Welcome to Gorilla Radio's first program of the year, recorded December 30th, 2021 and January 3nd 2022.

Honestly, we know the United States was never just. It's a human rights horror show now and always has been. Yes, "America" the propaganda construct is a triumph - we often have to remind ourselves of its genocides, slavery, and wars of plunder - but to any with even superficial familiarity, expecting justice from America is beyond naive. That's why some in Britain where surprised when their appellate court served journalist, publisher and political prisoner Julian Assange into the maw of America's industrial-prison complex. But then, justice is a stranger these days in England too.

Andy Worthington is an English journalist, activist, author, photo-historian, filmmaker, musician, song-writer and principle of The Four Fathers band. He is too co-founder of both the ongoing Close Guantánamo campaign and successfully completed We Stand With Shaker campaign. Worthington’s book titles include: ‘The Guantánamo Files: The Stories of the 774 Detainees in America’s Illegal Prison’, ‘Stonehenge: Celebration and Subversion’, and ‘The Battle of the Beanfield’. Andy's articles appear at his website, AndyWorthington.co.uk, where he’s inviting participants to take part in 2022’s Close Guantanamo effort.

Andy Worthington in the first half.

And; regarding mastery of the propagandist's art British playwright, Harold Pinter lauded in his 2005 Nobel Prize for literature acceptance speech America for its "brilliant, even witty, highly successful act of hypnosis." How else to explain the serial crimes of our near neighbour, crimes committed without answer to any court - let alone broad public disgust or censure - but that the people are enstupored; victims of some malevolent, invisible mesmerist? But for those of us aware, the unconscionable acquiescence of the mob does not excuse an abandonment of our duty to the truth. As Pinter said in 2005, "...[T]he search for the truth can never stop...It has to be faced, right there, on the spot."

Kim Goldberg is a Nanaimo-based poet, journalist, and author. She’s written 8 books of poetry and nonfiction, including her most recent collection ‘DEVOLUTION: poems and fables of eco-pocalypse‘. She covered BC current affairs for Canadian Dimension Magazine for many years, most recently on the Fairy Creek blockade. She also publishes at Substack, where her recent article, 'Mass Formation: How the Left Got Duped' examines the method, means, and implications of a society in the throes of mass hypnosis.

Kim Goldberg and watching more than the watch in the second half.

But first, Andy Worthington and what the Assange verdict and commencement of Gitmo's 20th year means for the real "rule of law".

Chris Cook hosts Gorilla Radio. 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

Welcome to Gorilla Radio's first 2022 broadcast, recorded December 30th, 2021.

Honestly, we know the United States was never just. It's a human rights horror show now and always has been. Yes, "America" the propaganda construct is a triumph - we often have to remind ourselves of its genocides, slavery, and wars of plunder - but to any with even superficial familiarity, expecting justice from America is beyond naive. That's why some in Britain where surprised when their appellate court served journalist, publisher and political prisoner Julian Assange into the maw of America's industrial-prison complex. But then, justice is a stranger these days in England too.

Andy Worthington is an English journalist, activist, author, photo-historian, filmmaker, musician, song-writer and principle of The Four Fathers band. He is too co-founder of both the ongoing Close Guantánamo campaign and successfully completed We Stand With Shaker campaign. Worthington’s book titles include: ‘The Guantánamo Files: The Stories of the 774 Detainees in America’s Illegal Prison’, ‘Stonehenge: Celebration and Subversion’, and ‘The Battle of the Beanfield’. Andy's articles appear at his website, AndyWorthington.co.uk, where he’s inviting participants to take part in 2022’s Close Guantanamo effort.

Chris Cook hosts Gorilla Radio, airing 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

Welcome to GR's Year-Ender episode.

Today I'll play out this stained 2021 in four fitting quarters taken from four of this past year's 52 Gorilla Radio programs...

There will be bloviating and some music too... First off, the threat of nuclear annihilation is back! America's team NATO has pushed Russia against the atomic wall in Ukraine with the prospect of U.S. nuclear-tipped missiles parked within just a few minutes flight time from Moscow.

In November, Vladimir Putin reiterated his "red line warning" regarding that near proximity and the existential threat it represented, making clear Russian missiles were now on a "5 minute" flight time hair trigger.

John Helmer is the most often appearing guest over the 23 years GR has aired. He's worked in and reported from Russia for the better part of the last thirty years, both before and since the disintegration of the Soviet system. Helmer's a journalist, author, broadcaster, former political advisor to government, and principle behind the news website, Dances with Bears. Some of his many book titles include: 'The Lie that Shot Down MH-17,' 'Skripal in Prison,' 'The Man Who Knows Too Much About Russia,' and 'Hitler Didn't Die in Berlin - He Moved to Melbourne Where He Runs the State Government of Victoria: A True Covid-19 Thriller' among many others. Here's John Helmer on NATO's Ukraine gambit and the new nuclear race's comeback.

Another Australian journalist, Julian Assange spent all of 2021 as he had 2020 and most of 2019 suffering maximum security lockdown in London's Belmarsh Prison for the crime of revealing the crimes of empire. The political prisoners of 2021 after the break.

As well as the USA/NATO war machine's pushing the World ever nearer the brink of catastrophic war with Russia - and perhaps China too - this year past, it has too worked diligently to undermine civil society at home. Part of that effort includes the shutting down of dissenting narrative online, none arguably more vital to understanding our state of perpetual warfare than WikiLeaks - author of The Afghan and Iraq War Logs, Guantanamo and Syria Files, Vault 7 CIA Hacking Tools revelations, and the devastating Collateral Murder video among many others.

Earlier this month, Britain's appellate court overturned a High Court ruling denying a U.S. extradition petition on the grounds of prisoner Assange's fragile mental and physical health, allowing he be rendered unto American Justice to face unprecedented charges against a journalist and foreign national that could amount to almost two centuries worth of confinement. His family and supporters, and independent medical investigators with the United Nations fear Assange will not survive even the pre-trial detention.

Steve Poikonen is an activist and host of the ‘Slow News Day‘ podcast – available at Rokfin. He’s also an organizer with Action4Assange, co-host of the #FreeAssange Vigil, and has participated in and helped organized multiple actions for Assange in Washington, D.C., and elsewhere in the U.S. I spoke to Steve several times over the course of the year on the slow progress of the political case against the publisher, the last time in October. Here's Steve Poikonen on the continued Assange case charade.

That's Steve Poikonen. You can support his work over at Slow News Day podcast on Rokfin.

You're listening to Gorilla Radio's send off of 2021. I've heard it said this year was merely a replay of the unloved 2020; if only it were true. In this part of the World, across all metrics of progressive thought, 2021 marks a drastic decline in human rights and civil liberties. And it seems about to be getting worse. Julian Assange wasn't the only political prisoner held last year; whether Alex Saab in Cape Verde, or Meng Wanzhou in Canada, the much vaunted "rule of law" is increasingly seen for what it is: a sad joke.

Welcome to Gorilla Radio, recorded December 7th, 2021.

80 years to the day from FDR's famous "day that will live in infamy", marking America's entry into World War II the current U.S. president had a virtual sit-down summit with former ally Russia, ostensibly to discuss way of avoiding another war. The fire this time is Ukraine, and whether Russia, as the western press charges, is readying an invasion. For its part, Russia says its concern is with NATO expansion and the emplacement of offensive weapons by the alliance in bordering countries. Meanwhile, behind the media static is Nord Stream 2, the massive gas pipeline project from Russia that though completed is yet to transport a puff of power to energy hungry Europe.

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’, ‘Hitler Didn’t Die in Berlin – He Moved to Melbourne Where He Runs the State Government of Victoria: A True Covid-19 Thrill

er’, and the just hot of the presses, ‘Complete Dances with Bears Comic Book’. His recent article 'A NEW RUSSIAGATE COMPENDIUM TURNS OUT TO BE A CAT IN A SAKWA' outs the western media layering of attacks designed to keep Russia on a permanent back-foot.

Today, John Helmer and of summits and the journalistic nadir in Russia reportage.

Chris Cook hosts Gorilla Radio, airing 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

Welcome to Gorilla Radio, recorded December 4th, 2021.

That an impression of immutability, properly mediated, can be used to serve the interests of the status quo was not lost on prime minister and noted "Iron Lady", Margaret Thatcher. She famously wielded the slogan,"There is no alternative" - acronymized 'TINA' - to batter opponents of her withering economic austerity program in long ago Britain. Looking around at the political stasis afflicting Western democracy today, it may seem our path to economic and environmental disaster is too fixed, inevitable as the movement of the planets.

Similarly, according to my first guest, Alberta, Canada's reputation as an unassailable sinecure of conservatism past, present, and future is less real than engineered, but unlike Thatcher's variety the provenance of the prairie province's TINA is more intriguing than the utterance of a deranged demagogue.

Larry Hannant is a writer, historian, educator, social justice advocate, activist, and author. His book titles include, the Robert S. Kenny Prize-winning book, ‘The Politics of Passion: Norman Bethune’s Writing and Art’, ‘The Infernal Machine: Investigating the Loyalty of Canada’s Citizens’, ‘All My Politics Are Poetry’, and the newly released, ‘Bucking Conservatism: Alternative Stories of Alberta in the 1960s and 1970s’.

Larry Hannant in the first half.

And; Kim Goldberg is a Nanaimo-based poet, journalist, and author. She's written 8 books of poetry and nonfiction, including her most recent collection 'DEVOLUTION: poems and fables of eco-pocalypse'. She covered BC current affairs for Canadian Dimension Magazine for many years, most recently writing about the Fairy Creek blockade.

Kim Goldberg on Devolution, a poetic discourse on ecosystem and societal collapse in the second half.

But first, Larry Hannant and Bucking Conservatism, Alberta-style.

Chris Cook hosts Gorilla Radio, airing 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

Welcome to Gorilla Radio, recorded November 27th, 2021

Democracy, or what passed for it in the west is on the ropes. The decline of political dominance globally, vast wealth disparity domestically, and now the economy killing strictures accompanying the Covid-19 pandemic have combined to produce the perfect sturm und drang for society on the brink.

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 due out in Spring 2022. He's currently residing outside Barcelona.

Today, Pablo Ouziel, and charting the state of global 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: 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

Welcome to Gorilla Radio, recorded November 27th, 2021

The Honduran presidential election is November 28th and will see Xiomara Castro, wife of ousted former president, Manuel "Mel" Zelaya face Nasry Asfura, right-wing mayor of Tegulcigalpa and close cohort of exiting president, Juan Orlando Hernández. It's been 12 years since Castro's pajama-clad husband was spirited out his bed and out of the country in the coup. Canada and the United States were quick then to recognize the coupsters, and have continued to support different iterations of their "democracy restoration" despite ruthless military and police repression, rampant government corruption, and a flourishing drugs trade and gang violence that helped trigger an ongoing migration exodus.

Karen Spring is the Honduras-based Coordinator for the Honduras Solidarity Network. They describe themselves as a, "... decentralized network of approximately 30 organizations from across Canada and the United States [...] committed to demonstrating and advocating for solidarity with the Honduran social movement." Spring is also author of several articles and reports about human rights issues, has testified before Canadian Parliamentary committees about human rights in Honduras, and blogs at aquiabajo.com.

Karen Spring in the first half.

And; as serious an abrogation of first principles Canada's failure to support true Honduran democracy represents, its utter abandonment of Palestinian children to Israel's military court system puts the lie to the country's claim - and self-regard - as international human rights exemplar. 'Canada Stand Up for Palestinian Children's Rights' is a coalition of human rights organizations who are currently engaged in a continuing awareness-raising campaign because our government has failed in its response to the systemic "kidnap, arrest, detainment, abuse, torture, and murder of Palestinian children..."

Keith Simmonds is a United Church of Canada minister who served as a World Council of Churches human rights observer (Ecumenical Accompanier) in Palestine in early 2020. Stationed in Bethlehem he also spent time in Jerusalem, Galilee and Tulkarem. The 'second career minister' has too served as a labour and community organizer, volunteer firefighter and ERT team member, and worked as an assistant to provincial cabinet ministers among other things in a varied career.

Keith Simmonds and holding Canada to its word on human rights in Palestine in the second half.

But first, Karen Spring and can Sunday's election be Honduran's second chance at real democracy?

Chris Cook hosts Gorilla Radio, airing 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

Welcome to Gorilla Radio Sunday, November 21, 2021

Outside the busyness of the modern world is pressing against the window panes as if nothing has happened.

The plagues and pestilence, conflagrations of forests and atmospheric torrents are all present, all a part of this waking dream, yet we stumble for the reason behind the rising waters, and sliding mud and rock; that remains peripheral, an unaddressed root of our unraveling. Instead, the blinkered death march progresses unabated, desperate for the abyss.

Canada's paramilitary police attacked again land defenders of the northern interior in colonial British Columbia at the Morice River last week. The RCMP raid meant to terrorize and demoralize the people resisting TC Energy's Coastal GasLink pipeline took hostages, arresting at least 15, including journalists. Sleydo’ Molly Wickham was among those seized. She's described by independent news outlet, The Narwhal as "a wing chief in Cas Yikh house of the Gidimt’en clan."

Wickham says, after warning Coastal Gaslink a 2020 eviction order would be enforced, the road to a 500-strong work camp was dug up. Police say their "enforcement operation" was necessary to protect the "health and wellness" of the isolated workers.

Similarly, Fairy Creek on southern Vancouver Island is the focus of RCMP enforcement efforts to dislodge those standing in the way of the business of rampant environmental defilement. There the public has ponied up nearly 4 million loonies to protect the private profits of the Teal Jones lumber company. In both instances, broadly defined court orders have been used by the federal police to set up "exclusion zones", where those deemed in contravention are arrested under "contempt of court" charges.

More than a thousand arrests have been made at and around Fairy Creek in over the last year. Again, context is lacking in the reportage permitted from the zones of contention due to a combination of restricted access for alternative media, and the inherent reluctance of corporate and state news producers to challenge the status quo.

On today's show, a look back at two instances of persistent resistance to the colonial occupation of "British Columbia".

Chris Cook hosts Gorilla Radio, airing 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

Welcome to Gorilla Radio, recorded November 13th and 14th, 2021.

True to its word, the Trudeau government is determined to spend billions for a revamped fighter jet force for Canada's military. The main debate until now has been which foreign weapons-making company will get the sweet deal - a deal worth a reported 88 billion buckaroos over the next generation - and not whether Canada should be supporting such a deal in the first place.

Ken Stone is a long-time antiwar activist whose served as an executive member of both the Syria Solidarity Movement and Hamilton Coalition to Stop the War. Ken and the Hamilton Coalition are joining hands in a trans-Canada effort with Canadian Voice of Women, Peace Brigades International, the Regina Peace Council, and the Victoria Peace Coalition here in Victoria among many others to mount the No Fighter Jets demonstrations at Liberal MP's offices from coast to coast to coast November 22nd.

Ken Stone in the first half.

And; more than a year after Ethiopia's military launched a so-called "police action" to "restore order" in Tigray province, the fighting rages on. While thousands have died and hundreds of thousands more have been displaced, another casualty of the humanitarian disaster that ensued has been Western goodwill for the Nobel Peace Prize laureate prime minister Abiy Ahmed, who now faces sanctions - along with ally Eritrea - and the threat of American military intervention should the humanitarian crisis in the Horn of Africa nation continue.

To some on the American and European left that threat smacks of the kind of "humanitarian intervention" seen in Yugoslavia, Libya, and Syria; it's something they say is no less than naked neo-imperialism, and prompting their support for Ahmed and Eritrean strongman, Isaias Afwerki.

Finian Cunningham is a prolific journalist and two-time Serena Shim Award for Uncompromising Integrity in Journalism recipient. His articles on international affairs appear at numerous online outlets, including Strategic Culture, where his March piece, ‘U.S. Paves Way for Intervention in Ethiopia, Horn of Africa’ is proving now to be prophetic.

Finian Cunningham and competing narratives in the ongoing Ethiopian disaster in the second half.

But first, Ken Stone and just saying "NO!" to new fighter jets.

Welcome to Gorilla Radio, recorded November 13th, 2021.

More than a year after Ethiopia's military launched a so-called "police action" to "restore order" in Tigray province, the fighting rages on. While thousands have died and hundreds of thousands more have been displaced, another casualty of the humanitarian disaster that ensued has been Western goodwill for the Nobel Peace Prize laureate prime minister Abiy Ahmed, who now faces sanctions - along with ally Eritrea - and the threat of American military intervention should the humanitarian crisis in the Horn of Africa nation continue.

To some on the American and European left that threat smacks of the kind of "humanitarian intervention" seen in Yugoslavia, Libya, and Syria; it's something they say is no less than naked neo-imperialism, and prompting their support for Ahmed and Eritrean strongman, Isaias Afwerki.

Finian Cunningham is a prolific journalist and two-time Serena Shim Award for Uncompromising Integrity in Journalism recipient. His articles on international affairs appear at numerous online outlets, including Strategic Culture, where his March piece, ‘U.S. Paves Way for Intervention in Ethiopia, Horn of Africa’ is proving now to be prophetic.

Today, Finian Cunningham and competing narratives in the ongoing Ethiopian disaster.

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