Gorilla Radio with Chris Cook, Zoe Blunt, David Ellis, Janine Bandcroft Sept 9, 2013

Autumn comes again to Victoria, and as well as the changing colours in the trees, the Fall also marks the traditional move indoors where people can again get together and get active. But where some of us take the Summer to recharge our batteries, others work all year round to protect our wild places, ’cause the rusting souls scheming to take it never sleep. Just such a group are the ever-vigilant Victoria Forest Action Network, who have worked for years to keep the wild lands wild. As their website, forestaction.wikidot.com reminds:

“In 2012 and 2013, VIC FAN sponsored the Caravan to Unis’tot’en Camp to help block tar sands and fracking pipelines. Surveying and clearing on the pipeline route has been delayed for a year. In 2011 we defeated a massive (and illegal) vacation-home subdivision near China Beach.”

And it goes on… Vic Fan is getting ready to host a fundraising bash this coming Saturday, September 14th right here in the Student Union Building of the University of Victoria to further fund their efforts to stand before the bulldozers and those behind them. VIC FAN says it is;

“100% volunteer, autonomous, anti-racist, feminist and fierce” and they promise, “[a]ll of the proceeds raised go directly to our projects.”

Zoe Blunt is a long-time South Island-based environmental defender and activist/organizer. Zoe’s past campaigns with Wild Coast, VicFAN and other organized manifestations include: an attempt to forestall the so-called Bear Mountain development, (a failed effort that culminated spectacularly in a massive SWAT team assault on three tree-sitters at the site of the long-derelict but soon-to-be-revived Spencer Road overpass); the successful turn-around of mega-developer at large, Ender Ilkay’s Marine Trail Resort; conducting activist and non-violent resistance workshops; and participation with the Caravan to Wet-suwet-‘en, an annual congregation at the planned site of the pipeline confluence for the controversial Pacific Trail Pipeline project. Blunt was also instrumental in convincing VanCity’s ethical investments arm to disinvest itself of Enbridge-related investment vehicles.

Zoe Blunt and an Untamed Cabaret for the Wild Coast in the first half.

And; itinerant book dealer, David Ellis has spent most of the last twenty years travelling from town to town selling rare books. When a sixty year old book detailing the construction of the first trans-mountain oil pipeline spanning the Rockies came into his hands, he says; “It opened my eyes.” The book piqued his curiosity, so he hiked along the route of the pipeline, and what he found there shocked. Since, Ellis has been a man a-fire, warning all who would listen of the impending disaster the Trans Mountain poses to the environment. And he’s already been proven right.

David Ellis and selling the oily pipeline snake with snake oil in the second half.

And; Victoria Street Newz publisher editor and CFUV Radio broadcaster, Janine Bandcroft will join us at the bottom of the hour to bring us up to speed with what’s going on in and around Victoria, and beyond, in the coming week. But first, Zoe Blunt and an Untamed night for Vic FAN and Wild Coast.ca.

Chris Cook hosts Gorilla Radio, airing live every Monday, 5-6pm 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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Author: Chris Cook

Chris Cook hosts Gorilla Radio, broad/webcasting since 1999. The show is archived at: www.gorilla-radio.com. The GR blog is at: gorillaradioblog.blogspot.com, and you can find and support the program at GRadio.Substack.com. Financial support is also possible through the Patreon site: https://www.patreon.com/PacificFreePress. He's too the past contributing editor to the web news site, www.pacificfreepress.com, (now defunct) and tweets at @paciffreepress. G-Radio is dedicated to social justice, the environment, community, and providing a forum for people and issues not covered in the corporate media. Some past guests include: M. Shahid Alam, Joel Bakan, Maude Barlow, Ramzy Baroud, David Barsamian, William Blum, Luciana Bohne, Helen Caldicott, Noam Chomsky, Paul Cienfuegos, Yves Engler, Laura Flanders, Denis Halliday, Julia Butterfly Hill, Sam Husseini, Robert Jensen, Dahr Jamail, Chalmers Johnson, Malalai Joya, Kathy Kelly, Ingmar Lee, Dave Lindorff, Andrew Gavin Marshall, Stefania Maurizi, Greg Palast, Michael Parenti, John Pilger, Kevin Pina, Ted Rall, Paul Craig Roberts, John Ross, David Rovics, Joan Russow, Danny Schechter, Vandana Shiva, Norman Solomon, David Swanson, Andy Worthington, Mickey Z., Howard Zinn and many others.

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