It’s difficult to accept news of the epidemic-sized outbreak  of sea lice at fish farms in Clayoquot Sound with anything but a weary  sigh of unsurprise; afterall, why would Cermaq’s much contested  operations there differ from everywhere else concentrated fish feed lots  operate?

Cermaq, the formerly Norwegian company newly acquired by Japanese  behemoth, Mitsubishi Corporation issued an apology, published in the  local Tofino-Ucluelet Westerly News, admitting their inability to manage  operations in the Sound safely, saying, “we were unable to effectively manage sea lice populations for a variety of reasons including unusually hot and dry weather…”. 

For those long chronicling the damage the industry does on a good  day, and long predicting just such “unmanageable” outbreak scenarios,  Mitsubishi’s “so sorry’s” arrive dead in the water.

Bonny Glambeck is director  of Clayoquot Action, an organization dedicated, they say: “to keep  Clayoquot Sound clean and green for future generations, to preserve the  diversity and integrity of the ecosystems, and to maintain and develop  community and cultural richness.”

Bonny Glambeck in the first half.

And; journalism is in crisis, and it’s not the good kind! Beyond the bane of “fake news” and journotainment  upchucked by network television and the marquee legacy presses, whether  in shooting wars, or digging through the muck of corrupt politicos and  their big business patrons, real journalists are now considered fair game targets. From the remote reaches of Russia and the Middle and Far East, to the marbled capitals of Britain and America, the new contempt for them has made an always difficult and precarious profession almost impossible. Just as intended.

Greg Palast is an investigator,  journalist, author, and filmmaker. He’s reported the news from both  sides of the Atlantic for the better part of two decades, breaking  stories for BBC flagship news program, Newsnight and The Guardian  newspaper in Britain, and filing with The Nation magazine and Rolling  Stone stateside. He’s the recipient of plaudits, laudatory recognition,  and numerous awards for his work; the most recent being The Association  of Mexican Journalists’ 2019 prize for International Reporter  for his exclusive exposés of the theft of elections from Georgia to  Mexico and corporate media ban-busting reportage from Venezuela.

Greg’s books, ‘Billionaires & Ballot Bandits’, ‘Armed Madhouse’,  and ‘The Best Democracy Money Can Buy’ have all resided on the New York  Times’ bestseller list, while his ‘Vultures’ Picnic’ was named Book of  the Year by BBC Newsnight Review. His latest documentary film, The Best  Democracy Money Can Buy: A Tale of Billionaires & Ballot Bandits is  recut, and available at Gregpalast.com.

Greg Palast and the media’s crisis of stenography in the second half.

And; Victoria-based activist and long-time Gorilla Radio contributor,  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, Bonny Glambeck and  Clayoquot Sound plague of sea lice. 

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/

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

A century past the end of the War  to End All Wars humankind has experienced unrelenting conflicts both  large and small, roiling the length and breadth of the World. A look  across media platforms at the headlines today reinforces the calamitous  political state of the planet, but what is rarely explored or explained  is the role it, the media, plays and has played in our seeming perpetual  state of war and its ever-rumoured coming.
 

Listen. Hear.
 

Stefan Goebel is a scholar, educator, author,  and Director of the Centre for the History of War, Media & Society  at Kent University. A reader in Modern British History, professor Goebel  is too co-editor of the recently published volume, 'Propaganda and Conflict: War, Media and Shaping the Twentieth Century'.
 

Stefan Goebel in the first half.
 

And; ten years after pajama-clad Honduran center-left president Mel  Zelaya was whisked from his bed and into exile by military coupsters the  country is a basket case. For the vast majority, the past decade has  seen economic collapse and the erosion of the meagre human rights and  agrarian reforms Zelaya had initiated in his final year in office. It  has also become the most dangerous place on Earth to live, with police,  gangs, and government-sponsored death squads providing impetus for the  main component of the Central American refugee crisis.
 

Dimitri Lascaris  is a Canadian lawyer, human rights activist, and reporter for the Real  News Network. He's just returned from Honduras where he joined a  tri-national delegation of University academics and members of the  Central American Alliance Against Mining on a Human Rights fact-finding  mission to investigate local opposition to an iron-ore mine in the  Botaderos National Park in northern Honduras.
 

Dimitri Lascaris and Honduras, ten years after democracy died in the second half.
 

And; Victoria-based activist and long-time Gorilla Radio contributor,  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, professor Stefan  Goebel and media, propaganda and conflict in the post-truth age.
 

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/

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

But worse than embarrassment, this sore blooming in the face of much vaunted “rule of law” proclamations made across the once Free World, and elsewhere, is more pox than spot, and not easily vanished by either creams, lotions, or official bromides.

Last week, Australia’s State broadcaster ABC was just one such media outlet to experience the new democratic understanding of press rights and freedoms.

John Helmer is a journalist,  former academic, government policy advisor, author, broadcaster and  principal behind the news website, Dances with Bears. An Australian  national, his recent article, ‘The Julian Assange Case Now Puts the US on Trial in a British Court: Is There a GET-OUT-OF-JAIL Card for Assange?‘ explores security state targeting of journalism, and the unenviable fate of his countryman and all those caught up in the new anti-information dragnets.

Some of John Helmer’s book titles include: ‘The Deadly Simple  Mechanics of Society’, ‘Drugs and Minority Oppression’, (with Claudia  Wright) ‘The Jackal’s Wedding – American Power, Arab Revolt’, ‘Grand  Strategy for Small Countries, Case Studies in Transforming Weakness into  Power,’ and his latest is the newly out political and personal memoir,  ‘The Man Who Knows Too Much About Russia’.

John Helmer in the first half.

And; Canada’s senate has shot down proposed amendments to the new Impact Assessment Act,  also known as Bill C-69. This despite what one Senator reports was a  veritable “flood” of evidence from fishing organizations, indigenous  leaders, and environmental groups concerned that, as it stands, the Bill  delivers regulation of seabed oil exploration permits into the hands of petroleum interests.

Gretchen Fitzgerald  is the National Programs Director of the Sierra Club Canada Foundation.  Her work focuses on environmental impacts of offshore oil and gas,  volunteer engagement, and climate change.

Gretchen Fitzgerald and rescuing the New Impact Assessment Act…Before It’s Too Late! in the second half.

And; Victoria-based activist and long-time Gorilla Radio contributor,  Janine Bandcroft will be here at the bottom of the hour to bring us up  to speed with some of what’s good going on in and around our town in the  coming week. But first, John Helmer and journalism under fire.

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/

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

REPI, or the Readiness and  Environmental Protection Integration Program could be described as the  Department of Defense's version of a "New Green Deal", (if you're  inclined to believe it) or as it says, "a key tool for combating  encroachment that can limit or restrict military training, testing, and  operations."
 

Listen. Hear.
 

Joan Roelofs is  an educator, author translator, prolific academic writer, and essayist  with an especial focus on the political power of the nonprofit sector.  The Keene State College Political Science Professor Emerita is also author of the books,  'Foundations and Public Policy: The Mask of Pluralism', and 'Greening  Cities: Building Just and Sustainable Communities.' Her recent article  at CounterPunch.org, '“Get Your Endangered Species Off My Bombing Range!”' questions the ways and means of one of the lesser known arms of today's ubiquitous military octopus.
 

Joan Roelofs in the first half.
 

And; journalist and publisher, Julian Assange is in dire physical and mental condition. He was to appear for his extradition hearing in London's Westminster Magistrates’ Court Thursday last, but was deemed too ill to attend either in person or via video link from Belmarsh Prison. Assange has been held in isolation since his forced extraction from the Ecuadorian embassy April 11th, with few visits being allowed for his lawyers and supporters.
 

On May 9th, United Nations Special Rapporteur on torture, Nils Melzer and "two medical experts specialised in examining potential victims of torture and other ill-treatment" were granted access and their assessment is a blistering indictment of both his current and would-be jailors.

Nils Melzer and the case for Julian Assange's immediate release in the second half.
 

And; Victoria-based activist and long-time Gorilla Radio contributor,  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, Joan Roelofs and when  nature endangers the Pentagon.
 

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/

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Approaching the fifth anniversary of the Mt. Polley tailings spill  into Quesnel Lake and beyond little has been done to affect the way  mining is conducted in this province. Imperial Metals, the company  responsible for that disaster, among other things, has yet to be  properly held to account for the damage its negligence caused. And it  doesn’t seem likely to be in the future.

With governments’ unwilling to address this long-standing and ongoing  failure of oversight a citizen-led initiative has begun. The BC Mining Law Reform Campaign launched a couple of weeks ago, and it is determined to succeed in bringing mining operations in BC to heel.

Douglas Gook is a Quesnel-based ecology activist and farmer who’s  focused on Eco forestry alternatives in the woods there and beyond for  more than forty years. The former BC and Canadian Green Party candidate  is a director of the BC Environmental Network and Spirit Dance  Cooperative Community, and leads Forest Protection Allies, one of the  many environmental organizations pressuring government to get effective  cleanup processes going, and appropriate compensation for those effected  five years after the infamous Mt. Polley spill. He’s also one of a  growing chorus who do not accept the Site C decision as final.

Douglas Gook in the first half.

And; despite the great hope for peace in Colombia, an announcement by the country’s military of a “new” strategy to  deal with what they say is a continuing insurgency, and against  organized drugs gangs, has sparked concern of a return to the bad old days of death squads and the “falsos positivos” program of the civil war.

Daniel Kovalik  is a lawyer, educator, labour, peace, and justice activist, democracy  defender, journalist and author. He teaches international human rights  law at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law, and was until  recently Senior Associate General Counsel for the United Steel Workers  Union. Kovalik has observed elections in Venezuela, Nicaragua, and  Colombia, where he too witnessed the 2016 peace plebiscite promising an  end to the generational war there.

Dan’s also served as an attorney for Colombian plaintiffs in cases  alleging corporate human rights violations, and is co-recipient of a  Project Censored Award for chronicling the murder of trade unionists in  Colombia. Some of his many book titles include the ‘Plot To…’ series:  ‘The Plot to Scapegoat Russia: How the CIA and the Deep State Have  Conspired to Vilify Putin’, ‘The Plot to Attack Iran: How the CIA and  the Deep State Have Conspired to Vilify Iran’, ‘The Plot to Control the  World: How the US Spent Billions to Change the Outcome of Elections  Around the World, and his latest, ‘The Plot to Overthrow Venezuela: How  the US Is Orchestrating a Coup for Oil.’

 Dan Kovalik and failing peace in Colombia in the second half.

And; Victoria Street Newz publisher emeritus and CFUV Radio  broadcaster, Janine Bandcroft will join us at the bottom of the hour to  bring us news of some of the good things going on in and around our town  in the coming week. But first, Douglas Gook and citizens acting where  government won’t with the BC Mining Law Reform Campaign.

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/

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Despite this spreading plague of self-satisfied, diametric certitude,  there still exists a middle ground. It's shaky, dangerous territory few  would choose to make a stand on, but between the derision and scorn  suffered from both extremities, it's in the grey zone between our only  hope of collective salvation lay. 

Brian Davey  is an economist who's spent most of his working life in the community  and voluntary sector in Nottingham, England, particularly in health  promotion, mental health and environmental fields. He is a co-founder of  Ecoworks, a community garden and environmental project for people with  mental health problems, member of the Feasta Climate Working Group, and  former co-ordinator of the Cap and Share Campaign.
 

Davey is also editor of the Feasta book, 'Sharing for Survival: Restoring the Climate, the Commons and Society', and author of 'Credo: Economic Beliefs in a World in Crisis'. Brian recently posted at FEASTA.org the article, 'Greta Thunberg, PR and the “Climate Emergency”', an attempt to find common ground in the current climate crisis debate.  
 

Brian Davey in the first half.
 

And; last week, officers of the US Secret Service Uniformed Division  assisted US Department of State Diplomatic Security Service Special  Agents in extracting from the Venezuelan embassy  in Washington, four remaining protesters, barricaded inside. It was the  culmination of a six weeks-long stand-off, seeing noisome, and  sometimes violent, confrontation between pro-government and  counter-government supporters of Juan Guaido, the man recognized by the  United States and some of its allies as the legitimate representative of  democracy in that country.
 

Jeb Sprague is an educator, author, essayist and journalist whose articles can be found at the Grayzone Project, and The Canary,  among other places. He lectures at the University of Virginia and is  author of the books: 'Globalizing the Caribbean: Political Economy,  Social Change, and the Transnational Capitalist Class', and  'Paramilitarism and the Assault on Democracy in Haiti'. Sprague is also  editor of the book, 'Globalization and Transnational Capitalism in Asia  and Oceania', and is a founding member of the Network for Critical  Studies of Global Capitalism (NCSGC).
 

Jeb Sprague and the death of diplomacy in DC in the second half.
 

And; Victoria-based activist and long-time Gorilla Radio contributor,  Janine Bandcroft will be here at the bottom of the hour to bring us up  to speed with some of what's good going on in and around our town in the  coming week. But first, Brian Davey and finding the middle ground in  the middle of a climate emergency.
 

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/

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The sad truth is, we really are, finally, on our own.
 

Christopher Black  is a Toronto-based criminal lawyer specializing in international war  crimes cases, and executive member of the Canadian Peace Congress.
 

Black’s articles on international law, politics and World events appear  at New Eastern Outlook among other places, where a perusal of his latest  efforts reveals the relentless assault by the empire and its satraps  against international jurisprudence and nations in all quarters of the  globe.
 

Christopher Black in the first half.
 

And; what worth a tree? How much for a forest? The inexorable  mastication and digestion of British Columbia 's forests by timber  interests and their servants in various governments is an old story - in  human terms.
 

For the last century and half, a mere fraction of the lives of the giant  cedars routinely ground down for consumer products, nature has been  regarded here as resource; merely an instrument to be used to secure the  wealth, comfort, and ease of the settler caste. Now though, as with so  many other systems, the coastal rainforest ecosystem has reached a  tipping-point, one from which once crossed reclamation will never be  possible.     
 

J Ocean Dennie is with Friends of the Sooke Hills Wilderness,  a grassroots group of concerned citizens advocating for the continued  protection of wilderness areas threatened on southern Vancouver Island.  His decolonizing advocacy work and environmental activism over the past  few years includes: involvement with the Social Environmental Alliance,  Indigenous Solidarity Working Group and Fish Farms Out Now!
 

J Ocean Dennie and stopping the road to ruin in the Sooke Hills Wilderness in the second half.
 

And; Victoria-based activist and long-time Gorilla Radio contributor,  Janine Bandcroft will be here at the bottom of the hour with some of the  good things to be gotten up to in and around our town in the coming  week. But first, Christopher Black and an international rule of law run  amok.
 

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/

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Together, 'Free Trade' is a concept Orwell would recognize, and cry laughing at the bitter predictability of.
 

Dr. T.J. Coles is an Associate Researcher at the Organisation for Propaganda Studies, a columnist for AxisOfLogic.com, and author.
 

Coles’ articles too appear online at CounterPunch, Truthout and Z  Magazine, among other places, and his many book titles include: ‘Real  Fake News’, Britain’s Secret Wars’, ‘The Great Brexit Swindle’,  ‘Manufacturing Terrorism: When Governments Use Fear to Justify Foreign  Wars and Control Society’, and his latest, ‘Privatized Planet: ‘Free Trade’ as a Weapon Against Healthcare, Democracy and the Environment’.
 

Journalist and filmmaker, John Pilger says, "In this meticulously  sourced book, T.J. Coles breaks down the facade of “free trade” and its  army of acronyms, spelling out the threat from an extremism that wants  your healthcare, wages, pensions and much more. You have been warned."
 

T.J. Coles in the first half.
 

And; readers of Marx, Karl not Groucho, remember the term, "Après moi,  le déluge!" It was meant by Marx to indicate the contempt in which all  capitalists must hold the life of the lowly labourer. How else can  captains of industry masticate and disgorge the legions required to  maximize profit, and relentlessly grow the economy? But, endless  progress demands a certain, strategic short-sightedness, a disregard for  the consequences of one's actions. It's a wilful blindness increasingly  difficult to maintain today, where King Louis XV's phrase, "After me,  the deluge" now belongs to us all and encompasses the whole of the  World: "Après nous le déluge!" After US, the flood.
 

Inveterate American activist and singer/songwriter, David Rovics  has for decades toured the World bringing his message of revolution and  evolution for and to the masses. He's shared the stage with the greats  of the age: Pete Seeger, Anne Feeney, Joan Baez, Chumbawamba, Billy  Bragg, Attila the Stockbroker, and countless others. David is too a  frequent essayist, and now a regular columnist at Dissident Voice, a  podcaster, and Danish barista... Safe to say he's done a lot of things,  but now David Rovics is set to enter the least illuminated of all  Canada's dark corners, Ottawa, Ontario, (beatless heart of a heartless,  beaten nation) for an evening of music, fun, and class struggle.   
 

David Rovics, before the flood in the second half.
 

And Victoria-based activist and long-time Gorilla Radio contributor,  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, T. J. Coles and  Privatized Planet: Free Trade As a Weapon Against Democracy, Healthcare  and the Environment.
 

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/

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Last week marked the eighth anniversary of the WikiLeaks release of ‘The Guantánamo Files‘. A lot has changed since their original airing, and a lot hasn’t.

Obama has come and gone, the immediate closure of “Gitmo” now just  another of his hoped for but unkept promises, while both the publisher  of the files revealing the horrors of the camp, and the person Obama  pardoned for leaking them are themselves now imprisoned; Julian Assange held in solitary at London’s infamous Belmarsh Prison, and Chelsea Manning,  after a month of solitary confinement, facing “indefinite detention”  for refusing a Virginia Grand Jury’s subpoena to testify in its  investigation of Assange and WikiLeaks.

Andy Worthington is  an investigative journalist, author, campaigner, commentator and public  speaker. A recognized authority on Guantánamo and the “war on terror”,  Andy is co-founder of the Close Guantánamo and We Stand With Shaker  campaigns, both dedicated to bringing justice for inmates of that place  past and present.

The London-based Worthington is also a singer, songwriter, founding  member of the band, The Four Fathers, (currently searching for a new  bass player) and urban photographer whose State of London series is a seven years-long daily chronicle of that great city.

Andy Worthington in the first half.

And; despite the rightward trend in European politics, Spain’s Socialist Party, the PSOE, held power in Sunday’s elections there, though again with a minority. While the government’s renewal, and seat increase gives Pedro Sánchez’ party a strong mandate to govern, the admission to Parliament of 24 members of the ultra-right VOX party is grabbing the headlines.  It’s the first far-right party to gain seats since democracy replaced  the dictatorship of Generalissimo Francisco Franco more than 40 years  ago.

Dr. Pablo Ouziel  is Postdoctoral fellow at the University of Victoria’s Political  Science Department and Centre for Global Studies. He’s a native of  Barcelona, and his Post-Doctoral Fellowship project at UVic is,  ‘Democracy Here and Now: The Exemplary Case of Spain’.

 Pablo Ouziel and political breathing space for Spain’s left in the second half.

And; Victoria-based activist and long-time Gorilla Radio contributor,  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, Andy Worthington and  eight years later, the Guantánamo Files then and now.

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/

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Every Friday Palestinians demanding an end to their dispossession and  forced isolation have faced Israel's military, for the most peaceably,  and suffered mightily for it.
 

And though hundreds have been killed, shot down bare-handed by soldiers  with sniper rifles, and thousands more gassed and wounded in other ways,  the "international community" of nations has largely remained silent.
 

The run-up to Israel's recent elections occasioned harder lines on the  "Palestine Problem" in Gaza by politicians on all sides, while one  prominent among them even promised, should he be elected, he would too annex the settlements, bringing a Gaza of sorts to the West Bank.
 

Dr. Susan Power is Head of the Legal  Research and Advocacy Department at Al-Haq, a Palestinian human rights  NGO based in Ramallah. Established in 1979, Al-Haq's mission is to  protect human rights and promote the rule of law in the Occupied  Territories both individually and collectively, while seeking to end  breaches of international law "irrespective of the identity of the  perpetrator."

Susan Power in the first half.
 

And; April 11th, a date that will for many live in infamy, Ecuador's president, Lenin Moreno delivered from its embassy in London into the hands of the British government, political asylee and WikiLeaks publisher, Julian Assange. Miles of newsprint, and terabytes of misinformation has been produced regarding Assange and the nature of the case manufactured against him, but at its heart are some basic facts vital for both his just treatment and the future fairness of the planet the rest of us will inhabit.  
 

Dr. Maximilian C. Forte  is a scholar, educator, author, and creator of the Zero Anthropology  Project, a "Canadian anthropological approach to the study of empire and  the human condition" and its website, ZeroAnthropology.net.
 

Max Forte teaches full time in Anthropology and Sociology at Concordia  University in Montréal, at the rank of full Professor, and is a member  of the Concordia University Faculty Association, the trade union body  for full-time faculty, and the Canadian Association of University  Teachers.
 

Forte also publishes The New Imperialism  series, which features research by students in his advanced seminar in  the field, and his own research. Max is too a past finalist for the  Quebec Writers Federation Mavis Gallant Prize for Nonfiction, and his  book titles include: 'Ruins of Absence, Presence of Caribs:  (Post)Colonial Representations of Aboriginality in Trinidad and Tobago',  and 'Slouching Towards Sirte: NATO’s War on Libya and Africa'.  
 

Max Forte and untying the media tangle to find a coherent explanation of what the Assange arrest says about the state of the Empire and fate of democracy in the second half.
 

And; Victoria-based activist and long-time Gorilla Radio contributor,  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, Susan Power and  Palestine's prospects in an extended Netanyahu era.
 

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/

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

But is that a bad thing? Assange is in poor health, and his erstwhile  "protectors" proved unable, or unwilling, to provide proper medical  attention. The British prison system should be capable of better.
 

Moreover, his arrest pushes the case so far made against Assange past the pages of a curiously unsympathetic press and into the English courts, where claims of fact must meet the test of proof.
 

John Helmer is a journalist, former  academic, government policy advisor, author, broadcaster and principal  behind the news website, Dances with Bears, where his recent article, 'The Julian Assange Case Now Puts the US on Trial in a British Court: Is There a GET-OUT-OF-JAIL Card for Assange?' explores the likely tangled path to justice Julian Assange and his lawyers must now navigate.
 

Some of John Helmer’s book titles include: ‘The Deadly Simple Mechanics  of Society’, ‘Drugs and Minority Oppression’, (with Claudia Wright) ‘The  Jackal’s Wedding – American Power, Arab Revolt’, ‘Grand Strategy for  Small Countries, Case Studies in Transforming Weakness into Power,’ and  his latest is the newly out political and personal memoir, ‘The Man Who  Knows Too Much About Russia’.
 

John Helmer in the first half.
 

And; murderous criminality is not the sole purview of the American  state; its friends and allies are remorseless killers too. In the  1990's, details of Operation Gladio emerged from the testimony of former  Italian prime minister, Giulio Andreotti during a special investigation  into the 1980's terrorist bombings initially blamed on that country's  infamous Red Brigades.
 

What was revealed next as chronicled in Paul L. Williams' book, Operation Gladio: The Unholy Alliance Between The Vatican, The CIA, and the Mafia,  should have provoked outrage fervid enough to tear out root and branch  the fascist tendrils permeating Europe, and America's power structures.  Should have.
 

Antony C. Black  is a long-time freelance essayist devoted to, among other topics,  "debunking one aspect or another of US and Western imperialism". His  efforts have found purchase in print in the past at the Toronto Star,  Hamilton Spectator, and Canadian Dimension Magazine, as well as online  at Z Mag, Swans, ICH, and Global Research. Antony's latest, a review of  Williams' Operation Gladio, 'Operation Gladio: The Unholy Alliance' I found at Off-Guardian.org. Black is too a former steelworker, psychotherapist, and retired school teacher.
 

Antony C. Black and the "far-right  figures in the intelligence, military, government, media, Church and  corporate sectors ... [and] motley assortment of unreconstructed WW2  fascists, psychopaths and criminal underworld types" also known as,  "Gladio" in the second half.  
 

And; Victoria-based activist and long-time Gorilla Radio contributor,  Janine Bandcroft will join us 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, John Helmer and  putting the United States in a British dock, courtesy of... Julian  Assange.
 

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/

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The proffered subsidies are on top of provincial sales tax breaks and  "preferred industrial electricity rates" already doled over.
 

Though BC Premier, John Horgan says the province can have this massive  fossil fuel project and keep its climate target commitments too, the BC  Greens disagree, saying the bill amounts to "subsidization of climate  change."

Likewise, First Nations along the proposed pipeline route for the  "largest private sector investment in Canada’s history" say it would be  disastrous for their communities, destroying any hopes of maintaining  traditional livelihoods, and ruining the environment.
 

April 1st, UVic hosted 'Voices from the Sacrifice Zone: Fracking in BC’s North'.  LNG means fracking, and the "ushering in [of] dramatic changes to the  health of ... lands, waters and peoples" that necessarily entails.  Residents effected by the industry went on a province-wide tour, telling  their experiences of fracking, and warning about the consequences to  come should Mr. Horgan's bill be passed.
 

Molly Wickham  is spokesperson of Gidimt’en Clan of Wet’suwet’en Nation, and she  talked about the massive and myriad negative effects of the fracking  industry.

Molly Wickham in the first half.
 

And; from the #Enough gun control demonstrations and demands for an economic paradigm shift in the United States, to Greta Thunberg's devastating J'accuse  at last year's COP24 UN Climate Conference, and school strikes for  climate everywhere, it's clear; global leadership is being challenged in  ways unseen since the 1960's. A new generational divide is becoming  increasingly evident, as so-called Millennials, (and their children)  sharpen the focus of the political debate from the uncertainty of our  times to the future viability of human civilization and survival of the  biosphere itself.
 

Stephanie Glanzmann is Campus Organizer for Future Majority,  a newly formed "national nonpartisan non-profit" organization,  grassroots mobilizing young Canadians ahead of the October federal  elections here. Steph's a UBC grad who's been organizing around climate  justice issues and fossil fuel divestment campaigning for the past 5  years on unceded Coast Salish territory.

Steph Glanzmann and entraining the next generation of social change leaders for their future majority in the second half.
 

And; Victoria-based activist and long-time Gorilla Radio contributor,  Janine Bandcroft will be here at the bottom of the hour with the Left  Coast Event Bulletin of some of the good things to be gotten up to in  and around our town in the coming week. But first, voice from the  Sacrifice Zone, Molly Wickham and opposition to fracking and the  proposed Coastal GasLink fracked gas pipeline.
 

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/

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Floods,  heatwaves, drought and forest fires; extreme weather events, spiraling  in ever-tightening cycles of vicious, relentless destruction; food  systems frayed, and vital infrastructure battered beyond operational  capacity; war, famine, pestilence, and death; O! is it The End Times  come at last?

Nope, just the six o’clock news.

But seriously folks; Monday a new government of Canada collaborative  project between scientists from Environment and Climate Change Canada,  Fisheries and Oceans Canada, Natural Resources Canada, and a hodgepodge  of university experts released the first Canada’s Changing Climate Report. And the news ain’t good for those thinking about the future.

Tosca Lee is an award-winning,  New York Times bestselling author, global traveler, and International  Studies degree holder. Her tenth novel, ‘The Line Between‘  is newly released from Howard Books and tries through fiction to  address the increasingly strange reality of our pre-apocalyptic times.

 Tosca Lee in the first half.

And; Canada’s prime minister has made his position, and that of most  of his government clear, Nicolás Maduro, the democratically elected  president of Venezuela is merely pretender to that oil-rich South  American nation’s throne, illegitimate, and according to Justin Trudeau,  a dictator in fact. It’s an opinion commonly held among the  Anglo-American Axis and its coalition of fifty-odd colluding countries.  For the rest of the World however, national sovereignty is the accepted  rule of law, and leadership still dependent on the will of the people.

Steve Stewart is Executive Director of CoDevelopment Canada, a Vancouver-based NGO working to build partnerships between organizations in Canada and throughout Latin America in support of women’s, workers’, and human rights. CoDev also supports and promotes sustainable economic development.

Stewart is too a former journalist who’s covered civil wars and the  land, labour, and human rights struggles in Mexico, Guatemala, and El  Salvador for the CERIGUA news agency, and he’s active with BC CASA/Cafe Justicia and the Mining Justice Alliance. Steve was in Victoria last week presenting, ‘Canadian Foreign Policy in Latin America with Venezuela, Honduras and Beyond‘ at the Central America Solidarity Association’s monthly, Cafe Simpatico.

Steve Stewart and Canada’s “Back Yard” policies in the second half.

And; Victoria-based activist, and long-time Gorilla Radio contributor, 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, Tosca Lee and The Line Between.

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/

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In what sounds like a Mack Senate two-reeler, this Keystone Operation  would be slapstick but for the deadly serious political situation in  Haiti now, and its long history of foreigner-engineered disasters.
 

Kim Ives is a contributing editor at Haiti Liberté, a weekly newspaper published in French, Kreyol, and English,and veteran reporter, editor, and photographer for Haïti Progrès.
 

Kim is also a past host of WBAI Radio's Haitian news program, Lanbi  Call, and documentary film maker whose projects include: 'Bitter Cane',  'Ayisyen Leve Kanpe', and 'The Coup Continues' among others.
 

Ives too is a founding member of the International Support Haiti Network  (ISHN), formerly the Haiti Support Network (HSN), and has led numerous  delegations to Haiti since 1986 to investigate human rights violations,  union struggles, peasant land conflicts, and state-enterprise  privatization campaigns.
 

Kim's recent article, 'American Mercenaries Arrested in Haiti Were Part of a Half-Baked Scheme to Move $80 Million on Behalf of Embattled President', (published in cooperation with The Intercept) broke the story of the hapless gang who couldn't loot straight.
 

Kim Ives in the first half.
 

And; can any war be called "just". It's a concept not questioned enough,  with most people assuming wars of self-defense are clearly defensible.  While Afghanistan never attacked the United States, or anyone else,  America and its "coalitions of the willing", while invoking UN Article  51 and the "self-defense" doctrine, bombed, invaded, and continue to  occupy that nation 18 years after the first bombs fell. All this in  defense of what?
 

David Swanson is an author,  activist, tireless promoter of pro-peace networks and websites, and  co-founder of World Beyond War, an organization making the case for the  abolition at last of that ultimate expression of human destructiveness.  His book titles include: ‘Curing Exceptionalism’, ‘A Global Security  System’, ‘War Is Never Just’, ‘War Is a Lie’, ‘Killing Is Not a Way of  Life’, ‘War No More: The Case for Abolition’, and many more. He's also  the host of Talk Nation Radio, linked through his website, Let’s Try  Democracy, and a devastatingly effective debater, especially on the  topic of war and peace.
 

I came across a recording of David's February 13th, 2018 debate with  Pete Kilner, a military ethicist, at Eastern Mennonite University on the  question, "Is War Ever Justifiable?" and it's as succinct a refutation of the tropes of war and war making you're likely to hear.
 

David Swanson, refuting the 'Just War Doctrine' in the second half.
 

And; Victoria-based activist and long-time Gorilla Radio contributor,  Janine Bandcroft will be here at the bottom of the hour with the Left  Coast Events Bulletin, bringing us up to speed with some of what's good  going on in and around our town in the coming week. But first, Kim Ives  and a half-baked Haitian heist hitting the fan.
 

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/

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Welcome to GR, etc. And welcome to Gorilla Radio’s Funding Drive  show! Next month marks the 20th anniversary of this show. That  translates to more than a thousand episodes, two thousand studio  interviews or so, and an uncounted number of streeters, demos, and  assorted event recordings. Why do I do it? It’s a fair question; and  I’ll try answer it over the next 57 minutes.

But for now, I’d like to introduce two of the people that make the  continuance of the show possible. Janine Bandcroft has been providing  Left Coast Events Bulletins, and much more besides, for the show for  almost as long as it’s been on the air. And Christina Nikolic has  stepped in for the Events Bulletin, appeared as an expert guest on soil  health and horticultural issues, and provided administrative,  logistical, and moral support for more than a decade. And, both Janine  and Christina are here again today for the umpteenth Funding Drive  program. Hello Janine and Christina!

11:03:00 1:00 Pitch/How to’s of donating, etc.
11:04:00 4:00 Music – Hawksley Workman – “Teenage Cats” – Old Cheetah (disc)
11:08:00 3:00 20 Years Monkeying Around – (Music – Soma – “Get Thee Behind Me” – The Fire This Time – background – disc)

Believe it or not, when this show’s first episode aired, way back in  1999, people over here in the Western democracies believed bombing  distant countries for the good of the people living there was a  legitimate form of international diplomacy. Some people, anyway. This  bizarre logic was not limited to the United States alone. Even in places  like Canada, the leaders of Parliament said they believed blitzkrieging  modern, perfectly functional cities into a pre-industrial state,  difficult as it may be for those beneath the barrage, was a case of  short-term pain for long-term gain. “They would come to thank us for it,  in time”, we were assured.

It was the Former Yugoslavia being destroyed at that moment in the  way back, long ago, thanks largely to Bill Clinton’s winning ways, and  the eagerness of NATO to prove its continuing usefulness in a post-Cold  War World. But, to be fair to Slick Willy, he was merely following the  tenor of the times set by his New World Order predecessor, George H. W.  Bush, and there would be so much more to come.

The music behind me is from The Fire This Time, a project undertaken  by Briton, Grant Wakefield. He produced it as both a historical record  of George, the first Bush’s destruction of Iraq, and monument to the  inauguration of the Forever War. He says it’s dedicated to, “the  estimated 1.5 million Iraqis killed by the US led bombing and sanctions  from the years 1990-2001.”

11:11:00 5:30 Transglobal Underground – “Radio Unfree Europe” – Impossible Broadcasting (disc)
11:16:30 2:00 Pitch and Updates with Janine and Christina
11:18:00 1:00 Intro…(Music – Arcade Fire – “Electric Blue” – Everything Now background – stick)

Of course, it’s not all war and rumours of the same here at GR. This  year, and every year for the last twenty years, the show has provided a  platform for people doing great, positive things singly and in groups  locally, regionally, nationally, and around the World: Providing a venue  for people and issues not adequately covered in state and corporate  media.

11:19:00 5:00 Paolo Nutini – “Iron Sky” – Caustic Love (disc)

11:24:00 7:00 Update/Pitch & Left Coast Events Bulletin… (Music –  Arcade Fire – “Electric Blue” – Everything Now – background – stick)

11:31:00 4:00 Music – Macka B – “Wha Me Eat” – More Knowledge (stick)
11:35:00 2:00 Pitch and Such – Music – 2raumwohnung – “Melancholisch Shon” – Putumayo – background – disc)

11:37:00 5:00 Music – Los Lobos with La Marisoul – “Nothing Can Be Done” – Youtube from PBS Joni 75 Live (Twitter feed Mar. 17)

11:42:00 3:00 Pitch & Such (with Jane’s Addiction – “Ted, Just Admit It” – Nothing’s Shocking background (disc) 

Imagine, after living somewhere for a long time, even through  childhood, discovering a place you’d no idea existed. A place always  there, for those with eyes to see, and the ears to hear. CFUV, this  great latter day Tower of Babel was erected in 1984 and has since been  administered by an ever-changing cadre of acolytes, true believers in  the power of radio to change moods and minds. It’s ever been the place  where the sounds of an entire World congregate and coagulate, before  emanating out to Victoria, (and whichever way the wind blows) through a  minuscule, 22-hundred watt transmitter.

That’s how it was for most of the station’s history. Our little  signal now hitches a global ride on the world-wide-web, capable of  sending back to the far-flung corners of the planet what we’ve for so  long taken. But, though the World change some things stay constant. Just  so with CFUV, where the passions of programers for beauty and the truth  of music and sounds to present to you, dear listener, has and will  always remain constant, as long as there be ears to hear it…Whether  you’ve been along for the ride from the beginning, or hearing CFUV for  the first time, remember: We’re always here for everyone.

11:45:00 1:00 Chris Chandler promo (stick)
11:46:00 3:00 Parry Farrell – “Did You Forget” – Song Yet to Be Sung (Twitter feed Mar. 18)

11:49:00 2:00 Pitch and Such wrapping it up totals, etc.
11:51:00 3:00 The Plugz – “Reel Ten” – Repo Man soundtrack  – background (stick)
11:54:00 4:00 Arcade Fire – “Good God, Damn” – Everything Now (stick)
 

11:58:00 1:00 Thanks to J9, Christina, Donors, and you, dear listener.
11:59:00 –:– Out with – Tom & Joy – “Meditation” – Putumayo Presents Bossa Nova Around the World (disc)

-0- 

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Justin Trudeau’s government began the new year much as it left the  old; mired in the mess of bad decision-making, and a foreign policy  devoid not only of a moral compass, but lacking any coherent direction  at all.

The scandale du jour surrounding the Liberals’ blind-eyeing of  SNC/Lavalin’s Libya bribes and kickback schemes has Trudeau’s enemies  seeing their opportunity to sunset at last the seemingly impervious  prime minister; but are they and the hounds of the Ottawa press corps  missing the real scandal?

Yves Engler is a Montréal-based  activist, essayist, and author. Some of his ten book titles include: ‘A  Propaganda System-How Canada’s Government, Corporations, Media and  Academia Sell War and Exploitation’, ‘Canada in Africa – 300 Years of  Aid and Exploitation’, ‘The Ugly Canadian – Stephen Harper’s Foreign  Policy’, and his latest is, ‘Left, Right: Marching to the Beat of  Imperial Canada’.

Yves’ numerous articles appear at his site, YvesEngler.com, Dissident  Voice, The Palestine Chronicle, and Pacific Free Press among other  places.

Yves Engler in the first half.

And; Wednesday night UVic hosted, Human Rights in Israel and Palestine: Canada’s Response and Responsibility.  The expert panel, sponsored by the University’s Social Justice Studies,  Independent Jewish Voices, KAIROS Victoria, and the Vancouver Island  Peace and Disarmament Network questioned this country’s unquestioning  support of Israel as no party in Parliament, or Big Media is willing to  do.

 William S. Geimer  is an author, peace activist, Professor Emeritus of Law at Washington  and Lee University, and military veteran who resigned his 82nd Airborne  commission in opposition to the war against Vietnam. He’s gone on to  represent U.S. conscientious objectors of subsequent wars, and advised  peace groups near Fort Bragg, North Carolina, long the focus of peace  demonstrations. William serves too as advisor on peace and war policy  issues for the Green Party of Canada, and his book, ‘Canada: The Case for Staying Out of Other People’s Wars‘.

William Geimer, arguing for peace in the second half.

And, Victoria activist and long-time Gorilla Radio contributor,  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, Yves Engler and SNC/Lavelin bringing Canada’s corrupt foreign policy practices coming home to roost.

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/

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Terrorism didn’t begin on  9/11, but the World did indeed change that day. The United States and  its allies, since September 2001, have leveraged the coordinated attack  against the World Trade Center and Pentagon to usher in security states  at home, and endless war across the globe – or what was initially called  the Global War on Terror. In the months preceding America’s retaliatory  bombing and invasion of Afghanistan, (the alleged base of operations of  the attack’s perpetrators) millions across the planet came out into the  streets, imploring the George W. Bush administration stay its hand  until a proper investigation provided proof of culpability.

Those demonstrators were ignored, as were subsequent objections to the serial wars to follow.

Dr. T.J. Coles is an Associate Researcher at the Organisation for  Propaganda Studies, a columnist for AxisOfLogic.com, and author. Coles’  articles too appear online at CounterPunch, Truthout and Z Magazine,  among other places, and his many book titles include: ‘Real Fake News’,  ‘Privatized Planet’, Britain’s Secret Wars’, ‘The Great Brexit Swindle’,  and the newly released, ‘Manufacturing Terrorism: When Governments Use  Fear to Justify Foreign Wars and Control Society’.

T.J. Coles in the first half.

Last month, author, editor, and visionary futurist, Heidi Toffler  died. She and husband Alvin were perhaps best-known for the 1970 book,  Future Shock which, among other things, envisioned a near-future world  where exponentially advancing computer technology combine with  communications, mass media, and economic mechanisms to create an  unprecedented convergence; the genesis of an integrated, global society.  While the Tofflers didn’t live to see the fruition of the modern  renaissance they predicted, it seems likely you and I will.

Dr. John Henry Clippinger is, by the reckoning Alvin and Heidi  Toffler, just the man for our changing times; holding senior positions  in big business, central government, and in the entrepreneurial sector,  founding not one, but four technology companies. Dr. Clippinger is too  allied with several policy foundations, and academic institutes, most  notably at Harvard and Harvard Law School, Brandeis’ Florence Heller  School, and the MIT Media Lab, where he works as a research scientist,  and co-founded ID3 (cubed) with Sandy Pentland.

John too recently founded the Token Commons Foundation to “develop  protocols for decentralized governance and self-sovereign identity”, and  serves as advisor to Bancor, Atonomy, Cashaa, Decentralized Pictures,  DCP, and Evident Proof. He’s co-editor, with David Bollier of one of the  first books, ‘From BitCoin to Burning Man’, attempting to explain the  potential of the Blockchain and self-organizing, distributed systems of  governance, and author of  ‘A Crowd of One: The Future of Individual  Identity’, and ‘The Biology of Business, Natural Laws of Enterprise’.

John Clippinger on the politics of  technology, and moving beyond the socialist/capitalist economic  dichotomy in the second half. 

And; Victoria-based activist and long-time Gorilla Radio contributor,  Janine Bandcroft will join us at the bottom of the hour to bring us up  to speed with some of what’s good going on in and around our town in the  coming week. But first, T.J. Coles and manufacturing consent, (with  terrorism?).

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/

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Five years on from the  so-called “Euromaidan revolution” none of the reforms, or economic  improvements promised by the victorious government of chocolatier, Petro  Poroshenko have materialized. The situation in Kiev is not only now  worse economically than under the usurped Victor Yanukovych, but also  democratically, where according to my first guest there is less freedom  and more political violence than ever.

Halyna Mokrushyna, Ph.D., is an independent researcher and journalist  whose research interests include: the social and economic inequality  and transition challenges of post-Soviet Ukraine, social memory and the  politics of memory, Russo/Canadian relations, and the broader context of  post-cold war East/West relations.

Her articles appear online at Truthout, Truthdig, New Cold War.org,  and CounterPunch, where her recent article, ‘The ‘Peacekeeper’ Vigilante  Website and Freedom of Speech in Ukraine’ chronicles disturbing  incidents of media suppression, harassment, and violence against those  criticizing the Poroshenko regime.

Halyna Mokrushyna in the first half.

And; the rampant development Victoria and environs has seen these  last few years is showing no sign of slowing. On the contrary, the  momentum is only building, gathering steam as it heads high over the  Malahat, and westward towards Sooke. All that stands between the two  fingers of this expansive boom is the wild forest and rugged country of  the Sooke Hills. But that may not be for long. The Capital Regional  District recently announced a plan to punch a highway through the Sooke  Hills, ostensibly to provide an alternate up-island route to the  Malahat.

Mark Worthing is an activist, naturalist and journalist currently  working with Sierra Club BC. He’s a founding member of Tanker Free BC,  and has worked with a variety of environmental groups on various  campaigns, and led Sierra Club’s Flathead River Basin biodiversity  study. Mark cut his journalistic teeth right here at UVic’s Martlet  newspaper, and working as a freelance journalist.

Mark Worthing and stopping a road running through the Sooke Hills in the second half.

And; Victoria-based activist and long-time Gorilla Radio contributor,  Janine Bandcroft will be here at the bottom of the hour to bring us up  to speed with some of what’s good to get up to in and around our town in  the coming week, but first, Halyna Mokrushyna and under the gun and on  the run from Ukraine’s “Peacekeepers”.

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/

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Last  week, Spain’s political path followed its European neighbours into  uncertain territory. The young Socialist Party government of Pedro  Sánchez, the shortest-lived government  since the fall of Franco, lost coalition support over the continued  prosecution of Catalan separatists involved with the “illegal” October  1, 2017 independence referendum.

Elections have been called for April 28th.

Saturday, hundreds of thousands came into the streets of Barcelona to  demonstrate against the trials, started just more than a week ago, and  show support for the twelve defendants, ten former members of the former Puigdumont government and two grassroots activists, they believe are being prosecuted falsely.

The court didn’t help its credibility, ruling testimony from the former president, currently living in exile, would not be allowed.

Dr. Pablo Ouziel  is Postdoctoral fellow at the University of Victoria’s Political  Science Department and Centre for Global Studies. He’s a native of  Barcelona, and his Post-Doctoral Fellowship project at UVic, ‘Democracy  Here and Now: The Exemplary Case of Spain’ couldn’t be more timely.

Pablo Ouziel in the first half.

And; were he alive today, Walt Disney might sing, “It’s a small planet  afterall.” The World’s population has more than doubled since old  Walt’s death in 1966, and the exponential increase in human numbers is  the number one reason cited by proponents of the Green Revolution of  that era, and reiterated by transnational agribusiness behemoths today, for the continued expansion  of industrial scale agriculture and necessity of increasing the scope  of genetically modified food crop organisms across the globe. It’s a  no-brainer, right?

Timothy A. Wise is senior researcher at the Small Planet Institute  and director of its Land and Food Rights Program. He’s also a senior  research fellow at Tufts University’s Global Development and Environment  Institute and founded its Globalization and Sustainable Development  Program.

Wise is too author of the book, ‘Confronting Globalization: Economic  Integration and Popular Resistance in Mexico’, and the recently  released, ‘Eating Tomorrow: Agribusiness, Family Farmers, and the Battle for the Future of Food‘.

Timothy A. Wise and the politics on your plate in the second half.

And; Victoria-based activist and long-time Gorilla Radio contributor,  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, Pablo Ouziel and  Catalans taking to Barcelona’s streets again. 

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/

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What do any of us really know?

For the most part, our understanding of reality is based on what  we’ve been told; told by parents, teachers, friends, and the media. And  who told them?

There is though another path to discovery. Go to the places where  things are happening; talk to the people making them happen, then decide  what’s true.

But, and it’s a vitally big but; be careful what you ask, for you could find out more than it’s safe to know.

As the first cracks of the Soviet Empire’s eroding iron facade  opened, Australian-born author, political essayist, professor of  political science, and policy advisor to presidents and prime ministers,  John Helmer headed for Moscow,  determined to establish what was to become the longest continuously  operating foreign press bureau in the capital.

From his position as an independent of single-national, or commercial  sponsorship reporter, he ventured into the country’s unpredictable, and  often precarious economic transition period; a time that would see coup  attempts, the undoing of international political superstar, Mikhail  Gorbachev, and fall of Russia’s communist system itself. It would too  usher in the tempestuous Age of the Oligarchs.

Some of John Helmer’s book titles  include: ‘The Deadly Simple Mechanics of Society’, ‘Drugs and Minority  Oppression’, (with Claudia Wright) ‘The Jackal’s Wedding – American  Power, Arab Revolt’, ‘Grand Strategy for Small Countries, Case Studies  in Transforming Weakness into Power,’ (and with Ajay Goyal) ‘Uncovering  Russia’. His latest book is the newly out political and personal memoir,  ‘The Man Who Knows Too Much About Russia‘.

John Helmer and a special, Gorilla Radio double-yolker, getting to know too much about Russia.

And; Victoria-based activist and long-time contributor to Gorilla  Radio, Janine Bandcroft will be here at the three-quarter mark, bringing  us up to speed with some of what’s good to do in and around our town in  the coming week. But first, the man who knew too much, John Helmer. 

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/

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The  Lima Group met Monday in Ottawa to make official its determination to  overthrow the government of Venezuela, as detailed in its ‘Ottawa Declaration‘.

An offshoot of the Organization of American States, the Lima Group formed following the OAS’s failure to agree on the forced removal of president Nicolas Maduro.

In addition to hosting the meeting, and adding its capital’s name to  the Group’s declaration, Canada’s foreign minister promised 53 million  Canadian dollars in “humanitarian and development aid” to be delivered  to what Chrystia Freeland termed, its “trusted partners” in the embattled South American nation.

Daniel Kovalik is a labor and human rights lawyer, essayist, and author of the critically-acclaimed books,  ‘The Plot to Scapegoat Russia’, and ‘The Plot to Attack Iran’. The  third in his “plot to” trilogy, ‘The Plot to Control the World: How the  US Spent Billions to Change the Outcome of Elections Around the World’  is newly out and couldn’t be more timely. Dan has too served as an  election observor multiple times in Venezuela, and other Latin American  countries, and is just returned from Caracas.

Dan Kovalik in the first half.

And; despite a gruesome colonial past, and more recent history of  supporting dictatorships, Canada still gets a lot of mileage out of its  “democracy-loving” reputation. It scores a solid six on The Economist’s  annual rating of global democratic performance, and does almost as well  on international justice indices. In fact, Canada’s “rule of law” bona fides is wielded more and more by the prime minister, even as the country diverges further and further from it.

Christopher Black is a Toronto-based criminal lawyer specializing in international war crimes cases, and executive member of the Canadian Peace Congress. He’s also an author, poet, and essayist who’s latest book is, ‘Beneath the Clouds’. Black’s articles on international law, politics and World events appear at New Eastern Outlook among other places, and his latest, ‘The Lima Group: International Outlaws’ serves as indictment of a gang of nations gone rogue.

Christopher Black and declaring Ottawa outlaws in the second half.

And; Victoria-based activist and long-time Gorilla Radio contributor,  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  around our town in the coming week. But first, Dan Kovalik and a kettle of vultures over Caracas.

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/

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

From the barricades of France’s Gilets Jaunes  and America’s Black Lives Matter marches, to Venezuela’s Bolivarian  reactionary mobilizations, and the “coloured revolutions” manifesting  around the globe, it’s clear: we’re living in an age of political  upheaval. But are scenes of the People taking to the streets an ominous  precursor of chaos and civilization’s end to come, or hopeful sign of  civic renewal and democratic vibrancy?

Astra Taylor is a political activist, organizer, and co-founder of Debt Collective, a “community of debtors… working to build a new economy.” She is too an award-winning filmmaker, whose credits include, ‘Examined Life‘, ‘Zizek!‘, and her most recent, ‘What Is Democracy?’, featured at the upcoming Victoria Film Festival.

Astra’s also the American Book Award-winning author of, ‘The People’s Platform: Taking Back Power and Culture in the Digital Age‘,  and an essayist whose writing has appeared at The New York Times,  London Review of Books, and The Walrus among other places. Her new book,  ‘Democracy May Not Exist, But We’ll Miss It When It’s Gone’ is due out  any day.

Astra Taylor in the first half.

And; the long-running fiasco that has become Great Britain’s political reality may prove H.L. Menken’s maxim:  “Under democracy one party always devotes its chief energies to trying  to prove that the other party is unfit to rule – and both commonly  succeed, and are right.”

John Helmer is a journalist,  former academic, government policy advisor, author, and broadcaster.  He’s the longest-serving Russia-based foreign correspondent, and sole  western journalist directing his own news bureau, independent of any  single national or commercial encumbrance, and principal behind the news  website, Dances with Bears, where his recent article, ‘Novichok Full O’Nuts – In the Case of Sergei Skripal Police Commissioner Angus MacPherson Lifts the Lid‘  is one of a series chronicling the continuing inability, or  unwillingness, of the May government to provide a consistent narrative  surrounding the case that strained Anglo-Russian relations to breaking  point.

Helmer’s titles include, (with Max van der Werff) ‘The Lie That Shot  Down MH17 – The True Story of Who Did’, Grand Strategy for Small  Countries, Case Studies in Transforming Weakness into Power,’ Russian  State Strategy on the Cheap,’ among others. His latest, newly released  book is his political memoir, ‘The Man Who Knows Too Much About Russia‘.

John Helmer and clearing finally the malodorous May miasma shrouding the sinister Skripal affair in the second half.

And; Victoria-based activist and long-time Gorilla Radio contributor,  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  the coming week. But first, Astra Taylor asking, “Just What Is 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: 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/

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

It doesn’t matter who or what is to blame; or even if laying blame is appropriate. The fact is, the planet is changing, and that change is quickening. The predicted emerging climate  is favourable to neither us, nor most of the rest of nature. In short,  whether recognized or not, humanity is headed for an extinction whose  eventuality is not a matter of “if”, but “when”. So then, how do we go on from here?

Dahr Jamail is a journalist and author who has, as staff writer at Truthout, been writing about climate change for the past decade or more. His book, ‘The End of Ice: Bearing Witness and Finding Meaning in the Path of Climate Destruction‘ is newly released and a firsthand account of visiting and revisiting places on an extincting planet.

But lest you despair, consider what End of Ice reviewer, David Swanson observes,

“There  is no preventing utter disaster. Yet there is urgency. The need is to  work to slow the collapse and to mitigate its impacts and provide aid to  each other as it washes over us.”

Dahr Jamail in the first half.

And; as the Earth is an island, isolated from the rest of creation by  that unfathomable ocean, the frigid vacuum of space, it too contains  within it islands unreachable. One such place is Guantánamo Bay, Cuba  where reside the prisoners of the forever Global War on Terror in the  infamous mother of America’s Black Site gulags.

Andy Worthington is an investigative journalist, author, campaigner, commentator and public speaker. A recognized authority on Guantánamo and the “war on terror”, Andy is co-founder of Close Guantánamo, and We Stand With Shaker,  campaigns dedicated to bringing justice for inmates of there past and  present. The London-based Worthington is also a singer, songwriter,  founding member of the band, The Four Fathers and urban photographer.

Andy Worthington and renewing resistance to Guantánamo in the second half.

And; Victoria-based activist and long-time Gorilla Radio contributor,  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 is  the End of Ice the end of us?

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/

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Last month, Philadelphia Judge Leon Tucker ruled, in part, favourably  in a two year-old plea by Mumia Abu-Jamal’s legal team. They had  argued, a U.S. Supreme Court Justice presiding over a previous appeal  should have recused himself.

Abu-Jamal has spent nearly 40 years in prison for the 1981 murder of  Philly police officer, Daniel Faulkner; a charge he has always denied.  The case has, from the beginning, been politically charged and fraught  with procedural irregularities. Further to those, just days after Judge  Tucker’s ruling, the Philadelphia District Attorney’s office  “discovered” six crates of evidence that has for years, they say, lay  hidden in the back of a disused storeroom.

Lawyers and activists are excited now by the possibility those crates may contain material that could see Mumia freed.

Dave Lindorff  is a Philadelphia-based investigative journalist and author. The former  Philadelphia Enquirer newspaper reporter covered the Abu-Jamal case  extensively, and wrote the book, ‘Killing Time: An Investigation into  the Death Row Case of Mumia Abu-Jamal. Lindorff is too founder of the  multi-award-winning news website, This Can’t Be Happening, where his latest article on the Abu-Jamal case, ‘A Potentially Tectonic Event Shakes up the Mumia Abu-Jamal Case‘ appears.

Dave Lindorff in the first half.

And; does the World really need another celebration of war and  warmakers? The good folks over at NATO think so, and they’re busy making  preparation for just such an event. April 4th, 2019 marks the 70th  anniversary of the multi-nation military alliance. The North Atlantic  Treaty Organization has, since its Cold War inception, seen a massive  expansion in both its membership and mission statement. Nothing if not  resilient, NATO has not only survived, despite losing its raison d’etre  rival, the USSR and its Warsaw Pact alliance, but thrived, no longer  limiting activities to its titular region but creating “facts on the  ground” across the globe.

David Swanson is an author, activist, tireless promoter of pro-peace networks and websites, and co-founder of World Beyond War, an organization making the case for the abolition at last  of that ultimate expression of human destructiveness. His book titles  include: ‘Curing Exceptionalism’, ‘A Global Security System’, ‘War Is  Never Just’, ‘War Is a Lie’, ‘Killing Is Not a Way of Life’, ‘War No  More: The Case for Abolition’, and many more.

Swanson is also host of Talk Nation Radio, linked through his website, Let’s Try Democracy,  where a recent article dissects the myths and reveals the realities  behind the organization that would have your anniversary cheers.

David Swanson and the ‘Top 10 Reasons Not to Love NATO‘ in the second half.

And; Victoria-based activist and long-time Gorilla Radio contributor,  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, Dave Lindorff and can  the beginning of the end of Mumia Abu-Jamal’s long imprisonment be  happening?

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/

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Fake  News and rumours of Fake News continue to abound. Recent leaks  detailing a UK government-funded program of media infiltration and  propaganda dissemination has put fake news in a whole new context.

Anonymous, the shadowy trans-national association of hackers, has  exposed the doings of the Institute for Statecraft and its so-called Integrity Initiative. They reveal “clusters” of politicians, military officials, and think tank academics recruited and retained to further the aims of the Institute and its masters.

Included in those clusters are prominent journalists working for, among others, Britain’s Guardian newspaper, long regarded the standard-bearer for leftist media.

The paper though has seen a curious transformation over the last few years, nowhere more evident than in its unabashedly biased coverage of Venezuela and incommunicado journalist, Julian Assange.

Elizabeth Vos  is Co-Founder and Editor in Chief at Disobedient Media, a web news site  focusing on the intersection of global politics, media, and technology.  Her December expose, ‘The Guardian’s Reputation In Tatters After Forger Revealed To Have Co-Authored Assange Smear‘ is a body-blow to that paper’s already faltering credibility. (Full disclosure: Elizabeth and DM are staunch supporters of Julian Assange and WikiLeaks.)

Elizabeth Vos in the first half.

And; over the weekend cities across France were battlegrounds. For  the eighth week in a row the so-called Gilets Jaunes, or Yellow Vest  movement, has paralyzed both the country’s avenues and political  process, pitting the disgruntled citizenry against a Macron government  whose failed economic policies are being attacked by all sides of the  political spectrum; or so it would seem. Could it be there’s a more  sinister hand behind the protests; and if so, what might be the motive?

William Craddick  is co-founder with Elizabeth Vos of Disobedient Media. He’s a graduate  of Pepperdine University School of Law, and holds a Bachelor’s in  International Relations from Wheaton College. Craddick has written  numerous articles related to foreign policy and security, including propaganda operations, political corruption, the “Macron leaks“, and creation of an EU Army.

William Craddick and ‘Is Britain Involved with European “Yellow Vest” Protests?‘ in the second half.

And; Victoria-based activist and long-time Gorilla Radio contributor,  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, Elizabeth Vos and  following Luke Harding and friends down the Guardian rabbit hole.

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/

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

So how's the nation's belated enlightenment going?
 

Ted Smith is a long-time justice activist and co-founder of the Victoria Cannabis Buyer’s Club, which provides cannabis-based products to people with terminal and incurable medical conditions.
 

Listen. Hear.
 

Ted broke the tundra-like, frozen legal trail of the Canadian medical  marijuana struggle, persevering repeated harassment and arrest, and  taking the case all the way to the country's Supreme Court – and  winning!
 

Ted Smith in the first half.
 

And; last week Japan announced it would be leaving the International  Whaling Commission, the body set up to oversee that odious practice,  incredibly still conducted by numerous nations. The Japanese say they  will forego their controversial "scientific" whaling in the Southern  Ocean off Antarctica, but continue commercial hunt/harvesting activities  in territorial waters, or what it terms, the Japanese Exclusive  Economic Zone (EEZ).
 

The news has been hailed as good news by the Sea Shepherd Conservation  Society, who say the absence of Japan from the commission will, quote  "allow the IWC to pass the motion to establish the South Atlantic Whale  Sanctuary thus effectively ending whaling in the Southern Hemisphere."  Others fear the move is bad for whales in other ways.
 

Dr. Paul Spong is marine researcher, one of the World’s foremost authorities on the Orca, and founder of OrcaLab,  a land-based observatory located on Hanson Island. Spong has tracked  whale and other marine mammals from the idyllic location since 1970. He attended and sent dispatches out from last Fall's IWC 67 in Florianopolis, Brazil.

Paul Spong and what Japan's new policy means for whales in the new year in the second half.  
 

And; Victoria-based activist and long-time Gorilla Radio contributor,  Janine Bandcroft will be here at the bottom of the hour with the Left  Coast Events Bulletin on some of the good things to be gotten up to in  and around our town in the coming week. But first, Ted Smith and the  ongoing effort to norml-ize marijuana policy in Canada.
 

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/

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome  to the last show of this busy 2018. The year ends with Canada’s foreign  policy in a mess; and it’s all of our own making. Prime Minister  Trudeau has staggered the globe from one policy dumpster fire to the  next, his ultimate misstep, (assuming he can manage the year’s four  remaining days diplomatic disaster-free) being the ill-advised December  1st arrest of Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou.

Though the Chinese government denies it, the arrest triggered the retaliatory nabbing  in China of two Canadians, one an entrepreneur taking tourists from  China into North Korea, and the other former Canadian diplomat and  current Senior Adviser for North East Asia of NGO, the International  Crisis Group, Michael Kovrig.

Kovrig’s detention, (and rumoured mistreatment) shines a light on the intersection of NGO’s, international diplomacy, and spycraft.

Yves Engler is a Montréal-based  activist, essayist, and author. Some of his ten book titles include: ‘A  Propaganda System—How Canada’s Government, Corporations, Media and  Academia Sell War and Exploitation’, ‘Canada in Africa — 300 Years of  Aid and Exploitation’, and ‘The Ugly Canadian — Stephen Harper’s Foreign  Policy’. His new book, ‘Left, Right: Marching to the Beat of Imperial  Canada’ is freshly off the press.

Yves’ numerous articles on the NGO/Neoliberal Order nexus appear at  his site, YvesEngler.com, Dissident Voice, The Palestine Chronicle, and  Pacific Free Press among other places, and his latest, ‘Why do Raptors  associate with blood-stained dictator?’ explores the Giants of Africa  charity and its partner, the Toronto Raptor’s celebration of continental  tyrant Paul Kagame.

Yves Engler in the first half. 

And; as it’s year’s end, a look back at some of the stories covered in 2018.

The Left Coast Events Bulletin hiatus continues this week, but Janine  will be back in the New Year to keep us up to date with the weekly good  goings on in and around our town. So first, Yves Engler and getting to  know the NGO’s.

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/

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Stock  markets tanking, uncertainty battering the currency exchanges,  international commerce slowing to a crawl, rumours of trade, (and  shooting) wars, and US companies considering exiting China in the New  Year; all in all, Donald Trump can settle himself before the holiday  hearth happily regarding his full-to-brimming America First Christmas  stocking.

But how’s the view from the over there side of the trade war?

Peter Lee is a  freelance journalist writing on East and South Asian affairs as they  intersect US global policy. He blogs at the Asian affairs website China  Matters, and his China Watch report features at Newsbud.com.

Peter Lee in the first half.

And; as most are aware, there’s a Canadian connection to the ongoing trade/tech war between the United States and China. The December 1st arrest of Huawei executive,  and daughter of the company’s founder, Meng Wanzhou has, more than  embarrassing Canada on the World stage and revealing the gormlessness of  the Trudeau government, called into question the very idea of the  country’s sovereignty and its ability to actually be a “rule of law”  nation in the face of American pressure.

Christopher Black is a  Toronto-based criminal lawyer best known for his involvement in a number  of high-profile, international war crimes cases. He’s also a poet,  essayist, and novelist who’s latest book is, ‘Beneath the Clouds‘.  Black’s articles on international law, politics and World events appear  at New Eastern Outlook among other places, and his latest, ‘Canada Takes A Hostage: Free Meng Wanzhou’ examines the rice paper-thin case against holding Meng and Huawei hostage.

Christopher Black and unwinding the Huawei media spin in the second half.

And; Janine’s Left Coast Events Bulletin takes a break this week for  the holidays. So first up, Peter Lee and US/China trade; a war by any  other name?

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/

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The notorious convicted sex offender was to, figuratively, be in  front of a civil court answering to a defamation suit brought by the  attorney that had successfully represented women who as girls had been  molested by Epstein, and his A-lister friends.

But, if he seems to have evaded justice once again, Jeffrey Epstein isn’t out of the legal woods just yet.

Derrick Broze is a freelance journalist, community activist,  gardener, promoter from Houston, Texas, and co-author of the book, ‘The Conscious Resistance: Reflections on Anarchy and Spirituality.’ He’s founder of both the Houston Free Thinkers, and The Conscious Resistance Network, and last month released the documentary expose, ‘Bringing Down Jeffrey Epstein‘.

 Derrick Broze in the first half.

And; Julian Assange’s continued sanctuary in Ecuador’s London embassy  is under threat. Ecuador’s new president, Moreno Lenin is not  sympathetic, and his government has been sending out signals it is ready  to evict the crusading WikiLeaks publisher, soon.

Stefania Maurizi  is an Italian investigative journalist for La Repubblica. She’s stayed  on the Assange story from the start, and last month was the first journalist allowed in to the embassy to speak directly with Assange in more than eight months. In her article, ‘The detention and isolation from the world of Julian Assange‘  she describes his increasingly frail health, saying, “Never before has  the life of the WikiLeaks founder been so crucially in the hands of  public opinion and in the hands of one of the few powers whose mission  it is to reign in the worst instincts of our governments: the press.”

Stefania Maurizi and seeing Julian in the second half.

And; Victoria-based activist and CFUV Radio broadcaster at-large,  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, Derrick Broze and  bringing down Jeffrey Epstein.

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/

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

And it is not in an accommodating mood; tersely stating,

“[A]nyone approaching Russian territory with hostile intent will be shot.” 

John Helmer is a long-time,  Moscow-based journalist, author, and essayist whose website, Dances with  Bears is the only Russian-based news bureau “independent of single  national or commercial ties.”

He’s also a former political science professor and his book titles  include: ‘Uncovering Russia,’ ‘Urbanman: The Psychology of Urban  Survival,’ ‘Bringing the War Home: The American Soldier in Vietnam and  After,’ and ‘Drugs and Minority Oppression’, among others.

His latest article, ‘Force  Talks – An Approach with Hostile Intent to the Russian Frontier,  Aircraft, Ships at Sea, or Troops in the Field Will Be Shot‘ should serve as stark reminder of our precarious proximity to another global war.

 John Helmer in the first half.

And Canadian journalist, author, and interactive documentarian J.B. MacKinnon‘s first book, ‘The 100-Mile Diet‘, (co-written with Alisa Smith) was an international sensation and catalyst to a whole new “loca”-lexicon. The myriad award-winning, Vancouver-based UBC journalism prof’s next, (national best-selling) book, ‘The Once and Future World‘ examines Nature’s past, parlous anthropocene present, and possible futures.

J.B. MacKinnon and The Once and Future World: Nature As It Was, As It Is, As It Could Be in the second half.

And; Victoria-based activist and CFUV Radio broadcaster at-large,  Janine Bandcroft will be here at the bottom of the hour with the Left  Coast Events Bulletin of some of the good things going on in and around  our town in the coming week. But first, John Helmer and stalking Russia  with hostile intent.

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/

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Stop the Spray BC has been warning about the effects of intense herbicide spraying throughout the province, and says the practice is dangerously exacerbating an already dire situation.

James Steidle has worked in BC’s forest industry as a treeplanter,  mill worker, and currently runs a woodworking company based in Prince  George. Steidle and fellow forestry professional, Herb Martin started  Stop the Spray BC to bring to an end wrong-headed government policies.

They ask, “As our planet continues to warm, biodiversity fades and  forest fires grow worse, does it make sense to keep eliminating the  trees with the highest biodiversity values, lowest probability of  flammability, and best ability to sequester CO2 and reflect solar  radiation from our forests?”

James Steidle in the first half.

And; over the last month, Elections BC has administered the latest referendum on determining the future voting system for provincial elections.  Ballots were mailed out, and the deadline was originally slated for  tomorrow, November 30th. But, and it is a very big but; due to Canada  Post labour actions, Elections BC has extended by one week the deadline  to get ballots on electoral reform in.

Terry Dance-Bennink is an Eco and democracy activist, Pro Rep  champion, defender of indigenous rights, United Church member, and Vice  President of VotePRBC; and Rick Habgood is a democracy activist and producer of the ShawTV program, ‘Voting for Change?’.

Rick Habgood and Terry Dance-Bennink on BC’s chance for electoral change in the second half.

And; Victoria-based activist and CFUV Radio broadcaster at-large,  Janine Bandcroft will be here at the bottom of the hour with the Left  Coast Events Bulletin of some of the good things going on in and around  our town in the coming week. But first, James Steidle and stopping the  BC spray. 

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/

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The ultra-right wing Lieberman left the government in protest over  Netanyahu’s Gaza cease fire agreement with Hamas, and already even more extreme members of the prime minister’s razor thin coalition majority are pushing for harsher measures against both the eight month-long Great March of Return in Gaza and Palestinian protesters generally.

Richard Hardigan is a  journalist, university educator and activist who in 2014 traveled to the  West Bank with the International Solidarity Movement to experience  firsthand life on the other side of Israel’s infamous “security fence”.  The result is his recently released book, ‘The Other Side of the Wall: An Eyewitness Account of the Occupation in Palestine‘.

Richard Hardigan in the first half.

And; four years on from the Western-backed coup and overthrow of the democratically elected government in Ukraine, the war against the eastern regions  refusing to cede to the Poroshenko regime is stalemated. The  determination of the separatist Donetsk and Lugansk Peoples Republics to  forge their own way was reinforced at the November 11th elections that  saw record turnouts and overwhelming support for the People’s Councils.

But, the vote was immediately dismissed by America and the European Union as a “sham election“, rigged by Russia and its proxies in eastern Ukraine.

Christopher Black  is a Toronto-based criminal lawyer best known for his involvement in a  number of high-profile, international war crimes cases. He’s also a  poet, essayist, and novelist who’s latest book is, ‘Beneath the Clouds‘. Black’s articles on international law, politics and World events appear at New Eastern Outlook among other places, and his latest, ‘The Donbass Dilemma‘ examines the election and international reaction to it.

 Christopher Black in the second half.

And 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, Richard Hardigan  and looking at the other side of Israel’s wall.

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/

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

5G, or fifth generation wireless technology will, promises Canada’s Communications Research Centre, “benefit Canadian telecommunications systems, technologies, and applications.” It is, they say, a “game changer”  readying us for a near future where online devices vastly outnumber the  humans using them, and will enable the coming age of “The Internet of  Things”.

Walt McGinnis is a Victoria-based political activist, citizen journalist and co-host of Citizens Forum, a local political affairs program.

He’s also the past president of Stop Smart Meters.ca, a citizen’s coalition to reverse BC Hydro’s imposition of the so-called “Smart Meter” without due consultation, and at great cost to British Columbians.

McGinnis’ work with Stop Smart Meters was instrumental in bringing  about the 2011 moratorium on Smart Meter installation at the Convention  of the Union of B.C. Municipalities. Walt’s also an electrical  contractor specializing in “making the built environment safe from the harmful effects of electromagnetic radiation.”

Walt McGinnis in the first half.

And; a lot has changed in the year since Spain’s central government brought out the Gardia to violently shut down pro-independence activists in restive Catalonia; and a lot hasn’t. As it stands, Spain is still whole, though the leadership  on both sides of last year’s contretemps are out of power, but  resentment is more than simmering in Barcelona, heart of the Catalan  independence movement, where pitched battle was seen again in the streets between old foes last week.

Dr. Pablo Ouziel is a Post-Doctoral fellow at UVic whose project in  progress is, ‘Towards Democratic Responses to the Crisis of Democracy in  Spain: Forms of Participatory and Representative Civic Engagement.’  He’s freshly returned from a visit to his home city of Barcelona.

Pablo Ouziel and a darkened horizon persisting for both Spain’s and European democracy in the second half.

And; Victoria-based activist and CFUV Radio broadcaster at-large,  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, Walt McGinnis and a  5th Generation dawning.

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/

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Even when the predicted disasters come so close, like the sinking of  the Nathan E. Stewart in 2016, and near grounding of the Jake Shearer  off the Goose Islands in Hecate Strait last year, those tugs just keep  chugging along, marking time towards the inevitable Exxon Valdez-sized  catastrophe to come.

Ingmar Lee is a long-time, BC-based environment defender. From the  Nanaimo watershed and first-growth valley bottoms of Vancouver Island,  to Cathedral Grove and the threatened Sandhill Crane nesting grounds of  British Columbia’s mid-coast, Ingmar has advocated for and stood between  an increasingly fragile ecosystem and its government enabled big  business despoilers.

He is also the creator of the 10,000 Ton Tanker Public Group  that has, through sheer tenacity, towed a reluctant media and the ENGO  community into its effort to have the dangerous tanker transits along  this ecologically fragile, and navigationally treacherous coast stopped  for good. Ingmar will be appearing at 7:30 tonight at the Roxy Theatre  on Gabriola Island to talk about the tankers passing the island every  two weeks.

Ingmar Lee in the first half.

And; vilify, sanction, invade and repeat; it’s the imperial routine  that seems never to tire. Time and again we’ve seen Western governments  focus on one country or another, label its leadership “evil doers”, the  government illegitimate, and put all “options on the table” to achieve  said “regime’s” necessary changing. All for the welfare of the people  there, of course. It’s a game that’s been played for a long time, ‘The  Great Game’ as the late British Empire knew it; but a century after the  end of the Great War that ended Britannia’s global rule, has the Game of  Empire finally run its course?

Daniel Kovalik  is a labor and human rights lawyer, essayist, and author of the  critically-acclaimed books, ‘The Plot to Scapegoat Russia’, and ‘The  Plot to Attack Iran.’ The third in his “plot to” trilogy, ‘The Plot to Control the World: How the US Spent Billions to Change the Outcome of Elections Around the World‘ is fresh off the Skyhorse publishing presses and couldn’t be more timely.

Dan Kovalik and correcting the prevailing myths of Western innocence in the second half.

And; Victoria-based activist and CFUV Radio broadcaster at-large,  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, Ingmar Lee and  shedding light on the shadowy tanker traffic plying BC’s coast. 

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/

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

It’s a trend that’s seen political reversals already in Paraguay,  Uruguay, Ecuador, Argentina, Chile, and Honduras, and now threatens the  Sandinista and Bolivarian revolutions of Nicaragua and Venezuela.

The bitter fruits of this social change can be seen on the faces of  the thousands currently fleeing Central America, desperate to escape the  counter-revolution regimes put in place, ironically enough, through the  agency of El Norte countries like ours, Canada.

Yves Engler is a Montréal-based  activist, essayist, and author. His articles appear at Dissident Voice,  The Palestine Chronicle, Rabble.ca, and Pacific Free Press among other  places. The latest of his ten books, ‘Left, Right: Marching to the Beat of Imperial Canada‘  is freshly off the presses and questions, Why, despite all evidence to  the contrary, Canadians still suffer under the delusion that they and  their nation’s government are “a benevolent force in the world”?

Yves will be at UVic tonight at 7pm in the Hickman Building for a presentation on, and book launch of ‘Left, Right, Marching to the Beat of Imperial Canada’.

Yves Engler in the first half.

And; from GR’s wayback files, Michael Parenti from February 2003:

All that’s missing from media reports of the long-rumoured Battle of  Civilizations, (coming to a TV screen near you) is Reason. Rarely  mentioned, and presumably soon to be forgotten, is any information  providing a context for the conflict in the middle east. Amid the rabid  rhetoric emanating from the Bush administration and its media organs,  you may be forgiven your struggle to make sense of it all. Michael  Parenti is one of America’s most astute, and persistent critics of U.S.  domestic and foreign policy. ‘Democracy for the Few’, ‘Against Empire’,  and ‘History as Mystery’, are just a few of his many books.

Michael Parenti provides a bit of  context for the coming storm and to discuss his newest book, ‘The  Terrorism Trap: September 11 and Beyond’ in the second half.

And; Victoria-based activist and CFUV Radio broadcaster at-large,  Janine Bandcroft will be here at the bottom of the hour with the Left  Coast Events Bulletin with some of the good things to do in and around  our town in the coming week. But first, Yves Engler and marching to the  Imperial beat.

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/

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Dr. Michael C. Klein‘s  long, illustrious, and varied career in medicine both inside Canada and  without includes serving as clinician, administrator, researcher, and  educator.

The Professor Emeritus of family practice at the University of  British Columbia has practiced too in the United States, and cut his  teeth in maternal medicine in exotic locales under surprising  circumstances. It would take a book to do the scope of his career  justice; so it’s fortunate Michael Klein is also an author. His first book, ‘Dissident Doctor: Catching Babies and Challenging the Medical Status Quo‘ tells his story, and much more besides.

Dr. Michael C. Klein in the first half.

And; last year, the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives‘ BC Office reported a subsidiary of Malaysian energy giant Petronas side-stepped the law, constructing at least 16 dams  to support its fracking operations without approval of the province’s  Environmental Assessment Office. Now, that report’s author has  discovered, rather than suffering fine or censure for its breach of the  law, Progress Energy asked for, and has had granted, retroactive  exemptions from environmental review for two of the dams the EAO  described as “illegal works”.

Ben Parfitt is a  journalist, author, and CCPA researcher specializing in energy, water,  forest resources, and climate change. His just out article, ‘Dangerous Precedent: Petronas subsidiary gets free pass after building unlicensed fracking dams‘ should, more than merely outrage, serve as clarion call to all who care about the future of the province.

Ben Parfitt and a free pass for Petronas frackers in the second half.

And; Victoria-based activist and CFUV Radio broadcaster at-large,  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, dissident Dr. Michael  C. Klein, catching babies and challenging the medical status quo.

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/

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On October 4th, seven months to the day of the now infamous Salisbury poisoning of Sergei and Yulia Skripal, Dutch Defence Minister, Ank Bijleveld held a press conference to announce the April 13th arrest of four Russian agents in the Hague, near the offices of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, the body investigating the case.

As for why her ministry would make the “highly unusual” announcement,  and do so nearly six months after the fact, the minister says it was  necessary to:

“[S]end  a clear message to the Russian military intelligence service that it  must put a stop to its undermining cyber operations.” 

John Helmer is a long-time,  Moscow-based journalist, author, and essayist whose website, Dances with  Bears is the only Russian-based news bureau “independent of single  national or commercial ties.” He’s also a former political science  professor who’s served as advisor to governments on three continents,  and regularly lectures on Russian topics. His book titles include:  ‘Uncovering Russia,’ ‘Urbanman: The Psychology of Urban Survival,’  ‘Bringing the War Home: The American Soldier in Vietnam and After,’ and  ‘Drugs and Minority Oppression’, among others.

His latest article, ‘Tail  Wags Dog – Did the Swiss Spiez Laboratory Report Uncovered by Russian  Espionage Expose the OPCW, British Government in Faking Skripal  Evidence?‘ questions both the motive and timing of the Dutch announcement.

John Helmer in the first half.

And; the endangered Southern Resident Killer Whales are now reduced to only 74 members.

Gregg McElroy is with the  Canadian Orca Rescue Society, and the long-time environmental frontline  activist says something must be done, and done now to save the Southern  Resident Orca and their habitat. With that in mind, he and the Society  launched a 17 Day Vigil last week to emphasize the urgency of the situation and marshal support.

Gregg McElroy and standing for the Orca in the second half.

And; Victoria-based activist and CFUV Radio broadcaster at-large,  Janine Bandcroft will be here at the bottom of the hour with this week’s  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, John Helmer and  spinning the Skripal tale in the Netherlands.

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/

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Unlike the larger provincial and federal elections, candidates in  these polls are not generally professional politicians, but citizen  peers interested in the issues governing the way our communities run,  and how the place where we live will evolve and develop in the near  term. These are issues, amid the accelerated pace of change around here,  of unprecedented importance.

Ted Smith is a long-time justice activist and co-founder  of the Victoria Cannabis Buyer’s Club, which provides cannabis-based  products to people with terminal and incurable medical conditions. Ted broke the legal trail  in the medical marijuana struggle, persevering repeated harassment and  arrest, and taking the case all the way to Canada’s Supreme Court – and  winning!

Ted Smith in the first half.

And; Jordan Reichert is  no stranger to politicking, the mental health and addictions  professional, animal advocate, community organizer, and Victoria local,  ran in the last federal election, and has too put himself forward for a seat on Victoria City Council this time around.

Jordan Reichert and seeking, “Public policy that reflects the values, needs, and diversity of Victoria” in the second half.

And; Victoria-based activist and CFUV Radio broadcaster at-large,  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  around here in the coming week. But first, Ted Smith and “a campaign to  make government more accountable and accessible to citizens.”

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/

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Over the weekend, Israel’s military killed seven more Palestinians,  while injuring hundreds; at least 90 of those being wounded by  live-bullet fire.

Ashraf al-Qedra,  spokesman for the Gaza Health Ministry says, 163 Gazans have died, with  more than 20,000 being treated for injuries in Gaza’s threadbare  hospitals.

But, it’s not only the Canadian media derelict in its duty; when it  comes to Gaza, Canada’s government, including opposition parties in the  House of Commons, remains almost entirely silent.

Jonathan Kuttab is a human rights lawyer practicing in East Jerusalem. He is the co-founder of the organizations: Al Haq,  the first international human rights legal organization in Palestine;  The Palestinian Center for the Study of Non-Violence (now Non-Violence International); and The Mandela Institute for Prisoners. He is also a founding director of Just Peace Advocates/Mouvement pour une Paix Juste, a Canadian-based international law/human rights not-for-profit organization.

Jonathan is currently on a cross-Canada speaking tour.  He spoke last night in Comox, and will be in Victoria tonight at 7pm  presenting, ‘The future of Jerusalem in the time of Trump’ at UVic’s  David Turpin Building.

Jonathan Kuttab in the first half.

And; though Canada daily abrogates its international treaty-mandated  duty to protect the human rights of Gazans, it has not exited the World  stage altogether. The country boasting,  “a consistently strong voice for the protection of human rights and the  advancement of democratic values…” has adopted, along with its trade  partners, the modern siege method, imposing economic sanctions against  the democratically elected government of Venezuela.

Most Canadians would doubtless blanch at the hypocrisy of their nation’s position,  if only they knew the depth of its profundity. But, there again is  where the CBC and its corporate media cohorts come in – or fail to do  so.

Alison Bodine  is Coordinator of the Fire This Time Movement for Social Justice’s  Venezuela Solidarity Campaign. The long-time antiwar and social justice  activist is too a researcher and writer for the Fire This Time! monthly newspaper.

Alison Bodine and Canada as democracy’s arsonist in Venezuela in the second half.

And; Victoria-based activist and CFUV Radio broadcaster at-large,  Janine Bandcroft will be here at the bottom of the hour with the Left  Coast Events Bulletin for some of the good things to be gotten up to in  and around our town in the coming week. But first, Jonathan Kuttab and  the future of Palestine at a crossroads.

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/

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

It seems no damning deed done  can shake Canadians’ indomitable self-congratulation, nor dim their  ineffably lofty self-regard. Though the richest nation in Africa be  destroyed, creating a chaos the likes of which has not been writ since  the time of Pharaoh, Canada and its paragons bray of their part played –  as if heroes.

Yves Engler is a Montréal-based  activist, essayist, and author. His articles appear at Dissident Voice,  The Palestine Chronicle, Rabble.ca, and Pacific Free Press among other  places. Some of his ten book titles include: ‘A Propaganda System—How  Canada’s Government, Corporations, Media and Academia Sell War and  Exploitation’, ‘Canada in Africa — 300 Years of Aid and Exploitation’,  and ‘The Ugly Canadian — Stephen Harper’s Foreign Policy’.

Yves’ new book, ‘Left, Right: Marching to the Beat of Imperial Canada‘  is freshly off the press and tries, as reviewer David Swanson notes,  “to provide 10% of the explanation for why many Canadians suffer under  the delusion that their nation’s government is a benevolent force in the  world…”

Yves Engler in the first half. 

And; Canada’s complicity in international criminality  is not limited to the destruction, with NATO compatriots, of countries  like Libya or the Former Yugoslavia, it too works diligently to  undermine democracy in countries like Haiti, Nicaragua, Venezuela,  and Honduras. And, even as it vociferously champions human rights best  practices, Canada tacitly supports the oppressive military occupations  conducted by friends America, Britain, and Israel.

Michael J. Carpenter  is a post-doctoral fellow with the Borders in Globalization project at  the Department of Political Science at the University of Victoria whose  dissertation explored the theory and practice of civic struggle –  struggle also known as “nonviolent direct action”, “civil resistance”,  and “people power.” His work is focused especially in the context of the  Middle East, and Palestine in particular.

He recently presented, with retired trial lawyer, William Geimer and Adrian Fine of Independent Jewish Voices ‘Israel: Canada’s Human Rights Exception‘ to audiences in Comox, Duncan, and Victoria.

Michael J. Carpenter and taking exception to human rights exceptionalism in the second half.

And; Victoria-based activist and CFUV Radio broadcaster at-large,  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, Yves Engler and the  dark underside of the Great White North.

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/

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Western Sahara is home to the Saharawi, who have fought, and continue to fight for their independence, first from Spanish, then Moroccan occupiers.

Their self-declared Saharawi Arab Democratic Republic is recognized  by more than fifty of nations, and yet they still suffer the most  extreme deprivations, unable to profit from the wealth stolen from their  ancestral lands.

Sirocco: Winds of Resistance  is a Canadian-made film about the role Canada plays in the colonization  of Western Sahara and how that effects the lives of two Saharawi women  and their grandmothers. The BC premier will screen next Friday,  September 28th at Cafe Simpatico, 1923 Fernwood Rd.

Terry Wolfwood is Director and co-founder of the Barnard-Boecker Centre Foundation, and a writer, photographer, and long-time activist who has traveled to Western Sahara,  and documented the plight of the people there. Her articles and  pictures have appeared at Briarpatch, Peace News, and Third World  Resurgence among other places, and at the BBCF.ca website.

 Terry Wolfwood in the first half.

And; whether the Panic of 1907, Wall Street Crash of 1929, or the  recently remembered, Financial Crisis of 2008, Autumn has historically  been unkind to market capitalists. While those cyclical reversals, or  “haircuts”, visited through the vagaries of the stock market on  investors may be mere “bumps in the road” for the monied class, for the  rest of us those crashes can mean life-altering disaster. So why then do  we abide this financial catastrophe creating system continue; is there  no other way!?

The folk behind the 13th Annual Victoria Anarchist Bookfair think  there is, and as ever their Bookfair presents workshops and speakers on a  wide range of topics. The collective says, “We seek to challenge  colonial attitudes, introduce anarchism to the public, foster dialogue  between various political traditions, and create radical, inclusive,  anti-oppressive spaces.”

Jon Valentine is a long-time volunteer with the Victoria chapter of Food Not Bombs, members of the 13th Anarchist Bookfair  collective, kicking off this weekend in Fernwood at 1240 Gladstone. Jon  is too a dedicated social activist and two-time Victoria candidate for  City Council.

Jon Valentine and a festival of anarchy in Fernwood in the second half.

And; Victoria horticulturalist and greentrepreneur extraordinaire, Christina Nikolic at the bottom of the hour with the Left Coast Events Bulletin  of some of the good things to get up to in and around our town in the  coming week. But first, Terry Wolfwood and Western Sahara’s winds of  resistance.

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/

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The focus of its interest this time is in Idlib province, where  previously defeated fighters were allowed by the Syrian Arab Army to  flee.

As it has in the past, the press is propagating an “Assad chemical  weapons attack” narrative, used once in East Ghouta to unsuccessfully  fool president Obama into escalation, and again in Khan Sheikoun, prompting president Trump into a retaliatory cruise missile barrage, (ostensibly to protect Syrian civilians).

The truth though is, the war fomented and fueled by Trump’s  predecessor has always been about regime change, and that failed effort  remains the impetus behind all the American coalition’s actions so far,  and whichever others are to come.

Roger Annis is a longtime  socialist and trade union activist. He’s a prolific essayist, whose  website, A Socialist in Canada covers a broad swath of topics and issues  from a social justice and peace perspective. He’s followed western regime change efforts in Ukraine, Venezuela, and Syria and contends, when it comes to foreign affairs, whether Trudeau, or Trump, May or Macron, the policies are indistinguishable.

Roger Annis in the first half.

And; those following the career of Donald Trump’s National Security Advisor, John Bolton will be unsurprised by his recent threats against and disparagement of the International Criminal Court.  But the vitriol of his attack, with its denial of allowing US soldiers  answer for alleged torture and other war crimes committed in  Afghanistan, and denunciation of efforts by Palestine to get the ICC to  indict Israel for its crimes against civilians is instructive; touching  as it does the rawest of the New American Century’s nerves,  exceptionalism.

David Swanson is a peace and political justice activist, journalist, radio host, and author. He’s also director of WorldBeyondWar.org whose annual confab Designing a World Beyond War: Legalizing Peace  kicks off this week in Toronto. David’s book titles include: ‘War No  More: The Case for Abolition,’ ‘When the World Outlawed War,’ ‘War Is a  Lie,’ and ‘The Military Industrial complex at 50’ among others.

You can find out more at: #NoWar2018. David also blogs at Let’s Try Democracy (DavidSwanson.org), WarIsACrime.org, and hosts the public affairs program, Talk Nation Radio.

David Swanson and designing a World beyond war in the second half.

And; Victoria-based activist and CFUV Radio broadcaster at-large, Janine Bandcroft  will be here at the bottom of the hour with the Left Coast Events  Bulletin of some of the good things to gotten up to in and around our  town in the coming week. But first, Roger Annis and the accelerating  pressures on regimes still resisting “change.”

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/

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

That “path” to which the Ambassador refers in other quarters is  called national sovereignty and self-determination; something anathema  to the United States now in Nicaragua, as it has been, as Haley reminds,  in Venezuela, a country currently suffering a vicious financial  sanctions attack, and in Syria, a place America has done its utmost to  destroy, and even now occupies militarily.

But it’s not just hawks like Nikki Haley gunning for Nicaragua; in a cunning bit of wordplay, Leila Swan of Human Rights Watch  slays two recalcitrant Latin American birds in one sentence saying,  “It’s hard not to think about the early stages of Venezuela’s crisis  while watching the brutal crackdown unfolding in Nicaragua.” So what’s  really going on?

Daniel Kovalik is a human rights lawyer, essayist, and author who’s new book, ‘The Plot to Attack Iran: How the CIA and the Deep State Have Conspired to Vilify Iran’ joins last year’s ‘The Plot to Scapegoat Russia: How the CIA and the Deep State Have Conspired to Vilify Putin’ in what could become a franchised chronicle of perfidy in high places.

Dan Kovalik in the first half.

And;  Britain’s prime minister addressed the nation’s Parliament yesterday  saying she had solved the Skripal poisoning case. Her accompanying  presentation featured photos and maps and other visual aids, but  contained little a prosecutor could use to justify charges being  brought, let alone the actual evidence needed in court to secure a  conviction. But no matter, the case is meant to tried in the court of  public opinion, an arena Theresa May is desperate to “court” these days.

John Helmer is a long-time,  Moscow-based journalist, author, and essayist whose website, Dances with  Bears is the only Russian-based news bureau “independent of single  national or commercial ties.” He’s also a former political science  professor who’s served as advisor to governments on three continents,  and regularly lectures on Russian topics.

Helmer’s book titles include: ‘Uncovering Russia,’ ‘Urbanman: The  Psychology of Urban Survival,’ ‘Bringing the War Home: The American  Soldier in Vietnam and After,’ and ‘Drugs and Minority Oppression’,  among others. His latest article, ‘The New Allegations in the Skripal Case and the Standard of Proof‘ takes aim at the latest media muddling of the Skripal case.

John Helmer and trying days for England’s Queen of Hearts in the second half.

And; Victoria-based activist and CFUV Radio broadcaster at-large, 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, Daniel Kovalik and the plot to  attack Nicaragua and vilify Daniel Ortega.

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/

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

They and their co-litigants argue, not only did the government of  Canada fail to fulfill its mandated duty to provide ‘meaningful  consultation’ before allowing a major project affecting First Nations  lands and/or the Peoples’ ability to pursue their treaty guaranteed way  of life, but the project too threatens Pacific Salmon and the endangered  Southern Resident Orca.

It’s an “important decision” that will be “watched very closely” says Will George, of the (Slay-wah-tuth) Tsleil-Waututh First Nation;  but the fact the federal government bought out Kinder Morgan, and the  Prime Minister has promised the pipeline will be completed leaves little  drama as to which way the Federal Court’s decision is likely to go; in  case there ever was a doubt.

Dahr Jamail is a Truthout  staff reporter and author of the books, ‘The Will to Resist: Soldiers  Who Refuse to Fight in Iraq and Afghanistan’, ‘Beyond the Green Zone:  Dispatches From an Unembedded Journalist in Occupied Iraq’, and, with  William Rivers Pitt, ‘The Mass Destruction of Iraq: Why It Is Happening,  and Who Is Responsible’. Dahr’s latest article at Truthout is, ‘For Native Americans, History Continues to Repeat Itself‘.

Dahr Jamail in the first half.

And; it’s the Summer of Fire here in BC; just like last year, and the  year before, and next year we can expect the same. Because of these  fires, my second guest reminds, British Columbia has become a larger emitter of green house gases than our Mordor-like neighbour, Alberta. Think on that a moment.

Ingmar Lee is a long-time,  BC-based environment defender. From the Nanaimo watershed and  first-growth valley bottoms of Vancouver Island, to Cathedral Grove and  the threatened Sandhill Crane nesting grounds of British Columbia’s  mid-coast, Ingmar has advocated for and stood between an increasingly  fragile ecosystem and big business and its government enablers.

He says, like in Alberta where “thou shalt not criticize, nor  recognize the tar sands guest contribution to the global climate change  emergency”, here in BC the mantra is, “thou shalt not criticize, nor  recognize the significant and direct responsibility of voracious  industrial logging to rampant, cataclysmic forest fires.”

Ingmar Lee and BC: Land of Smoke and Gases in the second half.

And; Victoria-based activist and CFUV Radio broadcaster at-large,  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 past  as present and prologue for First Nations across Turtle Island.

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/

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Few though realize that calf represents more than merely a mother’s  profound grief for the life of a child lost, but also serves as  bellwether for a population on the brink of collapse.

The Southern Resident Orca of the Salish Sea are in desperate  straits. Squeezed between the pressures of multiple industry needs and  the undersea cacophony of the increasingly hectic human presence on the  surface, the whales are starving before our eyes. The Canadian Orca Rescue Society is determined to forestall that eventuality, but they can’t do it alone.

So, they’ve launched an Orca Food Drive to fund the Four Mile Creek Hatchery in Port Renfrew.

Since its inception, the hatchery has, with help from the Department  of Fisheries and Oceans, released more than 40 million Chinook Salmon,  the Orca’s primary food, into the San Juan River; but the DFO has now  cut them loose.

Gregg McElroy is  with the Canadian Orca Rescue Society. The long-time environmental  frontline activist says something must be done, and done now to save the  Southern Resident Orca and their habitat.

Gregg McElroy in the first half.

And; summer forest fires may be usual here, but for those who’ve  lived in British Columbia any length of time, these last few years are certainly not normal.  Smoke, following the pipeline route from “Pacific tide-water” all the  way back across the Rockies to Tar Sands HQ in Calgary is the hallmark  of this year’s season, and may be the name of every one from now on. The  more mystic of us may interpret the choking haze as an ominous sign; a  warning we incessant burners of oil, gas, coal, and wood ignore to our  peril.

Dr. Stephanie von Dehn is with the Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment. CAPE has been at the fore of the Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain debate, its members putting themselves on the line at the frontlines of blockades meant to stop the pipeline expansion.

Stephanie was herself arrested last May, the very day our federal  government announced it would buy out Kinder Morgan and promised  completion of the contentious project. Today, as the cities and towns  across the western reaches of the continent lay under a smoky pall, the climate change connections have surely become too apparent to deny; or have they?

Dr. Stephanie von Dehn and dark days come to B.C. in the second half.

And; Victoria-based activist and CFUV Radio broadcaster at-large,  Janine Bandcroft will be here at the bottom of the hour with the Left  Coast Events Bulletin of some of the good things to get up to in and  around our town for the coming week. But first, Gregg McElroy and whales  for the feeding.

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/

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Essentially, we have busily beavered away, allowing “defense” contracts precipitating the outrages visited on the people there.

In 2016, I spoke with Canadian academic, Anthony Fenton  about Canada’s deals with the Saudi’s. Anthony is an independent  researcher, former journalist, author, and PhD candidate studying the  political economy of Canada-Gulf Cooperation Council, or GCC relations.

His many articles have been featured by the Asia Times Online, The  Dominion, Foreign Policy in Focus, Inter Press Service News, Mother  Jones, and Upside Down World, and he co-authored, with Yves Engler,  ‘Canada in Haiti: Waging War on the Poor Majority’.

Anthony Fenton in the first half.

And; Monday the National Police of Haiti announced the launch of the  operation ‘Boukle Lari a’, whose stated mission is “to ensure the safety  of the population and tourists…”. The PNH promise it’s temporary,  designed just to extend through the “last two weeks of the summer  season”, but recent political unrest in the city may be more behind the  action, which includes nighttime curfews, than protecting visitors to  the Caribbean island nation.

A cynic might even surmise, it all has more to do with the increasingly popular disenchantment with President Jovenel Moïse and his young administration’s rule.

Kim Ives is the founding editor of Haiti Liberté, a weekly newspaper published in French, Kreyol, and English. He also hosts, with Marquez Osson, the WBAI Radio broad/webcast Haitian news program, Lanbi, named for the conch shell used to rally freedom-fighting enslaved Africans in Haiti.

Kim Ives and a volcanic explosion of anger and violence building in Haiti in the second half.

And; Victoria-based activist and CFUV Radio broadcaster at-large,  Janine Bandcroft will be here at the bottom of the hour with the Left  Coast Events Bulletin and some of the good things to be gotten up to in  and around our town in the coming week. But first, Anthony Fenton and  Canada’s enabling of Saudi Arabia’s Long War in Yemen. 

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/

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Dr. Will Tuttle is a  visionary speaker, educator, musician, editor of Circles of Compassion,  and author of the books, ‘Your Inner Islands’ and ‘The World Peace  Diet’, which the former Zen monk and long-time vegan says provides an  approach to life that, “blends mindfulness with kindness and respect for  each other and all expressions of life.”

Dr. Tuttle will be in Victoria for a number of events  beginning August 20th, including presenting workshops based on his book  that address and, “make explicit the hidden connections between our  culture, our food, and the source of our broad range of problems…”

Will Tuttle in the first half.

And; the peace enjoyed by the people of Nicaragua since the overthrow  of dictator and tyrant Anastasio “Tachito” Somoza was hard-won, and not  without reversals. In the last months, an attempt to unseat the elected  government of leftist, Daniel Ortega however has seen what many fear  could be the beginning of the end of that peace, and revival of the dark forces of fascism once buried, perhaps too shallowly, there.

Kevin Zeese  is an American lawyer, political activist, essayist, and author. He’s  also co-founder of the Drug Policy Foundation and current co-director of  Popular Resistance.org, from where his and colleague, Dr. Margaret Flowers’ weekly podcast, Clearing The Fog emanates.

His frequent essays and articles on social justice issues in America and abroad appear at Popular Resistance, CounterPunch,  and Gorilla Radio Blog among other places, and his book titles include:  ‘Drug Law: Strategies and Tactics’, ‘Drug Prohibition an the Conscience  of Nations’, and ‘The Great Issues of Drug Policy’.

Kevin Zeese and the Lessons Learned from the Failed Violent Coup in Nicaragua in the second half.

And; Victoria activist and CFUV Radio broadcaster at-large, Janine  Bandcroft will be here with the Left Coast Events Bulletin of some of  the good things to get up to in and around our town in the coming week.  But first, Will Tuttle and a World of Peace on your plate.

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/

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Injuries are reported, but nothing like the murderous assault  suffered by the Turkish flagged, Mavi Marmara, engaged in a similar  attempt at penetrating Israel’s naval blockade in 2010.

Then, ten of the activist aboard were murdered by commandos. I spoke to Canadian photo-journalist, Jon Elmer the day of the Mavi Marmara attack*; he was in the West Bank.

Jon Elmer in the first half.

And; George Orwell famously described the battle for a remembering of  crimes committed by society’s overlords as the Memory War. Today, the  reality of wars occurring around the planet seem too removed from the  consciousness of the World’s most powerful and belligerent nations to  illicit the universal outrage and action required of their citizens to  end them. We have it seems lost the memory war, and perhaps too  surrendered our collective conscience.

This week coming offers another chance; it marks the annual  remembrance of the 1945 atomic destruction of the Japanese cities of  Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The Women in Black will hold their annual vigil  in remembrance of Hiroshima-Nagasaki this Tuesday, August 7 at high noon  below the tourist information office across from the Empress Hotel.

Terry Wolfwood is Director and co-founder of the Barnard-Boecker Centre Foundation,  and a writer, photographer, and long-time activist who has traveled  from the highlands of Mexico to the gates of Gaza and beyond in pursuit  of peace, social justice, and women’s rights. Her articles have appeared  at Briarpatch, Peace News, and Third World Resurgence among other  places, and she’s the local coordinator for Victoria’s Women in Black.

Terry Wolfwood and the power of remembering in the second half.

And; Victoria-based activist and CFUV Radio broadcaster at-large,  Janine Bandcroft will be here at the bottom of the hour with the Left  Coast Events Bulletin of some of the good things to get up to in and  around our town for the coming week. But first, Jon Elmer and the deadly  2010 taking of the humanitarian relief ship, Mavi Marmara.

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/

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Though Canada’s minister of foreign affairs says she supports the group whole-heartedly, critics charge the Syria Civil Defence or White Helmets “humanitarian workers” work with and are intrinsically allied to al Qaeda, primarily through its Syria-based spin-off Jabhat Al-Nusra.

Eva Bartlett is an independent Canadian journalist and activist who has lived in and reported from Gaza and Syria over the last decade.

She has been one of the few Western witnesses of the destruction of war  from where Western missiles and bombs land, and one of even fewer to  fix properly the responsibility on those firing and dropping them. Eva  is recently returned from her eighth foray into Syria.

Eva Bartlett in the first half.

And; buoyed perhaps by his early days North Korean diplomatic  success, Donald Trump has again resorted to Twitter to launch a  bellicose attack against Iran, making, as he did against Kim Jong Un,  thinly veiled threats of nuclear annihilation. But, Iran is not Korea,  and in the context of a middle east already aflame, the American  president may be painting himself into a corner leading to yet another  war.

David Swanson is a  peace and political justice activist, journalist, radio host, and  author whose book titles include: ‘War No More: The Case for Abolition,’  ‘When the World Outlawed War,’ ‘War Is a Lie,’ and ‘The Military  Industrial Complex at 50’ among others. He’s director of WorldBeyondWar.org whose annual confab Designing a World Beyond War: Legalizing Peace takes place in Toronto this September. Find out more at: #NoWar2018. David also blogs at Let’s Try Democracy (DavidSwanson.org), WarIsACrime.org, and hosts the public affairs program, Talk Nation Radio.

David Swanson and getting beyond war in the second half.

And; Victoria-based activist and CFUV Radio broadcaster at-large,  Janine Bandcroft will be here at the bottom of the hour with the Left  Coast Events Bulletin of some of the good things to get up to in and  around our town in the coming week. But first, Eva Bartlett and the  White Helmets Canada-bound.

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/

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In times of yore the olive branch was extended to ones enemy as a sign of good faith; and today, Palestine Peace Awareness Inc, the Canadian non-profit organization known colloquially as “Zatoun” is doing just that.

Zatoun hopes, they say, to transcend the abstract, geopolitical  context of the Palestine-Israel situation, focusing instead on people  and the ordinary, everyday lives they must lead.

Robert Massoud  is a Palestinian-Canadian whose family immigrated to Canada when he was  a child. He is the founder of Zatoun, an organization which imports  fair trade Olive Oil from the West Bank to provide market opportunities  for Palestinian goods, and works to bring a more accurate representation  of life in Palestine.

Robert Massoud in the first half.

And; last week Justin Trudeau announced more Canadian troops would be sent to war ravaged Iraq. This adds to a growing global Canadian military  presence. Whether “training” missions in Ukraine, or participating in  Joint Task Forces like the one in Iraq, Canadian Forces are no longer  the Pearsonian Peacekeepers of old. Today there are myriad “operations”  in theatres from Fiji to Latvia, and now too a return to Africa with Operation PRESENCE in Mali.

Yves Engler is a Montréal-based  activist, essayist, and author. His articles appear at Dissident Voice,  The Palestine Chronicle, Rabble.ca, and Pacific Free Press among other  places. Some of his nine book titles include: ‘A Propaganda System—How  Canada’s Government, Corporations, Media and Academia Sell War and  Exploitation’, ‘Canada in Africa — 300 Years of Aid and Exploitation’,  and ‘The Ugly Canadian — Stephen Harper’s Foreign Policy’.

Yves Engler in the second half.

And; Victoria-based activist and CFUV Radio broadcaster at-large,  Janine Bandcroft will be here at the bottom of the hour with the Left  Coast Events Bulletin highlighting some of the good things to be gotten  up to in and around our town in the coming week. But first, Robert  Massoud and olives for peace in Palestine.

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/

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Benjamin Netanyahu’s proclamation comes following four months of  weekly Palestinian protest at the barbed wire and earthen berm barrier  near Khan Younis, where Israel has responded with a live bullet, open fire policy killing so far more than a hundred and fifty people, (including children, medics, and journalists) and maiming thousands.

The Israeli prime minister said the Kerem Shalom closure was part of a promise to redouble his efforts to “deal with Hamas with a heavier hand.”

Professor Gregory Shupak  is an educator, author, and essayist. Holding a doctorate in Literary  Studies, Greg teaches Media Studies at the University of Guelph in  Toronto. His analyses of politics and media appear across a variety of  outlets online, including: Jacobin Magazine, Electronic Intifada, In These Times, Middle East Eye, TeleSUR, and at Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting among other places.

His first book, ‘The Wrong Story: Palestine, Israel, and the Media‘ is newly released by OR books, who say it, “[L]ays bare the flaws in the way large media organizations present the Palestine–Israel issue… [revealing] …major fallacies in the fundamental conceptions that underpin their coverage…”

Greg Shupak in the first half.

And; as British Columbia’s Site C Dam project  bungles along, critics who fought against it, and who’s hopes the  incoming government would kill it were cruelly dashed by John Horgan’s  NDP, have not yet begun to give up fighting. They are legion, and their arguments against Site C cite its environmental, economic, constitutional, and geological failures.

Site C Action & Accountability for a dam site too far in the second half.

And; Victoria-based activist and CFUV Radio broadcaster at-large,  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, Greg Shupak and  getting the Wrong Story on Palestine right.

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/

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Crisis  and opportunity are, as the ancient Chinese philosophers knew, opposite  sides of the same koan. It is, they say, the attitude governing our  reaction to the matter at hand ultimately determining the path we choose  and outcomes that follow.

By those calculations, right now we are at a very opportune moment in  history; a moment that will determine not just what kind of future  we’ll have, but if there is to be a future at all.

It seems our species’ irresistible cleverness has at last met the  immovable environmental reality of existence within the finite context  of living on a small orb in space, and how we deal with this imminent  crisis/opportunity is the question of the age.

Joel Gregory Hayes is  scientific technician and adventurer currently embarked on a journey to  create and prove a new solar charged Electric Vehicle, or SEV.  It is his and his partners’ plan to engineer and pilot their vehicle  between the north tip and southern reaches of the Americas.

Joel Gregory Hayes in the first half.

And; as the small informs the large, so too the way we live our  little lives can have great effects on the broader World. Here in our  green and pleasant Victoria we are seeing a drastic diminishment  of not only what little remains of the wild spaces once surrounding us,  but the parks, urban forest, and rural spaces closer to home too; all  sacrificed for industry, and a real estate business booming out of control.

Nowhere is the loss more evident than in Saanich, a jurisdiction  blessed with all these attributes, and where the latest facing the  developer’s axe is the as yet unrecognized, Kings Road Park.

Nathalie Chambers is an  organic farmer, business owner, progressive community leader,  fundraiser, project manager, public speaker on biodiversity and local  food security, author of the book, ‘Saving Farmland: The Fight for Real  Food,’ and past candidate for Saanich council.

Nathalie Chambers and the fight of our lives; saving Saanich, one green space at a time in the second half. 

And; Victoria-based activist and CFUV Radio broadcaster at-large, 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 around our  town in the coming week. But first, Joel Gregory Hayes and SEV for the  Americas.

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/

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

‘Metamorphosis‘ is the newly released documentary film by collaborators Velcrow Ripper and Nova Ami.  Innovative and artistic, beautiful and terrifying, the film navigates  the current of climate change as it ebbs and flows, creating new  realities across the planet.

Metamorphosis opens across Canada this month, and its Victoria debut  is at UVic’s Cinecenta theatre this Sunday and Monday, June 24th and  25th.

Nova Ami and Velcrow Ripper in the first half.

And; even as immigration policies create a political furore in the  United States, nightly newscasts rarely explore the roots of the Central  American refugee crisis. Whether in Honduras, El Salvador, or  Guatemala, the situation is so dire people are willing to risk  everything; their lives, and their children’s lives, to escape.

Wendy Mendez is a human rights activist, educator, petitioner in Guatemala’s Military Diary case, and co-founder of HIJOS Guatemala, Sons and Daughters of the Disappeared.

Wendy joins a special Cafe Simpatico evening next Wednesday, June 27th to screen filmmaker, Claudio Zulian’s documentary, ‘Sin Miedo‘.

 Wendy Mendez and the persistent struggle for justice in Guatemala in the second half.

And; Victoria-based activist and CFUV Radio broadcaster at-large,  Janine Bandcroft will be here at the bottom of the hour with the Left  Coast Events Bulletin of some of the good things to get up to in and  around our town in the coming week.

But first, Velcrow Ripper and Nova Ami confronting a global Metamorphosis.

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/

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

But, even before Justin “Crudeau” made his Faustian bargain, federal  agencies were already deployed at the service of the now outgoing  Texans, arresting scores of citizens standing in the way of its  pipeline’s progress using “injunctions” granted by BC’s own judiciary.

Betty Krawczyk knows more than most about being arrested.  The activist, essayist, Green and Work Less Party candidate, and author  renowned in BC as the “Environmental Grandmother”, has proven sand in  the machine of social injustice and ecological destruction for more than  fifty years.

From the front lines of the anti-segregation movement in her native  Louisiana and resisting America’s war against Vietnam, to the forests of  Clayoquot Sound and highway expansion through Eagleridge Bluffs, Betty has stood defiant in the face of bad laws and the systems perpetuating them.

Her book titles  include: ‘Clayoquot: The Sound of My Heart’, ‘Lock Me Up Or Let Me Go:  The Protests, Arrest and Trial of an Environmental Activist’, ‘Open  Living Confidential: From Inside the Joint.’, ‘This Dangerous Place: My  Journey Between the Passions of the Living and the Dead’, and ‘Betty,  Blue Belle and Bitch’, and she blogs from her site, Betty’s Early  Edition.Blogspot.com

Betty Krawczyk in the first half.

And; last week Mariano Rajoy, Spain’s controversial, and confrontational, Prime Minister was unceremoniously drubbed from office in a vote of no confidence.  The leader of the People’s Party had taken a hard line against  separatists in Catalonia, but corruption, more than Rajoy’s ham-handed  response to the Catalan constitutional crisis, is responsible for his sudden and dramatic fall from grace.

Dr. Pablo Ouziel is a Post-Doctoral fellow at UVic whose project in  progress is, ‘Towards Democratic Responses to the Crisis of Democracy in  Spain: Forms of Participatory and Representative Civic Engagement.’

Pablo Ouziel and an upside down Spain in the second segment.

And; Victoria greentrepreneur and horticulturalist extraordinaire, Christina Nikolic  will be here at the bottom of the hour with the Left Coast Events  Bulletin of some of the good things to get up to in and around our town  in the coming week. But first, Betty Krawczyk and girding our legal  loins for B.C.’s Great Pipeline 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: 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/

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The incumbent political heir to the late Hugo Chávez  won decisively, garnering more than two-thirds of the popular vote; his next closest rival, former Chavista Henri Falcón, managing just less than 2 million votes, or about 21 per cent.

Despite the landslide victory and endorsement of the internationals, the United States and European Union still find fault with the electoral system former American president, Jimmy Carter has called “the best in the world.”

The self-declared champions of global democracy called Maduro a “dictator” before the poll, vowing they would not recognize his legitimacy, and now that he’s won, say they will make good on promises made to ratchet up already-crippling economic sanctions; a collective punishment for the people’s temerity in returning a Bolivarian government.

Dr. Alan MacLeod is an educator, essayist, author, and proud member of Scotland’s Glasgow University Media Group.  A sociologist by training, MacLeod’s research interests include media  theory, propaganda, social media and South American politics. Alan’s  book, ‘Bad News From Venezuela, 20 Years of Fake News and Misreporting‘ is freshly off the Routledge Press presses, and his articles appear at CounterPunch.org and FAIR.org, where I found his prescient piece, ‘Writing Off Democracy in Venezuela, US Press and Politicians Dream of a Coup‘.

Alan MacLeod in the first half.

And; it’s a tale Dickens would not have told better: Two countries  who could not be geographically nearer, and yet whose leadership are  philosophically light years apart. Colombia held presidential elections  in May too, but unlike neighbour Venezuela, Colombia has been captured  by a ruling oligarchy who ruthlessly serve the same transnational  interests currently marauding the World.

Daniel Kovalik is a human rights lawyer, essayist, and author who’s book, ‘The Plot to Scapegoat Russia: How the CIA and the Deep State Have Conspired to Vilify Putin’  could add a new chapter by the week, even a year after publication. Dan  was one of the hundreds of international observors to the Venezuelan  election, and one of the many fewer to carry on from Caracas to also witness Colombia’s vote last weekend.

Dan Kovalik and a tale of two democracies in the second half.

And; Victoria-based activist and CFUV Radio broadcaster-at large, Janine Bandcroft  will be here at the bottom of the hour with the Left Coast Events  Bulletin of some of the good things to get up to in and around our city  in the coming week. But first, Alan MacLeod and first the verdict, then  the vote: Writing Off Democracy in Venezuela.

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/

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Maybe that explains why Justin Trudeau’s Liberals have waded into the debate, saying the federal government will underwrite the pipeline should Kinder Morgan follow through with its implicit threat to quit in the face of implacable opposition.

But, the Liberals aren’t the only ones supporting Kinder.

Gerard Di Trolio  is a Toronto-based writer specializing in Canadian labour and political  issues. He also serves as an editor to the labour website, RankandFile.ca. His recent article, ‘The NDP’s Oil Problem‘  appears online at JacobinMag.com and puts that party’s would-be  environmental ducks in the middle of the tar pond pipeline muck.

Gerard Di Trolio in the first half.

And; Israel’s blatant disregard for Palestinian life, as witnessed over the course of the so far seven weeks-long Great March of Return demonstrations in Gaza, has drawn calls for an accounting finally of that country’s criminal actions. Reaction in Canada has been muted across party lines, much to the frustration of grass roots activists within the New Democratic Party who want to see their new leader take a stand on the Palestine issue.

Yves Engler is a Montréal-based  activist, lecturer, and author whose book titles include: ‘The Ugly  Canadian — Stephen Harper’s Foreign Policy,’ ‘Lester Pearson’s  Peacekeeping — The Truth May Hurt,’ ‘The Black Book of Canadian Foreign  Policy,’ ‘Canada in Africa — 300 Years of Aid and Exploitation,’ and his  latest, ‘A Propaganda System: How Canada’s Government, Corporations,  Media and Academia Sell War and Exploitation.’

Yves recently wrote an anticipatory article about the NDP convention, ‘Burying Canada’s Anti-Palestinian Consensus‘,  and attended to see which way the new NDP’s winds would blow on  Palestine. He’s now joined a growing clamour demanding the party’s  withdrawal from the Canada-Israel Interparliamentary Group.

Yves Engler in the second half.

And; Victoria-based greentrepreneur and horticulturalist  extraordinaire, Christina Nikolic will be here at the bottom of the hour  with the Left Coast Events Bulletin, bringing us up to speed with some  of the good things going on in and around our town in the coming week.  But first, Gerard Di Trolio and the NDP’s oil problem.

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/

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Next month, the Trump show is on the road to Singapore and there, with Kim Jong Un as featured performer, the great ringmaster plans to undo the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea right before our eyes! Or something like that.

The skeptics though are out in force, none more prominently than those in the Pentagon who, according to my first guest, are doing what they can to make sure peace in the Pacific doesn’t break out anytime soon.

Peter Lee  is a freelance journalist writing on East and South Asian affairs as  they intersect US global policy. He blogs at the Asian affairs website China Matters, and his China Watch report features on Newsbud.com.

 Peter Lee in the first half.

And; every time the prospect of an end to the seven years-long  nightmare endured by the people of Syria rises the pernicious Bashar  al-Assad launches a gas attack against his own citizens. Or so the  Western press narrative of events unfolded in that benighted country  would have us believe. Others believe these so-called gas attacks,  inscrutably committed by Assad when they do his government the most  damage, are actually false flag attacks staged to justify retaliation like Donald Trump’s recent rocket attacks, and designed to perpetuate the conflict there.

Whitney Webb  is a South America-based journalist writing about environmental,  political, and economic issues in English and Spanish. She’s a staff  writer at MintPressNews.com, and  her articles have featured at ZeroHedge, 21st Century Wire, and Pacific  Free Press among other places. Her recent article for MintPress, ‘Prediction of New False-Flag Gas Attack in Syria Seems to Fit US Escalation Plans‘ warns of another such attempt.

Whitney Webb and a war not allowed to end in the second half.

And; Victoria-based activist and CFUV Radio broadcaster at-large, Janine Bandcroft  will be here at the bottom of the hour with the Left Coast Events  Bulletin of some of the good things going on in and around our town in  the coming week. But first, Peter Lee and Trump’s pivot to Asia.

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/

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Though the Western press routinely dismisses Ukrainian resistance to  Poroshenko as “pro-Russian”, portraying the military conflict in the  country as Putin’s proxy war of annexation, less mentioned is the role  the United States and its European allies played in both the overthrow  of the democratically elected Yanukovych government or their continued support of ongoing hostilities.

Roger Annis is a longtime socialist and trade union activist. He’s a prolific essayist, whose website, A Socialist in Canada  covers a broad swath of topics and issues from a social justice and  peace perspective. He’s followed events in Ukraine since 2014, and  visited Crimea to see firsthand what the coup has meant for the people  there.

Roger Annis in the first half.

And; last weekend, another UN General Assembly declared World Press Freedom Day  passed without a word being spoken in that august body in favour of the  release of journalist/prisoner, Julian Assange. The co-founder and face  of WikiLeaks has missed seven World Press Freedom Days confined on pain  of arrest and imprisonment should he venture out the door of Ecuador’s London embassy;  and though the UN says Britain’s promise of imprisonment against him is  arbitrary and has no standing in international law, Julian languishes  still. Notably absent too these last years is support from Assange’s  fourth estate colleagues; perhaps because Julian Assange and WikiLeaks  don’t fit neatly into traditional media’s mold.

Dr. Nozomi Hayase is a  columnist, essayist, and author whose writing and activism she says is,  “dedicated to liberation of all people”. Her articles on free speech,  transparency, and the vital role of whistleblowers in global society  appear at Counterpunch, CommonDreams, Dissident Voice, and Antiwar.com  among other places. Nozomi’s new book, ‘WikiLeaks, the Global Fourth Estate: History Is Happening‘, a compendium of her many articles on the topic, is available now online at her website, nozomihayase.com.

Nozomi Hayase and dispelling the distortions of what WikiLeaks is and does in the second half.

And; Victoria-based activist and CFUV Radio broadcaster at-large, Janine Bandcroft  will be here at the bottom of the hour with the Left Coast Events  Bulletin of some of the good things going on in and around our town in  the coming week. But first, Roger Annis and the papering over of western  complicity in Kyiv’s war against eastern Ukraine. 

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/

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The truth is plainer: Social order in Honduras has been brought to  the breaking point by the thieves who stole the government, (with the  blessing of Canada and the United States) and the failure of the  capitalist system – at least as practiced by Hernandez and his cohorts.

And, the evidence of that failure is both bleeding in the streets of  Tegucigalpa, and banging on America’s doors at Mexican crossings and  elsewhere.

Contrast the reportage of the growing riots in Honduras, that  followed years of peaceful pro-democracy demonstrations, with the recent  eruption of “Arab Spring-like”  manifestations in neighbouring Nicaragua. There, a leftist government  long a thorn in the imperial paw touched off a tax revolt after  announcing changes to the state pension plan – changes Sandinista  President, Manuel Ortega was quick to reverse, but to listen to the BBC,  CBC, and US corporate press, it sounds as though Satan himself has risen in Managua.

Daniel Kovalik is a human rights lawyer, essayist, and author who’s book, ‘The Plot to Scapegoat Russia: How the CIA and the Deep State Have Conspired to Vilify Putin’  is still fresh a year after publication. He teaches international human  rights law at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law, is Senior  Associate General Counsel for the United Steel Workers union, and is a  long-time peace and justice activist, focused especially on Colombia and Central America, where he serves as an attorney for Colombian plaintiffs in cases alleging corporate human rights violations. Dan is too a co-recipient of a Project Censored Award for chronicling the murder of trade unionists in Colombia.

Dan Kovalik in the first half.

And; while Palestinians continue to press for their rights in the  homeland they’ve watched being stolen for three generations and more,  their ‘Great March of Return’ in it’s fifth week now, has highlighted  the brutality of the Netanyahu regime. Every Friday hundreds of  demonstrators have been injured, many shot in the legs by snipers with  high velocity, live rounds. At least fifty are confirmed to have been  shot dead. Tomorrow is another Friday, and the desperately determined  people of Gaza will again go to the wall, emblem of their suffering, and  challenge Israel’s conscience.

In cities around the World, others have demonstrated in solidarity  for the Palestinian cause. I went down to where the Victoria chapter of  CAIA, Canadians Against Israeli Apartheid hold their weekly vigil  downtown after the second week of killings and talked to both CAIA and  pro-Israel counter-demonstrators.

Gaza and the Great March seen from a great distance in the second half.

And; Victoria-based activist and CFUV Radio broadcaster at-large, Janine Bandcroft, and greentrepreneur extraordinaire, Christina Nikolic  will be here in studio at the bottom of the hour with the Left Coast  Events Bulletin to bring us up to speed with some of the good things to  get up to in and around our town in the coming week. But first, Dan  Kovalik and troubling times bubbling over in Central America.

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/

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The rise of leftist governments in Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia, and  Sandinista reemergence in Nicaragua in the early years of this century  was hopeful. Even in Guatemala truth and reconciliation commissions were  established to acknowledge, if not punish, the genocidal horror visited  upon the Mayan majority.

But that short-lived hope is ending. The fascists are risen again in  Latin America, and Honduras is again in the middle of the nightmare.

Phil Little  is a former Catholic missionary, retired teacher, and for the last five  years has acted as “accompaniment” for social and human rights  activists in Honduras at risk because, as he says, “the theory [is] that  a person is less likely to be killed if accompanied by a foreigner,  preferably a gringo.” That belief proved tragically over-optimistic in  the case of murdered Honduran activist, Berta Cáceres  in 2016. Phil will be at Cafe Simpatico tomorrow night, 1923 Fernwood  Road, in the heart of Fernwood, with Kay Gimbel of CASC and MJAC, and  micro-economist, Bill Feyrer presenting ‘Honduras Today’.

Phil Little in the first half.

And; as Stephen Harper’s Canada was first among nations to recognize  and sign trade deals with the coup government of Honduras, so too has  his successor been quick to adopt militarism, leaping in support of the  recent bombing of Syria before it happened. But then, Justin Trudeau was  only acting in accordance with the new understanding of Canadian  values, as expressed by the Canadian Pension Plan. Your CPP long ago  decided to adopt the ruthless morays of corporate war profiteers; and,  you may be happy to know, the killing business has never been better.

Richard Sanders is founder and coordinator of Coalition to Oppose the Arms Trade  and serves as editor to COAT’s publication, Press for Conversion. COAT  cleaves to the quaint old notion war should not be regarded as a  profit-driver by government, or used as an investment vehicle for its citizen’s retirement fund.

Richard  Sanders and how the CPP helped Canadians profit from the US/UK/France  Air Strikes Against Syria, and will profit again the fires next time in  the second half.

And; Victoria-based activist and CFUV Radio broadcaster at-large, Janine Bandcroft  will be here at the bottom of the hour with the Left Coast Events  Bulletin and some of the good things to get up to around here for the  coming week. But first, Phil Little and matters of life and death in  Honduras, where corruption IS the operating system.

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/

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

But, as Wall Street celebrates the dazzling array of opportunities  presented by America’s military-investor complex, the recent blitzkrieg  over Syria may too have revealed dark clouds on the war-profiteering  horizon.

Apparently, some of those missiles didn’t make their targets. In fact, if reports are to be believed, two thirds of the nearly two million bucks a pop Tomahawks were intercepted; brought down by Syrian air defenses.

What does this mean for the future of the Anglo-American Axis powers’  war against the Middle East; and more importantly, what does it mean  for the continued effectiveness of America’s 21st century high-tech, high-explosive equivalent of ‘Gunboat Diplomacy’?

John Helmer is a long-time, Moscow-based journalist, author, and essayist whose website, Dances with Bears  is the only Russian-based news bureau “independent of single national  or commercial ties.” He’s also a former political science professor  who’s served as advisor to governments on three continents, and  regularly lectures on Russian topics. Helmer’s book titles include:  ‘Uncovering Russia,’ ‘Urbanman: The Psychology of Urban Survival,’  ‘Bringing the War Home: The American Soldier in Vietnam and After,’ and  ‘Drugs and Minority Oppression’, among others.

 John Helmer in the first half.

And; Victoria’s own Christopher Wylie might not have broken the  internet, but he’s certainly rocked it. The storm created by  whistleblowing revelations he’s made about his former bosses at  Cambridge Analytica and their “misappropriation” of Facebook client data  to use for nefarious political ends cast uber-geek billionaire Mark  Zuckerberg in a congressional hotseat, cost Facebook stock billions, and  put the issue of protecting the personal in a post-privacy world in the  middle of the media spotlight. But, is that all there is to the story?

Christopher Black  is a Toronto-based criminal lawyer best known for his involvement in a  number of high-profile, international war crimes cases. He’s also a poet,  essayist, novelist who’s new book, ‘Beneath the Clouds’ is just out.  Black’s articles on international law, politics and World events appear  at New Eastern Outlook among other places, and his latest, ‘The Chris Wylie Story: A NATO Psychological Operation?‘  shifts the focus of the scandal to Wylie’s unverified accusations  implicating Russian interference with Brexit and allegations of Vladimir  Putin’s influence in the election of Donald Trump.

Christopher Black and who exactly is Chris Wylie and what‘s his game? in the second half.

And; Victoria-based activist and CFUV Radio broadcaster at-large, Janine Bandcroft  will be here at the bottom of the hour to bring us up to speed with  some of what’s good going on in and around our town for the coming week.  But first, John Helmer and is the empire shooting blanks?

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/

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Primates of the Animal Protection Party of Canada and their allies have brought this year’s Animal Advocacy Camp  to Victoria to explore just that. The ACC takes place this April 14th  at Camosun College’s Gibson Auditorium and features a number of keynote  speakers covering a variety of topics. Tayler Zavitz is one of those and she’ll present, ‘Empathy as Terrorism? The Criminalization of Animal Activism in Canada’.

Tayler’s a PhD candidate at UVic’s Department of Sociology whose  research focus is the repression of animal activism and the  criminalization of dissent in Canada. She holds degrees in Political  Science and Critical Sociology, (with a focus on Critical Animal  Studies) and is a current student scholar with the brand new, Animals  & Society Research Initiative at the University of Victoria. She’s  also a reviewer for the Journal for Critical Animal Studies.

Tayler Zavitz in the first half.

And; Monday morning, missiles again flew into Syria, killing at least  seven and wounding scores more. Though they didn’t admit  responsibility, Israel is implicated. Merely the latest in a series of  unanswered military assaults on its neighbour, this latest comes at a  critical point in Syria’s long and bitter war.

Over the weekend, US president Donald Trump promised “action” in  response to an alleged chemical weapons attack against civilians in  Douma, the last stronghold of pro-jihadist groups in besieged Eastern  Ghouta. And, while Trump and his allies in NATO condemn without benefit  of investigation Bashar al-Assad’s government, Russia has issued its own  Red Line, saying should any Russians in Syria come under fire Moscow  will consider that an act of war.

Eva Bartlett is an independent Canadian journalist and activist  who has lived in and reported from Gaza and Syria over the last decade.  She has been one of the few Western witnesses of the destruction of war  from where the missiles and bombs land, and one of even fewer to fix  properly the responsibility on those firing and dropping them. Eva is  currently preparing for another foray into Syria, even as Washington’s war drum beats louder.

Eva Bartlett and back to Syria in the second half.

And; Victoria activist and CFUV Radio broadcaster at large, Janine Bandcroft  will be here at the bottom of the hour to bring us up to speed with  some of what’s good to do in and around our town in the coming week. But  first, Tayler Zavitz and meeting up with animals’ best friends at  Victoria’s Animal Advocacy Camp.

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/

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While being of particular relief to the friends and families of the  stricken, the recovery of the three provides too much needed diplomatic  space for a thus far vitriolic Prime Minister Theresa May to climb down  from her government’s vilification campaign  against Russia – at least long enough to ascertain why the Skripal’s  fell sick in the first place, and then determine the provenance, if any,  of alleged agents, chemical and otherwise involved.

After all, no-one wants to create an international incident of it – do they?

Michael Jabara Carley  is an author, educator, and essayist. A professor of history at the  Université de Montréal, his research and writing focuses on relations  between Russia, the USSR, and the “West”. His book titles include:  ‘Revolution and Intervention: The French Government and the Russian  Civil War, 1917-1919’, ‘1939: The Alliance That Never Was and the Coming  of World War II’, and his latest, ‘Silent Conflict: A Hidden History of  Early Soviet-Western Relations,’ and he’s in the process of writing a  book chronicling the “serendipitous” creation of the “Grand Alliance,”  key to the defeat of Hitler in World War II.

His articles can be found online at Voltaire Net.org, Global Research, and the Strategic Culture Foundation, where I discovered his article, ‘Why Canada Defends Ukrainian Fascism‘.

Michael Jabara Carley in the first half.

And; it’s said, “Success has many fathers, but failure is an orphan”  and no axiom fits more aptly the situation with Cannabis in Canada  today. While Johnnie-come-lately former police officials  and politicians join the boards of newly formed weed corporations,  hitching their wagons to the shooting star of profitability legal access  affords, the people who fought the law to help the sick watch on. But  not to be sidelined, in its 23rd year, the Vancouver Island Cannabis  Buyer’s Club is still going strong and ready to continue the fight for  truly unfettered access.

Ted Smith founded the Vancouver  Island Cannabis Buyer’s Club to provide cannabis-based products to  people with terminal and incurable medical conditions. He faced  harassment and arrest, and took his case all the way to Canada’s Supreme  Court – and won!

Ted Smith and Canada’s new legal understanding of cannabis in the second half.

And; long-time Victoria activist and CFUV Radio broadcaster at-large, Janine Bandcroft  will join us at the bottom of the hour to bring us up to speed with  some of what’s good to get up to in and around Victoria in the coming  week. But first, Michael Jabara Carley and stoking a hotter Cold War 2.0  with Russia.

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/

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

But the message was heard in cities across the United States and in  towns around the World, where a growing chorus against gun violence  inspired mass demos.

Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz is an  author, lecturer, educator and human rights activist. She’s currently on  tour promoting her latest book, ‘Loaded: A Disarming History of the  Second Amendment’.

Some of her other titles  include: ‘An Indigenous People’s History of the United States’, ‘The  Great Sioux Nation: Sitting in Judgment on America’, and the books of  her Memoir Trilogy, ‘Red Dirt’ ‘Blood on the Border’, and ‘Outlaw  Woman’.

Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz in the first segment.

And; in breaking news, Germany acted on a Spanish warrant for the arrest of Carles Puigdemont,  fugitive leader of Catalonia’s ruling separatist coalition Sunday. It’s  the latest development in the six months-long political battle for the  heart of Catalonia. Dr. Pablo Ouziel is a Post-Doctoral fellow at UVic  whose project in progress is, ‘Towards Democratic Responses to the  Crisis of Democracy in Spain: Forms of Participatory and Representative  Civic Engagement.’

Pablo Ouziel and the Spanish president’s latest Catalonia brain fit in the second segment.

And; Janine Bandcroft  will be here at the bottom of the hour with the Left Coast Events  bulletin to bring us up to speed with some of what’s good to do in and  around our town in the coming week. But first, Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz and  ‘Loaded: A Disarming History of the Second Amendment’.

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/

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

If you listen regularly, you already know, Janine and Christina bring  us the Left Coast Events Bulletin, your vital guide to some of the good  things to get up to in and around Victoria week in and week out.

Today we three together form the Lean Green Gorilla Radio Funding  Drive Money Raising Team – and we’ve got a beastly hunger for your  figurative banana dreams!!!!

See below for more…but suffice to say, you can begin by dialing 250-721-8700 NOW…CFUV’s ANNUAL Funding Drive is here!

It’s the most wonderful time of the year…. FUNDING DRIVE is here from March 16th-23rd!

Every year CFUV programs our hearts out to raise money for our beloved little radio station.

For this period of annual fundraising you can be sure to hear  captivating radio, live performances, and passionate volunteers over  CFUV’s airwaves. During Funding Drive, donations are taken in person or  over the phone so we can continue to do what we do best – making  innovative radio for Victoria and beyond!   Since 1984, CFUV has been a quintessential aspect to the Victoria  community, providing alternative airwaves for everyone on Vancouver  Island to connect with. Not only do we make unique radio, we teach  people how to program, we advocate for marginalized/unrepresented  voices, we provide accessible airwaves to those with disabilities, and  we contribute to the Victoria community by sponsoring shows, hosting  concerts, and supporting local. Whether it’s becoming a programmer for  your own radio show, creating podcasts, or just wanting to discover  great Canadian artists, CFUV aims to provide listeners and volunteers with a fresher and alternative form of radio broadcasting.  Donations received during Funding Drive go towards keeping what makes CFUV so  great, and continues to provide a space for students and Victoria  residents alike to come together and develop their creative talents.  This year’s Funding Drive will run from March 16th to the 23rd, so get PUMPED!  You can donate NOW at supportcfuv.ca ! 

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You may recall the shock and awe  of watching a nation blown to pieces LIVE on CNN; not in living colour,  but rather transmitted in the eerie iridescence of infrared night  vision?

Despite serial declarations to the contrary, the “operation” in Iraq  never really was accomplished and fifteen years later the country, with  its cities in shambles, millions killed, maimed, or driven into exile  is, like fellow invadee Afghanistan, still a chaos; is still at war.

David Swanson is a peace and  political justice activist, journalist, radio host, and author whose  book titles include: ‘War No More: The Case for Abolition,’ ‘When the  World Outlawed War,’ ‘War Is a Lie,’ and ‘The Military Industrial  Complex at 50’ among others. He’s director of WorldBeyondWar.org, blogs at Let’s Try Democracy (DavidSwanson.org) and WarIsACrime.org, and hosts the public affairs program, Talk Nation Radio.

David Swanson in the first half.

And; as though tensions between the World’s nuclear titans weren’t taut enough, a bizarre alleged poisoning in Britain has Western fingers pointing again at a Russian conspiracy. Former spy and exile, Sergei Skripal and his daughter, Yulia were discovered collapsed on a Salisbury park bench a week past Sunday last.

Though the pair have not been seen or heard from outside of hospital since, authorities claim they were poisoned with Novichok, a nerve agent believed once to be part of the USSR’s chemical arsenal. Now, British prime minister, Theresa May says, “Putin did it!” But what she won’t, or perhaps can’t say is, why.

John Helmer is a Moscow-based journalist and author. His latest article, ‘Fourteen and a Half Certainties in the Case of Sergei Skripal‘ is up now at his website, Dances with Bears.

John Helmer and uncertain certainties in the second half.

And; Victoria-based activist and CFUV Radio broadcaster at-large, Janine Bandcroft  will be here at the bottom of the hour with the Left Coast Events  Bulletin. But first, David Swanson and the enduring legacy of war in  Iraq and beyond.

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/

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Natalie Boll  is an award-winning filmmaker whose work has garnered accolades in this  country and abroad. She and collaborator, LaTiesha Fazakas wrote,  produced, directed, and are now distributing the film that most recently  featured at both the Victoria International and Salt Spring Island Film  Festivals.

Natalie Boll in the first half. 

And; teevee news viewers can be forgiven their collective mal de mer;  tossed as they are from issue to issue with hardly a contextual  handrail to hold on to. It’s little wonder then retching seems the only  sensible reaction. But is there more behind the sick-making spectacle?  Could it all be designed to keep the head spinning, and belly  threatening imminent eruption?

Consider Russia coverage: Badgered by a year of conspiracy theories  about elections meddling and other unsubstantiated rumours, viewers may  feel disoriented when Vladimir Putin’s declaration  of a new atomic and next-gen tech. weaponry era, (and entirely unveiled  promises to use those weapons should NATO continue its undeclared war  against his country) rates a media yawn.

Roger Annis is a longtime  socialist and trade union activist whose social justice and peace  articles appear at his website, A Socialist in Canada. The site is a  daily notifier on World News, and features both Canadian and Ecology  news rolls.

Roger Annis and a barely noticed New Cold War escalation in the second half.

And; Victoria-based greentrepreneur and horticulturalist  extraordinaire, Christina Nikolic will be here at the bottom of the hour  with the Left Coast Events Bulletin, bringing us up to speed with some  of the good things going on in and around our town in the coming week.  But first, Natalie Boll and the extraordinary life of Beau Dick, Maker  of Monsters.

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/

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If nothing else, the party’s choice matches strategy with their  arch-rival Liberals; opting for a youthful, energetic, and above all  photogenic front man. But what about NDP policy?

Following the stifling years of Tom Mulcair, is the membership ready  to make a substantive progressive, as well as cosmetic change?

One area providing the opportunity to prove the party’s positional  difference is Palestine: BDS, the US embassy move to Jerusalem, West  Bank teenager, Ahed Tamimi’s arrest and continued detention, and recent  IDF military actions in Gaza all provide ample grist for differentiation  in the NDP’s foreign policy mill.

Yves Engler is a Montréal-based  activist, lecturer, and author whose book titles include: ‘The Ugly  Canadian — Stephen Harper’s Foreign Policy,’ ‘Lester Pearson’s  Peacekeeping — The Truth May Hurt,’ ‘The Black Book of Canadian Foreign  Policy,’ ‘Canada in Africa — 300 Years of Aid and Exploitation,’ and his  latest, ‘A Propaganda System: How Canada’s Government, Corporations,  Media and Academia Sell War and Exploitation.’ He recently wrote the  anticipatory article about the NDP convention, ‘Burying Canada’s Anti-Palestinian Consensus‘, and attended to see which way the new NDP’s winds would blow.

Yves Engler in the first half.

And; as if to accentuate Alberta NDP leader, Rachel Notley’s contempt  for the well-being of British Columbia’s share of the Pacific Ocean,  the HMCS Calgary, one of Canadian Forces’ Orca-Class frigates, dumped a  reported thirty thousand liters of fuel into the Strait of Georgia over  the weekend.

The spill took hours to discover and longer to be reported to  authorities; and, days after the fact recovery efforts have consisted of  “searching for the spill”. Environment Canada was quick to allay fears  of negative environmental effects, saying “evaporation” and “natural  dispersal” should suffice to clean-up the Navy’s mess.

What’s worse than this lame official reaction though is the sad proof  it presents of the immense procedural and attitudinal shift required if  coastal ecology here is to be maintained in anything resembling its  natural state: with or without the vast increase of shipping traffic  expected if the Kinder Morgan pipeline should make it to Port of  Vancouver “tidewater”.

Jason Colby  is Associate Professor and Majors Adviser in the Department of History  at UVic. His academic focus is Modern U.S. History, International  Relations, Environmental and Business History, Pacific Northwest. His  first book, ‘The Business of Empire: United Fruit, Race, and U.S. Expansion in Central America‘ was published by Cornell Press and follows those themes; his second and latest, ‘Orca: How We Came to Know and Love the Ocean’s Greatest Predator‘, due out later this year, takes another course.

Jason Colby and loving our aquatic neighbours in the second half

And; Victoria-based activist and CFUV Radio broadcaster at-large, Janine Bandcroft  will be here at the bottom of the hour with the Left Coast Events  bulletin to bring us up to speed with some of the good things to get up  to in and around Victoria in the coming week. But first, Yves Engler and Burying Canada’s Anti-Palestinian Consensus with the NDP.

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/

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Since the replacement of Mel Zelaya in 2009 the coupsters, anointed by the good offices of El Norte, have run roughshod  over the rights and dignity of the people, putting in place by hook,  crook, bullets and batons an old-fashioned fascist regime; a banana  republic the likes of which has not been seen since the last time Uncle  Sam ran the show.

Jesse Freeston is a Canadian  documentary filmmaker and video journalist. A seminal member of The Real  News Network, he’s also produced documentaries for teleSUR, the world’s  largest Spanish-language public broadcaster, and his latest film, Resistencia: The Fight for the Aguan Valley  documents an agrarian take-over of palm oil plantations by  share-cropping farmers. He’s currently working on his next independent  film, Human Park.

Jesse is back in Honduras and a few weeks ago released the two-part report, ‘Honduras: The Never-Ending Coup‘ on TRNN.

Jesse Freeston in the first half.

And; media-shaded the last few years by neigbouring regional  conflicts, and more recently by the Olympics and spotlight hogging Trump  political circus, Gaza, and Palestine generally, has garnered scant coverage in North America’s press. That changed a little with Israel’s aerial and tank bombardment  of the embattled enclave last week; but that the attention would hover a  little longer there to reveal the desperate, ongoing plight of the  World’s largest and longest refugee crisis.

Dr. Ramzy Baroud is an American-Arab journalist, media consultant, syndicated columnist, educator, founder and editor of the Palestine Chronicle,  past editor of numerous online and print news organizations, and  author. He’s currently embarking on a World-tour to promote his latest  book, ‘The Last Earth: A Palestinian Story‘ to provide, he says, “a new take on the history of the Palestinian people, one in which the refugees are the core theme”.

That tour will bring Ramzy to our town next week, 7pm Friday March 2nd, right here at UVic’s David Strong building.

Ramzy Baroud and bringing the voice to Palestine’s refugees in the second half.

And; Victoria-based activist and CFUV broadcaster at-large, Janine Bandcroft  will be here with the Left Coast Events bulletin to bring us up to  speed with some of what’s good going on in and around Victoria in the  coming week.

But first, Jesse Freeston and the story of Honduras’ never-ending coup.

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/

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Next week, February 20th, in Victoria and across the country, the National Day of Action on the Overdose Crisis  will take to the streets yet again in efforts to bring the Justice  system to its senses and reform finally the nation’s drugs policies.

Garth Mullins is a long-time Vancouver-based DTES activist, writer,  broadcaster, musician, trade unionist, contributor to CBC Radio One’s  Ideas program, and his weekly column past appeared at 24 Hours  Vancouver. He’s also been at the fore, with the Vancouver Area Network  of Drug Users, responding to that city’s ongoing overdose crisis.

Garth Mullins in the first half.

And; while Washington debates whether Donald Trump believes Haiti  to be either “shithole” or “shithouse” uncontested is the  under-reported fact, “peacekeepers” from the euphemistically known  “United” Nations used at least one of Haiti’s rivers as an open sewer, initiating the cholera epidemic that august body is yet to take full responsibility for. Thus is the fate it seems for long-suffering Haiti,  despoiled and denigrated by its powerful neighbours, and through their  intervention “humanitarian” and otherwise kept the poorest of the  Western Hemisphere’s countries.

Mark Schuller  is Associate Professor of Anthropology and NGO Leadership and  Development at Northern Illinois University and affiliate at the Faculté  d’Ethnologie, l’Université d’État d’Haïti. He is the author or  co-editor of six books, including the forthcoming ‘Humanitarian  Aftershocks in Haiti’. Schuller is also co-director/co-producer of the  documentary Poto Mitan: Haitian Women, Pillars of the Global Economy (2009), and he’s active in several solidarity efforts. His recent CounterPunch article asks, ‘What Is a Shithole Country and Why is Trump So Obsessed with Haiti?‘

Mark Schuller and anatomy of a shithole in the second half.

And; Victoria-based activist and CFUV Radio broadcaster at-large, Janine Bandcroft  will join us at the bottom of the hour with the Left Coast Events  bulletin of good things you can get up to around here in the coming  week. But first, Garth Mullins and wearing the red for the reform of  Canada’s drugs policies.

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/

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It’s been confirmed, Major Roman Filipov’s Su-25 fighter was brought  down by a MANPAD, or portable anti-aircraft missile system, reportedly  fired by members of Jabhat al-Nusra. It’s a sophisticated piece of  equipment not easily gotten, so just where it came from, and how al-Nusra ended up with it are the burning questions of the moment.

John Helmer is a long-time, Moscow-based journalist, author, and essayist whose website, Dances with Bears  is the only Russian-based news bureau “independent of single national  or commercial ties.” He’s also a former political science professor  who’s served as an advisor to governments on three continents, and  regularly lectures on Russian topics. Helmer’s book titles include:  ‘Uncovering Russia,’ ‘Urbanman: The Psychology of Urban Survival,’  ‘Bringing the War Home: The American Soldier in Vietnam and After,’ and  ‘Drugs and Minority Oppression’, among others.

John Helmer in the first half.

And; the Victoria Film Festival continues this week through Sunday,  when it will feature Canadian director, Stephen Campanelli’s ‘Indian Horse’.  The full-length feature recently took the Calgary Film Festival’s  Audience Award for Narrative Feature, and was named the People’s Choice  winner at last year’s Vancouver International Film Festival. It’s an  adaptation of the Richard Wagamese’s widely acclaimed novel about  Ojibway boy, Saul Indian Horse’s abduction into Canada’s residential  school system.

Campanelli is a long-time  Hollywood camera operator, working within legendary actor/director and  producer, Clint Eastwood’s rarefied filmmaking circle. Among others,  he’s collaborated with Eastwood on the films: ‘Million Dollar Baby’.  ‘Gran Torino’, ‘Sully’, and their latest, and 21st collaboration, ’15:17  to Paris’. Indian Horse is his second film in the director’s chair,  following 2015’s ‘Momentum’.

Stephen Campanelli and breaking the tormented silence of Canada’s residential school survivors.

And; Victoria-based greentrepreneur and horticulturalist extraordinaire, Christina Nikolic  will be here at the bottom of the hour with the Left Coast Events  Bulletin bringing us up to speed with some of the good things going on  in and around our town in the coming week.

But first, John Helmer and the deadly consequences of America’s anti-Russia campaigns.

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/

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From circumventing the traditional isolation of the Oval Office and  upending political sacred cows, to undermining strategic alliances and  trade relationships like NAFTA, Trump has reveled in his World stage  role as Washington’s wild card.

But, the madness to his method carries real risks; none more  immediately dire than the worst case scenarios attendant escalating  provocations against nuclear-armed North Korea.

None know this better than those on the other side of the 38th parallel; but will America allow Koreans make their own deal?

Dave Lindorff is an award-winning journalist, author, broadcaster, and founder of the award-winning web news site, This Can’t Be Happening.net.  His book titles include: ‘This Can’t Be Happening! Resisting the  Disintegration of American Democracy,’ ‘Marketplace Medicine: The Rise  of the For Profit Hospital Chains,’ ‘Killing Time: An Investigation into  the Death Row Case of Mumia Abu-Jamal,’ And, you can also tune in  Dave’s This Can’t Be Happening radio program Wednesdays at the  Progressive Radio Network.

Dave Lindorff in the first half.

And; the Victoria Film Festival begins February 2nd, and a film sure to get noticed this year is British-Canadian, multi-award-winning director, Charles Officer’s ‘Unarmed Verses‘.  Officer’s past credits include the documentaries: ‘Mighty Jerome’ and  ‘The Skin We’re In’, and the ten-time Genie nominated feature film,  ‘Nurse.Fighter.Boy’ among others.

Unarmed Verses chronicles the imposed relocation of residents of Villaways, a low-income Toronto neighbourhood,  through the eyes of aspiring poet, Francine Valentine. It’s already  received a string of awards, including: Best Canadian Feature  Documentary at Hot Docs, The People’s Choice Award at the Toronto Film  Festival, and the Vancouver International Film Festival’s choice as Best  Canadian Documentary of 2017. Unarmed Verses screens on the first day  of the festival, Friday night at 6:30pm at the Capitol 6, and in a  matinee on the VFF’s final day, Sunday February 11th at the Vic Theatre.

Charles Officer and poetry and motion with Unarmed Verses in the second segment.

And; Shawna Green is one of two women calling the sidewalk in front  of premier John Horgan’s office home. She and Tsastilqualus Ambers are  determined to have fish farms removed from their territory. Green  addressed attendees at last week’s Site C Action & Accountability  Summit in Victoria.

Shawna Green getting real with direct action in the final segment.

And; Victoria-based greentrepreneur and horticulturalist  extraordinaire, Christina Nikolic will be here with the Left Coast  Events Bulletin at the bottom of the hour. But first, Dave Lindorff and South Korea slipping empire’s leash.

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The primary propaganda has proven so effective, the great predators  haunting kinder’s dreams in the Old Country for so long have retreated  now to the densest forests, and craggiest, most remote redoubts, barely  surviving extinction. But here, on the island-continent the First  Peoples call ‘Turtle’ it’s still possible to see the cougar, bear,  moose, elk, caribou, eagle, hawk, falcon, and fox, and of course wolf.

In fact, there are so many of the latter on Vancouver Island, the  government allows wolves be trapped and killed most days of the year.  But apparently predating wolves eight months of the year is  insufficient, for British Columbia’s Ministry of Forests, Lands, Natural  Resource Operations and Rural Development now propose extending the  wolf-killing here to ten.

Gary R. Allan operates the  SWELL Wolf Education Centre, and says it’s his hope people will, “see  the wolf for what it is: one more magnificent species… deserving of our  understanding and acceptance.”

Gary R. Allan in the first half.

And; the 2018 edition of the Victoria Film Festival  rolls out next week. This year, the festival celebrates its 23rd annual  showcasing of Canadian and international features, documentaries,  shorts, animated films, and more. Donovan Aikman, long-time head programmer with the Victoria Film Festival, joins us today for a preview.

Donovan Aikman, Bringing Film to Life again in Victoria in the second half.

And; Victoria-based greentrepreneur and horticulturalist extraordinaire, Christina Nikolic  will be here at the bottom of the hour with the Left Coast Events  Bulletin bringing us up to speed with some of the good things going on  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/

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The Deluge, or Great Flood motif  is common in cultures around the World. From ancient Mesopotamia to the  Maya of Mesoamerica, history recounts again and again a remarkably  similar tale of a local hero, warned by a heavenly interlocutor of an  imminent, deity-created disaster and bidden to create a boat, raft, or  ark to save the people.

The Cheslatta T’En  of the Cheslatta T’En Carrier Nation received no such visitation before  their lands were subsumed in British Columbia in 1952. They were given  ten days to pack up and leave their ten thousand year-old settlement  near Kitimat to make way for Alcan’s Kenney Dam.

Cast to the winds, the disintegration of the Cheslatta T’En people, described in the documentary film, No Surrender, became an abject lesson in what mega-projects gone wrong look like.

Sixty-six years later, it seems that’s a lesson not learnt by BC’s  lesser political god’s who again, with a wave of the hand and flourish  of a pen, in the holy name of Mammon (ahem) economic development, will  sweep away all that resides in the path of its ambitions along the Peace River.

Construction of the Site C dam was greenlighted for a second time in  December by a second government. And, both John Horgan’s NDP and his  coalition Green Party of Andrew Weaver partner would now have their  supporters surrender objections to this project, give up on the First Nations,  farmers, and wildlife of the Peace Valley, and accept this project –  regarded across the spectrum as an ill-conceived economic millstone  –  be hung about their necks and the necks of generations to come.

But, the fight isn’t over yet.

Dr. Steve Gray is Chair of the Peace Valley Solidarity Initiative.  The retired, Victoria-based MD has been involved with Site C opposition  for the last three years. Steve and the Solidarity Initiative will host  an Accountability and Action Summit on Site C  to defend the Peace in this weekend in Vancouver, and next week,  January 25th and 26th here in Victoria at the First Metropolitan United  Church. They say,

“We do not accept the justification offered by Premier Horgan to continue the Site C project and flood the Peace River valley.”

Dr. Steve Gray in the first half.

And; forget about Russia, it’s the People’s Republic of China posing  the greatest threat to America and its partners in Western Civilization.  That’s the narrative, bolstered not only by China’s newly bestowed  epithet as an adversary of “rules based international order”, but by  at-large billionaire, political crusader, and international intrigue  gadfly, Guo Wengui; better known to readers of the paper of record in  his sometime-adopted home base of New York City, as Miles Kwok. This  past Sunday, The New York Times Magazine ran a lengthy and fascinating  article on the man whose mission to “save China” by undermining its  corrupt leadership class carries on from his Manhattan exile, one  embarrassing leak at a time.

Peter Lee is a freelance journalist writing on East and South Asian  affairs as they intersect with US global policy. He blogs at the Asian  affairs website ChinaMatters.blogspot.com, and his China Watch report features on Newsbud.com.

 Peter Lee and keeping up with the Kwok’s and the China Witch Hunt in the second half.

And; Victoria-based greentrepreneur and horticulturalist extraordinaire, Christina Nikolic  will be here at the bottom of the hour with the Left Coast Events  Bulletin bringing us up to speed with some of the good things going on  in and around our town in the coming week. But first, Steve Gray and  demanding accountability and organizing action to reverse the Site C dam  decision.

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/

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Rajoy set a new election date a few days before Christmas, and with the wicked in-exile Carles out of the equation everything would be bueno! Si?

Well, no. Popular support maintained the separatist coalition, leaving the Madrid Machiavelli in an even tighter corner than before his ill-advised and ham-handed campaign began.

Dr. Pablo Ouziel  is a Post-Doctoral fellow at UVic whose project in progress is,  ‘Towards Democratic Responses to the Crisis of Democracy in Spain: Forms  of Participatory and Representative Civic Engagement.’ Pablo is from  Spain’s Catalan region and has watched with the rest of the world in  astonishment the unravelling of his native land these past months.

Pablo Ouziel in the first half.

And; Iran has been the focus of America’s Middle East policy since the overthrow of tyrant dictator, Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.  From Carter to Obama, through Reagan and the Bushes, whether the  destruction of Beirut, “repatriation” of Kuwait’s oil fields, or  toppling of Saddam Hussein undermining the Islamic Republic has always  been at the heart of the matter. So far, no US president has dared a  direct invasion of Iran, the cost of an outright war even for the  globe’s military behemoth being unthinkable – but where an overt  campaign cannot succeed, perhaps a covert one can.

And it is with that in mind, says my second guest, national security actors within the Trump and Netanyahu administrations are targeting Iran,  “working in lockstep…to repeat what befell Syria over six years ago –  the hijacking of minor protests and their transformation into the cover  for a foreign-funded insurgency intent on toppling Iran’s elected government.”

Whitney Webb  is a South America-based journalist writing about environmental,  political, and economic issues in English and Spanish. She’s a staff  writer at MintPressNews.com, and  her articles have featured at ZeroHedge, 21st Century Wire, and Pacific  Free Press among other places. Her recent work for MintPressNews  includes the article, ‘Birth of an Insurgency: The US-Israeli “Secret Deal” To Manipulate Protests In Iran‘.

Whitney Webb and revolution of another colour, or another colour revolution for Iran? in the second half.

And; Victoria-based greentrepreneur and horticulturalist extraordinaire, Christina Nikolic  will be here at the bottom of the hour with the Left Coast Events  Bulletin bringing us up to speed with some of the good things going on  in and around our town in the coming week. But first, Pablo Ouziel and a  worm’s turning en España.

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/

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“The  English follow the principle that when one lies, one should lie big,  and stick to it. They keep up their lies, even at the risk of looking  ridiculous.”

That principle was eagerly adopted by the second wave of Red Scare  McCarthyites after the Second World War, and may sound uncomfortably  familiar today, as a third wave of Red Scarists crest.

Dr. Virginia Tilley  is Professor of Political Science at Southern Illinois  University-Carbondale. She’s also an essayist and author specializing in  the comparative study of ethnic and racial conflict. Tilley’s book  titles include, ‘Seeing Indians: A Study of Race, Nation and Power in El  Salvador,’ ‘The One State Solution: A Breakthrough for Peace in the  Israeli-Palestinian Deadlock,’ and co-author and editor of ‘Beyond  Occupation: Apartheid, Colonialism and International Law in the Occupied  Palestinian Territories’.

Virginia’s articles appear at The Nation, Electronic Intifada, and CounterPunch.org among other places. Her latest piece, ‘The New Hysteria on Kremlin Trolls‘ takes aim at a Pravda-worthy Washington Post rant against internet news rival, CounterPunch.

Virginia Tilley in the first half.

And; 2017, or Year One as U.S. president, Donald Trump may prefer,  was by turns a bizarre and watershed year for American politics; and  because what happens in the United States doesn’t stay just there,  reverberations of the Trump Doctrine’s inaugural year are still being  felt around the World. Nowhere is this more true than in Occupied  Palestine, where the announcement of plans to recognize Jerusalem as the  capital of Israel, and relocate the US Embassy there, has predictably  enough spurred a backlash that now threatens a renewed Intifada.

It’s ironic, or perhaps karmanic, that the country most keenly  affected by US domestic policy, Israel, itself exerts the greatest  influence on American life. From the massive transfers of wealth in the  form of “aid” and the hugely influential Israel Lobby in Washington, to  militarized police training and the construction of president Trump’s  ‘Great Wall’ immigration policies, Israel and America are fellow  travellers engaged in a true, two-way partnership. It is however,  according to my second guest, a toxic relationship bringing hardship and injustice, especially to those, “…already socio-economically disadvantaged and marginalized.”

Zarefah Baroud  is a freelance social and political commentator whose writing addresses  human rights and environmental issues. A Media and Communications  student at the University of Washington, her articles can be found at  CounterPunch, Scoop, and Foreign Policy Journal among others.

Zarefah Baroud and Reevaluating a Toxic Relationship in the second half. But first, Virginia Tilley and what’s old is new again with The New Hysteria on Kremlin Trolls.

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/

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It’s been a pretty strange year past, punctuated with highs and lows  that, like the weather, have peaked with extraordinary insistence. I  think it’s a trend we’re going to have to learn to adapt to.

As if to echo, the political climate has too been erratic. In British  Columbia, our Spring time election witnessed the bizarre, Mugabe-like  siege of the Legislature by the Liberals, taking months as it turned out  to prise Christy Clark’s death-rip from the reins of power before a  Summer swearing in of a government of an entirely new stripe.

Or at least, that’s how it was advertised.

But as Autumn turned, so did hopes the NDP would prove itself an alternative to the crony capitalist, BCLiberals. Just two weeks ago, the new premier announced the government would continue the course set by Clark and carry the Site C dam project forward – a project with more strikes against it than an English coal mine.

I hosted quite a few shows about Site C over the last year, (and  previous ones too) most frequently speaking with Peace Valley farmer and  president of the Peace Valley Landowners Association, Ken Boon. I’ll  talk to Ken again in the second half of the show to get his take on  possible next steps in the continued resistance to this disastrous turn of events.

I’ll also talk to long-time Victoria-based green business savant and horticulturalist extraordinaire, Christina Nikolic  at the bottom of the hour, taking the pulse of the city and environs  with the Left Coast Events bulletin for the X-Mas/New Year’s week.

But before letting go the scruff of Christmas past; in a recent interview John Horgan, as if to underline for any still thinking the NDP would change the province’s political course announced,

“If we’re going to be a government that  governs for all British Columbians, we have to set aside our activism  and start being better administrators.”

Then he began packing a bag for his January trade mission to Asia;  where he’ll undoubtedly get the opportunity to demonstrate that  administrative malleability to Site C contract awardee, CCCI, aka the China Communications Construction Company Ltd.

In the same interview, Horgan also said it wasn’t Christmas for him  until he’d heard the Pogues song, Fairytale of New York. It seems a  fitting companion piece to the beginning of the end of another failed  dream of change in BC. Happy Christmas Premier Horgan, this one is for  you.

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/

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Many on the greener side of the political spectrum hoped the change  would bring with it a new way of looking at the way things are done in  this province, and my first guest may well be one of those.

Ray Grigg is the author of  seven books on Taoism and Zen, and the columnist behind the long-running  environmental column, Shades of Green.

He recently released The EcoTrilogy, a compendium of sixteen years  worth of his weekly column, comprising the books, Ecologos, Ecopathy,  and Ecocide.

Ray Grigg in the first half.

And; where British Columbia’s ecological record during the  sixteen-plus years reign of the BCLiberal party was never great, the  last years, culminating as they did with the Mount Polley mine tailings  disaster, proved particularly destructive. So, hope for change was  especially buoyant when the electorate discharged the Liberals in favour  of a coalition government featuring, for the first time in the nation’s  history, a Green Party component. But those hopes were dealt a cruel blow last week, when John Horgan’s New Democratic Party refused to stop the contentious, and ecologically deleterious, Site C dam project.

Douglas Gook is  a Quesnel-based ecology activist and farmer who’s focused on Eco  forestry alternatives in the woods there and beyond for more than forty  years. The Nechako Lakes Green Party of BC candidate is a director of  the BC Environmental Network and Spirit Dance Cooperative Community, and  leads Forest Protection Allies, one of the many environmental  organizations pressuring government to get effective cleanup processes  going, and appropriate compensation for those effected three years after  the infamous Mt. Polley spill. He’s also one of a growing chorus who do  not accept the Site C decision as final.

Douglas Gook maintaining the fight against Site C in the second half.

And; Victoria-based activist and CFUV Radio broadcaster at-large, Janine Bandcroft  will join us at the bottom of the hour with the Left Coast Events  bulletin of good things you can get up to around here in the coming  week. But first, Ray Grigg and The EcoTrilogy.

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/

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Ingmar Lee is a long-time, BC-based environmental defender. From the  Nanaimo watershed and first-growth valley bottoms of Vancouver Island,  to the nuclear plant-threatened coastline of India, and the threatened  shores and Sandhill Crane nesting grounds of British Columbia’s  mid-coast, Ingmar has advocated for and stood between an increasingly  fragile ecosystem and the rapine destructiveness of big business and its  government enablers. For this he’s been arrested and charged in the  courts, and had his name traduced and character vilified in the  corporate and state media. Yet though he persists in defense of the wild  world.

Ingmar Lee and the long fight for the embattled natural world in a special end of year Gorilla Radio presentation.

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But, is that all there is to this story?

The Russian government denies any such policy, saying the IOC is being used as an extension of Western efforts to isolate them, and to embarrass President Putin in the run-up to elections.

But is there still more going on here?

John Helmer is a long-time,  Moscow-based journalist, author, and essayist whose website, Dances with  Bears is the only news bureau “independent of single national or  commercial ties.” He’s also a former political science professor who has  served as an advisor to governments on three continents and regularly  lectures on Russian topics. Helmer’s book titles include: ‘Uncovering  Russia,’ ‘Urbanman: The Psychology of Urban Survival,’ ‘Bringing the War  Home: The American Soldier in Vietnam and After,’ and ‘Drugs and  Minority Oppression’ among others.

John Helmer in the first half.

And; the clock is ticking on efforts in the United States to stop  again the once-defeated attempt to kill Net Neutrality, the principle  deeming Internet service providers treat all data equally. Next week,  the Federal Communications Commission is scheduled to vote whether or  not to end the rules protecting that neutrality.

Despite broad-based opposition to the move from public interest advocacy groups, and some of the Internet’s most prominent corporate players, FCC chairman, Ajit Pai  is standing pat on his declaration the rules are not necessary to  protect users from what critics charge are the monopolistic tendencies  of Big Data broadband providers.

Cory Doctorow is a science fiction author, activist, journalist, blogger, co-editor of BoingBoing.net, and former European director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation.  While still working with EFF, he’s also a MIT Media Lab Research  Affiliate, and Visiting Professor of Computer Science at Open  University. The Canadian-born Doctorow co-founded the UK Open Rights Group, and currently resides in the United States.

Some of his book titles include: ‘Walkaway’, a novel for adults, the  graphic novel, ‘In Real Life’, and ‘Information Doesn’t Want to be  Free’, a book about earning a living in the Internet age. His Young  Adult novels, ‘Little Brother’ and it’s sequel ‘Homeland’ were New York  Times Bestsellers, and join ‘Pirate Cinema’, ‘Rapture of the Nerds’, and  ‘Makers’.

Cory Doctorow and once again into the breach for Net Neutrality in the second half.

And; Victoria-based activist and CFUV Radio broadcaster at-large, Janine Bandcroft  will join us at the bottom of the hour with the Left Coast Events  bulletin of good things to do in and around our town in the coming week.  But first, John Helmer and stone cold political Olympic games.

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/

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

James Jeffrey is a  freelance journalist who’s worked for various international media  outlets, filing stories on business, political unrest, humanitarian  crises, and the cultural pursuits of the people of Ethiopia, and  throughout the Horn of Africa, since 2013.

James Jeffrey in the first half.

And; earlier this month, legendary academic, economist, author and  media critic, Edward S. Herman died. Herman was best-known perhaps for  his collaboration with Noam Chomsky on the 1988 book, and source of the  tour de force documentary film, ‘Manufacturing Consent’. Herman’s  passing comes at a time of unprecedented technological upheaval in  America’s mass media, but how much has the corporate ethos driving the  newsroom he and Chomsky wrote about changed?

Dave Lindorff is an  award-winning journalist, author, broadcaster, and founder of the  award-winning web news site, This Can’t Be Happening.net. Lindorff and  Edward Herman were friends, and collaborators for a while at Herman’s  website, Inkywatch. Dave’s book titles include: ‘This Can’t Be  Happening! Resisting the Disintegration of American Democracy,’  ‘Marketplace Medicine: The Rise of the For Profit Hospital Chains,’  ‘Killing Time: An Investigation into the Death Row Case of Mumia  Abu-Jamal,’ You can tune in Dave’s This Can’t Be Happening radio program  Wednesdays at the Progressive Radio Network.

Dave Lindorff and Edward S. Herman’s accounting for the mass media in the second half.

And; Victoria-based activist, and CFUV Radio broadcaster at-large, Janine Bandcroft  will be here at the bottom of the hour with the Left Coast Events  bulletin of good things to get up to in and around our town for the  coming week. But first, James Jeffrey and Ethnic Violence in Ethiopia  Amid Shadowy Politics.

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/

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Ken Boon is a farmer and president of the Peace Valley Landowners Association. His has been nothing short of an epic battle against crown corporation, BC Hydro and the former BC Liberal government.

But, the battle is not his alone, all British Columbians have a stake  in what John Horgan and his NDP decide, as do their yet unborn  children, and the generations that follow them.

Ken Boon in the first half.

And; perhaps no other entity embodies better all that is wrong and  tragic with the corporate dominance of the world today than Monsanto.  The “life science” company specializes in creating cancer causing  poisons currently killing unknown millions, and yet none seem able to  stop the Leviathan’s inexorable progress. As glyphosate, one of the key  toxic ingredients of its Roundup weed killer faces a possible ban in  Europe, due to a growing body of scientific evidence of carcinogenic  effects, the company is pivoting to its newly “improved” product,  Dicamba. Problem solved, right? Not quite.

Whitney Webb  is a South America-based journalist writing about environmental,  political, and economic issues in English and Spanish. She’s a staff  writer at MintPress News.com,  and her articles have featured at ZeroHedge, the Anti-Media, and 21st  Century Wire, among other places. Her recent work for MintPressNews  includes the article, ‘With Roundup On The Rocks, Monsanto Hatches New Seeds And A Dangerous New Plan‘.

Whitney Webb in the second half.

And; Victoria-based activist and CFUV Radio broadcaster at-large, Janine Bandcroft  will be here at the bottom of the hour with the Left Coast Events  bulletin, bringing us up to speed with some of the good things to get up  to around here in the coming week. But first, Ken Boon and the last  dinosaur, the Site C dam.

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/

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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More than six weeks have passed since the president of Catalonia defied the federal government, holding an independence referendum.  The reaction by Spain’s prime minister, Mariano Rajoy was swift and  definitive; declaring the upstart region’s government null and void and  Catalan president, Carles Puigdemont, (along with several of his party’s  key ministers) criminals; and by decree rendering the independence  movement itself effectively illegal.

Today, Puigdemont is in exile, out on bail in Brussels after being  arrested on an EU warrant, and prime minister Rajoy has scheduled  elections for a replacement government in Catalan for December 21st, Señor Puigdemont’s participation being expressly unwelcome.

Dr. Pablo Ouziel is a Post-Doctoral fellow at UVic whose project in  progress is, ‘Towards Democratic Responses to the Crisis of Democracy in  Spain: Forms of Participatory and Representative Civic Engagement.’

 Pablo Ouziel in the first half.

And; next week Victoria will host inveterate American activist and singer/songwriter in the tradition of Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger, David Rovics  to town. It will be the first time I get a chance to talk to David  since he dramatically dropped out of the US presidential race in 2015.  We can now just wonder, if only he had stayed in the running, “What  might have been?”

 David Rovics bringing a world of politics and music to Victoria’s doorstep in the second half.

And; Victoria-based activist and CFUV Radio broadcaster at-large, Janine Bandcroft  will be here at the bottom of the hour with the Left Coast Events  bulletin update of good things to do in and around our town in the  coming week. But first, Pablo Ouziel and an increasingly darkening  horizon for both Spain’s and European 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: 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/

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Is it apathy, a feeling of powerlessness, or just the desperate need  to ignore the impending catastrophe fueling our denial; making us now  identify with the blissfully oblivious walking dead?

Dahr Jamail is a Truthout  staff reporter and author of books, ‘The Will to Resist: Soldiers Who  Refuse to Fight in Iraq and Afghanistan’, ‘Beyond the Green Zone:  Dispatches From an Unembedded Journalist in Occupied Iraq’, and, with  William Rivers Pitt, ‘The Mass Destruction of Iraq: Why It Is Happening,  and Who Is Responsible’. His much anticipated forthcoming title is,  ‘The End of Ice.’

Jamail’s column, Climate Disruption Dispatches features at Truthout.org, where his latest article, ‘Scientists Warn of “Ecological Armageddon” Amid Waves of Heat and Climate Refugees‘ paints a picture of a climate calamity not merely coming but arrived.

Dahr Jamail in the first half.

And; this past week marked the centennial of Red October, Russia’s socialist revolution that not only shook the world, but shaped the 20th Century.

Andre Vltchek is a  philosopher, novelist, filmmaker and investigative journalist who’s  covered wars and conflicts in dozens of countries. Vltchek’s numerous  book titles include: ‘Western Terror: From Potosi to Baghdad’,  ‘Indonesia: Archipelago of Fear’, ‘Exposing Lies of the Empire’, and  ‘Aurora’. His latest book is the freshly released, ‘The Great October Socialist Revolution: Impact on the World and the Birth of Internationalism.’

Andre Vltchek and revolutions remembered and those to come in the second half.

And; Victoria-based activist and CFUV Radio broadcaster at-large, Janine Bandcroft will  be here with the Left Coast Events listing for good things to do in and  around our town in the coming week. But first, Dahr Jamail and  collective ADHD in the age of ACD.

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/

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Predictably, Madrid made good on it’s threat to turf out the regional government, and went further:  arresting those in the pro- Independence leadership that hadn’t already  slipped out of the country, banning the independence movement outright,  and taking over Catalunya’s media, police, and government bureaucracy.

The lament going up today in Spain is for the death of democracy, a  haunting reminder of the country’s not so distant fascist past.

Dr. Pablo Ouziel is a Post-Doctoral fellow at UVic whose project in  progress is, ‘Towards Democratic Responses to the Crisis of Democracy in  Spain: Forms of Participatory and Representative Civic Engagement.’

Pablo Ouziel in the first half.

And; the Pop-Up Prayer Vigil encampment has moved along to Saanich.  The ongoing homelessness camp and protest site has been on the move  weekly, spending the last few weeks at various locations in Oak Bay;  much to the consternation of local authorities, residents, and an  increasingly hostile local media. Chrissy Brett is spokesperson, and  self-described “head cat herder” for the Vigil/Protest movement. I spoke  with her a few days ago about what they hope to accomplish.

Chrissy Brett keeping a vigil for homelessness in the second segment.

And; activist efforts to ban the capture and incarceration of whales and dolphins scored a major victory  in Vancouver earlier this year when City Council voted to ban the  practice, despite intense lobbying by the Vancouver Aquarium and its  industry allies. That victory wasn’t the end of the struggle, nor even  the beginning of the end; but perhaps it was, as Winston ‘the Whale’  Churchill would say, “the end of beginning” of the campaign to stop  world-wide the obviously barbarous practice of cetacean imprisonment.

Camille Labchuk is Executive Director of Animal Justice, an organization dedicated to looking out for the legal interests of animals, exposing cruel and systemic practices  creating animal suffering both in the wild and in agriculture, and  seeking meaningful policy changes to redress those practices.

Camille Labchuk and whales (and dolphins) for the saving in the final segment.

And; Victoria-based activist and CFUV Radio broadcaster at-large, Janine Bandcroft  will be here at the bottom of the hour with the Left Coast Events  Bulletin. But first, Pablo Ouziel and Spanish democracy’s dark night of  the soul breaking on an uncertain morning.

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/

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Dr. Pablo Ouziel  is a Post-Doctoral fellow at UVic whose project in progress is,  ‘Towards Democratic Responses to the Crisis of Democracy in Spain: Forms  of Participatory and Representative Civic Engagement.’

Pablo Ouziel in the first half.

And; beyond the partisan barbs, it’s safe to say Donald Trump is no  ecology defender. Surrounded already by climate change deniers and  petroleum industry insiders in hiring Scott Pruitt as head of the EPA  however, the former real estate tycoon and media phenomenon sent a  particularly loud and clear message to businesses big and small: “Damn  the enviros, full speed ahead!”

Robert Hunziker is an  environmental journalist whose climate clarion calls appear in numerous  journals and multiple languages around the World and across the  internet. He’s also appeared in a variety of electronic media to talk  about global climate change, written extensively about the ongoing  aftermath of the Fukushima nuclear disaster, and penned numerous  articles on the ever-quickening polar ice melt.

In his recent article, ‘Mr. Toxicity Zaps America‘  Hunziker reports Environmental Protection Agency head, Scott Pruitt  “nixed his own agency’s proposal of 2015 to ban the toxic chemical  chlorpyrifos, an insecticide that attacks the nervous system of pesky  insects, as well as pesky and non-pesky people…”

Robert Hunziker and the EPA’s number one “toxics defender” in the second half.

And; Victoria-based activist and CFUV Radio broadcaster at-large, Janine Bandcroft will  bring us the Left Coast Events bulletin at the bottom of the hour. But  first, Pablo Ouziel, perched atop the peak of Spain’s tipping point.

Chris Cook hosts Gorilla Radio, airing live every Wednesday, 1-2pm Pacific Time. In Victoria at 101.9FM, and on the internet at: http://cfuv.ca.  He also serves as a contributing editor to the web news site, http://www.pacificfreepress.com. Check out the GR blog at: https://gorillaradioblog.blogspot.ca/

G-Radio is dedicated to social justice, the environment, community,  and providing a forum for people and issues not covered in the corporate  media.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

It’s ‘disaster capitalism’ in its purest form, leveraging catastrophe  to privatize and monopolize essential services, while gorging on aid  money provided ostensibly to ease the people’s suffering. And it’s those  people, says my first guest, the ones who’s needs are most dire, who’ll  pay dearest.

Investigator, journalist, author, and filmmaker, Greg Palast has reported from the jagged edge of the news  on both sides of the Atlantic for the better part of two decades,  breaking stories for BBC flagship news program, Newsnight and The  Guardian newspaper in Britain, and filing stories with the Nation  Magazine and Rolling Stone stateside.

His books, Billionaires & Ballot Bandits, Armed Madhouse, and The  Best Democracy Money Can Buy have all resided on the New York Times’  bestseller list, while Vultures’ Picnic was named Book of the Year by  BBC Newsnight Review. His latest documentary film, The Best Democracy  Money Can Buy: A Tale of Billionaires & Ballot Bandits is newly  recut, and can be got through his website, Gregpalast.com.

Greg Palast in the first half.

And; the election of a new government in British Columbia hasn’t  eased fears of expanded Liquid Natural Gas, or LNG, mining in the  province. LNG means “fracking”, or hydraulic fracturing, the  environmentally detrimental method currently used to extract  hydrocarbons locked in rock formations beneath the surface; and, the  newly ensconced NDP government is curiously quiet about the future of  this most fractious industry.

In the dying days of BC’s recent elections, a group of health  professionals concerned an issue posing such deleterious environmental  and human health effects was not getting the media coverage it deserved  rallied supporters to make of it an election issue.

Amy Lubik holds a PhD in cancer research, and is a member for the Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment,  the Public Health Association of BC and Bridge for Health Coop. Amy  mobilized along with the BC chapter of CAPE, or the Canadian Association  of Physicians for the Environment last April in an operation hoping to  deliver a moratorium on Fracking in BC.

Following up with Dr. Amy Lubik and FRACTURED BC: Fracking, Site C, Health and Human Rights in the second half.

And; Victoria-based horticultural guru and green entrepreneur, Christina Nikolic  will be here at the bottom of the hour to bring us up to speed with  this week’s installment of the Left Coast Events bulletin. But first,  Greg Palast and Puerto Rico’s vultures.

Chris Cook hosts Gorilla Radio, airing live Thursdays, 11-Noon Pacific Time. In Victoria at 101.9FM, and streaming at: cfuv.ca.  He also serves as a contributing editor to the web news site, pacificfreepress.com. Check out the GR blog at: gorillaradioblog.blogspot.ca/ and @Paciffreepress on Twitter.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Fifty-five years after her harbinger book, ‘Silent Spring’ warned of  the inevitable end our industrial creation would bring to the natural  world around us, the proofs of Carson’s prognostications are clear to  all but the most obtuse, or willfully blind observors. But even these  may notice the silence where birdsong used to be.

Su Rynard is an artist and  filmmaker whose work has screened at festivals and in galleries in  Canada, the US, and Europe. She’s the recipient of numerous awards for  her documentaries and received the Alfred P. Sloan Feature Film Prize  for her debut feature film, Kardia.

Her recent documentary, The Messenger is an environmental tour de force that like Rachel Carson’s work implores we see clearly now what we sacrifice before it disappears entirely.

Su Rynard in the first segment.

And; Catalonia president, and Catalan independence leader Carles  Puigdemont addressed parliament Tuesday regarding his party’s plans for  the future of Spain’s restive Catalunya region. Nearly two weeks after  the referendum on separation deemed  illegal by Madrid overwhelmingly endorsed leaving Spain Puigdemont, who  had threatened to unilaterally declare the wealthiest of the country’s  regions a new nation, backpedaled slightly, “suspending” for an  unspecified time his promise to unilaterally declare independence to  allow for negotiation.

When, where, what, and with whom he plans to negotiate was not made  clear; so for now, Catalonia waits for Madrid. Dr. Pablo Ouziel is a  Post-Doctoral fellow here at UVic,whose project in progress is, ‘Towards  Democratic Responses to the Crisis of Democracy in Spain: Forms of  Participatory and Representative Civic Engagement.’ He’s a Spanish  national, and more poignantly, Catalan.

Pablo Ouziel and Catalunya waiting to exhale in the second segment.

And; is it possible to live unaware of our fellows’ suffering amid a  holocaust? History tells us, not only is it possible, but that ignorance  is the necessary condition for a fully-blown human cataclysm to take  hold. My third guest asks, how many of us are aware right now of the  “terror faced by people in South Sudan, Somalia, northeast Nigeria,  northern Kenya and Yemen[?].”

Kathy Kelly  is a long-time peace and justice activist, essayist, author, and  recipient of numerous awards for her peace service, including multiple  nominations for the Nobel Peace prize and many more.

Kelly is co-founder of Voices in the Wilderness and Voices for  Creative Nonviolence, co-authored the book, ‘Prisoners on Purpose: a  Peacemakers Guide to Jails and Prison,’ and wrote, ‘Other Lands Have  Dreams: from Baghdad to Pekin Prison.’ In her latest article, ‘Great Hunger‘ Kelly reveals the current holocaust occurring beneath most of our screens.

Kathy Kelly and allowing the voices of the suffering to speak in the final segment.

And; Victoria activist and CFUV Radio broadcaster at-large, Janine Bandcroft will be here at the bottomish of the hour with the Left Coast Events bulletin. But first, Su Rynard and hearing The Messenger’s song.

Chris Cook hosts Gorilla Radio, airing live Thursdays, 11-Noon Pacific Time. In Victoria at 101.9FM, and streaming at: cfuv.ca.  He also serves as a contributing editor to the web news site, pacificfreepress.com. Check out the GR blog at: gorillaradioblog.blogspot.ca/

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Dr. Pablo Ouziel  is a Post-Doctoral fellow here at UVic,whose project in progress is,  ‘Towards Democratic Responses to the Crisis of Democracy in Spain: Forms  of Participatory and Representative Civic Engagement.’ He’s a Spanish  national, and more poignantly, Catalan.

Dr. Pablo Ouziel in the first segment.

And; if any single thing emblemizes our times it is the dizzying pace of change.  Just ten days ago the World trembled at the thought of a nuclear  conflagration, triggered through the volatile confluence of overblown  egomania one the one hand and extreme narcissism on the other. Which of  these elementary character flaws describes the leader of America and  which North Korea’s is both debatable, (one certainly not precluding the  other) and a question wiser minds defer pondering. What’s certain  though is: we’re living in mad days indeed.

Dimitri Lascaris is a lawyer, journalist and activist, reporting for The Real News Network. In his recently filed TRNN report, ‘Mad Man vs. Rocket Man: North Korea Crisis Hits Fever Pitch‘ he asks “Can the generals hold the impulsive American president in check?”

Dimitri  Lascaris exploring perhaps the planet’s most dangerous territory, that  space between the ears of Donald Trump, in the second segment.

And; Victoria-based activist and CFUV Radio broadcaster at-large, Janine Bandcroft  will be here at the bottomish of the hour with the Left Coast Events  Bulletin update. 

Chris Cook hosts Gorilla Radio, airing live every Wednesday, 1-2pm Pacific Time. In Victoria at 101.9FM, and on the internet at: http://cfuv.ca.  He also serves as a contributing editor to the web news site, http://www.pacificfreepress.com. Check out the GR blog at: https://gorillaradioblog.blogspot.ca/

G-Radio is dedicated to social justice, the environment, community,  and providing a forum for people and issues not covered in the corporate  media.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

And for every one of those departed there are friends, family, front-line social workers, and others affected by that loss.

Marion Selfridge is a PhD student in UVic’s Social Dimensions of Health program. She’s also coordinating the heART space project with  an advisory council of street-involved youth. Her dissertation focuses  on those youths’ use of social media to deal with grief and loss amid  this epidemic.

Marion Selfridge in the first segment.

And; before the desperate PR operation to inveigle the American  public into believing Russia’s Evil Emperor, Vladimir Putin was her  ultimate presidential campaign opponent, Hillary Clinton and her  “crooked” Clinton Foundation was already working furiously to undermine  that other Red Menace, China. And, according to my second guest, the  fact she failed to gain the White House has not slowed the effort.

Peter Lee  is a freelance journalist writing on East and South Asian affairs as  they intersect with US global policy. He blogs at the Asian affairs  website China Matters, and his China Watch report features at Newsbud.com.

Peter Lee and Chuck Hagel’s Demise…and James Fanell’s Rise…and Australia! in the second segment.

And; full disclosure; as a motorcyclist I feel personally involved  when I see another rider injured or killed in a road incident caused by  heedless drivers. And, I’m not alone. When fellow rider, Don Goodeve read of Rodger Hargreaves’ death  earlier this month he asked, “What do we need to do to actually change  the culture of road users so that traffic accidents like this do not  occur?” He decided to organize, putting out the word for riders to  gather and demonstrate solidarity by making several passes en masse of  the place where Hargreaves died.

Don Goodeve and riding to remind in the final segment.

And; Victoria-based activist and CFUV Radio broadcaster at-large Janine Bandcroft will be here with the Left Coast Events bulletin at the bottomish of the hour. But first, Marion Selfridge and finding heART space.

Chris Cook hosts Gorilla Radio, airing live every Wednesday, 1-2pm Pacific Time. In Victoria at 101.9FM, and on the internet at: http://cfuv.ca.  He also serves as a contributing editor to the web news site, http://www.pacificfreepress.com. Check out the GR blog at: https://gorillaradioblog.blogspot.ca/

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Whether fighting commies, evil-doers, drugs dealers, or pernicious  foreign ideology we always seem to be at war with something! In fact,  we’re reminded of the fact so frequently, it’s beginning to make me  think the war going on isn’t “out there” at all, but instead is raging  inside our heads, making a virtual battlefield of our collective  perceptions.

Tom Secker is a UK-based private researcher, journalist, frequently  featured commentator on security and intelligence issues, host of the  popular podcast, ClandesTime, and principal behind spyculture.com,  “the world’s premier online archive about government involvement in the  entertainment industry.” He’s also co-author, with Matthew Alford of  the recently released book, ‘National Security Cinema: The Shocking New Evidence of Government Control in Hollywood‘.

Tom Secker in the first half.

And; Donald Trump didn’t disappoint at the UN this week. In an  address that still has halls of power around the globe buzzing, the  American president used the global bully pulpit to threaten fellow  member-nation North Korea with utter destruction. A lapse of diplomatic  etiquette and refutation of the Charter of the United Nations’ founding  purpose of promoting peace among nations to be sure, but what Mr. Trump,  and most of those listening to his sabre-rattling are not aware of is;  the United States “totally destroyed North Korea” once before. It’s a  salient fact not lost on the “depraved regime” being threatened again,  and something the White House might consider when gauging just how Kim  “Rocket Man” Jong Un may react.

Tim Shorrock is a Washington, D.C.-based journalist, and author of  the book, ‘Spies for Hire: The Secret World of Intelligence  Outsourcing.’ His articles appear at his website, TimShorrock.com  and at The Nation. Tim grew up in Asia, and spent much of the 1980’s in  Japan, reporting on the financial intrigues of the then-biggest of the  Asian Tiger economies.

Tim Shorrock and taking the measure of the Trump administration’s bombast from an Eastern perspective in the second half.

And; Victoria activist and CFUV Radio broadcaster at-large, Janine Bandcroft will  be here with the Left Coast Events Newsletter bulletin at the bottom of  the hour. But first, Tom Secker and the clandestine war being fought  between your ears.

Chris Cook hosts Gorilla Radio, airing live every Wednesday, 1-2pm Pacific Time. In Victoria at 101.9FM, and on the internet at: http://cfuv.ca.  He also serves as a contributing editor to the web news site, http://www.pacificfreepress.com. Check out the GR blog at: https://gorillaradioblog.blogspot.ca/

G-Radio is dedicated to social justice, the environment, community,  and providing a forum for people and issues not covered in the corporate  media.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Cooke Aquaculture net failure adds more ammunition to opponents in the ongoing fight against fish farms in our waters.

This Summer has seen two dock occupations by First Nations in two  separate jurisdictions, and the return of crusading biologist Alexandra  Morton and allies the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, with Operation  Virus Hunter II.

The season’s efforts culminated last week with the Rally to End Fish  Farms in the Broughton Archipelago manifesting at the heart of  Vancouver’s Canada Place, and pressing the new NDP government take  action to shut down the industry.

Rod Marining is  a long-time BC resident and Ocean defender. He’s a co-founder of  Greenpeace, current Director at the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society,  and Chair of the BC Environmental Network, among other things. He’s  spent the last few months on board with Sea Shepherd’s Operation Virus Hunter, the second of a two-Summer campaign, trying to get fish farms out of BC’s waters.

Rod Marining in the first half.

And; Canada’s Foreign Minister, Chrystia Freeland is much in the news  lately; generally seen in the context of renewed NAFTA negotiations  between tripartite partners, Canada, Mexico, and the United States.  Though doing trade and investment rule deals is a small part of Freeland’s portfolio,  it’s one she’s uniquely qualified for. The former business journalist  and author of the award-winning book, ‘Plutocrats: The Rise of the New  Global Super-Rich and the Fall of Everyone Else’, is well-used to  rubbing elbows with some of the most powerful of the Western World’s  power elite. But could those ties, while providing welcome free access  for an ambitious journalist, later prove costly political encumbrances  to a cabinet minister?

John Helmer  is a long-time, Moscow-based journalist, author, and essayist whose  website, Dances with Bears is the only news bureau “independent of  single national or commercial ties.” He’s also a former political  science professor who has served as an advisor to governments on three  continents and regularly lectures on Russian topics. Helmer’s book  titles include: ‘Uncovering Russia,’ ‘Urbanman: The Psychology of Urban  Survival,’ ‘Bringing the War Home: The American Soldier in Vietnam and  After,’ and ‘Drugs and Minority Oppression’ among others.

John Helmer on the minister and the plutocrat in the second half.

And; activist and broadcaster at large, Janine Bandcroft  will be here at the bottom of the hour with the Left Coast Events  update. But first, Rod Marining and getting those fish out of water.

Chris Cook hosts Gorilla Radio, airing live every Thursday, 11-Noon Pacific Time. In Victoria at 101.9FM, and on the internet at: http://cfuv.ca.  He also serves as a contributing editor to the web news site, http://www.pacificfreepress.com. Check out the GR blog at: https://gorillaradioblog.blogspot.ca/

G-Radio is dedicated to social justice, the environment, community,  and providing a forum for people and issues not covered in the corporate  media.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Nathalie Chambers  farms at Madrona, and was the first to declare her intentions to run in  the by-election to fill Vic’s seat; an election scheduled for Saturday,  September 23rd.

Chambers  is an organic farmer, business owner, progressive community leader,  fundraiser, project manager, public speaker on biodiversity and local  food security, and author of the book, ‘Saving Farmland: The Fight for Real Food,‘.  She earned a diploma in Restoration Ecology at UVic, and has years of  experience in community planning, and issues management.

Nathalie Chambers in the first half.

And; the recent change of government in BC has opened the books on  the Site-C project, the 9-plus billion dollar mega-project in the  province’s Peace Country. It’s been highly contentious from the start,  and the exclusion of the BC Utilities Commission from the assessment  process was just one of the project’s many bones of contention. Now, the  BCUC is back in the picture, and has announced 11 community input sessions  to be held across the province as part of its review process, starting  Sept. 23, three days after the release of its preliminary report on the  proposed dam.

Ken Boon is a Peace River Valley farmer whose family farm was expropriated by BC Hydro for a Site-C connecting highway scheme. He’s also president of the Peace Valley Landowners Association, and has fought the dam from the beginning.

Ken Boon and the fighting the last dam on the Peace River in the second half.

And; Victoria gardening guru and green entrepreneur, Christina Nikolic  will join us at the bottom of the hour with Left Coast Events  highlights for the coming week. But first, Nathalie Chambers and a  Saanich election at the crossroads.

Chris Cook hosts Gorilla Radio, airing live  every Thursday, 11-Noon Pacific Time. In Victoria at 101.9FM, and on the  internet at: http://cfuv.ca.  He also serves as a contributing editor to the web news site, http://www.pacificfreepress.com. Check out the GR blog at: https://gorillaradioblog.blogspot.ca/

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

William Laurance is a distinguished research professor and Australian  Laureate at James Cook University in Cairns, Australia, director of the  Centre for Tropical Environmental and Sustainability Science, and founder and director of ALERT—the  Alliance of Leading Environmental Researchers & Thinkers. In  addition to his scientific papers, his popular essays appear at, among  other places, CounterPunch.org, The Conversation, and bioGraphic.com, where I found his article ‘Curbing an Onslaught of 2 Billion Cars.’

William Laurance in the first half.

And; if  there’s a single defining characteristic of this mad time we’re  careening through it is the ceaselessness of it all. Even in the  stillest moments the motor hums on, just behind the wallpaper. But, if  the prospect of living at the mercy of a mechanistic society unable to  find rest seems daunting, how much worse is it when the machinery  resides not inside the walls but within our heads, possessing every  waking moment, pervading even our dreams? How much worse yet when, not  only do we want the omnipresent noise, but can’t live without it?

Andy Worthington  is freelance investigative journalist, activist, author, photographer,  film-maker, and singer-songwriter. Co-founder of the Close Guantánamo  campaign (and the Countdown to Close Guantánamo initiative) and  co-director of We Stand With Shaker, which called for the release from  Guantánamo of Shaker Aamer, he has made an annual pilgrimage to America  from his native Britain to lobby for that infamous prison’s closure.

Andy’s book titles include: ‘Guantánamo Files: The Stories of the 774  Detainees in America’s Illegal Prison, ‘Stonehenge: Celebration and  Subversion’, and ‘The Battle of the Beanfield.’ He also co-directed  (with Polly Nash) the documentary film, ‘Outside the Law: Stories from  Guantánamo,’ and spends an inordinate amount of time online, enmeshed in  the virtual wires that constitute the modern-World. His latest article,  ‘Switch Off Your Devices and Have a Week Off: Why Headspace, Silence and Human Interaction is Good for Us‘ examines the value of another kind of peace.

Andy Worthington and making room for headspace in the second half.

And; Victoria gardening guru and green entrepreneur, Christina Nikolic will join us at the bottom of the hour with a special Victoria Fringe Festival Left Coast Events feature. But first, William Laurance and curbing the global vehicular onslaught.

Chris Cook hosts Gorilla Radio, airing live every Wednesday, 1-2pm Pacific Time. In Victoria at 101.9FM, and on the internet at: http://cfuv.ca.  He also serves as a contributing editor to the web news site, http://www.pacificfreepress.com. Check out the GR blog at: https://gorillaradioblog.blogspot.ca/

G-Radio is dedicated to social justice, the environment, community,  and providing a forum for people and issues not covered in the corporate  media.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

No ills to Ibsen or Anton Chekov, but if you’re gonna Fringe, better get ready to tread wider the boards of the living stage.

Heather Lindsay  is Executive Director of Intrepid Theatre, Victoria’s own bold theatre  company, and primary presenter of the Fringe from day one. She’s a  multiple Leo Award-winning filmmaker and theatre vet, who joined  Intrepid in 2012.

Heather Lindsay in the first half.

And; while promising Americans to make its “allies” spend as much on  armies and munitions as they themselves do, in his first televised  speech before the nation this year, president Trump also lauded the  especially heroic cast of the soldiery gathered in his background, and  the U-S-A’s “better than anybody’s” conventional and nuclear war-making  capabilities. Then he confirmed more war for Afghanistan, that benighted  graveyard of presidential promises.

Trump campaigned to end that war, nearly as old now as the century  itself, knowing the American people had tired of the Long War. And, that  weariness is not confined to the Homeland. In Germany, outside just one  of the hundreds of US bases of all sorts, all around the World, near  the town of Büchel, a peace camp has shared the summers with the jets  screaming overhead, making a protest against them, (and the American  nuclear bombs beneath the ground, just beyond the base’s fence).

John LaForge is a long-time staffer at Nukewatch,  the Wisconsin-based nuclear watchdog and environmental justice group,  whose countless articles on the topic have appeared in Nukewatch’s  quarterly and at online sites like: New Internationalist, Z Magazine,  The Progressive, Earth Island Journal and at CounterPunch.org. He’s also  co-editor, with Arianne S. Peterson, of the revised edition of the  book, ‘Nuclear Heartland: A Guide to the 450 Land-Based Missiles of the  the United States.’ His latest article at CounterPunch.org, ‘Peace Camp and War Games at Harvest Time‘ tells the story of Büchel.

John LaForge and “Büchel is Everywhere,” in the second half.

And; Victoria gardening guru and green entrepreneur, Christina Nikolic  will join us at the bottom of the hour with Left Coast Events  highlights for the coming week. But first, Heather Lindsay and setting  the table for a veritable Fringe feast!

Chris Cook hosts Gorilla Radio, airing live every Wednesday, 1-2pm Pacific Time. In Victoria at 101.9FM, and on the internet at: http://cfuv.ca.  He also serves as a contributing editor to the web news site, http://www.pacificfreepress.com. Check out the GR blog at: https://gorillaradioblog.blogspot.ca/

G-Radio is dedicated to social justice, the environment, community,  and providing a forum for people and issues not covered in the corporate  media.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

“We  have many options for Venezuela. This is our neighbor … we’re all over  the world, and we have troops all over the world in places that are  very, very far away, Venezuela is not very far away, and the people are  suffering, and they’re dying. We have many options for Venezuela,  including a possible military option, if necessary.” 

Maduro administration reaction to the threat  was muted, given its substance, but did include nation-wide civilian  and military mobilization drills; a gambit former president, Hugo Chavez  pioneered as response to president George W. Bush sabre-rattling.  Differing today however from the halcyon days of the Bolivarian  Revolution, Venezuela now enjoys neither the inspired leadership of the  charismatic Chavez, nor does it benefit from the favourable media coverage he garnered from certain sectors of the foreign media. Important points both, considering American attacks against his embattled successor, Nicolas Maduro are likely to grow more desperate as the buffoonish presidency of Donald Trump nears its inevitable train wreck.

Whitney Webb is a South America-based journalist writing about environmental, political,  and economic issues in English and Spanish. She’s a staff writer at  MintPress News.com, and her articles have featured at ZeroHedge, the  Anti-Media, and 21st Century Wire, among other places. Her recent work  for MintPressNews includes the article, ‘Alternative Media Is Ignoring Venezuela’s Regime Change Problem.’

Whitney Webb in the first half.

And; as the third anniversary of the Mount Polley mine tailings spill in BC’s interior passed last week, so too passed the provincial statute of limitations  providing for prosecution of the company responsible. Fortunately,  employing a rarely used provision of the law, acting Xat’sull Chief at  the time of the disaster and Indigenous advocate, Bev Sellars filed private charges against Imperial Metals, because she says,

“I  could not bear to witness BC simply stepping aside and giving-up on its  own responsibility to protect our shared environment and waters.” 

Sellars is supported in her suit by various environmental groups and cohort, Jacinda Mack of First Nation Women Advocating For Responsible Mining, or FNWARM.

 Jacinda Mack in the second half.

And; CFUV Radio broadcaster, Janine Bandcroft  will be here at the bottom of the hour to bring us up to speed with  some of what’s good going on in and around our town scheduled for the  coming week. But first, Whitney Webb and whither a word of media support  for Venezuela as alternative to the right’s Mighty Wurlitzer?

Chris Cook hosts Gorilla Radio, airing live every Wednesday, 1-2pm Pacific Time. In Victoria at 101.9FM, and on the internet at: http://cfuv.ca.  He also serves as a contributing editor to the web news site, http://www.pacificfreepress.com. Check out the GR blog at: https://gorillaradioblog.blogspot.ca/

G-Radio is dedicated to social justice, the environment, community,  and providing a forum for people and issues not covered in the corporate  media.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In that light, as victors of ‘The Good War’, we on the winning side can celebrate this week the 72nd anniversary of the destruction by atomic bomb of the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Or so the story goes.

Theresa Wolfwood is Director and co-founder of the Barnard-Boecker Centre Foundation, and a writer, photographer, and long-time activist who has traveled from the highlands of Mexico to the gates of Gaza and beyond  in pursuit of peace, social justice, and women’s rights. Her articles  have appeared at Briarpatch, Peace News, and Third World Resurgence  among other places, and she’s the local coordinator for Victoria’s Women  in Black. The Women in Black will hold their annual vigil in  remembrance of Hiroshima-Nagasaki this Monday, August 7 at high noon  below the tourist information office across from the Empress Hotel.

Terry Wolfwood in the first half.

And; almost as old as the Silver Screen itself is the “gritty  reporter takes on corruption” plot line; but, like a lot in Hollywood,  the Real World tells a different story. Ted Rall knows it too well. As an LA Times-syndicated political cartoonist, he got too close to an ugly truth of Tinsel Town, and when he wrote about it,  got himself an Oscar-sized jam with the LAPD for his trouble. What’s  worse, just when he needed his bosses at the Times most, they turned  Judas, throwing him to the bulls instead. Now, the Pulitzer nominated  journo, prolific graphic artist, and author is in an epic, Ted and  Goliath legal fight with his old bosses at the Times, (and he’s the guy  with the slingshot!).

Rall’s book titles include: ‘After We Kill You, We Will Welcome You  As Honored Guests: Unembedded in Afghanistan,’ ‘To Afghanistan and Back:  A Graphic Travelogue,’ ‘The Book of Obama: From Hope and Change to the  Age of Revolt,’ ‘Snowden,’ and his latest, ‘Trump: A Graphic Biography.’

Ted Rall, out of step with the Times in the second half.

And; CFUV Radio broadcaster, Janine Bandcroft and horticultural guru and green entrepreneur, Christina Nikolic  both will join me today in studio at the bottom of the hour to bring us  up to speed with some of what’s good to do going on in and around our  town in the coming week. But first, Terry Wolfwood and the Women in  Black standing again vigil for Hiroshima, Nagasaki. But first, Terry  Wolfwood and the Women in Black standing again vigil for Hiroshima,  Nagasaki.

Chris Cook hosts Gorilla Radio, airing live every Wednesday, 1-2pm Pacific Time. In Victoria at 101.9FM, and on the internet at: http://cfuv.ca.  He also serves as a contributing editor to the web news site, http://www.pacificfreepress.com. Check out the GR blog at: https://gorillaradioblog.blogspot.ca/

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

And, on Parliament’s last sitting day, Justin Trudeau answered  opposition party questions about the long-promised undoing of Bill C-51,  legislation roundly condemned by social libertarians as invasive to the  point of draconian.

The Prime Minister then reminded the ousted Tories of duties incumbent upon leaders; patiently explaining the reasons for the erasure of their contentious, Anti-Terrorism Act of 2015,  saying, “Canadians expect their government to do two things: to protect  our rights and freedoms and keep our communities safe.”

But is that all they expect, and does C-59 fit the billing?

Marie Aspiazu is the Social Media Specialist at Open Media,  a civic engagement organization working to, “keep the Internet open,  affordable, and surveillance-free.” The Vancouver-based Aspiazu has  worked within the environmental, conservation, and non-profit sectors,  while her articles on those topics have appeared at Rabble, Common  Ground, and Alternet.org.

Marie Aspiazu in the first half.

And; twenty years after Clayoquot Summer ’93, arguably the peak of  environmental activism not only in the Sound, but on Vancouver Island,  kayak guides and naturalists Dan Lewis and Bonny Glambeck shifted oars  and founded Clayoquot Action,  an organization dedicated to keeping “Clayoquot Sound clean and green  for future generations, to preserve the diversity and integrity of the  ecosystems, and to maintain and develop community and cultural  richness.”

While they’ve been educating and activating people living in and  visiting to Clayoquot for a long time, this Summer they launched  Clayoquot 2.0, an “all-new weekly, multi-media journey through the  visually stunning landscape, wildlife and culture of Clayoquot Sound.”

Bonny Glambeck and Clayoquot 2.0 in the second half.

And; Victoria-based horticultural guru, Christina Nikolic  will be here at the bottom of the hour to bring us up to speed with  some of what’s good going on in and around our town in the coming week.  But first, Marie Aspiazu and Bill C-59; real National Security Act  reform, or just an act?”

Chris Cook hosts Gorilla Radio, airing live every Wednesday, 1-2pm Pacific Time. In Victoria at 101.9FM, and on the internet at: http://cfuv.ca.  He also serves as a contributing editor to the web news site, http://www.pacificfreepress.com. Check out the GR blog at: https://gorillaradioblog.blogspot.ca/

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Take a look at the mayhem playing this week in your town and the  marshal presence is obvious, but the influence of the Pentagon and its  A-lister cohorts in the acronym-ed intelligence agencies is by degrees  more subtle, going far beyond the war flicks, first-person shooter  adaptations, and super hero franchisees.

Tom Secker is a UK-based private researcher, journalist, frequently  featured commentator on security and intelligence issues, host of the  popular podcast, ClandesTime, and principal behind spyculture.com, “the world’s premier online archive about government involvement in the entertainment industry.”

He’s also co-author, with Matthew Alford of the newly released book, ‘National Security Cinema: The Shocking New Evidence of Government Control in Hollywood‘.

Tom Secker in the first half.

And; in a tale Kafka would shrink from, the case of Canadian  teenager, Omar Khadr resurfaced in the Canadian political and media  consciousness recently. On it’s face, the renewed interest in the fate  of the former Guantanamo Bay inmate surrounds the recent settlement of  millions in damages due, to be paid by Canada for the abrogation of its  responsibility to protect Khadr’s rights, and much worse, its collusion  with the agents of his torture.

But the apoplexy expressed by, and grandstand political haymaking  coming from, the conservative party and their fellow travellers in the  press reveals a desperate attempt by the Tories to find purchase against  a seemingly Teflon-coated, prime minister Justin Trudeau.

Garth Mullins is a long-time Vancouver-based DTES activist, writer, broadcaster, musician,  and trade unionist whose weekly column appears at 24 Hours Vancouver,  and a contributor to CBC Radio one’s program ‘Ideas’. He’s also been at  the fore, working with VANDU, the Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users,  in responding to the city’s overdose crisis.

Garth’s recent article in 24 Hours Vancouver  takes apart the prominently placed Tory “outrage” against the  government’s decision to settle rather than fight Khadr further,  questioning the motives of both the party and the press.

Garth Mullins on Omar Khadr and Canada, the Torturer’s Apprentice in the second half.

And; CFUV Radio broadcaster, Janine Bandcroft  will be here with a Left Coast Events update at the bottom of the hour  to bring us up to speed with what’s good going in and around here in the  coming week.

But first, Tom Secker, raising a curtain on ‘National Security  Cinema: The Shocking New Evidence of Government Control in Hollywood’.

Chris Cook hosts Gorilla Radio, airing live every Wednesday, 1-2pm Pacific Time. In Victoria at 101.9FM, and on the internet at: http://cfuv.ca.  He also serves as a contributing editor to the web news site, http://www.pacificfreepress.com. Check out the GR blog at: https://gorillaradioblog.blogspot.ca/

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In his time, John Lefebvre  has been and done all those things and more, so when friends urged he  record his extraordinary life story he began, but found he “quickly  tired of writing sentences that started with “I” and ended with “me”.”

But still, there was a story to tell, and to that end comes Lefebvre’s debut book, ‘All’s Well. Where Thou Art Earth and Why‘, a biography of the human species through a lens that contends,

“We are the Universe’s vessels of consciousness, of astonishment and of love.”

John Lefebvre in the first half.

And; twenty years after Clayoquot Summer ’93, arguably the peak of  environmental activism not only in the Sound, but on Vancouver Island,  kayak guides and naturalists Dan Lewis and Bonny Glambeck shifted oars  and founded Clayoquot Action,  an organization dedicated to keeping “Clayoquot Sound clean and green  for future generations, to preserve the diversity and integrity of the  ecosystems, and to maintain and develop community and cultural  richness.” While they’ve been educating and activating people living in  and visiting to Clayoquot for a long time, this Summer they launched  Clayoquot 2.0, an “all-new weekly, multi-media journey through the  visually stunning landscape, wildlife and culture of Clayoquot Sound.”

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

For those outside the province, legendary for extreme political  divisiveness, an update: Almost two months following a hotly contested  election with razor thin margins of difference between the two major  parties, both of whom claimed victory we have seen: A minority agreement  pact between the long-time opposition party and an upstart Green Party;  the pomp and ceremony of a swearing in of the incumbent government;  weeks of a frozen legislature; a failed confidence vote; final  recognition by the Lieutenant-Governor of the tenability of the minority  coalition; and, tada! we have an operational government at last.

Just in time for the summer break!

Meanwhile, there are big issues at stake that can’t wait for Fall.  None bigger perhaps than the Site C mega-project on the Peace River. The  former premier, Christy Clark famously tried to take that contentious  behemoth “past the point of no return” before her electoral reversal. It  was an effort costing tax-payers more than 2 billion bucks, according  to the determined Clark. Now it’s up to John Horgan’s NDP to decide if  they cut their predecessor’s losses, or dedicate 10 billion dollars  more, burdening the generations to come. This week sees the 12th Annual Paddle for the Peace, where Site C and the new government is sure to be the talk of the event.

Andrea Morison is Executive Director for the PVEA, Peace Valley Environmental Association.  She holds a Masters of Natural Resource Management degree and has  worked in the field in both Ontario and BC for more than 25 years, the  last of these being devoted to the PVEA’s involvement with the  environmental assessment process for Site C. Andrea’s prior experience  is in the forestry, and oil and gas sectors.

Andrea Morison in the first half.

And; what does a commercial software company in Israel have to do with social activists and journalists being targeted and murdered in Mexico? Everything, according to a recent report  released by Citizen Lab, an organization, “sounding alarms about the  abuse of commercial spyware [and producing] extensive evidence showing  how surveillance technology, allegedly restricted to government agencies  for criminal, terrorism, and national security investigations, ends up  being deployed against civil society.”

Ron Deibert was a  co-founder and principal investigator of the OpenNet Initiative, and  Information Warfare Monitor projects, and the U. of T. professor of  Political Science is now Director of the Citizen Lab at the Munk School of Global Affairs. He’s published extensively  on technology, media, and world politics, and is a contributing author  to the landmark, ‘Tracking Ghostnet and the Shadows in the Cloud’  reports identifying two separate global cyber-espionage networks, and  the Great Cannon report, which outed a hitherto unknown “cyber weapon”  within China’s so-called, “Great Firewall”. Deibert is also author of  the books, ‘Parchment, Printing, and Hypermedia: Communications in World  Order Transformation,’ and ‘Black Code: Inside the Battle for  Cyberspace’.

Ron Deibert in the second half.

And; horticultural guru and intrepid green entrepreneur, Christina  Nikolic will join us at the bottom of the hour with the Left Coast  Events update, bringing us up to speed with some of the good things  planned in and around our town for the coming week. But first Andrea  Morison and paddling to preserve the Peace.

Chris Cook hosts Gorilla Radio, airing live  every Wednesday, 1-2pm Pacific Time. In Victoria at 101.9FM, and on the  internet at: http://cfuv.ca.  He also serves as a contributing editor to the web news site, http://www.pacificfreepress.com. Check out the GR blog at: https://gorillaradioblog.blogspot.ca/

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In  the sweetest scene of the richest play the English stage offers on the  theme of useless, destructive division amongst peoples, Juliet asks, ‘What’s in a name? A rose by any name would smell as sweet. So Romeo would, were he not Romeo call’d.’ 

And well that may be for Shakespeare’s lovers, but when it comes to  the feud dividing the oppositional forces in the less than United States  these days, politics on the “left” seems more, ‘a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, [and] signifying nothing’ where merely finding the right names for the warring rose factions is fraught with confused dissension.

Robert Jensen is  an educator, essayist, activist, and self-described radical. Professor  in the School of Journalism at the University of Texas at Austin, and  proud board member of the Third Coast Activist Resource Center.

Jensen is too a former journalist, still writing  on such subjects as foreign policy, politics, economics, and ecology,  and author whose book titles include: ‘Plain Radical: Living, Loving,  and Learning to Leave the Planet Gracefully’, ‘Arguing for Our Lives: A  User’s Guide to Constructive Dialogue’, ‘We Are All Apocalyptic Now: On  the Responsibilities of Teaching, Preaching, Reporting, Writing, and  Speaking Out’, ‘All My Bones Shake: Seeking a Progressive Path to the  Prophetic Voice’, ‘Getting Off: Pornography and the End of Masculinity’,  ‘The Heart of Whiteness: Confronting Race, Racism and White Privilege’,  ‘Citizens of the Empire: The Struggle to Claim Our Humanity’, ‘Writing  Dissent: Taking Radical Ideas from the Margins to the Mainstream’, and  his latest is the newly released, ‘The End of Patriarchy: Radical  Feminism for Men’.

Robert Jensen in the first half.

And; campaigns to fill the vacant seat of former Saanich councillor, Vic Derman are gaining steam, with a by-election  rumoured to be called for sometime in the Fall. The popular,  long-serving Derman died last St. Patrick’s Day, and among those that  would succeed him is Blenkinsop Valley farmer, Nathalie Chambers.  It was with Derman’s encouragement Chambers and husband, David  resurrected the Chambers’ family farm, and with help from the community,  and The Land Conservancy, ensured Madrona Farm would be a keystone property in maintaining an active agricultural presence within a rapidly diminishing Saanich farmscape.

Nathalie Chambers and hoeing the rows in rural Saanich in the second half.

And; CFUV broadcaster, Janine Bandcroft  will be here with a Left Coast Events to bring us up to speed with  what’s good going in and around here update at the bottom of the hour.  But first, Robert Jensen and How Radicals Are Offering Realistic  Solutions to Our Spiraling Political Problems.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Despite the placid demeanor of the place and people within though, it is not a perfect peace.

Two weeks ago, Canadians were reminded of the true peril that lay  just beneath the deceptively calm surface of our civic existence with  the release of 2017’s Defence Policy Review, a document my first guest  describes as including:

“a significant increase in lethal fighter  jets and secretive special forces, as well as enhancing offensive  cyber-attack capabilities and purchasing armed drones.”

Not to mention a massive minimum expenditure increase of more than $62 billion over the next twenty years.

Yves Engler is a Montréal-based  activist, lecturer, and author whose book titles include: ‘The Ugly  Canadian — Stephen Harper’s Foreign Policy,’ ‘Lester Pearson’s  Peacekeeping — The Truth May Hurt,’ ‘The Black Book of Canadian Foreign  Policy,’ ‘Canada in Africa — 300 Years of Aid and Exploitation,’ and his  latest, ‘A Propaganda System: How Canada’s Government, Corporations, Media and Academia Sell War and Exploitation.’ In a recent Rabble.ca article, Engler called for opposition to both the spirit and specifics of the so-called “Trudeau Doctrine” but is there anyone left around here to do so?

Yves Engler in the first half.

And; as the World, thanks to the muscular military mentality so elegantly elucidated by our princely PM’s  Foreign Affairs ministry, hurtles towards an Armageddon-like  conflagration in the Middle East, there are still people imploring we  clever hominids take heed the better angels of our nature and move the  species clear, away from abyss’ rim.

Professor Mazin Qumsiyeh  is founder of the Palestine Museum of Natural History, Director of the  Center for Biodiversity and Sustainability at Bethlehem University, past  chairman of the Palestinian Center for Rapprochement Between People,  and a tireless social justice campaigner whose main civic interests lie  in media activism and public education. To that end, he has given  hundreds of talks around the world, and is even now in the middle of a tour of the United States  encompassing Colorado, New Mexico, Louisiana, North Carolina,  Washington, D.C., and Texas, from where we’ll reach him today. Mazin’s  e-book on human rights activism, ‘Sharing the Land of Canaan: Human  Rights and the Israeli-Palestinian Struggle,’ is available from his  website, Qumsiyeh.org.

Mazin Qumsiyeh talking to Americans in the second half.

And; horticultural guru and intrepid green entrepreneur, Christina  Nikolic will join us at the bottom of the hour with the Left Coast  Events update, bringing us up to speed with some of the good things  planned in and around our town for the coming week. But first, Yves  Engler and who’s left to complain about Canadian militarism?

Chris Cook hosts Gorilla Radio, airing live  every Wednesday, 1-2pm Pacific Time. In Victoria at 101.9FM, and on the  internet at: http://cfuv.ca.  He also serves as a contributing editor to the web news site, http://www.pacificfreepress.com. Check out the GR blog at: https://gorillaradioblog.blogspot.ca/

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

It was, according to conspirator, Colonel Bayardo,

“A fast operation…over in minutes.” And one, he reassures, with “no injuries, no deaths.”

That may have been true for the operation to abduct Manuel “Mel” Zelaya, but injuries perpetrated and deaths suffered at the hands of the coupsters since have proven grievous and numerous.

Tyler Shipley is Professor of Culture, Society and Commerce at Humber  College’s Institute of Technology and Advanced Learning, and Associate  Fellow at the Centre for Research on Latin American and the Caribbean,  or CERLAC. His first book, ‘Ottawa and Empire: Canada and the Military Coup in Honduras‘ is fresh off the Between the Lines presses.

Tyler Shipley in the first half.

And; last week, in conjunction with the government’s release of the Defence Policy Review, Canada’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Chrystia Freeland  addressed both the House of Parliament, and Canadian households on  CBC’s flagship news program, The National, explaining the planned  direction of the country’s foreign policy in the foreseeable future. Neither performance was well received by Ceasefire.ca.

The Ottawa-based public policy research and advocacy offshoot of the  Rideau Institute blasted the government’s announcement of significant  increases in military spending, saying their budget lacks credibility  and is not affordable. They also accuse, the move to dramatically  increase military spending succumbs to recent statements by, and pressure tactics of, US President, Donald Trump.

Peggy Mason is President of the Rideau Institute, an independent  think tank that focuses on bringing a progressive voice to Canada’s  foreign and defence policies. Issues of interest for the Institute range  from nuclear disarmament to the centrality of UN conflict resolution.

Peggy Mason and a more muscular understanding of Canada’s place in the World in the second half.

And; horticultural guru and intrepid green entrepreneur, Christina Nikolic  will join us at the bottom of the hour with the Left Coast Events  update, bringing us up to speed with some of the good things planned in  and around our town for the coming week. But first, Tyler Shipley and  the Ottawa and Empire: Canada and the Military Coup in Honduras.

Chris Cook hosts Gorilla Radio, airing live every Wednesday, 1-2pm Pacific Time. In Victoria at 101.9FM, and on the internet at: http://cfuv.ca.  He also serves as a contributing editor to the web news site, http://www.pacificfreepress.com. Check out the GR blog at: https://gorillaradioblog.blogspot.ca/

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Tomorrow, June 8th, 2017, James Comey, the former director of the  Federal Bureau of Investigation, fired amidst that organization’s most  singular investigation ever, one threatening the legitimacy of the  administration itself, will testify before a special Senate Intelligence  Committee. Certainly, what the committee asks, and how Comey answers  will determine the news cycle for weeks and months to come, but  tomorrow’s performance may too determine the ultimate fate of the  fledgling Trump presidency.

Dave Lindorff  is an award-winning journalist, author, broadcaster, and founder of the  award-winning web news site, This Can’t Be Happening.net. His book  titles include: ‘This Can’t Be Happening! Resisting the Disintegration  of American Democracy,’ ‘Marketplace Medicine: The Rise of the For  Profit Hospital Chains,’ ‘Killing Time: An Investigation into the Death  Row Case of Mumia Abu-Jamal,’ and, with Barbara Olshansky, ‘The Case for  Impeachment: The Legal Argument for Removing President George W. Bush  from Office.’ You can tune in Dave’s This Can’t Be Happening radio  program Wednesdays at 5pm eastern time on PRN, the Progressive Radio  Network.

Dave Lindorff in the first segment.

And; Thursday also marks the day Britons go to the polls. Sitting  prime minister, Theresa May promised to hold her predecessor, David  Cameron’s course, shepherding the UK out of the European Union, while  assuring voters she would wait until after the so-called Brexit was  initiated before calling an election to test her inherited mandate.  Sensing an advantage perhaps, May changed her mind, calling a snap  election. She has since watched her party’s seemingly insurmountable  poll advantage dissipate in the weeks preceding the vote. Then there was  Manchester; and now, the London Bridge terror attacks.

Patrick Henningsen is  co-founder and executive editor of the online news site, 21st Century  Wire, and host of its radio program, Sunday Wire. Focusing on  geopolitical analysis, they provide an essential counter-narrative to a  skewed media monolith. Patrick frequently features too as a commentator  on RT.

Patrick Henningsen and the nerve-wracking countdown to elections in Britain in the second half.

And; horticultural guru and intrepid green entrepreneur, Christina  Nikolic will join us at the bottom of the hour with the Left Coast  Events update, bringing us up to speed with some of the good things  planned in and around our town for the coming week. But first, Dave  Lindorff and Donald Trump’s first congressional test.

Chris Cook hosts Gorilla Radio, airing live every Wednesday, 1-2pm Pacific Time. In Victoria at 101.9FM, and on the internet at: http://cfuv.ca.  He also serves as a contributing editor to the web news site, http://www.pacificfreepress.com. Check out the GR blog at: https://gorillaradioblog.blogspot.ca/

G-Radio is dedicated to social justice, the environment, community,  and providing a forum for people and issues not covered in the corporate  media.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Event Navigation

[Music by Luke Wallace - 'The Non-Violent Anti-Petroleum Blues' and 'I Will Hold On, I Am Not Lost']

• « Pints Not Pipelines Dance Party
  
• All-Nations Gathering Against Kinder Morgan! »
  

“This  is a global movement and not just a fight against another dirty  pipeline… This is not simply an indigenous issue; climate change and the  catastrophic impacts that we have witnessed to date and the potential  impacts that will manifest in the future, are a matter of grave concern  of all people around the world.”

-Stewart Phillip, Grand Chief of the Union of BC Indian Chiefs

We  are all Coast Protectors and the Salish Sea and all the waters flowing  down through the Fraser river basin and surrounding communities are at  risk from the Kinder Morgan pipeline/tanker expansion. Now is the time  to walk the talk on climate justice/clean energy, indigenous rights,  marine protection and local democracy.

That’s why we’re calling on  defenders of this coast, its ecosystems, people, communities and  economies to join us on the Walk for the Salish Sea: a four day march  against Tar Sands, Kinder Morgan and all fossil fuel expansion in the  absence of indigenous consent, sound science and ecological balance.

From  May 25th-28th, we will march from Songhees territory in Victoria to the  Kinder Morgan terminal on Tsleil-Waututh territory in Burnaby to show  our support for and solidarity with the 22 municipalities, 59 First  Nations and hundreds of thousands of British Columbians who oppose the  Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain expansion.

Our walk will bear witness  to the demise of our planet from on-going capitalist- industrial  expansion for corporate profit with its disproportionate impacts on the  lives, lands and cultures of indigenous peoples who are on the  frontlines of this struggle to curb tar sands expansion from Alberta’s  downstream Cree and Chipwyan communities to this coast. We join hearts  and hands between First Nations, settlers and peoples world-wide  struggling for environmental justice and a safe, sustainable future.

The  mobilization will include honouring of traditoinal welcoming protocols,  large marine wildlife puppets, roaming bank actions, evening programs,  infoworkshops, communal camping and dinners, ceremony, a rally aboard BC  Ferries and nightly entertainment.

Route details and maps will be  posted shortly. Allies are encouraged to make the entire journey or to  join for any portion of the walk they can. Participants are welcome to  walk, run, bike, roller-blade, skateboard, paddle or use wheelchairs –  any human-powered, ecologically sound mode of transportation is welcome.

Through-walkers,  going overnight for any portion fo the trip are welcome to have their  belongings carried on our support vehicle and will not have to worry  about carrying gear.

Partner organizations and community groups  not along our route are also encouraged to mobilize independently from  any point of origin, to join in the Walk and/or meet us at ground zero –  the Kinder Morgan Terminal – on May 28th, for the mass convergence.

This  event is organized by 100% volunteer-activist labour as part of the  Walk 4 the Salish Sea! endorsed by the following organizations  including: Social Environmental Alliance ( SEA) Union of British  Columbia Indian Chiefs (UBCIC)- Coast Protectors, Pull Together ( Raven  Trust, Sierra Club BC, Force of Nature Alliance) Burnaby Residents  Opposed to Kinder Morgan Expansion (BROKE) Greenpeace (Victoria  volunteer group), Leap-Victoria, Victoria Council of Canadians, Turning  the Tide, KAIROS, BC/Yukon chapter, KAIROS Metro Vancouver chapter,  Wilderness Committee, Greenpeace Canada, North Shore No Pipeline  Expansion (NSNOPE), Non-violence International Canada, Climate  Convergence Vancouver, Georgia Strait Alliance, Quaker Indigenous Rights  Committee of the Canadian Friends Service Committee (QIRC-CFSC), Mining  Justice Committee, Community Action Bus.

FUNDRAISING

A  major objective of the walk is to generate public awareness and direct  financial support for Indigenous-led initiates to stop construction of  the Kinder Morgan TMX. Proceeds from fundraising will go to UBCIC Coast  Protectors and Frontline Indigenous Resistance Initiatives to resist the  Kinder Morgan Expansion.

WALK DONATIONS:

Donations to help  cover Walk expensies for food, lodging, support vehicles, first aid,  gifts/honorariums, art supplies, port-a-potties, sound equipment,  insurance etc. can be made directly by interac etrsansfer to walk4salishsea@gmail.com. With thanks!

REGISTRATION

Registration  for those who who need overnight lodging or billeting or would like to  partake in communal dinners, can now sign up for the Walk on our website  at walk4salish sea.ca

PULLING TOGETHER for Indigenous Rights!

Participants  are also encouraged to contribute to the Pull Together campaign to  support the Coldwater and Tsleil-waututh legal challenges to the Kinder  Morgan pipeline/tanker expansion, and to seek online sponsorship for  your walk (run, ride etc.) from friends, colleagues, comrades, and  family. All you need to do is get on the Pull Together site:

https://fundraise.raventrust.com/campaign/pull-together-against-kinder-morgan/c111605

1. Click Become a Fundraiser
2. Click AS an individual
3. Build your individual profile
4. Click Join a Team
5. Join the Walk 4 the Salish Sea Team
6. Make your donation and recruit family and friends to make donations in support of your efforts.

Donations are tax-deductible, 100% secure and will be matched dollar-for dollar by an anonymous donor.

Together,  employing every tool at our disposal, we can defeat this pipeline,  protect the Salish Sea, turn the tide on fossil fuels and support a big  victory for indigenous rights and climate justice!

ROUTE and PROGRAM INFORMATION ( in progress)

People  of all ages and abilities, are welcomed to join The Walk 4 the Salish  Sea! for whatever duration and distance best matches your fitness level  and plans for the weekend of Thursday May 25-28th.

This mass  mobilization against tar sands and Kinder Morgan pipeline expansion for  decarbonzation and decolonization and an urgently needed transition from  dangerous fossil fuel dependency begins at Mile “0” at the beginning of  the Trans Canada Highway in Victoria to the Kinder Morgan terminal in  Burnaby.

Route itinerary and program ( further details tba)

NOTE: All times approximate. Walk may travel swifter or slower due to numbers, traffic and weather.

Day 1 Thursday May 25th
Mile “0” (Lekwungen territory) to Island View Beach, up the Lochside trail ( access Ardesier St, off Douglas).
Walking distance: 23 km, ~6 hours.
7:45 am – Registered participants check-in, load support vehicle
8 am – Circle and Traditional welcome and blessing from beloved Lekwungen Elder Joan Morris
 9 am – Drummers escort Walkers and Orcas Sounding through downtwon, up  Government St, to Douglas, to Ardesier to the Galloping Goose, heading  northbound.
12:40 pm – Walk arrives at Lochside Park for lunch
3:30 pm – Walk arrives at Island View Beach ( W̱SÁNEĆ territory)
 7 pm – Tsawout First Nations Gathering Strength gymnasium, 7728 Tetayut  Rd, Saanichton, Standing with First Nations Against Kinder Morgan:  Dinner and fundraiser for Coast Protectors and Pull Together campaign  for Coldwater and Tslei-waututh First Nations fighting Kinder Morgan in  court. Speakers include: Tsawout Elders Belinda Claxton and Mavis  Underwood, Elizabeth May, Tsartlip Chief Don Tom, Adam Olsen, Caitlyn  Vernon, former Douglas Treaty co-ordinator Eric Pelkey Tsartlip carver  Charles Elliot, Alicia Cormier. Performances by: Phil Vernon, Bill  Henderson, Luke Wallace. and Willy Thomas Pow Wow Singers. See the  facebook event page here.

Day 2 Friday May 26th
Island View Beach to Ladner United Church (Tsawassen First Nations Territory).
Walking Distance: 30 km, ~7.5 hours.
7 am – Morning circle and breakfast
8 am – Noon, Walk to Swartz Bay Ferry Terminal
1 pm – Ferry departs for Tswawassen
 1:30 am – Oil-Free Salish Sea rally aboard BC Ferries including Sisters  of Mercy Choir, Raging Grannies, Luke Wallace and speakers
2:45- 5:45 pm – Walk to Ladner, staying at Ladner United Church
-Dinner, talking circle and sleep

Day 3 Saturday May 27th
Ladner- East Van (xʷməθkʷəy̓əm /Musqeaum and Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish) First Nations Territory).
Walking Distance: 18km, ~5 .5 hours.
7 am – Morning Circle and Breakfast.
8 am – Walk to Ladner Exchange- take bus through Massey Tunnel.
Cross Knight St. Bridge, up Victoria.
12:20-1:20 – Lunch at John Hendry Park in East Van.
3 pm -Arrive at Grandview Cavalry Baptist Church.

Day 4 Sunday May 28th:
RSVP & share on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/events/1842294959356318/
REMEMBER TO PACK A LUNCH & WATER!
Grandview Park to Kinder Morgan Westridge Terminal, Tsleil-Waututh and Musqeaum First Nations territory.
Walking Distance: 10 km, ~4 hours.
 9 am – Meet Grandview Park (1657 Charles St, @ Commercial, Vancouver)  Ceremony, drumming, short speeches, welcoming of Walkers. Music by  Solidarity Notes Choir & others. Large performance art piece by the  100-200 member group: Orca Soundings, highlighting the endangered  southern resident orcas.
9:30 am – Walk leaves along E. Hastings to  Kinder Morgan Westridge Terminal -səlil̓wətaʔɬ /Tsleil-Waututh and  xʷməθkʷəy̓əm /Musqeaum First Nations territory.
Join spots:
11:30am – East Hastings St. @ Ingleton Ave. (3802 Hastings St, Burnaby)
12:45pm – East Hastings St. @ Holdom Ave, Burnaby (Capitol Hill Elementary School, 5697-5801 Hastings St, Burnaby)
1:30pm: Westridge Park (320 Cliff Ave, Burnaby)
 1:30 – 2:30 pm – The Walk will proceed to the gates of the Kinder  Morgan Westridge Marine Terminal for drumming, decoration of the gates  and symbolic blockade
2:30 – 5 pm – FOSSIL FUEL FREEDOM FEST: Celebrate Resistance!! Westridge Park (320 Cliff Ave, Burnaby)
 Includes infotables, music/dancing, kid’s activities, Indigenous  rights, climate justice, Kinder Morgan pipeline and mass non-violent  direct action teach-in. Volunteers needed! Please email: walk4ssvolunteer@gmail.com
Speakers / Music to include:
– co-MC’s: Audrey Siegl & Stephen Collis
– Coast Salish welcome – Cedar George-Parker, Tsleil-Waututh FN
– Grand Chief Stewart & Joan Phillip, UBCIC
– Slam Poets
– Brandon Gabriel & Kachina Bige, Kwantlan First Nation
– Music by Luke Wallace, Emily Kelsall, Buckman Coe, The Racket & other awesome people!
– Kanahus Manuel, Secwepemc First Nation
– Chief Lee Spahan, Coldwater FN
– Elizabeth May MP Saanich-Gulf Islands
– Briony Penn (Orca Soundings)
– Burnaby Mayor Derek Corrigan
– Kennedy Stewart MP-Burnaby South

CORE MESSAGES

1) Respect for Indigenous laws and rights:
 Without free, prior, and informed consent, government approval for  pipeline/tanker expansion is a violation of the UN Declaration of the  Rights of Indigenous Peoples, section 35 of the Canadian constitution on  Aboriginal Rights and Title, Douglas Treaty rights and principles of  Indigenous laws that require indigenous leaders to be ecological  stewards of their lands. Consent means the ability to say “no”. We stand  against any development which does not have the consent of the  sovereign indigenous nations on whose territory it occurs.

2) Climate leaders don’t expand fossil fuel infrastructure:
 It makes no sense to fight climate change while increasing  infrastructure for some of the planet’s dirtiest oil! We call on the  federal and provincial governments to abandon fossil fuel expansion and  immediately invest in clean energy infrastructure and job creation that  curbs greenhouse gas emissions, not increases them.

3) Water is life:
 The risks to rivers, salmon habitat, drinking watersheds, the coast,  surrounding communities and local economies from inevitable spills are  not acceptable A massive bitumen spill in the Salish sea or anywhere en  route, traversing thousands of salmon and orca supporting habitats from  Alberta to the coast of BC, cannot be cleaned up, ever!

4) Leave it in the Ground

Indigenous  communities downstream from Alberta’s tar sands have been suffering  from the impacts of contaminated water, loss of traditional livelihood,  hunting and fishing territory and higher than average cancer rates and  lower life expectancy, than elsewhere in Canada. The movement for  climate justice and opposition to pipelines must include the call to  stop all new tar sands and fossil fuel infrastructure at the source.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

This  event will be taking place on the territories of the Lekwungen  (Songhees and Xwsepsum/Esquimalt), W̱SÁNEĆ, səlil̓wətaʔɬ  (Tsleil-Waututh), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam)  Coast and Straits Salish Nations.

We respectfully recognize that  Indigenous resistance to the Kinder Morgan pipeline/tanker expansion is  one manifestation of Indigenous resistance to colonization that has been  happening since first contact and continues today.

For more information call : 778-265-3564

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This Week on GR

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

May 24, 2017
 

In the waning days of its  provincial mandate, outgoing Energy Minister, Bill Bennett announced a  BCLiberals plan to create, if re-elected, an "independent wildlife agency"  that could make politically unpalatable decisions regarding wildlife  "management." And though couched in the language of conservation, in  essence what that "management" means is continued recreational hunts of Grizzly Bear, and expanded culls against the top predator populations of Cougar and Wolves.
 

In a March 22nd press conference, now-retired East-Kootenay MLA, Bill Bennett proposed a $5 million start-up budget for the "expert and stakeholders" operated agency that would be funded using the near 10 million dollars in hunting licenses and fees collected annually.
 

Listen. Hear.
 

Bennett said, the idea is to "get politics out of the way," but some of the "stakeholders" not invited to participate promise, politics will happen!
 

Dr. Alan Burger is  Adjunct Associate Professor in the Department of Biology at the  University of Victoria. He's also professional wildlife consultant,  based in the interior town of Merritt, B.C.
 

Alan Burger in the first half.
 

And; in the run-up to the provincial poll, BC Hydro Chair, Brad Bennett,  grandson to the Grandaddy of dam builders, W.A.C. Bennett warned the electorate to beware of "fake news" when it comes to Site C saying,
 

“I take issue with the fake news crowd,  talking about Site C and whether it’s needed or not. The fact is it’s  needed. We know it’s needed. Our forecasting shows that very, very  clearly.” 

With all due respect to the Chair, there are many, many for whom that need is not very, very clear.
 

Ken Boon is a Peace River  Valley farmer whose multi-generation family farm is in the way of Site  C. He's long argued Site C is not only not needed, but is too a massive  mistake that will prove a white elephant for the province for  generations to come. Boon is president of the Peace Valley Landowners  Association and a past target of BC Hydro legal actions.
 

Ken Boon and Site C fakery in the second half.
 

And; CFUV Radio broadcaster, Janine Bandcroft  will join us virtually at the bottom of hour to bring us up to speed  with some of what's good going and planned for the coming week around  here. But first, Alan Burger and minding the proposed minders in BC's  wilds.
 

Chris Cook hosts Gorilla Radio, airing live every Wednesday, 1-2pm Pacific Time. In Victoria at 101.9FM, and on the internet at: http://cfuv.ca.  He also serves as a contributing editor to the web news site, http://www.pacificfreepress.com. Check out the GR blog at: https://gorillaradioblog.blogspot.ca/

G-Radio is dedicated to social justice, the environment, community, and  providing a forum for people and issues not covered in the corporate  media. 

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Mark Lakeman is a Portland, Oregon-based community activist, architect, and lead hand at Communitecture, an architectural firm with a difference.

Communitecture says, “We design beautiful and sustainable places that  bring people together in community…[w]ith an approach that explores new  creative territories…”

Mark brought that creativity to Portland City Council in 2001 when  dreaming up a design for the city’s now World famous “place-based  community,” Dignity Village.  Sixteen years on, it’s a model whose relevance and guiding principles  has proven resilient and adaptable to a broader population of home  seekers.

Mark Lakeman in the first half.

And; in the dying days of BC’s recent election campaign, a group of  professionals concerned an issue posing enormous deleterious  environmental and human health effects was not getting the media  coverage it deserved rallied supporters to make of it an election issue.

Hydraulic fracturing,  or Fracking, is a process so detrimental it’s been banned in a growing  number of jurisdictions. But here in BC, under the innocuous rubric,  “LNG” this clearly present and persistent threat carries on. In fact,  expanding the Fracked Gas industry is the cornerstone of the  government’s economic plan for the province.

Dr. Amy Lubik mobilized along with the BC chapter of CAPE, or the Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment, in the operation hoping to deliver a moratorium on Fracking in BC.

Amy Lubik in the second half.

And, CFUV Radio broadcaster and activist, Janine Bandcroft  will be at the bottom of the hour to bring us up to speed with some of  the good things planned for the coming week around here, and further  afield too. But first, Mark Lakeman and making big community with tiny  houses.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

More rarely contemplated still, by those who do consider the  ramifications of the whens and wheres of wars happened and happening, is  the long aftermath suffered.

Whose mental picture includes the endless agonies of wounds that  cannot be healed; who conjures in the mind’s eye a portrait of the lives  and lands irrevocably torn asunder?

Andre Vltchek is an itinerant philosopher, novelist, filmmaker,  investigative journalist, poet, playwright, and photographer He is a  revolutionary internationalist globetrotter, who fights perpetually the  Western Imperialist ethos, and the corrupt regimes it imposes around  World.

There are very few war and conflict zones Andre has not covered, or  dark corners where economic violence and gross injustice occur he has  not dared venture into. Vltchek’s numerous book titles include: ‘Western  Terror: From Potosi to Baghdad’, ‘Indonesia: Archipelago of Fear’,  ‘Exile’ (with Pramoedya Ananta Toer, and Rossie Indira), ‘Oceania –  Neocolonialism, Nukes & Bones’, ‘The World Order and Revolution! –  Essays from the Resistance’ (co-written with Christopher Black and Peter  Koenig), ‘Liberation Lit’ (edited with Tony Christini), and his latest,  ‘Exposing Lies of the Empire’, ‘Fighting Against Western Imperialism’,  and ‘On Western Terrorism: From Hiroshima to Drone Warfare’ (written  with Noam Chomsky).

Andre recently conducted a lengthy interview with trauma surgeon, Dr.  Ghassan “Gus” Abu Sitta in Beirut about frontline medicine and his  upcoming presentation to the 48th Middle East Medical Assembly,  ‘Conflict Medicine and the Ecology of War’.

Andre Vltchek in both segments today.

And; horticultural guru and intrepid green entrepreneur, Christina  Nikolic will join us at the bottom of the hour with the Left Coast  Events update, bringing us up to speed with some of the good things  planned in and around our town for the coming week. But first, Andre  Vltchek and the Ecology of War.

Chris Cook hosts Gorilla Radio, airing live every Wednesday, 1-2pm  Pacific Time. In Victoria at 101.9FM, and on the internet at:  http://cfuv.ca. He also serves as a contributing editor to the web news  site, http://www.pacificfreepress.com. Check out the GR blog at:  https://gorillaradioblog.blogspot.ca/

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

No “Into the breach, boys” heroics, or tales of gallantry done to  share with grandchildren yet unborn; merely a mannered, polite ceremony,  presumably with tea and cut sandwiches to follow; and Bob’s your uncle.

For nearly all of our 150 years that’s been good enough. Some of us  even take a measure of pride our beginnings are a genteel, dare we say  more civilized, affair than that of our flamboyant cousins south.

But, in this new and bloodied century, where the prosecution of  warmaking is more perpetual profession than momentous event,  circumscribed by neither remorse nor temporality, the warrior ethos  requires vigorous reaffirmation, and there our placid foundational  trumpet is wanting steel.

Happily, as it happens, Canada’s 2017 sesquicentennial coincides with  the hundred year anniversary of the Battle of Vimy Ridge. Just the  blood and guts grist needed to render from the horror and gore of trench  warfare a narrative of glory and progress for an overly effete nation;  or so our marshal myth-makers would have it. But are Canadians ready to accept militarism as national mantle?

Jamie Swift  is an award-winning journalist, activist, educator, and author whose  body of work is focused largely on issues of social justice, economy,  environment, globalization, and politics. Among his other book titles,  he co-authored, with Ian McKay, ‘Warrior Nation: Rebranding Canada in an  Age of Anxiety’ and teamed up again with McKay for the recently  released, ‘The Vimy Trap: Or, How We Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Great War‘. The Michener-Deacon Fellowship for Public Service Journalism awardee is also the keynote speaker for the inaugural, ‘Provincial Peace and Disarmament Summit‘, to be held here at the University of Victoria May 12-13.

Jamie Swift in the first half.

And; with less than a week before the provincial poll, which issues  are you focused on? Though it’s difficult to narrow down to just a few  the missteps of the current government, there is a single exemplar of  all that is wrong with the BCLiberals, regardless of your political  bent. Whether fiscal conservative, Libertarian, enviro,  anarcho-communist, social democrat, political agnostic, or miscellaneous  the Site C Dam project has something to outrage you. And, the folks at Just the Dam Facts argue, there’s a lot more than just one disastrous thing about this white elephant everyone can oppose.

Ariel Martz-Oberlander is with Just the Dam Facts, and she joins us in the second segment.

And, CFUV Radio broadcaster, Janine Bandcroft  will be here at the bottom of the hour to bring us up to speed with  some of what’s good to do planned in and around our town for the coming  week. But first, Jamie Swift and The Vimy Trap, a ridge too far.

Chris Cook hosts Gorilla Radio, airing live every Wednesday, 1-2pm Pacific Time. In Victoria at 101.9FM, and on the internet at: http://cfuv.ca.  He also serves as a contributing editor to the web news site, http://www.pacificfreepress.com. Check out the GR blog at: https://gorillaradioblog.blogspot.ca/

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

But then, the real story of the fate of those mainly women and  children killed while waiting, Checkpoint Charlie-style, for exchange  from one side of the Syrian battle front to the other was never fully  told; at least not by the big Media guns on our side of that protracted  war.

Whitney Webb is a South America-based journalist writing about environmental, political, and economic issues in English and Spanish.

Her articles have featured at ZeroHedge, the Anti-Media, 21st Century  Wire, and True Activist among other places. Her recent work for  MintPressNews.com includes the article, ‘Al Jazeera, CNN and BBC Cover Up Genocidal Crimes of US – Backed Syrian Rebels‘. It’s the story behind the recent murder of more than 125 al-Fu’ah and Kafrayah refugees.

Whitney Webb in the first segment.

And; Patrick Henningsen  of 21st Century Wire is on the ground in Syria. He arrived with Vanessa  Beeley just as the al-Fu’ah and Kafrayah refugees were being bombed.  Their reports from the scene were subsequently broadcast around the  World on 21Wire and the RT network.

Patrick Henningsen, dispatches from Syria’s fluid front in the second segment. 

And; Syria is not the only place where faked, phonied, and otherwise  distorted news is promulgated. Demonizing Russia is nothing new in the  Western press, but since the implosion of America’s Democrats last  November, the pitch of anti-Putin vitriol has exceeded shrill, becoming a  dog-whistle for disappointed Clintonites and the neo-Liberal claque  surrounding her doomed presidential ambition. But, is there more than  politics behind the rhetoric?

Daniel Kovalik  is a human rights lawyer, essayist, and author who’s book, ‘The Plot to  Scapegoat Russia: How the CIA and the Deep State Have Conspired to  Vilify Putin’ is fresh off the Skyhorse Publishing press. Dan teaches  international human rights law at the University of Pittsburgh School of  Law, and is Senior Associate General Counsel for the United Steel  Workers union. He’s made numerous trips to Colombia, serving as a  witness to last year’s peace plebiscite there. Dan’s a long-time peace  and justice activist, focused especially on Colombia and Central  America, where he too serves as an attorney for Colombian plaintiffs in  cases alleging corporate human rights violations, and co-recipient of a  Project Censored Award for chronicling the murder of trade unionists in  Colombia.

Dan Kovalik and impaling Vlad in the final segment.

And; horticultural guru and intrepid green entrepreneur, Christina Nikolic  will join us at the bottom of the hour with the Left Coast Events  update, bringing us up to speed with some of the good things planned in  and around our town for the coming week. But first, Whitney Webb and  whitewashing war crimes in Syria.

Chris Cook hosts Gorilla Radio, airing live every Wednesday, 1-2pm Pacific Time. In Victoria at 101.9FM, and on the internet at: http://cfuv.ca.  He also serves as a contributing editor to the web news site, http://www.pacificfreepress.com. Check out the GR blog at: https://gorillaradioblog.blogspot.ca/

G-Radio is dedicated to social justice, the environment, community,  and providing a forum for people and issues not covered in the corporate  media.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

K.J. Howe is an author and  inveterate globe-trotter whose debut novel, ‘The Freedom Broker’  incorporates her exotic adventure-travels and the dark world of kidnap  and ransom, where crime, terrorism, and politics blur the lines between  ideology and international business.

K.J. Howe in the first segment.

And; Patrick Henningsen is the founding editor of the independent news website, 21st Century Wire.  He appeared here last month detailing his plans to travel to Syria to  investigate firsthand the situation there, and arrived on the heals of  the massacre by Western allies of an estimated 126 refugees from al-Foua and Kfraya, villages outside Aleppo.

The dead and maimed, mostly women and children, were blown to pieces  by a bomb disguised in a food truck, and driven up to buses waiting, as  agreed in a truce, to ferry the villagers to safety.

Patrick Henningsen from Syria in the second segment.

And; Diana Beresford-Kroeger  is a woman with a plan, a Bioplan. The world renowned author, medical  biochemist, botanist, and “last child of ancient Ireland” possesses a  unique combination of western scientific knowledge and the traditional  concepts of the ancient world. Her plan: “encouraging ordinary people to  develop a new relationship with nature, to join together to replant the  global forest.”

A part of that “encouragement” is the authoring of the books: “The  Sweetness of a Simple Life”, “The Global Forest”, “Arboretum Borealis”,  “Arboretum America”, and “A Garden for Life.”

Diana has also made a film, chronicling her vision. ‘Call of the  Forest: The Forgotten Wisdom of Trees screens April 25th through 30th at  UVic’s Cinecenta theatre.

Diana Beresford-Kroeger and seeing the forest through the trees in the final segment.

And; horticultural guru and green entrepreneur, Christina Nikolic  will be here to bring us news of good things planned in and around our  town in the coming week. But first, K.J. Howe and when freedom isn’t  free.

Chris Cook hosts Gorilla Radio, airing live every Wednesday, 1-2pm Pacific Time. In Victoria at 101.9FM, and on the internet at: http://cfuv.ca.  He also serves as a contributing editor to the web news site, http://www.pacificfreepress.com. Check out the GR blog at: https://gorillaradioblog.blogspot.ca/