Gorilla Radio with Chris Cook, Ken Stone, John Helmer April 12th, 2023

This Week on GR

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

 

April 12, 2023

Welcome to Gorilla Radio, recorded April 12th, 2023.

 

Listen. Hear.

Yesterday, the Prime Minister’s office announced “more support for Ukraine”. Goodhearted Canadians concerned about the well-being of that country and its citizens will be disappointed however to discover just what “support” in the parlance of Ottawa’s current rulers translates as. In bullet points, it means:

⦁ Tens of thousands of weapons
⦁ Millions of rounds of ammunition
⦁ And the unaccountable “dispersal” of more billions of Canadian dollars to the Kyiv regime

In simpler terms, the Liberal government is guaranteeing more war and more destruction in Ukraine for the months – and perhaps years – to come even as it wages a sanctions war against the only party that can stop the war; Russia. Some “support”.

Ken Stone is an executive member of both the Syria Support Movement International and Hamilton Coalition to Stop the War. Ken and the Coalition are pleased, they say, to participate this month in kicking off the Canadian tour of “Sanctions: A Wrecking Ball in a Global Economy.”

Ken Stone in the first half.

And; if the Ottawa weather vane Globe & Mail is any indication, its chief political scribe, Steven Chase’s recent article headed, ‘Pro-Kremlin Twitter Accounts ‘Weaponizing’ Fringe Users to Erode Canadians’ Support for Ukraine, study finds’ signals a new Canadian understanding of citizenship with an unmistakable McCarthyite overtone.

John Helmer is a journalist and author who’s spent decades living in and reporting from Russia. The principle behind the web news site, Dances with Bears, Helmer 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: ‘Skripal in Prison,’ ‘The Man Who Knows Too Much About Russia,’ ‘The Jackals’ Wedding: American Power, Arab Revolt’, ‘The Lie That Shot Down MH-17’ and his latest, ‘Australian Fascism: How It Destroyed the Courts,’.

John Helmer and fighting the Canadian think tanks and troll armies in the war for truth-telling in the second half.

But first, Ken Stone and fighting Canada’s Sanction Warriors.

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, Helen Caldicott, Nils Melzer (redux) April 2nd/5th, 2023

This Week on GR

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

 

April 7, 2023 

Welcome to Gorilla Radio, recorded April 2nd and 5th, 2023.

 

Listen. Hear.

Just thirty years since the fall of the USSR and end of the Cold War, the atomic Mexican stand-off between East and West is hotter than its ever been. At this moment, nervous fingers hover above buttons and toggles that once triggered mean the end of everything we know. Worse, with the advent of AI, human agency is no longer required; its messy, indecisive moral acid removed from the Earth-ending equation.

Dr. Helen Caldicott is a physician, author, and lecturer who has for more than forty years studied, written, and campaigned against the proliferation of nuclear weapons and their derivatives, delivering impassioned speeches and making imprecations to both the politicians and power-brokers overseeing the precarious atomic tinderbox, and more importantly, imploring the people step up to stop the madness.

Helen Caldicott’s book titles include: ‘If You Love This Planet,’ ‘Nuclear Power Is Not the Answer,’The New Nuclear Danger,’ ‘Depleted Uranium: Metal of Dishonour,’ ‘If You Love This Planet: A Plan to Heal the Earth,’ and her most recent, ‘Sleepwalking to Armageddon’ in which she assembles contributions from the world’s leading nuclear scientists and thought leaders to “assess the political and scientific dimensions of the threat of nuclear war today.”

Helen Caldicott in the first half.

And; Reporters Without Borders was to pay a visit to Julian Assange, the journalist wasting in Belmarsh Prison, London this week but in yet another example of arbitrary cruelty at the last moment authorities refused the RSF visit, barring too for good measure Assange’s wife, Stella.

April 11th marks the four year anniversary of Julian’s incarceration, under the harshest measures the British penal system can mete out. He’s held not for any crime committed in Britain, or against Britain, but because an American warrant seeking his extradition is “in process”.

June 6, 2019, I recorded an interview with Nils Melzer, then the United Nations Special Rapporteur on torture and other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment. Melzer visited Assange in May of that year and subsequently issued a public call for Assange’s immediate release, along with a searing rebuke of both his current jailors in Britain and those in America who would be if their extradition petition is executed.

Nils Melzer and the continued call for Julian Assange’s release in the second half.

 

Song: Behind These Prison Walls

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: http://gorillaradioblog.blogspot.com/

Gorilla Radio with Chris Cook, Yves Engler, Pitasanna Shanmugathas March 29th/April 2nd, 2023

This Week on GR

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

 

April 3, 2023

 

Welcome to Gorilla Radio, recorded March 29th/April 2nd, 2023.

 

 

Listen. Hear.

 And welcome to the Spring of discontent! While leaders In the capitals of Europe and America promise to carry on the Ukraine proxy war no matter the price, the People are already in the streets protesting the real and rising costs of that belligerence. For Canadians, whose government is already full-throatedly behind: the bellicose stance against Russia, prospects of an expanded war against China and Iran, battles by sanction in Venezuela, Nicaragua, and elsewhere, there is too Haiti.

Last week, the Trudeau Liberals blithely announced another $100 million dollars to be delivered to the tiny island nation’s military and police effort to keep the restive population under heel. This on top of millions already delivered. It’s almost as if Ottawa believes the fatted tax goose’s golden eggs will never flag.

Yves Engler is an independent, Montreal-based journalist and author. He’s written twelve books on Canadian foreign policy, including ‘Canada in Haiti: Waging War on the Poor Majority’, co-authored with Anthony Fenton. His recent article, ‘Canadian government prioritizes war over climate crisis‘ is a troubling portrait of a country few here in our home and native land would recognize.

Yves Engler in the first half.

And; just what is Canada’s place in the world? Generations of us have been taught we are global agents of good; fair-minded, and justice-seeking. You know, “Wherever they’s a fight so hungry people can eat, we’ll be there. Wherever they’s a cop beatin’ up a guy“, etc., etc.

It’d be a great story, if only it were true.

Pitasanna Shanmugathas completed an advanced degree at one of Canada’s world-class Universities but found, beyond Canada’s “two solitudes” another bifurcation – one not in the curriculum – separating the real from an imagined nation. And so, he says, he set out on an epic three year journey of discovery, from coast to coast to coast, and across the tractless prairies. He documented his Canadian quest in the film series, ‘Truth to the Powerless: An Investigation into Canada’s Foreign Policy‘.

Pitasanna Shanmugathas and the hunt for Canada’s elusive identity in the second half.

But first, Yves Engler and Trudeau of the Tropics, taking Haiti.

 

Song: The Panic Is On

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: http://gorillaradioblog.blogspot.com/