Speaker 1: From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
Speaker 1: riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
Speaker 1: learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A
Speaker 1: production of iHeart Radio.
Speaker 2: Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt,
Speaker 2: my name is Noah.
Speaker 3: They call me Ben. We're joined as always with our
Speaker 3: super producer Dylan the Tennessee pal Fagan. Most importantly, you
Speaker 3: are you. You are here. That makes this the stuff
Speaker 3: they don't want you to know. Guys, you remember that
Speaker 3: it's an observation that only grows more relevant over time.
Speaker 3: People say, no one wants to be living through the
Speaker 3: times of which history is made, right.
Speaker 4: Yeah, kind of impossible though, because I guess history is
Speaker 4: sort of always being made in it we're working live
Speaker 4: well now.
Speaker 2: I think it means people want to not have the
Speaker 2: stress and maybe fear and all of the things that
Speaker 2: come with a big historical event.
Speaker 4: Right too bad suckers, where you find yourself.
Speaker 2: We want smooth sailing, I think I think generally that's
Speaker 2: what human beings want. But we've also got this thing
Speaker 2: where in our media and things, most of the stuff
Speaker 2: really interested in is the exciting, crazy.
Speaker 3: Stuff from the past. But also from the present as
Speaker 3: long as it's not touching us. Yeah, and the future
Speaker 3: as long as it's not over the horizon quite yet.
Speaker 3: And history proves time and time again. We've seen this
Speaker 3: on every show we have touched, as EPs, as voice actors,
Speaker 3: as writers, as hosts. History proves that in chaotic times,
Speaker 3: the public will look for alternatives to the status quo,
Speaker 3: whatever that status quo may be. Sometimes this leads to
Speaker 3: things that history calls good revolutions, the French and American
Speaker 3: Revolution right when the rejection of monarchy, and then sometimes
Speaker 3: you know, it gets a little sith lordie. Chaos can
Speaker 3: lead to a search for alternatives like fascism or dictatorships
Speaker 3: or coups. Chaos reigns, Chaos reigns, and chaos is a
Speaker 3: ladder for better or worse.
Speaker 2: I watched a Mister Robot episode where one of the
Speaker 2: characters use that term and used it in that way.
Speaker 4: It was robot fun twist on a child's board game
Speaker 4: would be coups and ladders.
Speaker 3: I love it. Yeah, I think it's brilliant. What we
Speaker 3: also see here is that, just like our discussion with
Speaker 3: governments and AI, the modern information age hasn't really changed
Speaker 3: this tendency. Instead, it's ushered in a new toolbox, a
Speaker 3: new way to escalate this pattern. That's why there are
Speaker 3: so many world governments accused of interfering with elections and
Speaker 3: sovereign domestic politics. And tonight's story. First off, yes, this
Speaker 3: is a story about political conspiracies, but also it's a
Speaker 3: story about patterns. This is about a country that might
Speaker 3: be facing something similar as we record the rise of
Speaker 3: the far right in Japan and the growing allegations that
Speaker 3: there may be a conspiracy powering it.
Speaker 4: Absolutely, But first we're gonna hear a quick word from
Speaker 4: our sponsor.
Speaker 3: Here are the facts, all right, We've talked about this
Speaker 3: a lot. I don't want to sound like a wiyaboo,
Speaker 3: and we're going to keep any personal anecdotes to a
Speaker 3: bare minimum.
Speaker 4: Not me, I'm putting it all out there.
Speaker 2: Can I just say I think your experience, Ben, in particular,
Speaker 2: would be extremely helpful for this episode. I feel a
Speaker 2: bit in the dark as we're going into this, but
Speaker 2: just really.
Speaker 4: In terms of on the ground experience of this kind
Speaker 4: of thing, because you know, a lot of these things
Speaker 4: don't even make the news over here. A lot of
Speaker 4: the things that we're going to be talking about today,
Speaker 4: let alone being available for us to you know, set
Speaker 4: our very eyes on and see the way of functions.
Speaker 2: I just think your input and or any anecdote you've
Speaker 2: gotten could be extremely helpful for me personally to understand
Speaker 2: this a little better.
Speaker 5: Ah.
Speaker 3: I think we'll I hear you and appreciate it. I
Speaker 3: think will also be darkly surprised by how many parallels
Speaker 3: are going to be in this story. Across the Ocean's blue,
Speaker 3: Across the Ocean's blue. I'm of a maritime sort of mind.
Speaker 4: What are we talking about? We're talking about the crime cruise, right,
Speaker 4: so that's called but it's sort of like that. We're
Speaker 4: doing a Virgin Mega Cruz True Crime. Theend are going
Speaker 4: to be on the high seas coming up pretty soon.
Speaker 4: I think you could still buy your tickets, y'all.
Speaker 3: I believe so. Yeah, this is our organic mention, and
Speaker 3: we're being so smooth with it. October tenth through the fifteenth.
Speaker 3: Join us for smooth seas, you know, that's the hope.
Speaker 2: And look, if you come on this thing, you might
Speaker 2: go snorkeling with us. Weird, there might be sharks involved.
Speaker 4: Trivia, you know.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you might see a shipwreck. You'll definitely go through
Speaker 3: the Bermuda Triangle with us, where we have hatched up
Speaker 3: the bride idea of recording our Bermuda Triangle episode live
Speaker 3: from the location.
Speaker 4: No tempting fade there. It's gonna be fine. Join us.
Speaker 4: You can hold hands, guys.
Speaker 2: I've got the first version of the video and I'm
Speaker 2: working on the sound design and music. Right now. That's
Speaker 2: gonna play. I guess people are coming in. We're gonna
Speaker 2: make people feel so freaking uncomfortable and scary people.
Speaker 3: We're gonna bring people together.
Speaker 4: This is not sanctioned by the Version Corporation.
Speaker 3: Matthew and like the decembers said, you know, if worst
Speaker 3: comes the worst, we'll both go down together.
Speaker 4: Also said, I'm a jolly little chimbley boy.
Speaker 2: Is that a veiled if we're both going down together?
Speaker 3: Is that a I think that one's about jumping off
Speaker 3: of a building. It's metaphor. Laden's okay. There's a lot
Speaker 3: of possibility there, and this will be This will be
Speaker 3: great because it will get all of us together in
Speaker 3: this one place and we'll be focused on one thing
Speaker 3: and we'll probably agree what the revelations we discover. And
Speaker 3: that's cool because it doesn't usually happen anywhere else in
Speaker 3: human society. Right outside of a focused show or exploration.
Speaker 4: You're just outside of our particular friend group. Never does occur.
Speaker 3: We'll fight all the time.
Speaker 2: In the end, we're going to explore mysteries and you'll
Speaker 2: take away whatever you take from it.
Speaker 4: Right, But in the end, possibly you're a souvenir.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but you'll be in the Bermuda triangle.
Speaker 4: It's gonna be sick. I'm excited. I haven't been on
Speaker 4: a cruise before, and I'm really really looking forward to
Speaker 4: hanging out with you guys on the high seas and
Speaker 4: talk about some some spooky stuff.
Speaker 3: And with that, the reason we're emphasizing this idea of
Speaker 3: agreeing being on the same page, and why that is
Speaker 3: so important is because pretty much any other place you go,
Speaker 3: or any other human endeavor you counter, you will see
Speaker 3: that everyone disagrees. And Japan is no different. Japan is
Speaker 3: full of competing ideologies and political parties. This is not unique,
Speaker 3: it is not unusual.
Speaker 4: Well, and it's funny. I was just gonna ask, maybe
Speaker 4: this is a dumb question, but like we're talking about
Speaker 4: the right and the lefts like obviously, when when I
Speaker 4: ask to the right or left of what the answer
Speaker 4: is center? But who determines, like culturally, which ideology is
Speaker 4: represented by which side of zero?
Speaker 3: You know, that's an interesting question. That's when we'll get
Speaker 3: to because every center party, you know, as a your
Speaker 3: mileage may vary situation, and historically we'll get into this
Speaker 3: a little bit. Historically you call Japan more or less
Speaker 3: culturally conservative, and a lot of a lot of East Asia,
Speaker 3: to be fair, is that way. But in Japan, you know,
Speaker 3: just like anywhere else, anywhere you go, you're going to
Speaker 3: find a spectrum of groups with priorities and values that
Speaker 3: sometimes combine and converge and then sometimes contradict and people
Speaker 3: get at loggerheads. Here in the United States, for example,
Speaker 3: speaking of centrism, there are two big political parties. You
Speaker 3: got the Democrats, you got the Republicans. But each of
Speaker 3: those terms, as we've discussed before in some pretty cool stuff,
Speaker 3: each of those terms is like a it's an umbrella
Speaker 3: phrase because within under the umbrella of democracy you'll find,
Speaker 3: you know, the little umbrellas of Democrats, little umbrella Republicans,
Speaker 3: and under that a monopoly of tinier umbrellas, tighier movements.
Speaker 2: And ultimately it all represents campaign finance donations, right, and
Speaker 2: which which primary corporations and entities donate to which of
Speaker 2: those two parties, and then how is that divided up
Speaker 2: amongst individual candidates?
Speaker 4: And not to mention that I mean you're talking about
Speaker 4: campaign I mean we're talking about a collection of campaign
Speaker 4: promises and sort of treatises that are put out there
Speaker 4: exclusively in the form of rhetoric, you know, and let's
Speaker 4: just call it what it is, propaganda that doesn't always
Speaker 4: add up to the way things actually end up, you know,
Speaker 4: when folks are elected from either side.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, I just want to make that point that it's
Speaker 2: it ends up those cliques that we're talking about inside
Speaker 2: like the bigger umbrella groups, often those are divided up
Speaker 2: amongst groups of people, groups of what appear to be
Speaker 2: independent let's say representatives or people from certain states or
Speaker 2: a scattering of states. You can use money and like
Speaker 2: CARDI B make money moves to create like clicks and
Speaker 2: movements of belief of you know what a group is
Speaker 2: all about within this umbrella. And all you got, all
Speaker 2: you have to do is inject enough money to get
Speaker 2: enough candidates to believe the same thing. Then you can
Speaker 2: push that and push it and push it and grow
Speaker 2: it and make it larger until it potentially can take
Speaker 2: over one of these umbrellas.
Speaker 3: Mm hmm and becomes the establishment.
Speaker 4: And it's so cynical, I know, but I mean, I
Speaker 4: can't help but think that the only true belief is
Speaker 4: in the money, that a lot of the other ones
Speaker 4: are just sort of weaponized.
Speaker 3: Beliefs that are used.
Speaker 4: To sort of manipulate the populace. Like I just have
Speaker 4: a real hard time believing in true believers in governments,
Speaker 4: you know.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I hear you. The one thing we would add
Speaker 3: as an asterisk to this is that money is a
Speaker 3: representation of resource, right, it's labor over time. So there
Speaker 3: are historically massive upheavals in social dynamics where people are
Speaker 3: starving and someone comes along and says, I'll feed you, right,
Speaker 3: and you can worry about the other stuff. We can
Speaker 3: talk about that later. But wouldn't you like to eat
Speaker 3: something when you like some rootabagas, some squash, et cetera,
Speaker 3: and please.
Speaker 2: That's a good way to get loyalty, right.
Speaker 3: Right exactly. And so money then is an escalation of
Speaker 3: that age old concept and these. Yeah, I love your
Speaker 3: point about the Overton window.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 3: So here in the US, sure, the big boys, the
Speaker 3: Democrats and the Republicans actively work together like Pepsi and
Speaker 3: coke to repress competitors, to kill them in the womb, really,
Speaker 3: or to buy them or buy them, neuter them somehow, right, sanitize,
Speaker 3: sterilize them. And that's why far right movements and far
Speaker 3: left movements and independent movements are all over the US.
Speaker 3: But the FEC won't let them be uh. And that's fine.
Speaker 4: That is Federal Election Commission.
Speaker 3: That is Yeah, check out our episode on that speaking.
Speaker 2: Yeah, good luck getting on a debate that it means
Speaker 2: anything whatsoever one of those parties.
Speaker 4: It's sort of like Oscar campaigns. Like everyone thinks magically
Speaker 4: that the best things win the Oscar, But the things
Speaker 4: that win the Oscar are the ones that had the
Speaker 4: big money behind them to make their Oscar campaigns. You know,
Speaker 4: it's I mean, it's just it's it's an illusion of
Speaker 4: quality or this illusion of like democracy, I guess, or
Speaker 4: you know, what's the word I'm looking for.
Speaker 3: Meritocracy. Yes, meritocracy. I love that word and I wish
Speaker 3: it was practiced more often. Also. You know, one thing
Speaker 3: that's totally different from that, of course, is the podcast awards.
Speaker 3: Everybody tune in for the MP's and the Webbies coming
Speaker 3: to a town near you.
Speaker 4: Yeah, definitely the fixes and in on those.
Speaker 3: So we see that these smaller groups, right may team
Speaker 3: up with the big dogs on certain issues, right like
Speaker 3: the the LDP, which is a weirdly misleading name, is
Speaker 3: the big party in Japan. We'll get to them, but
Speaker 3: they have under their umbrella they have a lot of
Speaker 3: other smaller parties that agree with them on certain issues,
Speaker 3: and we'll team up with them to vote for certain
Speaker 3: things and policies. But at the same time, these smaller crews,
Speaker 3: these smaller clicks, are still pushing other parts of their
Speaker 3: respective agendas. That happens constantly.
Speaker 4: In Japan is a quote unquote proper democracy, right, Well, yes, okay, okay,
Speaker 4: I'm just just asking the question. Yeah, I don't know,
Speaker 4: it's not on it like, it's just not something that
Speaker 4: I am completely immersed in, you know, And I think
Speaker 4: I get it in general, but I want to know
Speaker 4: when a lot of these shifts took place, and I
Speaker 4: have to imagine that some of them took place after
Speaker 4: the war.
Speaker 2: It's a democracy on a diet.
Speaker 3: It's a democracy on a diet. Diet, let's get a drug,
Speaker 3: let's get Dylan. Thank you for anybody who notices that
Speaker 3: is an amazing joke. That's very well written, and thank
Speaker 3: you for that. Matt. Yeah, maybe the way to say
Speaker 3: it is Japan is a diet is the funniest way.
Speaker 3: But Japan is a democracy that loves its royal family well.
Speaker 4: And one could maybe argue that that makes it easier
Speaker 4: to control, and that there's probably it's a little more
Speaker 4: consistent than things over here might be right.
Speaker 3: Yes, it's similar to what we see in European style
Speaker 3: democracies that still have a royal family that might have
Speaker 3: largely symbolic power, but a great deal of economic heft
Speaker 3: because they own a lot of stuff from back in
Speaker 3: the day. But they have these weird agreements that say
Speaker 3: something like, yes, you are required as the you know,
Speaker 3: the king of this place or the queen of this place,
Speaker 3: to show up for these events. You make these speeches,
Speaker 3: you know what I mean, where that funny outfit, where
Speaker 3: this specific outfit, and then you go back home and
Speaker 3: we're going we the elected representatives are going to handle
Speaker 3: the day to day business of government and the wheel
Speaker 3: of power, and that's that's a thing that sounds silly,
Speaker 3: but it is an important distinction. And the United States,
Speaker 3: not once, but at multiple times got so very close
Speaker 3: to having acknowledged monarchs, and it's a bullet we keep
Speaker 3: trying to matrix dodge.
Speaker 4: It was absolutely a post war situation when they had
Speaker 4: a constitution drafted and became a democracy after being you know,
Speaker 4: having their asses handed to them.
Speaker 3: Yeah, at the end of World War two.
Speaker 4: Oh, we we'll get to that, but we have to
Speaker 4: point out too and is answering my own question that
Speaker 4: genuine I just was guessing that that was probably tasty, have.
Speaker 3: Omami to it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we're gonna have to get in the weeds when
Speaker 2: it comes to like what the what the democracy actually
Speaker 2: looks like, how it functions, the different ways it's split up.
Speaker 2: And then the emperor has some sneaky stuff in there
Speaker 2: that's way more powerful than you'd expect, and we'll get
Speaker 2: let's get into that, but first of all, let's let's
Speaker 2: jump back to the US really quickly, because we're talking
Speaker 2: about some of the ways in which these sub parties, right,
Speaker 2: not the big players can actually play a role in
Speaker 2: let's say election right.
Speaker 3: In pushing the Overton window of conversation. You know, the
Speaker 3: Green We're probably never going to have a Green Party
Speaker 3: president in most of our listener's lifetimes. And you might
Speaker 3: hear this and be in the US and you might say, look,
Speaker 3: the Green Party, what a bunch of cuckoos. Anarchy is dumb,
Speaker 3: Or you might not vibe with libertarians, or you might
Speaker 3: be embarrassed by a local politician that you personally don't
Speaker 3: support your neck of the woods. But the thing is
Speaker 3: that's not inherently bad. When democracy works, it gives everyone
Speaker 3: the opportunity to make their opinions known. The original donors
Speaker 3: to any campaign were always supposed to be the voters.
Speaker 3: Has changed post Citizens United, and that's never been true
Speaker 3: in practice. But that's the idea on the paper.
Speaker 2: It really is great in theory.
Speaker 3: It's so much stuff is cool in theory. Like I
Speaker 3: told you guys about trying to invent the farido, it's
Speaker 3: a burrito that also utilizes the amazing technology of FA
Speaker 3: and the world's just not ready quite yet.
Speaker 2: There's called tortillas.
Speaker 3: We'll see. Now we've just formed two different parties and
Speaker 3: we can work together. Okay, So we know that these
Speaker 3: times of instability, this is just the quick abstract structuralis
Speaker 3: above it. The times of instability create opportunities for beliefs
Speaker 3: and movements that would have been dismissed as fringe. Right,
Speaker 3: everything's going to pot everything's going sideways and pear shaped,
Speaker 3: and this leads us to the public to say, there's
Speaker 3: got to be a better way, just like on a
Speaker 3: made for TV commercial. That's why the threat of war
Speaker 3: and economic collapse in particular historically often lead to nationalism,
Speaker 3: to do countries saying hey us first.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, we've been spending a lot of resources in
Speaker 2: time out there in the others, in the other worlds.
Speaker 2: What about this place? Man? What about my pension? And
Speaker 2: I get that makes total sense.
Speaker 4: I mean when the planes going down, they say put
Speaker 4: the mask on yourself first, So you know, it does
Speaker 4: to a certain degree. But then it becomes a rhetoric
Speaker 4: in and of itself where it supplants like everything else
Speaker 4: and sometimes even you know, things way outside of the
Speaker 4: realms of like logic.
Speaker 3: Yeah. The thing about binary in out group reasoning is
Speaker 3: that it feels very convenient at the beginning, but you
Speaker 3: have to realize those that ideology only gains power as
Speaker 3: long as the inn group gets smaller and smaller. So
Speaker 3: let's say you have a dozen friends, right, and then
Speaker 3: eleven of you decide, Hey, we're going to ice this
Speaker 3: one guy out and we're just not going to talk
Speaker 3: to him. We'll have a separate group thread for that guy,
Speaker 3: and then we the eleven real people are real friends,
Speaker 3: will have our own thing and then from there to
Speaker 3: continue that system. It's a Ponzi scheme of exclusion that
Speaker 3: sounds way smarter than it is, but it's very accurate.
Speaker 4: It seems a bit like what's happening with Putin and
Speaker 4: Modi and China over there.
Speaker 3: You know, just so, just so, and it happens to
Speaker 3: a lot of microcosmics, like on the ground, individual friend groups.
Speaker 3: So we know that an example of nationalism threatening democracy,
Speaker 3: we can see it in the story of Marine General
Speaker 3: Smedley Butler real pos back in the day. He probably
Speaker 3: stopped a coup, a fascistic coup to overthrow democracy.
Speaker 4: In the US brad podcast about it that you had
Speaker 4: to hand in Ben called Let's start a coup? If
Speaker 4: I'm not mistaken. If you want more on that, do
Speaker 4: check it out.
Speaker 3: Appreciate it. It's the most unhinged Sesame Street kind of
Speaker 3: thing I've ever written, but it's a lot of fun.
Speaker 3: Check out the phenomenal actors and our friends at the
Speaker 3: School of Humans. And this is where we get to
Speaker 3: the questions we're raising. Now we've talked about the US
Speaker 3: Japanese parallels, We're going to see a lot of that's
Speaker 3: in these conspiracies. Japan has a deep, deep history with
Speaker 3: nationalism before the horrors of World War Two. You don't
Speaker 3: have to look too far back in your history book
Speaker 3: to see the evidence of that. These ultra nationalistic forces
Speaker 3: committed heinous atrocities. They rationalized each and every one as
Speaker 3: noble ACKs for a greater good Japan first.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, it's an interesting thing that occurs when nationalism
Speaker 2: becomes like the main ideology, because when things are all
Speaker 2: about you and us and what we're doing and how
Speaker 2: to better us, it often leads that country or that
Speaker 2: group or that empire into other places to then make
Speaker 2: that stuff them, to make that stuff us right, And
Speaker 2: we're talking about resources, we're talking about peoples, We're talking
Speaker 2: about a lot of accumulation essentially through let's continue calling
Speaker 2: them heinous acts and atrocities.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and this leads us to post World War two Japan.
Speaker 3: Post World War two Japan, ever since the close of
Speaker 3: the war, has always been a politically conservative democracy, and
Speaker 3: you don't have to agree with the policies of the
Speaker 3: dominant Liberal Democratic Party, which by the way, is again
Speaker 3: just a farcical name. They're not particularly liberal, they're kind
Speaker 3: of democratic. They do party though, so one out of three,
Speaker 3: one out of three for their name, but the public
Speaker 3: also so who votes for them. That's how democracy works.
Speaker 3: So you don't have to like that party's policies, but
Speaker 3: you do have to recognize that since World War Two,
Speaker 3: in modern Japan, these have been, you know, the big dogs.
Speaker 3: The most people agree on this party, and they're not
Speaker 3: you know, they're not World War two cats. They're not
Speaker 3: yelling from the rooftops to invade Banchuria. They're not saying, hey,
Speaker 3: let's do hey, you guys, remember war crimes, let's do
Speaker 3: some of those. They like global trade, they're not opposed to tourism.
Speaker 3: And if you put aside the usual culture wars that
Speaker 3: happened there and here in the US, the mainstream LDP
Speaker 3: is a lot more like to your question. Note what
Speaker 3: we would call center right, the way that the Democratic
Speaker 3: Party is a neoliberal center right organization here in the US.
Speaker 2: Interesting, should we talk a little bit just quickly about
Speaker 2: the Constitution of Japan?
Speaker 4: I'm interested. I mean, yeah, how did it come around?
Speaker 4: How did it come about?
Speaker 3: What?
Speaker 4: You know, who was involved? I imagine there was no
Speaker 4: small involvement from perhaps the Allies themselves or no.
Speaker 3: A mandate. There you go, Val Shalt of all intel,
Speaker 3: there you go. Yes for a constitution.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there was a constitution in eighteen ninety and it
Speaker 2: was the one that the Empire of Japan essentially functioned
Speaker 2: upon until the end of World War Two. And you
Speaker 2: get this thing called what it's called the Constitution of Japan,
Speaker 2: but it's known as a bunch of other things, like
Speaker 2: the Peace Constitution or even the MacArthur Constitution, as in
Speaker 2: US General MacArthur Constitution. That's probably the best name for it,
Speaker 2: because he is the guy who ended up dictating a
Speaker 2: lot of what went into.
Speaker 3: It and when he came in post World War two.
Speaker 3: I love that you're mentioning that previous document. The eighteen
Speaker 3: nineties one is from the Meiji era, and that's when
Speaker 3: Japan was undergoing this rapid modernization industrialization. The nation loved
Speaker 3: the possibility of new technology, new systems, new processes, new resources,
Speaker 3: but they also feared the erosion of traditional values and institutions.
Speaker 3: So that first modernization, if we want to play the
Speaker 3: reindeer games, that first modernization launched arguably part of or
Speaker 3: informed the ultra nationalistic movements that arose and became such
Speaker 3: a moving force in the Japanese activities and atrocities during
Speaker 3: World War Two, because ever since the Meji era, there's
Speaker 3: been this consistent concern about preserving traditional Japanese culture, protecting
Speaker 3: it from the from falling prey to the collaborating foreign
Speaker 3: hordes of the world outside, which is barbaric because it's
Speaker 3: not Japanese.
Speaker 2: Do you guys see any parallel between other island nations
Speaker 2: that have empires from Britain what became the United Kingdom
Speaker 2: and in Japan here that is an island nation that
Speaker 2: is separated pretty fully from anyone else. You've got to
Speaker 2: take a ship to get any goods across, to get
Speaker 2: culture across one way or the other.
Speaker 4: Yess, it is easier to be isolationists in those situations,
Speaker 4: that's for sure.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And those powerful archipelago nations historically are going to
Speaker 3: beef up with the nearest mainland while they are culturally interconnected.
Speaker 2: Yes, which is precisely right what happened with Britain over
Speaker 2: scores and scores of years there. You think about Spain
Speaker 2: and France and the other powers that are right around
Speaker 2: that area, and then you think about China and Japan
Speaker 2: in particular and other nations that were there that ended
Speaker 2: up warring with So it is, I don't know, it's
Speaker 2: very interesting because at least in these two instances, you
Speaker 2: see tremendous power being built specifically for war for expansionism.
Speaker 3: Right, yeah, hebens thrown. This is a very real historical precedent.
Speaker 3: And you know, even in the modern day, let's jump
Speaker 3: around in time. Even in the modern day with Japan's LDP,
Speaker 3: we see there's a lot of internal dissent and they
Speaker 3: argue about a lot of things. And one of the
Speaker 3: things that is always up for vigorous debate or what
Speaker 3: Corporate America calls healthy conversation, is that MacArthur imposed constitution.
Speaker 3: So Uncle Sam kills so many people with world ending
Speaker 3: technology and then says, good game. You do this rightly?
Speaker 3: You would be pissed as well, right, And that's why
Speaker 3: people always argue about revision to the Constitution of Japan,
Speaker 3: specifically Article nine. Article nine is the US imposed. Well,
Speaker 3: the whole thing's US imposed, but this is the big
Speaker 3: tent item for the US and for the allies. It said, hey, Japan,
Speaker 3: you can never again wage war to solve a conflict.
Speaker 3: You cannot have, you know, a blue water navy or
Speaker 3: maritime power. You cannot impose your will upon other entities
Speaker 3: in the region through conflict and violence and kinetic war.
Speaker 2: Bluewater navy, that's one that would be able to go
Speaker 2: out and impose force further than a certain distance essentially
Speaker 2: from the mainland. That's the concept, right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, brownwater Navy, you can kind of run your coast.
Speaker 3: Greenwater Navy, you can futs around in the region, get
Speaker 3: up to some Saturday night Shenanigans, right of piracy and
Speaker 3: crime or force projection. Bluewater Navy, you can go anywhere
Speaker 3: in the world. You're the US and someone in two
Speaker 3: Valu is talking mess you can send the boys out,
Speaker 3: got it. But also it's very expensive and it's one
Speaker 3: of those why would you do it? Things?
Speaker 2: You know?
Speaker 3: Anyway, that's maybe a different story, but the but.
Speaker 2: What you can do is protect yourself, right, you can
Speaker 2: have a defense force. That's cool. We're cool with.
Speaker 3: That self defense force. We're joking about this off air
Speaker 3: as a treat right, because then you know, rightly, you
Speaker 3: have to give a country the ability to at least
Speaker 3: defend itself. And this sort of gives lie to the
Speaker 3: idea of a Department of Defense in the United States
Speaker 3: now Department of now department back to Department of War,
Speaker 3: which it was for a long time. But you know,
Speaker 3: the argument is, look, we get it says Japan. We're
Speaker 3: not going to send out bombers over Vietnam or something, right,
Speaker 3: or we're not going to take the Philippines. But if
Speaker 3: someone comes and attacks Tokyo, we need to have some
Speaker 3: resources to respond. And that seems very reasonable, right, sure.
Speaker 2: As a treat now, and you can have that, and
Speaker 2: that's okay, said the US pat But also, but really,
Speaker 2: the way this is set up Article N is serious,
Speaker 2: and that is one of the reasons, as you said, Ben,
Speaker 2: that's like a sticking point. But the rest of it,
Speaker 2: in its entirety was made up and created in the
Speaker 2: moment following World War Two, after Japan's defeat, and it
Speaker 2: was really really was imposed by there was this whole
Speaker 2: thing that we can get into where the concept was,
Speaker 2: we can have a bunch of smart people who know
Speaker 2: the government in Japan get together and make the new constitution.
Speaker 2: And they started doing that, but then the US came
Speaker 2: in kind of at the last minute and said, well,
Speaker 2: actually we're gonna use this one. And it was over
Speaker 2: It was overseen by General MacArthur. So just the entirety
Speaker 2: of the constitution ends up being this thing that's kind
Speaker 2: of held over you if you're you know, a Japanese citizen,
Speaker 2: as like, this is how we have to function. Why
Speaker 2: does it have to still be like this?
Speaker 3: And it was not written by the people of that country?
Speaker 3: Is the important thing the US did. For another analogy,
Speaker 3: the US did something executive producers do. Came in and
Speaker 3: saw what people are working on and said, great job, guys,
Speaker 3: good hustle. I've got some notes. Can you do this?
Speaker 3: But completely different and it's my thing, but now it's
Speaker 3: yours and you have to do it. Great meeting, all.
Speaker 2: Right, But also it's my thing and my name is
Speaker 2: gonna be on it.
Speaker 3: Why don't we just call it the MacArthur Constitution. Anyway,
Speaker 3: the other thing they fight about in the LDP is
Speaker 3: going to be how foreign policy should work with communist
Speaker 3: countries in the region caugh cough, China right, not great
Speaker 3: friends of Japan either on either side, So they also
Speaker 3: talk about whether this will be important later. A lot
Speaker 3: of other folks don't like this. There's a lot of
Speaker 3: internal argument over the nature of ties with the United States,
Speaker 3: which makes total historical sense, like how cool do you
Speaker 3: want to be with these guys?
Speaker 2: Well, barely really cool because you know stuff's booming over
Speaker 2: here economically, train all these cars and video game systems
Speaker 2: and tech and woo. Yeah, but also, oh wait, what
Speaker 2: did those guys do to us?
Speaker 3: Yeah? Also, everything you learn about diplomacy, no matter what
Speaker 3: your genre of it is, can boil down to this
Speaker 3: sweet till it isn't right. So we also see more
Speaker 3: radical beliefs popping up. Anti immigration, like Benja turtles radical.
Speaker 3: Those are like like wild off base radical. Sorry, yeah,
Speaker 3: this is not bodacious, anti immigration, anti LGBT proposals, the
Speaker 3: continual denial of historic war crimes. We've talked about the
Speaker 3: idea of preserving culture in Japan or cultural identity which
Speaker 3: may be another familiar thing you see a lot of
Speaker 3: parallels to in other parts of the world. In recent years,
Speaker 3: some very extreme versions of this conservative ideology have become
Speaker 3: super powered in Japan, someone somewhat through some high octane
Speaker 3: gas on the bonfire. This leads us to the current
Speaker 3: far right, a new kid on the block called Santo
Speaker 3: Pardner pronunciation.
Speaker 4: I think you did fine, a super conservative ultra nationalist
Speaker 4: right wing party that was founded in twenty twenty, very recently. Yeah.
Speaker 3: If the more conservative members of the LDP party in
Speaker 3: the Upper House, if they are, if they are caffeine,
Speaker 3: then Sanseto is cocaine in terms of the extremity of
Speaker 3: their belief And the name is weird. It translates to
Speaker 3: the Political Participation Party, but they also use the name
Speaker 3: the Party of do it Yourself or the party love
Speaker 3: it Amazing.
Speaker 4: Do you get a political participation award for hanging out?
Speaker 3: Yeah? But you have to make it yourself? Okay.
Speaker 4: It's really a lot craft.
Speaker 2: It gives you the feeling the sense of, oh, we
Speaker 2: could we could actually decide what happens. You could decide
Speaker 2: what happens, right like that. That's a pretty powerful concept
Speaker 2: and it feels like something that you could buy into
Speaker 2: before you even really understand what the party represents, or
Speaker 2: you know what deep waters you're actually waiting into.
Speaker 3: Why can't we be the masters of our fate, the
Speaker 3: captains of our souls? Right? Quoting in Victis, they're paraphrasing.
Speaker 3: So this party, Sansito, has people worried, diy party whatever
Speaker 3: in their worried because there's this crazy political rise to
Speaker 3: fame and success from a once fringe party. In some ways,
Speaker 3: you could compare it to hanging out in the Midwest
Speaker 3: with a friend of a friend or a friend of
Speaker 3: your friend's cousin who just smokes weed and tells you
Speaker 3: that Jewish space lasers are the world's most dangerous technology.
Speaker 3: And now all of a sudden, that guy and his
Speaker 3: buddies are in office. That's how people are reacting to
Speaker 3: some of this. And the question is a logical question.
Speaker 2: Yes, thinking about that one person from Georgia who has
Speaker 2: said those things.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that one person. There's this question, right, how did
Speaker 3: this It's a logical one. How did this small group
Speaker 3: has often dismissed as fringe and weing nuts and what
Speaker 3: have you. How do they gain so much power so
Speaker 3: much influence, so much attention over such a short span
Speaker 3: of time, which we'll get into. And despite their xenophobic
Speaker 3: stances against all foreign powersliar right right parallels, as we said,
Speaker 3: critics alleged this might all be a front that indeed
Speaker 3: certain foreign powers are funding this party as helping this
Speaker 3: They're helping this party to succeed, not because they want
Speaker 3: Japan to succeed overall, but because it's part of a
Speaker 3: long term conspiratorial scheme to weaken Japan from within. Oh God,
Speaker 3: the home parallels. That's our ad break. Here's where it
Speaker 3: gets crazy. All right, right parallels. As we're getting I
Speaker 3: think we're going to find a lot of these as
Speaker 3: we continue. Can we kick a little bit of the
Speaker 3: origin story of Sanseto? Absolutely so.
Speaker 4: For three years since Sayto existed as a little tiny
Speaker 4: opposition party, holding just a single seat in Japan's two
Speaker 4: hundred and forty eight seat upper house, also called the
Speaker 4: House of Councilors. This changed in the recent election of
Speaker 4: July twentieth, when Sanseeto walked away with a whopping fourteen
Speaker 4: new seats in the House.
Speaker 3: And this is not a this goes back to our
Speaker 3: European comparison, you can have coalition parties, right, so you
Speaker 3: can have a group of some people get you know,
Speaker 3: X amount of seats, some other group gets wide amount
Speaker 3: of seats and they team up and agree to largely
Speaker 3: vote together. That doesn't really happen in US democracy because
Speaker 3: we're a young country and we're still trying to figure
Speaker 3: stuff out.
Speaker 2: Yeah, quickly, let's talk about that diet thing because it'll
Speaker 2: help us understand that upper house, because there's an upper
Speaker 2: house in a lower house. Upper house, the House of
Speaker 2: Councilors feels a lot like the Senate to me, although
Speaker 2: it's not the same thing.
Speaker 3: It's not the same thing, but the diet is Congress
Speaker 3: house of Councilors. Yeah, let's think of it as the
Speaker 3: Senate exactly.
Speaker 2: And then you've got you have another house of representatives,
Speaker 2: which is the lower House, which is it's very interesting.
Speaker 2: There are four and eighty members in that house. But
Speaker 2: I was looking through I think it's the official website
Speaker 2: of the Prime Minister of Japan, and the way it's
Speaker 2: described here, I'm just going to say this out loud
Speaker 2: just so we hear it and then maybe we can
Speaker 2: break it down. Sure, so there are foreign eighty members
Speaker 2: of the House of Representatives. Three hundred are elected from
Speaker 2: the single seat constituencies, and one hundred and eighty by
Speaker 2: their proportional representation system, in which the nation is divided
Speaker 2: into eleven electoral blocks, which.
Speaker 4: According to Sary, dissimilar to the way we do things, right,
Speaker 4: is it?
Speaker 2: Is it kind of that way? I don't Maybe I
Speaker 2: just don't understand voting blocks.
Speaker 4: And there's districts and redistricting and you know, all that stuff,
Speaker 4: and proportional representation over here. I mean, it seems like
Speaker 4: it has some things in common, but I might be oversimplifying.
Speaker 2: So yeah, that would go into some of the redistricting
Speaker 2: stuff that we're seeing in the news, where a certain representative,
Speaker 2: you know, represents X people within these lines.
Speaker 3: That kind of thing.
Speaker 2: Okay, that makes sense. So then the House of Councilors,
Speaker 2: the total membership, at least according to this website of
Speaker 2: the House of Councilors says two hundred and forty two, says,
Speaker 2: ninety six of those are elected the proportional representation system,
Speaker 2: and then one hundred and forty six from forty seven
Speaker 2: different prefectural constituencies. And again, like I don't understand all
Speaker 2: of that stuff. But it is important to know that
Speaker 2: term office for someone in the House of Councilors is
Speaker 2: six years.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and again, proportional representation is going to be familiar
Speaker 3: to anybody thinking of the House of Reps here in
Speaker 3: the United States, where in the number of Congress folks
Speaker 3: you get is based on the population.
Speaker 4: Yeah, people alway talking about, oh, we picked up a
Speaker 4: new seats, you know, because the population changed or whatever.
Speaker 4: And then there's of course even obviously not super hard
Speaker 4: to detect ways of trying to manipulate that, you know.
Speaker 3: And yeah, mister mander Jerry has entered the chat. So
Speaker 3: how do we explain this meteoric rise from one seat
Speaker 3: for three years to all of a sudden in a
Speaker 3: recent just an election a few months ago, now we
Speaker 3: got fourteen seats, and this can make a big difference,
Speaker 3: especially when you have coalition systems. We can't ignore the
Speaker 3: COVID nineteen pandemic.
Speaker 4: It shook up a lot of stuff in a lot
Speaker 4: of places.
Speaker 3: And it put a lot of people in a situation
Speaker 3: where they were much more vulnerable to the mechanisms of
Speaker 3: online disinformation. And this is where we see Sanseto really
Speaker 3: rolling up with.
Speaker 4: Some big dice and again how familiar.
Speaker 3: Parallels. Everything is precedent and a lot of these things
Speaker 3: are sadly similar. The Japanese public, like the rest of
Speaker 3: the world, is locked away, and this political movement blows
Speaker 3: up on the Internet partially as a result, they're just
Speaker 3: more eyes on more screens. Their members get known for
Speaker 3: trumpeting conspiracy theories about vaccinations, anti Semitism, revisionist history, and more,
Speaker 3: and they find an audience. Huge percentage of their voting
Speaker 3: demographic is going to be young eighteen to thirty year
Speaker 3: old male searching for alternatives to the status quo because
Speaker 3: the economy is rough right. Earlier generations, you could get
Speaker 3: a job for life at a large corporation, but younger
Speaker 3: folks are having a much more difficult time finding long
Speaker 3: term substantive employment.
Speaker 2: Well, we talked about how serious school is taken in
Speaker 2: Japan culturally, and just how much pressure is on each
Speaker 2: individual student to like truly fully succeed to get to
Speaker 2: go to secondary school or higher degree, to continue on
Speaker 2: to get that good job.
Speaker 4: Right well, and with that almost a guarantee within that
Speaker 4: system of getting that career that you were promised of
Speaker 4: carrying forth that legacy.
Speaker 3: Which is why suicide rates tend to spike after people
Speaker 3: receive their final exam grades and their college acceptance letters.
Speaker 2: Yes, but you also see this thing happening in Japan
Speaker 2: and the United States and across the world where the
Speaker 2: older generation of folks is staying around for much longer now,
Speaker 2: right to run corporations, to you know, be in that
Speaker 2: job that would be the next jump up, so that
Speaker 2: you could get new people in to hire. Within government,
Speaker 2: the old guard is sticking around.
Speaker 3: Right, well, yeah, yeah, what by saying stick around, we
Speaker 3: mean that they're retiring later, Yes.
Speaker 2: But people are retired later. But you've also got folks,
Speaker 2: you know, we're talking about how often you have to
Speaker 2: get re elected to a term, right, either six years
Speaker 2: if you're in the upper House, four years if you're
Speaker 2: in the lower House. And they're seeing people stick around
Speaker 2: there and get re elected over and over and over again,
Speaker 2: and you can imagine the view of it's time to
Speaker 2: switch these people out. Yeah, no, you know, And that's
Speaker 2: a base belief without any of the other stuff on
Speaker 2: top of it, just that feeling.
Speaker 3: Right, and it's a universal feeling too. Right. Your time's up,
Speaker 3: old man, Let me take the stick. That kind of
Speaker 3: thing again, they'll say no, very few of them saying yes,
Speaker 3: even if they're talking directly to their own scion. But
Speaker 3: in addition, because of these economic factors, we see that
Speaker 3: marriage is difficult, right, Raising children is a hefty financial proposition,
Speaker 3: buying a home, these are all much more difficult to accomplish.
Speaker 3: And there's still, of course, this conservative milieu that says, hey,
Speaker 3: you as a woman can't You can't have a kid
Speaker 3: and have a job, right, Or you as a dude,
Speaker 3: right when you get your forever job, when you become
Speaker 3: one of those vaunted aspirational salarymen. Well, your family kind
Speaker 3: of exist on the weekends, okay, and everybody be cool.
Speaker 3: And a lot of people are saying, oh wait, hang on,
Speaker 3: I'm a human being that's actually not super cool. And
Speaker 3: these are understandable problems.
Speaker 2: That's the response.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 4: Well, we even talked about, like within that culture, how
Speaker 4: some very interesting entrepreneurial situations pop up, like companies that
Speaker 4: will quit your job for you so that you don't
Speaker 4: have to face your boss or even Ben, I think
Speaker 4: you and I were talking offline about this, companies that
Speaker 4: will like disappear you if you've shamed your family or whatever,
Speaker 4: like so you can live off the grid and not
Speaker 4: have to you know, be ridiculed and may be seen
Speaker 4: as a failure.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they'll obscure your trail. And it's it's not illegal
Speaker 3: to disappear folks. As we talked in the past, the
Speaker 3: concept of pseudo side is dicey, but just leaving, just
Speaker 3: sort of laying down away from society. There's nothing illegal
Speaker 3: about that, as long as you aren't ditching out on
Speaker 3: debts and as long as you're not trying to get
Speaker 3: money by faking your death. So we can't blame a
Speaker 3: lot of people in very competitive environments for just getting
Speaker 3: tired and burned out. And you vote with your actions,
Speaker 3: ever since the beginning of tribes, that's the number one
Speaker 3: way people vote. And when we see that perspective, we
Speaker 3: see that a lot of Japanese nationals are voting with
Speaker 3: their actions by saying, well, why would I bother get married?
Speaker 3: Why would I sign up for this hellish Sisyphian life
Speaker 3: of working till I die, right and then barely seeing
Speaker 3: a kid and then yelling at the kid when I
Speaker 3: do see them. So as a result, birth rates are plummeting.
Speaker 3: Even the popular media accuses other countries of trying to
Speaker 3: besmirch Japan's culture and reputation. You click on you know,
Speaker 3: you're hanging out somewhere, right and isekaya or a hotel
Speaker 3: room or something. You see the news, the local news,
Speaker 3: and there's this heavy implication that the world is telling
Speaker 3: you it is wrong for you to be Japanese. Yeah.
Speaker 2: We also see in parallel to that a massive rise
Speaker 2: and popularity of Japanese cultural things. Yes, yes, in other places,
Speaker 2: which is just a very interesting notion to have those
Speaker 2: two movements occurring together.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Every country is a land of contradictions, right,
Speaker 3: and this is I love this point because it brings
Speaker 3: us to more parallels. Here Amid COVID nineteen right, Sanseto
Speaker 3: hits the zeitgeist. They urge potential voters to be proud
Speaker 3: of your ethnicity and culture. There's nothing inherently wrong with that,
Speaker 3: except when it leads to racism and things like white
Speaker 3: supremacy and so on. They also pivot and they say,
Speaker 3: you know how your life is tough and you're kind
Speaker 3: of unhappy and unsatisfied. Well, it's not due to the
Speaker 3: economics of Japan itself. Really, Instead, it's due to these foreigners,
Speaker 3: these immigrant hordes. The phrase they use over and over
Speaker 3: again is silent invasion. It's due to these globalists who
Speaker 3: are messing with something that would have been fine if
Speaker 3: we never said yes to the Portuguese in the first place. Basically,
Speaker 3: so they say, is the motto Japan First.
Speaker 4: Huh Sorry, It's almost like they got the idea from
Speaker 4: somebody who also got the idea from somebody. This is
Speaker 4: just a pattern, I mean, this rise of nationalism and
Speaker 4: then words like patriot or nationalists almost beginning to have
Speaker 4: a dog whistle feel to them, you know, for xenophobic
Speaker 4: or a racist.
Speaker 3: Yeah. And to your point there, the reason sounds familiar
Speaker 3: is because this party, the DIY Party, explicitly notes the
Speaker 3: phrase Japan First was inspired by the current US President
Speaker 3: Donald Trump. Okay, so they're there a secret. They're saying,
Speaker 3: we think this is a pretty cool idea. Yeah wow.
Speaker 3: And then they continue with international racism, not really targeting,
Speaker 3: not really targeting like Canadians and US folks and other
Speaker 3: folks from the anglosphere. Although they hate Australian tourists. Sorry, guys,
Speaker 3: there's a reputation that was someone earned.
Speaker 2: But they how do they feel about American tours seriously, like,
Speaker 2: what what have you experienced?
Speaker 4: Ben?
Speaker 2: I mean, just what have you experienced traveling through Japan?
Speaker 2: It does has it been? Doesn't seem like he's been
Speaker 2: negative at all?
Speaker 3: Uh No, No, usually there for specific reasons. Always it
Speaker 3: depends on where you go, right, So you go to Tokyo,
Speaker 3: it's like you're going to New York or London. People
Speaker 3: are too busy, right in general, I will say in
Speaker 3: Tokyo there's a little bit more of an emphasis on
Speaker 3: helping folks who may clearly seem out of their depth.
Speaker 3: So the public transit is awesome, right, It's worlds away,
Speaker 3: streets ahead, as community would say, but it can be
Speaker 3: very confusing if you don't know where you're going, right,
Speaker 3: because it's essentially a circulatory system for a country. So
Speaker 3: there's this whole cottage industry of volunteers, often older people,
Speaker 3: often older dudes. They don't necessarily work for the transit system,
Speaker 3: but they pick a day out of the week and
Speaker 3: then just hang out at the station and they help
Speaker 3: people figure out where to go. It's a pretty beautiful thing.
Speaker 3: And you know, I'll tell you it probably wouldn't happen
Speaker 3: in Boston.
Speaker 4: Well, and my understanding too is that in general, people
Speaker 4: there are pretty and to your pointment in the bigger cities,
Speaker 4: pretty helpful to tourists and not always doing it for money.
Speaker 4: You know, they're proud of their city, and I think
Speaker 4: tourism is obviously big money there, and it does not
Speaker 4: seem to my eyes anyway that there's a resentment like
Speaker 4: you might see in places like Barcelona.
Speaker 3: And yeah, it's also very much a well, it's not
Speaker 3: an overt yelling society unless someone's having a bad day
Speaker 3: and they assume that you don't know any Japanese. But
Speaker 3: there's also an intense, relatively skin based hierarchy. So if
Speaker 3: you are a lighter skinned person from the US, you
Speaker 3: are going to be treated differently, and you're probably going
Speaker 3: to be there's going to be a slightly more friendly
Speaker 3: attitude towards you than if you were a darker skinned person.
Speaker 3: And you know, like in rural areas, I've never had
Speaker 3: an issue in cities, I've never had an issue because
Speaker 3: I'm a huge believer in the idea that energy is
Speaker 3: a two way street. You know, so if you are
Speaker 3: respectful with some one right and you are understanding the
Speaker 3: boundaries that they may have, and you put just a
Speaker 3: little bit of time in to figuring out how to
Speaker 3: not look like it. It's going to go a long,
Speaker 3: long way, dude.
Speaker 4: That's the key to life right there, My friends, don't
Speaker 4: be in like read the room. Don't make you know
Speaker 4: it's good.
Speaker 3: But I have seen to your to your question direct,
Speaker 3: I have seen. I have seen people who are just
Speaker 3: tired of all these tourists, especially in very tourists heavy
Speaker 3: cities like Kyoto at certain times of year. There's more
Speaker 3: of an exasperation than like hostility, right, yes, But exasperation
Speaker 3: is a cousin of hostility, It's true, you know. And
Speaker 3: the one of the big complaints, for instance, that you
Speaker 3: will see in this galvanized Sanseeto as well, is the
Speaker 3: idea of, hey, these tourists are crowding all of the
Speaker 3: trains and the buses. I'm not here for, you know,
Speaker 3: insert festival. I live here and I have to get
Speaker 3: to work on time, and I can't get on the
Speaker 3: bus because of all these gosh dart And then they'll
Speaker 3: insert a phrase, and that phrase I mean often often
Speaker 3: the discrimination the complaints are going to be centered on
Speaker 3: Singaporean and Chinese nationals. More America make sauces. Yeah, it's deep,
Speaker 3: it goes deep.
Speaker 2: But we also see something parallel here with like what's
Speaker 2: happening in Spain. I think we've just mentioned that with
Speaker 2: housing prices rental homes, yes, and crowding people out of
Speaker 2: their own city, yeah, and pricing people out mm hmm.
Speaker 3: Yeah exactly. And with this we have to realize there
Speaker 3: is already like this didn't come from a vacuum. There's
Speaker 3: already a lot of emphasis placed on who is Japanese, right,
Speaker 3: And we're speaking as non Japanese people to be clear
Speaker 3: who is Japanese and who is not and the indefinable
Speaker 3: but inescapable differences between the two. I'd like to give
Speaker 3: a shout out for anybody's interested in learning more about
Speaker 3: this stuff. Check out our friend Miles's show on The
Speaker 3: Daily Zeitgeist. Miles has Japanese and African American heritage, Miles
Speaker 3: speaks Japanese. He is well suited to remark on this
Speaker 3: and be fascinating to hear his view on Japan's far right.
Speaker 2: But you think we could ever get him on like
Speaker 2: that'd be interesting to do this episode with him on
Speaker 2: something like this.
Speaker 3: It depends on what we want to talk about with him. Okay, okay, yeah,
Speaker 3: but yeah we should check in. Yeah, we'll see. These
Speaker 3: are busy guys because their show comes out literally every day,
Speaker 3: a couple of times, a couple times every day. Wow. Yeah,
Speaker 3: So there's another there's another fact here that we should mention.
Speaker 3: If you are not considered Japanese, if you're considered a
Speaker 3: foreigner by the Japanese government, you can become a foreign resident.
Speaker 3: You can even with enough time and effort, become a
Speaker 3: Japanese passport holder. But the word for you that people
Speaker 3: will use for you does not translate to Japanese, translates
Speaker 3: to foreigner with a Japanese passport.
Speaker 2: Well, that makes sense, it does.
Speaker 3: It's descriptive. I don't know, it's a bit of a day.
Speaker 4: It's a bit of a day, right, there's no question.
Speaker 3: It's just very like you will never be you will
Speaker 3: never exactly. And so people are, you know, looking around
Speaker 3: at all these terrible economic challenges. You know, I can't
Speaker 3: get on the bus. This is I'm not doing anything special.
Speaker 3: I'm just trying to go to work. Very understandable stuff.
Speaker 3: These tours are rude to me right out in Golden
Speaker 3: Gey or whatever. But then we have to ask, is
Speaker 3: there an immigration crisis? Is there a silent invasion of foreigners?
Speaker 3: And that doesn't seem to be the case.
Speaker 4: We asked that same question over here, and I mean,
Speaker 4: there are a lot of people that have similarly on
Speaker 4: paper reasonable complaints about immigration here in the United States.
Speaker 4: But is it a crisis? Not necessarily, but it's certainly
Speaker 4: a way to rile up a particular base. And they
Speaker 4: seem like talking point.
Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly again parallels.
Speaker 2: But often talking points that will rile people up action
Speaker 2: enough to take. Actually, yes, exactly, but not necessarily based
Speaker 2: in truth.
Speaker 3: Right, don't hit the analytical part of the brain, hit
Speaker 3: the emotive part of the brain, right, get that primal
Speaker 3: stuff cooking, And that's that's what happens. We see if
Speaker 3: you go to the Streets Times, Japan's foreign residency rows
Speaker 3: ten in twenty twenty four. Right, that's a big rise.
Speaker 3: That means the total population of permanent foreign residents is
Speaker 3: three point seven six million. That's a little over three
Speaker 3: percent of the population.
Speaker 2: WHOA, that's not much.
Speaker 3: That's not much at all. No, and keep in mind,
Speaker 3: a lot of those folks who are foreign residents are
Speaker 3: highly skilled workers. For instance, right, a lot of them
Speaker 3: are there because a big to do company specifically wanted
Speaker 3: them there. Right, those kids who are out doing English
Speaker 3: teaching programs are not going to end up being for
Speaker 3: permanent residents, you know, They're not gonna end up getting
Speaker 3: that dubious distinction of foreign or with the Japanese passport.
Speaker 3: They're going to eventually skid outle off or maybe marry somebody.
Speaker 2: I'll tell you, guys, I really did have dreams of that, yeah,
Speaker 2: of living in Japan. Yeah. And I don't know why
Speaker 2: that's instilled. Did you guys ever experience that when you
Speaker 2: were younger, Like the feeling or the concept or the
Speaker 2: I don't know. It felt like a really interesting place.
Speaker 4: For me, but I definitely understand the romanticization of a
Speaker 4: place like that when you're younger.
Speaker 2: For sure, it was specifically Tokyo because and it was
Speaker 2: something about I don't know, pop culture at the time.
Speaker 2: I blame Ninja Turtles.
Speaker 5: I don't know why, because everything looks like the future
Speaker 5: radicalized you bro exactly, And a lot of people share
Speaker 5: that about any other number of places.
Speaker 3: Right. Part of growing up is going somewhere else in
Speaker 3: some shape, form or fashion, and so everybody has. I
Speaker 3: think that that impetus. And as long as you are
Speaker 3: realistic about it, when you're there and you're respectful, then
Speaker 3: people are usually going to be cool with you. To
Speaker 3: show that we're not casting this version on Japan in
Speaker 3: particular or even Americans. This happens in Paris all the time.
Speaker 3: There's actually a word called, or a term called Paris syndrome,
Speaker 3: which is somewhat common among female identified Japanese nationals who
Speaker 3: dream of going to Paris because France is a huge
Speaker 3: deal culturally. And then they get to Paris, right that
Speaker 3: they see the needles and the graffiti they used condoms,
Speaker 3: someone picks their pocket and they break the heck down
Speaker 3: because this was not what AMAI told them.
Speaker 4: What happened, Well, they should call unwanted Parisian tourists parasites.
Speaker 3: I love it.
Speaker 2: You're on fire today, dude, shout out to parasite for
Speaker 2: South Korean film to be amazing. Memen talking about breaking
Speaker 2: the mold there, breaking out of all that money in Stepwell, I.
Speaker 3: Don't know for sure. Well, yeah, well there's also you know,
Speaker 3: I'm glad to bring that up because they're also similar
Speaker 3: socioeconomic dynamics at play in the Republic of Korea and
Speaker 3: South Korea anyway, So a little over three percent of
Speaker 3: the population foreign residents. Inarguably, this is a growth pattern.
Speaker 3: And the leader of Sanseeto again this just started in
Speaker 3: twenty twenty. He's a guy named Sohe Kameya, and he
Speaker 3: uses statistics like this to stoke those public fears of
Speaker 3: foreign hordes evading the nation. And then in the same
Speaker 3: conference he'll say, I mean, obviously we're not going to
Speaker 3: discriminate against folks.
Speaker 2: No, no, no, that's just a problem. But you know,
Speaker 2: it's a problem, it's a common problem.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we're civilized. I'm just saying they're barbarians. Geez, I'm
Speaker 3: just saying they're terrible. Everybody calmed down. Uh yeah, that's
Speaker 3: what's again parallels and but.
Speaker 2: It's it's it's so strange to see that when the
Speaker 2: rhetoric is kind of like that, we saw it similarly
Speaker 2: here in the US, and then to see the actions
Speaker 2: taking place with ice and homeland security and all like
Speaker 2: all the things that are occurring right now that I
Speaker 2: don't know about you guys, but to me, as almost
Speaker 2: an observer, now what's happening, you feel a little bit
Speaker 2: powerless to now watch it happening because it was posed
Speaker 2: as this. It's just that, you know, we're just we're
Speaker 2: just saying these things. We're just talking about these things.
Speaker 2: We think these things. Doesn't mean we're gonna do anything about.
Speaker 3: This is just an issue we need to collectively acknowledge, right, Yeah,
Speaker 3: And you see this a lot in Europe as well,
Speaker 3: in the European theater. It's happening all over the place,
Speaker 3: and the leaders of this political party will say, look,
Speaker 3: we're just saying we need to be aware some we
Speaker 3: all need to get together on and as a team,
Speaker 3: as a nation, we can address this somehow. The reason
Speaker 3: our platform is actually so popular is because we want
Speaker 3: to cut taxes, we want to boost public spending, and
Speaker 3: we want to protect jobs. Foreigners are taking all our jobs.
Speaker 3: This conference is over. So we see it everywhere. I mean,
Speaker 3: far right parties are on the rise in Europe, parts
Speaker 3: of Africa, definitely South America. I was surprised, as I'm
Speaker 3: sure all of us were, when Bolsonaro actually got sentenced
Speaker 3: to prison. Yeah, that was wild. I didn't see that happening.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Well, then France's government collapsed just like a couple of
Speaker 2: days ago. We're just seeing all kinds of craziness up.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the heaves are up. And so some people will argue,
Speaker 3: even and this is observation, some people will argue that
Speaker 3: the Make America Great Again movement here in the UN
Speaker 3: is itself a far right movement. Your perception of that
Speaker 3: may vary. But the big question now is could organic
Speaker 3: popular support from the Japanese people alone could not explain
Speaker 3: the massive wins of this thing that, just until July
Speaker 3: was a wing nut, fringe political party. So why has
Speaker 3: san Seto succeeded where so many other similar Japanese movements,
Speaker 3: very similar movements failed. Right time, right place, right, Hey,
Speaker 3: we'll tackle it after a word from our sponsors, and
Speaker 3: we've returned. So the big question foreign funding and interference.
Speaker 3: Around the time of that recent July election, an analyst
Speaker 3: named Ichiu Yamamoto from a Guy, a smart guy from
Speaker 3: a think tank called the Japan Institute of Law and
Speaker 3: Information Systems went viral and he said, I have hard
Speaker 3: evidence that Russia, a foreign power, is heavily invested in
Speaker 3: this anti foreign power movement.
Speaker 2: Wait, wait a say, are we saying Russia is directly
Speaker 2: putting money into campaigns or are they doing stuff that
Speaker 2: they were alleged to have done here in the US previously.
Speaker 3: Right. Yeah, and one blog post he claims to have
Speaker 3: hard evidence that quote, anti government propaganda by Russian bought
Speaker 3: accounts was what made this small far right party so
Speaker 3: popular leading up to the election. And then he outlines
Speaker 3: the process, which is going to sound very familiar to
Speaker 3: a lot of us.
Speaker 4: This is what he had to say. Russian bought accounts,
Speaker 4: bought accounts on various social media platforms including x TikTok
Speaker 4: and Instagram, have been spreading false information and criticism about
Speaker 4: major government officials, including Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba and Foreign
Speaker 4: Minister Takashi Iwaya, to manipulate public impressions.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so spam the online comms, which hacks the alg
Speaker 3: rhythm and gets that post or that conversation further up,
Speaker 3: increasing the chances that will meet a sympathetic stranger, gain
Speaker 3: a large number of likes, spread to more and more users,
Speaker 3: despite no whatever fact checking it. Beautiful, brilliant evil. He
Speaker 3: also notes these candidates from this party are appeared on
Speaker 3: Russian government media, which is true. Really Yeah, yeah, make
Speaker 3: Japan great again. Yeah. And then there are the allegations
Speaker 3: to your question mat about dark money from Russia in
Speaker 3: a way that is very difficult to trace.
Speaker 2: It always makes me wonder about the local level when
Speaker 2: money can sneak in there and then find its way
Speaker 2: up right, rather than in a high profile way come
Speaker 2: in to the people who are actually running for the
Speaker 2: House of Counselors something.
Speaker 3: That's exactly what it is. It has not been conclusively
Speaker 3: proven any of these allegations for or dark money, but
Speaker 3: it is much easier to trace national level financial shenanigans
Speaker 3: than the local stuff. And again, the reason we keep
Speaker 3: saying they're parallels is because large scale election influencers like
Speaker 3: the Koch brothers here in the United States and in
Speaker 3: other parts of the anglosphere, but to a much lesser degree,
Speaker 3: they met with a lot of success funding local politicians
Speaker 3: for decades in the United States because they don't have
Speaker 3: term limits, they just hire the people who have term limits,
Speaker 3: They buy them and puppeteer them.
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, and the people who end up making rules
Speaker 2: and regulations within like a small sector of the US
Speaker 2: where let's say a factory is or where a business
Speaker 2: is run, which ends up being a huge deal for
Speaker 2: somebody you like the Cooch brothers. But then if you're
Speaker 2: dealing with actual interference from another country, it makes you
Speaker 2: wonder why would you do that, right.
Speaker 3: If you are so anti foreign influence. If not in
Speaker 3: Japanese residents are a silent invasion, then isn't dark money
Speaker 3: in info war from a foreign power also a silent invasion?
Speaker 3: Isn't that the influence you were talking about being bad earlier? Yep,
Speaker 3: you know, maybe we didn't catch the right press briefing,
Speaker 3: but we want to be fair. The leaders of Sunseto
Speaker 3: have denied any and all allegations. The leader So High
Speaker 3: Kama was pressed about this on July fifteenth, and they said, hey, seriously,
Speaker 3: break it down. In Moscow man, you mess with you
Speaker 3: mess with Moscow money. He said, you know, do you
Speaker 3: have ties to him? And he said, we don't, not
Speaker 3: at all, not with Russia, not with China, not with America.
Speaker 3: We do not. We keep balanced diplomacy with any country.
Speaker 3: And just because some of my folks appeared on Russian
Speaker 3: media doesn't mean we're suddenly pro Russia. And they said, okay, yeah,
Speaker 3: we'd like to read some your earlier statements about your
Speaker 3: support for Russia. Just like while we're on this topic.
Speaker 3: So he got caught in the interview because he was
Speaker 3: on record supporting Russia's role in the Ukraine invasion or
Speaker 3: supporting the Russian argument for that. And we'll give you
Speaker 3: a quote so you can see how he responded.
Speaker 2: Yeah, upon seeing all of that, right being presented with
Speaker 2: it in the moment, he replied, quote, Russia's military invasion was,
Speaker 2: of course bad, but there are forces in the US
Speaker 2: that drove Russia into doing that. So I said once
Speaker 2: that it's not fair to say Russia is the only
Speaker 2: bad guy here. And then people began saying I'm pro Russia, right.
Speaker 3: Just for being so pro Russia. Yeah, I mean from
Speaker 3: but yeah.
Speaker 2: On the surface, we know from our previous explorations of
Speaker 2: the situation happening in Ukraine right now between Russia, about
Speaker 2: the complicated nature and the history right of ownership over
Speaker 2: that land, of all of that stuff, Like, we know
Speaker 2: it's more complicated than there's a good guy, there's a
Speaker 2: bad guy.
Speaker 3: But but it is.
Speaker 2: It's one of those things when you get involved in
Speaker 2: that kind of thing, even to make a public statement
Speaker 2: about it, especially on one of the country's medias, it
Speaker 2: does seem to show some bias.
Speaker 3: Yeah, from his perspective, he's being fair and balanced, right,
Speaker 3: he said, I am a statesman from Japan, so I
Speaker 3: don't have necessarily a horse in the race, which makes
Speaker 3: me more objective. Right. It's you guys who are brainwashed
Speaker 3: and influenced. I'm not being paid or influenced by some conspiracy.
Speaker 3: So what does the official Japanese government make of this?
Speaker 3: They'll buy it, spoiler, They don't buy what he say.
Speaker 3: They think Russia's up to something. They recently said through
Speaker 3: the deputy Chief Cabinet secretary. They said Japan is working
Speaker 3: on the premise that they're being targeted by foreign luin's operations.
Speaker 3: They think something is screwy and the aw yeah and
Speaker 3: just and in.
Speaker 2: The cabinet, by the way, is like the executive branch
Speaker 2: within the Japanese government.
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, they're the c suite. And on
Speaker 3: July sixteenth, just four days before the election, he also
Speaker 3: said the same cabinet secretary said Japan is a target
Speaker 3: of foreign election interference. Low and behold, this once cartoonishly
Speaker 3: obscure political party walks away with the biggest growth of
Speaker 3: any Japanese political party in recent history. It makes you wonder,
Speaker 3: makes you wonder.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but surely it's just the grassroots movement of do
Speaker 2: it yourself attitude, rightey Man booststraps.
Speaker 3: Yeah, power to the people, that's what you say in
Speaker 3: Saint Petersburg. We also know we're talking about this a
Speaker 3: little bit off air. You can go to Japan in
Speaker 3: many cities, rural areas, you'll see something called the Yoko Dantai. Uh.
Speaker 3: These are far right activists, internaturals, dudes with honestly sick fans.
Speaker 3: They converted their vans and they have flames on them.
Speaker 3: They got skulls, they got old carbon propaganda. They've got
Speaker 3: these amazing loud speaker systems they roll through towns and
Speaker 3: protests and uses. They got charter buses. They've got all
Speaker 3: these propaganda slogans. They'll sing patriotic songs.
Speaker 4: So they're well funded.
Speaker 3: Someone's funded by whom.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's okay, we're on the same page. It was
Speaker 4: because things ain't cheap. But it sounds like they're new.
Speaker 4: It's not like a ragtag you know, right, They've.
Speaker 3: Been around for decades, but they now appear to have
Speaker 3: garnered much more funding.
Speaker 4: That would make sense.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So they implore the public to stand up for Japan.
Speaker 3: I actually got a high five from one of these
Speaker 3: guys because I was just standing around in Hokkaido and
Speaker 3: I didn't know what they were saying. I was like,
Speaker 3: these guys know how to throw a party. Five me back.
Speaker 4: It's not that kind of party, ben, is it.
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 3: I hope that doesn't come back to haunt me. But
Speaker 3: they're they're talking about ridding the Great Nation of forid invaders, leeches,
Speaker 3: and parasites. And they're usually when they're saying that, to
Speaker 3: be explicit, they're usually talking about people from other Asian
Speaker 3: countries that they don't like, you know, like Korean descended
Speaker 3: populations who have lived in Japan for generations, generations, right,
Speaker 3: and they're talking about often darker skinned people especially. They're
Speaker 3: talking about how they don't like Chinese people. Their cause
Speaker 3: is galvanized. They're gaining new followers, more influence, bigger say
Speaker 3: in government, and they're aligning with one of our favorite
Speaker 3: secret textbooks, Alexander Dugan's Foundation of Geopolitics Dun Dun Dum.
Speaker 2: We did a whole episode on Alexander Dugan.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, the alex Jones of his time.
Speaker 4: Dugan. That's different, that's do check that out if you
Speaker 4: all aren't familiar Longmont potion Castle, it's these absurdist like
Speaker 4: proto jerky Boy but way more psychedelic prank kind of
Speaker 4: phone calls. And there's one where there's a character he's
Speaker 4: talking about named Dugan Nash.
Speaker 2: Sorry, well totally, that's amazing. The episode we did was
Speaker 2: called does Russia Have a New Resputant? And I believe
Speaker 2: you could find it from twenty nineteen.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well it's still up. We hope it is. This book,
Speaker 3: do check out our episode on it, which if you
Speaker 3: really listen to it, it's kind of frightening. But this
Speaker 3: book is made by guy who's kind of often called
Speaker 3: in a cult wing nut right, who just sat down
Speaker 3: and made a bunch of opinions and directions for Russia
Speaker 3: to re emerge as the world's primary superpower and so
Speaker 3: as a laundry list of stuff that the Russian government
Speaker 3: should do across the planet, largely to weaken and attack
Speaker 3: the United States asymmetrically. And he breaks it up into
Speaker 3: different spheres what we call regions, right, the East African sphere,
Speaker 3: you know, the East Asian theater, stuff like that, And
Speaker 3: his idea for Japan was not that you attack Japan
Speaker 3: directly you try to sanction them or something which Russia
Speaker 3: would have a hard time doing, but instead that you
Speaker 3: manipulate their internal domestic politics and culture. You maybe give
Speaker 3: them a deal, You give them the Kurral Islands, which
Speaker 3: are very north in Japan, and then you use that
Speaker 3: leverage and that descent you have created to remove Japan
Speaker 3: from the International Board, other than supporting your causes and
Speaker 3: saying like, hey, there's not really a good guy or
Speaker 3: a bad guy in Ukraine. Oh yeah, it's working.
Speaker 2: You know all of this when thinking about the context
Speaker 2: of what just happened during Victory Day in China and
Speaker 2: the coalition of forces that are building there and the
Speaker 2: movements and some of the public statements specifically by Jijinping
Speaker 2: and some of the leaders there, you can see you
Speaker 2: can see movements occurring, and it feels like this could
Speaker 2: be a big part of that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, absolutely right. You can see. The question is are
Speaker 3: we recognizing a pattern or are we manufacturing one to
Speaker 3: fit our own assumptions, And that's always a very difficult
Speaker 3: question to answer at this point in the game. But however,
Speaker 3: they came to prominence, this political party, Japan's far right,
Speaker 3: and their allies. They're having a field day, and no
Speaker 3: one is sure what is going to happen next. We know,
Speaker 3: politics always a sensitive issue, especially now here in the States,
Speaker 3: and that's because voting and civic action and activism it's
Speaker 3: largely been replaced by the dopamine casino cycle of social media.
Speaker 3: You know, it's difficult, it's pickle because we have to ask,
Speaker 3: is this a case of a nation truly speaking its
Speaker 3: own voice, not just in Japan but in every country
Speaker 3: especially now. If it is true, if this is organic democracy,
Speaker 3: then we don't have to love it. We only have
Speaker 3: to acknowledge it is democracy, and that's how it's supposed
Speaker 3: to work, for better or worse. But there are serious,
Speaker 3: dangerous questions about how much of this is actually organic
Speaker 3: and how much instead is the stuff they don't want
Speaker 3: you to know.
Speaker 2: I certainly think it is well in our previous episodes
Speaker 2: and explorations of specifically what the United States would do
Speaker 2: to weaken another country when they would go into Latin America,
Speaker 2: South America, in certain countries in Africa, it is the
Speaker 2: exact thing that we're looking at here and in parallel
Speaker 2: in the United States, where you weaken the internal systems
Speaker 2: and the human beings that are supposed to govern those systems,
Speaker 2: and the culture and politics and all of that stuff.
Speaker 2: As you're weakening all of that, it means the governing bodies,
Speaker 2: the decision makers at the top, are not going to
Speaker 2: be as strong, and they're not going to have the
Speaker 2: will of the people behind them to do certain things.
Speaker 2: Doesn't it feel exactly like that's what's happening, Whether it's
Speaker 2: whether it's occurring from within or from some exterior force,
Speaker 2: it feels like that's the very thing that's happening across
Speaker 2: the world in places like Japan and the.
Speaker 4: And it's happened before, and it's happening again.
Speaker 3: It's cyclical. M M. Yeah. We cannot. We cannot further
Speaker 3: emphasize that you should check out Foundations of Geopolitics or
Speaker 3: at least our episode audit. And it's important to ask
Speaker 3: these questions because eroding trust in institutions, whether or not
Speaker 3: those institutions deserve to lose that trust, is the first
Speaker 3: step too massive upheaval. And that is not just the
Speaker 3: stuff they don't want you to know. It is the
Speaker 3: stuff that happens continually over centuries, over millennia, and this
Speaker 3: modern Millennia is indeed no different except for one thing.
Speaker 3: We've got a podcast now and we want you to
Speaker 3: be part of it. So let us know, help us,
Speaker 3: help us understand the course of history, the past president
Speaker 3: in the future by giving us a call on a telephone.
Speaker 3: You could, of course always get a random fact from
Speaker 3: us if you email us any time, and you can
Speaker 3: find us on the lines.
Speaker 4: That's right, you can find us on the lines. The
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