I'm continually amazed that Abe's assassin appears to have successfully turned the media spotlight exactly where he wanted it to be, and so successfully turned public sentiment against Abe that a vast majority of the population now opposes a state funeral for him.
I'd question if public sentiment was ever pro-Abe; he regularly antagonized and taxed the middle class while doing little or nothing to help them, even during the COVID pandemic. His connection to the Moonies is just the icing on the cake. Everyone has a relative or knows someone who lost all their money to a cult.
The Abe cabinet had approval ratings above 60% in 2013, but the trend from then on was mostly downwards, with disapproval at times exceeding approval. https://www.nhk.or.jp/senkyo/shijiritsu/ Approval is red, disapproval blue; Abe is 安倍
Don't forget his strong family ties to psychotic Japanese fascism and racism [1,2], and his personal affinity for heinous war crimes and human experimentation in Imperial Japan [3].
Imagine your next door neighbor going out in public wearing a Dr. Mengele t-shirt and you start to get Abe's vibe. Complete ghoul.
I know the Japanese aren't exactly excited to take responsibility for their role in WW2, but good for them all the same for seeing through this guy's bullshit. Every now and then these lone nuts get it right, I guess?
Not commenting on the article itself, but in general Joong-ang Ilbo is right in the center of conservative, pro-chaebol, pro-trade political section. It's owned by members of Samsung's royal family.
If anything, I'd expect Joong-ang Ilbo to be biased toward Japan.
> but in general Joong-ang Ilbo is right in the center of conservative… If anything, I'd expect Joong-ang Ilbo to be biased toward Japan.
That’s not how conservatism works. The in-group bias overcomes common alignments on other issues. E.g. Muslims and evangelical Christians agree on a lot of things, but they certainly don’t get along.
In general, you're right, but the difference is that evangelical Christians normally don't go around telling how Muslims are their brothers in the holy fight against the evil of atheism.
One of the historical core tenets of South Korean conservatism is that the Free World(TM) should stand together against the evil of communism, which is going to enslave all of us "any time soon," unless we stay eternally vigilant. And by the Free World(TM), they mean South Korea, America, and Japan.
I think aside from the universal "China is bad" theme, the other theme closely related in Asian political discussion in HN, is that "Japan already did her part for their WWII and imperialism war crimes"...
Unfortunately, no.
Japan has never addressed the issue with any nations that they invaded in WWII. Literally, each and every suffered from Japanese imperialism invasion still have deep and broad hostility towards Japan whenever the topic start to divert to WWII and the era.
I have no idea was it Japan government intentionally doing this inadequate job, or are they simply incompetent on this matter.
But to call this website "heavily biased"... Bravo, this is borderline racism towards the people living in the nations suffered from Japanese invasions.
Yeah, and you wonder why paying money to the descendent people raped/killed/mutilated/{and many other horrendous anti-human barbarism brutality} [0] is not enough to get peace.
Turns out, people are not stupid.
If the wrongdoers are not sincere, money never suffices.
For example, you'll need a court to uphold an apology [1], then what is the substance of the apology anyway?
he means its obviously biased, a korean publication will clearly try their best to portray the events as they see it.
South korea is very anti-japan, not that I blame them, but its bad enough that I wouldn't trust news from it unless it has proved itsself to be particularly trustworthy.
This goes the other way around too, to this day koreans in japan are mistreated and japan is always putting propaganda especially in relation to disputed areas like dokdo.
from the recent japan olympics we see they are okay with pissing off all their neighbors as well as being two faced regarding these disputes.
korean and japanese news don't act unbiased at all in relation to eachother.
Assuming this is what they meant by "biased", it doesn't actually say anything.
> a korean publication will clearly try their best to portray the events as they see it.
This is true of anyone, anywhere, ever.
> South korea is very anti-japan, not that I blame them, but its bad enough that I wouldn't trust news from it unless it has proved itsself to be particularly trustworthy.
So South Korea has reasons for being not too keen on Japan, which you understand, but you also wouldn't trust them to talk about that? Does anyone with any grievance deserve trust, in your eyes?
Also, your issue is that ... a South Korean newspaper exists, and publishes things?
> korean and japanese news don't act unbiased at all in relation to eachother.
First, why should they? You've just given plenty of reason for each side to be biased. Second, the hidden expectation that people ought to act "unbiased", whatever that means, is trying (and failing) to do a lot of heavy lifting here. It says "I want more ____ before I believe the claim", but you don't say what that is, and I get the impression that nothing would be enough.
Should I trust the Russian press on the topic of Ukraine or NATO?
i.e.
"So Russia has reasons for being not too keen on Ukraine and NATO, which you understand, but you also wouldn't trust them to talk about that? Does anyone with any grievance deserve trust, in your eyes?"
In my view, no, I would not trust or give much positive weight to Russia's opinions on Ukraine and NATO.
I think the expression he opted not to use is that SK-Japan relationship is toxic. There is a misunderstanding that SK and Japan are in good terms as strategic partners with similarly developed societies, more like a divorced couple after couple 911 calls and court visits.
> So South Korea has reasons for being not too keen on Japan, which you understand, but you also wouldn't trust them to talk about that? Does anyone with any grievance deserve trust, in your eyes?
Trust in the matter that they’ve grievances with? Not really. It’s already a chore trying to discern biases in media and cross check facts across multiple sources. I don’t think it’s particularly useful to spend time giving much credence to a source that you know is biased. It’s like getting all my news about Joe Biden from Fox News and the Daily Caller. Why waste my time?
Trust is earned; it should not be given freely. As I’ve already said, it’s already a gigantic burden to try to corroborate claims and distill biases from all media, so there’s little reason to spend time doing so from sources I already know are biased, especially if there are other sources available.
> Does this automatox mistrust applies to all victims of aggression/imperialism/genocide like Yazidi, Jews, etc?
It applies to any party that is making assertions about something where there’s a clear conflict of interest. It is not saying what is being said is false, just that it is not automatically true and requires more scrutiny because it’s from a biased source. I think Ukrainians are victims of a Russian invasion but that does not mean that I think that Ukrainian news sources are particularly reliable with regards to reports on the war. That isn’t asserting that they are lying either, just that those claims require more verification.
> As in, this logic means that you are determined not to trust victims of something, purely because they are victims and talk about it.
Determined to not trust implies that I’m actively going out of my way to think that anything coming out of a victim’s mouth is a lie or deceitful. I’m not saying that at all.
So it's purely that the source is Korean, and nothing specific about the source or its reputation. No need for all the verbiage. The paper can't be trusted due to the nationality of the people who publish it.
Be careful saying things like "psychotic Japanese fascism" here. You can expect @dang to slap your hand for spreading "nationalistic flamebait." Why they don't put something like this in the guidelines is beyond me.
These rules mostly exist not because there is a grand plan to stifle discussion, but because time and time again you see these sort of arguments devolve into low quality material that takes over the entire space.
I don't have a problem with the rule. I have a problem with it not being part of the guidelines. Besides, I've seen threads labeled "flamebait" that have more and better discussion than the main thread. That's not how it's supposed to work.
That prompted me to read the guidelines for the first time, and I'm seeing multiple relevant rules, such as asking not to fulminate, eschewing flamebait, avoiding ideological battlegrounds etc.
I've been warned for this for stating and sourcing true facts from fairly unbiased sources, while this person calls the entire country of Japan "psychotically fascist" and nothing happens? What's wrong with this picture?
No thanks. I trust dang to function in the way he sees fit. And because I meant what I said, and chose those words carefully, I'll trust myself to do the same.
Japan is a strange place. Polls show very low trust in the government, but the LDP has been in power since WWII almost continuously. A low faction of Japanese people claim to "believe in God" but Japanese participate in religious rituals at a high rate.
Abe was controversial because he wanted to amend Japan's pacifist contribution which is a huge can of worms. Because Japan is so culturally homogeneous I think they'd have a very easy time picking an outgroup to blame for problems.
It's "superstitious" from a Christian (particularly Protestant) point of view but this is what religion has historically been for most people. Even in rural England in the 1970s I saw the farmers had all kinds of observances related to saints, seasons etc. that didn't involve the church. I like to joke that the low belief in Christianity in England is because most Englishmen are actually druids!
I think some Chinese (I don't want to extend it to "Eastern" because I don't know) ways of thinking are "superstitious" from any rational standpoint. Even in non-religious contexts, it's common to believe in things like being careful not to accidentally invite a ghost to stay at your house during ghost month. Or take something like blood types, a Western medical discovery. Many people In Taiwan and Japan believe blood types can say something about your temperament or use it for match making.
Belief in fan death is still common even among successful educated people in their 30s-60s. Don't argue, it won't get you anywhere that a flat earther won't take you.
I think a huge source of confusion around East Asian cultures and rituals/religions is that this religion-culture has no formal names, definitions, structures and boundaries. There is no church or a verse responsible for the upside down 福 on a wall of a downtown Chinese restaurant, but there is it, and the only word applicable is superstitions. On the other hand there are Christ-mas cakes with a smiling figurine of a Saint standing on it.
The thing about polling people about superstition is that people generally believe their own beliefs, so you're only going to conclude that other people are superstitious when they believe things different from you. So at best you have a noisy metric of ~religious tolerance.
It’s the same in India, except the superstitions are more codified and all wrapped up within Hinduism. I don’t know if a lot of Hindus believe there is a god but it’s a heady mix of hero and ancestor worship and modes of good living brought to life as a religion.
The level of confusion and arrogance to call other religions than your own "superstition" is mind boggling. Especially since one of those religions is Buddhism which quite literally doesn't even believe in gods!
I'm the one you're replying to. I don't have a religion, but was raised somewhat culturally Buddhist.
I know Buddhism varies by sect but it's definitely still highly superstition: going to temples and praying, making offerings, beliefs in reincarnation etc
Praying? Yes. 100% superstition. Which is why it's not a thing Buddha talked about at all.
Making offerings? Same as above.
Belief in reincarnation? Well.. maybe. Buddhist rebirth can be just "have kids" or "influence others with your ideas", and then it can be "I got reborn as a monkey". The first is just science and common sense, and the latter is superstition. It's a wide range... Literally buddhists shouldn't believe in "reincarnation", but believe in "rebirth", as they shouldn't believe in a soul.
But we all know what Buddha says and what Buddhism teaches, and what people actually believe who call themselves buddhists are vastly different. Just as with Christians. There are plenty of people who call themselves Christians who don't believe in the divinity of Jesus. The head of the Swedish Church once said about the virgin birth "It's a nice story..." :P
Buddhism unfortunately has a bad history of talking down to the lay people and allowing them to believe all kinds of clearly incorrect stuff like immortal souls, or gods, or spirits. Hell, Pure Land buddhism is based on crazy stuff like that!
Reciting the Pledge of Allegiance at school, or singing national anthems at non-national events come to mind as rituals not affiliated with the supernatural[1]
I hazard a majority of Americans (religious or not) voluntarily partake in those rituals.
1. I suppose rituals require venerated objects/subjects, and this is often religious, but does not have to be
+ Repetition both in the ritual and of the ritual itself.
+ Assigned time or place. Eg praying before dinner, or Christmas mass.
+ Fetish. Some kind of object or words, a "solidification of intent". This can be a garment or some specific movement too.
So yes, an anthem is absolutely a ritual, as is a specific cheer for a sports team, under this framework.
Rituals serve several purposes including fostering group identity (the family praying before dinner together), marking something as special (the anthem before a sports game) and demarcation (Christmas mass). Obviously a ritual can fulfill some or a blend of these objectives.
Rituals, I believe, matter for the subconcious and non-rational parts of the human psyche. I think intentional, religious or non-religious, rituals are a useful tool.
That also came much later and if we take it in the same sense many of the founding fathers used the word "God", it would not be compatible with mainstream Christian theology.
I have noticed, anecdotally, that the non-religious tend to be more superstitious, but no that's not really what I mean.
Japan just has a lot of rituals that people do daily and ~seasonally, and they tend to be well attended. The few people I've talked to about it didn't seem to have some superstitious or religious reason to do them, it's just a thing to do.
> Japan just has a lot of rituals that people do daily and ~seasonally
We have the same thing in western societies, it just isn't often as homogeneous. Taking the USA for example we don't call them rituals, they're just "how we do things" and the like.
Honestly I find it similar to the formal system of addressing people in Japanese and other languages with lots of words or modifiers for expressing your relationship to another person. We do the same thing in English, just less formally and with more variation among groups and regions. For example even if I am familiar enough to address my boss by first name I wouldn't address them a nickname: shortening names or nicknames tend to flow down or across the hierarchy in English, rarely up. The exceptions themselves are usually expressions of an extremely close relationship. Obviously this doesn't apply to people who are so far removed from the speaker that it isn't a relationship at all... that's another unwritten informal rule: if we grunts have a nickname for the CEO it would be extremely rude to use it in a meeting where the CEO is present, even if not addressing them directly.
Superstition and Gnosticism go hand in hand in many ways, chiefly in the belief that matter or identifiable bits of matter are or can be corrupted on an essential level. In Japanese, the word “汚れ” has this nuance and you see it reflected also in any societies built on caste structures.
The basic tenets of "faith" of buddhism are literally
1. nothing is permanent (not even gods)
2. there is no soul (literally "atma" which can also mean god)
3. because humans don't accept 1 and 2, we are unsatisfied
The three marks are the bedrock of buddhism.
Now, buddhisTS, meaning people who call themselves buddhists often do believe in gods or god. Just like here in Sweden most people who call themselves Christians don't believe in the Trinity, the virgin birth, the divinity of Jesus, or any other of things many christians would think are mandatory for the faith.
You need to keep your terms separate. Buddhism is agnostic, it says that if there are gods then they also are subject to the natural laws. Buddhists can believe anything.
Belief in gods and participation in rituals are different things. Japanese people are very traditional, they like to maintain the rituals of their predecessors. However, this doesn't imply that they believe in traditional gods. This may be strange for people that grew up on Christianity, but it is natural once you stop believing in supernatural beings.
Does a ritual, if performed with some expectation of it having an effect on your life beyond the act of its own doing, not also imply a belief in supernatural entities?
I'm not seeing a meaningful difference since the boundary between a passive or active supernatural force is not always clear in any regional belief system.
Christians will pray to Saints, which appear to be beings, but the rituals having to do with their invocation often seem to be treating them like forces.
The difference is orientalism and the compulsion to label Asian beliefs as more mysterious and wise than usual.
It's not a difference. Take a look at proposed mechanisms of fan death, and consider, does that seem like a belief in the supernatural? Or a belief in a natural process that, incidentally, shouldn't actually be true?
People generally believe their own beliefs, and this includes believing that the way they think the world works is natural, not supernatural.
Christmas as "celebrated" by atheists is not a religious ritual. We gather (sometimes), eat, drink, and give presents to kids. Just like in birthdays (also not religious).
Any party or celebration is in some sense a ritual, just not necessarily a religious ritual.
Indeed, most religious-origin festivals are celebrated by atheists as well.
As an atheist, I enjoy the culture and tradition associated with such events. Asian festivals have lots of lights and colors and rituals have dancing, singing, and art forms alongside. All of these come with tasty and nutritious food.
In some ways, I feel we’ve lost this beautiful richness in our modern non-religious lifestyles.
> In some ways, I feel we’ve lost this beautiful richness in our modern non-religious lifestyles.
Well, the celebrations are spiritually meaningless when actual, sincere theological views of the world are discarded for essentially material things. That the supernatural meaning of life has been replaced by "progress" in Western societies (we are continuously advancing towards better and better things) reflects this - we can build a paradise on Earth rather than have our spirits ascend to heaven when we are gone from Earth.
So yeah, the celebrations are basically just another get together with a dead tree nearby and the exchange of material things we've been lured into buying "on-sale", etc. If anything, it's even worse because of all the obligations and because of the lack of shared belief of a super natural thing, there's nothing that really brings us closer to each other.
I don't think that's what I was saying. It was a comment on how when a religious celebration is still celebrated but the religious part has been hollowed out, you can't really find true meaning it anymore. Today it's just a commercial event where we stand around a dead tree and exchange presents for some reason. We are acting out the celebration of Christmas but we aren't actually celebrating it. It's a completely inauthentic event and at best a pastiche of the actual thing.
I think it's why I like Thanksgiving and the 4th of July more - it's essentially the same thing without the artificial Christmas obligations around it.
Why does the removal of religion sudden transform an event into a commercial event. And how does removing the religion make it commercial, but not having it in the first place does not (Thanksgiving/Independence), I do not get that seemingly popular opinion. I am not religious, though I was raised in a somewhat religious family, and Christmas has always been a good family holiday.
Don't need to have a belief in a benevolent God or his son to enjoy it or to celebrate Christmas. Plus, I'm sure that even if everyone was a devout Christian, businesses would still be marketing for Christmas sales.
The religious rituals they participate in are things like going to the shrine at New Years to pray, paying money to the local shrine for blessings for birth, new house, etc.
Not something like putting up a Christmas tree and giving presents, maybe more like going to Christmas Eve and Easter sermons.
Modern Christmas is essentially a non-religious celebration, unless if you go to church. It is mostly about family gathering and gift giving, so even atheists have no problem with that.
Christmas itself has its roots in "pagan" tradition not Christian. More aptly Old Norse. During the conversion of Scandinavia is when this change occured. Though it appears in every cultural group similarly as the winter solstice which is not religious.
Christmas celebrations far predate the conversion of Scandinavia. The early Christians in the Roman Empire were celebrating Christmas on December 25 since the second century or so. It was officially marked on the church calendar in the fourth century after Christianity became the state religion of Rome.
There isn't much evidence that the solstice involves major celebrations predating Christmas. Whatever small celebrations did happen may have been appropriated by Christians, which makes sense given the persecution they faced.
I'm all likelihood, the date December 25 (winter solstice) was chosen as being nine months after the celebration of the Annunciation on March 25 (spring equinox) where the Virgin Mary was told she would give birth to Christ.
Throughout the history of Christianity, Christians have incorporated local traditions into our rituals and festivals, but placed into their proper framing and order (i.e. the one God is the source of all creation and is goodness). When Christianity came to Northern Europe, the church incorporated Yule festivities, placed into the proper order with Christ at the center and not the old Norse pantheon.
The arguments about Christians actually celebrating pagan holidays are from certain (usually) Calvinist reformers who had a revisionist interpretation of various Christian traditions, and felt they had debased Christ's church. The Puritans in England, for example, banned Christmas after they took power in the English Civil War, which suppressed the holiday (at first legally, then culturally) until Charles Dickens essentially revived it in the 19th century. Today, atheists have simply appropriated the Calvinist arguments for themselves.
That piece just uncritically reiterates the precise things the McDaniel piece I linked rebuts.
Specifically:
* The similarities in how western Christians celebrate Christmas and Saturnalia was celebrated aren't that numerous. In addition, the Christmas traditions that do have Saturnalia parallels seem to have arisen independently relatively recently, long after Saturnalia ceased to be celebrated.
* The date of Saturnalia, while close to Christmas, never coincided with it.
* December 25th as Christmas seems to have an origin independent of Saturnalia.
* The celebration of Dies Natalis Solis Invicti on December 25th seems to postdate Christmas.
Additionally, the piece you linked does not deal with Alexander Hislop's work, which seems to be the origin of the alleged "pagan" origins of Christmas, Easter, etc.
GP's point is that you don't have to be superstitious to perform religious rituals. Many Japanese people are superstitious though, just not in the pray to a deity form that we are used to in the West.
Doing something that has religious roots doesn't automatically make it religious. The question is: what are you getting out of it? We're setting up a (now fake) tree during holidays, but treat it as tradition and a nice decoration for winter. Another example: Halloween.
> A low faction of Japanese people claim to "believe in God" but Japanese participate in religious rituals at a high rate
This is similar to what we have in Vietnam.
A very large portion of the country, last estimated about 80%, consider themselves atheists. They don't believe God exists, and they are superstitious only in a joking way.
However, most of us also go to the temple for "religious activities". It's not because people truly believe in God, but because many traditional activities like Tet holidays (Lunar New Year), funerals, or anniversaries have usually associated with them. Also, people don't mind going to the temples even when they don't believe in God because the temples are much more relax (chill/zen). When I was young, I visit the temple myself just to chill and enjoy the scenery despite having no association with Buddhism.
> ...but the LDP has been in power since WWII almost continuously.
My impression is that gerrymandering initially associated with the Reverse Course[0] has much to do with those electoral results.
(But maybe not? A cursory search turns up an article[1] complaining that voters in a rural district had —only— twice the voting power of urban voters, which certainly sounds inferior to the extent of US practise)
In context (modern Japanese, capital-G "God"), I suspect that phrase would generally be interpreted to mean "believe in the monotheistic God of Christianity and other Western/Middle Eastern Abrahamic religions".
One of the reason is election system is bad. People in 1990s wanted to have two big party like US so they introduced single-seat constituency system but it's failed. One big party (LDP) and other smaller parties is current situation. One big party don't want to change current system for obvious reason.
>Because Japan is so culturally homogeneous I think they'd have a very easy time picking an outgroup to blame for problems.
The US is the opposite, and its diversity doesn't stop them from doing it. Often, fully justified too, like in the case of the Soviet Union or Communist China. So I'm not very persuaded by this reasoning.
less strange, more that you are projecting when you say a country with behaviors that appear like unfamiliar paradoxes to yourself is itself a strange place, instead of it being yourself that is the stranger
As is often mentioned in motorsport: "To finish first, first you must finish".
The Japanese can be pragmatic to a fault. Being in the LDP more or less guarantees that you'll 'finish'. You may then focus your efforts on implementing the changes you're able to.
Is it that unusual? LDP is a conservative party that holds a majority with the voting public, and the opposition to conservatives everywhere is often much more fractured.
Seeing it from the outside, the LDP seems like Japan's Republican party, Komeito is the Evangelical Christian bloc, and Abe is your basic Conservative running on American exceptionalism and traditional cultural values.
The biggest obvious difference is the failure of the LDP to successfully repeal Article 9, but as I understand it, that doesn't have nearly as much popular support in Japan as war posturing does in the US.
Britain lurched to the right after Margaret Thatcher but that didn't keep Labor from being in power for a few years (by co-opting the Tory program the same way Clinton co-opted Reagan) Germany, Israel, France, and numerous countries with parliamentary systems have power alternate between parties.
As for "opposition to conservatives everywhere is often much more fractured" that makes me think of an observation I've had which is that conservatives in the US are united by the idea that there is a way that things are "spozed" to be whereas what passes for the left in the US are a groups of people who perceive themselves to either be outgroups or be supportive of outgroups. The problem is that racial/ethnic groups such as blacks or latinos don't automatically support, say, transsexual maximalism. Environmentalism is still perceived as a "white thing" even though blacks are worse off when it comes to exposure to toxics. "Environmental racism" as an issue just hasn't sold.
I've lived here for close to a decade and was stunned by the reaction from the press. Even the NHK (which is a well known LDP mouthpiece) started covering the Unification Church angle early on. People like to bash the state of journalism here but I think this shows it to be worthy of more credit.
An adjacent mental leap is to recognize how much power workers and the poor can have over corporate and politician behaviors (doesn't have to be violent assassination like this, that's besides the point - what was effective came from the resulting widespread awareness of the subject matter brought to attention). Hopefully LDP isn't able to whitewash it through mild reform.
He was very conservative even in the party, but what he did as a prime minister is not much conservative (than expected) and some work are liberal-ish. He was very good at show himself conservative, so he was supported by conservatives.
A just over 50% approval rating, in a vote largely based along political party lines, does not a vast majority of opposition make.
What I find most interesting is that among younger generations, the approval goes past 65%. Though that might have something to do with younger people not having the luxury of ignoring potential future threats, with respect to defense, energy and such.
I don't know why do you push this foreign view on their country (i kind of know, i'm just trying to be playful, hopefully you got the reference), maybe you have a specific agenda, i won't comment on it
However i'll remind you that for the majority of Japanese, Abe is a 'traitor' (their word) [1]
No, it's the proper article, journalist covering an information, up to various investigators to figure out the links
As for the traitor thing, it's what the population is saying, try to get in touch with students, it's what contributed to the assassination of Abe and the current events (majority of the population against a national funeral, why? it was their prime minister, such figure this disliked?)
My personal opinion: You don't assassinate your prime minister over a donation to a religious group, you do it because you are a nationalist and you punish act of treason
1. they have caused a variety of social problems, including dozens of civil and criminal lawsuits
2. they have close ties to North Korea. When they met with North Korean leader Kim, it is estimated that as much as $4.5 billion was given to North Korea as donations. This means that the Unification Church is also part of the source of funds for North Korea's nuclear missiles.
3. The Unification Church's doctrine is very anti-Japanese and Korean nationalismistic. For example, according to their dogma, Japan, as an Eva country, must devote all of its wealth to Korea, and the language of all nations must be unified in Korean, etc. Please note that these anti-Japanese doctrine has actually caused damage like high donations.
After all, from the Japanese perspective, the Unification Church's problem is not just a religious issue, but also a security threat.
The history is even weirder: check out the story of Kishi Nobusuke[0], the class A war crimminal who brought the Unification Church into the Japanese political mainstream. Also the Yakuza. Also he's Abe's grandad.
Yes and no. It is odd only in the sense that the actions contradict the rhetoric. But both parties are still achieving their own goals and the cooperation does not cancel out that goal.
We often think of nationalism purely as the dark side of in-group/out-group dynamics scaled up to the size of an entire country. They are, but there's a dark, darker, yet darker side to this. The driving force behind those dynamics is a desire to purge the in-group of perceived weakness. There are plenty of reasons for a Korean person to hate Japanese people, or vice versa, but the reason that nationalists will consistently pick is that the out-group is "inferior". War crimes, national insults, and so on are all just window-dressing to that core claim.
This same dynamic also applies to things you would not consider to be even in the same postal code as right-wing nationalism. Think about how much self-policing and internal policing happens in niche subcultures online to purge them of perceived weakness, and how many of the perpetrators of those purges are not much different from their targets. Nationalists care more about punishing their own citizens than fighting the enemy.
Sun Myung Moon used fight against communism as a tool to establish a close relationship with LDP. Please refer to the article by Asahi shinbun.
https://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/14693688
Kishi Nobusuke, Shinzo Abe's grandfather, and Sun Myung Moon together found IFVC(International Federation for Victory over Communism).
Long story short, Japanese politicians should have known better.
I scoured articles trying to understand this, too! Is it simply the intersection of money/free volunteer labor and politics where money just wins?
On the other hand we have something similar in the USA so who am I to judge? :)
One party in our two party system appears to have lots of Russian connections now for some reason, and this does not bother most of their supporters which has approximately 45-50 percent of the population behind it. In past years this would have led to claims about treason or something similar from the same party, the path from Nixon to now it appears the only change has been how public the cooperation between the GOP leadership and countries openly antagonistic to the USA, i.e. Nixon/Kissinger with North Vietnam, Reagan/Bush with Iran and Trump with Russia.
It made more sense during the Cold War because they were all very anti-communist, no idea when and why the Unification Church is now supportive of North Korea.
The bijection you are looking for might be the evangelical groups in the US (including some politicians) who support Israel because they believe that if all jews return there, the eschaton will begin. Think what you will about their goals, it is difficult to reconcile the literal apocalypse as "good for America."
>[1]
The church is pretty small only making up about 27 people and was mainly sending medical supply's and food to the island not funding what you may call a "dictatorships" They were mostly advocating for the us to remove its blockade on cube and reestablish relations with the island
>[2]
more of the same just church's sending aid to a country that's in economic turmoil the article title is blatant fear mongering
If you understand how Cuba works, you will get why this is the same as funding the government, not the people. The blockade in Cuba is more internal than external. There is plenty of resources online that shows the human rights violations, persecution, murders and incarcerations, the Cuban regimen have been doing for decades, and continue doing.
3. Yes, this is very unique problem in Japan and that's why it is difficult to see this issue.
> But, we aren't that different , really.
I am not sure if I understand your point. Both U.S. and Japan have relatively loose regulation against cult groups, but as a Japanese citizen, I think this situation should be changed.
I think a decent historical model would be the relationship between Spain's fascist government under Generalísimo Francisco Franco and the Opus Dei sect founded by Josemaría Escrivá:
> "Many newly published Spanish history textbooks agree that the Opus Dei had a strong influence in the Franco regime. Moreover, Opus Dei developed itself in its early days during the Franco regime. According to these books, Opus Dei was not only linked but also tightly interwoven with the power structures of the Francoist authoritarian government soon after the Spanish Civil War, although its stronger involvement in the government came only in the late 1950s. It had at least 8 ministers during Franco's rule. This was in keeping with the organization's aim of influencing the development of society indirectly..."
One person's established religion is just someone else's cult. They all engage in indoctrination and belief in magical thinking with absolutely no proof in the existence of its deity or deities.
Semi-agree, but I think there are 2 fundamental differences between established religions and cults:
1. Complete shunning of non-cult members, and even harsher shunning of ex-members. This one may be a gray area, as certainly many religions identify all members of other religions as "going to hell", and I know Mormons who have been excommunicated for being gay. Still, the level of ostracism in mainstream religions is nothing compared to, for example, what happens if you try to leave Scientology. Scientologists declare you a "subversive person", stalk you, and essentially try to ruin you. I know many folks who have left the Catholic church, but in all honestly the Catholic church still tries to welcome them back with open arms.
2. Be secretive about the details of the cult before you are "bought in". Say what you will about organized religion, but it's pretty trivial to get the full text of the Bible, Koran, and other religious writings. Meanwhile, Scientology requires you to pay thousands and thousands of dollars to slowly get access to their screeds, and they have gone after ex-members who have attempted to publish this information.
These have nothing to do with being "established religions." As you said, Mormons shun. Many Muslim groups advocate killing apostates. It might be trivial to get a copy of the Bible, but the vast majority of how e.g. the Catholic Church runs is not drawn from the Bible using the most obvious interpretation, and is not shared with laymen - the Bible is not an IKEA instruction manual.
Also Mormonism is not particularly old. Mainstream evangelical/charismatic Protestantism was formed completely from storefront Pentecostalism in the early part of the 20c, making it barely older than Scientology or even the Nation of Islam. Scientology isn't bad because it's not "established," it's bad because it hurts people.
Mormonism is in a transitionary phase between Scientology and more established religions. It is taken seriously but still has a aura of non-seriousness about it. Scientology will probably reach that stage once it matures, but it will take a few generations still.
> Still, the level of ostracism in mainstream religions is nothing compared to, for example, what happens if you try to leave Scientology.
Worldwide, a majority of muslims support the idea of a death penalty for apostasy (renouncing the religion).
Defining a cult is a lot harder than it sounds at first glance. My personal definition, which is not very useful since it's so subjective, is "A cult is a new religion formed on purpose by a charismatic person who is knowingly lying in order to gain temporal power."
seems odd to not acknowledge how the non-secretive nature of modern christian religion is such a recent (technological and social) development and still holds some fringe controversy at similar levels as these other extreme cults
Yes in the sense that all religion has a dose of magical thinking, but not in the sense that cults are a specific set of practices that set them aside from mainstream religion.
Shunning of members, cutting ties to non-cult people, taking over the finances of their members (and forcing them to donate).
There are some gray areas and some mainstream congregations can cross into cult-like behavior, but in general, there is a demarcation.
I agree with you. But all churches start as cults. Romans viewed Christians the same way most Americans view Scientologists. Actually, Romans killed Christians, so probably they viewed them a tad bit worse.
The difference is that Christianity has a huge amount of buy in among the American people. The unification church can’t really say the same about the Japanese people, and in some ways in antithetical to the LDPs nationalistic politics since the church is run by Koreans.
It's worth pointing out that American lawmakers also have ties with the Unification Church. A couple of decades ago its founder, Sun Myung Moon, actually had a coronation in a U.S. Senate office building that was attended by numerous U.S. Senators and Congressmembers. He was declared humanity's messiah in the ceremony:
> Mr. Davis says he held the wife's crown and was ''a bit surprised'' by Mr. Moon's Messiah remarks, which were delivered in Korean but accompanied by a written translation. In them, he said emperors, kings and presidents had ''declared to all heaven and earth that Reverend Sun Myung Moon is none other than humanity's Savior, Messiah, Returning Lord and True Parent.''
> By Wednesday, after news of the event had been reported in the online magazine Salon and various newspapers, Capitol Hill was in full-blown backpedaling mode, as lawmakers who attended but missed the coronation -- or saw it and did not think much of it -- struggled to explain themselves.
The Washington Times, a conservative D.C. newspaper that has many prominent conservatives on its staff (Tony Blankly, Larry Kudlow, Tony Snow) was also founded by Sun Myung Moon and owned by the Unification Church[2].
Agreed about Christianity, disagreed that it's the only difference.
There is a set of cult-like behavior that distinguishes modern cults from mainstream established religions. Those practices are an important distinction.
Also, the mindset required to join a fringe or secretive cult today that shuns the rest of society, and is shunned by society in turn, seems relevant to me.
What exactly separates a "cult" from any other church? It seems that the word is often lobbed against minority religions that either aren't mainstream (or somehow related to mainstream religions), are recent in origin, or are viewed as eccentric or peculiar.
There are truly damaging religious groups, but this doesn't seem to be what is referenced by the word cult. It seems to be used more often to describe religions that are unconnected (or less connected) to religions considered "normal" like Christianity, Islam, etc.
While I won't suggest this is society's distinction between the two, in my mind it's about what happens if you exert independent thought that conflicts with the institution's beliefs and what happens if you attempt to leave the group. Many ex-Mormons claim their former church is a cult and that life in Mormon dominated areas become very difficult for those who have left the faith. Same for Jehovah's Witness but the impact is smaller because not many areas are dominated by them and you don't have to move far to get away from it. On the other hand, the worst cults will hunt you down across the country (and possibly the Earth) if your existence is offensive enough to them, which isn't something typically seen when leaving a mainstream Christian religion. A Mormon in Alabama leaving the church isn't likely to face much social ostracism while a Southern Baptist might, especially if they reject Christianity entirely, but their life isn't likely to be in danger.
"[H]is mother had given the church about 100 million yen (US$720,000), a parcel of land she had inherited from her father, and the house where she lived with her three children; she subsequently declared bankruptcy in 2002. She had continued donating to the church following the bankruptcy. A male relative later recalled being contacted by Yamagami and his siblings to complain that they had no food at home, prompting the relative to deliver meals and money for living expenses. [..] Yamagami's older brother, who had a longtime struggle with cancer, was not able to afford medical treatment; he died by suicide in 2015."
To me, that sounds quite a bit worse than your average Christian church.
There are certainly some predatory Christian hucksters out there; people
like Kenneth "I need my private jet to spread the gospel" Copeland spring to mind, but there are many more (as well as many more abusive ones). Religion is often a comparatively "easy" target for abuse.
However, the religion of Christianity as a whole isn't centred around the concept of "send me your money". I think that's the main difference: is the religion as a whole primarily centred around abuse, or is it just various groups within the religion that operate like that?
There are plenty of cults within Christianity, but Christianity as a whole?
I'm sure there are more formal and academic descriptions, and things can become a bit tricky around the edges for sure, but I find "is it primarily centred around abuse of its members?" to be a reasonably workable every-day distinction.
> What exactly separates a "cult" from any other church?
Usually the difference between a cult and a sect is how hard it is to leave it. church more usually define practice of the "established religions" or as long as it stay close enough to it.
Islam is usually considered an established religion. And yet in some countries run by extremist fundamentalists, apostasy is literally punishable by death.
I think in this case it would be more similar if all of the party members were part of the same minority denomination. While most U.S. polititions are Christian, they are members of mostly independent churches that are organized into separate denominations. That is one reason that we have generally been wary of Catholic politicians - because we don't want our government to be under the influence of the Pope.
But plenty of them have connections to weird cults, also, due to the US largely being (especially in governance) a Protestant country. Protestantism isn't a religion, it's thousands of religions, each having between 1 and 100 leaders with constituencies between the size of a family or the population of a state.
You're technically correct, but I think that's a different definition of the word "cult" from the colloquial, and from what is being used above. Wikipedia's definition describes a cult as "unusual," "socially deviant," and "novel." I don't think Christianity fits that description in America.
ususual: a tenth of the world's population, but probably a third of the US population.
socially deviant: a matter of opinion.
novel: I've got books that are older.
> With traditions of Pentecostalism already developed in the 18th century out of Protestant evangelicalism, the beginning of the charismatic movement in historic Christian Churches came in 1960 at St. Mark's Episcopal Church in Van Nuys, California. Dennis Bennett, the church's Rector, felt the Holy Spirit within him and announced the event to his Anglican church.
> The charismatic movement reached Lutherans and Presbyterians in 1962. Among Roman Catholics, it spread around 1967. Methodists became involved in the charismatic movement in the 1970s.
> Some nondenominational evangelical churches decided to follow this movement and take distance from their Pentecostal conventions. Calvary Chapel Costa Mesa, California is one of the first evangelical neo-charismatic churches started in 1965. In the United Kingdom, Jesus Army, founded in 1969, is an example of the impact outside of the United States. The spread of the charismatic movement outside of the US was also encouraged by Bennett, who traveled to Vancouver to minister there. Many other congregations were established in the rest of the world. Modern churches internationally have embraced the charismatic movement or adapted their own practices to incorporate it. In the United Kingdom, the house church movement has grown to include charismatic practices. Hillsong Church in Australia is another example of a Pentecostal church that incorporates the charismatic movement. The neo-charismatic movement, also known as the third-wave, has also spread widely since 1970; these churches often reject the charismatic or Pentecostal label but accept the general practice of accepting gifts of the Spirit.
> Some scholars attribute the quick and successful spread of charismatic Christianity to its successful use of mass media platforms, but also to the physical experience of religion that it provides, which creates a personal connection to spiritual mediation for believers.
I don't know how to not be underhanded if mentioning that it applies to 1/3 of Americans in the second line of my comment is somehow sneaky, but thanks for ignoring 90% of the comment entirely. My grandfather has hats older than charismatic Christianity.
In the US we have many people who are 'christian' but they do not all go to the same church. What's happening in Japan is like saying that a majority of U.S. lawmakers went specifically to Joel Olsteen's church.
I was just about to make this analogy but it would be more akin to the mosques having ties to Iran, a state with nuclear ambitions and leadership that is hostile to the US, as opposed to Saudi Arabia where they don't have nuclear ambitions(that I know of) and the leadership is at least friendly with our leaders even if significant parts of the population may not be.
Edit to add the same disclaimer the parent has:
Note: I do not in any way support anti-Islam sentiment.
America as a county does not have nuclear ambitions, we already have nuclear weapons and delivery mechanisms.
The phrase nuclear ambitions refers to a country that does not have nuclear weapons and a way to deliver them but want to obtain them, hence ambition.
If you are against nuclear proliferation, you want countries to stop developing and creating nuclear weapons.
Iran is used in this case as a foil for North Korea as they are both signors to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons; Iran(1970), North Korea(1985).
Both countries have continued to work to develop nuclear weapons, with North Korea having conducted successful nuclear tests.
I really can't see majors differences between socially conservative evangelical Christians and those other groups, if we're talking the harm they can cause politically.
There's basically a single meaningful Evangelical cult in the US and it is mostly genealogical (ergo tiny). They also have a big population center in Mexico oddly enough (or did a few years ago, but there was a cartel massacre of them so they may have left).
This is the "everyone who disagrees with me is a Nazi" problem.
Evangelicals are distinct from cults. You may dislike both, in the same way you can dislike peanut butter and chocolate, but that doesn't mean they are the same or identical.
(There are also Evangelical cults but that is a small percentage of Evangelicals)
Moonies have had influence in both Korea and Japan. This is a big deal as Korea harbors strong anti-Japanese sentiment, due to Japan's brutal occupation of Korea. If I was Korean, I could imagine feeling that these are pro-Japanese collaborators.
This is also partly why Abe was so controversial. Instead of apologizing for Japan's occupation of Korea, he repeatedly signaled a desire to return to those times.
Yes, they are. The LDP (Japan's ruling party) is quite openly in coalition with Komeito, the political wing of Soka Gakkai, a prominent Buddhist-ish cult.
For those skimming, Aum Shinrikyo is the cult responsible for the Tokyo subway sarin attack. What's often overlooked is that the cult synthesized the sarin gas themselves in a self-made sophisticated chemical weapons lab:
When their headquarters were raided, police found enough weaponry to fight a small war:
>Over the next week, the full scale of Aum's activities was revealed for the first time. At the cult's headquarters in Kamikuishiki on the foot of Mount Fuji, police found explosives, chemical weapons, and a Russian Mil Mi-17 military helicopter. While the finding of biological warfare agents such as anthrax and Ebola cultures was reported, those claims now appear to have been widely exaggerated.[52] There were stockpiles of chemicals that could be used for producing enough sarin to kill four million people.[53]
They bought a sheep farm in Australia to mine uranium in order to enrich it and build nuclear weapons:
Murakami wrote a non-fiction book about the Sarin attacks and the Aum cult, Underworld.
I’m not sure if it’s accurate (he’s a fiction writer, afterall) but it’s very fascinating and sent many chills down my spine.
No different than other cults. A bunch of once aimless people who found purpose by subsuming their existences to the will of a venerated man (who teaches yoga in his apartment.)
One downside of having an industrialized high technology society with a good education system is that radicals will tend to have the skills and knowledge required to create harm on a large scale.
I lived in a Soka Gakkai heavy neighborhood in Tokyo. They tried to recruit me a few times. I've been to their services and social events. It's big thing. They even have offices world-wide, with a few in Cali.
Generally while it's pretty culty, it doesn't do any of that cut-ties with non-culters and its beliefs are derived from Nichiren Buddhism which is pretty standard in Japan. As a result it peacefully exists out in the open for the most part. Not defending it, but it walks a fine line between religion and culty cooporation more so than the normal "cult".
Generalizing Asian countries is usually as useful as generalizing Canada, the US, and Mexico as just North American countries. There are some extremely high level things you can point out, but it's often useless to try and come to conclusions about the group as a whole.
Generalizing North America is a totally worthwhile thing to do. Why would it not be? They all have legacies of colonialism, racism, Western education, etc. Obviously, Mexico is more like the rest of Central America than the US and Canada, but so what? Japan is more like the Koreas than it is like Cambodia.
Yes generalizations are the real solution. Wait weren't those the things that started racism and colonialism...? the things you seemed to be concerned about?
Generalization was not the thing that started racism and colonialism. The Europeans started enslaving Africans because there was a taboo against enslaving Christians, and then a bunch of BS pseudoscience combined with natural human xenophobia to make a new monster with a life of its own.
Generalization is an important tool for understanding the world. How could we think any thoughts without generalizing?
The show 'Silicon Valley' really hit the nail on the head in the episode where a character was horrified to have been outed as being Christian. Maybe only Donald Trump unites more of the tech community in their hatred.
The other day I was reading a thread about how certain ethnic group ages far slower and make great wives. Then the person mentioned he lived around the US base in Japan. Yet the population of mixed race children who will never see their Western dad in Japan is exploding.
Think you are tad exaggerating things for sensationalism here, there is nowhere near the level of cult behaviour you describe. Aum Shinrikyo was a small group. There are other religious groups but they aren't extremists. I would argue that there are far more Christian sect groups in the States who are armed.
Also both the Yellow Turban and Taiping Tianguo are millenarian groups that arise during bad times. They’re not all that different from political movements that seek to rebel against the state, just with less rational-seeming ideologies. But to the discontented, it’s very rational.
Also, those groups existed hundreds of years apart from each other, let alone from Aum Shinrikyo.
Well if we are gonna travel that far back in time we should also be discussing the numerous cults that formed out of Europe and rosicrucianism still going strong
The article discusses the findings of an internal survey conducted by the Liberal Democratic Party of Japan, which found that around half of the party's lawmakers had dealings with the Unification Church, a controversial religious group believed to be behind the fatal shooting of former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. LDP Secretary General Toshimitsu Motegi told reporters that the party will take the results of the survey seriously and reflect on them, and that lawmakers who do not abide by the party's policy of severing ties with the Unification Church will not be allowed to participate in party activities. Prime Minister Fumio Kishida told reporters that it is difficult to scrutinize Abe's past relations with the Unification Church, but pledged to implement measures to strengthen internal surveillance on ties between his ruling party and the religious group.
This really misstates an important point - the Unification Church is not "believed to be behind" the assassination, it was a man holding a grudge against the Church. Pretty much the opposite meaning. I don't think this comment is useful for discussion.
I don’t know about the LDP part but I do know that my father was told to “drop it” when he discovered that the flower children’s passports were being withheld and sent to Korea. He was told that by a police chief though and not the CIA.
"From the 1950s through the 1970s, the United States Central Intelligence Agency spent millions of dollars attempting to influence elections in Japan to favor the LDP against more leftist parties such as the Socialists and the Communists,[24][25] although this was not revealed until the mid-1990s when it was exposed by The New York Times.[26]"
Wikipedia only mentions that Moon was promoted by Radio Free Asia, here is an article that tells a bit more:
Reverend Moon: Cult leader, CIA asset and Bush family friend
"In 1997, Congressman Donald Fraser launched an investigation into Moon's cult. The 444-page Congressional report alleged Moonie involvement with bribery, bank fraud, illegal kickbacks, and arms sales. The report revealed that Moon's 20,000-member Unification Church was a creation of the Korean Central Intelligence Agency (KCIA). The Moonies were working with KCIA Director Kim Chong Phil as a political instrument to influence U.S. foreign policy. The U.S. CIA was the agency primarily responsible for founding the KCIA after WW II. The Moon organization has denied any link with the U.S. intelligence agencies or the Korean government."
I've heard the Moonies described as a "classic tale" on how US intelligence operations risk feeding back into US politics.
Imagine I start a cult and accumulate 20 members, then get millions in funding from a state benefactor who only requires that we advocate for them, then expand to a million members over the next decade, although sometime in the fifth year I was deposed and replaced by a successor hand-picked by the state benefactor.
There's definitely an extreme difference between what I've done here and what the state benefactor did, but the difference is that I was far less important than the benefactor. If anything, the state benefactor "set up" a political organization, and used my glorified yoga class as a "support."
Anyone pursuing this further might be interested in Lobster Magazine's 1991 piece by Jeffrey M Bale: The Moonies, WACL and the Korean CIA (see [1])
Regards Japan, though it's primarily concerned with "the links between the UC and the South Korean Central Intelligence Agency (KCIA)" and "the intimate
connection between the UC and the World Anti-Communist League, an international umbrella organization encompassing numerous extreme right and neo-Nazi groups", the article finds that "the real key to the WACL-Moon link probably lies in Japan, and I must therefore trace the development of the Japanese UC before trying to clarify this link."
And trace it he does, over several dense but fascinating paragraphs detailing relationships between UC precursor Genri Undo, "kuromaku"[2], Japanese ultranationalists and organized crime figures, including Yoshio Kodama [3], whose two lieutenants Ryoichi Sasagama and Osami Kuboki "took an early interest in [Genri Undo]" with Kuboki becoming president of the "World Christian Unification Holy Ghost Church", spearheading the UC presence in Japan.
To give a taster, here's Bale on Kodama (the numbers in parens are footnotes):
> To cite just one example, he provided 6.5 million yen through an intermediary -- ultranationalist gangster Karoku Tsuji -- to his Sugamo cellmate Ichiro Hatoyama for the purpose of establishing the Minshu To (Democratic Party), a new conservative party controlled by depurged prewar rightist politicians who were unable to obtain a dominant position in Prime Minister Shigeru Yoshida's bureaucrat-controlled Jiyu To (Liberal Party). (212)
> Following the election of Hatoyama as Prime Minister, the two parties merged in 1955 to become the Jiyuminshu To (Liberal Democratic Party or LDP), the highly conservative pro-American party which has almost single-handedly ruled Japan up to the present day.
> Since then, Kodama has often brought decisive pressure to bear on the
factional struggles within the LDP, including arranging for the reelection of Nobusuke Kishi, another Sugamo cellmate, in 1959, as well as helping Eisaku Sato become Prime Minister in 1964. He also maintained close relations with other LDP politicians, such as the yakusa-connected LDP Vice President Bamboku Ono, (213) and his influence did not suffer a major setback until he was identified as the key 'fixer' in the Lockheed Corporation bribery scandal. (214)
> In addition to these political activities and his 'legitimate' business operations, Kodama also became involved with numerous postwar ultranationalist and yakuza organisations, including the Matsuba Kai (Pine Needles Society), the Kokusiu Kai (National Essence Society), and the Gijin To (Righteous Men's or Martyrs' Party). (215) He served as an advisor to the predominantly Korean yakuza group led by Hisayuki Machii (born Gon-Yong Chong), the Tosei Kai (Eastern Voice Society), and organized the Kofu Kurabu (Friendly Relations Club) in 1965. (216)
You will find more direct evidence and reporting on the KCIA's ties. At the time South Korea was a dictatorship propped up by the US. Not a big leap to go from the KCIA to the CIA.
Please post any specific materials you find useful. Apologies for not having good links/books at the ready.
Journalist Tim Shorrock posted (https://twitter.com/TimothyS/status/1558478761615626241), "Speaking of the Unification Church ... has anyone else noticed how US media coverage of Abe's assassination stopped the instant that the Japanese media began uncovering the unsavory ties between LDP, Abe, and the Moonies? Nothing about this event in the US press. Zilch."
Sounds like the recent Japanese press might be a good place to look.
I don't know about the unification church side of things, but it is well documented that the USA supported heavily the LDP inthe 50ies, including sinister politicians like Kishi, to advance their interest and fight communism.
It is so crazy that someone like Kishi, who largely responsible for WW2, became politician again after WW2, then his grandson, Shinzo Abe, was also prime minister. I really don't understand why people support these politicians. I don't think the way Japanese people think of their politicians have changed before and after WW2. I just feel sad to see the current situation of this country.
More than half of People never vote. Things will never be changed. I feel so powerless.
Kishi revival was somewhat crazy, but his crime should not be related for Abe even though his son.
TBH as a Japanese, I feel current US situation (GOP become trump party) is much crazier. It's not even controlled by CIA. I want to believe it's controlled by GRU or something.
The CIA supported political parties that opposed communism all over the world. Even socialist parties in Europe. The CIA didn't setup the LDP anymore than it setup the Portuguese Socialist Party.
https://www.nytimes.com/1976/01/07/archives/cia-funding-in-e...
> The CIA didn't setup the LDP anymore than it setup the Portuguese Socialist Party
Yeah, it setup and ran both equally.
> The most crucial interaction between the CIA and the Liberal Democratic Party was the exchange of information for money. It was used to support the party and to recruit informers within it. The Americans established paid relationships with promising young men who became, a generation later, members of parliament, ministers, and elder statesmen. Together they promoted the LDP and subverted Japan's Socialist Party and labor unions. […]
> The Japanese came to describe the political system created with the CIA's support as kozo oshoku—"structural corruption." The CIA's payoffs went on into the 1970s. The structural corruption of the political life of Japan continued long thereafter.
> "We ran Japan during the occupation, and we ran it a different way in these years after the occupation," said the CIA's Horace Feldman, who served as station chief in Tokyo. "General MacArthur had his ways. We had ours."
My adoptive father was an LEO who spent most of his 40+ year long career between the Bay Area and Alabama. He had plenty of stories to tell about the Moonies. He spent 10 years as basically the right hand man and enforcer for the police chief in a very well know southern city. He would literally run folks out of town on the request of the chief and/or the mayor. Sometimes he'd use violence and other times he'd use intel.
Mostly harmless stuff like running out the Dixie Mafia when they setup up porn shops or illegal gambling dens. He spent 3 years under cover in the KKK and helped ruin their credibility in the Central Alabama area.
And then some questionable stuff like breaking into a Nation of Islam church and spending multiple days camped out in their attic until he was able to take photos of the leader of that church engaging in extra marital affairs with the wives of church members. He used those photos to cause quite a bit of mayhem and violence amongst the church members until the church was no more.
But his most interesting story is when he claims to have discovered (I have never been able to verify this like I have the other stories) that the Moonies from Europe had their passports withheld and then those passports were sent to Korea in order to get their operatives into the country.
I have no idea if that was true, but every single time we saw someone selling a flower somewhere he would share that story.
Directly infiltrating one of these groups is easier than the other, depending on your skin colour. And I'm not certain it can be called illegal if it is an agent of the law acting under legal authorisation.
A police officer can’t legally commit B&E without a warrant.
That’s why he just made sure the photos got into the hands of other members of the Nation. He effectively allowed the problem to solve itself.
Edit: I just realized that you may not be from the US or be familiar with how the law works here. You need a warrant to do what my father did to the Nation of Islam. None of the photos his took or any of the other evidence would have been admissible in court. He broke the law when he broke into the church.
I wasn't fully aware of how the US law would apply in that situation. Thanks for the clarity.
I don't think the ability for the state to act arbitrarily is a good thing either. It is a morally ropey area when you're law enforcement engaging with groups that threaten the freedom and stability of wider society. But I suppose that's why warrants and such safeguards exist.
> I don't think the ability for the state to act arbitrarily is a good thing either.
I don't believe this is true if you give even individual representatives of law enforcement the latitude to decide whether religious groups threaten the freedom and stability of wider society (and especially if you think that the Nation of Islam, an inwardly-focused group that I'm not aware of either imprisoning or destabilizing society, meets that bar.) Not only that, but even assuming that they would have the latitude, as individuals, to act against them.
Is "not liking white people for outer space reasons" or "being anti-Semitic, but not hurting Jews" enough of a reason for you to actually support improvised state-supported aggression by individual cops? Is that the model case in your mind where the state acting arbitrarily is for the good?
> Change a couple words and the doctrines aren't much different.
Saying this is just a declaration that you know nothing about either the KKK or The Nation of Islam. The KKK are aging race-terrorists, and the NoI are almost Scientologists. The KKK murders people, the NoI thinks that white people were created by evil alien scientists.
How would having a European passport be useful to insert Koreans into the US? A Korean named 'Hans Schmidt' would presumably arouse some suspicion with INS, especially if he didn't look anything like the photo.
I was led to believe that the passports themselves could be altered.
Again I was never able to verify this like the other stories. I saw the pictures from the klan rallies and the Nation of Islam church. I’ve heard numerous people tell me how folks used to scatter whenever my father was walking toward them on the street or sidewalk.
But all I have is his word in regards to the Moonies and passports.
