Speaker 1: What. Well, you know, the important thing about growing older
Speaker 1: and getting wiser is learning when you shouldn't make a
Speaker 1: what's xing my wise joke about a series of profoundly
Speaker 1: horrific crimes against humanity, and I I've grown as a person.
Speaker 1: So we're just gonna go into the episode and not
Speaker 1: think at all about what it is I was going
Speaker 1: to say before I stopped myself and narrowly avoided cancelation.
Speaker 1: This is Behind the Bastards podcast about the worst people
Speaker 1: in all of history, of whom I would have been
Speaker 1: one had I completed the sentence that this introduction was
Speaker 1: meant to be initially as it was originally planned. But
Speaker 1: I didn't, So you motherfucker's can't cancel me. That's right,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna go. Fortunately, unfortunately, this also means that you
Speaker 1: will never be installed as as as as a leader
Speaker 1: of a country by the CIA. I don't don't say never.
Speaker 1: Don't say never, you never like what do what do you?
Speaker 1: What do you? What do you? What do you? What
Speaker 1: do you? I mean? Anybody, look, a man can dream, Christopher,
Speaker 1: we're talking more about man Chariot today. We just went
Speaker 1: through a lot of war crimes. Uh, where are where
Speaker 1: we where we were? What do you? What do you?
Speaker 1: What do you? What do you? What do you wear?
Speaker 1: What do you wear? Where? What? Where? What is it time? Where?
Speaker 1: What is it? Time for the reckoning? As you titled
Speaker 1: fu yeah, spicy, let's go. Yeah. So we we are
Speaker 1: back in Japan. We are back in and we are
Speaker 1: back in well, I guess we're back in. We are
Speaker 1: back in the U. S. Occupation And okay, no, I
Speaker 1: think up a pretty natural reaction to to seeing the
Speaker 1: the words a U. S. Military occupation is to assume
Speaker 1: as going to go badly, and it is. But it
Speaker 1: actually didn't start out that way. And it didn't start
Speaker 1: out that way because the first phase of the octave
Speaker 1: sort of happens. Occupation by the US is run by
Speaker 1: a bunch of new dealers, and these guys look to
Speaker 1: Japan and we're like, okay, so what if instead of fascism,
Speaker 1: we did a new deal? And so they do a
Speaker 1: bunch of stuff that's like really leftist, like example to
Speaker 1: the big one that you could never do in the US.
Speaker 1: They do this huge land reform package where they they
Speaker 1: force all the landlords to own a certain amount of
Speaker 1: land to like sell it to their tenants, and you
Speaker 1: know it's there, there, there there, there's like there's like
Speaker 1: two years seven where you know the US like is
Speaker 1: actually kind of trying to make Japan like better and
Speaker 1: more democratic and less ship But all of that comes
Speaker 1: to an end in nine seven basically a result of
Speaker 1: the Cold War. And this this is called the reverse
Speaker 1: course and and signifies basically on American business interests like
Speaker 1: take control of of of Japan. And you know, like
Speaker 1: in nineteen fifty they do this thing called the Red
Speaker 1: Purge where they like they just do they use mass
Speaker 1: firing of like suspected communists and just yeah, and anyone
Speaker 1: who's sort of like vague associate with the left sides
Speaker 1: get fired from their jobs, both in the government and
Speaker 1: private sector. This is this coordinated and if I'm not mistaken,
Speaker 1: this is kind of around the time when there's also
Speaker 1: a lot of protests against the American occupiers because a
Speaker 1: bunch of g I. S A Are raping ladies. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's just like another major thing that's that that drives
Speaker 1: a lot of like the the early protests um post
Speaker 1: war in Japan. Yeah, they're also just like shooting people
Speaker 1: and we'll we'll get more into soldiers just randomly murdering people.
Speaker 1: But you know, I guess actually speaking of soldiers randomly
Speaker 1: murdering people. So one of the reasons why fascism is
Speaker 1: never really sort of like crushed in Japan is that
Speaker 1: the head of G two, which the army's intelligence session,
Speaker 1: is also a fascist. And you know this, Yeah, And
Speaker 1: I said, like, this is not me calling Charles a
Speaker 1: will or be a fascist, Like this guy is going
Speaker 1: to go on to become like Franco's promoter in Europe,
Speaker 1: like MacArthur calls him a fascist. Wow, the guy who
Speaker 1: suggested new king cities in China to win the Korean War.
Speaker 1: If that dude calls you a fascist, yeah, probably pretty
Speaker 1: fucking fashy, you know. And and this is a big
Speaker 1: issue because Willerby's job, like the actual job he is
Speaker 1: there to do, is to like just completely obliterate the
Speaker 1: rest of the Japanese fascist organizations in Japanese fascist societies.
Speaker 1: And what he does instead is he used the G
Speaker 1: twos kind of intelligence core to do union busting and
Speaker 1: staging false flag attacks and blaming them on the Socialist Party.
Speaker 1: And he does he does one other thing that's both
Speaker 1: incredibly important to this story and important the Japanese history.
Speaker 1: He decides he wants to start negotiating with the Yakuza
Speaker 1: in order to sort of like he used him as
Speaker 1: weapon against the left and in order to this Yeah
Speaker 1: it's great, it's great. You can you can see where
Speaker 1: this is going. He goes in version of this happened
Speaker 1: in Italy with them off too right, and I think, yeah,
Speaker 1: I I you know, the Italian Office is interesting because
Speaker 1: every once in a while they like will back a
Speaker 1: leftist like that's like how the sort of weird Red
Speaker 1: Brigade stuff happened. But like the Yakuza, they're just fascist,
Speaker 1: like there's no yeah, yeah, it's it's it's great and
Speaker 1: yeah and so so Willoughby goes to Sukamo Prison, which
Speaker 1: is like this is this is the giant war criminal
Speaker 1: prison where the US is holding all the war criminals,
Speaker 1: and he meets with Kishi's selm Mate. Now kishi selm
Speaker 1: Mate is a guy named uh Kodama Yoshio, who is
Speaker 1: he's like a giant yakas At boss. He's involved the
Speaker 1: drug trade. He was also arrested for his plot his
Speaker 1: part in the incredibly named League of Blood incident in
Speaker 1: Nino which is his giant like fascist plots just assassinated
Speaker 1: a bunch of business owners, little politicians, and you know,
Speaker 1: so he gets arrested for this is nine two and
Speaker 1: gets arrested and then he gets released and then you know,
Speaker 1: because again the Japanese Empire just a giant cartel with
Speaker 1: like a state attached to it. He spends the entire
Speaker 1: war is Japan's like procurement guy, which means that he's
Speaker 1: running around like basically trading heroin for like tungsten radium
Speaker 1: guns and like other stuff to fight the war. And
Speaker 1: so will it Be meets with this guy because he also,
Speaker 1: you know, he sold amongst US connections and he has
Speaker 1: like a hundred and seventy five million dollars that he'd
Speaker 1: made from the war just like on him. And so
Speaker 1: will it Be cuts a deal with Kodama that's like, okay,
Speaker 1: I'll get you out of war crimes jail if you
Speaker 1: become an American intelligence asset. And Kodama is like, this
Speaker 1: is just all winds, and so he Kodama like immediately
Speaker 1: like basically reforms this like I don't even I guess
Speaker 1: you'd called like the United fronts of like crime and fascism.
Speaker 1: It's like it's it's this group. It's this association of
Speaker 1: like four hundred right wing like fascist and criminal organizations
Speaker 1: that Kodama just like runs. And you know she's going
Speaker 1: to spend the next thirty years basically just running Japanese
Speaker 1: politics from the from the shadows and being basically like
Speaker 1: the ocusive politics guy. Now she she how key she
Speaker 1: escaped the news in n subject subdebate, Like so the
Speaker 1: US doesn't charge him with the sex slavery crimes or
Speaker 1: like the forced labor crimes. What he's charged with is
Speaker 1: violent crimes against the peace, which is like starting an
Speaker 1: offensive war. But like even that, even if you just
Speaker 1: stick to that, like he is the guiltiest man in
Speaker 1: human history, like he signed the declaration of war against
Speaker 1: the US, Like he is conviction ever, Like yeah, that
Speaker 1: really also ought to like just as a rule, if
Speaker 1: you're like someone else who lives in that country and
Speaker 1: a guy is like, hey, I wanna continue being influential.
Speaker 1: You know me, I'm the guy who helped declare war
Speaker 1: in the US, you would think that like everyone will
Speaker 1: be like, well, we shouldn't be listening to anything you say. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that didn't go very well you would think, and you
Speaker 1: know that I've seen some stories that talk about like
Speaker 1: some sort of like group of American business may interceded
Speaker 1: on his behalf. I don't know how reliable that is.
Speaker 1: The other explanation, and this, this is true regardless of
Speaker 1: exactly what happened to Kishi, is that like the Tokyo
Speaker 1: War Crimes Tribunal just kind of gave up like trying
Speaker 1: to actually prosecute people because it was too much work
Speaker 1: and it was like the Cold War was happening and
Speaker 1: they just didn't care anymore. And so they do just
Speaker 1: like a bunch of absolutely half ass proceedings, and you know,
Speaker 1: they rushed like Tojo to the gallows and few people
Speaker 1: all the people that wanted to kill, and then everyone
Speaker 1: else just goes free. And so on Christmas Eve nineteen
Speaker 1: forty eight, No Buska Kishi, the man who enslave Manchuria
Speaker 1: and ran the fascist war machine, walked out of prison.
Speaker 1: And because his grother, because his brother Fusher Prime Minister
Speaker 1: Edoisaku Stok is the cabinet chief secretary, Kishi is immediately
Speaker 1: driven to the Prime Minister's house. Yeah yeah, yeah, He's
Speaker 1: immediately driven in from Minister's house where he trained his
Speaker 1: trace his prison oranges for a business suit and utters
Speaker 1: the immortal words quote, well, I guess we're all democrats now,
Speaker 1: oh god, yeahs not good. Bad. And thus and thus
Speaker 1: Nobuska Kishi, arch fascist bureaucrat, entered the new world of
Speaker 1: electoral politics. God to see it. Yeah, it's like if
Speaker 1: Werner von Brown had run for Congress. Yeah, yeah, as
Speaker 1: opposed to just running NASA. Yeah, and you know, okay,
Speaker 1: So initially he starts put putting together basically like the
Speaker 1: old fascist base. So like, he gets some business owners,
Speaker 1: he gets some like old school nineteen already one like
Speaker 1: fascist terrorists he gets. He gets his friends at Nissan
Speaker 1: are like, yeah, we loved this man. Sure he is
Speaker 1: ship like when we're giving him all of her money
Speaker 1: and the other you know, one of the other like
Speaker 1: very disturbing things about what happened after the war. Is that?
Speaker 1: So you know, I talked to the last episode she
Speaker 1: Kishi found this thing called the Ministry Munitions, which is
Speaker 1: just like the super super like ministry. It's all does
Speaker 1: all this planning stuff and basically all of his old
Speaker 1: like fascist or form bureaucrat buddies who in the Ministry
Speaker 1: munitions keep their jobs and the whole the ministry just
Speaker 1: turned into the Ministry of International Trade and Industry. And
Speaker 1: you know, and Middy is that's called middy. Middy is
Speaker 1: the core of Japanese post war development. And it's you know,
Speaker 1: it's all the old fascist ship that that Kishi was
Speaker 1: doing before, except the different is that it's it's now
Speaker 1: being used to sort of like it is being used
Speaker 1: to to to feel the American war machine and Korean
Speaker 1: Vietnam instead of feeling Japanese war machine also in Korean Vietnam.
Speaker 1: So yeah, this is purging the fascist is going well.
Speaker 1: And when I say going well, I meet an entitive
Speaker 1: to two. The US just like gave up any semblance
Speaker 1: of trying to get rid of fascism and just unperfect
Speaker 1: everyone they've purged, We pardoned a lot of them, We
Speaker 1: gave the other's jobs. Yeah yeah, And and you know
Speaker 1: the interesting with Kishi. So so the Prime Minister at
Speaker 1: the time, Yoshida shi Guru, who was like this is
Speaker 1: not a good guy, like he was also a fascist
Speaker 1: for the war. But she tells the Americans do not
Speaker 1: unpurge this guy, like, do not on perched Kishi and
Speaker 1: it's extremely funny because you know I mentioned last episode,
Speaker 1: like yo, she is like is related to Kishi, Like
Speaker 1: you remember that uncle that Keshi really liked, who like
Speaker 1: raised him for a little bit before. Yeah, so that
Speaker 1: guy's daughter like is Yoshia's wife, Like they know each other,
Speaker 1: Like she knows this guy's family. And she's still just like,
Speaker 1: do not do this, do not let this guy come
Speaker 1: back into politics. And the US is just like, no,
Speaker 1: fuck it, Well he's back. She's back. Yeah, and you know,
Speaker 1: so he of us. We're the United States. We don't
Speaker 1: think things through Nope. Well I mean you know I
Speaker 1: would say this, this works out great for the US,
Speaker 1: um yeah, yeah, yeah, And you know, and so she
Speaker 1: runs this this electoral federation thing in two and it
Speaker 1: just gets like destroyed, like because two everyone's like, we
Speaker 1: don't like this guy, and I mean he has like
Speaker 1: he has a lot of money. He's like hundreds of
Speaker 1: millions of YenS. So they get like whacked. And so
Speaker 1: she starts like wheeling around the political scene going okay,
Speaker 1: like what can I latch onto? And like he he
Speaker 1: almost joins the right wing at the Socialist Party, which
Speaker 1: would have been the single weirdest pit of it I've
Speaker 1: ever seen in my life. But his brother convinced him
Speaker 1: to join this the ruling sort of center right Liberal
Speaker 1: party instead, and you know, like this is Yoshida's party,
Speaker 1: and she like doesn't like Kishi, but the Liberal Party
Speaker 1: is also falling apart, so he's like, okay, we need
Speaker 1: keis she support? And so in three, Keishi joins the
Speaker 1: part part joint joins the party and wins a seat
Speaker 1: in the diet. Now, Yeshida, she is getting help from
Speaker 1: a lot of places in that election because three is
Speaker 1: the first post war election after American occupation. And if
Speaker 1: you know anything about elections that happened in fascist countries
Speaker 1: immediately after uh at the end of World War two,
Speaker 1: you know that Yoshida is being backed by the CIA,
Speaker 1: like yeah, yeah, And if you know anything that happened
Speaker 1: about elections that happened in these countries after World War two,
Speaker 1: you know that they didn't Yeah, well, you know, yeah,
Speaker 1: this is interesting because it's like I think this story
Speaker 1: is weirder than than like the Italian stories, like you know,
Speaker 1: and and you know, so, so the way this is
Speaker 1: funded is that at the beginning of the Korean War,
Speaker 1: like the US needed a bunch of tungsten, and American
Speaker 1: intelligence basically was like, we need to keep the Socialist
Speaker 1: Party from literally ever taking power, like at all costs.
Speaker 1: And so they talked to Kodamo's that yakuza guy from
Speaker 1: before the or who will erb had broken out of
Speaker 1: jail and if they get him to smuggle a bunch
Speaker 1: of tungsten that have been left over from Japan's worldhere
Speaker 1: two stockpiles to the US and then they like, they
Speaker 1: pay him ten million dollars, and the CIA throws and
Speaker 1: two point eight million dollars of their own, and that
Speaker 1: money is like that that that money is how liberal
Speaker 1: the Liberal Party like wins elections. It's great, it's great.
Speaker 1: I mean it's gonna get fine. I bet we did
Speaker 1: good stuff with all that tungsten. Yeah, we absolutely bombed
Speaker 1: the ship didn't get bought fired into multiple countries worth
Speaker 1: of civilian It's great. Okay, anyway, you know yeah now yeah,
Speaker 1: So so you know, she gets selected as part of
Speaker 1: the Liberal Party. But you know, Kishi is a back
Speaker 1: stamiccent of a bitch, and he immediately turns on Yoshida
Speaker 1: and like starts announcing him, and she kicks him out
Speaker 1: of the party, but she's able to get this like
Speaker 1: breakaway factions that join him, and he forms something called
Speaker 1: the Democratic Party, and through a lot of incredibly complicated
Speaker 1: electoral bullshit, like they're able to ouse Yoshida as Prime Minister.
Speaker 1: And then she she has this giant plan to like
Speaker 1: reunify the two wings of the like basically reunified the
Speaker 1: two wings of the of the right. There's like his
Speaker 1: wing as Democratic Party, and there's a Liberal Party, and
Speaker 1: he has to reunify them. And the reason he wants
Speaker 1: to do this because he wants to control it. But
Speaker 1: the other reason that the reason it actually happens is
Speaker 1: that the Socialist Party had split in like ninety eight
Speaker 1: or something, and at five they come back together and
Speaker 1: that just like freaks all the Conservatives out and they're
Speaker 1: like okay, okay, fine, like will well you know, we'll
Speaker 1: we'll we'll, we'll join this new party. And the new
Speaker 1: party they form is called the Liberal Democratic Party. Now
Speaker 1: this is important. The reason I spent so much time
Speaker 1: talking about this is that the LDP is the single
Speaker 1: most important party in Japanese politics, and in the sixties
Speaker 1: six years since they were founded, the LDP has been
Speaker 1: out of power for six they were in power for
Speaker 1: the other chess Christ, Yeah, this is the Japan Japan
Speaker 1: Is party state. Yeah, yeah, it's it's unbelievable. And you know,
Speaker 1: and this is this is Kishi's party, like he is
Speaker 1: the guy who single handedly built this party. This party
Speaker 1: would not exist if Kishi had not gone into the
Speaker 1: Liberal part Party like tore them apart and then forced
Speaker 1: them to joint his breakaway faction. And you know, like
Speaker 1: he's the reason why it exists. And this this party,
Speaker 1: like this is the party that's the basis of the
Speaker 1: entire modern Japanese political system. And yeah, it's great. He
Speaker 1: she you know, he makes himself the general secretary of
Speaker 1: of of the of the party and wins, you know,
Speaker 1: and in his first election, he wins an absolute majority
Speaker 1: in the Diet for the l d P. But you know,
Speaker 1: instead instead of becoming prime minister himself, he spends his
Speaker 1: time sort of biting, like building up American support for him. Now,
Speaker 1: you know, we talked about that the CDP, I mean,
Speaker 1: the CIA had been having involved with Liberal Party and
Speaker 1: they've they've been heavily involved with Liberal Democratic Party like
Speaker 1: from the start. Um, I mean this this is from
Speaker 1: a New York Times article. We financed them, said Alfred c.
Speaker 1: Lermer Jr. Who ran the CIA's Far East operations from
Speaker 1: fifty eight. We depended on the LDP for information. He
Speaker 1: said the CIA had used the payments both to support
Speaker 1: the party and recruit informants from it from its earliest days.
Speaker 1: And so the CIA, like there were king with the
Speaker 1: LDP on like a candidate by candidate basis like this.
Speaker 1: They like, the CIA has their own electoral guys, and
Speaker 1: the electoral guys will like go to a candidate and go,
Speaker 1: we need you to win this seat, and they'll like
Speaker 1: hand like personally hand the money. And so you know
Speaker 1: this is this is this is where you get the
Speaker 1: first of the Doulas brothers entering entering the sort of
Speaker 1: political arena. Yeah. And then and then it's like, actually,
Speaker 1: I SI to let you before you also get the
Speaker 1: second Doulas brother, Secretary of State John Foster Dulas, who
Speaker 1: like basically straight up yeah, like he just like like
Speaker 1: straight up is like the Liberal like he like tells
Speaker 1: the Japanese like the Liberal Party will unify with the
Speaker 1: Democratic Party and like if you don't like vague threat
Speaker 1: insert here, and so John Foster Dulas directly responsible in
Speaker 1: many ways. Both of the dolls Plars are responsible for
Speaker 1: Kishi like forming the most important political party in the
Speaker 1: history of Japan. And all of this ends with Kishi
Speaker 1: becoming primary started and he he just immediately starts doing crime.
Speaker 1: So yeah, yeah, I mean, you know, like this she's
Speaker 1: she's like she's an incredible money launderer um from from
Speaker 1: his time at Materia, like you know, and and she
Speaker 1: he devises a scheme to like make some money off
Speaker 1: of the reparations payments that Japan had to pay to
Speaker 1: the countries that invaded after the war. And so he
Speaker 1: basically what he does is he negotiates to have these
Speaker 1: reparations payments like paid in Japanese goes in services, and
Speaker 1: so he buys those Japanese goes in services with state
Speaker 1: money from his own political allies. And then yeah, he turns, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's great, it's great. He's he's using the reparations payment
Speaker 1: to like pay off his like fascist buddies. And then
Speaker 1: he does the exact same thing to like the Japanese
Speaker 1: uh for an aid like projects. It's also all just key.
Speaker 1: She's like buddies paying themselves and you know ke she
Speaker 1: he also like he develops the system of like so
Speaker 1: she like constantly rotaste to cabinets in the time that
Speaker 1: he's prevued like constantly. And and the reason he's doing
Speaker 1: this is because it's basically a way to buy off
Speaker 1: his political allies. So like, you know, you give an
Speaker 1: ally a cabinet minister, and then they get alluded a
Speaker 1: bunch of money, and then once they've taken enough money,
Speaker 1: you put in the next person, to put in the
Speaker 1: next person, to put in the next person. And you know,
Speaker 1: he's also just like he's not only doing this with
Speaker 1: with like sort of politicians and like businessman, he's doing
Speaker 1: this with the yakuza. So what if the the you know,
Speaker 1: he he makes like a sworn yak is a guy
Speaker 1: like his Ministry of Agriculture. And then there's the wonderfully
Speaker 1: named Bumbouko oh No, who like, yeah, it's amazing and
Speaker 1: he he she makes this guy the secretary generals Liberal
Speaker 1: Democratic Party and he's and he stays in that position
Speaker 1: until oh No dies in. And oh No is wonderful
Speaker 1: because he he gives a speech to two thousand Yakuza
Speaker 1: members in the sixties where like she just straight up
Speaker 1: says like, yeah, I'm yakuza, but I do it by
Speaker 1: being a politician instead of being a criminal. It's like
Speaker 1: it rules and so, and you know, the other thing
Speaker 1: is happening is that she's she's still you know, she
Speaker 1: she's connected to sort of Kodama and Kodamas like whole
Speaker 1: like Yakuza American intelligence network. And so when when Lacked
Speaker 1: Martin is trying to get the Japanese Defense Force to
Speaker 1: buy they're like F one O four star Fighter over
Speaker 1: north Gremmen's h F eleven. F uh. Their guy in Japan,
Speaker 1: who just happens to be an old G two intelligence
Speaker 1: guy is like, I know a guy. And the guy
Speaker 1: that he knows his Kodama, who he pays like millions
Speaker 1: of dollars in bribes too, is like they give him
Speaker 1: like a six hundred thousand dollar commission on every plane
Speaker 1: they sell to get this sold to the Japanese government.
Speaker 1: And so Kodama goes to his Yakasa connections in the government,
Speaker 1: which is you know, because Yaka is a buddy and
Speaker 1: newly mentioned LDP Secretary of General Obamako on No and
Speaker 1: his good friend Nobusuka Kishi, and she she buys the Starfighter,
Speaker 1: and Locky just like keeps Kodama on retainer for like
Speaker 1: the next third the years. And you know, I want
Speaker 1: to give people's sense of like how embedded this like
Speaker 1: intelligence fascist yakuza network is in the LDP, because it's
Speaker 1: not like this is the thing that's only Keishi and
Speaker 1: it goes away, Like like in the nineteen seventies, Kodama
Speaker 1: gets hired again by Lackey to do exactly the same thing,
Speaker 1: and he pays out like several million dollars in bribes,
Speaker 1: Like he bribes the Prime Minister again, and this time
Speaker 1: he gets caught and you know, he and he took
Speaker 1: so much money from like the Americans bribesling people that
Speaker 1: like he managed to piss off both the far right
Speaker 1: and the far left, and so you know, they start
Speaker 1: protesting his house and on on. On May twenty, nineteen
Speaker 1: seventy six, a fascist porn star named Miss Sua Maneo,
Speaker 1: who had been a huge Kodama fanboy. Oh yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's great, it's great, It's gonna be a better yes.
Speaker 1: So he rents a plane he like circles Kodama's house
Speaker 1: like shouting pro imperial slogan into a microphone and then
Speaker 1: like he screams Bonzai and flies the plane into his
Speaker 1: house like this is this is in nineteen seventies, six Kodamas.
Speaker 1: He's kind of to be honest, that's that's you know what,
Speaker 1: you gotta give it up sometimes that critical support very cool,
Speaker 1: undeniably rad moved. Dama lives through this. Yeah, but Karma
Speaker 1: cops in nineteen seventies, like a fascist porn star kamakas
Speaker 1: his house and he lived through it. It's just yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean that is basically the end of him in politics.
Speaker 1: But it's like it's it's great, it's great. Yeah, that's yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's a this is yeah, this is a this
Speaker 1: is a profoundly fascist party, profoundly fascist people in it.
Speaker 1: And yeah. So yeah, so so back at back in seven,
Speaker 1: she's dealing with like his first real political scandal, which
Speaker 1: is that a on jenuinely three fifty seven, a U. S.
Speaker 1: Soldier named Girard like basically just for fun, shot an
Speaker 1: empty grenade cartridge out of a grenade launch her at
Speaker 1: a Japanese woman who was like collecting shell casings and
Speaker 1: military based self for scrap and she dies. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: you know, and this this pisces off everyone in Japan,
Speaker 1: and you know, especially it's like she's she's revealed later
Speaker 1: she's a mother of six, and everyone just loses their mind.
Speaker 1: And eisen you know, and and this is shouge fight
Speaker 1: over it, and Eisenhower wants to try him an American court.
Speaker 1: And Eisenhower like is forces is like literally forced to
Speaker 1: like try him in a Japanese court because like if
Speaker 1: if you try to do in an American court, like
Speaker 1: people would have literally like brick by brick dismantled every
Speaker 1: milk and like American military based on the in the islands.
Speaker 1: And so she she's made concern here is that this
Speaker 1: is gonna like funk up his political stuff. And so
Speaker 1: he he develops his plan and where where he He's
Speaker 1: gonna go to to Eisenhower and make a bunch of
Speaker 1: bands about this US Japan Security treaty and this thing.
Speaker 1: This is like one of the other things that's been
Speaker 1: causing protests is that this treaty is like SNA one originally,
Speaker 1: and it's it's really weird, like it lets the US
Speaker 1: like send troops into Japan to put down quote internal
Speaker 1: riots or disturbances. Preaches. Yeah, there's and the earth like
Speaker 1: in terms of like a peace treaty, and the other
Speaker 1: thing is the lesson lesson and less the US involved
Speaker 1: itself in civil wars, and like you know, in a
Speaker 1: bunch of Japanese commentary pen like there's like no precedent
Speaker 1: for this, Like there's never been a peace treaty that
Speaker 1: like between two free nations that allows this. So you know,
Speaker 1: when you get these massive protests, like people people people
Speaker 1: like build giant wooden fortresses and manned them for like
Speaker 1: forty years in the middle of American artillery ranges like that,
Speaker 1: there's all of this stuff, and you know, Eisenhower used
Speaker 1: with Kishi and is like and Kishi just goes, look
Speaker 1: like you have to revise this treaty in Eisenhower's like okay,
Speaker 1: And so she she like steaks basically his entire political
Speaker 1: career on on on revising this this US Japan security treaty,
Speaker 1: which it comes down as on po and you know,
Speaker 1: like it really looks like he's going to like pull
Speaker 1: this off. He's gonna get treated revisions, He's gonna be
Speaker 1: incredibly popular and tell she she just like she just
Speaker 1: she's got like that extra bit too fascist. And the
Speaker 1: extra bit too fascist. Was she tried to pass something
Speaker 1: called the Police Duties Execution Law, which is like, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's that just already seems like we're on a bad start. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: like like this this is a police law so fascist
Speaker 1: that like his other fascist hardliner buddies like in the
Speaker 1: LDP are like, we won't let you pass this because
Speaker 1: you'll get you'll get eaten alive. Yeah. Basically, like what
Speaker 1: it does is it it lets it lets the Japanese.
Speaker 1: It would have let the Japanese police do warrtletz warrtless
Speaker 1: searchers and seizures and you know, and everyone's like, okay,
Speaker 1: so this is just like this is this, this is
Speaker 1: this is pre war fascist him again, so you know,
Speaker 1: and you know, you know, and I think I think
Speaker 1: he thinks I can't get away with this because he's
Speaker 1: on a bunch of other like fascist culture ward sort
Speaker 1: of stuff. Like he he does this thing where he
Speaker 1: makes everyone take these like moral lessons and like all
Speaker 1: these students take like moral lessons and has these like
Speaker 1: evaluations of teachers because he thinks there's like they're too
Speaker 1: communists and once fascist propaganda like taught instead. And you know,
Speaker 1: I want to make it clear there is no parallel
Speaker 1: between this and anything that is happening in the US.
Speaker 1: Right now, go back to sleep. There's nothing here. Everything
Speaker 1: is gonna be fine. It's like yeah, no, no, No
Speaker 1: one in the US is raging a bunch of political
Speaker 1: campaigns about what teachers are teaching in school because I
Speaker 1: think it's too leftist. No, that has not happened. But
Speaker 1: you know what does happen in the US. That's right,
Speaker 1: that's that's God willing the only thing that will ever
Speaker 1: happen in this country in the future going forward, because
Speaker 1: when you get right down to it, what else do
Speaker 1: we need but products, services, and of course the blissful, gooey, moist,
Speaker 1: sticky what come drenched? Products of products and services? What? Okay, well,
Speaker 1: let's just go to ads. Ah, we're back, okay, Chris,
Speaker 1: please continue, Yes, Chris, please continue. Sophie's angry at me
Speaker 1: because she doesn't like it when I say come drenched
Speaker 1: while leading into an ad. Not at all. I don't
Speaker 1: think anybody enjoyed that. And if you did, please tell us.
Speaker 1: I think our sponsors enjoy it. So oh no, I
Speaker 1: mean it could be anissan. We we could On this episode, yeah,
Speaker 1: absolutely inappropriate. So keh Yeah, so she's gotten a bit
Speaker 1: too fascist. And he also he does this thing where
Speaker 1: so so the way that like the norms of the
Speaker 1: Japanese political system worked was that like you're supposed to
Speaker 1: be before you pass a bill, you're supposed to talk
Speaker 1: to the opposition about it, and then they're supposed to
Speaker 1: be a debate, and she's just like yeah, funk that,
Speaker 1: Like he just like Snap introduces it without like he
Speaker 1: basically he takes a snap vote to extend the diet
Speaker 1: and just like Snap forces everyone to try to vote
Speaker 1: on it. And this is like maximally bad politics by Kishi.
Speaker 1: Like you know, it's like the norms of democracy are
Speaker 1: like actually important to Japan, and they're important because this
Speaker 1: is this is a country that was a decade and
Speaker 1: a half ago literally fascist, and Kissi is trying to
Speaker 1: pass this bill that is bring fascism back, and so
Speaker 1: you know, everyone gets Piste off, Like three of his
Speaker 1: cadet ministers resigned, and this also pulls the whole left
Speaker 1: together and they formed something called the People's Council and
Speaker 1: they start they start a general stripe shop the bill
Speaker 1: and Keishi and then and they win and Keishi forced
Speaker 1: to pull the bill and it you know, and it
Speaker 1: makes it way weaker politically. And when when he tries
Speaker 1: to get his security like up on POS the Security
Speaker 1: Treaty ratified by by the Diet, those same groups form
Speaker 1: this even larger group called the People's Counsel for Preventing
Speaker 1: Revision to Security Treaty. And this thing is massive's got
Speaker 1: a it's a hundred and thirty four different organizations in it. Um.
Speaker 1: You know, the biggest of them of the Japanese Socialist Party,
Speaker 1: the General Council of Trade Unions in Japan or very
Speaker 1: powerful trade union UH federation uh. And then there's Zeno Kadran,
Speaker 1: which is the Japanese radical student movement to we will
Speaker 1: we will talk more about in a little bit. Um. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that Commonist Party is also sort of involved in this,
Speaker 1: but like they don't want to let them join for
Speaker 1: political reasons initially. But you know, the everything about this,
Speaker 1: like it's not just like leftist orgs like Japan's Professional
Speaker 1: Association Association for like Thespians is in this coalition. Like yeah,
Speaker 1: there's you know, there's a lot of people who are
Speaker 1: like there's a lot of groups that are like not
Speaker 1: inherently political groups that are in this and yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: and it's you know, this is basically this is the
Speaker 1: product of like all the stuff that Left has been
Speaker 1: doing for the past basically since the war ended. And
Speaker 1: so you know, and these guys point out that, you know,
Speaker 1: so she is able to get the clause out about
Speaker 1: the US interfering to surpressed rioties civil wars, but there's
Speaker 1: still a clause that says the US allowed to send
Speaker 1: troops to deal with quote all threats to Japan's peace
Speaker 1: and security, which you know, yeah, threats to peace and
Speaker 1: security like people doing politics we don't agree with. Yep, yep, yeah, okay, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's yeah. So, so so People's Council starts staging these like
Speaker 1: enormous protests and you know, they go on for a
Speaker 1: few months, it doesn't really do anything until Zokan, who's
Speaker 1: the radical student organization, goes rogue. And the important than
Speaker 1: is that like so ay, they're not directly tied to
Speaker 1: any of the parties and be they are like way
Speaker 1: more willing to fight the cops than anyone else here.
Speaker 1: And so the People's Council is planning is like massive
Speaker 1: series of protests. But so Gokaran looks at like, you know,
Speaker 1: this is like their eighth Giant protests, and Karan goes, okay,
Speaker 1: well those did nothing, so this one was don't at
Speaker 1: you anything either. So they form a plan to storm
Speaker 1: the Japanese Parliament building, and you know, the People's Council
Speaker 1: like finds out about this plan, and they're like trying
Speaker 1: to stop to go Arend from doing it, but the
Speaker 1: Arend like negotiates with like the Tokyo's like trade unions,
Speaker 1: and they're able to just do it anyways. So you know,
Speaker 1: five hundred thousand people across Japan, like eighty thousand people
Speaker 1: in Tokyo show up to this protests and like in
Speaker 1: the middle of the march, so go Caron just like
Speaker 1: charge origins the police barricades, beats back the police and
Speaker 1: like forces their way into the diet and takes control
Speaker 1: of it, and you know, and then they hold it
Speaker 1: for like a day and they leave and people people
Speaker 1: do not like this, like the you know, like the
Speaker 1: even like the Socialist and Japanese part Communist Party like
Speaker 1: condemned them for it, and you know, public opinion turns
Speaker 1: against them, and there's this whole like disaster and you know,
Speaker 1: and sing Karran gets like a lot of ship for
Speaker 1: this because you know, like they stormed that, they stormed
Speaker 1: the diet building. But you know it's worth remembering that
Speaker 1: like everyone else, like everything else, and where modern factually
Speaker 1: was doing just like didn't work. And What's Karan did
Speaker 1: here was drew an enormous amount of attention to the movement.
Speaker 1: And this is and you know that that's actually that's
Speaker 1: a vital part of like what happens next. And what
Speaker 1: happens next is that the Socialist Party, the Socialist Party
Speaker 1: does like I think, like the funniest set of political
Speaker 1: tricks I've ever seen in my life, where you know,
Speaker 1: like they have they have this whole thing they want
Speaker 1: to do where they're trying to just like they're trying
Speaker 1: to delay the vote because I think if they delay
Speaker 1: the vote fast enough, like long enough, Kishi will just
Speaker 1: like get like kick out of the premiership ship by
Speaker 1: his own party. And you know, and this they're able
Speaker 1: to drag this on until like uh nineteen sixty and
Speaker 1: she she like you know, like she she's own party
Speaker 1: won't let him do a floor vote on the bill
Speaker 1: because like they're mad at him, and so on an
Speaker 1: equal fourth nineteen seventy, he creates the on Post Special
Speaker 1: Redific Special Measures Committee from loyal DP members, which was
Speaker 1: called the nickname the on Po Kama Kaze Squad, which is,
Speaker 1: you know that this is his attempt to try to
Speaker 1: figure out like how to like get through all of
Speaker 1: like get this like treaty through before his support collapse
Speaker 1: and like the diet session ends, and like literally the
Speaker 1: day the session is gonna end and he's gonna lose
Speaker 1: his opportunity to force his vote through. H he he
Speaker 1: starts doing his plan. And that's the Socialist Party like, no,
Speaker 1: something's bad is going to happen. So that they hire
Speaker 1: a bunch of like quote unquote secretaries who they they
Speaker 1: they hire them and they bring them in the building
Speaker 1: and they barricade the office of the Speaker of the
Speaker 1: Lower House to keep him from leaving his office. Where
Speaker 1: something that like I wish like our politicians were like
Speaker 1: it's like man and our pol our politics just like
Speaker 1: our parliament's so boring. Like nobody nobody's barricading the Speaker
Speaker 1: of the House like in their office. It's very sad,
Speaker 1: you know, and and this and the speaker like tells
Speaker 1: them to move and they don't, and so he calls
Speaker 1: the police to remove the socialist diever Is by force.
Speaker 1: And this is a huge deal, um, like this is
Speaker 1: this is the second time ever that the police have
Speaker 1: ever entered the Diet chamber and it's the only time
Speaker 1: before sense they've ever like physically removed Diet members. And
Speaker 1: so you know, this whole thing is being being being
Speaker 1: like broadcasting l TV. And there's there's the police just
Speaker 1: like dragging these like parliament members out of this building,
Speaker 1: like kicking and screaming and like you know, and and
Speaker 1: they catch like the speaker like fighting his way to
Speaker 1: the rostroom and he calls a vote to extend the
Speaker 1: diet session like two minutes before it's supposed to end,
Speaker 1: and like he wins the vote, and there's the camera.
Speaker 1: The camera is like it shows, it pans, it shows
Speaker 1: all the LDP like ministers clapping, and then it pans
Speaker 1: and it pans to the other half the diet and
Speaker 1: they half to the the Diet. Every single person in the
Speaker 1: opposition is gone. There's none of them are there. And
Speaker 1: because the opposition is completely gone, Keis, she makes this
Speaker 1: like unexpected snap vote to force the treaty through with
Speaker 1: no debate, and you know, because of some like legal bullshit,
Speaker 1: she's able to figure out a way that like the
Speaker 1: treaty will still go into effect even without the Upper
Speaker 1: House approving it as long as they just stay in session.
Speaker 1: And the Japanese public like just they're unbelievably piste off.
Speaker 1: Like even the pro treaty people look at like the
Speaker 1: ex fascist guy like removing the opposition party by force
Speaker 1: and holding a previously unknown Yeah, like like like they
Speaker 1: watched like all of this. It's just on TV and
Speaker 1: it's like like it sets off three general strikes, and
Speaker 1: you know at this point that the protests basically become
Speaker 1: an anti quishing movements, and like everyone in the country
Speaker 1: like including that the conservative newspapers are calling for him
Speaker 1: to resignedly because the business leaders turn on him to
Speaker 1: the point where like they start fundings and Gokuduren like
Speaker 1: they start funding the communist student movement through like weird
Speaker 1: organized crime people because they're like Santo Karen's mainstream faction
Speaker 1: is anti is anti Kishi, like yeah, and that's how
Speaker 1: like wild this and you know, and like the other
Speaker 1: thing is like like ordinary people just like start showing
Speaker 1: at the protests and so like like thirty million people,
Speaker 1: which is like a third of the total population shows
Speaker 1: up to like an anti Kishi protest between sixty Jesus Christ. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's like it piste off and this is this is
Speaker 1: like this is the defining events of like the sort
Speaker 1: of like the media postwar generation, like this is the
Speaker 1: thing they remember. Um. Like so we'll get to this
Speaker 1: in a little bit. But Shinzo Abe, who was the
Speaker 1: longest serving Japanese prime minister, he he came out office
Speaker 1: like last year. So he's Kishi's grandson and he talks
Speaker 1: about like, yeah, he learned politics like like while he
Speaker 1: was on Kishi's knee and Kishi was telling him about
Speaker 1: what was happening in the streets. Yeah, it's yeah, that's
Speaker 1: not great. And you know, you know this part though,
Speaker 1: is extremely like that there's there there's a great story
Speaker 1: about just like is kindergartener like on the street who
Speaker 1: asked the famous political sciences? Is she Takashi? Why doesn't
Speaker 1: Kishi just resign already like he's lost the kinder gardeners. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and you know the other thing. The other thing is
Speaker 1: happening with this is that so Eisenhower's supposed to show
Speaker 1: up in Japan um on the nineteenth so he can
Speaker 1: be there for for the twenty one, which is supposed
Speaker 1: to he's goming to this giant visit that is supposed
Speaker 1: to be like the hundredth anniversary of diplomatic relations between
Speaker 1: the US and Japan. And this is also the treaty
Speaker 1: goes into effect. And so you know, you on June fourth,
Speaker 1: there's the largest general strike in Japanese history, and then
Speaker 1: on the fifteenth there's another general strike at a six
Speaker 1: point four million people in it. And at this strike,
Speaker 1: you know, a bunch of like street performers, artists and
Speaker 1: writers like go to like give a petition to the
Speaker 1: to the parliament, and they all get attacked by this
Speaker 1: like giant fascist mob like wooden poles with nails in them,
Speaker 1: and the moms is changing because he will kill you
Speaker 1: and beat and we and beat them dead. Yeah. Like
Speaker 1: eight people are in and again like these are like
Speaker 1: these are like like theater actresses, fashions and stuff. It's like, ah, yes,
Speaker 1: we will, we will beat these theater actresses and poets
Speaker 1: and this this this, this, this will make us strong. Yeah,
Speaker 1: eleven people are injured and eleven and eight people are
Speaker 1: injured and leven people get hospitalized, and meanwhile Cokaran is like,
Speaker 1: we're going to storm the diet again, and you know, yeah,
Speaker 1: well but one of these this time it does work.
Speaker 1: And it works because so they fight the cops for
Speaker 1: a long time and it's kind of a stalemate and
Speaker 1: the compstitute is kind of attacked. But in this kind
Speaker 1: of attack, they trample a Tokyo University undergrad name Comba
Speaker 1: Minchiko to death, and that, yeah, that causes the crowd
Speaker 1: to just like go wild because you know, the police
Speaker 1: just trampled a child to death. And so four thousand
Speaker 1: students storm the diet and they hold it into one
Speaker 1: am in these like running street battles with the police,
Speaker 1: and this is where like like everyone turns on Kishi,
Speaker 1: like the company sation of the cops like murdered a
Speaker 1: girl and they beat up a bunch of theater actresses.
Speaker 1: It's just too much. And at this point it becomes
Speaker 1: clear that, you know, if Eisenhower comes to Japan, they
Speaker 1: won't be able to keep him safe because they can't
Speaker 1: hold the Yeah, that that could be a little bit
Speaker 1: of a faux pas for Japan, you know, and and
Speaker 1: you know Kishi. Kishi like really wants us to happen,
Speaker 1: because like Eisenhower visit in the treaty, like this is
Speaker 1: this is like all this is like this is this
Speaker 1: is everything he's been working for since he became Prime minister.
Speaker 1: And so he has this plan to like mobilize the
Speaker 1: self defense forces, which is what the Japanese armies called
Speaker 1: because euphemisms. Yeah, but she so he tries to like
Speaker 1: he has his plan to like mobilize an entire division
Speaker 1: of like the army and march them through the streets
Speaker 1: to clear the streets and get Eisenhower in, and even
Speaker 1: like his like his his defense chief and the head
Speaker 1: of the National Police is like, you can't do this,
Speaker 1: like there will literally be an uprising. And so she's
Speaker 1: like she she undeterred, is like okay, so I'm gonna
Speaker 1: I'm gonna go to my Yakusa contacts. So he goes
Speaker 1: to Kodama and he has he has his plan to
Speaker 1: get eighteen thousand like Yack is a hardliners, like ten
Speaker 1: thousand guys who worked for Yaka is like street vendors
Speaker 1: and ten thousand like veterans, right we cult members to
Speaker 1: clear the streets and like he's gonna give them, like
Speaker 1: the government's going to give them like trucks and like
Speaker 1: food and first aid teams and like command post and
Speaker 1: two point three million dollars and like airplanes and helicopters
Speaker 1: that couldn't end badly sure, yeah, well, and even his
Speaker 1: cabinet is like, Kishi, you can't do this, like you're
Speaker 1: gonna start a civil war again, and a lot of
Speaker 1: fascists being like, boy, seems like that's too much fascism. Yeah, yeah, Kishi,
Speaker 1: Kishi is like Kishi is the fascist that other fascists
Speaker 1: are like, whoa hey, now, like this's just too much fascism.
Speaker 1: But you know what's not too much fascism, Chris, Unless
Speaker 1: it's a black rifle coffee then it's another black rifle
Speaker 1: coffee head or an ex On mobile ad or um
Speaker 1: one of those weird Christian cult ads we've been kind
Speaker 1: of getting. There was a literal ad for the California
Speaker 1: Highway Patrol. Yeah, definitely an ad for chips. That's fascism.
Speaker 1: So I don't know, I've lost I've I've lost the
Speaker 1: point that I was trying to make fascist ads. But
Speaker 1: it's time for ads and we're sorry if it's something
Speaker 1: random we didn't select and it's horrifying. We do apologize. Uh,
Speaker 1: we live in an engine of pain. Here's some ads,
Speaker 1: Uh good stuff. Well we had some ads. All right.
Speaker 1: I want to hear how this all gets resolved. Now
Speaker 1: that this guy has been like, what if we? What
Speaker 1: if we? What if we? What do we? Twist that
Speaker 1: fascism dial up to eleven? And all of his friends
Speaker 1: were like, that kind of seems a little bit high
Speaker 1: because it seems like we've pissed everybody off with all
Speaker 1: of the violence we've been doing. Yeah, yeah, you know
Speaker 1: it ends. I'm not gonna say well, but you know,
Speaker 1: eventually backs down and it's just like okay, Eisenhower like,
Speaker 1: if you come, we can't protect you. And so Eisenhower
Speaker 1: Kansas visit and on the day of the trees is
Speaker 1: supposed to be ratified, three hundred thousand people show up
Speaker 1: around the diet in Tokyo. But you know, they can't
Speaker 1: actually stop the tree from being ratified, and so, you know,
Speaker 1: because the tree is being ratified automatically, there's something they
Speaker 1: can do, and so they sort of they stand there
Speaker 1: and you know, it's a very sort of grim scene.
Speaker 1: Everyone's wearing black arm bands, like black bandanas to celebrate,
Speaker 1: you know what sort of mourn like the death of
Speaker 1: the protester. But you know, there's nothing they can really do.
Speaker 1: Like the next day there's a general strike and there's
Speaker 1: like some more protests the day after. But she she,
Speaker 1: she she has the final document he needs to sign,
Speaker 1: like smuggle to him in a candy box so it
Speaker 1: couldn't be stolen by protesters. Yeah, and so he signs it,
Speaker 1: and you know, like the next month on on July fifteen,
Speaker 1: Kish is forced to resign and the movement just collapses.
Speaker 1: So you know, it's it's it's a mixed bag. Like
Speaker 1: on the one hand, they got Kishi. This is this
Speaker 1: is only consequence that Keishi's ever going to face his
Speaker 1: entire Like that's not quite true. It's one of exactly
Speaker 1: two consequences ever going to face in his entire life,
Speaker 1: and he survives both of them. And but you know,
Speaker 1: on the other hand, like this treaty still went through,
Speaker 1: and you know, the sort of left that had built
Speaker 1: out to stop this becomes a chord of a demoralized
Speaker 1: and they spritan, they splinter and fragments and yeah, and
Speaker 1: she you know, because this is the end of Kishi's
Speaker 1: like mainstream political career. Um. But you know, he he
Speaker 1: doesn't go away. He still he sort of stays around
Speaker 1: behind the scenes as this like it's kind of like
Speaker 1: this fixer and you know, and he he does, he
Speaker 1: does a few more things at the end of the war.
Speaker 1: The end of the sounds like he's kind of nixoned
Speaker 1: a little bit where he's he's got some he's got
Speaker 1: some soft influence, but also nobody wants to really be
Speaker 1: seen in public with the guy. Yeah, well, okay, I
Speaker 1: will say that there are a few people who do
Speaker 1: want to be be seen in public with this guy,
Speaker 1: and the biggest of those is called the Unification Church,
Speaker 1: which is just like shit, yeah, yeah, fanatically anti communist
Speaker 1: religious pates. Yeah that that allegedly kidnaps and brainwashes children
Speaker 1: allegedly allegedly. Yeah, and Keish like so ke she she
Speaker 1: is the guy responsible for bringing these people like into
Speaker 1: the LDPS base, like like the head of the head
Speaker 1: of this guy the party's got named Moon and he
Speaker 1: like she gets evicted convicted of tax fraud in the
Speaker 1: nineties or in the eighties and nineties. But you know,
Speaker 1: there's a thing in Japan. By the end, the guys
Speaker 1: convicted in the U S and there's a thing in
Speaker 1: Japanese law where like, if you've been convicted of a crime,
Speaker 1: you can't enter the country now. So this should have
Speaker 1: stopped moon from coming too Japan. But like the Vice president,
Speaker 1: you know, even like even even in the nineties, like
Speaker 1: the Moonies are still like so firmly embedded in the
Speaker 1: LDP that even in the nineties, like like the vice
Speaker 1: the Vice President of Japan personally intercedes and allows him
Speaker 1: to enter the country illegally, and it's yeah, it's great,
Speaker 1: this is this, this is what kes she's doing, and
Speaker 1: it sort of like last days. Yeah, and you know,
Speaker 1: one other thing, one very weird thing happens at the
Speaker 1: very end of this, which is that the day before
Speaker 1: he resigns, she's at this like dinner gala, and this
Speaker 1: dude stabs him like six times, and then he gives
Speaker 1: this extremely weird quote that was like like it's something
Speaker 1: it's something like, yeah, I stabbed him six times, but
Speaker 1: if I was trying to kill him, he would be dead.
Speaker 1: And there's there's all this and nobody actually knows why
Speaker 1: he tried to assassinate Kishi or didn't try to assassinate
Speaker 1: him and said just stabbed him six times. Um, there's
Speaker 1: a lot of theories, like the guy was like an
Speaker 1: old fascist from like the thirties. He's like sixty at
Speaker 1: this point, and you know, his stated response was that
Speaker 1: he talked to the family of like the the girl
Speaker 1: that had died. But it doesn't make any sense because
Speaker 1: like this guy is a fascist. And there's another theory
Speaker 1: that like this is a yak is a hit because
Speaker 1: um Bambaka oh no, like was piste off that Kishi
Speaker 1: wouldn't help them be prime ministers. So he was just like, Okay,
Speaker 1: I'll send the guy to stab you. I don't know that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's a lot of very weird theories about this,
Speaker 1: but you know, it's sort of unclear what happens, and
Speaker 1: you know, Kishi Kishi survives this. And you know, even
Speaker 1: even though the LDP like is now Kishi lists quote unquote,
Speaker 1: the structures and political organizations that he put in place
Speaker 1: are you know, they're they're still here to this day.
Speaker 1: And that brings us to Kishi's grandson, Shinzo Abe, the
Speaker 1: longest surfing prime minister in Japanese history. Who uh finally
Speaker 1: left office last year because of an ulcer and his rectum,
Speaker 1: which you know, critical support did. No, it's not good
Speaker 1: when I laugh in unison with Robert. Sometimes good things
Speaker 1: happen to good people. Yeah, Now is a member of
Speaker 1: a group called Nippon Kagai, which is a fascist group that,
Speaker 1: according to a US Congressional report, believes that quote, Japan
Speaker 1: should be applauded for liberating much of East Asia from
Speaker 1: western colonial powers, that the nineteen forty six and nineteen
Speaker 1: forty eight Tokyo War crimes tribunals were illegitimate, and that
Speaker 1: the killings by Japanese troops in the nineteen thirties seven
Speaker 1: n Jing massacre were exaggerated or fabricated. And they also
Speaker 1: openly call for a restoration of the monarchy and institution
Speaker 1: of Shinto is a state religion. And and Abbe himself
Speaker 1: has like repeatedly stated that Japanese military sex slaves. You
Speaker 1: use the term comfort woman because you know, the euphemisms
Speaker 1: helping to de nihilism. But he, you know, he like
Speaker 1: has said on multiple occasions that these sex slaves were
Speaker 1: never forced to be raped. Yeah, yeah, yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: And he's also he's also a big champion. He's like
Speaker 1: the the champion of like so one of the she's
Speaker 1: like other signature issue when he was a politician was
Speaker 1: rearming Japan because he was piste off that like Japan
Speaker 1: couldn't still be a like and when I said to
Speaker 1: help me in defense works like he wants like he
Speaker 1: wants Japan. He wants Japan again to have an effective
Speaker 1: military that can invade ship. Yeah yeah, yeah, it wasn't
Speaker 1: one that he wants to be an empire again. And
Speaker 1: Obbe is also like a giant rearmamant person. Yeah. And
Speaker 1: he also he visits something called a shrine called the
Speaker 1: Yasukune Shrine, which is the shrine just like soldiers who
Speaker 1: died serving the Japanese emperor. And you know this, the
Speaker 1: shrine has this this thing called the Book of Souls,
Speaker 1: which like has the name of like everyone who died
Speaker 1: like serving for the emperor or whatever is like Chilian
Speaker 1: people in it. Now in this book are a thousand
Speaker 1: and sixty eight people who were convicted of war crimes
Speaker 1: and also the fourteen Class A war criminals who died
Speaker 1: were executed who are also considered murders. And this includes
Speaker 1: to Joe, It's it's yeah. And you know, now, for
Speaker 1: very obvious reasons, China and Korea, and both the Koreas,
Speaker 1: this is like the one of the few things both
Speaker 1: Korea's like really completely agree on is that they get
Speaker 1: absolutely piste off about prime minisioners visiting their shrine, visiting
Speaker 1: you know, a shrine to the people who enslaved, rape
Speaker 1: and murdered tens of billions of their people. But you know,
Speaker 1: I'll did it anyways, because modern Japan is Kishi's Japan.
Speaker 1: Despite the protests, despite the strikes, despite a third of
Speaker 1: the country taking to the streets, but he won. The
Speaker 1: only thing he didn't get was the armament, and so
Speaker 1: you know, the mass rapes and Korean Vietnam will be
Speaker 1: left to the Americans and not the Japanese. But we
Speaker 1: all now live in the world that Kishi created. Yeah, right,
Speaker 1: a happy story. Yeah, you know, I promised at the
Speaker 1: at the beginning of this episode, at the end of
Speaker 1: the episodes, I would ask you, is this the worst
Speaker 1: rehabilitation of a fascist war criminal in terms of like
Speaker 1: the actual amount of power he got? Probably? Yeah, I
Speaker 1: think I think probably, um, Because yeah, you've got like
Speaker 1: guys like von Braun, but like von Braun was bad
Speaker 1: and it's fucked up that he get rehabilitated. But the
Speaker 1: thing he went on to do wasn't bad. It was
Speaker 1: putting helping to put a man on the moon, which
Speaker 1: is like fine, um, and you've got I don't know.
Speaker 1: There's that Nazi general who the CIA used to set
Speaker 1: up Aspy Ring and he did some fucked up stuff,
Speaker 1: but I think had certainly had less geopolitical influence than
Speaker 1: this guy. Yeah, I think this. This is definitely I'm
Speaker 1: racking my brain, but I'm not coming up with with
Speaker 1: one to top it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Should have started
Speaker 1: this episode with what's rehabilitating my fascists? That would have
Speaker 1: been better. And it turns out the what is my government?
Speaker 1: You love to see it? You love to see it? Well, Chris,
Speaker 1: that is that the entire thing? What do you what
Speaker 1: do you? What do you Chris about that? To be honest,
Speaker 1: what do you good? What do you? What do you?
Speaker 1: What do you? What do you think Nicholas Cage's hair
Speaker 1: smells like Nicholas Cage's hair? Yeah? What do you think
Speaker 1: his hair smells like? I've been looking at a picture
Speaker 1: of him for the last three hours that explains so much. Chris,
Speaker 1: you have, I have, I have a I don't. I don't.
Speaker 1: I don't think it smells very good because, like you know,
Speaker 1: isn't Nicolas, because isn't he constantly like doing bad movies
Speaker 1: because he needs money for just like like an elephant happening.
Speaker 1: He's like some weird No, he's addicted to buying dinosaurs. Cope,
Speaker 1: that's what it is. Yeah, yeah, okay. I think his
Speaker 1: hair smells like nail polished remover with a hint of pop. See.
Speaker 1: I was gonna say fake apples, but like the specific
Speaker 1: fake apple smell that they put in like agricultural products,
Speaker 1: like medicine for horses, Like i'ver mectin fake apples. That's fair,
Speaker 1: hint of poop. I don't know. We'll see if you've
Speaker 1: smelled Nicolas Cage. Hit us up on social media, let
Speaker 1: us know, tell us who's right. One of us has
Speaker 1: to be. You might be right, though. I think it
Speaker 1: might smell like that really bad apple flavored like alcohol. Also, yeah,
Speaker 1: a little bit of that, a little bit of that.
Speaker 1: All right, Well, we'll see. We'll see someone out there
Speaker 1: has smelled Nicolas Cage's hair, and they'll let us know
Speaker 1: who's right, Let us know that's really really that way.
Speaker 1: We're not just we're not just staring at a photo
Speaker 1: of Nicholas that because it was. It's been a long day, Sophie.
Speaker 1: Everybody needs something to, you know, perk them up. Halfway point.
Speaker 1: Look at the midway point of the day. Some people
Speaker 1: have another cup of coffee. Some people stare wordlessly at
Speaker 1: a photograph of Nicolas Cage while their friend talks about
Speaker 1: war crimes for three hours. Chris, where can people follow you? Uh? Yeah,
Speaker 1: you can follow me being extremely depressed about this at
Speaker 1: me see h R three on Twitter. Um if you
Speaker 1: want to read a slightly less depressing thing that I wrote, Um,
Speaker 1: I wrote a piece for laus On that's like about Tieneman,
Speaker 1: which I swear is less depressing than this, if only
Speaker 1: sort of marginally. Um yeah yeah. I also, I I work.
Speaker 1: I work for cool Zone now, so I'm on a
Speaker 1: lot of a lot of other things. Yeah. You can't
Speaker 1: get rid of me now, nope. So have a good
Speaker 1: day and remember tell us what Nicholas Cage's hair smells like. Yeah,