Gorilla Radio 2021 Year-Ender with Chris Cook, John Helmer, Steve Poikonen, Dan Kovalik, Keith Simmonds December 28, 2021

Welcome to GR’s Year-Ender 2021 episode.

Today I’ll play out this stained 2021 in four fitting quarters taken from four of this past year’s 52 Gorilla Radio programs…

There will be bloviating and some music too… First off, the threat of nuclear annihilation is back! America’s team NATO has pushed Russia against the atomic wall in Ukraine with the prospect of U.S. nuclear-tipped missiles parked within just a few minutes flight time from Moscow.

In November, Vladimir Putin reiterated his “red line warning” regarding that near proximity and the existential threat it represented, making clear Russian missiles were now on a “5 minute” flight time hair trigger.

John Helmer is the most often appearing guest over the 23 years GR has aired. He’s worked in and reported from Russia for the better part of the last thirty years, both before and since the disintegration of the Soviet system. Helmer’s a journalist, author, broadcaster, former political advisor to government, and principle behind the news website, Dances with Bears. Some of his many book titles include: ‘The Lie that Shot Down MH-17,’ ‘Skripal in Prison,’ ‘The Man Who Knows Too Much About Russia,’ and ‘Hitler Didn’t Die in Berlin – He Moved to Melbourne Where He Runs the State Government of Victoria: A True Covid-19 Thriller’ among many others. Here’s John Helmer on NATO’s Ukraine gambit and the new nuclear race’s comeback.

Another Australian journalist, Julian Assange spent all of 2021 as he had 2020 and most of 2019 suffering maximum security lockdown in London’s Belmarsh Prison for the crime of revealing the crimes of empire. The political prisoners of 2021 after the break.

As well as the USA/NATO war machine’s pushing the World ever nearer the brink of catastrophic war with Russia – and perhaps China too – this year past, it has too worked diligently to undermine civil society at home. Part of that effort includes the shutting down of dissenting narrative online, none arguably more vital to understanding our state of perpetual warfare than WikiLeaks – author of The Afghan and Iraq War Logs, Guantanamo and Syria Files, Vault 7 CIA Hacking Tools revelations, and the devastating Collateral Murder video among many others.

Earlier this month, Britain’s appellate court overturned a High Court ruling denying a U.S. extradition petition on the grounds of prisoner Assange’s fragile mental and physical health, allowing he be rendered unto American Justice to face unprecedented charges against a journalist and foreign national that could amount to almost two centuries worth of confinement. His family and supporters, and independent medical investigators with the United Nations fear Assange will not survive even the pre-trial detention.

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. I spoke to Steve several times over the course of the year on the slow progress of the political case against the publisher, the last time in October. Here’s Steve Poikonen on the continued Assange case charade.

That’s Steve Poikonen. You can support his work over at Slow News Day podcast on Rokfin.

You’re listening to Gorilla Radio’s send off of 2021. I’ve heard it said this year was merely a replay of the unloved 2020; if only it were true. In this part of the World, across all metrics of progressive thought, 2021 marks a drastic decline in human rights and civil liberties. And it seems about to be getting worse. Julian Assange wasn’t the only political prisoner held last year; whether Alex Saab in Cape Verde, or Meng Wanzhou in Canada, the much vaunted “rule of law” is increasingly seen for what it is: a sad joke. But the situation in Palestine is beyond even black humour. Israel’s child prisoners after the break…

As serious an abrogation of first principles Canada’s arrest and imprisonment of Huawai executive Meng Wanzhou was, or its continued failure to speak out for the political persectuion of Julian Assange is the country’s utter abandonment of Palestinian children to Israel’s military court system puts the lie to our claim – and self-regard – as an international human rights exemplar. ‘Canada Stand Up for Palestinian Children’s Rights’ is a coalition of human rights organizations who are currently engaged in a continuing awareness-raising campaign because our government has failed in its response to the systemic “kidnap, arrest, detainment, abuse, torture, and murder of Palestinian children…

Keith Simmonds is a United Church of Canada minister who served as a World Council of Churches human rights observer (Ecumenical Accompanier) in Palestine in early 2020. Stationed in Bethlehem he also spent time in Jerusalem, Galilee and Tulkarem. The ‘second career minister’ has too served as a labour and community organizer, volunteer firefighter and ERT team member, and worked as an assistant to provincial cabinet ministers among other things in a varied career.

That was Keith Simmonds of the United Church of Canada speaking on the ‘Canada Stand Up for Palestinian Children’s Rights’ a coalition of human rights organizations.

Again, you’re listening to Gorilla Radio’s 2021 Year-End show. I’ve chosen four of the 52 shows recorded this year, and so far it’s all been pretty grim news – that is after all the specialty here – but I won’t leave you on the precipice of 2022 without at least a quantum of hope, a scintilla of good tidings. Elections were held throughout Latin America in 2021, and, (with only the dubious exception of Ecuador) the Pink Tide – that is those governments advertising themselves as proponents for the common people – won office. A rising tide in for human rights in Latin America after the break.

Dan Kovalik has been a frequent guest on the show over the years. Dan’s a lawyer, educator, labour, peace, and justice activist, democracy defender, journalist, author, and filmmaker. Dan has observed elections in Venezuela, Nicaragua, and Colombia, and he was down in Nicaragua to witnessed the reelection of man El Norte despises, Daniel Ortega. I’ll finish with Dan and thank John Helmer, Steve Poikonen, Keith Simmonds, and all the good folks at the station keeping the wheels turning week in and week out. There’s great programming coming up, but that’s all I’ve got for this year, until the next…

Chris Cook hosts Gorilla Radio, airing 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

 

Gorilla Radio with Chris Cook, John Helmer December 7, 2021

Welcome to Gorilla Radio, recorded December 7th, 2021.

80 years to the day from FDR’s famous “day that will live in infamy“, marking America’s entry into World War II the current U.S. president had a virtual sit-down summit with former ally Russia, ostensibly to discuss way of avoiding another war. The fire this time is Ukraine, and whether Russia, as the western press charges, is readying an invasion. For its part, Russia says its concern is with NATO expansion and the emplacement of offensive weapons by the alliance in bordering countries. Meanwhile, behind the media static is Nord Stream 2, the massive gas pipeline project from Russia that though completed is yet to transport a puff of power to energy hungry Europe.

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 Thrill

er’, and the just hot of the presses, ‘Complete Dances with Bears Comic Book’. His recent article ‘A NEW RUSSIAGATE COMPENDIUM TURNS OUT TO BE A CAT IN A SAKWA’ outs the western media layering of attacks designed to keep Russia on a permanent back-foot.

Today, John Helmer and of summits and the journalistic nadir in Russia reportage.

Chris Cook hosts Gorilla Radio, airing 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

Gorilla Radio with Chris Cook, Larry Hannant, Kim Goldberg December 16th, 2021

Welcome to Gorilla Radio, recorded December 4th, 2021.

That an impression of immutability, properly mediated, can be used to serve the interests of the status quo was not lost on prime minister and noted “Iron Lady”, Margaret Thatcher. She famously wielded the slogan,”There is no alternative” – acronymized ‘TINA’ – to batter opponents of her withering economic austerity program in long ago Britain. Looking around at the political stasis afflicting Western democracy today, it may seem our path to economic and environmental disaster is too fixed, inevitable as the movement of the planets.

Similarly, according to my first guest, Alberta, Canada’s reputation as an unassailable sinecure of conservatism past, present, and future is less real than engineered, but unlike Thatcher’s variety the provenance of the prairie province’s TINA is more intriguing than the utterance of a deranged demagogue.

Larry Hannant is a writer, historian, educator, social justice advocate, activist, and author. His book titles include, the Robert S. Kenny Prize-winning book, ‘The Politics of Passion: Norman Bethune’s Writing and Art’, ‘The Infernal Machine: Investigating the Loyalty of Canada’s Citizens’, ‘All My Politics Are Poetry’, and the newly released, ‘Bucking Conservatism: Alternative Stories of Alberta in the 1960s and 1970s’.

Larry Hannant in the first half.

And; Kim Goldberg is a Nanaimo-based poet, journalist, and author. She’s written 8 books of poetry and nonfiction, including her most recent collection ‘DEVOLUTION: poems and fables of eco-pocalypse‘. She covered BC current affairs for Canadian Dimension Magazine for many years, most recently writing about the Fairy Creek blockade.

Kim Goldberg on Devolution, a poetic discourse on ecosystem and societal collapse in the second half.

But first, Larry Hannant and Bucking Conservatism, Alberta-style.

Chris Cook hosts Gorilla Radio, airing 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

Gorilla Radio with Chris Cook, Dr. Pablo Ouziel November 27, 2021

Welcome to Gorilla Radio, recorded November 27th, 2021

Democracy, or what passed for it in the west is on the ropes. The decline of political dominance globally, vast wealth disparity domestically, and now the economy killing strictures accompanying the Covid-19 pandemic have combined to produce the perfect sturm und drang for society on the brink.

Pablo Ouziel is an associate fellow at the Centre for Global Studies at the University of Victoria and a visiting fellow in the Department Politics and International Relations at the University of Southampton. His book, ‘Democracy Here and Now: The exemplary case of Spain‘ is published by University of Toronto Press and due out in Spring 2022. He’s currently residing outside Barcelona.

Today, Pablo Ouziel, and charting the state of global 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

 

Gorilla Radio with Chris Cook, Karen Spring, Keith Simmonds December 2nd, 2021

Welcome to Gorilla Radio, recorded November 27th, 2021

The Honduran presidential election is November 28th and will see Xiomara Castro, wife of ousted former president, Manuel “Mel” Zelaya face Nasry Asfura, right-wing mayor of Tegulcigalpa and close cohort of exiting president, Juan Orlando Hernández. It’s been 12 years since Castro’s pajama-clad husband was spirited out his bed and out of the country in the coup. Canada and the United States were quick then to recognize the coupsters, and have continued to support different iterations of their “democracy restoration” despite ruthless military and police repression, rampant government corruption, and a flourishing drugs trade and gang violence that helped trigger an ongoing migration exodus.

Karen Spring is the Honduras-based Coordinator for the Honduras Solidarity Network. They describe themselves as a, “… decentralized network of approximately 30 organizations from across Canada and the United States […] committed to demonstrating and advocating for solidarity with the Honduran social movement.” Spring is also author of several articles and reports about human rights issues, has testified before Canadian Parliamentary committees about human rights in Honduras, and blogs at aquiabajo.com.

Karen Spring in the first half.

And; as serious an abrogation of first principles Canada’s failure to support true Honduran democracy represents, its utter abandonment of Palestinian children to Israel’s military court system puts the lie to the country’s claim – and self-regard – as international human rights exemplar. ‘Canada Stand Up for Palestinian Children’s Rights’ is a coalition of human rights organizations who are currently engaged in a continuing awareness-raising campaign because our government has failed in its response to the systemic “kidnap, arrest, detainment, abuse, torture, and murder of Palestinian children…”

Keith Simmonds is a United Church of Canada minister who served as a World Council of Churches human rights observer (Ecumenical Accompanier) in Palestine in early 2020. Stationed in Bethlehem he also spent time in Jerusalem, Galilee and Tulkarem. The ‘second career minister’ has too served as a labour and community organizer, volunteer firefighter and ERT team member, and worked as an assistant to provincial cabinet ministers among other things in a varied career.

Keith Simmonds and holding Canada to its word on human rights in Palestine in the second half.

But first, Karen Spring and can Sunday’s election be Honduran’s second chance at real democracy?

Chris Cook hosts Gorilla Radio, airing 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

Gorilla Radio with Chris Cook, Sleydo Molly Wickham, Jackie Larkin November 25, 2021

Welcome to Gorilla Radio Sunday, November 21, 2021

Outside the busyness of the modern world is pressing against the window panes as if nothing has happened.

The plagues and pestilence, conflagrations of forests and atmospheric torrents are all present, all a part of this waking dream, yet we stumble for the reason behind the rising waters, and sliding mud and rock; that remains peripheral, an unaddressed root of our unraveling. Instead, the blinkered death march progresses unabated, desperate for the abyss.

Canada’s paramilitary police attacked again land defenders of the northern interior in colonial British Columbia at the Morice River last week. The RCMP raid meant to terrorize and demoralize the people resisting TC Energy’s Coastal GasLink pipeline took hostages, arresting at least 15, including journalists. Sleydo’ Molly Wickham was among those seized. She’s described by independent news outlet, The Narwhal as “a wing chief in Cas Yikh house of the Gidimt’en clan.”

Wickham says, after warning Coastal Gaslink a 2020 eviction order would be enforced, the road to a 500-strong work camp was dug up. Police say their “enforcement operation” was necessary to protect the “health and wellness” of the isolated workers.

Similarly, Fairy Creek on southern Vancouver Island is the focus of RCMP enforcement efforts to dislodge those standing in the way of the business of rampant environmental defilement. There the public has ponied up nearly 4 million loonies to protect the private profits of the Teal Jones lumber company. In both instances, broadly defined court orders have been used by the federal police to set up “exclusion zones”, where those deemed in contravention are arrested under “contempt of court” charges.

More than a thousand arrests have been made at and around Fairy Creek in over the last year. Again, context is lacking in the reportage permitted from the zones of contention due to a combination of restricted access for alternative media, and the inherent reluctance of corporate and state news producers to challenge the status quo.

On today’s show, a look back at two instances of persistent resistance to the colonial occupation of “British Columbia”.

Chris Cook hosts Gorilla Radio, airing 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

Gorilla Radio with Chris Cook, Ken Stone, Finian Cunningham November 18, 2021

Welcome to Gorilla Radio, recorded November 13th and 14th, 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.

Gorilla Radio with Chris Cook, John Helmer, Dan Kovalik November 11, 2021

Welcome to Gorilla Radio, recorded October 31st and November 4th, 2021

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.


John Helmer in the first half.

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.

Dan Kovalik and Nicaragua’s testing time in the second half.

But first, John Helmer and the media crusade keeping the New Cold War with Russia on ice.

Gorilla Radio with Chris Cook, Dan Kovalik November 4, 2021

Welcome to Gorilla Radio, recorded November 4th, 2021

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.
Some of Kovalik’s many book titles include: ‘The Plot to Scapegoat Russia’, ‘The Plot to Attack Iran’, ‘The Plot to Control the World, ‘The Plot to Overthrow Venezuela’ ‘No More War: How the West Violates International Law by Using ‘Humanitarian’ Intervention to Advance Economic and Strategic Interests’, and his latest, ‘Cancel This Book: The Progressive Case Against Cancel Culture’.

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.

Today, Dan Kovalik and Nicaragua’s testing time.

Gorilla Radio with Chris Cook, John Helmer October 31, 2021

Welcome to Gorilla Radio, recorded September 31st, 2021

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 ostenisbly 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 levelled 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.

Today, John Helmer and the media crusade keeping the New Cold War with Russia on ice.

Gorilla Radio with Chris Cook, Yves Engler November 4th, 2021

Welcome to Gorilla Radio, recorded October 30th, 2021

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

Gorilla Radio with Chris Cook, Denise Nadeau, John Philpot October 28, 2021

Welcome to Gorilla Radio, recorded October 23rd, 2021

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

Gorilla Radio with Chris Cook, Dr. Joan Russow, Steve Poikonen October 21st, 2021

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.

Joan Russow in the first half.

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.

Steve Poikonen and the continuing Assange case charade in the second half.

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

Gorilla Radio with Chris Cook, Richard Boyce, Alan MacLeod October 14, 2021

Welcome to Gorilla Radio, recorded October 9th, 2021

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

Gorilla Radio with Chris Cook, Ramzy Baroud, Paul D. Thacker October 7th, 2021

Welcome to Gorilla Radio, recorded September 26th and October 2nd, 2021

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