Gorilla Radio for July 11th, 2005

Gorilla Radio for Monday, July 11th, 2005

This week on GR:

Patricia Goldsmith of Long Island Media Watch on America's coming Medicaid Wars

Chris Hedges, author and former war correspondent for the New York Times and Christian Science Monitor and what every person should know about war.

And, Janine Bandcroft bringing us up to speed with all that's good to do in and around Victoria this week.

Chris Cook hosts Gorilla Radio, airing live every Monday, 5-6pm Pacific Time. In Victoria at 101.9FM, 104.3 cable, and on the internet at: http://cfuv.uvic.ca He also serves as a contributing editor at the progressive web news site: http://www.pej.org.

You can check out the GR blog at: http://GorillaRadioBlog.blogspot.com

Gorilla Radio
July 11, 2005
5-6pm pdt

With so many outrages perpetrated by the Bush administration, it’s easy to miss one or two; especially on the domestic front.

Consistent with the privatization regime he would force on the vanquished denizens of the empire’s outpost, at home too the ruthlessness of “the project” demands the weak and needy be catapulted from sight, stranded upon the merciless ice floes of the market economy.

The latest victims to be cast adrift are the millions receiving Medicaid.

In a move that may ring familiar in Canadian ears, the Fed has starved transfer payments to States-administered health care systems, referring them to privatization. Patricia Goldsmith is with Long Island Media Watch, a New York-based grassroots watchdog group. Her writing appears in, among other places, the progressive websites, Dissident Voice.org and Democratic Underground.com

Patricia Goldsmith and the looming Medicaid Wars in the first half.

And; enjoying a sunny summer’s day in North America, you wouldn’t know we are at war.

Right now, soldiers serving the interests of both Americans and Canadians are on the field of battle in foreign lands. What we citizens do see of these wars is first run through a media laundry, scrubbed and pressed into palatable packages that allow we sleep soundly as our agents maim and destroy far off lands.

As Londoners discovered last week, occasionally, our collective actions return as spasms of extreme violence. There and then, the media displays the blood and guts essence of what war means, the pathetic fate of random victims, the waste and violation of humanity, but never do they continue the conversation, exploring the nature of this beast writ more large, or the devastation wreaked upon the innocent lives we routinely ravage.

Chris Hedges is a former war correspondent and author. He spent more than fifteen years reporting from various fields of battle for The New York Times, Christian Science Monitor, and America’s National Public Radio. He shared the 2002 Pulitzer Prize for Explanatory Reporting and that year’s Amnesty International Global Award for Human Rights Journalism. His books include, War is a Force that Gives Us Meaning, and What Every Person Should Know About War.

Chris Hedges and getting to know war in the second half.

And; Janine Bandcroft will be here at the bottom of the hour to bring us up to speed with all that’s good to do in and around Victoria this week.

G-Radio is dedicated to social justice, the environment, community, and providing a forum for people and issues not covered in the mainstream media.

Some past guests include: M. Junaid Alam, Joel Bakan, Maude Barlow, David Barsamian, William Blum, Vincent Bugliosi, Helen Caldicott, Noam Chomsky, Michel Chossudovsky, Diane Christian, Juan Cole, David Cromwell, Jon Elmer, Reese Erlich, Jim Fetzer, Laura Flanders, Susan George, Stan Goff, Robert Greenwald, Denis Halliday, Chris Hedges, Julia Butterfly Hill, Robert Jensen, Dahr Jamail, Diana Johnstone, Kathy Kelly, Naomi Klein, Anthony Lappe, Frances Moore Lappe, Dave Lindorff, Jim Lobe, Wayne Madsen, Stephen Marshall, Linda McQuaig, George Monbiot, Loretta Napoleoni, John Nichols, Kurt Nimmo, Greg Palast, Michael Parenti, William Rivers Pitt, Sheldon Rampton, Paul de Rooij, John Ross, Danny Schechter, Vandana Shiva, Norman Solomon, Starhawk, Grant Wakefield, Bernard Weiner, Mickey Z., Dave Zirin, and many others.