Gorilla Radio with Chris Cook, Dimitri Lascaris, Joe Emersberger August 16, 2023

Welcome to Gorilla Radio, recorded August 16th, 2023

The Gaza Freedom Flotilla has set sail, bound again for that besieged enclave. Most recently, 2018’s, ‘Just Future for Palestine’ was the fifth attempt to both get embargoed necessities into the Strip, and provide export opportunity for local goods. ‘For the Children of Gaza: a message of hope and solidarity’ is the theme this time around, and organizers say it will,

“challenge the blockade and […] demand an end to our governments’ complicity with Israel’s war crimes and violation of human rights.”

As he did in 2018, Canadian human rights lawyer, activist, journalist, and Ecosocialist champion, Dimitri Lascaris is climbing aboard.

Dimitri Lascaris reporting from the Gaza Freedom Flotilla (2023) in the first half.

And; a snap election call means Ecuadorians will go to the polls again Sunday, August 20th. This past week, presidential candidate, Fernando Villavicencio was assassinated, gunned down as he sat in an unarmored car following a political rally. He was not the first politician murdered this month; nor the last. Leader of the leftist political party Citizen Revolution, Pedro Briones was shot and killed in a city park Monday.

Outgoing president, Guillermo Lasso responded to the August 9th killing of Villavicencio by declaring a “60-day national state of emergency, suspending constitutional guarantees nationwide, and mobilizing the military for law enforcement.”

Joe Emersberger is a Canadian-Ecuadorian engineer, journalist, 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, Telesur English, and ZCom, among other places.

Joe Emersberger and the tenuous odds of Ecuador’s political system surviving in the second half.

But first, Dimitri Lascaris at sea with the Gaza Freedom Flotilla.

Chris Cook hosts Gorilla Radio, broad/webcasting since 1999. Check out the Archive at Gorilla-Radio.com, GRadio.Substack.com, and the GR blog at: https://gorillaradioblog.blogspot.com/

Gorilla Radio with Chris Cook, Dave Lindorff, Finian Cunningham December 31st, 2020

Welcome back to Gorilla Radio’s Home Edition, recorded on this date, December 31st, 2020.

It’s fitting now to focus on finishings as this over-long year two thousand and twenty slouches toward its unlamented finale. And what better emblemizes the demise of the Covid Year 2020 and what it represents than the parallel curtain call of the Donald J. Trump presidency; unwanted yet stubbornly clinging to both the body politic and global consciousness burr-like, or perhaps better sticking as a wad of chewed gum on the sole of our collective boot?

Dave Lindorff is an award-winning journalist, author, and founding member of the media collective, ThisCantBeHappening.net. Lindorff’s book titles include, ‘The Case for Impeachment: Legal Arguments for Removing President George W. Bush from Office’ and ‘This Can’t Be Happening! Resisting the Disintegration of American Democracy.’ His recent article, ‘A Red State Secession Movement from the US of A is a Great Idea!‘ encourages Republicans intent on the continuation of a Trump, or Trump-like presidency, to “Go For It!”

Dave Lindorff in the first half.

And; it’s been almost two months since the unelected government of Abiy Ahmed of Ethiopia mobilized full military attacks against the country’s northernmost province of Tigray. Press coverage of the humanitarian crisis in the making has been scant in the West, while contextual analysis is almost entirely absent. Abiy convinced the African Union his “Operations to Restore Law and Order” would quickly end and stabilize the country, but two months on his promises stand in stark contrast to “facts on the ground”; facts that include the indiscriminate aerial bombardment and artillery shelling of cities, civilian massacres by the soldiery, and a massive and growing refugee crisis.

Finian Cunningham is a long-time and prolific journalist who worked as an editor and writer for major U.K. media outlets The Mirror, Irish Times, and Independent. The two-time Serena Shim Award for Uncompromising Integrity in Journalism recipient’s articles on international affairs appear at numerous online outlets, including at Sputnik, where I found his new article, ‘BBC Glosses Ethiopia Horror’.

Finian Cunningham and loosing a CIA Frankenstein on Ethiopia in the second half.

And; CFUV Radio broadcaster and host of Plant Powered Radio, Janine Bandcroft is off this week. So first, Dave Lindorff and leave takings at long last of Donald Trump and the end of the beginning of the Covid-19 Pandemic.