November 19, 2021
True to its word, the Trudeau government is determined to spend billions for a revamped fighter jet force for Canada’s military. The main debate until now has been which foreign weapons-making company will get the sweet deal – a deal worth a reported 88 billion buckaroos over the next generation – and not whether Canada should be supporting such a deal in the first place.
Ken Stone is a long-time antiwar activist whose served as an executive member of both the Syria Solidarity Movement and Hamilton Coalition to Stop the War. Ken and the Hamilton Coalition are joining hands in a trans-Canada effort with Canadian Voice of Women, Peace Brigades International, the Regina Peace Council, and the Victoria Peace Coalition here in Victoria among many others to mount the No Fighter Jets demonstrations at Liberal MP’s offices from coast to coast to coast November 22nd.
Ken Stone in the first half.
And; more than a year after Ethiopia’s military launched a so-called “police action” to “restore order” in Tigray province, the fighting rages on. While thousands have died and hundreds of thousands more have been displaced, another casualty of the humanitarian disaster that ensued has been Western goodwill for the Nobel Peace Prize laureate prime minister Abiy Ahmed, who now faces sanctions – along with ally Eritrea – and the threat of American military intervention should the humanitarian crisis in the Horn of Africa nation continue.
To some on the American and European left that threat smacks of the kind of “humanitarian intervention” seen in Yugoslavia, Libya, and Syria; it’s something they say is no less than naked neo-imperialism, and prompting their support for Ahmed and Eritrean strongman, Isaias Afwerki.
Finian Cunningham is a prolific journalist and two-time Serena Shim Award for Uncompromising Integrity in Journalism recipient. His articles on international affairs appear at numerous online outlets, including Strategic Culture, where his March piece, ‘U.S. Paves Way for Intervention in Ethiopia, Horn of Africa’ is proving now to be prophetic.
Finian Cunningham and competing narratives in the ongoing Ethiopian disaster in the second half.
But first, Ken Stone and just saying “NO!” to new fighter jets.
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.com
November 1st marks the day Russia formally ends its diplomatic mission to the Western alliance’s military arm, NATO. Explaining the move, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told the press, “[T]he basic conditions for common work no longer exist.” NATO spokesperson, Oana Lungescu called the break in relations regrettable, saying, “We have strengthened our deterrence and defence in response to Russia’s aggressive actions, while at the same time we remain open to dialogue...”
The break ostensibly follows the expulsion again from Brussels of Russian diplomats accused of being spies, but is really the culmination of years of allegations and unfounded charges leveled against the country by the West in what amounts to a determined campaign of diplomatic and media warfare.
John Helmer is a journalist, author, broadcaster, former political advisor to government, and principal behind the news website, Dances with Bears. Among Helmer’s many books titles are, ‘The Lie That Shot Down MH-17’ ‘Skripal in Prison’, ‘The Man Who Knows Too Much About Russia’, ‘Hitler Didn’t Die in Berlin – He Moved to Melbourne Where He Runs the State Government of Victoria: A True Covid-19 Thriller’, and the just hot of the presses, ‘Complete Dances with Bears Comic Book’, a “true to life comic book coated in laughter, the only antidote certain to neutralize Novichok in your underpants, or a BUK rocket headed for your jetliner.”
Helmer’s recent article, ‘Little Boy & Fatman – The Two Info-War Bombs Dropped on Russia‘ chronicles the continued hard cover and paperback edition assault on the country.
And; November 7th Nicaraguans go to the polls in national and local elections. It’s another test for long-time president, Daniel Ortega’s government; a test the United States and it’s ally Canada are eager to see him fail. Following years of crippling financial sanctions, and a determined media campaign of demonization and misinformation coming from the North, the question now is if Nicaraguan’s will continue to support Ortega 14 years into the former Sandanista guerrilla’s socialist reform program.
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.”
Dan is currently in Nicaragua’s capital, Managua preparing for the election.
But first, John Helmer and the media crusade keeping the New Cold War with Russia on ice.
Next week, Canadians will again gather in towns and cities across the nation to commemorate Armistice Day, (November 11th, 1918) and celebrate the fulfillment of The Great War’s promise to be the “End of All Wars”. But you needn’t worry about putting to knee the youth of the land and painfully instructing them on the glorious horrors, or forgotten methods and meaning of human warfare. The promise was a lie. And the wars and the lying about war persist a century and more later – obviously. Less obvious to even the most engaged citizens of this Canada however is the depth and breadth of the lies sustaining both the country’s military and militarism in the country. The reasons for that dearth of Canadian incredulity are many, but primary among them is the dismal grasp of history here.
Yves Engler is a Montreal-based political activist, essayist, lecturer, and author whose eleven books – mostly on Canadian foreign policy – are joined now by a twelfth title, ‘Stand on Guard for Whom? A Peoples’ History of the Canadian Military.’ Yves is preparing now for the far western swing of his book tour, which will see him presenting in Nanaimo, Victoria, Duncan, and Vancouver from November 10th to 14th.
Today, Yves Engler and revealing, remembering, and recognizing the pervasiveness of Canada’s militarist past and present.
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.com
September 30th this year marked the first commemoration of National Truth and Reconciliation Day in Canada. The date coincides with Orange Shirt Day, a popularly created remembrance of First Nations children kidnapped by the state and brutalized in the Residential Schools system. But the idea of Truth and Reconciliation is far broader than the schools, or any single aspect of the country’s colonial past; because whether you and your family arrived in Canada five, or five hundred and five years ago, you’re a part now of the continuing occupation of someone else’s home.
Denise Nadeau is an educator, scholar, and activist working at the intersection of somatic therapy, spiritual practice, decolonization, and racial justice. She is of mixed European heritage from Quebec and the author of the new book Unsettling Spirit: A Journey into Decolonization. She’s also an organizer with the Calls to Action Scavenger Hunt: In Search of Truth and Reconciliation event, to be held Saturday November 6th in James Bay.
Denise Nadeau in the first half.
And; Julian Assange is not the only prisoner of American extraterritorial lawfare. Alex Saab is a Colombian businessman, international “fixer”, and diplomat. A deal maker, Saab put his considerable talents towards aiding besieged Venezuela evade the illegal and deadly U.S. blockade to provide medicines and other much needed goods to the country. Though you wouldn’t know any of that watching the Western press who, as with WikiLeaks publisher Assange, has smeared him with politically motivated lies.
John Philpot is a Montreal-based defense attorney in International Criminal Law. Long active in Palestinian and African support organizations, the peace movement, and recent campaign to free political prisoner, Meng Wanzhou, Philpot too was a member of the Free Alex Saab delegation presenting to the annual African Bar Association meetings in Niger just days before Saab was extradited from Cape Verde last week.
John Philpot and America courting war in the second half.
But first, Denise Nadeau on the hunt for truth and reconciliation in our home on native land.
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.com
Welcome to Gorilla Radio, recorded October 16th, 2021
The Conference of Parties, or COPs will convene its 26th meeting October 31st in Glasgow, Scotland. The theme of this year’s confab is ostensibly monitoring, reviewing, and arm-twisting signatories to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change to bring all into compliance with the Paris Agreement signed in 2015.
President-designate of this iteration of the COP, Conservative Party cabinet minister, Alok Sharma stresses “emissions reductions, adaptation, finance, and working together” as the four keys to success at COP26. Greta Thunberg, speaking for a generation made jaded by empty rhetoric and repeatedly broken promises, summed up her expectations of the conference as simply being more “blah, blah, blah.”
Dr. Joan Russow is former leader of the Green Party of Canada who since stepping down from the Greens has spent her time keeping the United Nations’ feet to fire with the Joan, and as a serial reporter and filmmaker recording climate change conferences. She’s producer of the film, ‘Cooperatives: Counterpoint to Capitalism’, and also serves as editor and driving force behind PEJNews.com.
And; despite recent revelations of false testimony given in the Julian Assange case, the United States is determined to perpetuate the WikiLeaks editor’s persecution. Assange still sits in London’s Belmarsh Prison, isolated and awaiting the next step in the long process of an extradition petition filed by the U.S. At this point only the most dedicatedly obdurate among the American and British judiciary believe Julian Assange guilty as charged – they and their stenographers in the corporate and state-sponsored press holding fast to the demonstrably false, and politically-tainted narrative keeping him a prisoner.
Steve Poikonen is an activist and host of the ‘Slow News Day‘ podcast – available at Rokfin. He’s also an organizer with Action4Assange, co-host of the #FreeAssange Vigil, and has participated in and helped organized multiple actions for Assange in Washington, D.C., and elsewhere in the U.S.
But first, Joan Russow and COP26’s pleas for unanimity of purpose in the face of a climate crisis.
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.com
Forest defenders are into their second Autumn staring down all Canada’s rule of law has to throw at them at the Fairy Creek front line. They’ve managed, over the last 15 and more months, to strip the provincial NDP government of the last vestige of its “green” credentials, and revealed the British Columbia court capable of little better justice than meted out by its colonial antecedents*. The resistance to the clearcutting of old growth forest policies the NDP are defending has too revealed to Canadians and the greater World watching events unfold the brutality of the province’s contracted enforcers, the RCMP.
Richard Boyce is an award-winning filmmaker who has spent most of his professional life chronicling environmental, social, and indigenous sovereignty issues – all issues at issue at Fairy Creek. Richard’s film titles include ‘RAINFOREST – The Limit of Splendour‘ and ‘Coastal Tarsands – Journey to Deleted Islands‘. He’s also the creator of the multi-media website, Vancouver Island Tree Stories.
Richard Boyce in the first half.
And; I’d like to be the first to announce Cuba’s long-awaited liberation from America’s sixty plus-year campaign to overthrow its revolution; but I guess I’ll have to wait. The new(ish) president Biden has carried on with the hawkish Cuba policy of his loonie predecessor – and even gone him one loonier. La Villa del Humor is the latest, (and suspected American-sponsored) antic hoping to bring regime change to the Caribbean island; and despite the jovial name its effort is dead serious.
Dr. Alan MacLeod is an educator, essayist, staff writer at Mintpress News, contributor to Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, and author whose latest book is, ‘Bad News From Venezuela: Twenty Years of Fake News and Misreporting’. His recent article at Mintpress, ‘Private Facebook Group that Organized the July Protests in Cuba Plans Biggers Ones Soon‘ exposes the methods and players behind Villa del Humor and its not so hilarious theatrics.
Alan MacLeod and Florida’s Cuba regime-change industry hoping for a hit in the second half.
But first, Richard Boyce and the impending countdown to destruction for Vancouver Island’s last remaining primeval forests.
NOTE: *Just hours before Richard and I spoke October 9th, British Columbia’s Supreme Court reinstated the court injunction Supreme Court Justice Douglas Thompson had quashed on the grounds, “… [A]ctions of the RCMP at the injunction site have put the court’s reputation at risk.”
The RCMP is free again to arrest in its manner any it deems in contravention of the original injunction pending an appeal against Justice Thompson’s earlier ruling. Richard and I discuss the ruling in an unprecedented “breaking news insert.”
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.com
Last week the last of six escapees from Israel’s notorious Gilboa prison was recaptured in the West Bank, but despite triumphal reports from Israeli media, the daring tunnel escape has inspired all Palestinians, and galvanized anti-prison activists across the Occupied Territories and Gaza.
Zakaria Zubeidi is one of those six prisoners whose brief taste of
freedom ended too quickly. More than merely another of the thousands of
Palestinians held and cycled through Israel’s prisons Zakaria is, my
first guest explains, also emblematic of a whole generation that has
known nothing but oppression and dispossession.
Dr. Ramzy Baroud is a journalist, author, and editor of The Palestine Chronicle. He’s also a Senior Research Fellow at the Center for Islam and Global Affairs and at the Afro-Middle East Center. His book titles include, ‘My Father Was a Freedom Fighter’, ‘The Last Earth: A Palestinian Story’, and his latest, ‘These Chains Will Be Broken: Palestinian Stories of Struggle and Defiance in Israeli Prisons‘. Ramzy’s articles appear across the internet and at his website, RamzyBaroud.net, where I found his recent piece, ‘One Man As a Whole Generation: The Unfinished War of Zakaria Zubeidi’.
Ramzy Baroud in the first half.
And; last week, Columbia University professor Jeffrey Sachs reported he’d closed the task force he chaired, tasked with discovering the source of the virus. More than a year after the Lancet Covid-19 Commission’s initiation, Sachs said, “I just didn’t want a task force that was so clearly involved with one of the main issues of this whole search for the origins, which was EcoHealth Alliance.”
The real story of how Daszak and EcoHealth managed to stay at the heart of the investigation this long can’t be told, according to my second guest, without, “pointing out how science writers at multiple outlets–New York Times, Nature, Science, National Geographic, etc…–willfully ignored the financial links between Peter Daszak and the Wuhan Institute of Virology“.
Paul D. Thacker is an investigative journalist who has reported on scientific ethics and campaigns to distort science for the New York Times, the Journal of the American Medical Association, Washington Post and others. He’s also the lead investigator and founder of the web news site, The DisInfomation Chronicle where I found his recent article, ‘Leaked Department of Defense Documents Show Anthony Fauci and EcoHealth Alliance’s Peter Daszak Cannot Be Trusted on Dangerous Virus Research‘.
Paul D. Thacker and the battle for truth in science in the second half.
But first, Ramzy Baroud and Zakaria Zubeidi, prisoner again of an unfinished war.
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.com
All-Day Vigil: Sit-in & Speak-outFor the endangered ancient forests, climate justice, biodiversity, for an end to the endless talk and log, for Indigenous rights and landback!Doors of the BC LegislatureMonday, October 4th, Beginning of the Fall Legislative session8:30 am- 6:30 pm ( Stay for the whole day or drop-in when you can)N.B. At 5:30 pm, community members who cannot make it during the work day are being asked to join the sit-in at the NDP west wing of the building to form a circle of hundreds of people joining hands (by strips of fabric) around the entire building in a prayerful statement of collective strength and unity for the protection of the old-growth forests, once and for all. Please bring a strip of coloured fabric!
Facebook event link https://fb.me/e/2bp7fY97l
And welcome to a new Canada! The country’s 44th federal election results are in and the minority government of Justin Trudeau has been replaced by the new minority government of Justin Trudeau. Yes, the most expensive election in the country’s history can also boast the lowest voter participation, and arguably the least return of any election for any office held in history when measured on the dollar to interest ratio index. So is it even worth parsing a post mortem on this summer doldrums? “Yes!” says my first guest, who argues the results reveal much about what Canadians think of the federal parties’ foreign policy stances, and instructs on our future direction in World events.
Yves Engler is an independent, Montreal-based journalist and author. He’s written ten books on Canadian foreign policy, and his latest is‘Left, Right — Marching to the Beat of Imperial Canada’. His articles appear at a variety of sites across the internet, including CanadianDimension, foreignpolicy.ca, and at his site, YvesEngler.com where I found his recent piece, ‘How Foreign Policy Shaped Election Outcome‘.
Yves Engler in the first half.
And; in breaking news: Chinese political prisoner, Meng Wanzhou is free! That is, the political prisoner of Canada from China, and CFO of mega-corporation, Huawei now has leave to exit the country of her imprisonment, and in fact has left Vancouver, where she suffered house arrest for nearly three years.
Ken Stone is a long-time antiwar activist whose served as an executive member of both the Syria Solidarity Movement and Hamilton Coalition to Stop the War. Ken and the Hamilton Coalition have led the nation-wide FREE MENG WANZHOU campaign to restore both the prisoner Meng’s liberty and justice to Canada’s legal system.
Ken Stone and the release of Meng Wanzhou in the second half.
But first, Yves Engler and what we can glean from this latest exercise in Canadian democracy.
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.com
How much time, or how many vaccinations it would take to make this latest lockdown go away wasn’t made clear, but what’s certain is the growing restiveness of the population. Last month, hundreds were arrested during protests of government measures, with the country’s second city, Melbourne seeing the greatest numbers of arrests.
John Helmer is a journalist, author, broadcaster, former political advisor to government, and principal behind the news website, Dances with Bears. Among Helmer’s many books titles are, ‘The Lie That Shot Down MH-17’ ‘Skripal in Prison’, and ‘The Man Who Knows Too Much About Russia’. His latest is, ‘Hitler Didn’t Die in Berlin – He Moved to Melbourne Where He Runs the State Government of Victoria: A True Covid-19 Thriller’. It’s the chronicle of his legal battles with authorities that banned both his leaving Australia, and allowing his wife rejoin him there.
He writes: “Right now this is a story with urgent parallels in the UK, US, Canada, Germany, Spain, and France – in every country where democratic resistance to abuse of power in the pandemic has run into identical tactics of lawlessness, and suffered the same fate.”
Today, John Helmer and the search for an inoculant to viral government malfeasance and the disastrous effects of hubris on the body politic.
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.com
