Gorilla Radio with Chris Cook, Jillian Maguire, Paul Watson March 22nd, 2023

This Week on GR

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

 

March 22, 2023

Welcome to Gorilla Radio, recorded March 22, 2023

 

Listen. Hear.

This weekend past, the British Columbia Federation of Teachers held its Annual General Meeting. On the agenda: the election of a new president, and an opportunity the BCTF Divest Now campaign to platform its efforts to pursue a practical pathway to cease their pension plan’s investments in “fossil fuels, and other life-killing industries.”

Jillian Maguire was a presidential candidate in the poll, held March 21st. Maguire’s a longtime teacher who over a 27+ year career estimates she’s launched more than 5,000 students into the World. She says she was shocked to discover the teachers’ pension plan was heavily invested in some of the most ecologically destructive businesses, and so co-founded BCTF Divest Now.

Jillian Maguire in the first half.

And; we often forget, everything beginning on the land ends in the sea. As desperate the situation of terrestrial pollution is, in the ocean the effects are amplified, concentrated, and brought back to us as inevitably as the tides.

Paul Watson has spent a lifetime on and in the service of the ocean. A founding member of Greenpeace, he left that iconic organization at the height of its effectiveness to found the Sea Shepherd Society. Renowned for its direct action against whaling, most spectacularly intercepting the massive factory fleets of Japan, Norway, and Russia, Sea Shepherd has also exposed and shut down hundreds of other ecologically destructive commercial ventures and activities.

Now Watson is helming another venture, the Captain Paul Watson Foundation, whose mission to save life in the sea is simply stated: “If the Ocean Dies, We Die!”

Paul Watson and finding a way to protect and defend life in the sea in the second half.

But first, Jillian Maguire and British Columbia’s teachers instructing their union to listen and learn to divest.

Song: Captain

Artist: Tiny Milkshake

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: http://gorillaradioblog.blogspot.com/

Gorilla Radio with Chris Cook, Dimitri Lascaris, Brad Wolf March 15th, 2023

This Week on GR

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

 

March 15, 2023

Welcome to Gorilla Radio, recorded March 15th, 2023.

Listen. Here.

Last week, Canada’s Ministry of National Defence announced a “review of our Defence Policy”. Though only five years into the Liberals’ 20-year Defence Policy Update, or “(DPU”, DoD insists a new DPU is necessary if Canada is to, “be ready, resilient, and relevant to meet any threat in this changed global security environment”.

Dimitri Lascaris is a Montreal-based activist, journalist, and lawyer. He served as Justice Critic in the Shadow Cabinet of the Green Party of Canada and likewise for the Green Party of Quebec (PVQ). In 2020, Dimitri very nearly became leader of the Green Party of Canada, finishing second in a tightly-contested race with the now-departed Annamie Paul. Dimitri’s interviews for TRNN are at TheRealNews.com, and his articles appear at his website, DimitriLascaris.org.

This Saturday, March 18th, Dimitri will host ‘The Art of Peace: Seeing the World Through the Eyes of Our ‘Enemies’. The Special Webinar is his way of engaging with Canadians before embarking on a mission of peace to Russia next month.

Dimitri Lascaris in the first half.

And; there was a time, not so long ago, war profiteers where held to be exemplars of humanity’s basest instincts: Antitheses of Virtue, the very worst of the worst of Evil Doers, they were rightly and roundly despised. Now though, CEO’s of Lockheed Martin and Raytheon and Boeing and Northrop Grumman and General Dynamics and all their lesser factotums are welcome and well-treated in the halls of power and major media teevee studios alike.

Today, the profiteers need never fear official opprobrium, or being called to account for the bitter harvest of their dark seeds – at least not in the courts of the land. But there’s another weighing of justice at hand.

The Merchant of Death War Crimes Tribunal is coming – soon – and it promises to hold accountable the manufacturers of the weapons that kill combatants and non-combatants alike through the testimony of witnesses to the destruction wreaked and the crimes committed against Humanity with them.

Brad Wolf is co-founder of the Peace Action Network of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, an affiliate of Peace Action and a partner of World BEYOND War. He’s a lawyer, former prosecutor, professor, community college dean, and full-time activist for peace and justice.

His writings are published at The Progressive, Common Dreams, CounterPunch, Antiwar.com, Consortium News, and Dappled Things among others. He recently authored a book on former priest, Philip Berrigan’s collected writings, ‘A Ministry of Risk’. He’s also a key organizer with the Tribunal.

Brad Wolf and attaching the human costs to the Merchants of Death in the second half.

But first, Dimitri Lascaris and seeing the World and ourselves through the eyes of our “enemies”.

 

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/

Gorilla Radio with Chris Cook, Ken Stone, Dan Kovalik March 8th, 2023

This Week on GR

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

 

March 8, 2023

Welcome to Gorilla Radio recorded March 8th, 2023.

 Listen. Here.

March 20th marks the twentieth anniversary of America’s second invasion of Iraq. Despite the tens of millions of people across the globe coming into the streets to hold at bay the dogs of George Bush’s “generational war” Operation Iraqi Freedom’s “shock and awe” – called “blitzkrieg” in another era – was launched.

We all know what happened, and the failure of the People to stop the slaughter then and in Afghanistan in 2001 seemed to be the end of hope for the Peace Movement; but the flame for a World without War didn’t die, and has in fact recently been spotted flickering in the capitals of Europe, Canada, and even in Washington, D.C.

Ken Stone is an executive member of both the Syria Support Movement International and Hamilton Coalition to Stop the War.

Ken Stone in the first half.

And; far from fulfilling its mandate to first be an agent opposing war in the World the United Nations’ repeated failures in that seminal mission are now manifest in its endeavoring the opposite, the promotion of economic sanctions and military intervention. At least the recently released ‘Group of Experts on Human Rights on Nicaragua’ report leaves little else to conclude.

Dan Kovalik is a lawyer, educator, labour, peace, and justice activist, democracy defender, journalist, author, and filmmaker. His 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, Russia, (and the World generally) and ‘No More War: How the West Violates International Law by Using ‘Humanitarian’ Intervention to Advance Economic and Strategic Interest.’

His latest is the recently released, ‘Nicaragua: A History of US Intervention & Resistance‘, which “explores the pernicious nature of US engagement with Nicaragua from the mid-19th century to the present in pursuit of control and domination rather than in defense of democracy“.

Dan Kovalik and the latest chapter in the hybrid war* against Nicaragua in the second half.

But first, Ken Stone and the smouldering desire for peace.

Song: Work for Peace

Artist: Gil Scott-Heron

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/

Correction: The U.S. House APPROVED a resolution to MAINTAIN the Caesar Syria Civilian Protection Act (2019) by an “overwhelming” margin (414-2), and not DEFEAT a motion to LIFT sanctions as reported. See: https://scheerpost.com/2023/03/02/house-overwhelmingly-approves-resolution-to-maintain-syria-sanctions-after-earthquake/