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… Go to: https://gradio.substack.com (and please consider supporting my work financially). – Ape]

Listen. Hear.

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/

Listen. Hear.

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

 

Listen. Hear.

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/

Welcome to Gorilla Radio, recorded April 10th, 2024

Listen. Hear.

Over the weekend Israel announced a withdrawal of troops from Gaza, leaving only a brigade along the recently created divide in the centre of the Strip. It says the retreat, or retrenchment, is a temporary measure in preparation for the long-threatened ground invasion of Rafah. Meanwhile, one refugee now able to return to the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis – site of a major battle last week – reports her city in ruins, saying “There isn’t a house without a martyr, wounded, or destroyed.”

Laith Marouf is the Palestinian-Canadian founder of FreePalestine.Video. The long-time multimedia consultant and producer is currently chronicling the Palestine disaster from his base in Beirut. Free Palestine Video says it’s meant to fill a “large gap” in media coverage, “…in the absence of media supporting the resistance forces in the English language due to the ban in the West.”

Laith Marouf in the first half.

And; there’s no knowing if Israel’s destruction of Iran’s Damascus Embassy last week inspired Ecuador’s infamous violation of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations over the weekend, but the storming of the Mexican Embassy in that country and kidnapping of Ecuador’s former Vice President and asylee, Jorge Glas certainly reiterates the erosion of International Law.

Glas, who served in Raphael Correa’s administration and was convicted for corruption, says charges against him are politically motivated. He’d been in the Embassy since December, and was promised safe passage out of the country last week. Mexico’s President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador blasted the Noboa administration for the breach, saying the arrest of Glas constitutes an “authoritarian act” and is a “flagrant violation of international law and sovereignty of Mexico”.

Joe Emersberger is a Canadian-Ecuadorian engineer, journalist, and co-author with Justin Podur of the book, ‘Extraordinary Threat: The US Empire, the Media and 20 Years of Coup Attempts in Venezuela‘. Joe’s many articles focusing on Western media coverage of the Americas can be found at FAIR.org, CounterPunch, and Telesur English among other places.

Joe Emersberger and Jorge Glas getting ‘Assanged’ in Quito in the second half.

But first, Laith Marouf and the vital work of supporting and conveying the voice of the resistance to the entire 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/

Welcome to Gorilla Radio, recorded April 3rd, 2024

Listen. Hear.

Over the weekend Palestinians marked Land Day, the annual March 30th commemoration of six civilians murdered by Israeli soldiers while protesting expropriation of their homes and property in 1976. In Toronto, demonstrations were held Saturday in conjunction with those calling for a cessation to Israel’s ongoing violence, already deemed tantamount to genocide by court findings at the International Court of Justice, and ordered stopped in the UN Security Council.

The protest in Toronto proceeded much as the many preceding it had, until Toronto Police Services decided to escalate. By the end, 7 had been detained, three ultimately charged, and policing in “Toronto the Good” once again proving it ain’t so much so.

But, should we be surprised that the cops in Toronto behave like the politicians in Ottawa – and the presses everywhere in the country – unfairly serving and protecting the interests of Israel? Afterall, it’s a Canadian tradition. As Canadian author, Yves Engler says of his 2010 book, ‘Canada and Israel: Building Apartheid’, “Liberal and Conservative governments, usually with support from the NDP, have staunchly backed Israel since before its creation.”

Yves Engler is a Montreal-based political activist and the author of thirteen books, mostly detailing the dark dealings of Canada’s foreign policy elite, including the aforementioned. His latest, co-authored with Owen Schalk, is ‘Canada’s Long Fight Against Democracy’, which Yves is currently touring across Canada. He’s also a prolific essayist, whose writing appears across the internet and at his website, YvesEngler.com, where I found his recent piece, ‘Gaza the final nail in “Canada as honest broker” coffin’.

Yves Engler in the first half.

And; last week, America’s media Wurlitzer concerted in replaying a favourite from its propaganda song book. The ‘Havana Syndrome Hustle’, for those not tuned to Spook Radio, was the one about the mysterious illness allegedly suffered by American diplomats in Cuba, (and sympathetically experienced by their Canadian colleagues). Safe to say, the re-release was received with crickets from the critics, but any distraction is a welcome one for American intelligence these days.

But, it’s not all clownery in Washington, DC where former “Counterterrorizism Czar” under George W. Bush rose again last week to be named head of the NED. Covert Action Magazine has, for those unfamiliar with the Beltway players, published a program entry on the National Endowment for Democracy’s new number one, Juan Zarate.

Jeremy Kuzmarov is a journalist and author who also serves as Managing Editor at CAM. Jeremy’s book titles include, ‘Obama’s Unending Wars’, and ‘The Russians Are Coming, Again’, written with John Marciano, and his latest, ‘Warmonger. How Clinton’s Malign Foreign Policy Launched the U.S. Trajectory From Bush II to Biden’. His recent article at CAM is, ‘CIA Cutout Appoints Counterterrorism Czar Who Supported Massive Human Rights Abuses’.

Jeremy Kuzmarov and Spook World not so golden oldies reprised at Foggy Bottom in the second half.

But first, Yves Engler on Toronto’s protest policing, Foreign Minister, Melanie “Genocide” Joly’s public meltdown, and Israel’s escalation through bombing of the Iranian Embassy in Damascus.

Song: This Is a Genocide (Remix LIVE at CCB)

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/