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Gorilla Radio with Chris Cook, John Philpot, Pablo Ouziel April 19th, 2023

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Welcome to Gorilla Radio, recorded April 19th, 2023.

Last week, Russia placed sanctions on more than 300 Canadians, barring the mostly government apparatchiks and media personalities access to the country. It was, the Russian Foreign Ministry said, in hopes of “...encourag[ing] those on the black list to change their behaviour“.

Wide-ranging sanction policies – including those Canada aims at Russia and Eastern Ukraine – are now so common, (Canada alone sanctioning a couple dozen countries and thousands of individuals and entities) they threaten the World’s economic system. Or so argues the recently published book, ‘Sanctions: A Wrecking Ball in a Global Economy‘.

John Philpot is a Montreal-based defense attorney in International Criminal Law. Long active in Palestinian and African support organizations, and campaigns to free political prisoners, Meng Wanzhou and Alex Saab, Philpot is too an executive board member of Just Peace Advocates and the Sanctions Kill Coalition. John will be one of three speakers touring the Canadian book release, starting tonight in Hamilton.

(For Montreal event Webinar livestream link here.)

John Philpot in the first half.

And last week, France’s Constitutional Court allowed some of President Emmanuel Macron’s pension reforms, notably the most contentious one; an age eligibility rise. Organized Labour there – who’ve rallied tens of thousands into the streets against the move over the last month – vows now to bring in a General Strike on the Workers’ holiday, May Day.

Meanwhile, Macron’s address Monday was delivered to a cacophony of pots and pans – a regular cacerolada banging outside the walls of power – where the workers chanted, “If Macron won’t listen to us, we won’t listen to him!”
Dr. Pablo Ouziel is a PostDoc at the Université du Québec à Montréal whose area of study is The European Union: Political, Legal and Economic Integration from Above and Below, and Settler Colonialism and Canadian Society.

Pablo’s book, ‘Democracy Here and Now: The Exemplary Case of Spain‘ chronicles the birth of the M15 movement against draconian government “austerity” measures, and the rise of authoritarianism there and across the western world. Pablo divides his time between Montreal and his native Catalonia.

Pablo Ouziel and “Oui Emmanuel, Paris IS burning” in the second half.

But first, John Philpot and Sanctions: the Hegemon’s desperate bid to hold back the tides of change.

Song: Juan Carlos El Bobon

Artist: Pablo Hasel – Youtube

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: http://gorillaradioblog.blogspot.com/

Gorilla Radio with Chris Cook, Pablo Ouziel September 1st, 2022

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Welcome to Gorilla Radio, recorded August 6th, 2022.

Europeans are experiencing a blow-back blast this Summer on multiple fronts. Hellishly hot weather, a financial meltdown, and the nagging persistence of the pandemic with all its attendant social pressures are combined to test the hardiest continentals – and, as warm as it is there now, Winter is coming!

Pablo Ouziel is an associate fellow at the Centre for Global Studies at the University of Victoria and a visiting fellow in the Department Politics and International Relations at the University of Southampton. His book, ‘Democracy Here and Now: The exemplary case of Spain‘ is published by University of Toronto Press and chronicles the birth of the M15 movement against draconian government “austerity” measures, and the rise of authoritarianism there and across the western world.

Pablo currently lives outside Barcelona.

Pablo Ouziel and Europe’s Summer of reckoning.

Chris Cook hosts Gorilla Radio, airing since 1998; in Victoria at 101.9FM, and on the internet at: cfuv.ca. Check out the GR blog at: http://gorillaradioblog.blogspot.com/

Song: For Love

Artist: Ashley Shadow

Gorilla Radio with Chris Cook, Pablo Ouziel, Felix Abt August 6, 2022

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Welcome to Gorilla Radio, recorded August 6th, 2022.

Europeans are experiencing a blow back blast this Summer on multiple fronts. Hellishly hot weather, a financial meltdown, and the nagging persistence of the pandemic with all its attendant social pressures are combined to test the hardiest continentals – and, as warm as it is there now, Winter is coming!

Pablo Ouziel in the first half.

And; in these last mad years of pandemics, wars, and climate alarm if we’ve learned anything it is the fragility of institutions many of us once thought solid, if not sacrosanct. Cracks in our societal pillars are clear, there for all to see, despite the establishment’s best efforts to paper over the fissures. Part of the media effort to convince us our system is sound and “the greatest ever” is the necessary denigration of those others in places like Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Syria, Iran, Russia, China, and of course North Korea.

Swiss author Felix Abt describes himself as a “politically neutral businessman…not sharing the typical partisan views about North Korea“. After living and working in the country he says he can “contribute to a more objective view of a country he knows much better than the journalists and bloggers writing about it“. Former CIA whistleblower, John Kiriakou says of Abt’s second book, ‘A Land of Prison Camps, Starving Slaves and Nuclear Bombs?‘, “Finally, the truth about North Korea… [revealing] …the caricature we’re fed by the western media simply isn’t true.“

Felix Abt and a capitalist’s story of life in the “Hermit Kingdom” in the second half.

But first, Pablo Ouziel and Europe’s Summer of reckoning.

Chris Cook hosts Gorilla Radio, airing since 1998; in Victoria at 101.9FM, and on the internet at: cfuv.ca. Check out the GR blog at: http://gorillaradioblog.blogspot.com/

Gorilla Radio with Chris Cook, Pablo Ouziel August 6th, 2022

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Welcome to Gorilla Radio, recorded August 6th, 2022.

Europeans are experiencing a blowback blast this Summer on multiple fronts. Hellishly hot weather, a financial meltdown, and the nagging persistence of the pandemic with all its attendant social pressures are combined to test the hardiest continentals – and, as warm as it is there now, Winter is coming!

Pablo currently lives outside Barcelona.

Pablo Ouziel and Europe’s Summer of reckoning.

Gorilla Radio with Chris Cook, John Helmer, Pablo Ouziel April 15th, 2021

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Welcome back to Gorilla Radio’s Home Edition, recorded on the dates, April 11th and 12th, 2021

China’s meteoric rise to the uppermost echelon of international affairs is but one of the signals of America’s declining global stature. Russia too is testing its influence, both on its borders and further afield. In the past few weeks, events in both the Baltic and east Asia offer evidence the country no longer feels constrained by the whim, wishes or wants of the United States and its “international community”.

In Myanmar, Russia has stepped in to quell U.S./ U.K efforts to use UN Security Council sanction and threats of intervention to bludgeon the military coup government there; and, in the Baltic the country’s relentless drive to finish the Nord Stream 2 pipeline marches on, despite being engaged in a bizarre cat and mouse game with an off-the-hook Polish fishing fleet who, in concert with the Polish military, seem intent on provoking an incident involving the nearly completed operation.

John Helmer is a journalist, author, broadcaster, former political advisor to government, and principal behind the news website, Dances with Bears. Among Helmer’s many books titles are, ‘The Lie That Shot Down MH-17’ ‘Skripal in Prison’, ‘The Man Who Knows Too Much About Russia’, and his latest, ‘Hitler Didn’t Die in Berlin – He Moved to Melbourne Where He Runs the State Government of Victoria: A True Covid-19 Thriller’. His latest articles examine Russia’s foreign policy tightrope walk on the political knife’s edge in Myanmar and Europe.

John Helmer in the first half.

And; despite Madrid’s state of denial, Spain’s separatist movement is alive and well and living in Catalonia. Regional elections in February maintained independence parties’ hold on a combined majority in the parliament there, while street protests that erupted in Barcelona and other towns following the arrest of popular rapper, Pablo Hásel serve as an unsubtle reminder to Pedro Sanchez’ federal coalition government just how tenuous its hold on the peace is.

Pablo Ouziel is a Postdoctoral fellow at the University of Victoria’s Political Science Department and Centre for Global Studies whose Fellowship Project at UVic, ‘Democracy Here and Now: The Exemplary Case of Spain’ was interrupted by the Covid-19 closure of the University. He currently resides in his native home, near Barcelona.

Pablo Ouziel and the trouble with democracy in Spain in the second half.

But first, John Helmer and RUSSIA AND MYANMAR – BALANCING ON A KNIFE’S EDGE.

Chris Cook hosts Gorilla Radio, airing live every Thursday between 11-Noon Pacific Time. In Victoria at 101.9FM, and on the internet at: https://cfuv.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.com

Gorilla Radio with Chris Cook, Pablo Ouziel April 12th, 2021

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Welcome back to Gorilla Radio’s Home Edition, recorded April 12th, 2021

Despite Madrid’s state of denial, Spain’s separatist movement is alive and well and living in Catalonia. Regional elections in February maintained independence parties’ hold on a combined majority in the parliament there, while street protests that erupted in Barcelona and other towns following the arrest of popular rapper, Pablo Hásel serve as an unsubtle reminder to Pedro Sanchez’ federal coalition government just how tenuous its hold on the peace is.

Today, Pablo Ouziel and the trouble with democracy in Spain.

Chris Cook hosts Gorilla Radio, airing live every Thursday between 11-Noon Pacific Time. In Victoria at 101.9FM, and on the internet at: https://cfuv.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.com

Gorilla Radio with Chris Cook, Pablo Ouziel, Elisabeth Tova Bailey, Janine Bandcroft June 4, 2020

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Welcome to GR. We are as yet NOT broadcasting live from the basement of the Student Union Building at the University of Victoria, but instead recording live-to-Skype this day, May 13th, 2020.

Fitting it’s been a late Spring here. Winter’s intransigence keeping us indoors longer than we’d like, confined to leaving the greeting rituals of the new season overlong under wraps. But nature won’t be denied, and sure as God made green apples and bright flowers, our deliverance from the power of the pestilence that’s held much of the World at bay is waning. Or, so we’re told. The green lamp is lit – sort of – with Spain, one of the countries worse-effected by Covid, announcing last month its “deconfinement plan” roll out, beginning in earnest Monday, May 11. It’s the first stage of a phased emergence from the virus, and as elsewhere it’s a policy fraught with doubt and controversy.

Dr. Pablo Ouziel in the first half.

And; what can we take away from this weird moment when the World stood uncertainly on its axis? Perhaps from our time in collective isolation we can understand better what it means for others forcibly removed by circumstance from their lives and an agency taken as granted, until just taken? Elisabeth Tova Bailey is an intimate acquaintance of solitude, having experienced years of patient recuperation from a randomly encountered debilitating disease. The product of her long estivation is the book, ‘The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating’. The multi-award garnering chronicle of her bed-side companion and its special history has now metamorphosed too as the short film of the same title.

Elisabeth Tova Bailey and life at a snail’s pace in the second half.

And; long-time Gorilla Radio contributor, 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 you can get up to in and around our town – both real and virtual – in the coming week. But first, Pablo Ouziel and Spain’s planned emergence from crisis.

Gorilla Radio with Chris Cook, Pablo Ouziel May 14, 2020

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Welcome to GR. We are as yet NOT broadcasting live from the basement of the Student Union Building at the University of Victoria, but instead recording live-to-Skype this day, May 13th, 2020.

Fitting it’s been a late Spring here. Winter’s intransigence keeping us indoors longer than we’d like, confined to leaving the greeting rituals of the new season overlong under wraps. But nature won’t be denied, and sure as God made green apples and bright flowers, our deliverance from the power of the pestilence that’s held much of the World at bay is waning. Or, so we’re told. The green lamp is lit – sort of – with Spain, one of the countries worse-effected by Covid, announcing last month its “deconfinement plan” roll out, beginning in earnest Monday, May 11. It’s the first stage of a phased emergence from the virus, and as elsewhere it’s a policy fraught with doubt and controversy.

Dr. Pablo Ouziel and Spain’s planned emergence from crisis.

Gorilla Radio with Chris Cook, Andy Worthington, Pablo Ouziel, Janine Bandcroft May 2, 2019

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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/

Gorilla Radio with Chris Cook, Pablo Ouziel, Timothy A. Wise, Janine Bandcroft February 21st, 2019

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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/

Gorilla Radio with Chris Cook, Betty Krawczyk, Pablo Ouziel, Christina Nikolic June 7th, 2018

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Prime Minister Trudeau has enjoined the Great Canadian Petroleum War. Announcing the purchase, and promise of completion, of the contentious Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain Extension pipeline project, the federal government effectively sided-up with Alberta’s “blue-eyed sheiks” and their allies in the transnational oil trade against the province of British Columbia, Canada’s gateway to the Pacific, and the entirety of the World’s environmental community.

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.

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/

Gorilla Radio with Chris Cook, Pablo Ouziel, Whitney Webb, Christina Nikolic January 11th, 2018

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For Mariano Rajoy the new year begins much as the old one ended. Spain’s prime minister, you may recall, played hardball with Catalonian separatists, nullifying the autonomous region’s government, while declaring Catalunya president, Carles Puigdemont and his key ministers criminals.

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 unraveling 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/

Gorilla Radio with Chris Cook, Pablo Ouziel, David Rovics, Janine Bandcroft Nov. 16, 2017

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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.

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/

Gorilla Radio with Chris Cook, Pablo Ouziel, Chrissy Brett, Camille Labchuk, Janine Bandcroft Nov. 2, 2017

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Spain’s constitutional crisis geared up last week with the unilateral declaration of independence issued from the separatist Catalonia government of Carles Puigdumont.

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.

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/

Gorilla Radio with Chris Cook, Pablo Ouziel, Robert Hunziker, Janine Bandcroft October 26th, 2017

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Right now, as night falls in Spain the future of the country is shrouded in uncertainty. The referendum on independence that began October, and deemed “illegal” by the federal government, has predictably proven divisive, with each of the main players involved, Spanish prime minister Mariano Rajoy, and Catalonia’s regional president, Carles Puigdemont showing little appetite for compromise. Rajoy promises to dissolve Catalonia’s parliament, and reschedule elections, while unilateral secession is Puigdemont’s only arrow in the quiver.

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.