Gorilla Radio with Chris Cook, Yves Engler, Yves Smith July 21st, 2022

This Week on GR

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

 

July 21, 2022

 

Welcome to Gorilla Radio, recorded July 13/16th, 2022.

 

 Listen. Hear.

The late, and truly great, British playwright, Harold Pinter summed up the age in his 2005 Nobel Prize for Literature acceptance speech. Delivered dramatically via video stream – something not so common then – and at the height of America’s military demolition of Iraq . The terminally ill Pinter spent most of his thirty two and a half minute address addressing the profoundly ignorant state in which We the people exist, and how we blithely allow the horrors of our times be committed in our name. Who hearing that speech could forget his hoarsely stentorian remonstration of the Bush claque and its cowardly coalition’s willful crimes? “It never happened. Nothing ever happened. Even while it was happening it wasn’t happening. It didn’t matter.”

Seventeen years later, and millions killed, maimed, dispossessed and made desperate the lying and killing continues apace. Pinter would be unsurprised, because as he said then, for the powerful, “… it is essential that people remain in ignorance, that they live in ignorance of the truth, even the truth of their own lives.” And so it is in Canada today, as we march towards another global war, standing on guard in ignorance.

Yves Engler is a Montréal-based activist, and author of 12 books, mostly on Canadian foreign policy, including his latest, ‘Stand on Guard For Whom? A People’s History of the Canadian Military’. He’s also a prolific essayist whose many articles appear at numerous sites online, including at his website, YvesEngler.com, where his recent article, ‘Is It Time for Canada to Apologize to Libya?‘ appears.

Yves Engler in the first half.

And; what’s old is news again: Inflation, the economy’s nemesis so long thought slain has resurfaced, its dragon’s teeth popping up in balance sheets and union negotiation positions, and most scarily, ravishing family budgets the World over.

Yves Smith is a Harvard Business School grad, blogger, and author whose investment banking and management career has intersected all the biggest names on Wall Street. In late 2006, seeing the financial ice bergs on the horizon and frustrated by the “obvious under-reporting…of the risk in all credit instruments” she started Naked Capitalism in an effort to “promote critical thinking through the medium of a finance and economics blog.”

Her 2010 book, ‘ECONned: How Unenlightened Self Interest Undermined Democracy and Corrupted Capitalism‘ followed, dissecting the “obvious” and inevitable 2008 financial disaster and the dismal Obama administration reaction to it. Yves’ has also written articles for many major publications, appeared on US network television and alternative online news programs like The Real News, Democracy Now, and the now-banned RT.

Her recent article at Naked Capitalism, ‘The G-7 is Still Pushing Its Nutty Russia Oil Price Cap Idea‘ reveals how at sea the West is in what is rapidly emerging as a truly New (economic) World Order.

Yves Smith and the stark state of a capitalist system in crisis in the second half.

But first, Yves Engler and “the considerable bearing of the truth on where the World stands now“.

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/

Sins of the Father: Brzezinsky II Brings on the Russia Hate

Russian-Hating Dream of Brzezinski Clan Nears Fulfillment as Poland Agrees to Host Permanent U.S. Base and Turn Baltic Sea into NATO Lake

 by Jeremy Kuzmarov - CovertAction Magazine

 

July 16, 2022

Mark Brzezinski, the U.S. Ambassador to Poland, is the son of the late Zbigniew Brzezinski, a descendent of Polish aristocrats and mastermind of U.S. foreign policy for decades, whose dream was to use Poland as a base to try to weaken and destroy Russia. Mark is now at the center of the implementation of his dad’s plans. 

 

In late June, President Joe Biden announced before a NATO summit that the United States would establish a permanent military base in Poland, the first time the U.S. would have one on NATO’s eastern flank. The base will provide a permanent headquarters in Poland for the U.S. Army’s V Corps.

At the moment there are already approximately 10,000 U.S. soldiers in Poland, which has provided a hub for U.S. and other Western countries’ arms shipments to Ukraine.

 

[For complete article, go to CovertAction Magazine here.]

 

Yet Another Collapse of British Justice: Skripal Farce Reaches New Nadir

NOVICHOK INVESTIGATION COLLAPSES IN LONDON COURT — ADAM CHAPMAN, LAWYER APPOINTED TO REPRESENT SERGEI & YULIA SKRIPAL, DOESN’T

by John Helmer - Dances with Bears

  @bears_with

 July 17, 2022

The public inquiry by Lord Anthony Hughes into the British government’s narrative of Russian chemical warfare in the UK and the alleged Novichok death of Dawn Sturgess on July 8, 2018, collapsed into secrecy, mishap, and farce in a London courtroom on Friday.

 

The sound system failed, leaving only one microphone to be moved from one speaker to another. The judge was invisible off camera and inaudible for the entire proceeding. A court official told the press “I personally apologies [sic] for the ongoing technical issues…The Cloud video platform equipment was tested beforehand and all was thought to be well. However there have been ongoing issues with equipment today.”

Sh*tting BRICS

The Rise of BRICS: The Economic Giant that is Taking on the West

by Ramzy Baroud - Palestine Chronicle

July 16, 2022

The G7 summit in Elmau, Germany, June 26-28, and the NATO summit in Madrid, Spain, two days later, were practically useless in terms of providing actual solutions to ongoing global crises - the war in Ukraine, the looming famines, climate change and more. 

 

 

But the two events were important, nonetheless, as they provide a stark example of the impotence of the West, amid the rapidly changing global dynamics.

 

Gorilla Radio with Chris Cook, John Helmer July 14th, 2022

This Week on GR

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

 

July 14, 2022

Welcome to Gorilla Radio, recorded July 10th, 2022

Listen. Hear.

Twenty-five hundred years or so ago, storied Chinese general and reputed author of The Art of War observed, “There is no instance of a nation benefiting from prolonged warfare.” Today, twenty and some years into George Bush’s “generational war”, Sun Tzu’s wise maxim seems to have eluded the modern masters of war. The NATO Alliance has spent the 21st Century hopscotching from country to country dealing death and destruction as it goes with the abandon of a malicious child on an ant hill, wantonly thumbing flat people, nations, and the very concept of International Law until. In 2022, we find ourselves on the threshold of another global war, one leading through Russia to a final confrontation with China.

John Helmer is a journalist, author, and principle behind the web news site, Dances with Bears. He’s a past scholar, and advisor to government at the highest level, and spent decades living in and reporting from Russia. His many book titles include: ‘The Lie That Shot Down MH-17, ‘Skripal in Prison,’ ‘The Man Who Knows Too Much About Russia,’ and his latest, ‘The Jackals’ Wedding: American Power, Arab Revolt‘ is newly out.

His recent article, ‘The Coming Verdict in the MH17 Trial is Certain, and Double Dutch’ reminds, NATO’s determination for a war against Russia in Ukraine is a multi-layered operation, predating anything Russia has done.

Today, John Helmer and Dutch courts doing double duty and NATO’s media doing its damnedest to get and keep the war on Russia going.

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/

Rise of the New (Cool & Normal) Reich

The Federal Republic of New Normal Germany

by T.J. Hopkins - Consent Factory

 

July 8, 2022 

So, the government of New Normal Germany is contemplating forcing everyone to wear medical-looking masks in public from October to Easter on a permanent basis. Seriously, the fanatical New Normal fascists currently in charge of Germany’s government — mostly the SPD and the Greens — are discussing revising the “Infection Protection Act” in order to grant themselves the authority to continue to rule the country by decree, as they have been doing since the Autumn of 2020, thus instituting a “permanent state of emergency” that overrides the German constitution, indefinitely.

Go ahead, read that paragraph again. Take a break from the carnage in non-Nazi Ukraine, the show trials in the US congress, monkeypoxmania, Sudden Adult Death Syndrome, Sudden Bovine Death Syndrome, family-oriented drag queens, non-“vaccine”-related facial paralysis, and Biden falling off his bike, and reflect on what this possibly portends, the dominant country of the European Union dispensing with any semblance of democracy and transforming into a fascist biosecurity police state. 

 

"Defensive" NATO Eyes China War

By making China the enemy, Nato is threatening world peace

by Jonathan Cook - Substack

[First published by Middle East Eye]

 

July 8, 2022

Nato’s new posture towards Beijing brings into question its whole claim to be a ‘defensive’ alliance

As the saying goes, if you only have a hammer, every problem looks like a nail. The West has the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (Nato), a self-declared “defensive” military alliance – so any country that refuses its dictates must, by definition, be an offensive military threat. 

 

Collapse: Canada and the Rise of the Church of Covid

The Collapse of the Canadian University and the Rise of the Church of Covid

by Maximilian C. Forte - Zero Anthropology

 

July 3, 2022

 

February of 2022 was a particularly dark month, both in Quebec and in Canada generally. In Quebec, we had the expansion of the use of “vaccine passports” to large, well-ventilated box stores; a curfew had been imposed in January (and was lifted after nearly three weeks); the demonization of the so-called “unvaccinated” reached a fever pitch, first in regime media, then in government pronouncements—a new tax on the “unvaccinated” was promised, and it was promised to be “significant”.

Apparently the solution to the problem of Omicron defeating the non-vaccines, was to blame those who spared themselves the useless and potentially harmful injections. 

 

Gorilla Radio with Chris Cook, Ron Ridenour, Leigh Vossen, Cassie Shroeder July 7th, 2022

This Week on GR

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

 

July 7, 2022

Welcome to Gorilla Radio, recorded July 2nd 2022

Listen. Hear.

As Summer’s dog days begin the drums of war are beating with heightening intensity. Canada’s prime minister, Justin Trudeau at the close of NATO’s Madrid confab dedicated his country’s future to one of increased war-making, promising more weaponry to the current hot war in Ukraine, and announced the inauguration of a “NATO research project”, the Defence Innovation Accelerator for the North Atlantic devoted to expected wars the military alliance will wage to secure the continued global economic domination of its member nations.

Trudeau’s bellicosity and hubris is no surprise, but that traditional pacifist nations in the alliance are willing to go along with NATO’s blatantly antagonistic New Strategic Concept is a worrisome sign of disasters to come.

Ron Ridenour is an ex-pat American journalist, author, editor, and peace and social justice activist currently living in Denmark. He’s worked as a special correspondent and freelancer for numerous publications in Europe, the US, and Latin America, including CovertAction Magazine where I found his recent article, ‘Does Iceland Set Benchmark for Peaceful and Politically Engaged People?’

Ron Ridenour in the first half.

And; two and a half years after the onset of Covid-19 the pandemic is widely regarded as a past event. Even so, governments and media are warning of next wave variants they say require vaccination and booster regimens be again ramped up.

Leigh Vossen and Cassie Shroeder are members of Students Against Mandates, an organized manifestation of Canadian post-secondary students and their allies “fighting for the right of all students to receive an education, regardless of personal medical decisions.”

Leigh Vossen and Cassie Shroeder on students standing against mandates in the second half.

But first, Ron Ridenour and Iceland’s essential place in a possible peaceful global future.

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/

Iceland's Slide: Can It Still Set the Benchmark for Peaceful and Politically Engaged People?

Does Iceland Set Benchmark for Peaceful and Politically Engaged People? 

by Ron Ridenour - CovertAction Magazine

 

June 17, 2022 

We can learn from the Icelandic people’s sense of assuming political responsibility, their tight-knit togetherness—98% know people they can rely on—and from their culture, which fosters more authors per capita than any country in the world. 

 

Iceland, youngest land on the planet; its nature is closest to the Moon. 

[Source: cntraveler.com]

 

Tourism has produced drug smuggling, rampant pornography, escalating prostitution that did not exist before, and gouging by some businessmen and politicians. Rampant growth in tourism—from 200,000 in 1995 to two million in 2019, exceeding six times the population—too many cars, and the partial return of the United States to Keflavik Naval Base are all signs of decaying humanistic values. 

Spooks & Liars Circling Truth

How Spooks and Establishment Journalists Are Circling The Wagons 

by Jonathan Cook - MintPress News

 

June 30, 2022 

Earlier this month, Russia banned 29 British journalists, including several from the BBC and The Guardian, on the grounds that they were “associated with the defense complex”. That claim was not, at least in all cases, quite as preposterous as was widely assumed.

 

In part one of this two-part series, we saw how the Guardian’s Luke Harding – one of the journalists banned by Russia – has promoted entirely unsubstantiated smear stories that have hewn closely to the agenda of Western intelligence services. Harding even wrote a prominent Russiagate book and could not defend its basic claims when challenged by independent journalist Aaron Maté.

 

Gorilla Radio with Chris Cook, Steve Poikonen, Tamara Lorincz June 25th, 2022

This Week on GR

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

 

June 30th, 2022

Welcome to Gorilla Radio, recorded June 25th, 2022

 

 Listen. Hear.

Last week British Home Secretary, Priti Patel did what was expected of her and signed off on the extradition to the United States of political prisoner, Julian Assange. Assange you may recall has languished in London’s maximum security Belmarsh Prison, enduring the harshest conditions allowable under British law, since being dragged from asylum in the Ecuadorian Embassy April 11th, 2019. But as deplorable as his treatment by British authorities has been – treatment that would illicit howls of protest were it discovered to be inflicted on a caged dog – central to Assange’s defense against extradition is the prospect of an even grimmer fate at the hands of American Justice.

Steve Poikonen hosts Slow News Day on Rokfin, the pre-news news place you go to get hip BEFORE the s*it hits the fan! Steve’s also an activist, documentary filmmaker, and contributor to the Union of the Unwanted and MCSC Networks. He’s also been an organizer with Action4Assange, co-host of the #FreeAssange Vigil, and has gone to the streets for Assange’s release in his home country, the United States of America.

Steve Poikonen in the first half.

And; next week NATO, the 73 year-old alliance to defend Europe against Soviet Russia, will hold its annual summit in Madrid. NATO says it’s meant to, among other things, present and endorse the war organization’s “New Strategic Concept”. Across Europe peace and civil society groups are set to demonstrate against the death and devastation created by NATO’s existing concept and protest the prospect of more of the same. Meanwhile in Canada, coinciding with the Madrid meet up, the Peace and Justice Network here is mounting Days of Action, a coordinated effort to: Stop the Weapons. Stop the War. And, Stop NATO.

Tamara Lorincz is with Canadian Voice of Women for Peace, who last year led the No Fighter Jets days of action held across Canada. She’s also served on the advisory committee of the Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space, and contributed her knowledge and talents to the organizations World Beyond War, and the No to NATO Network.

Tamara Lorincz and Days of Action to Stop the World’s greatest purveyors of violence and war in the second half.

But first, Steve Poikonen and the the next turn of the legal screw for Julian Assange.

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/

The Lap Dogs of War: Celebrity Media Figures Revealed to be Useful Tools of Spook Agencies

British “Watchdog” Journalists Unmasked as Lap Dogs for the Security State

by Jonathan Cook - MintPress News

 

June 21, 2022 

The cases of Carol Cadwalladr and Paul Mason reveal how readily celebrated media figures are recruited to the intelligence services’ covert information war against other journalists.

 

Events of the past few days suggest British journalism – the so-called Fourth Estate – is not what it purports to be: a watchdog monitoring the centers of state power. It is quite the opposite.

 

Stopping NATO, Stopping the Profits of War

Stop the Weapons, Stop the War, Stop NATO

Days of Action June 24-30, 2022

by Peace and Justice Network

 

June 22, '22

 

We urge people across Canada to join us to protest the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and demand an end to the war in Ukraine between June 24 to June 30. We will be holding “Stop the Weapons, Stop the War, Stop NATO” rallies across Canada to coincide with NATO’s Summit in Madrid, Spain.

 

We will be standing in solidarity with the European activists who are organizing a major demonstration against NATO outside the summit and dock workers who are blocking weapons shipments to Ukraine.

 

Neutering Germany: Why Russia Capitulated

GERMAN NEUTRALITY WAS MORE IMPORTANT THAN NATO EXPANSION – A NEW HISTORY BOOK EXPLAINS WHY GORBACHEV GAVE IT AWAY FOR NOTHING

by John Helmer - Dances with Bears

  @bears_with

June 22, 2022 

In the rest of the world it is known as the cultural cringe. In Russia the wish to be loved by Americans is known as liberal reform.

 

In the very first paragraph of a new book called “Collapse: the Fall of the Soviet Union”, the author, Vladislav Zubok – the name in Russian means a small tooth — reveals that on the morning of August 19, 1991, when the first coup was attempted against Mikhail Gorbachev, then President of the Soviet Union, Zubok was flying to the US by arrangement with Strobe Talbott, Moscow correspondent for Time and soon to be the Clinton Administration’s principal Russia expert. 

 

Another Step Into the Militarist Abyss: Canada Vows Billions for Refurbished Cold War Relic NORAD

Canada to spend billions on NORAD so US can rule world

by Yves Engler

 

June 21, 2022 

The Liberals are intent on funneling ever more of our collective resources to bolster the US Empire, spending lavishly to “modernize” Canada’s chief bi-national military accord.

On Monday Defence Minister Anita Anand announced the government would spend $4.9 billion to upgrade the North American Aerospace Defense Command. The federal government said it will devote $40 billion to NORAD over 20 years, but it may be far more than that noted David Pugliese in a story headlined: “Cost to modernize NORAD set at $40 billion, but will final tally be higher?”

Happiest Returns 61!

Happy Birthday J9!

Fitting for Gemini this numbered year would represent a 'twin prime', of the 18 prime numbered ones you've celebrated so far.

 So, Happy 18th prime!

But, there's more!!! The number coinciding with the year of the Bay of Pigs invasion is too a 'Cuban Prime:

p = x³ − y³/x − y, where x = y + 1.

 

Fidel says, feliz cumpleaños

 

 

More incredibly...(as if it could be!)

The NGC 61 is a pair of lenticular galaxies, NGC 61-A (or NGC 61-1) and NGC 61-B (or NGC 61-2) in the constellation Cetus. (In case you were wanting to 'get away from it all').

 

Happy Birthday 61!

Fitting for Gemini this numbered year would represent a 'twin prime', of the 18 prime numbered ones you've celebrated so far.

(Oh yeah, did that twice!)

So, Happy 18th prime! Happy 18th prime!

Elementary Watson, observe 61 is also the number of the chemical element, Promethium which: "...is a chemical element with the symbol Pm and atomic number 61. All of its isotopes are radioactive; it is extremely rare, with only about 500–600 grams naturally occurring in Earth's crust at any given time. Promethium is one of only two radioactive elements that are followed in the periodic table by elements with stable forms".

Not to be confused with Prometheus, 

(of whom it shall never be spake...)

But most importantly, 61 is one of the "Fortunate Numbers, to whit: In the list of Fortunate numbers, 61 occurs thrice, since adding 61 to either the tenth, twelfth or seventeenth primorial gives a prime number^[9] (namely 6,469,693,291; 7,420,738,134,871; and 1,922,760,350,154,212,639,131)".

So, there you go...

Have a most fortunate 61st, and if it may not recur thrice for you, then consider yourself doubly fortunate!

Happy Birthday,

J9

Gorilla Radio with Chris Cook, Joe Emersberger, Nils Melzer (2019) June 23, 2022

This Week on GR

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

 

June 23, 2022

Welcome to Gorilla Radio, recorded June 16th, 2022

 

Listen. Hear.

Last week, CONAIE, the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador began a popular protest over rising food and fuel prices and the neoliberal policies of Guillermo Lasso’s government. Across the country Monday transportation hubs, government offices, and oil productions facilities were blockaded. The actions prompted a quick response from Lasso, whose military and police launched an operation to snatch CONAIE president, Leonidas Iza; a move the confederation denounced as “arbitrary and illegal”.

Joe Emersberger is a Canada-based engineer of Ecuadorian descent. He’s a writer and activist, and co-author with Justin Podur of the book, ‘Extraordinary Threat: The US Empire, the Media and 20 Years of Coup Attempts in Venezuela‘. Emersberger’s many articles focusing on Western media coverage of the Americas can be found at FAIR.org, CounterPunch.org, TheCanary.co, Telesur English, and ZComm.org, among other places.

Joe Emersberger in the first half.

And; Britain’s Home Secretary, Priti Patel is charged with making the final decision on the extradition of Julian Assange to America from his current incarceration in London’s Belmarsh Prison, and she’s expected to make that decision imminently. The publisher, journalist, and founder of WikiLeaks has been held in isolation within the maximum security facility since being dragged from asylum in Ecuador’s London embassy three years, two months and five days ago.

Hundreds of doctors have petitioned Patel to deny extradition based on Assange’s frail mental and physical health. A similar argument was made by United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, Nils Melzer after visiting Assange with two medical experts “specialised in examining potential victims of torture and other ill-treatment” shortly after his arrest in 2019. Melzer’s demand for Assange’s release was ignored then, as have been myriad subsequent appeals to the UK government from all quarters.

Nils Melzer and the torturous destruction of Julian Assange, from an interview we recorded in June of 2019, in the second half.

But first, Joe Emersberger and Guillermo Lasso’s presidency one year on: The perfect Sturm und Drang.

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/

Gorilla Radio with Chris Cook, Stavroula Pabst, Gerald Harris June 16th, 2022

This Week on GR

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

 

June 16, 2022

 

Welcome to Gorilla Radio, recorded June 11th, 2022

 

Listen. Hear.

A foreign war is being used by the Canadian establishment to further entrench its thought monopoly on a nation still staggered following a two-plus year cognitive pounding. Now that the hoi polloi has been sufficiently head-softened, the reasoning seems, it’s time for the second of the old one/two punch combination. Ukraine is doing double-duty in this, both providing Bay Street warmongers the necessary pretense of moral rectitude for their bloody bonanza, while too granting social license for Ottawa to tear the guts out of a burgeoning popular opposition – even if it means eviscerating the country’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms. And, so far, the wind has blown from their back.

Stavroula Pabst is a writer, comedian, and PhD student in Communications and Mass Media Studies at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens. Her writing appears online at The Grayzone, Reductress, the Harvard Business Review, and at Passage, the “Canadian publication of thoughtful political, economic, and cultural ideas from a left-wing perspective” where I found her recent article, ‘Big Tech’s Purge of Dissenters is Impeding an Anti-War Movement.’

Stavroula Pabst in the first half.

And; this Victoria has undergone massive changes over its nearly two centuries of settler occupation. One enduring physical feature of the area epitomizes the altered landscape and displacement of both the First Peoples and flora and fauna living here at the time of contact. The Bowker Creek Watershed, named for an early settler/farmer, has tenaciously persisted despite having had a city land on top of it; but, like the rest of the south island it little resembles its original self. The Bowker’s survival though has never been certain, and now it depends on our diligent attention and continued vigilance in its protection.

Gerald Harris is a Director of the Friends of Bowker Creek Society and local leader of the Streamkeepers group working to reestablish salmon returns to Bowker Creek. The Friends are concerned by a recent sale of a section along the creek that could threaten both its ecology and the ability of citizens to protect it.

Gerald Harris and befriending the Bowker in the second half.

But first, Stavroula Pabst and deconstructing Canadian dissent.

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/

Gorilla Radio with Chris Cook, Sophie Papp, Zain Haq, Dan Kovalik June 9th, 2022

This Week on GR

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

 

June 9th, 2022 

Welcome to Gorilla Radio, recorded June 4th, 2022

 

Listen. Hear.

Its been almost thirty years since the Mike Harcourt NDP arrested more than a thousand people protesting the clearcut destruction of Clayoquot Sound. More than a generation later the ‘War in the Woods’ seems a cause lost to those still fighting to protect ancient forests here. Save Old Growth is a nascent citizen’s resistance campaign organizing to pressure the provincial government to legislate an end to old growth logging now!

Sophie Papp and Zain Haq are coordinators of the Save Old Growth campaign. Sophie is an islander who while studying at UVic worked too with Access4All advocating for expanded online access for immuno-compromised students, and those facing other in-person class barriers. Zain is a co-founder of and strategist for Save Old Growth. He’s been arrested multiple times for civil disobedience and was imprisoned earlier this year for blockading the path of the TransMountain pipeline.

Sophie Papp and Zain Haq in the first half.

And; Colombians voted in national elections last week. It’s seen as the first real chance to unseat finally the far right power structure that has brutalized social justice and environmental activists, the indigenous people, and union organizers there for more than three generations. The favourite going into the May 29th poll, leftist Gustavo Petro and running mate, Francia Marquez fell just short of the 50% needed for a first round victory, so will face another vote against second place finisher, Rodolfo Hernandez June 19th.

Dan Kovalik is a lawyer, educator, labour, peace, and justice activist, democracy defender, journalist, author, and filmmaker. Dan has observed elections in Venezuela, Nicaragua, and Colombia – where he witnessed the 2016 peace plebiscite promising an end to the generational war there. Of Kovalik’s 2020 film, ‘Nicaragua: The April Crisis & Beyond‘ on 2018’s so-called uprising in Nicaragua, Oliver Stone said, “Kovalik helps cut through the Orwellian lies and dissembling which make so-called ‘humanitarian intervention possible.”

Kovalik’s book titles include: ‘No More War: How the West Violates International Law by Using ‘Humanitarian’ Intervention to Advance Economic and Strategic Interest,’ ‘Cancel This Book: The Progressive Case Against Cancel Culture,’ and the “Plot to” series on American efforts to undermine the governments and economies of Iran, Venezuela, Russia, and to control the World entirely.

Dan Kovalik and Colombia’s second try at an electoral first in the second half.

But first, Sophie Papp and Zain Haq and stopping old growth logging.

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/