Gorilla Radio is dedicated to social justice, the environment, community, and providing a forum for people and issues not covered in the corporate media. Note: Sadly, exhorbitant server charges have necessitated I make most of the vast archives of the show private for the moment…

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Welcome to Gorilla Radio, recorded April 25th and May 1st, 2024

Happy May Day! In times of yore, in the northern hemisphere, the May Day heralded Winter’s finality and the coming of Spring proper. No frosts would come to kill seeds to soon planted, or make perish younglings in the nest. For youngsters now, “May Day” as heard may first evoke panic of a Mayday! Mayday! that since 1927 has been recognized as the universal signal of distress. As international raconteur, and frequent guest on Gorilla Radio, John Helmer, (from whom this introduction is inspired) reminds, the distressful element of the Mayday derives from the French, “M’aidez”, literally “help me!” It’s a call emanating now across the World for the people of Gaza that is being answered with blunt force by authorities in the countries in support of Israel’s ongoing genocide in Palestine; a genocide promising to become a 21st Century Holocaust.

In the first half, local voices becoming a part of the global barricade to stop the slaughter and to free finally Palestine.

And; as well as genocide in Gaza, and so far less virulent attacks against freedom of speech and thought at American universities, Israel is too targeting the Palestinian culture, hunting down and killing its journalists, authors, and poets. Fascists have always feared artists and their ability to stir within our hearts aspirations for a more beautiful world, and have always tried and failed to quash that spirit; and in their attempts they reveal themselves and their vile philosophy to be the enemy of what’s best about us, and what’s best about being alive.

Terry Wolfwood is the Director and co-founder of the Barnard-Boecker Centre Foundation. She’s served as local coordinator for the Victoria chapter of Women in Black for many years, and has traveled numerous times to the refugee camps in Palestine and Western Sahara to bear witness to those suffering injustice, and to bring the message of the people she meets there back to Canada. Terry is too a poet and author; her articles have appeared at Briarpatch, Peace News, and Third World Resurgence among other places. Her poetry can be found at the Foundation’s site, BBCF.ca, and in her recently released second anthology, ‘Passion and Commitment’, published by Smallberry Press.

Terry Wolfwood and a life of passionate existence, love, (art) and resistance in the second half.

But first, Palestine’s message from Victoria to the World.

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

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Last week, the United States surprised no-one in using its veto power in the United Nations Security Council to stymie again Palestine’s hopes of recognition as a full member state. In killing the resolution – a reiteration of another aborted by that body in 2011 – America said, “This vote does not reflect opposition to Palestinian statehood, but instead is an acknowledgment that it will only come from direct negotiations between the parties.” That presumably an allusion to Israel, the UN member state currently waging a widely acknowledged genocide across Palestine’s remnant historical territories.

John B. Quigley is Professor emeritus of international law at Ohio State University’s Moritz College of Law, whose numerous publications include books on international jurisprudence, and articles on human rights, the United Nations, war and peace, east European law, African law, and the Arab-Israeli conflict. In his book, ‘The Statehood of Palestine: International Law in the MIddle East Conflict’ Quigley argues the state of Palestine was extant before Israel’s creation, and remains so despite any subsequent “permutation” to its territory.

Some of Quigley’s other titles include, ‘The Case for Palestine: An International Law Perspective’, ‘Palestinian Crisis Best Understood Under International Law’, ‘International Law and the Palestinian Refugees’, ‘The Genocide Convention: An International Law Analysis’, and ‘The Statehood of Palestine’ among many others.

John B. Quigley in the first half.

And; following the UN Security Council’s quashing of the full membership resolution for Palestine, an emboldened Israel accelerated its genocide campaign against the captive Gaza; and though famine and disease threaten, and the entire Strip is being subject to land, sea and air bombardment, the international community has proven yet unable to either stop the onslaught, or get adequate food and other aid to the people there. But not everyone is waiting for the UN, or “international community” to act.

Activist, journalist, and lawyer, Dimitri Lascaris has joined the Gaza Freedom Flotilla 2024 in Turkiye, where the three ship strong contingent has expedited its departure to “meet the profound and urgent needs of Gaza’s civilian population”. But there are forces exerting pressure to prevent the ships sailing, (as no doubt there will be the same trying to arrest the completion of their humanitarian mission).

Dimitri’s articles and recent video reports from the Middle East are available at his site, DimitriLascaris.org, and his interviews for TRNN can be found at TheRealNews.com.

Dimitri Lascaris taking to the high seas in defense of Palestine in the second half.

But first, John Quigley and the making of the State of Palestine now as it’s ever been, again.

Song: The Ballad of UK Lawyers for Israel

Artist: David Rovics

 

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

Welcome to Gorilla Radio, recorded April 17th, 2024

 

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In the Fall of 2020, amid the fear and confusion of Covid, British Columbia’s minority NDP government called a snap election. It was controversial then as much for coming barely two years into the mandate, as drawing voters together at the height of the pandemic. But, there was more electoral controversy to come. A “McCarthyite” campaign to undermined the leader of one of the province’s political parties slithered by, ultimately knocking him and his party out of the election.

Stuart Parker describes himself as a “Canadian political exile”. Living in Tanzania now, Parker left Canada last year after suffering a “three-year campaign of neo-McCarthyite blacklisting.” He has a long history of political and environmental activism in B.C. and Ontario, and was, before being chased out, the acting leader of the nascent B.C. Ecosocialist Party. Stuart’s recently released a compendium of his prodigious writings in the four-volume, ‘Collected Essays 2008-2024‘.

Stuart Parker in the first half.

And; the last two weeks the World has been on tenterhooks, not knowing how Iran would react to Israel’s April Fool’s rocket attack against the Iranian Embassy in Damascus. Now that we know; what will Israel do next?!

There’s amazing developments in this story; too numerous and changing too rapidly to keep up with in a brief introduction like this. But suffice to say; we’re entering an Age of Trepidity where each next step could spell a disastrous fall.

John Helmer’s a journalist and author who’s spent decades living in and reporting from Russia. He’s the principle behind the web news site, Dances with Bears, and has too been a professor of political science, sociology, and journalism and served as advisor to governments at the highest levels.

Among his many book titles are: ‘Skripal in Prison,’ ‘The Man Who Knows Too Much About Russia,’ ‘The Lie That Shot Down MH-17’, ‘SOVCOMPLOT: How Pirates Tried to Capture the Treasure of the Russian Seas, and Were Caught Out’, and his lately released autobiography, ‘Dunce Upon a Time: A Life of Mistakes’. His latest article at Dances with Bears is, ‘Loose Lips Don’t Sink Ships, or Israel.’

John Helmer and sparking the Electric War in the second half.

But first, Stuart Parker, a Canadian volunteer in exile.

 

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