Gorilla Radio with Chris Cook, John Philpot, Pablo Ouziel April 19th, 2023

Welcome to Gorilla Radio, recorded April 19th, 2023.

Last week, Russia placed sanctions on more than 300 Canadians, barring the mostly government apparatchiks and media personalities access to the country. It was, the Russian Foreign Ministry said, in hopes of “...encourag[ing] those on the black list to change their behaviour“.

Wide-ranging sanction policies – including those Canada aims at Russia and Eastern Ukraine – are now so common, (Canada alone sanctioning a couple dozen countries and thousands of individuals and entities) they threaten the World’s economic system. Or so argues the recently published book, ‘Sanctions: A Wrecking Ball in a Global Economy‘.

John Philpot is a Montreal-based defense attorney in International Criminal Law. Long active in Palestinian and African support organizations, and campaigns to free political prisoners, Meng Wanzhou and Alex Saab, Philpot is too an executive board member of Just Peace Advocates and the Sanctions Kill Coalition. John will be one of three speakers touring the Canadian book release, starting tonight in Hamilton.

(For Montreal event Webinar livestream link here.)

John Philpot in the first half.

And last week, France’s Constitutional Court allowed some of President Emmanuel Macron’s pension reforms, notably the most contentious one; an age eligibility rise. Organized Labour there – who’ve rallied tens of thousands into the streets against the move over the last month – vows now to bring in a General Strike on the Workers’ holiday, May Day.

Meanwhile, Macron’s address Monday was delivered to a cacophony of pots and pans – a regular cacerolada banging outside the walls of power – where the workers chanted, “If Macron won’t listen to us, we won’t listen to him!”
Dr. Pablo Ouziel is a PostDoc at the Université du Québec à Montréal whose area of study is The European Union: Political, Legal and Economic Integration from Above and Below, and Settler Colonialism and Canadian Society.

Pablo’s book, ‘Democracy Here and Now: The Exemplary Case of Spain‘ chronicles the birth of the M15 movement against draconian government “austerity” measures, and the rise of authoritarianism there and across the western world. Pablo divides his time between Montreal and his native Catalonia.

Pablo Ouziel and “Oui Emmanuel, Paris IS burning” in the second half.

But first, John Philpot and Sanctions: the Hegemon’s desperate bid to hold back the tides of change.

Song: Juan Carlos El Bobon

Artist: Pablo Hasel – Youtube

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: http://gorillaradioblog.blogspot.com/

Gorilla Radio with Chris Cook, Ken Stone (extended) April 12th, 2023

Welcome to Gorilla Radio, recorded April 12th, 2023.

Yesterday, the Prime Minister’s office announced “more support for Ukraine“. Goodhearted Canadians concerned about the well-being of that country and its citizens will be disappointed however to discover just what “support” in the parlance of Ottawa’s current rulers translates as. In bullet points, it means:

⦁ Tens of thousands of weapons
⦁ Millions of rounds of ammunition
⦁ And the unaccountable “dispersal” of more billions of Canadian dollars to the Kyiv regime

In simpler terms, the Liberal government is guaranteeing more war and more destruction in Ukraine for the months – and perhaps years – to come even as it wages a sanctions war against the only party that can stop the war; Russia. Some “support”!

Ken Stone is an executive member of both the Syria Support Movement International and Hamilton Coalition to Stop the War. Ken and the Coalition are pleased, they say, to participate this month in kicking off the Canadian tour of “Sanctions: A Wrecking Ball in a Global Economy.”

https://solidaritycenter.ourpowerbase.net/civicrm/contribute/transact?reset=1&id=17

Today, Ken Stone and fighting Canada’s Sanction Warriors.

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, 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, Ken Stone, John Philpot, Janine Bandcroft November 26, 2020

Welcome back to Gorilla Radio’s home edition recorded on this date, November 26th, 2020.

Eighteen years ago this month, a group of Hamiltonians joined together in efforts to avert a calamitous war. The Hamilton Coalition to Stop the War were not alone in that; in cities around the World tens of thousands fretted and strategized and organized, trying to stand between the United States and the object of its next “war this time”, Iraq.

That collective effort to belay the disaster failed, but the Coalition has continued working to bring to a halt the “generational wars” George W. Bush promised following the 2001 attacks on New York City and the Pentagon.

Ken Stone is a long-time antiwar activist, serving as an executive member of both the Syria Solidarity Movement and Hamilton Coalition to Stop the War. In 2016 Ken participated in the Second International Tour of Peace to Syria, sending back home his column, Dispatch from Syria. Those dispatches are now collected in the book, ‘Defiant Syria: Dispatches from the Second International Tour of Peace to Syria’.

Ken Stone in the first half.

And; On December first 2018, Meng Wanzhou, Huawei executive and daughter of the Chinese telecom giant’s chairman, was detained, interrogated, and arrested at Vancouver International Airport. She has been living ever since under house arrest in one of her Vancouver properties as the courts there hear arguments for her extradition to the United States for fraud.

John Philpot is a Montreal-based defence attorney in International Criminal Law. Long active in Palestinian and African support organisations, and the peace movement, Philpot is too a distinguished panel member of the Cross-Canada Campaign to Free Meng Wanzhou.

John Philpot and Canadians standing up for Canadian Justice in the Meng Wanzhou case 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 ou can get up to in and around Victoria, and virtually, in the coming week.

But first, Ken Stone and searching still for a Canadian route to peace.

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.ca/