Gorilla Radio with Chris Cook, Pablo Ouziel, Felix Abt August 11th, 2022

This Week on GR

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

 

August 11th, 2022

 

Welcome to Gorilla Radio, recorded August 6th, 2022.

Listen. Hear.

Europeans are experiencing a blow back blast this Summer on multiple fronts. Hellishly hot weather, a financial meltdown, and the nagging persistence of the pandemic with all its attendant social pressures are combined to test the hardiest continentals – and, as warm as it is there now, Winter is coming!

Pablo Ouziel is an associate fellow at the Centre for Global Studies at the University of Victoria and a visiting fellow in the Department Politics and International Relations at the University of Southampton. His book, ‘Democracy Here and Now: The exemplary case of Spain‘ is published by University of Toronto Press and chronicles the birth of the M15 movement against draconian government “austerity” measures, and the rise of authoritarianism there and across the western world. Pablo currently lives outside Barcelona.

Pablo Ouziel in the first half.

And; in these last mad years of pandemics, wars, and climate alarm if we’ve learned anything it is the fragility of institutions many of us once thought solid, if not sacrosanct. Cracks in our societal pillars are clear, there for all to see, despite the establishment’s best efforts to paper over the fissures. Part of the media effort to convince us our system is sound and “the greatest ever” is the necessary denigration of those others in places like Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Syria, Iran, Russia, China, and of course North Korea.

Swiss author Felix Abt describes himself as a “politically neutral businessman…not sharing the typical partisan views about North Korea“. After living and working in the country he says he can “contribute to a more objective view of a country he knows much better than the journalists and bloggers writing about it“. Former CIA whistleblower, John Kiriakou says of Abt’s second book, ‘A Land of Prison Camps, Starving Slaves and Nuclear Bombs?‘, “Finally, the truth about North Korea… [revealing] …the caricature we’re fed by the western media simply isn’t true.“

Felix Abt and a capitalist’s story of life in the “Hermit Kingdom” in the second half.

But first, Pablo Ouziel and Europe’s Summer of reckoning.

Chris Cook hosts Gorilla Radio, airing since 1998; in Victoria at 101.9FM, and on the internet at: cfuv.ca.  Check out the GR blog at: http://gorillaradioblog.blogspot.com/

Palestinian Resistance in the Modern Context

Why Resistance Matters: Palestinians are Challenging Israel’s Unilateralism, Dominance

by Ramzy Baroud - Politics for the People

 

August 3, 2022

 

Until recently, Israeli politics did not matter to Palestinians. Though the Palestinian people maintained their political agency under the most demoralizing conditions, their collective action rarely influenced outcomes in Israel, partly due to the massive discrepancy of power between the two sides.

 

 

Now that Israelis are embarking on their fifth election in less than four years, it is important to raise the question: “How do Palestine and the Palestinians factor in Israeli politics?”