Saturday, October 03, 2020

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.

 

Thursday, October 01, 2020

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.  

 

Tuesday, September 29, 2020

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/

 

Monday, September 28, 2020

Revealed: The Lie That Shot Down MH17

The Lie That Shot Down MH17

by John Helmer, Moscow

  @bears_with

September 27, 2020

The first book to prove the Dutch Government is running a show trial, with Dutch judges, prosecutors, lawyers, and police serving as soldiers in the Kiev regime’s and the NATO war against Russia. Every one of them is making more money than they were before MH17 was shot down — €35 million more for the judges; €13 million more for the prosecutors; €221 million for the police.

712 pages, 758 references, maps, illustrations, index

An encyclopaedic demonstration of Ukrainian evidence tampering, US satellite faking, and witness lying under SBU torture and bribery to demonstrate that the Russians accused have no case to answer; that the judge’s guilty verdict has been rigged, and that the defence lawyers should now walk out of the court.

 

John Horgan's "Priceless" Blunder: Site C Future Uncertainty Rife as Costs Escalate Out of Sight

The Site C Dam is now Priceless

by Ken Boon  - Peace Valley Landowners Association

August 3, 2020

On Friday July 31st, the BC Government finally revealed just how bad things are with the Site C dam. Of course you had to look through the usual spin and a smoke screen of blaming Covid 19, First Nation legal battles, and the previous Liberal government, to see the real problems for this mega project.

BC Hydro had withheld the two last quarterly reports on the project, and while unfortunately it was no surprise that bad news was being kept from the public, what we heard on Friday was shocking. Basically, the status of the Site C project could not be any worse, and it was left to a shaken Energy Minister Bruce Ralston to deliver the news.

 

Stop Site C: Open Letter to John Horgan

Open Letter to John Horgan

by The Undersigned

September 28, 2020

We write you today to express our profound concerns about your government’s decision to allow continued construction work at the problem-plagued Site C dam project.

The Site C project is years away from completion, is mired in problems that may be unfixable, and confronts new, potentially horrendous cost over-runs.

 

Sunday, September 27, 2020

Do Liberals HATE Leftists? Oh, Yes They Do, They Do, They Do!

Why Liberals Hate Leftists

by Caitlin Johnstone - Rogue Journalist

September 27, 2020

Liberals hate leftists. Hate them, hate them, hate them.

 

They don’t often admit it of course. Admitting you hate those to your left at least as much as you hate those to your right would cause a lot of cognitive dissonance for those who think of themselves as being on the left, and it would weaken their arguments considerably.

Saturday, September 26, 2020

Spirit of 2020: Who Has Left the Will to Resist Berserkery?

The Surrendered Land: US Institutions Won’t Fight for Democracy 

by Chris Floyd - Empire Burlesque

September 26, 2020

I follow the novelist A.R. Moxon on Twitter, where his political takes routinely bring genuine insight, wit and moral rigor to the increasing beserkery of our times. But he recently posted an observation, or prediction, that I found I couldn’t agree with, much as I would have liked to. 

It prompted some thoughts in response that I put up – on Twitter, where else? – not so much in refutation of his point but more as a wider-angle lens on the possibilities that face us in a post-election meltdown. Below are Moxon’s comment and my response, which has been edited and augmented somewhat, since the original was in the terse telegraphese of Twitterspeak.  

 

Andre Vltchek, PRESENTE!

Andre Vltchek PRESENTE!

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

September 26, 2020

Itinerant, globe-trotting journalist, Andre Vltchek died this week, fittingly while still in motion, careening through an exotic city on the far side of the World. But then for Andre the World had no sides, he lived on the whole of it. 

It's difficult to imagine another like him, in this time or any other. He lived and worked among the most wretched, ever faithful to the interests of those oppressed by state and corporate power. And he did this constantly, it seemed. One could never be sure where he'd be, but what was certain, he wouldn't be there for long.

 

A Sudden Departure: Andre Vltchek's Unblinking Witness to the World

André Vltchek’s Sudden Death 

by Robert Hunziker - CounterPunch

September 25, 2020

Exposing Lies of the Empire (PT. Badak Merah Semesta, 2015) first introduced me to André Vltchek’s remarkable journalism, weaving together unforgettable narratives of Western imperialism and capitalistic fundamentalism. He’s widely considered one of the world’s most gifted thinkers, and even though I did not personally know him, I always looked forward to reading his articles. 

Vltchek in Kenya during Al-Shabaab standoff 

His words came from direct personal experience on the front lines of battlefields or wherever humanity suffered and struggled. He knew slums as well as palaces and villages that had been bombed into the ground. He was a true revolutionary fighting for the underclass, a lifetime communist and advocate of Chinese globalism, which he described as beneficial to former colonized countries throughout the world.


Friday, September 25, 2020

Press Dogs Don't Bark at "Press Trial of the Century"

Julian Assange: Press Shows Little Interest in Media ‘Trial of Century’ 

Labeled the media “trial of the century,” WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange’s extradition hearing is currently taking place in London—although you might not have heard if you’re relying solely on corporate media for news. If extradited, Assange faces 175 years in a Colorado supermax prison, often described as a “black site” on US soil.

The United States government is asking Britain to send the Australian publisher to the US to face charges under the 1917 Espionage Act.  He is accused of aiding and encouraging Chelsea Manning to hack a US government computer in order to publish hundreds of thousands of documents detailing American war crimes, particularly in Afghanistan and Iraq. 

Thursday, September 24, 2020

A "Diabolical Lurking" Beneath the Surface of Canada's Left

Does Canadian Left Icon Stephen Lewis want Palestine to Disappear?

by Yves Engler - Dissident Voice

September 23rd, 2020

Stephen Lewis seems to want Palestine to disappear. The latest example in a long history of anti-Palestinian activism is his claim that Canada’s anti-Palestinian voting record at the UN didn’t contribute to its defeat for a seat on the Security Council.

Recently I was forwarded an email that activist Elizabeth Block shared to Independent Jewish Voices’ discussion list in which she challenged Lewis’ omission of Palestine during a recent CBC interview that dealt with Canada’s Security Council defeat.  

 

Killing the Kangaroo: UK "Justice" Drops Hammer on Assange Hearing

Assange Hearing Day 16  

by Craig Murray: Your Man in the Public Gallery

September 24, 2020

On Wednesday the trap sprang shut, as Judge Baraitser insisted the witnesses must finish next week, and that no time would be permitted for preparation of closing arguments, which must be heard the immediate following Monday. This brought the closest the defence have come to a protest, with the defence pointing out they have still not addressed the new superseding indictment, and that the judge refused their request for an adjournment before witness hearings started, to give them time to do so.

Edward Fitzgerald QC for the defence also pointed out that there had been numerous witnesses whose evidence had to be taken into account, and the written closing submissions had to be physically prepared with reference to the transcripts and other supporting evidence from the trial. Baraitser countered that the defence had given her 200 pages of opening argument and she did not see that much more could be needed. Fitzgerald, who is an old fashioned gentleman in the very nicest sense of those words, struggled to express his puzzlement that all of the evidence since opening arguments could be dismissed as unnecessary and of no effect. 

 

Wednesday, September 23, 2020

Loud-Mouths & Tight Spaces: CDC Revises Its Covid-19 Contagion Guidelines

The CDC retracts its guidance that stipulated the airborne danger of the coronavirus

by Benjamin Mateus  - WSWS

 23 September 2020

On Friday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) published new guidelines acknowledging that the virus causing COVID-19 is primarily transmitted through small airborne particles. This admission implies that people occupying poorly ventilated areas such as classrooms, meat packing factories, production lines, churches, grocery stores, etc., are at risk of acquiring COVID-19 if someone else in the room with COVID-19 is contagious. Airborne particles, unlike respiratory droplets, can linger in the air and concentrate throughout an enclosed room.

David J. Sencer CDC Museum in Atlanta, GA (Wikimedia Commons) 

The CDC wrote in no uncertain terms that the most common modes of transmission for SARS-CoV-2 were through “respiratory droplets or small particles, such as those in aerosols, produced when an infected person coughs, sneezes, sings, talks, or breathes. 

 

The Western Fire Refugees

Diary of a Smoke Refugee 

by David Rovics - CounterPunch

September 21, 2020

It’s been quite a week here in Oregon. I know there are plenty of other horrors happening in the world. The invisible ones are the worst. Like tens of millions of children in the US going to bed hungry every night in recent weeks, or the tap water in Flint and Gaza continuing to be undrinkable, or the many people every night in Yemen and India dying alone at home of disease, knowing it’s pointless to go to a hospital that has no medicine and no equipment. 

 Photograph by Nathaniel St. Clair

The visible horrors are more dramatic, more newsworthy, and also deadly for some, devastating for many – Sudan and Alabama underwater. Siberia, California, and Oregon on fire.


Standing Down: Guardian Stays Mum on Assange Charges

The US is using the Guardian to justify jailing Assange for life. Why is the paper so silent? 22 September 2020 

by Jonathan Cook

September 22, 2020

Julian Assange is not on trial simply for his liberty and his life. He is fighting for the right of every journalist to do hard-hitting investigative journalism without fear of arrest and extradition to the United States. Assange faces 175 years in a US super-max prison on the basis of claims by Donald Trump’s administration that his exposure of US war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan amounts to “espionage”.

The charges against Assange rewrite the meaning of “espionage” in unmistakably dangerous ways. Publishing evidence of state crimes, as Assange’s Wikileaks organisation has done, is covered by both free speech and public interest defences. 

 

The Bats Bot of Britain: BBC Blitzes Population with War Porn

The ‘War Against Us’ – The Battle of Britain And Steve Richards On ‘The Prime Ministers’

by Media Lens

 
23rd September 2020

We can report that the skies over South East England have been swarming with Spitfires and Hurricanes this month. Is there a war on? Well, yes. 

In 1991, the historian Howard Zinn described the two targets of Operation Desert Storm:

 

‘The American population was bombarded the way the Iraqi population was bombarded. It was a war against us, a war of lies and disinformation and omission of history. That kind of war, overwhelming and devastating, waged here in the US while the Gulf War was waged over there.’ (Zinn, ‘Power, History and Warfare,’ Open Magazine Pamphlet Series, No. 8, 1991, p.12)

 

Gorilla Radio with Chris Cook, Dahr Jamail, Jennifer Abbott, Janine Bandcroft September 24, 2020

This Week on GR

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

September 24, 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 18th, 2020.

 

It’s clear, the emergence of the Covid-19 pandemic has changed the way we all live. While questions about how long-lasting a change that will be are moot, what we should be asking is: 

“How do we make the most of these forced changes, and now choose better ways of living?”

Dahr Jamail is a recovering journalist and author whose latest book, ‘The End of Ice: Bearing Witness and Finding Meaning in the Path of Climate Disruption’ is a vital guide to both understanding these turbulent times, and the possibilities they present.

Listen. Hear.

Dahr’s latest project is ‘The Changing Earth: Indigenous Voices From Turtle Island’ a collaboration with indigenous scholar, Stan Rushworth that promises to, “present, via powerful and intimate encounters, the perspective of Indigenous peoples of the United States and Canada on the Earth’s climate and interrelated Covid-19 emergencies.”

Dahr Jamail in the first half.

And; are there any among you listening not worried about the state of the natural World; any unaware of the collapsing populations of insects, birds, and fish both great and small? And, are there any left who believe it’s not too late to avert climate disaster? Well, I’m sorry to be the one to tell you: “Yes, it IS too late, baby”. But, just because we’ve passed the point of being able to preserve “our way of life” doesn’t mean we can’t still live full and meaningful lives.

Jennifer Abbott is an internationally renowned, award-winning documentary filmmaker. Her latest film, premiering at the imminently opening Vancouver International Film Festival, ‘The Magnitude of All Things’ is a deeply personal and poignant film that, “explores the emotional and psychological dimensions of the climate crisis and the relationship between grief and hope in times of personal and planetary change.”

Jennifer Abbott 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. But first, Dahr Jamail and Covid, climate and other interrelated emergencies.

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/