This Week on GR

by C. L. Cook

Listen. Hear.

 

GR 05-82            101.9 FM            104.3 Cable            'cfuv.uvic.ca'
                            Monday December 27, 2010
5:00:00    3:00    Welcome to GR, etc. And welcome to the beginning of the end of the first decade of the New American Century. I'm going to leave the usual show format for today's special look back at the year that has been in this country, and take a peak at a few things we might expect for the coming year. There will be music and blatherskyting, and Victoria Street Newz publisher and CFUV broadcaster, Janine Bandcroft will drop by too.

You needn't be a soothsayer to see; Canada as we know it today has changed mightily since joining America and its "International Community" declaration of war against all the Peoples living either above, or along the transport routes of, coveted mineral wealth. It is a necessarily perpetual war, or at least, one that will last until either that mineral wealth is depleted, or the expense of taking and defending it militarily breaks the economic back of the new Imperium. Hope that an kind of American moral renaissance might change its martial course abroad, or amend its ruthless economic policies at home under Barack Obama's administration, has withered in the bare light of the Democrats' complete corruption, and revelations of their leader's intransigent pragmatism.

Gorilla Radio alumnus, Chalmers Johnson, who died this year, said of his native America and its New Century: "Whether Americans intended it or not, we are now seen around the world as approving the torture of captives at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, at Bagram Air Base in Kabul, at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and at a global network of secret CIA prisons, as well as having endorsed Bush's claim that, as commander-in-chief in "wartime," he is beyond all constraints of the Constitution or international law. We are now saddled with a rigged economy based on record-setting trade and fiscal deficits, the most secretive and intrusive government in our country's memory, and the pursuit of "preventive" war as a basis for foreign policy."

And so it goes on under the new president. For the first year of the second decade of the next century, the first prediction is: Continued war, destruction, horror, and fear for those far and near, and a getting worse of things before any getting better...

5:03:00    3:00    Music - 'Military Madness' - Woods        

5:06:00    7:00    Welcome back to GR's Year Ender program. The "military madness" Graham Nash wrote so despairingly of regarded America's war against Vietnam as part of John Kennedy's infamous Domino Theory. Back then, the idea of forever war for the fun and profit of America's elite was predicated on the supposed proliferation of communism. Today, the new told lie for the necessity of permanent war is to defend America and its quavering citizens from the imminent threat of an Islamic Holy War; its virulent message, the story goes, is a spreading sickness, passed from resource rich nation to resource rich nation by Jihadists insane with jealousy for the prosperity and freedom of America and its willing community of coalition nations. Surgical strikes, and ever broader amputation operations, we are told, are required to isolate and kill the infection of nations, lest their societies sicken and die, falling prey domino-like to the irrational haters of the American way. Upon this prognosis rests the prosperity of an industrial war machine that has come to demand more than half of every dollar taxed in the United States, and many more billions of dollars in loans doled out to it by China and other nations and institutions invested in U.S. dollars, and Treasury-bills, and its pernicious death-head economic doctrine. War has now very nearly become the only thing America and its allies make anymore.       

Canada is of course one of America's allies; one of its very closest allies, if Mr. Harper is to be believed. It's a friendship that has demanded a lot of Canada, and the changes made in the way the country runs, both internally and externally, to satisfy the demands of that friendship are profound. Earlier in the year, I spoke with Canadian author and activist, Yves Engler about some of those changes. In March of last year, I wrote the following as introduction to our interview:

"Canada in 2010 is not the country most Canadians remember, or wish it to be. If anything, the majority in this country considers its role to be that of a just arbiter at home and moderating force abroad. Maintaining these principles, modern Canada has managed to survive two world wars, a Cold war pitting the nation squarely between the two major nuclear armed powers in the world, and navigate safely a series of increasingly destructive economic shocks. Moderation has served Canada, a middle-power nation well; we have prospered reasonably well, and done so without the overt predatory behavior of our behemoth neighbour. That is all changed now. Since at least the turn of the century, Canada has embraced the muscular approach favoured by the U.S., sending troops and arms abroad to invade and occupy foreign lands; discarding international and national law along the way, even as the federal government eviscerated the Charter of Rights and Freedoms in the name of national security.

"The nation has become in all things nearly indiscernible from the empire south we once decried as criminal. But, Canada does distinguish itself from the United States in a couple of areas, if not by nature, then by degree: Though both governments support the continued holocaust meted upon the Palestinian people by Israel, Canada has gone above and beyond America in its "moral" support of that criminal regime; and in terms of environmental protection, Canada has sunk below the already abysmal ecological stewardship standard set by the planet's premier despoiler, our good friend and neighbour, America."

At this time last year, the government of Stephen Harper had dismissed prematurely the People's House, for the second time in as many years, through the novel use of the parliamentary device of proroguing, (that is, the ceremonial closure of the session) for political rather than procedural reasons. In the first case, the prime minister forced the closure to avoid inevitable defeat to a non-confidence motion; last year, the prime minister misused the provision to shut down House investigations of the Afghanistan torture scandal implicating he, and his Liberal government predecessors, in war crimes.

There will likely be a federal election called in 2011, and one of the two major parties will form the next government as a result. I predict; that poll will see the lowest voter turnout in history, and that next government will too commit war crimes with impunity.

5:13:00    4:53    Music - Pull Out - Tongue and Groove
 
5:18:00    5:00    Over this past 2010, Canadians have seen the recession quicken here. Government fiscal policies have tightened, even as corporate tax exemptions, and comfortable loopholes for the wealthy persist. In British Columbia, premier Gordon Campbell saw his approval ratings fall below the historic negative levels George W. Bush experienced near his end. Though Campbell was broadly reviled, he managed a third majority government early in the year, only to see the credibility of he and his party evaporate after announcing a new tax regime for the province, the so-called Harmonized Sales Tax, or HST. The HST, as its name implies, was a gathering of the federal and provincial consumer taxes into a single entity.

That creation was, proponents argued, going to streamline the tax process, saving the government millions in "duplicated services," (read 'redundancies') and make us all prosperous and happy into the foreseeable future. Campbell's problems however began early on, when his ministers insisted; though the HST was introduced and implemented fully formed only weeks after the election, it had not been "on the government's radar" before the election, thus explaining why no mention save denials were made of it before the vote. Popular incredulity turned to outrage when the full scope of new taxes on formally exempt products and service became known. A broad movement to repeal the tax grew, along with recall campaigns designed to oust vulnerable members of the ruling BC Liberal party. Following a flailing attempt to salvage his Titanic-like plunge in the polls, Campbell, whose career began in concert with the neo-conservative take over of the year 2000, unexpectedly announced his resignation. Campbell's departure acted as catalyst for the moribund opposition New Democrats, who in turn pressured their leadership for change, culminating in the sudden departure of long-time BC NDP leader, Carole James.

British Columbians now expect another election in 2011, just a year after Campbell's glorious third ascension. And, nobody's predicting how that will turn out!

5:23:00    2:58    Music - A Bar in Amsterdam - Katzenjammer     

5:26:00    20:00    Janine Bandcroft    

Welcome back to GR, etc. If you're just tuning in, we've departed the usual format of the show today to mark the ending of the year and decade. For nearly all of that decade past, Victoria Street Newz publisher and CFUV broadcaster, Janine Bandcroft has kept us current with the goings on going on on Victoria's streetz, and beyond. Welcome to the end of the year show, Janine.

5:46:00    4:00    Music    - Eggs and Sausage - Tom Waits (youtube)    

5:50:00    4:00    Well, as the year is almost done, this year's year-ender too is near over. Despite Time magazine's personal opinion for person of the year, Facebook mogul, Mark Zuckerberg, 2010's most intriguing personage for Gorilla Radio has been Wikileak's co-founder and public face, Julian Assange. Assange is now out on bail, living on an estate in the English countryside. Allegations of sexual improprieties are pending in Sweden, the weird progress of which created something of a media storm, obscuring somewhat the larger aspect of what is surely the story of the year; the release of, yet, a fraction of hundreds of thousands of restricted diplomatic cable communications between various U.S. embassies and others working amidst the hundreds of American outposts across the planet intercepted and released by alleged whistleblower, Bradley Manning. Manning, a U.S. army private working in the signals corps has languished in solitary confinement for most of 2010, his mental and physical health systematically eroded in hopes, some suppose, he will eventually implicate Assange in an espionage conspiracy, thus providing the Obama administration with a legal fig leaf to "justify" the extradition of house-arrested Assange.

While we have largely witnessed the extra-legal lengths both the Bush and Obama administrations are willing to go to enforce the financial advantage of trans-national corporate interests, and their primary beneficiaries among the global elite, and can all attest to the need for an uncovering of those great crimes committed against the innocent, hallmarks of this decade-old Global War on Terror, there exist serious questions concerning the provenance of Wikileaks, its decisions to partner for release of these latest leaks and others with establishment elements like the New York Times and Britain's Guardian newspaper,  its seminal connections to shadowing spy organizations like the CIA, and concern about the deals Wikileaks cut with the Times to protect Israel the revelations so far embarrassing to the United States and various Arab and European countries.

Finally; the Wikileaks story will continue to play out over the coming year, affirming if nothing else, we are moving into a new age of discovery, where the secrets of high and low will be revealed. And, dollars will get you donuts, Julian Assange's smiling face will appear on the cover of Time magazine's 2011 Person of the Year edition.   

5:54:00    3:34    Music - Rise - Kinnie Starr    
5:58:00    1:00    Thanks to Janine Bandcroft et al; upcoming.
5:59:00    1:00    Music - Meu Mondo e Hoje (Eu sou Assim) - Teresa Cristina
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