Speaker 1: Well, Sophie, I don't know if I agree with you
Speaker 1: that a Kamala Harris themed erotic vampire anime would be successful.
Speaker 1: But I guess we all have different opinions on things. Oh,
Speaker 1: I didn't notice the audience had had come in here.
Speaker 1: I'm Robert Evanance. This is Behind Bastards. It's a podcast
Speaker 1: about the worst people in all of history. Sophie and
Speaker 1: Christopher and I were just having a conversation about manga's
Speaker 1: that we think would be successful. Um so, Christopher, I
Speaker 1: don't know, what do you think erotic Kamala Harris vampire anime?
Speaker 1: I mean I can see it. Look okay, the you
Speaker 1: know the advantage you get you get out of out
Speaker 1: of it? About of anime? Right, everyone's eyes enormously large.
Speaker 1: You can lose. You cannot loose with this. Yeah, absolutely,
Speaker 1: eyes are too big. Science says that we find the
Speaker 1: big ice cute, cannot go wrong, cannot go wrong. Um, well,
Speaker 1: other things you can't go wrong with our classic Behind
Speaker 1: the Bastard's reverse episode where where one of my Sophie
Speaker 1: are we allowed to call them indentured servants? No, we're
Speaker 1: one of my indentured podcast guests in this case. Christopher. Also, um, well, okay,
Speaker 1: Sophie one of our team members, one of the members
Speaker 1: of our squad, Sophie, there is no iron team, but
Speaker 1: several of the letters that are also in Indentured Servant
Speaker 1: are in the worst team. So, Robert, that was worse
Speaker 1: than that was worse than the fake laugh you did
Speaker 1: at the start of this episode. Christopher Wong, who is
Speaker 1: on our team, a valued member of the Zone Media squad.
Speaker 1: I'd prefer uh hunt the cool Zone Media Hunt. I've
Speaker 1: always felt we were more of a regime. Oh god,
Speaker 1: you know your your web cram being broken and me
Speaker 1: not being able to look you in the eyes when
Speaker 1: I'm angry really upset to me. I know, I know
Speaker 1: that's part of why I haven't fixed it. Christopher, are
Speaker 1: we gonna learn about today well on this podcast for
Speaker 1: before we formally start. Robert, how do you feel about
Speaker 1: Operation paper Clip? Um? Oh, you know, so when World
Speaker 1: War two ended, right, same kind of feeling that I
Speaker 1: got when like the last Lord of the Rings movie finished,
Speaker 1: or like when Firefly got canceled, and I'm like, but
Speaker 1: I wanted more. I wanted more from these kookie Nazis
Speaker 1: and their crimes and then the US government and the
Speaker 1: Russian government in two separate operations, were like, don't worry, Robert,
Speaker 1: We're gonna give those guys future jobs. You can keep
Speaker 1: following the careers of Albert Speer, Verner von Brown, a
Speaker 1: bunch of other Nazis, including that guy the CIA hired,
Speaker 1: and see what they do after the war. It's like, um,
Speaker 1: you know what it's like. Uh, it's like that TV
Speaker 1: show Joey after Friends got canceled. That's what Operation paper
Speaker 1: Clip is for the Nazis. And I I personally, as
Speaker 1: a fan of both Joey and World War two history,
Speaker 1: I think that's great. What's Joey's last name, Triviana, something
Speaker 1: like that. More or less, it's been a long time
Speaker 1: since I watched the episode of Friends. Look, it's been
Speaker 1: like fifteen years. Come on, oh well, Robert, you're you're
Speaker 1: going to love part two of this. And I'm gonna
Speaker 1: start out at this episode. I'm gonna make an incredibly
Speaker 1: bold claim and we'll see how to see if you
Speaker 1: agree with it after after after the part the second
Speaker 1: part of this episode, UM, I maintain that the rehabilitation
Speaker 1: of Nobisuka Kishi, who is the subody give today's episode
Speaker 1: is the single worst example of the US rehabilitating a
Speaker 1: war criminal after the end of the days, this is
Speaker 1: the worst one. I'm excited because this is a new
Speaker 1: war criminal for me, which is a huge day in
Speaker 1: Robert Land. Yeah, yeah, alright. So Kishi was born on
Speaker 1: November eighte in a village Inmgushi Prefecture of Japan. Now
Speaker 1: she she is born in an incredibly important time in
Speaker 1: Japanese history, right, just literally right at the beginning of
Speaker 1: the second phase of Japanese imperialism. So to get us
Speaker 1: to the second phase, um so, after the restoration the
Speaker 1: Emperor and the Meiji restoration of Japan rapidly starts importing
Speaker 1: European technology, European organizational principles, your Pean ideology, and European
Speaker 1: racism in order to do a rapid quote unquote modernization
Speaker 1: campaign in order to compete with the European nations. Now,
Speaker 1: Japan was not exactly like an egalitarian paradise before they
Speaker 1: started doing this. And you know the consequence of this
Speaker 1: is that you know, they take the colonialism like a
Speaker 1: fish to water. And this starts what I'm going to
Speaker 1: call the three phases of Japanese imperialism. You have imperialism one,
Speaker 1: imperialism to imperialism harder, and imperialism with three tokyo drift.
Speaker 1: I'm very frustrated that that you didn't do an imperialism
Speaker 1: too electric boogaloo. But but you know, we'll we'll discuss
Speaker 1: that at your next performance evaluation. I will I I
Speaker 1: will endeavor to get better references when I name phases
Speaker 1: of imperialism to after bad movie idols. Yeah. So, imperialism
Speaker 1: one basically starts right as the major restoration happens, and
Speaker 1: and it lasts roughly from about eighteen sixty eight to
Speaker 1: the start of the Sino Japanese War in eighteen ninety four.
Speaker 1: And and this is the phase that everyone ignores because
Speaker 1: it's you know, this phase imperialism is very very local
Speaker 1: or it's happening inside Japan itself, but it's extremely important
Speaker 1: to understand, like everything's gonna happen next we're gonna talk
Speaker 1: about it for a little bit. And now. So the
Speaker 1: the sort of the defining characteristics of this first phase
Speaker 1: are the horrifically violent assimilation of the Anui people in Hokkaido,
Speaker 1: the annexation of the Rioku Islands. Might not know what
Speaker 1: those are the biggest one is Okinawa. You probably know
Speaker 1: what that is. Yeah. My my half of my family
Speaker 1: has been half of their lives there. Yeah. Yeah, very
Speaker 1: nice place, Very very bad things happened to people there. Yeah.
Speaker 1: There's a monument at the north of the island called
Speaker 1: Peace Prayer Park because when the when the US took
Speaker 1: the island, the Japanese occupiers told them like, hey, you're
Speaker 1: all going to get murdered and raped by US troops.
Speaker 1: You should just kill yourselves now. And so a shipload
Speaker 1: of Okahoma has just flung themselves off the cliffs. Uh.
Speaker 1: And now there's a very nice monument there. Um, it's
Speaker 1: a lot of bad things have gone down in the Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this is the Japanese Empire is just sending enormous numbers
Speaker 1: of people to their deaths. Is running FEMA this episode. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it is remarkable when you're telling a story that
Speaker 1: takes place, when you're telling a story about colonialism in Asia. Uh,
Speaker 1: and the US is not the specific bad guy at
Speaker 1: the story. Yeah, like like, yeah, the Empire of Japan
Speaker 1: got like yeah, like this is the thing that like
Speaker 1: the Americans don't become the bad guys in this story
Speaker 1: until two years into the occupation, which is like like
Speaker 1: I'm trying to I can't. I don't know if like
Speaker 1: another time ever the U. S has like military occupy
Speaker 1: another country and it took two years for them to
Speaker 1: become like the bad guys. It's yeah, we got faster,
Speaker 1: don't worry, guys. Yeah, yeah, we've We've improved our game.
Speaker 1: That's what Taylorism brings you. Yep. Yeah, actually this was
Speaker 1: the Gakishi. We a lot of just got cut. But Kishi,
Speaker 1: big fan of Taylorism, absolutely loves it. And yeah him
Speaker 1: and are cops yep, yep. It's it's great stuff. And
Speaker 1: you know, there's one more thing that happens, and this
Speaker 1: is I think the least well known of the stuff
Speaker 1: that happens in Japan in this period, which is that
Speaker 1: there's this just mass destruction and looting of thousands and
Speaker 1: thousands of these local non Shinto shrines like in Japan itself,
Speaker 1: and they had this this this giant like culture Confian
Speaker 1: just like annihilates like all of this sort of like
Speaker 1: local non like Shinto religions, and you know, all of
Speaker 1: this violence is about sort of it's about annihilating any
Speaker 1: other culture in Japan and forcing everyone to sort of
Speaker 1: assemblight to the new Japanese nation state. And you know,
Speaker 1: I mean, this is this is what nine century nationalism is.
Speaker 1: This this attempt to impose like a single national language
Speaker 1: and culture on a bunch of people who you know,
Speaker 1: until this point, like the only thing most a lot
Speaker 1: of these people have in common is that like armed
Speaker 1: men show up every year and take stuff, some of
Speaker 1: them to give it the same king. Like. Other than that,
Speaker 1: you know, they have different cultures, have languages, and you know,
Speaker 1: and in order to get rid of days that used
Speaker 1: to be all government was was armed men taking your
Speaker 1: stuff and giving it to the king. And one day,
Speaker 1: when libertarianism wins, we'll get back to that. I wonder, yeah,
Speaker 1: I wonder how long it would take for for the CEO.
Speaker 1: So it just literally started pointing themselves monarchs. I don't know,
Speaker 1: you know, there's that um the Twitter account run in
Speaker 1: part by the Kent State gun Girl, the Liberty Hangout
Speaker 1: accounts like a libertarian conservative account like four years ago,
Speaker 1: and in about a year and a half was like
Speaker 1: an ironically advocating the establishment of a monarchy contract. That's
Speaker 1: why I made that joke. It's like literally a thing
Speaker 1: that's happening incredible. Yeah, okay, continue, Yeah, you know, and
Speaker 1: all the violence of you know, we've been talking about
Speaker 1: the violence in Okkaido, the violence in the islands, and
Speaker 1: the violence in Japan itself. Like this is this is
Speaker 1: the crucible in which Japanese nationalism is formed. And you know,
Speaker 1: and like like like the rest of the twenty century nationalisms,
Speaker 1: the only place so that goes is imperialism, to imperialism harder.
Speaker 1: And this this phase begins in eight when Japan launches
Speaker 1: a war against China basically over control the Korean Peninsula
Speaker 1: and they just like they just smashed the Chinese army. Um.
Speaker 1: We we talked about this war a little bit from
Speaker 1: the Chinese side and our Jong Zung Chong episode, but
Speaker 1: you know, from from the Japanese perspective, this war makes
Speaker 1: Japan like the premier like power in East Asia. Like
Speaker 1: they're they're they're they're they're the big Asian power and
Speaker 1: you know, and Kishi is born the year after Japan
Speaker 1: wins the Sound Japanese War, and when he's eight years old,
Speaker 1: Japan wins his next major war, which is the Rusto
Speaker 1: Japanese War. Yeah, you know, yeah, yeah, Japan, Like, yeah,
Speaker 1: Japan beats Russia so badly war it's amazing. Yeah, that's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: the Russians are so like start the war with such
Speaker 1: a like we're gonna win us an easy victory against
Speaker 1: the savages and then lose their entire north fleet just
Speaker 1: just just their asses hand to them almost like one
Speaker 1: of the biggest ass whoopings of the entire century military.
Speaker 1: It's it's it's kind of funny because it's like, okay,
Speaker 1: so like you know, they sailed this, they sailed the
Speaker 1: second fleet from like all the way around Europe, around Africa,
Speaker 1: and you know, I destroyed to but the first fleet
Speaker 1: like the reason next, so there there is exactly one
Speaker 1: guy in the entire Russian Navy who has any idea
Speaker 1: what he's doing. His name is Makarov. He's he's the
Speaker 1: guy who had to the icebreaker, like like he actually
Speaker 1: does what he's doing. And also from him, yeah, he's
Speaker 1: a he's a cool guy. And then like like at
Speaker 1: like at max range, just like a random Japanese cannon
Speaker 1: shot just like killed him in the entirety of like
Speaker 1: Russian like high command, and that was it for the
Speaker 1: Russian Davy because there's no one else in the whole
Speaker 1: navy that like wasn't just like rand aristocratic appointment. It's
Speaker 1: it's a god yeah, it's it's great because you know,
Speaker 1: it takes a lot to stand out as a Russian
Speaker 1: naval disaster, because the Russian Navy has pretty comprehensively been
Speaker 1: a ship show. We could talk about the Kurs or
Speaker 1: the fact that their only aircraft carrier, the Admiral koltz
Speaker 1: nets Off, keeps loking. It's dry dock on fire. We
Speaker 1: can talk about a lot of stories of the Russian navy,
Speaker 1: but please we should probably continue. We'll do a whole
Speaker 1: Russian navy. Yeah yeah, you know, and like like in Russia,
Speaker 1: like they lose this war so badly it causes a
Speaker 1: revolution and you know, but in Japan, this is like,
Speaker 1: you know, this is when Japan like becomes one of
Speaker 1: the great powers. It's no, it's no longer this like
Speaker 1: minor regional power. Like it's one of the great powers,
Speaker 1: and you know, everybody's going to take them seriously after
Speaker 1: this the biggest land empire in Europe. Yeah yeah, well
Speaker 1: and everything, it's like, you know, they beat a European power. Yeah,
Speaker 1: like that that's a huge deal in this period, and
Speaker 1: like there's a lot of people who will support the
Speaker 1: Japanese Empire like out of like anti imperialism. Basically, it's
Speaker 1: like they're a non white empire. We have to yeah,
Speaker 1: and this is yeah, you know, trying to explain that,
Speaker 1: I don't know, somebody in Nanjing. Yep, yep. Oh boy,
Speaker 1: don't worry. It's an imperialist empire that's shot your family
Speaker 1: to debt anyway. Yeah, yeah, it's it's bad stuff. But
Speaker 1: you know, like they're the product of this is like
Speaker 1: she's is growing up in the period like when Japan
Speaker 1: becomes like a super power and you know, they're they're
Speaker 1: they're like a minor great power, Like they're not like
Speaker 1: Germany or like like I don't know, or like the
Speaker 1: UK or France at this point, but you know, they're
Speaker 1: still a great power. And you know, and this is
Speaker 1: this is this is going to be sort of important
Speaker 1: because this is the sort of this is the sort
Speaker 1: of like era of nationalism and era sort of like
Speaker 1: triumphalism that that she's coming up in. And Kesh is
Speaker 1: going to be one of, if not the main, architect
Speaker 1: of imperialism with three Tokyo drift when that phase starts
Speaker 1: thirty seven and then that that's the fascist phase. So
Speaker 1: we're gonna we're we're yeah, we're gonna, We're gonna work
Speaker 1: our way up to that throughout the course of this.
Speaker 1: Now she she's great grandfather was actually like yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: this is another source of the sort of like nationalism
Speaker 1: and patriots. And he comes up in is he was
Speaker 1: like famous enough for doing like anti shogun stuff if
Speaker 1: for the restoration that like when he dies, there's like
Speaker 1: a bunch of articles on newspaper about it. But you
Speaker 1: know she doesn't that you know too. And after she dies,
Speaker 1: the Kishi family business goes under and this starts off
Speaker 1: this just really weird set of family drama and she
Speaker 1: Kish's family is wild. Um. So she's older brother is
Speaker 1: Sato Ihiro, and you know he becomes a vice amirald
Speaker 1: the Navy. His younger brother, Sato Issaku, is the third
Speaker 1: longest serving prime minister in Japanese history. Kishi spoiler alert,
Speaker 1: is also going to become prime minister. And he's like
Speaker 1: kind of distantly related to a third Japanese prime minister,
Speaker 1: you Shota Shiguru, which is extremely funny and reasons that
Speaker 1: we'll get into in the second episode. Like like these
Speaker 1: people are like they're like the Japanese bushes, except like
Speaker 1: the Patos are just like they're just random people, Like
Speaker 1: they're not like rich, like they're just Yeah, it's it's
Speaker 1: it's the opportunity ship. Yeah, yeah, like that. It's like
Speaker 1: that they they just like for one generation. Actually, you
Speaker 1: know after the after, they're gonna keep they're gonna be
Speaker 1: staying politics like that one generation just like just ran
Speaker 1: Japanese politics for like half a century. It doesn't seem
Speaker 1: like that's ever a good idea. Yeah, it's it's not great.
Speaker 1: Perhaps running paras politics isn't such a great idea, but
Speaker 1: that's a cop out anyway. Now because the sort of
Speaker 1: the family business imploded, like she she's uncle. Mansasuke goes
Speaker 1: to such like studying medicine in Tokyo and becomes a
Speaker 1: professor obstetrics. Yeah, and you know, so Matsuke doesn't have
Speaker 1: any sons, and so he adopts she she's younger brother Issaku,
Speaker 1: to to marry his daughter. And again I want to
Speaker 1: point out, okay, Mantasuke is she's uncle, right, that means
Speaker 1: that Eaku is marrying his first cousin, and she also
Speaker 1: marries his cousin Like this is like not like a
Speaker 1: normal thing in this period, Like people don't marry their
Speaker 1: first cousins like that often. And like both of the
Speaker 1: people in this family directly people knew a while ago,
Speaker 1: people knew a long time before this that like that's
Speaker 1: not really a great idea that happening. Don't aren't looking
Speaker 1: so good like they do it anyways, and it's it's
Speaker 1: it's a great it's a great sign of where this
Speaker 1: is going. So so Kishi stays with Matasuke when he's
Speaker 1: like very little, and his uncle realizes that Kishi is
Speaker 1: extremely smart, and you know, like he hires a home
Speaker 1: tutor to help Kishi passed is like incredibly selective interest
Speaker 1: exams for this middle school, and then he hires want
Speaker 1: to teach him English, and you know, it's this whole
Speaker 1: thing where he's a child prodigy and his uncle is like,
Speaker 1: I'm going to raise him, and you know, like like
Speaker 1: Martsasuki like like deeply genuinely love's Kishi. One of his
Speaker 1: biographers described it, quote treating his uncle like a son.
Speaker 1: Massasuke showered as much afection on Novasuke as did his
Speaker 1: own parents. Now, unfortunately for Kishi and unfortunately for like
Speaker 1: all of East Asia, uh In, in the middle of
Speaker 1: second year of middle school, Montessuke dies of pneumonia and
Speaker 1: she sent off to live with what there was other aunts,
Speaker 1: and you know, like this is this is like pretty,
Speaker 1: but he's still like a young kid at this point,
Speaker 1: and this is like this is really bad for him emotionally,
Speaker 1: and you know that the second family that he gets
Speaker 1: sent to live with is like way less nice to him,
Speaker 1: and so you know, he still get support his academic career,
Speaker 1: but he has his like he he he has his
Speaker 1: weird young age trauma, which like a couple of one
Speaker 1: of his biographers like points this out and and it
Speaker 1: is like, yeah, he has all the things that you
Speaker 1: need for a great leader. He has he's a he's
Speaker 1: a good family, he has a he's a family that
Speaker 1: wants to do education, and he has trauma. And I
Speaker 1: was like, do you understand where this is going. It's
Speaker 1: very weird. Yeah, yeah, And Kishi, you know it's like
Speaker 1: she she's a genius, like he's he has top of
Speaker 1: he's at the top of his class in middle school,
Speaker 1: he graduates top of his class, again in high school,
Speaker 1: and in nineteen he's accepted into the incredibly prestigius Tokyo
Speaker 1: Impure University. Now what she sees in college, she starts
Speaker 1: to formally intellectually encounter the new Japanese far right, and
Speaker 1: he becomes particularly enamored with like the er Japanese fascist
Speaker 1: Iki Kita, who he is a weird guy that he
Speaker 1: has a lot of sort of eclectic ideas, but like
Speaker 1: his big things that he wants the emperor to see
Speaker 1: his power in a coup, like dissolve the parliament to
Speaker 1: create a fascist state m hm. And you know, she
Speaker 1: she she she's kind of soft on the like coup part,
Speaker 1: and Keita has some ideas about like well, okay, so
Speaker 1: you're gonna cup the government, right, and then you have
Speaker 1: a fascist state and the fascist state's gonna like kind
Speaker 1: of resource redistribution, and she's like, he's he's kind of
Speaker 1: soft in that part, but like, you know, the fascist
Speaker 1: state part, he's he's incredibly in favor of. And you know,
Speaker 1: I mean, at this point in time, there's no evidence
Speaker 1: that it could possibly be a bad thing. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: this is you know, this is yeah, this is this is,
Speaker 1: this is, this is pretty busily promising new political theory.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, now yeah, so so when when when he
Speaker 1: graduates from university in n there's a couple of weird
Speaker 1: things about it. So like okay, so not he's on
Speaker 1: the top of his class, right, but like not only
Speaker 1: is the top of his class, he he has the
Speaker 1: highest test scores that anyone has ever seen, like in
Speaker 1: the history of university. He has the best test scores.
Speaker 1: And then he also like he takes a sivil the
Speaker 1: Civil service exam, but like he takes it as like
Speaker 1: you know, you're supposed to spend like four or three
Speaker 1: or four years in college. He just takes us a
Speaker 1: second year and passes. And so you know, he has
Speaker 1: this whole arc where he's basically like you know, he
Speaker 1: but for most of his career he's seen this just
Speaker 1: it just like prodigy and it's like sort of true.
Speaker 1: We'll get into you know, it's not being true when
Speaker 1: the war machine starts to come apart. But yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: in in this period, he he makes what looks at
Speaker 1: the time like a really weird decision. Um, you know
Speaker 1: he she's yeah, he's a projecty, like he could easily
Speaker 1: have entered like the home office us like that're the
Speaker 1: Home ministry, and you know, he would have had this
Speaker 1: very easy career, like very safely could have become a
Speaker 1: vice moandistic or like a governor. And instead he joins
Speaker 1: the Ministry of Commerce, which at this point is like
Speaker 1: a fairly minor like government government industry. And and and he
Speaker 1: does this because specifically, like he really really wants to
Speaker 1: be in charge of the Japan's industrialization process. And you
Speaker 1: know this is this is gonna be She's like big
Speaker 1: thing over his career is he's he's he's planning be aercrat.
Speaker 1: He he's you know he yeah, like what while while
Speaker 1: while when he gets to the Ministry Commerce, he starts,
Speaker 1: you know, he does he does all this research and
Speaker 1: send him all over the world to like look at
Speaker 1: every people's planning models, and like he gets obsessed with
Speaker 1: like nineteen late nineteen twenties German planning stuff, which you
Speaker 1: know looks kind of weird given what's about to happen
Speaker 1: in the German economy. But yeah, and he starts advocating
Speaker 1: this thing called industrial rationalization, which is you know, this
Speaker 1: is this is like economic state planning. But you know,
Speaker 1: his the way this is sort of different from like
Speaker 1: the Russian model, is that like he wants to still
Speaker 1: have corporations, but he wants the core rations is sort
Speaker 1: of be run by government beacrasts. I mean, they're still
Speaker 1: like capitalists, but like he wants to be run by
Speaker 1: government beeracrasts, and he wants them to be sort of
Speaker 1: run for the state interests. And you know, and this
Speaker 1: is the other thing about this part, Like anytime someone
Speaker 1: says state interest and they're like a beeracrat nine thirties Japan,
Speaker 1: what they mean is like building a war machine. And
Speaker 1: so you know, you get these like weird, these weird
Speaker 1: passages where it's like you read it, this person sounds
Speaker 1: like a socialist, and then you read like two more
Speaker 1: paragraphs and it's like, oh, right, they want a bunch
Speaker 1: of stay controls they can build like the largest army
Speaker 1: the world has ever seen in over state is a
Speaker 1: gun to these Yeah, it's it's not entirely different with
Speaker 1: like a lot of the ways the Nazis would talk
Speaker 1: about this state, like the state in the state is
Speaker 1: a race too, Like it's it's yeah, yeah, yeah, And
Speaker 1: you know, and he she the way she thinks about
Speaker 1: this is that you know, he's gonna chart like a
Speaker 1: third path, which we liberal happens is capitalism and communism.
Speaker 1: And this position it becomes held by a group called
Speaker 1: they're servi innoculously called the reform Bureaucrats. And the thing
Speaker 1: that's important to understand about the reformed Bureaucrats that lots
Speaker 1: of people like don't get when they study this is
Speaker 1: that the reformed aureaucrats, like all of them, including Kishi,
Speaker 1: are fascists. But the thing that's different about them, and
Speaker 1: the thing that's you know, makes it sort of obscurest fascism,
Speaker 1: is that, unlike most fascists, the way they're trying to
Speaker 1: do fascism is it just works in the bureaucracy. And
Speaker 1: so you know that basically like they have the that
Speaker 1: the strategy that they're gonna work for breacracy can work
Speaker 1: for the inside out. And you know, she she's aided
Speaker 1: in this by the fact that his boss, um yesh Shinji,
Speaker 1: is the head of the Ministry of Commerce and Industry
Speaker 1: and he basically just like gives Kishi free rein to
Speaker 1: do whatever he wants. And so Kishi goes, Okay, we're
Speaker 1: gonna we're gonna start doing war planning, and you know,
Speaker 1: he wants to take over, like stay control of major
Speaker 1: industries so they can do kind of planning for form
Speaker 1: military stuff. And this gains him a lot of connection
Speaker 1: to support in the fascist sections of the army. Now,
Speaker 1: Keish allies with what's what's called the Control Faction of
Speaker 1: the Army, which is founded by someone you I'll probably
Speaker 1: name at least recognize Hideki Tojoe, which yeah yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: failed to shoot himself in the heart yep, great stuff.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah. You know what's sort of weird about the
Speaker 1: Control Faction is that like they're founded kind of ironically
Speaker 1: like to stop another faction of the army like from
Speaker 1: doing fascism. And you know this this confuses a lot
Speaker 1: of people because it is confusing. Yeah yeah, yeah. Do
Speaker 1: you know, do you know what else is confusing Robert
Speaker 1: Um The fact that no one has developed a system
Speaker 1: that's been capable of dethroning global capital. That is confusing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it is. It is confusing a lot of people say
Speaker 1: they've got the answer, but he's done it. It's true,
Speaker 1: but it's true. Yeah, I was, I was what I
Speaker 1: was just gonna say, confusing that people don't buy our
Speaker 1: products and services. It is that we show on here
Speaker 1: because maybe the answer to dethroning capitalism is to participate
Speaker 1: paid in it. Don't think about that too much, think
Speaker 1: about these ads. Alright, we're back, all right, Chris, let's uh,
Speaker 1: let's let's continue forward. Yeah. So so, yeah, we're going
Speaker 1: to talk about the absolute mess that is Japanese fascism.
Speaker 1: So we talked about the Control of faction. The Control
Speaker 1: faction is formed to stop the the Imperial Way faction
Speaker 1: of the army from doing terrorism. And these guys, these
Speaker 1: guys hate each other, like the the Imperial Way spends
Speaker 1: like a good part of the early thirties just like
Speaker 1: murdering this ship out of control faction officers and both
Speaker 1: of them are just like purging each other from the army.
Speaker 1: And this, this whole thing is part of what a britishown.
Speaker 1: This is called the period of government by assassination. And
Speaker 1: this period starts when a group of fascists, this is
Speaker 1: one of the there's a million fascist groups in Japan,
Speaker 1: this is one of the smaller ones, like assassinated the
Speaker 1: prime minister in one and after that everyone just goes, oh,
Speaker 1: hold up, we can just kill ministers and so you know,
Speaker 1: they killed this just enormous number of government officials, They
Speaker 1: killed a bunch of politicians, they killed businessmen, like they
Speaker 1: killed two more finance ministers, and like they do like
Speaker 1: they do. So there are so many coup attempts that
Speaker 1: like you could literally just do an entire podcast series
Speaker 1: that is just the coup attempts they attempt in these
Speaker 1: like five years, because it's like every every different faction
Speaker 1: and every like possible coalition of these factions has their
Speaker 1: own coup attempts. And you know, finally, this this period
Speaker 1: sort of ends when the Imperial Way and their allies
Speaker 1: trying to do like one last giant coup in six
Speaker 1: called February twenty incidents, and they get kind of close,
Speaker 1: like they take a bunch of government ministries, like they
Speaker 1: almost killed the prime minister, they almost killed the Defense minister.
Speaker 1: I think, I think they do kill the Defense minister,
Speaker 1: but they lose. And after that, Japan, the Japanese government
Speaker 1: is just like, Okay, we're just gonna kill you all,
Speaker 1: and so they do this like mass execution of of
Speaker 1: like every fascist leader they can get their hands on,
Speaker 1: in being uh Ichikdo, who is not involved in this
Speaker 1: in any way. But just like on principle, they were like, okay,
Speaker 1: the one thing all the fascist to be arounds that
Speaker 1: they like you, so we're just gonna assassinate you, and
Speaker 1: so well they don't say something that they put them
Speaker 1: on trial and a show trial and convictim and killed
Speaker 1: them all, and a lot of people, including you know,
Speaker 1: people who are like pretty reliable fascism scholars like Robert Paxton,
Speaker 1: We'll look at this trial and go, oh, well, okay,
Speaker 1: this this is this is like this is as if
Speaker 1: like I don't know, like Moosi leads martial, Weba failed
Speaker 1: and like this is the end of fashions in Japan.
Speaker 1: And I think they're wrong. And the reason I think
Speaker 1: they're wrong is that if they're looking for the fascist
Speaker 1: revolution in Japan itself, and the fascist revolution doesn't happen
Speaker 1: in Japan, it happens in Manchuria. Now we we we
Speaker 1: have talked about Manchuria before on this show UM D
Speaker 1: D Chong episodes. Um it's you know, it's it's it's
Speaker 1: it's like the northeast China equivalent New England that like
Speaker 1: you know, Portos, Russia borders Korea. It's really close to
Speaker 1: Japan also boris Mongolia. Um know that there's there's a
Speaker 1: lot of industry there, and you know it's it's it's
Speaker 1: the base of Jong's boss, who's also named Jong Junctu Ling,
Speaker 1: and you know he he's the warlord that Japan had
Speaker 1: been backing, dream dreamed in the whole world periods of
Speaker 1: a civil war era. But both Jongs lose the war
Speaker 1: against Chinese nationalists. And you know, like when when when
Speaker 1: we last left Mancharia, like a bunch of piste off
Speaker 1: Japanese officers had just like bomb Junctu Ling's train, and
Speaker 1: you know, after that, Manchuria sort of falls into the
Speaker 1: hand of the nationalists. It becomes technically part of the
Speaker 1: Chinese Republic. And this is where okay, things have always
Speaker 1: been weird to man sure, this is where they get
Speaker 1: even weirder. UM anarchist revolution breaks out in Shiman Prefecture
Speaker 1: that calls itself the Korean People Association to Mancharia. Now
Speaker 1: Shimman's like right on the border with between Mancharia and Korea.
Speaker 1: And this anarchist revolution is driven in large part by
Speaker 1: this enormous Korema million like two million people like Koreans
Speaker 1: have fled to the Japanese occupation in uh you know,
Speaker 1: the Jackie is Japanese occupation of Korea and into Mancharia,
Speaker 1: and you know, and you know, and it's it's it's
Speaker 1: a weird project because you have a bunch of you
Speaker 1: have a bunch of anarchists, and you also have a
Speaker 1: bunch of Korean nationals working with each other because the
Speaker 1: thing both of them agree on is that they hate
Speaker 1: the Japanese. And you know that the anarchists sort of
Speaker 1: take the lead. They formed a bunch of these councils.
Speaker 1: They start organizing the economy, aroun mutual aid, and you know,
Speaker 1: they start to set up the education system. They do
Speaker 1: all this stuff, and then everyone immediately start trying to
Speaker 1: kill them, and so as as is like anarchist tradition,
Speaker 1: the Soviets start immediately assassinating people. Um if these guys
Speaker 1: have another disadvantage, which is that the Japanese army also
Speaker 1: starts assassinating them, and eventually this this whole sort of
Speaker 1: anarchist like prefecture, sort of mini territory collapses nine thirty one.
Speaker 1: When you know that the incident that I would consider
Speaker 1: the actual sort of fascist coup in Japan starts, which
Speaker 1: is it is the Muckton incident that triggers this full
Speaker 1: scale Japanese invasion of all of Mancharia. Now, the Muckton
Speaker 1: incidents extremely weird. Basically, what happened is that a group
Speaker 1: of officers in the Quantung Army, which is the japan
Speaker 1: has this army in Manchuria that's there to like protect
Speaker 1: their railroads basically because Japan like tendically owns all the land,
Speaker 1: the railroads a wrong, they have some other concessions, and
Speaker 1: so they have this army that's just like in Manchuria
Speaker 1: that they can legally have, and the offer some of
Speaker 1: the officers at that army basically look at the situation,
Speaker 1: they look at what's happening the rest of trying to
Speaker 1: look at the anarchist revolution, and they're like, okay, we
Speaker 1: need to take over Manchuria like entirely. But you know,
Speaker 1: they have no they don't have like a natural pretext.
Speaker 1: So they stage a false flag, false flag attack on
Speaker 1: their own railroad and use the attack as like a
Speaker 1: free tense that started a full scale invasion in Manchuria.
Speaker 1: And yeah, it's it's bad, it's and the other other
Speaker 1: phone part about this story that We're talking more about
Speaker 1: Yakuza later, but like those guys, so they go to
Speaker 1: like the Japanese government. In Japanese governments like, you cannot
Speaker 1: do this, and so they go to some right wing
Speaker 1: industrialists trying to get funding, and they won't do it.
Speaker 1: And the people who will fund them are the Yakuza,
Speaker 1: and so that they have like like thirty million yen
Speaker 1: just just like from the Yakuza that the Yakas are
Speaker 1: like here, yeah, used to take over from Manchuria. And
Speaker 1: so they do. And you know, and the civilian government
Speaker 1: in Japan doesn't want this, but they basically have no
Speaker 1: choice because the invasion is like incredibly popular among the
Speaker 1: Japanese like public, and you know, one of the reasons
Speaker 1: it's popular is that it you know, there's very I mean,
Speaker 1: there is some fighting, but Shinkai check in the Nationalists
Speaker 1: are you know, they're deep in their civil war with
Speaker 1: Mao and the communists in China, and they're just like, okay, Japan,
Speaker 1: you can just have this, and so they let they
Speaker 1: let them have this without without a fight. And the
Speaker 1: consequence is that the Quantuan army, which is you know,
Speaker 1: it's chocked full of imperial way followers. The whole there's
Speaker 1: like the whole army is just a bunch of different
Speaker 1: people in different fascist groups. These guys wind up ending
Speaker 1: up in charge of setting up a new state in
Speaker 1: Materia called by Chuqua. And the product of this is
Speaker 1: you get and it's just an extremely weird state with
Speaker 1: like sixteen different versions of fascism, and you know, this
Speaker 1: is supposed to be like an independent state, and it
Speaker 1: like kind of is a little bit like they install Pouyee,
Speaker 1: who's like the last emperor of China as like the
Speaker 1: Emperor of Machuqua, like this new state, and you know,
Speaker 1: they have all this propaganda about like the state's gonna
Speaker 1: have are gonna restore the kingly way, and it's going
Speaker 1: to be like a direct relationship between the emperor and
Speaker 1: the will of the people, and there's gonna be these
Speaker 1: like autonomous agrarian villages ruled by landlords and everyone's gonna
Speaker 1: like live in harmony. And did that? Did that happen?
Speaker 1: So so the strongest group in in in in this
Speaker 1: like sort of nude fascist utopia. It is called the
Speaker 1: Concorde Association, and they're this like they're this like fascist
Speaker 1: pan Asian group that you know, they have this whole
Speaker 1: line about like okay, we're doing ethnic harmony and like
Speaker 1: all the races are gonna work together, We're gonna work
Speaker 1: together to like expel the like the wide imperialists. And
Speaker 1: the reason they take this line is that like the
Speaker 1: actual Chinese people there don't want Thementaria, they don't want
Speaker 1: the Manchucal government there because they're like, okay, all of
Speaker 1: the officers in this thing and all of the government
Speaker 1: officials or Japanese like this is this is just a
Speaker 1: Japanese occupation, but you know, you have this sort of
Speaker 1: this this fascist like mass organization, and their goal is
Speaker 1: to build popular support for this because you know, the
Speaker 1: Japanese can't really just purely hold this a military force
Speaker 1: at this point. So they have this public government and
Speaker 1: you know, for about two years they really they rule
Speaker 1: like relatively unopposed. But in age thirty three, the Communist
Speaker 1: Party sort of at the at the behest of the
Speaker 1: U S s R. The USR is like, okay, you
Speaker 1: guys need to do this, and so the CCP goes okay,
Speaker 1: and what they do is that they start like the
Speaker 1: series of insurrections launched at like driving the Japanese out,
Speaker 1: and the Japanese responded by slaughter the entire villages very
Speaker 1: kingly way, very very very harmony between the races that
Speaker 1: there's you know, there's individual villages where they walk in
Speaker 1: they killed they killed two thousand, five hundred people in
Speaker 1: like a single massacre and you know, betweteen forty they
Speaker 1: kill sixty people trying to suppress the communists, and they
Speaker 1: move at five point five million people most mostly real
Speaker 1: people into these like the ten thousands of these hamlets,
Speaker 1: which I think if if if anyone studied the Vietnam
Speaker 1: War and you were prestigia handlets from that, like this
Speaker 1: is that like these handlets have they have three they
Speaker 1: have three meter high walls, they have barred wire, they
Speaker 1: have forced labor, and so you know, this is this
Speaker 1: is this is the state of like this, this is
Speaker 1: the state of like the Kingly Way in in in
Speaker 1: sort of fascist menshuko. Yeah, and it's you know, I
Speaker 1: mean one of the things that I think is and
Speaker 1: that you were getting get earlier when people talk about
Speaker 1: kind of the rise of the the o G fascists, um,
Speaker 1: it tends to be very eurocentric, but there's very much
Speaker 1: an open exchange of ideas that the Japanese are a
Speaker 1: part of that's that's going, but that includes concentration camps
Speaker 1: and it's not just and to that point, the Japanese
Speaker 1: are probably they're they're not really I would doubt their
Speaker 1: inspiration is the German concentration camps or anything that a
Speaker 1: fascist well that a recognize like what we can traditionally
Speaker 1: consider a fascist power zone. They were probably looking back
Speaker 1: at the Spanish and the British, my guess, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: and the United States possibly is the Spanish. The concentration
Speaker 1: camp concept kind of originated from Spanish general who deployed
Speaker 1: it in Cuba, but he got the idea from embedding
Speaker 1: with the U. S. Military after the Civil War. Anyway, Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: and you know, and you can you can treat it
Speaker 1: sort of more directly too, because like all of that stuff,
Speaker 1: you know, it boom boomerangs back to the Philippines and
Speaker 1: the American occupation there, and like you know, then that
Speaker 1: that's one of the things, this is one of the
Speaker 1: reasons that that stuff, like all the stuff he uses
Speaker 1: in the Philippines, that that is like in large part,
Speaker 1: like that's a big part of the reason why this
Speaker 1: sort of Japanese very fission to fascism is is popular
Speaker 1: to some extent in East Asia because you know, okay,
Speaker 1: but before they like really openly start to massacre everyone.
Speaker 1: You know, it's just popular because I mean, japan Seed
Speaker 1: is like the only power, you know, the only not
Speaker 1: my power in the East that can that can resist
Speaker 1: just the app I mean just the just incredible genocides
Speaker 1: that just like absolute horror that that that that is
Speaker 1: happening just across the rest of East Asia. Awesome, It's
Speaker 1: it's great. And yes, so Keishi starts becoming interested in
Speaker 1: Menshuk around nineteen thirty four, and partly he's interested in
Speaker 1: it because of the fascism, but his big interest in
Speaker 1: Machuqua is the natural resources in the sort of industrial
Speaker 1: base it has, and through through his sort of position
Speaker 1: in the in the government bureaucracy, she's able to start
Speaker 1: working on on the first Manchuqua five year Plan. Now,
Speaker 1: now it sort of weirdly, you know, the fascist officers
Speaker 1: who are who are in the Japanese army there, uh,
Speaker 1: they want this whole thing to be like an independent
Speaker 1: like state that's like free from the like corruption of
Speaker 1: liberalism and capitalism and stuff. From whatever that that like,
Speaker 1: you know, it makes makes Japan like in Pierre and
Speaker 1: like the loose relation to the empire. And she she
Speaker 1: looks at this and goes like, okay, wait, but we
Speaker 1: we want we want we want this state to help
Speaker 1: run our war machine. And you know, and he this
Speaker 1: five year plan is is this giant like war mobilization
Speaker 1: thing to create this sort of they called the National
Speaker 1: Defense State. But basically like it's turning the entire society
Speaker 1: and the entire state, the entire economy into a war economy.
Speaker 1: And his plan to do this is She's going to
Speaker 1: bring in Nissan and have Nissan run like every war
Speaker 1: industry in Manchuqua. Well, Nissan almost makes an acceptable truck,
Speaker 1: so you know almost, you know, it verges on being
Speaker 1: as good as a ram Uh. Look, Nissan cars are
Speaker 1: are are all right, but don't don't use them for
Speaker 1: agricultural work. Get it to coma. Now, if you're telling
Speaker 1: me they wanted to put Toyota in charge of everything,
Speaker 1: we say, that seems like a flawless plan. I'll bet
Speaker 1: Toyota has never been involved in any kinds of crimes
Speaker 1: against humanity. You know, there's there's that, there's there's like
Speaker 1: a fun there's a fun thing here where So so
Speaker 1: the there's these things in Japan called does I about
Speaker 1: Sue and it's about and you know, there's these like
Speaker 1: giant mega lambres like that the people who own like
Speaker 1: Toyota are one of the conglomerates. Nissan is another one
Speaker 1: of them. And like the army and most of the
Speaker 1: fashions like hate these guys because they see these like
Speaker 1: giant capitalist things. Is like this is like a Western thing.
Speaker 1: It's like unpeered. They let these corrupt bureaucrats and again
Speaker 1: in the way of us and the emperor, and so
Speaker 1: like she she has to like do this incredibly elaborate
Speaker 1: dance to convince all of the the fascist officers in
Speaker 1: in in Manchukuo that like, no, no, no, Nissan is
Speaker 1: not like Toyota, that they're they're not like the other conglomerates.
Speaker 1: Y're not like Mishibi through a new conglomerate, and they're
Speaker 1: they're gonna they're gonna do fascism for us. And this
Speaker 1: works eventually, um and she gets transferred fully to Maduria
Speaker 1: and all of this stuff gets approved basically because she's
Speaker 1: moving in there and proposing this this five year plan,
Speaker 1: which is the normal is expensive, by the way, But
Speaker 1: but the reason, the reason that she's able to do
Speaker 1: this is rights is getting in there. The Second Sino
Speaker 1: Japanese War starts, which is part of World War two
Speaker 1: kind of kind of its own thing. I don't know,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of running arguments. They had a war
Speaker 1: that was in its brutality and death toll comparable to
Speaker 1: World War Two. With the same time World War Two
Speaker 1: was going on. Um, you know, I occasionally Americans noticed it.
Speaker 1: There's some good Woody Guthree songs that thank the mighty
Speaker 1: Chinese vets. But um, yeah, you know what I mean,
Speaker 1: like that, there's this whole thing like I mean like
Speaker 1: like in China, like a lot like it's like that
Speaker 1: whole war is called the Anti Japanese War or the
Speaker 1: war resistance, because yeah, you know, because like like that,
Speaker 1: like you know, for most of the time this is happening,
Speaker 1: they from for about three or four years, China is
Speaker 1: just fighting the entire Japanese army by itself, and you
Speaker 1: know this is yeah, well we'll we'll we'll get into
Speaker 1: the stuff that that that the Chinese government is always
Speaker 1: going to sort of suffer in this. But you know,
Speaker 1: but the consequence of this for Chi she is that
Speaker 1: like he gets just total economic power and sort of
Speaker 1: political power menure. He can just you can do literally
Speaker 1: whatever he wants. And the thing that he wants to
Speaker 1: do so okay. So so his big thing is his
Speaker 1: big major thing is he wants to implement the five
Speaker 1: year plan to you know, turn this Joe warconto me.
Speaker 1: The second thing he wants to do is just get
Speaker 1: absolutely wasted literally every single night, like he she okay,
Speaker 1: well that scans Look if you're gonna be war crim
Speaker 1: sober yeah no he yeah, And like you know, like
Speaker 1: all of the sort of Japanese officers and Japanese bearcats
Speaker 1: like go clubbing, but like even the other like the
Speaker 1: other versa. I know, every now and then I go
Speaker 1: out club and get a little drunk with my friends,
Speaker 1: commit a couple of war crimes. This is padlock an
Speaker 1: apartment gate closed with anyway, all right, what this continue? God? Well,
Speaker 1: the thing with Kishi is like, okay, so everyone's doing
Speaker 1: this a bit at the time. She she is literally
Speaker 1: going to clubs and getting wasted every single night. Like
Speaker 1: even the yakuza people are like, what are you doing
Speaker 1: like it's like I have to take a second here
Speaker 1: to tell the story about the absolute shattist Japanese officer
Speaker 1: I've ever heard of. So when I was in I've
Speaker 1: been Okinawa a couple of times because my parents lived
Speaker 1: there for years and years and years, both when they
Speaker 1: were kids and then later as adults. And like, I'm
Speaker 1: not trying to like whitewash the problems with American bases.
Speaker 1: There's a big, very active and I think very righteous
Speaker 1: movement try to remove the basis on Okinawa. But we're
Speaker 1: gonna talk about the origin of that too. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: had I I had no no say in any of that.
Speaker 1: My parents just lived there. Um. But so I went
Speaker 1: on this tour of like sites from World War two
Speaker 1: on on Okinawa, and one of the stories they told
Speaker 1: us was about this Japanese officer who when the Americans
Speaker 1: invaded Okinawa, he was at a brothel just like, had
Speaker 1: been drunk and fucking for days, and they Americans advanced
Speaker 1: quickly enough that by the time he sobered up, he
Speaker 1: found himself several miles behind the American lines and alone,
Speaker 1: hung over and having just fucked himself, silly snuck past
Speaker 1: the American lines. Made it back to his unit and
Speaker 1: then proceeded to lead them in battle for weeks. Is
Speaker 1: incredible chat energy. You know. I say this so like
Speaker 1: like this is just that's just the default condition of
Speaker 1: the Japanese officer cord in this whole war like that,
Speaker 1: that's like they like this is this is what they're
Speaker 1: doing all of the time. If it weren't for the
Speaker 1: millions of dead, it would be a real rock situation. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Like you know, like we're not saying these dudes rock. No,
Speaker 1: these dudes in fact do not rock. Do not rock.
Speaker 1: And I'm going to emphasize this by like how cringe
Speaker 1: Kishi actually is, Like okay, so there there's a quote
Speaker 1: of Kishi where he he said he describes himself as
Speaker 1: and this is a direct quote quote Playboy of the
Speaker 1: Eastern World, Like she just calls himself this, okay, Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know. He also spends just like an enormous amount
Speaker 1: of time in in the brothels. Do we have a
Speaker 1: picture of this man? I feel like I need a
Speaker 1: visual of somebody who would dare to give themselves that title. Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: most of the pictures of him are from like when
Speaker 1: he's old Dick Pills look if you're gonna be, if
Speaker 1: you're gonna if you're gonna be fucking like a Japanese
Speaker 1: imperial officer, you're gonna need dick pills. Look, there's no
Speaker 1: shame in it. Like the best athletes like Lance arms
Speaker 1: Strong fuck Like yes, the saying is Keishi probably needed
Speaker 1: dick pills. I'm sure he did. If you're going to
Speaker 1: be the Lance arms Strong of lecherous Japanese military officers,
Speaker 1: you're gonna use some. You're gonna dope, and that's fine,
Speaker 1: and that's why we sell dope. Dick dope. Here's some ads. Okay,
Speaker 1: this man is this man is not like Okay, Okay,
Speaker 1: That's all I'll say is he's not it. Okay, But Sophie,
Speaker 1: I think if if there's one reason why men join
Speaker 1: imperial militaries and travel to foreign lands to do violence,
Speaker 1: it's because it's yeah, he's here for them to get
Speaker 1: laid that because they're not they're not. You know, people
Speaker 1: who were like really pulling it in back home generally
Speaker 1: don't invade foreign countries. I mean, fair enough, the Nazis
Speaker 1: still not a lot of guys who were like knocking
Speaker 1: it out of the park with the with the with
Speaker 1: the exception of oh ship what was his name? The
Speaker 1: guy Hitler had killed in the Night of Long Nights.
Speaker 1: Ernst Rome was pulling it down, and it's baffling that
Speaker 1: he became a Nazi in the ship. But anyway, whatever,
Speaker 1: I mean, this man does have like a decent like no,
Speaker 1: he doesn't take it. I've got I've gotten, Sophie, this
Speaker 1: discussion on our side podcasts. How fuckable was this war criminal? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean coming out on the I Heart radio network
Speaker 1: and July of you just went back in time. But
Speaker 1: that's so I know, Sophie, Chris. Would you like to
Speaker 1: continue this podcast? We've del guest. Sophie's derailed you enough.
Speaker 1: I will fight you continue. Yeah, well, I'd like to
Speaker 1: see you try. Robert is actually like Robert is kind
Speaker 1: of onto something on the like the reason you go
Speaker 1: to do imperialism is so you can just like have
Speaker 1: sex constantly. Yeah, absolutely, well you know and did yeah yeah,
Speaker 1: And this is what the Japanese is doing it. And
Speaker 1: this is where we should mention that Kishi is an
Speaker 1: inveterate rapist, like like sereal mass rapist. Um. Yes, so
Speaker 1: so those those brothels I was talking about, so well, yeah,
Speaker 1: so there's there's like there's like a small number of
Speaker 1: people in there who, like our sex workers, like eighty
Speaker 1: to ninety percent of those people were just like kidnapped
Speaker 1: from Japan and like brought there by force. And yeah,
Speaker 1: and so you know, and this is you know, and
Speaker 1: she's going there like every like one or two days. Right,
Speaker 1: he's at one of these brothels. And you know, Okay,
Speaker 1: even if like somehow, like by like some miracle, he
Speaker 1: somehow only had conseexual sex there, he's also just like
Speaker 1: he he's like he has one of the weirdest like
Speaker 1: sex things I've ever heard of, which is that like
Speaker 1: every time like he was served a meal, he would
Speaker 1: demand to have sex with the raitress. Um. Yeah, it's yeah,
Speaker 1: you know and like those those people, like those women
Speaker 1: like absolutely did not consent to that, which means he
Speaker 1: is like this man. Yeah, he is like raping people
Speaker 1: like basically every day. So far as to say that
Speaker 1: in most situations, you can't properly consent to a man
Speaker 1: occupying your country with armed force, now, I will say
Speaker 1: I will say so so because because he is a racist,
Speaker 1: like inveterate racist, he will only sleep a Japanese women.
Speaker 1: But those people were also brought there by force by
Speaker 1: by the opposite and she so. So while he's imprisoned
Speaker 1: in Ete forty eight, he has there he has an
Speaker 1: interview and his description of this time is quote, I
Speaker 1: came so much it was hard to clean it all up.
Speaker 1: Like he has like he has he has a he
Speaker 1: has a guy, Like he has a specific guy. He's
Speaker 1: like a specific maid who's job it is to clean
Speaker 1: up his sheets every night. Like yeah, he's God and
Speaker 1: you know he's got to come servant. That's yeah, this
Speaker 1: is like a thing. This is like a lot of
Speaker 1: the like the weird Japanese sex fascists. Like there's like
Speaker 1: a person who has to clean up all their ships.
Speaker 1: Like there's there's I'm blanking on Blanco name. Like there's
Speaker 1: that famous, uh, like fascist Japanese poet who's like like
Speaker 1: the Japanese Nobel laureate who's a fascist and like kills
Speaker 1: himself in the sixtet or something when when his coup fails,
Speaker 1: like that guy. Also, yeah, like there's there's a person
Speaker 1: who had to clean out his sheets and like his
Speaker 1: robes and ship. Also check out my upcoming punk band
Speaker 1: out weird Japanese sex fascist. Yeah. There, there's gonna be more.
Speaker 1: Don't worry where we we have not yet reached the
Speaker 1: weirdest of the Japanese sex fascist that's coming next episode. Yeah,
Speaker 1: quotes in this episode already. Yeah, you know, but I mean,
Speaker 1: like so like the fact that he's raping women like
Speaker 1: every day. I think like this helps explain what otherwise
Speaker 1: I think is kind of almost unexplainable thing that we're
Speaker 1: going to talk about in a bit, just like the
Speaker 1: amount of violence that we're about to see. But you know,
Speaker 1: so the other thing that's happening here, she's going to
Speaker 1: brothels like it's not It starts out as just like keis,
Speaker 1: she's like a statistic rapist, but he also is doing
Speaker 1: official business there, and and his official business is that
Speaker 1: he's networking with local yakus at bosses. And this is
Speaker 1: where we get to sort of like formally introduce the
Speaker 1: third piece of the sort of fascist triad in Japan.
Speaker 1: So you know, you have you have fascist army officers.
Speaker 1: Do you have people like Kishi who are bureacrat technically
Speaker 1: civilian bureaucrats, but you know, are also fascist and working
Speaker 1: through the sort of planning agencies there, and the third
Speaker 1: wheel is organized crime. Now the yakuza there there. You
Speaker 1: know a lot of organized crime winds up sort of
Speaker 1: backing fascists. But the yakuza are different from you know,
Speaker 1: say like the Italian mafia in that they're like fanatically
Speaker 1: right wing and they have been basically in the eighteen seventies,
Speaker 1: and they're like these are like the Yakas are a
Speaker 1: lot of people who invented fascism in Japan. Like they're
Speaker 1: they're like they're like the first proto proto fascist groups.
Speaker 1: Are are these like giant Yakasa organizations and they're I
Speaker 1: mean they're really tied in with the state that there's
Speaker 1: this story about how like so one of the one
Speaker 1: of the first giant yakas a fascist groups is called
Speaker 1: the Dark Ocean Society. And these guys, you know that
Speaker 1: their triads like they did they're doing drug stuff. But
Speaker 1: like the Japanese Ministry of the Interior asks them to
Speaker 1: like this this isn't like ninety ten. They asked them
Speaker 1: to help like Japan's stage and incident that will let
Speaker 1: them invade Korea. And so like these guys like they
Speaker 1: have like they have like special forces training myself. Oh no,
Speaker 1: oh yeah, I mean you know, that's what's what you
Speaker 1: do when you're young. Everyone's got to do a little
Speaker 1: bit of invading Korea. It's yeah, yeah, well, as long
Speaker 1: as you don't take it too far, it's fine. Oh boy, yeah,
Speaker 1: we're well, yeah, we're we're gonna get your taking it
Speaker 1: too far. But you know, like the thing is, like
Speaker 1: these guys like they like break into the Imperial Palace
Speaker 1: and assassinate the Empress of Korea. Like yeah yeah, Like
Speaker 1: the like the Akasa, like they have they have military training,
Speaker 1: they have intelligence training, they're they're incredibly efficient political source,
Speaker 1: like like sort of private political operation. And when Kishi
Speaker 1: meets with them, they basically just agree to solve all
Speaker 1: of Kishi's funding problems. And you know, they can do
Speaker 1: this because the japan like the Akasa has an enormous
Speaker 1: amount of the accusan and Mentua is like an enormous
Speaker 1: amount of money. And the reason I have this money
Speaker 1: is because they run the drug trade. Like basically it's
Speaker 1: a good way to make money. Yeah yeah, yeah, And
Speaker 1: you know, and Kishi she basically like offers to like
Speaker 1: formally let him into the Japanese state and you know,
Speaker 1: and the everything is offering them was like, hey, you
Speaker 1: guys want to do fascism, Like if you fund me,
Speaker 1: I will do so much fascism. And the accus is
Speaker 1: like hell yeah. And you know, and this is this
Speaker 1: is the thing I don't think people understand, but about
Speaker 1: the Japanese Empire, like it's a cartel, Like the whole
Speaker 1: thing is a cartels. It's like a cartel with like
Speaker 1: an army and a bureaucracy strap to it. And and
Speaker 1: this is especially true true and menchu Quo, where you know,
Speaker 1: with with Yakuza backing, like this project is like almost
Speaker 1: self financing, like the you know, but by by by
Speaker 1: by the mid nineteen thirties, like fully twenty percent of
Speaker 1: the Japanese population is addicted to either opium, heroin or
Speaker 1: one of the other drugs that the Yakas aren't running.
Speaker 1: And this means that, you know, when when the Accusa
Speaker 1: really start to formally ally with with the sort of
Speaker 1: state government, and you know, the state government people are
Speaker 1: also doing drug running, but you know, there's just like
Speaker 1: full scale emergence and by that point, fifty of all
Speaker 1: state revenue in manchu Quo is just from the drug trade,
Speaker 1: and you know, like the Quantum Army, like they literally
Speaker 1: like they start they launched invasions of parts of China
Speaker 1: so they could take over opium and heroin factories, and
Speaker 1: they just they just like start making heroin and opium
Speaker 1: like for the Accusa. Because this whole thing is just
Speaker 1: a cartel. Yeah, I mean everything is when you get
Speaker 1: right down to it. Yeah, in the British are like,
Speaker 1: this is a podcast cartel, and like any other cartels,
Speaker 1: we're actively engaged in battling the Mexican military in the
Speaker 1: foothills of of of northern Mexico. You know. Look, I
Speaker 1: keep like I keep saying, Japan is China's Mexico mm
Speaker 1: and and as a result, we are also fighting the
Speaker 1: Japanese military in order to aid in the spread of
Speaker 1: podcasts across the aisles. Um. They actually have taken no
Speaker 1: efforts to stop us. So it's been very hard to
Speaker 1: start those fights. But we're working on it. We're working
Speaker 1: on it. Look, you can you can always get into
Speaker 1: a gun battle with the facts, if if if you believe,
Speaker 1: if you believe, Sometimes you have to force yourself into
Speaker 1: being an armed cartel. Sometimes the state says what you're
Speaker 1: doing isn't illegal, and there's no need for us to
Speaker 1: have have an armed conflict. But you know, that's what
Speaker 1: separates uh, you know, the cartels from the people not
Speaker 1: committing organized criminal activity. So the sort of final stage
Speaker 1: of this is that so Kishi's successor in has this
Speaker 1: idea and you know, and you could just like persistently
Speaker 1: has labor shortages, and his plan is, oh, wait, hold on,
Speaker 1: we can use that. We can use the opium problem
Speaker 1: to solve solve our labor problem. And so they start.
Speaker 1: She sets up this like the series of these uh
Speaker 1: what are supposed to be drug rehabilitation centers, and you know,
Speaker 1: about two million like drug addicts show up to work
Speaker 1: because you know, they show up to drug rebilization centers
Speaker 1: because people like don't want to medict it. And what
Speaker 1: the centers actually are is you walk into the center
Speaker 1: and you walk on the back of the center, and
Speaker 1: then you're into force labor camp. Yeah yeah, they got them,
Speaker 1: they got It's great, it's great. And then and then yeah,
Speaker 1: they tricked them. And then so there's like two hundred
Speaker 1: thousands of people who like are brought by their families
Speaker 1: and like they show up like they they're not physically
Speaker 1: fit to work, So the Japanese government injects them with
Speaker 1: what they call an opium detox supplement, and the opium
Speaker 1: detox supplement is actually in fetamine. Means it's great and
Speaker 1: it's funny. We just recorded the episodes that they're running
Speaker 1: the week we we record this about like the Nazis
Speaker 1: and drugs. But yeah, when meth first came out in
Speaker 1: Nazi Germany, was obviously invented in Japan. But when meth
Speaker 1: first got popular in Nazi Germany, it was advertised as
Speaker 1: a treatment for opiate addiction. Um, which I guess, yeah,
Speaker 1: if you get horribly addicted to meth, you you you
Speaker 1: won't do as much opium. Yeah, well, you know what,
Speaker 1: what what the Japanese government want out of this is
Speaker 1: that like, okay, so these people can't physically move, and
Speaker 1: we need a drug that can allow them to like
Speaker 1: move so they can be our slaves. And yeah, so
Speaker 1: that that that's that's a solution to that. And yeah,
Speaker 1: so you know, not wanting to be outdone in the
Speaker 1: sort of forced labor department. In August seven, she she
Speaker 1: signs this bill that lets him just enslaved prisoners of war.
Speaker 1: So sorry, sorted. It starts with POWs and is expanded,
Speaker 1: and you know, by the time you get to the expansion,
Speaker 1: it's like anyone doesn't have a job, where like anyone
Speaker 1: they define as a bandit, which is like a bandit
Speaker 1: is just anyone who doesn't like the government. And so
Speaker 1: you know, Butty eight, it's okay, we can enslave just
Speaker 1: anyone we see on the street, and the people who
Speaker 1: aren't technically enslaved. She pushes this thing that he calls
Speaker 1: unifying wages, which means forcing like everyone in you know,
Speaker 1: every everyone in Mentriqua, including like just the other random
Speaker 1: capitalists are still there to to lower all of their
Speaker 1: wages down to to to like follow his planning model.
Speaker 1: And when when I say lowering wages, what I mean
Speaker 1: is that he figured. You know, Kishi's thing is that
Speaker 1: he's a beercrat. Right's about efficiencies, on about rationality, And
Speaker 1: the thing that he's rationally and efficiently decided is that
Speaker 1: you should pay Japanese Chinese workers exactly enough they don't starve.
Speaker 1: I guess it's better than paying them enough so little
Speaker 1: that they do starve. Well, that that starts to happen too,
Speaker 1: and then you know, yeah, yeah, and then the wage
Speaker 1: the wages keep going down because they need to bring
Speaker 1: labor costs down that you know, because that's the other
Speaker 1: way they're funding all of this is by just not
Speaker 1: paying people. Now, you know, and labor in Mentriqua had
Speaker 1: already how already basically been a bunch of the acaste people,
Speaker 1: like like a bunch of oks of people are in
Speaker 1: the factory and if you take a step out of line,
Speaker 1: they beat you. Now she she's like, okay, we're going
Speaker 1: to rationalize this, and she's rationalization means that you know,
Speaker 1: instead of it being independently the the aucus of hoting
Speaker 1: these people to work for like nothing, Uh, he's going
Speaker 1: to bring you know, he's gonna bring them into the
Speaker 1: state and so you know, he's gonna replace the paramilitaries
Speaker 1: with militaries. The accuser and the MP's are going to
Speaker 1: get replaced with you know, bureacrats, regular police. And the
Speaker 1: final thing this means is conscripting or enslaving like Chinese
Speaker 1: male farm workers to work in work camps and then
Speaker 1: forcing their families and children to work in the fields
Speaker 1: in their place. It's yeah, and this this is where
Speaker 1: the race science starts, because you know, Japan, Japan has
Speaker 1: its own race science that they kind of developed by themselves,
Speaker 1: and they kind of import from Europe and you know
Speaker 1: this this is part of their like tailorism, like labor
Speaker 1: discipline rationalization process is they start doing these quote unquote
Speaker 1: scientific tests for for body shape, for cranial size, for
Speaker 1: nose structure, and they turn these measurements into these like
Speaker 1: basically racial baseball cards with like numerically ranked Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: raceball cards. Yeah that they you know, they'll they'll be
Speaker 1: like different points for like how much like like what
Speaker 1: what the shape of your skull is, like how big
Speaker 1: your noses? And these gives you more or less points,
Speaker 1: and you like you hold up, you hold up the
Speaker 1: raceball card, and you know you nextra a migrant worker
Speaker 1: and you're like, okay, so which how how highly does
Speaker 1: this person score? And I'm going to read a quote
Speaker 1: from the book Absolute Erotic, Absolute Grotesque, which is a
Speaker 1: history of this period of a title. Yeah, it's great,
Speaker 1: it's it's it's it's an incredibly wild book. It's like
Speaker 1: it's like half about fascism and half about the way
Speaker 1: that it's sort of the way that it's driven by
Speaker 1: what what this this like thirties Marxist like Japanese sociologist
Speaker 1: calls the declining rate of pleasure, which is about how
Speaker 1: like and you know, and I think this is this
Speaker 1: is actually fist is what happens in Japanese Empire is
Speaker 1: that you know, this is already a really violent place,
Speaker 1: and you know, in order to sort of extract more
Speaker 1: pleasure out of like sex, right, they start getting they
Speaker 1: start going to stuff as more and more violence. And
Speaker 1: this isn't just like a sort of like porn thing
Speaker 1: or like the points more stream like no, no, like there.
Speaker 1: They constantly have to seek out like more like increasingly
Speaker 1: more violent ways of like raping people. And this is like,
Speaker 1: you know, this is one of the sort of psychoses
Speaker 1: that like drives this whole, like ex matsion project and
Speaker 1: the other one, the other psychosis is racism. So yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna I'm gonna read this quote. Um. Actually, the
Speaker 1: the s r M, which is the State Reeler Company
Speaker 1: Studies classified coolies into three types, the Shandong type, Tohobei type,
Speaker 1: and the Manchurian type, consistently making up over se of
Speaker 1: all the North Chinese immigrant immigrant laborers. Shuang Dung coolies
Speaker 1: were profiled as a quote thick gold type representing a
Speaker 1: low level of culture and capacity quantities confirmed by their
Speaker 1: strong backs and powerful grip. Their biometrics of large jaw cranials,
Speaker 1: circumference of fifty five centimeters facial length at one point
Speaker 1: three five to one point four times the line of
Speaker 1: the lower jaw, prominent cheekbones, stupidity, big teeth, a bridge
Speaker 1: of the nose that indicated docility, submissiveness, and barbarity added
Speaker 1: up to quote a type perfectly suited for physical labor.
Speaker 1: Who Abe coolies were a little smarter than those from Shendong,
Speaker 1: Thanks so they're anthropologically superior cranial shape. Owing to this
Speaker 1: racial profile, who coolies were seen as the best for
Speaker 1: semi skilled labor of carpentry, plastering, and bricklaying. Wow, I
Speaker 1: want one of those. I want I want that meme
Speaker 1: of the two hands meeting in the middle. That's like
Speaker 1: Western racists Japanese racists and in the middle exactly the
Speaker 1: same ship. Yep, Like it's you know, what if? What if?
Speaker 1: The things that I was realizing, like as I was
Speaker 1: reading this is the extent to which Japan is basically
Speaker 1: just like like Japan is just like like it's like
Speaker 1: it's it's East Britain. Like they have cousin marrying, they
Speaker 1: have all this weird pedophile stuff. They have this giant empire,
Speaker 1: they have like all the skull measurement cranial stuff. They're
Speaker 1: both from this island. They both have this just like
Speaker 1: incredibly weird like sort of sort of psychoses embedded in there,
Speaker 1: in there like like in international culture that like it's
Speaker 1: it's a bummer that like one of the chunks of
Speaker 1: Asia that most successfully resisted being colonized and being oppressed
Speaker 1: by European powers did it that way by basically yeah,
Speaker 1: by kind of like the British Empire but slightly different. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and like you can like like I think, yeah, like Ethiopia,
Speaker 1: which like for a long time sort of like successfully
Speaker 1: like repelled repelled etons, repelled or colonial forces, and they
Speaker 1: like don't do this. Yeah, it's a likely way to
Speaker 1: do things. Yeah, yeah, they're like, you know, there were
Speaker 1: other ways. It's just the Japanese were like imperialism, what
Speaker 1: if we did it? And you know, and you know,
Speaker 1: I think part of this is that like you know,
Speaker 1: in order to be able to do forced labor, right,
Speaker 1: Like it is actually kind of hard to get human
Speaker 1: beings to like make other like compel other human beings
Speaker 1: by forced to do things. And you know, and this
Speaker 1: sort of necessitates developing this like this sort of like
Speaker 1: European style race science or just like keep the forced
Speaker 1: labor system alive. And you know, this is this racism
Speaker 1: and the mode of race theory. It's not confined to
Speaker 1: sort of just like lower rank over people like Keishi
Speaker 1: Keshi is an inveterate racist, Like he goes on everyone
Speaker 1: who worked around him at the time. We'll talk about
Speaker 1: he would just like stop in the middle of like
Speaker 1: I'm beating and go on this rant about how all
Speaker 1: Chinese people are like lawless bandits and capable of following
Speaker 1: rules and all of this. Yeah, you know, and you know,
Speaker 1: and his solution to that is like, well, okay, so
Speaker 1: Chinese people like inherently can't follow laws because of racial stuff.
Speaker 1: So the only way you can get them to do
Speaker 1: things is by like treating them like a dog and
Speaker 1: just beating them, which is you know, not hire street dogs.
Speaker 1: But you know, and and this this just like pervasive
Speaker 1: racism is a big part of how you get everything
Speaker 1: that happens next. So the Japanese like atrocities and chuqua
Speaker 1: are are so bad that we don't have time to
Speaker 1: talk about Unite one, which is Japan's like well that's yeah,
Speaker 1: it's own episode. The whole thing. That's Japan's kind of
Speaker 1: Doctor Mangela mixed with Auschwitz. Yeah. Yeah, they test you.
Speaker 1: I mean they do a bunch of likes, but whatever
Speaker 1: you get. Yeah, yeah, it's like basically they're doing biological
Speaker 1: weapons testing on like live Chinese and Russian prisoners, like
Speaker 1: A grade crimes against humanity and the Scottie Tiff of
Speaker 1: crimes against humanity. You know, if it's I don't know basketball,
Speaker 1: I assume he was right, Sophie. He was the best
Speaker 1: point guard of all of the touchdown footballer. You're doing
Speaker 1: great birdies serving bicycle. Yeah, absolutely, Okay, it's really got
Speaker 1: bro parts of that were me joking. Hearts all right,
Speaker 1: please Chris continue. So, so Unit seven one is operating
Speaker 1: under Kichi sturistiction, like you know, it's operating in in
Speaker 1: metrical while he's there under sturisdiction, and we don't have
Speaker 1: time to talk about that. That needs its own episode.
Speaker 1: What we are going to talk about next time is
Speaker 1: Japan's forced labor system. Oh yeah, now that sounds you
Speaker 1: mean by forced labor, I assume you mean like Jedi, right,
Speaker 1: Like it's it's we're gonna talk about Star Wars now
Speaker 1: we're gonna pivot. I mean, I think I think the
Speaker 1: Japanese would have benefited from just having the ability to
Speaker 1: mind control people. And you know, I guess like militaries
Speaker 1: would have. Yeah, yeah, and you know, I guess the
Speaker 1: Jedi do like kidnap children and like educate them into
Speaker 1: a religious cult, so you know, and they also they
Speaker 1: also employed an enormous child slave soldier army. So yeah,
Speaker 1: it is Star warship because let us know how many
Speaker 1: Star Wars fans get in your very Yeah. Yeah, well
Speaker 1: all right then, so we'll be back. We'll be back tomorrow.
Speaker 1: Because this is a motherfucking three parter, a mother fucking
Speaker 1: three parter. There's just something. There's just so much ship
Speaker 1: to say. There's a lot of ship to say about
Speaker 1: piece of ship anyway, anyway, you can find the US, Yeah,
Speaker 1: you can find us. Look, do it yourself. We're not
Speaker 1: going to do the work for you. Find it. I mean,
Speaker 1: track us down in the world, hunt us like animals.
Speaker 1: You can follow Bathtards at bastards pot on Instagram and Twitter,
Speaker 1: and not Cool Zone Media on Instagram and Twitter if
Speaker 1: you guys want to right, well, yeah, I'm not going
Speaker 1: to do personal handles. You can find us, yeah, hunt
Speaker 1: us down like animals. Hunt. That's the episode.