers band. His 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’. Andy’s articles appear at his website, AndyWorthington.co.uk, where I found his latest, Despite the Landslide, Labour Have No Vision and Only Won the UK General Election Because the Tories Lost So Spectacularly‘.

Andy Worthington and Whither Albion under Starmer? in the second half.

But first, John Helmer and NATO making the forever war.

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/