This Week on GR

by C. L. Cook - Gorilla-Radio.com

December 7, 2017

It became official this week; the International Olympic Committee says Russia will not be welcome at the upcoming Winter Games. This ostensibly due to what the IOC says was a widespread, and official, policy of performance enhancing drugs using, or doping.

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/

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11th Hour on Site C

by Stop Site C

November 30, 2017

Hello Friends!

 The NDP have not yet made their final decision on Site C and we need to help build their confidence in making a decision to protect all British Columbians from this unnecessary, destructive and costly project. They need to hear from as many British Columbians as possible and feel supported in a decision to cancel Site C.

We are at the 11th hour of our fight to stop the Site C Dam. The BC NDP Cabinet is meeting with six advisors on the dam RIGHT NOW, and a decision is expected soon! We have deeply appreciated your support with our campaign in the past and we are hoping that at this critical time, you would be willing to undertake one or more of the actions below to make sure that when the NDP cabinet ministers return from their meeting today, their offices are flooded with messages from all of us that WE DON’T WANT SITE C!

Suddenly, I’m a ‘Russian Agent’!

by Dave Lindorff - CounterPunch

November 28, 2017

For a number of years now, I have been periodically interviewed as a source or a commentator on news programs and as an occasional panel participant on RT TV, the Russian government-funded English-language television station. For the past year, I’ve been paid a small amount for my work. Effective Monday, November 13, something changed, though. RT suddenly became a“registered foreign agent.”

The Russian government-funded news service, which has its headquarters in Washington, with bureaus in several other US cities, filed the required papers under protest — the only foreign news service operating here that is required to do so — and said it intends to sue. Russia is also retaliating and will be requiring some US news organizations operating in Russia, including Voice of America, to similarly register as foreign agents.

 This means that as of two weeks ago, I have been working, at least on a minimal basis of perhaps one short 5-10-minute interview per week, for a “foreign agent.”

Photo: Surian Soosay | CC BY 2.0

Borneo: Island Devastated, People Oblivious

by Andre Vltchek and Mira Lubis - Dissident Voice

November 28th, 2017

She was just standing there, in the middle of burning land, surrounded by stumps of trees, fire everywhere, smoke rising towards a hopelessly gray sky. The expression on her face was mischievous, almost girlish. I had no idea how old she was: she could have been 28, just as she could easily have been 55.

This island, this village, this charred land: it all looked like hell to me, but obviously not to her: it actually made her laugh, burst with pride.

Bu Elvi

After all, it was her island, not mine; it was her land, her trees, and it was all getting royally fucked. She was personally participating in this carnage of nature – she, as well as her husband, her entire family, her neighbors.

This Week on GR

by C. L. Cook - Gorilla-Radio.com

November 30, 2017

Twenty people were killed last week in renewed fighting between the ethnic Oromo and Somali people of Ethiopia. Though the groups have lived harmoniously for generations, tensions have been on the rise in recent months, culminated in bloody clashes and a mass exodus of tens of thousands in September.

Violence and intimidation in camps set up to shelter displaced members of both Oromo and Somali minorities chased from their respective homes is also reported. But why the fighting; and why now?

Listen. Hear.

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/

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This Week on GR

by C. L. Cook - Gorilla-Radio.com

November 23, 2017

The clock is winding down, the moment of truth drawing nearer for the contentious Site C dam mega project in BC's Peace country. Billions in the hole, and billions more promised to go down it too should it proceed, or be cancelled; now the new government in Victoria has to decide which way it will go.

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.

Listen. Hear.

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/

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Trump's 'ultimate deal' only offers hard choices for Abbas 

by Jonathan Cook - The National AE

November 20, 2017

It is in Donald Trump’s nature to bargain ruthlessly and then cut a quick-and-easy deal, and in this environment, something has to give, writes Jonathan Cook

The long wait appears to be coming to an end on Donald Trump’s “ultimate deal”, one supposedly capable of unlocking the impasse between Israel and the Palestinians. The United States peace initiative may be unveiled as soon as January, marking the first anniversary of Mr Trump’s arrival in office.

Other reports suggest it may be delayed until March. But all seem sure it will be upon us soon.

Neither Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu nor Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, appear keen to enter another round of fruitless dialogue. But for good reason, Mr Abbas is far more reticent.

This month, in statements presumably directed at Washington, he insisted he would not agree to a Palestinian state without Gaza, or one restricted to Gaza.

This Week on GR

by C. L. Cook - Gorilla-Radio.com

November 16, 2017

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, decreeing 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. Senor Puigdemont's participation in that poll is not welcome.

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.’

Listen. Hear.

 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 only 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/

A Telling Comparison: Israel versus North Korea

by Kim Petersen - Dissident Voice

November 14th, 2017

Missing from corporate media accounts is what causes the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK aka North Korea) to be singled out for opprobrium for what, essentially, is developing a deterrent against any entity that would attack it.

A comparison with how the United Nations deals with North Korea vis-à-vis another member state state, Israel, is instructive.

Israel occupies Palestinian territory; destroys Palestinian olive groves and poisons Palestinian sheep; sprays Palestinian homes with sewage; sabotages Palestinian water supplies; cuts off power to Palestine; terrorizes Palestinians for hours at checkpoints, including the sick, infirm, and pregnant women, some who are forced to give birth at the checkpoints; stops fishermen from earning a living from the sea; shells hospitals, schools, and playgrounds; blows up kids on beaches; and commits myriad other war crimes. Israel has nuclear weapons and ICBMs. The last point is the only one that North Korea shares with Israel.

Yet only North Korea is vociferously criticized and sanctioned by the US and its allies. Is this fair? And is it just that North Korea is bullied and sanctioned for developing a self-defense?

by Subhankar Banerjee - TomDispatch

What happens in the Arctic doesn’t just stay up north. It affects the world, as that region is the integrator of our planet’s climate systems, atmospheric and oceanic.

At the moment, the northernmost places on Earth are warming at more than twice the global average, a phenomenon whose impact is already being felt planetwide.

Welcome to the world of climate breakdown -- and to the world of Donald Trump.

The set of climate feedbacks contributing to further warming in the Arctic are about to be aided and abetted by President Trump, his Interior Department, and a Republican-controlled Congress. The impact of their decisions will be experienced around the world.

Porcupine River caribou migrating to the coastal plain
for calving, Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
Photograph by Subhankar Banerjee, 2002

This Week on GR

by C. L. Cook - Gorilla-Radio.com

November 9, 2017

If popular culture is good for anything it's for providing a window on the zeitgeist; that ineffable yet immediately recognizable "spirit of the times." Following my TV's guidance then, the pervading essence defining us in this moment seems to be... the zombie.

Brainless and soulless, devoid of imagination or self-awareness, though the maelstrom may rage about it, our zombie looks neither up nor down, but gazes directly ahead, able only to pounce on whatever happens to cross the narrow focus of its fixed eye.

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?

Listen. Hear.

 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/

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Hezbollah doesn’t attack America, it’s the other way around

by Sharmine Narwani - The Sandbox

November 7, 2017

Western-backed militants are in retreat, Bashar al-Assad remains president, Hezbollah has stretched its wings regionally, Israeli power is in decline, and Iran is on the rise. Not a pretty result for Washington’s multi-billion dollar investment in the Syrian conflict, especially if it was intended to change the map of the region to favor U.S. interests.

The Trump administration is therefore moving to hit its regional adversaries on alternative, non-military fronts—mainly, employing the sanctions tool that can cripple economies, besiege communities, and stir up public discontent.

The first step was to decertify the nuclear agreement struck between Iran and the five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany (P5+1), which would open up a pathway to further U.S. sanctions against Iran.