Losing Canada: Trudeau's Failed UNSC Ambitions Highlight Broader Policy Missteps

‘Palestine is Still the Issue’: UN Vote Exposes, Isolates Canada

by Ramzy Baroud and Romana Rubeo  - RamzyBaroud.net

August 15, 2020

The notion that ‘Canada is better’, especially when compared with US foreign policy, has persisted for many years. Recent events at the United Nations have, however, exposed the true nature of Canada’s global position, particularly in the matter of its blind and unconditional support for Israel.

On June 17, Canada lost its second bid for the coveted UN Security Council seat, which, had it won, would have allowed Ottawa the opportunity to become a world leader, pushing its own agenda – and those of its allies – on the global stage.

Voting CIA in November

The CIA Democrats in the 2020 elections

by Patrick Martin  - WSWS

20 August 2020

In the course of the 2018 elections, a large group of former military-intelligence operatives entered capitalist politics as candidates seeking the Democratic Party nomination in 50 congressional seats—nearly half the seats where the Democrats were targeting Republican incumbents or open seats created by Republican retirements.

Some 30 of these candidates won primary contests and became the Democratic candidates in the November 2018 election, and 11 of them won the general election, more than one-quarter of the 40 previously Republican-held seats captured by the Democrats as they took control of the House of Representatives.

Reuters et al Blind-Eying Ecuador's Disappeared Democracy

Reuters (Unsurprisingly) Looks Away as Ecuador Tries to Outlaw Opposition Parties 

by Joe Emersberger - FAIR

August 17, 2020

Reuters routinely buries information that would badly damage the reputation of US allies in the Americas. Whether those allies are bureaucrats from the Organization of American States and the dictatorship they helped install in Bolivia (FAIR.org, 12/17/19), violent protesters in Nicaragua (FAIR.org, 8/23/18) or Venezuelan politicians who support lethal US sanctions on their own country (FAIR.org, 6/14/19), the London-based news service can be counted on to cover for them.

In the case of Ecuador, a servile US ally since President Lenín Moreno took office in 2017, Reuters has ignored efforts to prevent Moreno’s strongest opponents from participating in the presidential and legislative elections scheduled for 2021. 

Foreign minister Jorge Arreaza on Canada’s Interference in Venezuela

Venezuelan Foreign minister Jorge Arreaza on Canada’s Interference in Venezuela

by ForeignPolicy.ca

August 18, 2020

Join us for an historic event with Venezuelan Foreign Minister Jorge Arreaza

*With special guest Roger Waters, co-founder of Pink Floyd.

The Foreign Minister of a country of 30 million that has had diplomatic relations with Canada for seven decades will present on Ottawa's efforts to overthrow his government in a talk entitled "Canadian Interference in Venezuela."

Squads Flying to the Defense of Fairy Creek Headwaters Forest

Fairy Creek Headwaters Protection Camp Update

via Reuben Garbanzo - Rain4estFlyingSquad

Week August 10-15, 2020

On Monday, 5:30 am, a Stone Pacific road crew subcontracting to Teal Jones, was turned away by a group of grassroots, direct-action forest activists from communities around the island who set up a citizens' blockade, peacefully occupying the steep side of a mountain high above the San Juan valley, to prevent a road development from breaching the height of land into the headwaters of the unlogged Fairy creek old-growth forest watershed, the last entirely unlogged tributary in the entire San Juan river system, Pacheedaht territory. 

This area is in the electoral riding of Premier John Horgan, who has remained silent all week about the stand-off unfolding in his own backyard and created by four years of NDP inaction on the crisis in the woods.

For Whose Century Is the Bell Tolling? Ask Not, Donald

Whose Century Is It? Don’t Ask Donald Trump

by Dilip Hiro - TomDispatch

August 18, 2020 

For the Trump administration’s senior officials, it’s been open season on bashing China. If you need an example, think of the president’s blame game about “the invisible Chinese virus” as it spreads wildly across the U.S.

When it comes to China, in fact, the ever more virulent criticism never seems to stop.

Gorilla Radio with Chris Cook, Dimitri Lascaris, Yves Engler, Janine Bandcroft August 20, 2020

This Week on GR

by C. L. Cook - GorillaRadio.com

August 20, 2020

Welcome back to Gorilla Radio's continuing efforts, NOT broadcast live from CFUV Radio in the basement of the Student Union Building at the University of Victoria, but emanating live-to-tape via Skype from our home-based ... studios on this date, August 11th, 2020.

The Old World Order is busted and Canada's foreign policy is gonna need to adapt quick to a whole New Order of things. Or so Canada's self-styled "national paper" the Globe and Mail informs. But what's a middle nation to do?

Caught between behemoths baring their teeth in a fight for what looks like the last piece of the pie, at whose feet shall we prostrate in waiting to snatch up first the best crumbs fallen from the planetary dinner table?

It's a stark choice in a darkening World, according to the Globe, who helpfully whittle down our options to a Manichean menu choice between China and our more familiar supper partner, America. But can we pick our own foreign policy plate, without starving in the choosing?

Listen. Hear.

Dimitri Lascaris is a Montreal-based lawyer, journalist, past Real News Network correspondent, and political activist. He's also one of nine aspirants spending their Summer campaigning for the leadership of the Green Party of Canada. Dimitri is on the stump in BC again this week, as the October leadership convention looms ever nearer.

Dimitri Lascaris in the first half.

And; Bolivians reacted to news their September 6th general election is off by taking to the streets and declaring a General Strike. It's a dangerous move considering interim caretaker president, Janine Anez has shown little hesitation, or contrition, loosing the military and police to lethal effect on perceived enemies of her nine-month old coup regime. But then Anez can afford to be unrepentant because no-one is holding her accountable.

Yves Engler is a Montréal-based activist, essayist, and author whose articles appear at Ricochet, The Palestine Chronicle, and at his site, YvesEngler.com among other places. 

Yves Engler and 'Canada's Support for Bolivian Coup Deserves Closer Scrutiny' in the second half. 

And; CFUV broadcaster and host of Plant Powered Radio, Janine Bandcroft will be here at the bottom of the hour to bring us up to speed with some of what's good to do in and around our town in the coming week.

But first, Dimitri Lascaris and finding finally a truly Canadian foreign policy.

Chris Cook hosts Gorilla Radio, airing live every Thursday between 11-Noon Pacific Time. In Victoria at 101.9FM, and on the internet at: http://cfuv.ca. He also serves as a contributing editor to the web news site, http://www.pacificfreepress.com. Check out the GR blog at: http://gorillaradioblog.blogspot.ca/

Changing of the Guard at TMX Tree-sit

NEW TREE PROTECTOR ASCENDS TO THE TREE TOPS to stop the cutting of these trees to make way for a bitumen pipeline we don't need!!!

by #STOPTMX #StopTrudeauPipeline #MotherEarth

August 12, 2020

Public health physician is replaced by Science YouTuber in anti-TMX tree-top camp

 Dr. Tim Takaro descends from tree perch after 10 days, but his vigil continues with popular science communicator Kurtis Baute ascending in his place

Saving Old Growth on Vancouver Island: Fairy Creek Blockade Establishes Second Front

Grassroots Forest Defenders Establish 2nd Blockade to Protect Fairy Creek Old Growth 

by Fairy Creek Blockade/Coastal Trail Collective

August 17, 2020

One Week into a Blockade on the Western Approaches to the Unlogged Valley, Forest Defenders are now Blocking a 2nd Logging Road on its Eastern Flank, to Prevent Imminent Logging in the Last Intact Watershed of the San Juan River System

Grassroots forest defenders from across Vancouver Island have successfully prevented Teal Jones Group from blasting logging roads into the unlogged headwaters of the Fairy Creek watershed for the past week.

You Tubed: Plugging the Leakers

Discussion of Wikileaks or any “Hacked Information” Banned Under New YouTube Rules

by Alan MacLeod - MintPress News

August 14, 2020

YouTube’s decision to ban discussion of hacked information on its platform is unlikely to improve election integrity in the US, it will, however, continue to tilt the balance in favor of established corporate-funded outlets like Fox News and CNN.

Social media giant YouTube announced yesterday a host of new measures it says are aimed at preventing any interference in the upcoming presidential elections. Chief among the list it wrote on its blog, is “removing content that contains hacked information, the disclosure of which may interfere with democratic processes, such as elections and censuses.”