Speaker 1: All media. It's it could happen here. The thing that's
Speaker 1: happening is that Shinzo Wahabe is still dead one year on.
Speaker 1: That man has not gone back from the dead. He
Speaker 1: is still absolutely the most assassinated man of twenty twenty three,
Speaker 1: twenty twenty two. That well, you know, honestly, given how
Speaker 1: assassinated he is, we're giving him the credit for being
Speaker 1: the most assassinated man of twenty twenty three. And what's
Speaker 1: interesting about this assassination, and we talked about I talked
Speaker 1: about this really briefly in my sort of intro thing
Speaker 1: to the last episode that we ran about the Abbe assassination.
Speaker 1: But this has been maybe the most successful political assassination
Speaker 1: not done by the CIA in the last like seventy years,
Speaker 1: like absolutely stunningly incredibly successful political assassination because specifically of
Speaker 1: the political impact that the assassination has had on the
Speaker 1: Unification Church probably better known as the Moonies, and how
Speaker 1: it's been forcing the sort of Unification Church aligned ruling
Speaker 1: Liberal Democratic Party of Japan to like have a serious
Speaker 1: of embarrassing scandals where they revealed their like incredible intertwinement
Speaker 1: with the church apparatus and all of the culture they've
Speaker 1: been doing. And with me to talk about this is
Speaker 1: Alisa Majub, who's an ex Unification Church member who got
Speaker 1: out and who works with Deeprogramming Imperialism, which is a
Speaker 1: group that tells the sort of still untold story of
Speaker 1: how the Unification Church has worked with the CIA and
Speaker 1: the Korean CIA and enormous parts of the sort of
Speaker 1: the apparatus of the American imperial war machine to cause
Speaker 1: untold suffering on the world. Lisa, Welcome, Welcome to the show. Welcome,
Speaker 1: welcome back.
Speaker 2: Thank you appreciate it. I'm glad to be back.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so I'm excited to talk with you about this
Speaker 1: because we didn't really There's been a lot of very
Speaker 1: very interesting stuff happening in the last couple of months
Speaker 1: in Japan. But in order to do that, I think
Speaker 1: we need to we need to sort of talk about
Speaker 1: what this assassination was actually about. So the shooter, Tetsuya Yamagami,
Speaker 1: killed Abe because he couldn't get to a He was
Speaker 1: trying to kill a high ranking Unification Church guy and
Speaker 1: he like couldn't get to him. And the reason he
Speaker 1: was trying to do this is that his mom had
Speaker 1: given I think like seventy thousand yen to the church.
Speaker 1: I'm getting the number right, and had basically like, you know,
Speaker 1: like this is I I yeah, I wanted to talk
Speaker 1: to you a bit about this before we go into
Speaker 1: more of the abbe stuff about how the church's financial
Speaker 1: abuse works and how you know, like how how how
Speaker 1: how how this person's mom was compelled to sort of
Speaker 1: like literally give away all of their money to this cult.
Speaker 3: Right, Well, I would say it's sort of multi pronged
Speaker 3: approach that they use.
Speaker 2: Uh, they'll basically, oh, gosh, okay.
Speaker 3: So one of the main things that they'll do is
Speaker 3: they will charge people for ancestor liberation.
Speaker 2: Basically is that they'll say that.
Speaker 3: Your ancestors are going to go to heaven if you
Speaker 3: pay us this amount of money. And they'll have people
Speaker 3: do that for like generations and generations back in order
Speaker 3: to have their ancestors go to heaven.
Speaker 2: They do other.
Speaker 3: Spiritual sales, like the book. There was this one book
Speaker 3: from years ago that they charged people exorbitant fees on
Speaker 3: just because it was like some sort of like providential
Speaker 3: book of some sort. So spiritual sales are definitely like.
Speaker 2: A main focal point of this.
Speaker 3: Another thing that will happen is that like they'll they'll
Speaker 3: labor traffic people just straight up into like a lot
Speaker 3: of the time they would do fundraising teams where they
Speaker 3: would have people go out sell little trinkets and things
Speaker 3: on the street or flowers and come back and then
Speaker 3: give all that money to the cough of the church.
Speaker 3: Another thing that they do is tithes. You're expected to
Speaker 3: give a certain amount of your income basically to the church,
Speaker 3: and if you don't, it's like they're not going to
Speaker 3: be like they're there. It's like sort of you know,
Speaker 3: like you need to do better because you're not you're
Speaker 3: not doing enough for God kind of shit. So they
Speaker 3: have like a myriad ways that they really push people
Speaker 3: into spending money on them in their organizations, as well
Speaker 3: as having a ton of very successful businesses and capital
Speaker 3: ventures and whatnot. They they make guns, you name it,
Speaker 3: and so it all sort of comes together to this
Speaker 3: like very large wheelhouse of capital.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and Japan's so so I think I should probably
Speaker 1: I'm realizing I'm probably assuming that everyone who's listening to
Speaker 1: this has listened to the previous stuff we've done on
Speaker 1: the edification, and I don't know, I don't know how
Speaker 1: true that is. So I guess we should talk a
Speaker 1: little bit. We should back up a little bit and
Speaker 1: talk about just what the Unification Church is, and I
Speaker 1: guess also the importance of Japan to it, because Yeah,
Speaker 1: for everything that I've understood, Japan's like, you know, like
Speaker 1: they have a bunch of sort of businesses that they
Speaker 1: run in Korea, but Japan's kind of like their chief
Speaker 1: financial nexus. Like the last thing I saw, I think
Speaker 1: it was like like they directed like one hundred million
Speaker 1: dollars how Japan in the last few years.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they get they get so much.
Speaker 3: That's their main it's their main financial powerhouse within the church.
Speaker 3: And part of that is because the church claims that
Speaker 3: because of the occupation of Korea that Japanese members have
Speaker 3: to pay more indemnity monetarily, so everything with like you know,
Speaker 3: all of the spiritual sales and stuff are just like
Speaker 3: exorbitantly higher for those members, and that is just an
Speaker 3: easy way for them to make a lot more money.
Speaker 1: Yeah, which which is always a part of this thing.
Speaker 1: I thought is really interesting because you know, the church,
Speaker 1: and we've talked about this sort of at length in
Speaker 1: other places, but they are like hardcore right wing anti communists. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and like you know, have backed a lot of I
Speaker 1: mean just desk squads all over the world they backed
Speaker 1: they like they wound up backing pole Pot because like
Speaker 1: doing a RAN contrac twice wasn't enough for them, but
Speaker 1: a bunch Yeah. Yeah, it's like on once you once, once,
Speaker 1: you once you've once you've done a RAN contract multiple times,
Speaker 1: like you've got to there are very few places you
Speaker 1: can go other than like into pole Pot. But I
Speaker 1: think I think there's there's an interesting kind of game
Speaker 1: they're playing here because you know, on the one hand,
Speaker 1: so the party they're allied with in Japan, I mean
Speaker 1: there's like several parties they work with, but their biggest
Speaker 1: backer in the government is is the Liberal Democratic Party.
Speaker 1: And you know, if you want to hear me talk
Speaker 1: about the Liberal Democratic Party for a long long time,
Speaker 1: go listen to my Kishi episodes on Behind the Bastards,
Speaker 1: because that guy did one. So Masuki Kishi is the
Speaker 1: founder of the Little Democratic Party. He is a just
Speaker 1: horrific war criminal. I did like mass enslavement stuff like that,
Speaker 1: Like truly truly awful guy. He's like he's also the
Speaker 1: guy who just was in charge of like running the
Speaker 1: Japanese war machine dream World War two, and his grandson
Speaker 1: is is shinzo Abe. But there's just I think it's
Speaker 1: this interesting dynamic where you have, on the one hand,
Speaker 1: the Moonies are allying with these right wing guys who
Speaker 1: are either just straight up like like a lot of
Speaker 1: these people they're allying with are straight up like Nanjing denialists, right,
Speaker 1: they're like, you know, they're they're there are people whose
Speaker 1: lines on Japanese colonization or either that it was good
Speaker 1: or we didn't do any crimes.
Speaker 2: Right, Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So it comes off pretty pretty, you know, bold
Speaker 3: faced and ironic and just very obvious that this is
Speaker 3: a money ploy.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah. But but I think it's interesting kind of
Speaker 1: politically too, because you know, like if you if you
Speaker 1: on the one hand pushed Anihilism, but then on the
Speaker 1: other hand, you turn around and you're the only people
Speaker 1: going like, hey, look at all these crimes your government did,
Speaker 1: Like don't you owe like Korea so much? I feel
Speaker 1: like it's like it's a really like terrible and like
Speaker 1: it's just unbelievably cynical way of exploiting like exploiting just
Speaker 1: the horror of Japanese imperialism to get.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, it's it's very underhanded, especially giving that I
Speaker 3: feel like there is been some evidence that I mean
Speaker 3: at least early church members and those around them may
Speaker 3: have been collaborators at the time as well. So yeah,
Speaker 3: it's very disingenuine and a completely twisted way to go
Speaker 3: about anything. But people people buy into it and heavily.
Speaker 1: So yeah, one of the ways they've they sort of
Speaker 1: done this is allying with the Liberal Democratic Party. So
Speaker 1: nobodys take Kishi, who again is AB's grandfather, like, is
Speaker 1: the guy who brought the Unification Church into the party.
Speaker 1: And this was kind of a controversial thing because okay
Speaker 1: it was. It was kind of a controversial thing, not
Speaker 1: because the Unification Church is a cult, but because the
Speaker 1: Unification Church is Korean, which is like a dynamic that's
Speaker 1: at play. He and this whole thing, which is you
Speaker 1: have this weird okay. So there's like there's like two
Speaker 1: kinds of people who are anti Unification Church in Japan.
Speaker 1: It's you have like the leftists who are anti Unification
Speaker 1: Church because they're a cult and because they're you know,
Speaker 1: like a sort of cat's Paul of American imperialism, and
Speaker 1: then you have like these ultra right wingers who are like,
Speaker 1: these people are Koreans and so we hate them, which
Speaker 1: is like a I don't know, truly terrifying Japan dynamic.
Speaker 1: But Kishi's able to sort of overcome this and he okay,
Speaker 1: So this is the part. I don't know if you
Speaker 1: know more about this than I do. So every the
Speaker 1: stuff that I've seen about this talks about the Unification
Speaker 1: Church and the Yakuza kind of hammering out a deal
Speaker 1: to allow the Unification Church to like do their specific
Speaker 1: kinds of scams. And I've always assumed that Kishi brokeer
Speaker 1: this because Noboshiki Kishi also is very very well connected
Speaker 1: with the Yakuza. He's been connected with the yakuza since
Speaker 1: like the twenties and thirties, so I always assumed that
Speaker 1: he brokeer this deal. But I'm not entirely sure. I
Speaker 1: don't know. I don't know if you've run into anything
Speaker 1: about it.
Speaker 3: So I know that some of it has to do
Speaker 3: with Asami Kuboki, I believe, but I wouldn't be surprised
Speaker 3: if initial links do come through Kishi. I wouldn't I
Speaker 3: would not be surprised about that. I don't know where exactly, like,
Speaker 3: you know, initially that would make sense.
Speaker 2: That would make sense.
Speaker 3: Honestly because like going back to the sort of end
Speaker 3: of the Korean War and World War two. Uh, basically
Speaker 3: how all these you know, prisoners that were class A
Speaker 3: war criminals got you know, they got to let off
Speaker 3: the books because they decided to work for America now.
Speaker 2: And and and basically.
Speaker 3: These guys were the first guys who started like funding
Speaker 3: and financing and like supporting the church, uh, with like
Speaker 3: the help of like MacArthur and stuff. And then MacArthur
Speaker 3: of course is the one who got Moon out of prison.
Speaker 1: So yeah, I mean there's a lot of sort of
Speaker 1: there's a lot of very very the the the LDP
Speaker 1: as a party is sort of directly like like directly
Speaker 1: it is formed by the Dulles brothers intervewing with the
Speaker 1: sort of Japanese right and telling them like, you guys
Speaker 1: all have to like, you guys all have to put
Speaker 1: aside your differences and form this party so as to
Speaker 1: stop like even like a vaguely centered left government from
Speaker 1: coming to power. Right. Yeah, and the connections you are
Speaker 1: really deep, like kishi kishi literally sells Unification Church their
Speaker 1: first building in Japan, and that building is like his residence.
Speaker 1: So they are eaten deep and in it for the
Speaker 1: long haul.
Speaker 2: Yeah and st.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And this has been you know, sort of going
Speaker 1: on for a very long time, even after like Chishi's
Speaker 1: like specific kind of like fascist corruption faction kind of
Speaker 1: eventually falls out of favor in like the eighties because
Speaker 1: they they they kind a series of deals with the
Speaker 1: Americans that are like too corrupt for the US that
Speaker 1: ends with like ends with a fascist porn star I
Speaker 1: like dry attempting to do a Kama Kazi run and
Speaker 1: a Yaka is a boss by flying a plane into
Speaker 1: his house, which is which is a whole thing. But
Speaker 1: you know, so this kind of gets us to many
Speaker 1: generations of LDP, which is the Liberal Democratic Party, which
Speaker 1: has been the ruling party of Japan for most of
Speaker 1: it's sort of modern history. Many generations did this go by,
Speaker 1: and you know there's there's I think a really incredible
Speaker 1: symbiosis here where like the LDP has like consistently gotten
Speaker 1: them out of trouble of like stuff that like like
Speaker 1: they're they're you know, there's a famous example where Moon
Speaker 1: like shouldn't have been able to enter Japan because he
Speaker 1: had been convicted of a felony in the US. And
Speaker 1: you know the and there's also like there's been a
Speaker 1: series of investigations into the church that has just gotten
Speaker 1: squashed because the LDP ye know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they're too powerful.
Speaker 3: They're in, they're in with the guys who are running things.
Speaker 1: And I think this just kind of brings us to
Speaker 1: the immediate Abbe stuff, which I think is really interesting,
Speaker 1: which is that like Abbe, okay, so long ago, in
Speaker 1: a galaxy, far far away dream Kishi's generation, the CIA
Speaker 1: was like literally running LDP elections like this is the
Speaker 1: CIA would go in with individual candidates and they would
Speaker 1: go in to sort of manipulate the vote. They would
Speaker 1: go in and they would have like CIA assets doing
Speaker 1: canvassing for them. And what I think is really interesting
Speaker 1: is that like from what I've seen, it seems like
Speaker 1: abb basically replaced the CIA with the moonies in the
Speaker 1: two thousands, where he was having the church do exactly
Speaker 1: the same thing the CIA did of like like hey,
Speaker 1: if you ally with us, we will, like you know,
Speaker 1: we will like go district by district and campaign for
Speaker 1: you and like use our influence networks.
Speaker 2: It's funny how that keeps happening.
Speaker 4: Yeah, hmm, Yeah, it's really the sort of long arc
Speaker 4: of It's funny too because it's like like quite frankly
Speaker 4: like at this point, like it from the CIA's point
Speaker 4: of view, like it's utterly unclear to me if.
Speaker 1: It matters at all whether the LDP or like their
Speaker 1: absolutely identical opposition party like comes into power. But there's
Speaker 1: still just this kind of like like the ghost of
Speaker 1: the CIA from like when they actually had to stop
Speaker 1: the communists in like the cifty sixties and seventies, I
Speaker 1: guess a bit through the eighties. It's just sort of
Speaker 1: still there and still doing like all of this same
Speaker 1: things that yeah, are y you know who else? Actually
Speaker 1: I don't think they've ever advertised on this show, but
Speaker 1: you know who probably wouldn't be that out of place
Speaker 1: given the Reagan coin people. I don't know, it's it's ads,
Speaker 1: it's we're doing them. I hope they don't suck and
Speaker 1: we're back. Okay, So this is something I wanted to
Speaker 1: ask you. How So, in the last few months, there's
Speaker 1: been a lot of developments in terms of the reaction
Speaker 1: to the Church in Japan and how the church has
Speaker 1: been reacting to the sort of swings in public sentiment
Speaker 1: that have been happening. So yeah, I guess I want
Speaker 1: to ask how what's been happening inside the Japanese government
Speaker 1: sense all of the stufface sort of been coming out.
Speaker 3: So it seems to be that there has been quite
Speaker 3: a kerfuffle because quite a few members of both the
Speaker 3: LDP and other parties have ties.
Speaker 2: To the Unification Church.
Speaker 3: So I've got some stats here, and forgive me if
Speaker 3: these are not the most current. I tried my best
Speaker 3: to find the most current, the most current numbers out
Speaker 3: here about this, but I was having a little bit
Speaker 3: of trouble due to translations.
Speaker 2: So let's see.
Speaker 3: I've got at least three hundred and thirty four Prefectural
Speaker 3: Assembly members in Japan have had dealings with the Unification
Speaker 3: Church or it's affiliates, with over eighty percent of them
Speaker 3: belonging to the ruling LDP, according to Kyoto News, So
Speaker 3: Prime Minister of Fumiyo Kushita said that the government was
Speaker 3: in the final stage of considering whether to seek a
Speaker 3: court order to disband the Unification Church. But also, you know,
Speaker 3: his new cabinet well, they've got some ties, okay, at
Speaker 3: least four lawmakers who admitted having ties to the church.
Speaker 3: The number of LVP lawmakers was ties to the churches
Speaker 3: around one hundred and eighty, and the second Tenary General
Speaker 3: has said that one hundred and seventy nine of the
Speaker 3: three hundred and seventy nine parliamentarians reported with links to
Speaker 3: the church and related organizations. And these relationships have ranged
Speaker 3: from attending church events to accepting donations and receiving elections support.
Speaker 3: And then at least three hundred and thirty four prefectural
Speaker 3: councils had contact.
Speaker 2: With the UC in related orgs.
Speaker 3: So there's a lot going on that basically is, there's
Speaker 3: a lot that has come out about who is involved. However,
Speaker 3: the UC is still pretty much just denying everything. The
Speaker 3: pre trial proceedings for Yamagami began on October thirteenth. It's
Speaker 3: going to be closed door, so it'll probably be a
Speaker 3: while a little bit until the information trickles out about that.
Speaker 3: Hopefully they'll have some like I don't don't know if
Speaker 3: like what closed door means in that specific situation, I
Speaker 3: still have journalists in there, not hopefully, Yeah, but yeah,
Speaker 3: a lot has been coming out and people have been
Speaker 3: calling for a lot of change, it seems, but how
Speaker 3: much is actually going to happen, especially when they're saying
Speaker 3: now it's going to be like maybe one to three
Speaker 3: years for the deliberation on the case for dissolving the church,
Speaker 3: which means that the church will have ample time to
Speaker 3: move all of its funds and set up new new
Speaker 3: lines of money funneling.
Speaker 1: Basically, yeah, which I think. Yeah, I don't know, like
Speaker 1: I have I have very little faith that even even
Speaker 1: this sort of like outswing of public pressure is going
Speaker 1: to like actually seriously cause a liberal Democratic party to
Speaker 1: like really go after the church because, like I mean,
Speaker 1: like Abe, like part of the reason Abi got assassinated
Speaker 1: was that, like I think, like in twenty twenty two,
Speaker 1: he he get he like he was like he like
Speaker 1: said a video of of like of a speech like
Speaker 1: to a like to a manuline unification church event. I
Speaker 1: think it was the same one that it might have
Speaker 1: been the same one that Trump said it too. Maybe
Speaker 1: it was it was a different event, but like yeah,
Speaker 1: like that, I don't know, I have a difficult time,
Speaker 1: I don't know kind of like believing that they're that
Speaker 1: like this like, even if this crackdown does come, that's
Speaker 1: going to be effective. I don't know what your thoughts
Speaker 1: on that.
Speaker 3: I'm excited that there is some movement in that direction. However,
Speaker 3: I do worry that it won't really make as much
Speaker 3: of a dent into the functioning of the movement as
Speaker 3: some people think it could, given that there seems to
Speaker 3: be a lot of time for them to recuperate funds
Speaker 3: and they've been doing a lot of things that seems
Speaker 3: to make up for funds, as well as the fact
Speaker 3: that they already just have so much money and so
Speaker 3: many funds in the first place. It's hard to say
Speaker 3: how much they even have and how much this would
Speaker 3: make a dent into it were it to happen, So it's.
Speaker 2: Hard to say.
Speaker 3: And I also do worry that that'll just sort of
Speaker 3: incentivize them to sort of further radicalize people in a
Speaker 3: very dangerous far right direction and sort of going into that,
Speaker 3: there have been some sort of recent developments within the
Speaker 3: church since all of this has come out, basically, and
Speaker 3: people are calling for some sort of justice and some
Speaker 3: sort of you know, understanding of what's going on, which
Speaker 3: you know, the church continues to deny but recently Hawk Jahan,
Speaker 3: who is now the leader of the Mainline Church, has
Speaker 3: been meeting with the youth in multiple countries, and recently
Speaker 3: at Japan, she sat down and told them that they
Speaker 3: are a Kamakazi group basically to save Japan in the world.
Speaker 3: So I can't imagine it's ever really like, it never
Speaker 3: has ended well when somebody says that to an occult
Speaker 3: leader says that to their constituents, it never goes well.
Speaker 3: And you know, acts of violence against oneself like self
Speaker 3: emolation or other things murder have not been you know,
Speaker 3: out of the realm of things that people in the
Speaker 3: Unification of Church have done in the past.
Speaker 2: So it does kind of worry me. And she's actually
Speaker 2: hat Jahan is actually going to be.
Speaker 3: Meeting I believe it's the weekend of the Seventh uh
Speaker 3: in Vegas with the Youth of America. So I wonder
Speaker 3: if she's going to be saying similar things at that event.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, that wouldn't surprise me, it would.
Speaker 3: Seem I have a feeling it seems to be since
Speaker 3: she's been going around and meeting, because she's also met
Speaker 3: with the youth of Europe in the Middle East, that
Speaker 3: there's like a concerted effort here to sort of get
Speaker 3: youth engagement up, which leads me into a couple of
Speaker 3: other things here. I know that for a couple of
Speaker 3: years now, the Global Peace Foundation, which is under presst
Speaker 3: and Moon, has been involved with like different like music
Speaker 3: festivals and things with K pop artists and stuff. But
Speaker 3: recently there was actually an event this year is supposed
Speaker 3: to happen called twenty twenty three Korean Dream Festa for
Speaker 3: Korean United and then the original poster it was said
Speaker 3: that it was Global Peace Foundation that was one of
Speaker 3: the groups that was leading this. A lot of fans
Speaker 3: have soaken up, and I know at least one of
Speaker 3: the groups.
Speaker 2: Has pulled out, so clearly at.
Speaker 3: Least within that within that prong of the UC that
Speaker 3: there's there's there's some very active like trying to outreach
Speaker 3: to the youth, which I think I think I would
Speaker 3: be able to say is pretty across the board at
Speaker 3: this point. I think they're all trying some new strategies
Speaker 3: because they see that people are leaving, and especially with
Speaker 3: the number of people that have been speaking up lately,
Speaker 3: they really want to keep those numbers and engage new
Speaker 3: people as well. Part of this also makes me think
Speaker 3: that might be why Sean Moon is doing the sort
Speaker 3: of like maga rapper thing. I don't know, yeah, you know.
Speaker 1: Because he could he could just be weird, Like it's possible,
Speaker 1: but yeah, but.
Speaker 3: It does strike me as something that's like, hmm, maybe
Speaker 3: this is a way to get kids into the movement,
Speaker 3: you know, Like I don't really know. Part of me
Speaker 3: is also wondered why if if that is part of
Speaker 3: why Caleb Moppin has showed up at Mooney things now,
Speaker 3: like yeah, just yeah, uh that guy, not that guy,
Speaker 3: but like yeah, it just makes me wonder about like
Speaker 3: different onboarding ramps that might be being tapped because uh,
Speaker 3: there's potentially, you know, like a little bit of a
Speaker 3: lull here and there's.
Speaker 2: Going to be a financial dip in this specific chain.
Speaker 2: I don't really know. I can't claim to I have suspicions.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean I think it makes I think as
Speaker 1: a theory, it makes sense, Like I mean, the UCAS
Speaker 1: Church is the Unification Church has always tried to sort
Speaker 1: of stick itself into like different cultural trends, and I think, right,
Speaker 1: like my voter said, like I don't, I don't think
Speaker 1: the last time they really tried. The you strategy worked
Speaker 1: very well, like in the late twenty early twenty tens.
Speaker 3: Right, Yeah, no, it didn't. It didn't work particularly well.
Speaker 3: I wonder, however, you know, times are changing. If they
Speaker 3: happen to get one or two good strategists on board,
Speaker 3: that could change everything, honestly, But I also don't necessarily
Speaker 3: know that this is going to go well for them,
Speaker 3: seeing is that they're deeply uncool. That's a real big issue,
Speaker 3: Like that's the main issue for like trying to get
Speaker 3: youth engagement up. I feel like, you know, I don't know, Uh,
Speaker 3: there's only so cool you can make it sound, which
Speaker 3: is nothing like no.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I mean it is interesting that they're kind
Speaker 1: of like the mop in things specifically is really interesting
Speaker 1: because it's it's it seems like, I don't know, it
Speaker 1: seems like they're trying to tap into this like just
Speaker 1: like whatever weird currents of like new right like stuff
Speaker 1: they can get their hands on.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it seems like that honestly to me too. And
Speaker 3: it's also specifically ironic considering that Caleb used to hit
Speaker 3: me up for information on the Moonies a lot before
Speaker 3: I figured that he was a creep.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, and.
Speaker 3: Before I figured out he was a creep and like
Speaker 3: not somebody I wanted to be talking to. So he
Speaker 3: knows all this ship about them and continues and like
Speaker 3: willfully yeah, is engaging with them, which to me is
Speaker 3: just like mmmm yeah.
Speaker 1: It's like if you if you're if you're gonna sell out,
Speaker 1: like at least at least sell out into a podcast,
Speaker 1: don't sell out to a fucking cult like Jesus Christ.
Speaker 2: Come on, it's just ridiculous stuff.
Speaker 1: I don't know, Yeah, it's really terrible.
Speaker 2: I don't know, like, yeah, it's the mashup we didn't need.
Speaker 1: And this I think this has been eased to something
Speaker 1: else I wanted to ask about, so other than the
Speaker 1: sort of like you strategy stuff, has there been a
Speaker 1: reaction from like the Rod of Iron ministry or like
Speaker 1: the other sort of like splinter fractions of the church
Speaker 1: to the stuff that's been happening in Japan? Like have
Speaker 1: and also I ask you everything like as Bess, like,
Speaker 1: everything that I've seen seems suggest that the if they
Speaker 1: were gonna like if they were going to just band
Speaker 1: the church, it would only be the main branch. Has
Speaker 1: there been like has the statement going after the other
Speaker 1: branches too, or.
Speaker 3: So in that respect, I am actually still kind of
Speaker 3: unclear and have some research questions I need to resolve
Speaker 3: on that matter. As far as I've been aware, the
Speaker 3: other branches have been reasonably.
Speaker 2: Quiet about it.
Speaker 3: It doesn't mean that they're not internally doing things. I
Speaker 3: know that they both have large populations in Japan as
Speaker 3: well of membership, so it would make sense that they
Speaker 3: would be trying to figure something out.
Speaker 2: However, I don't actually know.
Speaker 3: If legally they are going to be gone after the
Speaker 3: same way as the mainline church, and that's something I
Speaker 3: just need to clear up myself. But honestly, they haven't
Speaker 3: been speaking as much about it as I thought they might.
Speaker 3: That doesn't mean that they're not. It also just might
Speaker 3: mean that they're not publishing it, you know. But part
Speaker 3: of me also wants to know if the reason that
Speaker 3: you know, hak Tahan is coming to America that certain
Speaker 3: weekend is because that's exact same weekend that the Rod
Speaker 3: of Iron Freedom Festival is happening, and she just doesn't
Speaker 3: want to get beheaded by her sons who wants to
Speaker 3: behead her. So yeah, because it's like, oh, she knows
Speaker 3: they're they're doing that weekend. I mean, I don't know,
Speaker 3: like that's it's just maybe silly speculation.
Speaker 2: But at the same time, they have literally said that
Speaker 2: they want to behead her.
Speaker 1: So yeah, I wouldn't be from them if I were her. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So that that that that that entire fight is really
Speaker 1: a like like no matter it's either a like the
Speaker 1: eat pop or let them fight or the no matter
Speaker 1: who wins, we lose kind of thing.
Speaker 2: Right, It's just quite a mess.
Speaker 3: Like I can say that I have a lot of
Speaker 3: family drama, but nothing compared to this.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's.
Speaker 2: Just wild.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So there was a show that was originally going to
Speaker 3: be called The Devil's Whispers that was to be aired
Speaker 3: in Japan, but of course the UC complained a little
Speaker 3: bit and they said that the program included a dramatization.
Speaker 2: They said that basically, they.
Speaker 3: Claimed that this dramatized program which was showing past tense
Speaker 3: of the group to recruit believers, including hiding the group's
Speaker 3: name in door to door sales taxics designs disguised as charitable.
Speaker 3: First of all, in HK, the channel that was going
Speaker 3: to air it, first of all, change the name to
Speaker 3: Dangerous Whispers instead of the Devil's Whispers, but the church
Speaker 3: also tried to tried to make them cancel like the
Speaker 3: show from happening and airing. As far as I'm aware,
Speaker 3: I think it actually did air a couple of nights
Speaker 3: ago though.
Speaker 1: Glad, gleg gleg Glad they got it through. But like
Speaker 1: the fact that, yeah, the name changes, like really.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm like, still, it's pretty ridiculous, Like maybe they
Speaker 3: changed it, but I think what they had said it
Speaker 3: was like sometimes in post production will change the name
Speaker 3: for whatever reason or something like that. But it's like,
Speaker 3: are you sure it's not, because the church complained.
Speaker 1: Like yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2: So I don't really know.
Speaker 1: Well, and I guess I guess. I guess no. One
Speaker 1: more thing I wanted to talk a bit about, which
Speaker 1: is that, And this is something we've been seeing already,
Speaker 1: is people talking about like, oh, you shouldn't just spand
Speaker 1: the church on religious freedom grounds. And that's something that
Speaker 1: the U see has been really really successful at sort
Speaker 1: of hiding behind you when anyone tries to go after them,
Speaker 1: like they did this in the seventies and eighties, when
Speaker 1: there were campaigns to like prosecute them for just the
Speaker 1: crimes they were doing. Was that a bunch of sort
Speaker 1: of like like not just not just right wing groups,
Speaker 1: but sort of like like like civil libertarian groups, Like
Speaker 1: like we're like, oh, you can't do this because if you,
Speaker 1: if if they go after the Uthi Gacia Church, they're
Speaker 1: going to be able to go after like any religious groups.
Speaker 1: And that's just like not true, Like it's just not true.
Speaker 1: These people are not like what what whatever you're you know,
Speaker 1: in terms of sort of whatever, like the crimes of
Speaker 1: like a normal religious group group are like the church
Speaker 1: is not a normal religious group. They have been funding
Speaker 1: desk squads for like longer than most of the people
Speaker 1: listening to the show have been alive. And yeah, I
Speaker 1: don't know, I I I just want to sort of
Speaker 1: like like just make people aware of it. They're going
Speaker 1: to try this shit again. And it was it was
Speaker 1: bullshit less and they did it. It's bullshit now.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And that's that's the thing that keeps annoying me.
Speaker 2: Well, it's not the same.
Speaker 3: There are many things about this that annoy me and
Speaker 3: make me very enraged, but one of them is that
Speaker 3: the playbook doesn't change.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: No, it's very very straightforward. This is how it's going
Speaker 2: to work.
Speaker 3: I'm kind of wondering also if the cult is going
Speaker 3: to sort of like roll out new providential edicts that
Speaker 3: will like potentially be like, oh no, this is going
Speaker 3: to be our new country that we get the most
Speaker 3: money out of, or this maybe or something like, you know,
Speaker 3: just something that they're going to say that God has
Speaker 3: made it this way so that like, yeah, you can
Speaker 3: change those money money funneling tunnels.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't know. The only prediction that I can
Speaker 1: make and I'm absolutely sure of is that it's going
Speaker 1: to be wild and it's going to suck.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm not looking forward to how this is going
Speaker 3: to play out, honestly, especially given all of the like
Speaker 3: Kamakazi squad comments and stuff. Makes me ill, It makes
Speaker 3: it makes me scared, It makes me not feel confident
Speaker 3: about the way that this is going to turn out.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm kind of of two minds of this because
Speaker 1: like I'm hoping this will go well and this will
Speaker 1: actually work, and that like even if the church tries
Speaker 1: to lash out, it's like doesn't work very well. I
Speaker 1: do think also the way that this assassination has like
Speaker 1: been turning just random pe like regular people in Japan
Speaker 1: who don't really know anything about the church against them
Speaker 1: has been really really interesting and powerful in a way
Speaker 1: that was I mean not the I don't know, so
Speaker 1: there's I've been saying is like the top of the
Speaker 1: show kind of as a joke, but like this really
Speaker 1: has been a very successful like political assassination in that
Speaker 1: it hasn't like, it hasn't back it hasn't yet backfired
Speaker 1: in a way that helps the church, and it seems
Speaker 1: to have really I don't know, it seems it seems
Speaker 1: to have very powerfully achieved this objective of getting people
Speaker 1: to go, wait, hold on, who is this cult that
Speaker 1: is like not I don't know, running is maybe too
Speaker 1: strong of a word, but has like completely embedded itself
Speaker 1: in the in Japan's ruling class.
Speaker 2: Right yeah, yeah, people are asking questions now.
Speaker 1: Yeah, which which I think is good. And I don't know,
Speaker 1: I hope the other thing I'm hoping is that this
Speaker 1: like people start doing this in like the US and
Speaker 1: in Korea and in like all of the other places
Speaker 1: that they've been doing shit like this, because this.
Speaker 3: Is yeah, because that's been global and there have been
Speaker 3: so many people that have been victims of this group
Speaker 3: that I know a lot of us in America have
Speaker 3: also started speaking out about it, and the media here
Speaker 3: has not been quite as interested in picking up.
Speaker 2: What we have to say. To a degree, they have been.
Speaker 3: But it's usually you know, sensationalized and made a little
Speaker 3: weird and.
Speaker 2: Just yeah the main point. Oh sorry, yeah, go on
Speaker 2: like that.
Speaker 1: There's a there's a really this is something like I've
Speaker 1: read a lot of sort of American coverage of this
Speaker 1: alongside the Japanese coverage, and I mean, like I expect
Speaker 1: this of the Japanese. Wow, Okay, I guess I expect
Speaker 1: this of both, like parts of the coverage, but there
Speaker 1: is there has been very very little, if any willingness
Speaker 1: to like talk about the church's connection to the CIA,
Speaker 1: and there you know, people will talk about them like
Speaker 1: as an anti communist group, but.
Speaker 2: Right like yeah like that extra step.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, like you have like it's they're not just
Speaker 1: in it, like there there are there are lots of
Speaker 1: anti communist groups. I mean there are no anti communist
Speaker 1: groups that are good, right, but like there are lots
Speaker 1: of anti communist groups that never funded death squads in
Speaker 1: like not what was what was the actual number? Like
Speaker 1: sixteen I had, I had I had a count at
Speaker 1: one point of the number of countries they funded death
Speaker 1: squads in. But like like most most most most people
Speaker 1: haven't like like funded coups in Bolivia and like you know,
Speaker 1: kept like allowed a ran contra to happen by keeping
Speaker 1: the contrasts in the war or like scent weapons of
Speaker 1: the Mousia haden like yo, like they they really they
Speaker 1: really they've I don't know, like and I I mean,
Speaker 1: I like, I guess, like you know, in terms of
Speaker 1: the sort of like this is the bourgeois press stuff
Speaker 1: like it, like it makes sense ideologically why people don't
Speaker 1: want to talk about their connections to the CIA and
Speaker 1: like the operations they pulled in the US and all
Speaker 1: of the just imperialism they've been doing. But it's it's
Speaker 1: really depressing because yeah, yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 3: It feels demoralizing sometimes because people only want to tell
Speaker 3: part of the story when it's like not too crazy
Speaker 3: and out there sounding for them. It's like, no, I
Speaker 3: tell you what, the actual story behind this group is
Speaker 3: crazier and more out there than you could ever imagine.
Speaker 6: Like yeah, yeah, and I think I think that's that's
Speaker 6: been an important I mean, that's why I think why
Speaker 6: the work you're doing is really important because thank you,
Speaker 6: like you have to actually make like you're one of
Speaker 6: the few people like actually making these connections.
Speaker 1: And yeah, I really I really appreciate it.
Speaker 5: Thank you.
Speaker 3: I appreciate that you appreciate it, because it's sometimes it's
Speaker 3: weird work.
Speaker 2: To do, Like I just read a lot about horrible things, and.
Speaker 3: You know, I mean, like I was saying, that can
Speaker 3: take a toll on you to a degree, and sometimes
Speaker 3: I'll have to take breaks from it, but at the
Speaker 3: end of the day, I'm always going to go back
Speaker 3: to it because, like I think it's worth doing, because
Speaker 3: the stuff needs to be talked about.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so, I guess do you have anything else that
Speaker 1: you wanted to say.
Speaker 3: Before I'll just plug deprogramming, imperialism, those two words. I
Speaker 3: think there's an underscore on our Instagram. Let me just
Speaker 3: double check.
Speaker 1: If there's an underscore, we will put links to this
Speaker 1: in the description.
Speaker 2: Appreciate it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, thank you so much for coming on the show.
Speaker 1: And yeah, fuck these.
Speaker 3: People, Yeah for real, they've done some really bad stuff.
Speaker 1: So hopefully hopefully this is finally after like so many
Speaker 1: generations of terrible crimes they've been doing that this is
Speaker 1: finally the one that's going to fucking crush them.
Speaker 3: We can hope, you know, Yeah, you can very much
Speaker 3: hope though, And the more people are talking about it
Speaker 3: the better. The more people understand, like the history behind
Speaker 3: the movement, the better. So thanks for having me.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and yeah, this has been It can happen here.
Speaker 1: You can find us assuming Twitter still exists when this
Speaker 1: goes up on Twitter, Instagram, haf in here pod. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you can find sources of cool Zone Media. Yeah, go
Speaker 1: go into the world, destroy imperialism and crush the remains
Speaker 1: of these dog shit assholes.
Speaker 2: Yes, it could happen here as a production of cool
Speaker 2: Zone Media.
Speaker 1: For more podcasts from.
Speaker 3: Cool Zone Media, visit our website cool zonemedia dot com
Speaker 3: or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 3: or wherever you listen to podcasts.
Speaker 2: You can find sources for It could Happen here, updated
Speaker 2: monthly at coolzonemedia dot com slash sources. Thanks for listening.