A Monumental Capitulation: Britain's 'Rule Draconia' Act Moving Forward (with Bipartisan Support)

Rule Draconia: Tories and Labor Collude in Enabling Act for State Crimes

by Chris Floyd - CounterPunch

October 19, 2020

The Tory government (with the collusion of the Labour leadership) is ramming through one of the most draconian and tyrannical laws ever seen in an ostensible democracy, a bill that will give a wide and ever-expanding number of state agencies the power to torture, rape and kill citizens without any legal consequences. This is no rhetorical exaggeration; it is the plain fact – as that notoriously far-left commie rag, the Spectator, points out.

Photograph Source: Adrian Pingstone – Public Domain

The Covert Human Intelligence Sources Bill provides immunity for any government agent in undercover operations; and this goes far beyond those aimed at dire terrorist threats and big crime gangs, as touted by the bill-pushers. (Activities that are already given perilously wide scope in current practice.)  

Maintaining Resistance to Canada's International Militarism

Antiwar forces need to challenge Trudeau government, not praise it

by Yves Engler

October 17, 2020

Should antiwar forces challenge power or praise government officials in the hopes of getting some crumbs for their pet issue?

Douglas Roche’s recent Hill Times column suggests the latter.

Workaday Outrage Against Nature: Witnessing Eco-crime

I Witnessed an Eco-Crime 

by James Halbrook - CounterPunch

October 16, 2020  

In 2018 a wildlife habitat was destroyed on Bainbridge Island, Washington. It happened without much notice. A few dozen fir, hemlock, maple and cedar surrounding a meadow and a no-name creek were what remained of the re-growth from previous destructive binges.

Photograph: Dcoetzee – Public Domain

Our present day greed: petty, cruel and insatiable, is no different from the early white settlers’. On this spring day, bulldozer and chainsaw transformed the arboreal relics from the time before commodity, before progress, before history into value. 

Gorilla Radio with Chris Cook, Yves Engler, Tamara Lorincz, Janine Bandcroft October 15, 2020

This Week on GR

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

October 15, 2020

Welcome to Gorilla Radio’s continuing ‘Home Edition’, not broadcast live, but recorded on this date, October 9th, 2020. 

In reacting to times of extreme societal stress there are two options: People can come together; or things can be pulled apart. The latter is exemplified by Canadian writer, Naomi Klein’s seminal work, The Shock Doctrine, and the ominously interpreted phrase, “never let a good crisis go to waste.”

Right now, as the global pandemic wrecks havoc on individual lives and economies, the Israeli lobby is clearly not using the opportunity to mend fences, but instead is using the media cover the crisis affords to attack perceived foes and further silence critics of Israel’s egregious Palestine occupation.

Yves Engler is a Montréal-based activist, essayist, and author whose articles appear at YvesEngler.com among other places. The latest of his 11 published titles is, ‘House of Mirrors — Justin Trudeau’s Foreign Policy’. 

Listen. Hear.

Yves Engler in the first half.

And; the second No Fighter Jets manifestation crossed hands across Canada October 2nd to stand in the doorways of MP offices in every province and territory. The second Pan-Canadian National Day of Action was led by Canadian Voice of Women for Peace, Canada’s longest-lived national feminist peace group.

Tamara Lorincz is a PhD candidate in Global Governance whose research focus is climate and the environmental impacts of the military. Tamara’s also served as VoW’s lead person for the second No Fighter Jets day of action.

Tamara Lorincz and Canadians saying “No!” to an unjust and ecocidal war economy in the second half.

And; Victoria-based broadcaster, and host of CFUV’s Plant Based Radio, Janine Bandcroft will be here at the bottom of the hour with the Left Coast Events Bulletin of some of the good things to be gotten up to in and around our town in the coming week.

But first, Yves Engler and burgeoning blowback for the Israel Lobby.

Chris Cook hosts Gorilla Radio, airing live every Thursday between 11-Noon Pacific Time. In Victoria at 101.9FM, and on the internet at: https://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/

Foiled Again! Wad Guano Denied Keys to Venezuela's UK Gold Vault

UK Appeal Court Removes Guaido's Access to Venezuelan Gold 

by TeleSur English

October 5, 2020

The United Kingdom Court of Appeals Monday annulled the decision that granted opposition lawmaker Juan Guaido control of 31 tons of gold that Venezuela has deposited in England.

A truly wonderful victory! 

Congratulations to Jorge Arreaza, the legal team, and the heroic people of Venezuela.

 

Making Germany Great Again: "Not for Trump or anyone else, but for our own security"

Thirty years of German unity: Berlin increases military spending, incites nationalism and war

by Johannes Stern - WSWS

October 9, 2020

In his speech commemorating the 30th anniversary of German unity, President Frank-Walter Steinmeier sought to portray the reunified Germany as a guarantor of a peaceful world order.

 

"Heron" drone of the German Armed Forces (Photo: Bundeswehr)

In contrast to the German Reich under the Kaiser based on “Prussian dominance, militarism, and nationalism,” which led directly “to the catastrophe of the First World War,” we live today in a “reunited, free, democratic country at the heart of Europe,” said Steinmeier on October 3 in Potsdam. 

 

Monsters and Other Legal Fictions: Assange Case Illustrates Death of British Justice

A horror story in two parts: Part I: Will England Send Assange-the-Messenger to America’s Dungeons?

by Ron Ridenour - This Can't Be Happening

October 9, 2020

Most people might be excused for not knowing it, because the story is mainly ignored, or is shamelessly misreported in the corporate media when it does get any attention. A courageous Australian journalist, abandoned by his own country, is being railroaded by a British court towards extradition to the US where he could face life in prison in solitary confinement for the “crime of espionage”—exposing US war crimes in Afghanistan and Iraq.

What Julian Assange and his organization Wikileaks have revealed for the whole world to see is the systematic devastation of peoples, of lands, and perennial military pollution of planet earth. The main perpetrator is the most powerful and self-declared “greatest democratic nation” in the world, the United States of America—accompanied by its European and Commonwealth vassal states, plus proxy allies in the Middle East and Zionist Israel.

Waiting for Evil to Fade: Final Dispatch from the Assange Hearing

Where Is My Final Assange Report?

by Craig Murray

October 9, 2020 

Numerous people have contacted me in various ways to ask where is my promised report on the final day of the Assange hearing, to complete the account?

Assange - Billy Bob Bain, CounterPunch

 

Having left the bubble, my courage keeps failing me to return to the evil and write up the last day. I know that sounds either pathetic or precious. I know the mainstream journalists who revel in portraying me as mentally unstable will delight to mock. But this last few days I can’t even bring myself to look at my notes. I feel physically ill when I try.

Your Tax Dollars at Work: Canada and the War Racket

Tax dollars promote Canadian arms exports

by Yves Engler

October 7, 2020

Is it appropriate for the Canadian government to promote arms exports? And why, with its love of scandal does the dominant media not question this use of taxpayers’ dollars?

In recent days there’s been significant attention devoted to Canadian arms exports. A report by the UN’s Group of Eminent Experts on Yemen, which criticized Canadian weapons sales to Saudi Arabia, was widely covered. There has also been coverage of Streit Group’s sale of crowd control vehicles to Belarus and Ontario-based L3Harris WESCAM’s sale of sensors and laser targeting technology to the Turkish military, which have apparently been used in a number of conflicts including the ongoing war between Azerbaijan and Armenia.

 

Burying Assange: How Media Aid Injustice

‘None Of It Reported’: How Corporate Media Buried The Assange Trial

by Media Lens 

October 7, 2020

One of the most imposing features of state-corporate propaganda is its incessant, repetitive nature. Over and over again, the ‘mainstream’ media have to convince the public that ‘our’ government prioritises the health, welfare and livelihoods of the general population, rather than the private interests of an elite stratum of society that owns and runs all the major institutions, banks, corporations and media.

We are constantly bombarded by government ministers and their media lackeys telling us that ‘our’ armed forces require huge resources, at public expense, to maintain the country’s ‘peace’ and ‘security’. We do not hear so much about the realpolitik of invading, bombing or otherwise ‘intervening’ in other countries with military force, diplomatic muscle, and bribes of trade and aid deals to carve up natural resources and markets for the benefit of a few.

Trump Tells Labor Pool "Sink or Swim" (Until After the Election)

Trump breaks off talks on pandemic stimulus bill

by Barry Grey - WSWS

October 7, 2020

One day after his return to the White House from Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, where he received millions of dollars’ worth of medical care for his COVID-19 infection at taxpayer expense, President Donald Trump announced on Twitter that he was breaking off talks on a new stimulus bill until after the November election.

 

In a series of tweets, he wrote: “Nancy Pelosi is asking for $2.4 Trillion Dollars to bail out poorly run, high crime, Democrat States, money that is in no way related to COVID-19. We made a very generous offer of $1.6 Trillion Dollars and, as usual, she is not negotiating in good faith. 

Shine Off the Star: Israel Lobby Losing Its Cache

 Israel lobby will face blowback, eventually

by Yves Engler

October 2, 2020

How much is too much? When will Israeli nationalists in North America completely discredit themselves by overusing their power to crush those defending Palestinians?

The ruthlessness of the Israel lobby is remarkable. Recently they’ve convinced Zoom to cancel a university sponsored talk, a prominent law program to rescind a job offer, a public broadcaster to apologize for using the word Palestine and companies to stop delivering for a restaurant. 

 

Elementary, My Dear Occam: German Navalny Evidence Fails the Sniff Test

URINE, BLOOD, & HEARSAY – OPCW REPORT GIVES THE GERMAN GAME AWAY, REVEALS NO NOVICHOK WEAPON, NO NAVALNY CRIME

by John Helmer, Moscow

@bears_with

October 6, 2020 

A report issued by the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), dated on  October 6, has failed to identify the poison weapon which Alexei Navalny and his supporters claim was used to attack him in a Tomsk hotel on August 20.

Instead, the OPCW claims to have found “biomarkers” of Navalny’s metabolic disorder which may have been caused by an unidentified chemical poison. According to a leading British organophosphate chemist, these “biomarkers” may not have been caused by a crime. 

 

Gorilla Radio with Chris Cook, Stefanie Brendl, Ken Boon, Janine Bandcroft October 8th, 2020

This Week on GR

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

October 8, 2020

Welcome again 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, October 2nd, 2020.

 

Millions of marine animals will perish for the development of a vaccine for Covid-19. Though millions already die annually through medical and commercial “harvest”, the hyper-activity, or ‘Warp Speed’ race to come up with a treatment for the global pandemic poses an added extinction threat to the ocean’s already over-targeted species. None moreso perhaps than sharks, whose bodies contain a compound commonly used in vaccines.

Stefanie Brendl is a shark advocate and activist, filmmaker, social entrepreneur, and founder and Executive Director of Shark Allies, an organization dedicated to protecting the critically endangered apex marine predator. The Shark Allies’ campaign against shark finning featured in the 2014 documentary film, Extinction Soup, exposing that disastrous international trade.  

 

Listen. Hear.

Stefanie Brendl in the first half.

And; the government of British Columbia was warned before re-energizing the long-moribund Site C dam plan it was a Frankenstein in the making. Indeed, the tales of horror to come should that Great White Elephant be roused rang across generations, but hubris and arrogance ruled the day. BC Liberal Premier, Christy Clark promised her legacy project would be realized come Hell and high water. And so it was begun.

Ken Boon is a Peace Valley farmer and president of the Peace Valley Landowners Association. Ken and his family have lived at the heart of the resistance to Site C from the beginning, and have remained long enough to see some of their worst fears realized.

Ken Boon and John Horgan’s bottomless Site C money binny in the second half.

And; CFUV broadcaster and host of Plant Powered Radio, Janine Bandcroft will be here at the bottom of the hour with the Left Coast Events Bulletin of some of the good things to be gotten up to in and around our town in the coming week.

But first, Stefanie Brendl and the unnecessary price nature pays for humanity’s good.

Chris Cook hosts Gorilla Radio, airing live every Thursday between 11-Noon Pacific Time. In Victoria at 101.9FM, and on the internet at: https://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/

Our Modern Thirty Years War

Foreword to 30 Years of War, the German edition of David North’s A Quarter Century of War

by Johannes Stern - WSWS

October 5, 2020

The German edition of A Quarter Century of War: The US Drive for Global Hegemony (1990-2016) will be published by Mehring Verlag on December 1. The German edition, which includes additional material dealing with more recent developments, is titled 30 Years of War.

 

The relevance and urgency of this volume emerge from its title. After three decades of US-led wars, the outbreak of a third world war, which would be fought with nuclear weapons, is an imminent and concrete danger.  

 

PressTV Remembers Andre Vltchek

Press TV’s eulogy for our friend and colleague Andre Vltchek

by Ramin Mazaheri - PressTV

September 29, 2020

PressTV Editor’s note: The untimely passing of journalist Andre Vltchek, from natural causes at age 57, is being grieved by his many friends here at Press TV. For many years Andre regularly offered Press TV viewers his incredibly intelligent analyses on an impressive range of international subjects. One of his very last interviews, on the situation in Belarus, was with Press TV. 

Andre was a devoted internationalist, a passionate and staunch defender of modern Iran and a truly tireless champion of the many billions of people who suffer under the yoke of Western imperialism, which Andre truly and courageously despised. He will be deeply missed.

 

Being One-Eye Blind on "One China"

Questioning Canada’s “One China” policy is not progressive

by Yves Engler

October 1, 2020

In a recent commentary Georgia Straight editor Charlie Smith suggested Green Party candidates’ path to victory was to question Canada’s “One China” policy. According to Smith, the candidates “missed an opportunity to win over the large number of Canadians who trace their roots back to Hong Kong and Taiwan and who are thoroughly disgusted with the behaviour of the Chinese government.”

Smith went on to say that if Green Party candidates’ had spoken out against the “Sinofascists in charge in China,” some of the large Hong Kong expat community in Canada “would have come out in force for any Green Party of Canada candidate who declared on their website that our country needs to respect the democratic desires of the former colony’s brave, democracy-loving residents.”

Watching the Neo-Reichstag Arson Squadies

"Avocadolf" and Gandhi slogans: the Querdenken initiative brings together neo-Nazis, anti-vaxxers, and Qanon believers with confused center/left proponents

by FOIA Research

 August 30, 2020 (Updated Sept. 3)

August 29, 2020 will be remembered by Berliners as the day when a bizarre crowd of almost 40000 Corona deniers came together from all over the country, among them hardcore neo-Nazis, Reich Citizens (Reichsbürger), Identitarians, anti-vaxxers, adherents to the QAnon conspiracy theory, and other proponents lured into the "crossfront" under an anti-scientific and conspiracist umbrella. 

 

Under the loose slogan of "Demonstration for Freedom and Liberty" the rally was directed against the current Corona measures in Germany, but ultimately ended in some hundreds of neo-Nazis trying to storm the Reichstag building, home of the German parliament.  

 

As Assange Waits: There Still Remain Principled Journalists

Australian journalist Mary Kostakidis: Assange is a “highly principled individual with enormous courage”

by Oscar Grenfell - WSWS

29 September 2020

In comments to the World Socialist Web Site this week, well-known Australian journalist Mary Kostakidis condemned the abuses being perpetrated against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and stated that he had only been able to survive years of arbitrary detention because of his “conviction that truth should prevail.”

Kostakidis has been viewing the resumed British court hearings for Assange’s extradition to the US each day, and has been live-tweeting about the proceedings. 

 

Gorilla Radio with Chris Cook, Steve Poikonen, Garth Mullins, Janine Bandcroft October 1, 2020

This Week on GR

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

October 1, 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, September 25, 2020.

 

Wikileaks has allowed us to see raw, naked power before it puts on a suit and tie, slicks back its hair and conceals the knife.       

 – Jonathan Cook                     

     

The travesty masquerading as an extradition hearing for WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange continues at London's Old Bailey. 

Steve Poikonen is a columnist, broadcaster, and host of the 'Slow News Day' podcast available on Patreon.com. He's also an organizer with Action4Assange, and co-host of the #FreeAssange Vigil. 

Steve and a retinue of activist have returned to Washington, D.C. to make again as public as possible in the Capitol the miscarriage of justice being perpetrated in England at the bequest of the U.S. government.

Steve Poikonen in the first half.

 

Listen. Hear.

And; the provincial NDP government announced a snap-election Monday, three years into their minority mandate. Premier Horgan said one of the reasons for the early call was his party's failure to get the BC Greens to go along with Bill 22, or the Mental Health Amendment Act, 2020. 

The Act provides for the involuntary detention of youth presenting to hospital emergency rooms for toxic poisoning, something BC Greens MLA Adam Olsen says might benefit some, but he believes, "the unintended consequences of the bill also pose significant risk to young people, Indigenous youth in particular."

Garth Mullins is a Vancouver-based activist, writer, broadcaster. Mullins is too a trade unionist, community organizer, recipient of the Carole Geller Human Rights Award, and guitarist and singer with the bands, Legally Blind, Work to Rule, and the Lumpin Proletariat. He's also the principal behind the mic of CRACKDOWN, the podcast that is, "The Drug War, Covered by Drug Users as War Correspondents."

Garth Mullins on CRACKDOWN, Covid, and life in a time of craven electioneering in the second half.

And, CFUV Radio broadcaster, and host of Plant Powered Radio, Janine Bandcroft will be here at the bottom of the hour with the Left Coast Events Bulletin of some of the good things to be gotten up to in and around our town in the coming week.

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.uvic.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/