Speaker 1: Prime Minister Abe was a champion of democracy and a
Speaker 1: firm believer that no economy, society or country can achieve
Speaker 1: its full potential if women are left behind. I am
Speaker 1: shocked and devastated by his assassination, a loss for Japan
Speaker 1: and our world. J K. This is assassination week. WHO's
Speaker 1: assassinating my ex x former prime minister of Japan? It's
Speaker 1: it's assassination week. It is, it is. I I would
Speaker 1: kind of I would somewhat ving gloriously argue the capstone
Speaker 1: of assassination week. It is the episode about the assassination
Speaker 1: that started at all Um, and by by that I
Speaker 1: mean we are, we are, we're here talking about the
Speaker 1: assassination of Juan Shinzo Abe Um. This is this is
Speaker 1: going to be a slightly different episode, both to the
Speaker 1: rest of assassination week episodes and to the other episod
Speaker 1: we did on the asassinationations in Abbe Um, partly because,
Speaker 1: basically the day after, with within about two days of
Speaker 1: the our episode, original episode about the Abbe assassination dropping Um,
Speaker 1: there was confirmation that the reason abbe was killed was
Speaker 1: because of his connection to an organization called the Unification Church,
Speaker 1: which is I think better locially known as the Mooneyes Um.
Speaker 1: People might have listened to the very, very long episode
Speaker 1: I did about it, but yeah, there is. There is
Speaker 1: an enormous amount going on there and this is something
Speaker 1: that fortunately, we have experts for. And Yeah, so, so
Speaker 1: joining us to talk about this assassination and the moonies
Speaker 1: and sort of, I don't know, the sort of weirdness
Speaker 1: and the horror around everything that's been happening around this
Speaker 1: assassination is anti fascist researcher Elisa, as you yeah, Alisa's
Speaker 1: a anti fascist researcher specializing in cults WHO's working with
Speaker 1: deprogramming imperialism, which is a collective of x Moonies who've
Speaker 1: been documenting just sort of all of the ship the
Speaker 1: moonies have been getting up to and trying to get
Speaker 1: more awareness of really just incredible array of awful stuff
Speaker 1: that they've been doing. Yeah, so a Lisa, welcome to
Speaker 1: the show. Hi, thanks for having me. I really appreciate it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and thank you. Thank you so much for joining us
Speaker 1: for this. I don't know why I'm saying us, as
Speaker 1: if if there's someone other than this episode and you,
Speaker 1: but you know, old old habits die hard. I guess.
Speaker 1: I guess I've inherited the royal we which is not great.
Speaker 1: Oh well, so someone will have to assassinate me soon.
Speaker 1: That's fine, sometimes it happens. I hope it doesn't happen
Speaker 1: to you, though. Yeah, that would not be the best
Speaker 1: assassination target, honestly. Yeah, so, okay, I guess the place
Speaker 1: I think we should start is talking about what we've
Speaker 1: found out about this assassin in the last sort of
Speaker 1: a few months since this happened, which is that when
Speaker 1: when the initial police reports came out, there was a
Speaker 1: bunch of very, very murky stuff about basically the police
Speaker 1: were like this wasn't a political killing, it was about
Speaker 1: some organization, and I think me and you and every
Speaker 1: single other person who was like even tangentially where of
Speaker 1: Japanese politics saw them say like an organization and was like,
Speaker 1: Oh no, there's like a one in three chances of
Speaker 1: the booties. Yeah, that's yeah. I saw like when they
Speaker 1: said something about like organization or religious organization, I was
Speaker 1: like yeah, it was probably is. Yeah, yeah, and it
Speaker 1: turns out that okay, so the assassin is a man
Speaker 1: named Tsuya Yamagami, who was a navy veteran Um. Yeah,
Speaker 1: made a a series of unbelievably based and incredibly wild
Speaker 1: fire arms with which she assassinated the foreign per minister Japan. What,
Speaker 1: what we've learned since then is that the reason he
Speaker 1: did this was that his basically, like his family and
Speaker 1: his life were completely destroyed by his mom falling into
Speaker 1: the colts, and by her I mean she, she, she,
Speaker 1: she gave this Colt set like something like seven hundred
Speaker 1: thousand dollars. Yeah, like roughly seven U S dollars. Yeah,
Speaker 1: like literal, like like multiple fortunes, like she, she, she
Speaker 1: gave them all of her money and then she sold
Speaker 1: the company that like she had been running to give
Speaker 1: them more money. And, yeah, what what? What, basically, as
Speaker 1: best we can tell, has happened was that he was
Speaker 1: he was looking at a way to like get back
Speaker 1: at the booty's Um. And basically the problem was he okay, so,
Speaker 1: he didn't want to kill civilians, which I think is admirable,
Speaker 1: and he couldn't figure out a way to like get
Speaker 1: at any of the like individual church leaders, and so
Speaker 1: he's the thing he decided to do was go after
Speaker 1: Shinzo Abe because, as we're gonna get to in a
Speaker 1: in a bit Enzo Abbey lots of connections with the
Speaker 1: Unification Church, a thing that all of the people like
Speaker 1: writing glowing obituaries about him just like incredibly don't want
Speaker 1: to mention. Yeah, it's been left out of a lot
Speaker 1: of ship yeah, and okay, so I guess to back
Speaker 1: up a little bit, Um, can for for for people
Speaker 1: who sort of don't know what this is or for
Speaker 1: people who like, may have heard of Abdy to refresher,
Speaker 1: can you talk a bit about what? What? What? What
Speaker 1: the Unification Church actually is? And Yeah, we can, we
Speaker 1: can sort of go from there. Yeah, definitely. Okay. So
Speaker 1: the Unification Church, or the Moonys, uh, they are a
Speaker 1: quote unquote, new religious movement or pretty much a cult
Speaker 1: you know, they're very culty and they're a cult Um,
Speaker 1: and they were started by some young moon who was
Speaker 1: originally from what is now North Korea. Uh. And so basically,
Speaker 1: this guy, he claims he's the Messiah, has this originally
Speaker 1: it started out as like a sex cult um under
Speaker 1: a practice called, I think, Picarum, which is basically, uh,
Speaker 1: he was supposed to quote unquote, clans a woman's like
Speaker 1: relationship to God by having sex with her so he
Speaker 1: assaulted a number of people doing this stuff. Um. And
Speaker 1: the church over the years has sort of like developed
Speaker 1: into more of a multinational corporation, uh, and political movement. Uh.
Speaker 1: And it has a lot of tools, I mean a
Speaker 1: lot of ties and connections to various governments around the world,
Speaker 1: including Japan. Um. And it's basically, at the end of
Speaker 1: the day, a tool of United States imperialism. Um, there's
Speaker 1: some pretty pretty direct ties to like the Korean CIA. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: as well as the U S C I. A. Um. So, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's like this big umbrella of like groups, different NGOs,
Speaker 1: different like businesses, a bunch. It's just a whole conglomeration
Speaker 1: of things, right. Um, but very extremely virulently anti Communist. Uh. And,
Speaker 1: you know, involved in some of some of the greatest
Speaker 1: hits of the last century, like Iran Contra. Uh. Yeah,
Speaker 1: for us. And when? When? When? When we say involved
Speaker 1: in a rand contract? Like, okay, there's lots of people
Speaker 1: who are like sort of involved in the ran contract.
Speaker 1: The movies like there. There is a dec there you
Speaker 1: can do. You can make the arguments that if the
Speaker 1: Mooney's had not been doing what they were doing in
Speaker 1: Nicaragua around contras wouldn't have been able to happen because
Speaker 1: the civil war would have ended like they like when, when,
Speaker 1: when I say like, when we say like, like they
Speaker 1: were involved in the around contract, like they are like
Speaker 1: on the ground giving people guns and money and keeping
Speaker 1: like literally literally keeping guerrilla organizations and like terrorist groups
Speaker 1: like in the war who wouldn't have been able to otherwise. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and then, and then also, and that's that's the thing,
Speaker 1: like they did to around contrast, right, because they did.
Speaker 1: They did the second around contract with like with, you know,
Speaker 1: when the CIA actually got money, but they were also
Speaker 1: doing the same thing like before that, when they in
Speaker 1: the sort of stop gap period with the CIA wasn't
Speaker 1: able to fund the contrast. So, yeah, these guys are
Speaker 1: route for that money. And Yeah, so it's yeah, they're very,
Speaker 1: very heavily involved. Like basically anywhere there is an anti
Speaker 1: communists squad, like in the world, you can find the
Speaker 1: moonies funding in though. Okay, I wasn't. Weirdly, the only
Speaker 1: one I the only one I haven't directly been able
Speaker 1: to find is I haven't been able to directly find
Speaker 1: any evidence that they were like that. Like specifically, they
Speaker 1: were helping Pinot like helping pl okay, they were involved
Speaker 1: in Operation Condor and they were like doing ship with that.
Speaker 1: I haven't found evidence they like directly had any conversations
Speaker 1: with Pinochet, but that's he's like the the only person
Speaker 1: you can say that about. And they probably did at
Speaker 1: some point, like but, you know, like a frail straws yeah,
Speaker 1: like they probably did. Like, I mean again, like they
Speaker 1: were they were there with a frail strawsner. They were
Speaker 1: there with, Um, what, what's that guy's name? UH, Claus Barbie,
Speaker 1: the cocaine. Yeah, yeah, I can't, I can't. I can't
Speaker 1: remember that, the name of the guy. Yeah, there was.
Speaker 1: There was a guy and believe you, who got installed
Speaker 1: for like a year that he got could now. Um, yeah, no,
Speaker 1: I I know who you're talking about, but I'm also
Speaker 1: forgetting his name at the moment. Yeah, it's funny because
Speaker 1: he's like he's one of these guys where it's like,
Speaker 1: you know, I had a professor I took I took
Speaker 1: a Syrian history class in college, right and Um, there,
Speaker 1: I think it's I really should if I was saying
Speaker 1: it's that really should know the year. But there, there, there,
Speaker 1: there's a year in like the fifties in Syria, where
Speaker 1: there's like four cups in one year and there were
Speaker 1: like two guys who were, technically speaking, like had controller. serially,
Speaker 1: he was like, I'm just not even telling you these
Speaker 1: guys names because they get overthrown him like two months
Speaker 1: and like that's that's, that's this guy. Yeah, but yeah,
Speaker 1: this is a very sort of very serious and deeply
Speaker 1: scary like death squad funding machine. Yeah, and that, you know,
Speaker 1: has continued to today pretty much. So, yeah, and okay,
Speaker 1: I think like yeah, so, yeah, there's sort of the
Speaker 1: dust squad side of it. Um, the other thing I
Speaker 1: wanted to ask you about is about like what it's
Speaker 1: like being in the church and what it's like sort
Speaker 1: of I don't know, because I think, I think a
Speaker 1: big part of what's happening with this story is to
Speaker 1: a Yamagami like basically watching his family get sucked in
Speaker 1: and not being able to do anything about it, and
Speaker 1: I was wondering if you could talk a bit about yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean sort of like what, what? What? What? What
Speaker 1: it's like being in the church and then what it's
Speaker 1: like just sort of watching it destroy people. Yeah, so, Um,
Speaker 1: I was born and raised in the church. I left
Speaker 1: when I was around seventeen. It was not it was
Speaker 1: not nice. Um, pretty much everybody I talked to who
Speaker 1: is also left feels the burden of this like perfect
Speaker 1: abuse that we had to endure. Um, it was a
Speaker 1: bleak time for me. Uh, you know, there's just so
Speaker 1: much pressure put on members to follow leadership, to do
Speaker 1: out outrageous amounts of fundraising. They have a bunch of
Speaker 1: these fundraising teams, right, and they'll they'll go out and
Speaker 1: they'll sell things and live in a van, occasionally stopping
Speaker 1: at like different church centers. Um Too like, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: sleep for the night or whatever. They don't eat well, UH,
Speaker 1: they don't get enough sleep, you know, like you're constantly
Speaker 1: around other people, basically like all all of the methods
Speaker 1: of psychological torture you can do on a person, right, Um,
Speaker 1: which was, you know, pretty standard throughout the whole movement. Um,
Speaker 1: I was lucky enough not to go on any of
Speaker 1: these fundraising teams because I left before Um, that could happen.
Speaker 1: But Um, I still, you know, definitely feel like the psychological,
Speaker 1: you know, fallout from that and it's something I'll be
Speaker 1: healing with, healing from for the rest of my life. Um. Yeah. So,
Speaker 1: like there's there's like no accountability for leadership. They can
Speaker 1: do whatever they want, but everybody else in the church,
Speaker 1: you know, Uh has to follow what moon and the
Speaker 1: regional or national leadership says, or the the thirty six
Speaker 1: blessed couples who are like some of the Moon's original followers. UH,
Speaker 1: there's it's like extremely hierarchical. UH, there's a lot of
Speaker 1: racism within the group, a huge amount of sexism that
Speaker 1: is like, you know, directly tied into their Um, their
Speaker 1: belief system, because the fall of man, according to the Moonies,
Speaker 1: was eve having sex with Saton and then having sex
Speaker 1: with Um Adam and spreading that thin Um. So just
Speaker 1: like very inherently misogynistic, extremely homophobic and transphobic movement. Just
Speaker 1: all around like so much sexual repression, like you're not
Speaker 1: supposed to hold hands, kiss, do anything before marriage, right,
Speaker 1: and then it's only that person. Well, of course moon,
Speaker 1: you know, didn't didn't like this. Didn't apply to him
Speaker 1: at all. He could sleep with anybody's wife pretty much. Um.
Speaker 1: So yeah, it was just altogether a very intense environment,
Speaker 1: just so much indoctrination going into the heads of the
Speaker 1: people who are part of it. Um. Yeah, just altogether
Speaker 1: shitty group. Um. Yeah. So for me, I I went
Speaker 1: away to school in another state when I was fourteen. Um,
Speaker 1: it got me like, you know, the physical distance as
Speaker 1: well as like the space and time to actually think
Speaker 1: and reflect on what was going on. And then I
Speaker 1: started doing some research online because I was like, well,
Speaker 1: maybe what people are saying about it is true, maybe
Speaker 1: it is a cult Um. And I came across this
Speaker 1: the tragedy of the six Mary's, which was, you know,
Speaker 1: Moon assaulting a bunch of women, uh, and that sort
Speaker 1: of like made me just, you know, it sort of
Speaker 1: brought it to a head because I had like, you know,
Speaker 1: seen for the longest time how leadership was treated versus
Speaker 1: how regular members had to live in like poverty. Um,
Speaker 1: but they got like big mansion ends and like Nice Things,
Speaker 1: Nice cars, expensive watches, but everybody else had to like
Speaker 1: give all their money to the church and you know,
Speaker 1: was were like terrorized, Um. And Uh, then eventually I
Speaker 1: was like, I think I have to go. I like
Speaker 1: I had been through the process of like meeting the
Speaker 1: mystical or the the evil other which, you know, like
Speaker 1: people outside of the church or you know, they're fallen.
Speaker 1: They're like, you know, basically they have original sins, so
Speaker 1: they're kind of evil, right. Um. And Gotten to know
Speaker 1: more people, UM, queer people, who were just like a
Speaker 1: hugely demonized group of people within the UC. Um, and
Speaker 1: here I am today. I'm Super Queer, Um, but like that,
Speaker 1: like hell, yeah, but like getting to know people and
Speaker 1: actually seeing, you know, like, Oh my God, what they're saying.
Speaker 1: These people are not evil, they're normal, they're human, they
Speaker 1: are just different from straight people. I don't know. That
Speaker 1: to me also made like a huge difference. Um. And
Speaker 1: then when I was seventeen, I went to another school
Speaker 1: and I was like, I want to get laid. I've
Speaker 1: had a lot, so I went out and did that
Speaker 1: and that felt like, you know, once I finally lost
Speaker 1: my virginity, it felt like sealing the deal. I'm like,
Speaker 1: if I have to go to hell now, okay, and
Speaker 1: it was cool because God didn't like immediately smite me
Speaker 1: where I where I was in bed at that point,
Speaker 1: like I lived and I'm here to tell the tale.
Speaker 1: So so, yeah, that's how I left. That rules. This
Speaker 1: is much more gay of the story. When I was expecting,
Speaker 1: which is all, which is a good thing. Yeah, a
Speaker 1: lot of like the stories of sort of like people
Speaker 1: leaving like the really right wing like evangelical was grade,
Speaker 1: like a lot of reminds me a quiverful but like, yeah,
Speaker 1: more intense, I think. Well, it's like I think like
Speaker 1: like the level of I don't know, I guess the
Speaker 1: level of separation. Yeah, they seem to be at least
Speaker 1: sort of like integrated into like other communities and stuff,
Speaker 1: whereas the Moonies, I don't know, like there's definitely like
Speaker 1: people have friends outside of it, but like generally, like
Speaker 1: people kind of keep to the moonies because, you know,
Speaker 1: they're supposed to be like God's chosen people or whatever.
Speaker 1: So they and they like look down on everyone else
Speaker 1: because they're not moonies. So yeah, it is. It's it's
Speaker 1: also interesting to me that like literally, like literally the
Speaker 1: term is just the evil other, which is so I
Speaker 1: don't think that's a literal term, but like that's how
Speaker 1: I sort of phrase it or whatever. But yeah, or
Speaker 1: just like fallen people would be or the fallen world,
Speaker 1: the outsiders, is what they would say. So just this
Speaker 1: very you know, like very like stigmatizing language that they
Speaker 1: use for people. Lots of people are just called evil
Speaker 1: in the church to they just call people evil like
Speaker 1: Willy Nilly. It's like, Oh, you're satanic, like no, that's
Speaker 1: not it's not that I don't know how to go
Speaker 1: to a good tradition into this. Yeah, we're going to adds. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so I wanted to just also talk about specifically one
Speaker 1: of one of the things that the church does and
Speaker 1: one of the things like the sort of one of
Speaker 1: the specific things that to Yamagami, Yamagami seems to have
Speaker 1: been suffering from, and particularly it is mom but his
Speaker 1: sort of full family, is the financial abuse. And Yeah,
Speaker 1: I wanted to ask you a bit about what that
Speaker 1: looks like. And also there's some several of the Japanese
Speaker 1: context that I think is slightly different thin so the
Speaker 1: American of the Korean context. I want to ask you
Speaker 1: a bit about that. Yeah, definitely. So, across the board, uh,
Speaker 1: Unification Church members are expected to bring in a lot
Speaker 1: of money through fundraising, through tithing, uh providing free labor or,
Speaker 1: you know, low paid labor through church businesses and stuff. Um.
Speaker 1: So the cases, though, that in Japan, because of the
Speaker 1: rhetoric of the church, which is, you know, basically born
Speaker 1: out of, you know, the environment, um in Korea. So
Speaker 1: there's basically this thought in the church that they say, Um,
Speaker 1: that Korea is the atom nation, uh because that's where, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, the Messiah came back, uh, South Korea, and Um,
Speaker 1: and that Japan is the eve nations supposed to submit
Speaker 1: to the Adam Nation Um and also sort of pay indemnity,
Speaker 1: which is a big word in the church, and uh
Speaker 1: for the atrocities committed during the Japanese occupation of Korea. Um.
Speaker 1: And so this means that Japanese members have to pay
Speaker 1: significantly more for pretty much everything. Um. So there's it's
Speaker 1: like just uh you know, like instead of like a
Speaker 1: type of reparations where it's like, you know, we'll give
Speaker 1: you money, it's like they make them suffer for uh
Speaker 1: that fact. and Uh so, like, you know, fundraising goals
Speaker 1: are very high. Um, let me see, I think I
Speaker 1: had a figure here somewhere. Um. Uh. Yeah, so Japanese
Speaker 1: membership they bring in roughly like the church's income. Uh
Speaker 1: so a large out for you know, like proportionally. Not
Speaker 1: You know, there are a lot of members in Japan. However,
Speaker 1: throughout the world, that is like proportionately. You know, where
Speaker 1: most of it comes from Um. And then as of
Speaker 1: several years ago, uh, the Japanese church fundraising goal was
Speaker 1: thirty billion yen, or around two million for that year,
Speaker 1: I believe. So just, you know, and so they go
Speaker 1: out selling uh. Ancestor Liberation is one thing. Uh. You're
Speaker 1: supposed to pay exorbitant fees for your ancestors to go
Speaker 1: to heaven. Um. There was a book called the Chanson
Speaker 1: young and that book was extremely expensive and, of course,
Speaker 1: much more expensive for members in Japan. Um, I think
Speaker 1: I read a figure where, I think I don't remember
Speaker 1: what year it was and it was not very recent.
Speaker 1: I think it might have been like or something, or
Speaker 1: two thousand two or something. I'm not sure, but it
Speaker 1: costs like roughly like two thousand American dollars to go
Speaker 1: to the marriage ceremony, the one of the mass weddings
Speaker 1: that the moonies do, where that everybody has arranged marriage,
Speaker 1: arranged married, Um. And so yeah, just like these huge
Speaker 1: amounts of money, uh, directly flowing from the pockets of
Speaker 1: the membership uh and anyone they happen to you know,
Speaker 1: have give them money uh into the coffers of the
Speaker 1: Church and, you know, directly on up to like the
Speaker 1: Moon family, who are billionaires. Um. Another thing I'd say
Speaker 1: here is that they often, uh, so, for people who
Speaker 1: that they're trying to fundraise from. UH, they often will
Speaker 1: target like elderly widows and people who are, you know,
Speaker 1: in sort of precarious places and come to them and say,
Speaker 1: your family member who has passed away wants you to
Speaker 1: give this donate into the church. Uh. They also like
Speaker 1: at one point made up like a fake Buddhist sect
Speaker 1: in order to like specifically target people. So it goes deep.
Speaker 1: There's a there's a lot to that. Yeah, like one
Speaker 1: of the things I remember reading those like that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they had like this whole network of like fake mediums
Speaker 1: you would like like specifically to target people. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: we target the widows, which is like I don't know.
Speaker 1: So so much of the stuff that they do is
Speaker 1: just so incredibly leak like, I think. Yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: the thing that always that got me was the sort
Speaker 1: of like like the way in which they're sort of
Speaker 1: weaponizing like like Japan's sort of war crimes in in
Speaker 1: South Korea and North Korea as well. And it's like
Speaker 1: it's like a on the one hand, like yeah, like
Speaker 1: a all this body is just going to like a
Speaker 1: bunch of like too rich fascists and then be like,
Speaker 1: I think this is something else we can sort of
Speaker 1: get into. Is like, okay, so the church's main political
Speaker 1: allies in Japan are the people who did all that
Speaker 1: ship Yep, no, it's just a constant deflection, pretty much. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I mean it's interesting too because, like you, you
Speaker 1: get this, like some of the newspapers they fund will
Speaker 1: like openly say that, like, Japan should rearm again and
Speaker 1: like Japan should like start retaking Korea and then, like
Speaker 1: you have did, the other art with their business being
Speaker 1: like hey, pay US money for all the people you
Speaker 1: guys killed, and this less. I don't know, it's yeah,
Speaker 1: it's pretty fuck. It's the worst. It's honestly. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: and I guess, I guess. Yeah, I think I think
Speaker 1: this is as good a place as I need to
Speaker 1: go into. Like okay, so the moodies like could not
Speaker 1: do the things that they do in Japan without an
Speaker 1: incredibly large degree of institutional support. Um. Part of this
Speaker 1: sort is what the yakkers because, like you can't run,
Speaker 1: like you can't do organized crime stuff, like like running
Speaker 1: an entire network of people to de Fraud Widows like
Speaker 1: in Japan, without the acquisite like you having some kind
Speaker 1: of deal with them. YEA, and, yeah, and and and that.
Speaker 1: That also bizarrely ties in with sort of how how
Speaker 1: the innification Church got integrated with the sort of mainstream. Wow, yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm just gonna call the mainstream like, fuck it. People, people, people, people, people.
Speaker 1: Will Quibble about the different factions of the LDP. I
Speaker 1: frankly don't care, for reasons that will get to but yeah, how. How?
Speaker 1: How they got, like and, yeah, which I guess you're
Speaker 1: talking about, like the origins of how they got ingrained
Speaker 1: with Japan's like perpetual ruling party, live, with Democratic Party. Yeah, Um, sorry,
Speaker 1: were you? Are you? Yeah, yeah, yeah, okay, yeah, sorry,
Speaker 1: I wasn't sure that was a question. No, it's okay. Um. So, yeah,
Speaker 1: it goes all the way back to uh, like so
Speaker 1: it goes. It goes back pretty far. So Novasuka Kishi
Speaker 1: obvious maternal grandfather. So he initially became sort of embroiled
Speaker 1: with the UC kind of stuff, unification church stuff, in
Speaker 1: the early days of when the movement Um was in Japan. Uh,
Speaker 1: he collaborated on stuff like the foundation for victory over communism.
Speaker 1: Spoke at their the founding of the organization at a
Speaker 1: UC church which was I think, next to Kishi's a
Speaker 1: state or something like that. Yeah, and I think, I think,
Speaker 1: I think he sold them their first building in Japan.
Speaker 1: I think, if I remembering something that I read at
Speaker 1: one point. Right, yeah, so, Um, so, yeah. And then, uh,
Speaker 1: in sixty two, the UC was able to convert fifty
Speaker 1: leaders of the alternationalist Nietzchechin Buddhist Uh sect, called sect called,
Speaker 1: Oh Gosh, I don't know how to pronounce this, Rio
Speaker 1: Show Cost Kai. Uh, and they had a lot of
Speaker 1: strong use of Yakaza connections. Um. And then Sami Kabuki
Speaker 1: was the first U S president in Japan. Uh, he
Speaker 1: was the Yakaza Lieutenant and second in command of that
Speaker 1: group that I had just mentioned. And and the other
Speaker 1: thing we should mention about this about the sort of
Speaker 1: how the opposite ties. Yeah, is that so? Okay? So,
Speaker 1: Nobska Kishi is the guy who founds liberal democratic the
Speaker 1: Liberal Democratic Party, right like He. The Liberal Democratic Party
Speaker 1: is his creation. It is like what that party is
Speaker 1: is all of Japan's conservatives basically like, basically seating to
Speaker 1: his authority and being like okay, fine, we're going to
Speaker 1: follow your lead. Um, and his his party is like
Speaker 1: his base and his fund is basically a combination of
Speaker 1: what he like. Kishi himself is a like artual words
Speaker 1: of war criminal. Um, his base is basically in the
Speaker 1: old Japanese fascists. He is funded by, like, well, partially funded,
Speaker 1: like funded directly by the CIA. Um, he's also funded
Speaker 1: by but the the CIA in particular here is working
Speaker 1: through the Yakuza, because one of that's that's one of
Speaker 1: the sort of the will like, will it be in
Speaker 1: this sort of like we will. Will it be sentip?
Speaker 1: Not Cia, but yeah, that by basically American intelligence in
Speaker 1: the American army starts working through the Yakas as like
Speaker 1: an anti communist Uma Force, and he he gets bankrolled
Speaker 1: by this, these two guys named Kodama and Um. Right,
Speaker 1: you reached yeah, Sasakawa, who were like Kodamas is like
Speaker 1: like the like milk, basically like the guy who was
Speaker 1: in charge of the Yakaza. He's also a fascist. UMSAKAWA
Speaker 1: is the self, like literally called himself the world's richest fascist,
Speaker 1: and both of these guys are like huge bank rollers
Speaker 1: of of Kishi. They are also and you know, and when, when,
Speaker 1: when Kishi is like bringing in the church like this.
Speaker 1: This is how this is. This is how all these
Speaker 1: people have got have yakisa connections. Because, yeah, it's it's this.
Speaker 1: The whole sort of Japanese right wing like political machine
Speaker 1: is like one like happy family that is doing doing
Speaker 1: the worst stuff altogether, at the same time funded by
Speaker 1: the CIA. Yep, and like, and also, I need to
Speaker 1: say this, I said this is my episode book, like
Speaker 1: like the level of CIA involvement here. Like there there
Speaker 1: are individual CIA agents assigned to individual Liberal Democratic Party
Speaker 1: candidates in the fifties to make sure they won their elections.
Speaker 1: I did not know that, but that is it's not wild.
Speaker 1: So specific. Wow, yeah, yes, yeah, concerning things, concerning things,
Speaker 1: Oh God, Um, but yeah, so, like, yeah, to this
Speaker 1: day a lot of LDP candidates and politicians still have
Speaker 1: ties to do, you see, get donations from it. UH,
Speaker 1: used like membership as like free labor. uh, even like
Speaker 1: having secretaries from who are members of the UC and uh, like,
Speaker 1: you know, sometimes they would you know see like some
Speaker 1: sort of like classified or you know, information and stuff
Speaker 1: like that. So there's, yeah, there's like apart from like
Speaker 1: that like just so interconnected. Yeah, do you do you
Speaker 1: remember the story about the L DPS, like number two
Speaker 1: guy like getting getting mooned to be able to visit Japan? Ah, sorry,
Speaker 1: I don't. Oh God, okay, so that my memory of
Speaker 1: this story was okay. So, like Japan has a series
Speaker 1: of really weird laws about like, okay, Japan is a
Speaker 1: series of very weird laws about many, many things. One
Speaker 1: of them has to do with it. It's something like
Speaker 1: if you've been convicted of a felony in another country,
Speaker 1: you can't enter Japan. And I don't know if it's
Speaker 1: I don't know if it's a felony. I don't I
Speaker 1: don't know what the I forget. I'm forgetting what the
Speaker 1: legal bar is for what you have to be like
Speaker 1: convicted of in or to not be able to enter
Speaker 1: the country. But I like moon is a I like
Speaker 1: he like he was like convicted by the US governments
Speaker 1: of like perjury and a bunch of other ships because
Speaker 1: of the crimes that he did, and so he like
Speaker 1: technically legally could not enter Japan and then, like the
Speaker 1: vice presidents of Um an office present, my God, came
Speaker 1: for his title. But maybe basically, like what like basically,
Speaker 1: like the like, the like, the second most powerful man
Speaker 1: in Japanese politics and the nineties, like very specifically did
Speaker 1: a whole bunch of visa bullshit so that specifically could
Speaker 1: go to Japan legally. Not Surprising, not surprising, but wow, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's like, Um, the lengths people will go to to
Speaker 1: collaborate with other fascists. Yeah, I think that's that's I
Speaker 1: don't know, that's to me. What makes this assassination really
Speaker 1: interesting is that, like, okay, so if you ask like
Speaker 1: and even like in Japan, if you had asked the
Speaker 1: average person what the connection between like Shinzo Abe and
Speaker 1: Edification Church was, like most people have no idea. Like
Speaker 1: before this assassination, those people have no idea what that was. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: after the assassination this, the whole landscape has changed. Um, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's been really interesting to watch like this. This
Speaker 1: really seems like an incredibly sort of politically effective assassination because, yeah, okay, so,
Speaker 1: you know, you you you had, there was, there was,
Speaker 1: you know, you had the very the initial right wing backlash,
Speaker 1: but the righting backlash kind of it got kind of
Speaker 1: muted when it when it became clear that it wasn't
Speaker 1: a left wing radical, which I think would have actually
Speaker 1: been an enormous disaster. Yeah, but the guy was Yamagami,
Speaker 1: was pretty right wing himself. Yeah, it's like he's a
Speaker 1: right wing guy and but also like his story is
Speaker 1: really sympathetic. Yeah, I mean I feel for the guy.
Speaker 1: Like he had so much trauba in his life, honestly,
Speaker 1: and like it's obvious, like, and I think you know
Speaker 1: a lot of uh former members, you know, sort of
Speaker 1: understand how that feels. UH, most of us have been
Speaker 1: assassinated a prime minister, but so far, so far. But yeah, like,
Speaker 1: I mean we understand that pain of where he is
Speaker 1: coming from and like, you know why, upon learning that
Speaker 1: Abbe had these ties, he's of like felt like compelled
Speaker 1: to do something. Yeah, and I think the I mean
Speaker 1: there's also this element at work here that's kind of weird,
Speaker 1: which is like it's very, very hard normally to get
Speaker 1: like right wing Japanese people to turn on their own party. Uh,
Speaker 1: the one way that you can do it is by
Speaker 1: going hey, look at these Koreans. So there's like weird
Speaker 1: dynamics going on here. Like there were some there were
Speaker 1: some like even further right parties who were like, you know,
Speaker 1: using this thing as a campaign thing of like Ah,
Speaker 1: this party is like a fake right wing party, like
Speaker 1: they're all being run by like Koreans, and it's like okay,
Speaker 1: that's like not, like the thing that is bad about
Speaker 1: the moonies is not that they're Korean, it's that it's
Speaker 1: all of the other ship that they do. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: I think that's complicated. But also, yeah, like the political
Speaker 1: impact this has had has been like enormous. Yeah, like, yeah,
Speaker 1: do you want to talk about that a bit? Yeah, so, Um, so, okay.
Speaker 1: Obviously it has shined a lot of light on sort
Speaker 1: of the connections that a lot of members of the
Speaker 1: government there have, from the L D P um, as
Speaker 1: well as other parties, have with the you see, getting donations, etcetera. Um,
Speaker 1: people are pissed about it, you know, as they should be. Um.
Speaker 1: So I guess that, uh, Prime Minister Kashida has said
Speaker 1: that they want to cut ties with the Unification Church
Speaker 1: at this point. Uh, you know, it sort of remains
Speaker 1: to be seen whether that actually happens or not, because
Speaker 1: it can usually just be like lip service kind of ship. Um,
Speaker 1: but the politicians, UH, and I'm not sure if this
Speaker 1: is specifically for the LDP or sort of across the board. Um,
Speaker 1: there's like a thing where they're supposed to self report
Speaker 1: any ties or donations to the U S, which is just,
Speaker 1: you know, like I don't know, like I don't think
Speaker 1: every buddy is gonna come forward with that sort of thing.
Speaker 1: If you're supposed to do it yourself, that's like not
Speaker 1: how that should work. But Um so, I mean like
Speaker 1: it remains to be seen, you know, if those ties
Speaker 1: are actually gonna be cut. Um. So also, like there
Speaker 1: has been sort of like, uh a, a a lot
Speaker 1: of support from uh, like lawyer groups, like the National
Speaker 1: Network of lawyers against spiritual sales Um, who has, you know,
Speaker 1: worked with, you know, cult members and like specifically a
Speaker 1: lot of Unification Church members or former members or whatever
Speaker 1: who have uh, you know, lost money through spiritual sales Um.
Speaker 1: And they've also just recently called for the dissolution of
Speaker 1: the UC in Japan, which is pretty cool and I
Speaker 1: hope that happens. How realistic it is, given like all
Speaker 1: of the strong ties to the government, but that would
Speaker 1: be cool. Um. And then also I saw a thing
Speaker 1: a couple of days ago that Japanese consulates and embassies
Speaker 1: have a program that is offering advice or assistance, uh,
Speaker 1: to UC members who are Japanese nationals and their children, Um,
Speaker 1: and that ends on September thirty, I think. So if
Speaker 1: anybody needs that, getting fast. Um. But I think that
Speaker 1: also applies in America. So if, like, you're a Japanese
Speaker 1: national and like a victim of the U S or
Speaker 1: if your parents are uh a, those that open. And
Speaker 1: I don't know exactly what the levels of support resources
Speaker 1: they're offering are, uh, but it's worth looking into for sure. Um.
Speaker 1: But yeah, like, so there's been like sort of this
Speaker 1: outpouring of support from various groups and there's, you know,
Speaker 1: like it's really shining a light on the issue of
Speaker 1: like especially what it's like to be a second generation
Speaker 1: member of occult and the trauma that people like us
Speaker 1: have gone through. Um, you know, there are definitely a
Speaker 1: lot of calls for like support and a mental health
Speaker 1: care as well as like, you know, ways to sort
Speaker 1: of get people out of situations like that in the
Speaker 1: first place. Um. Yeah, yeah, I don't know, I, I. I.
Speaker 1: I hope this translates into actual resources. And Yeah, just
Speaker 1: sort of like the LDPs through ratings tanking, which like
Speaker 1: is good and like it is very funny that Kishia
Speaker 1: just had to act like half his cabinet. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: don't know, I think it it remains, although he remains
Speaker 1: in power and he do you see too interesting. So
Speaker 1: it's like, you know, clearly there's not a lot, like
Speaker 1: even if people are like having a little bit of
Speaker 1: like the smallest level of transparency about this stuff, like,
Speaker 1: I don't necessarily know how far it will actually go
Speaker 1: into like, you know, making amends or like protecting people
Speaker 1: from further ab you or, you know, getting people their
Speaker 1: money back. I don't know, I think there's a there's
Speaker 1: something I think that's that's really sort of, I don't know,
Speaker 1: like really grim about the way that this worked out,
Speaker 1: which the Japanese police knew what was going on and
Speaker 1: why this sesssination had happened, like immediately, like they found
Speaker 1: his hard drive and he'd written out the whole thing
Speaker 1: about why he did it. Yeah, and then they intentionally
Speaker 1: held the information and basically made were able to maintain
Speaker 1: a press embargo until after the election happened. Yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: now everyone fucking hates the LDB, like the perminsionals approve
Speaker 1: of ratings like thirties present. Like it's really bad. I
Speaker 1: mean it went from like fifty, went from like fifty
Speaker 1: two to like thirties six and like a couple of weeks.
Speaker 1: But because the people who are people who are connected
Speaker 1: to the church are the people in charge, they were
Speaker 1: able to like suppress this information long enough to like
Speaker 1: shape how the election was going to go. Oh, make
Speaker 1: sure that it was sort of like the right wing
Speaker 1: shock from Oh my God, that's assassinated prime minister and
Speaker 1: not the weight. The assassinated prime minister for a reason
Speaker 1: that's like incredibly justified and relatable to like this is
Speaker 1: as relatable with a motive of assassination as like I've
Speaker 1: ever seen. Yeah, I mean it's like, as far as
Speaker 1: reasons for assassinating people go, this is a pretty like
Speaker 1: solid reason, like there's there's stuff there. Yeah, and like
Speaker 1: and I think it's just like like it's it's interesting.
Speaker 1: That's like it's it's rare assassination where the assassin is
Speaker 1: a very empathetic figure too. Like I think a lot
Speaker 1: of the time when you get people doing stuff like this,
Speaker 1: like it's there. There's a sort of like one to
Speaker 1: one correlation with like, okay, like how how how how
Speaker 1: do you feel about sort of like like how how
Speaker 1: do you feel about assassination in general? is going to
Speaker 1: like determine your dictaate like determined your sort of response
Speaker 1: to the act. Will Action? Yeah, whereas I think here
Speaker 1: it's different because you know like that, yeah, this, this,
Speaker 1: this is someone who, yeah, I mean I keep saying
Speaker 1: that he's sort of like immedutely relatable, but it's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: this is this is someone who, I don't know, has
Speaker 1: been through just an incredible amount of trauma in a
Speaker 1: way that's like very easily sort of digestible to like
Speaker 1: regular people. Yeah, it's like, yeah, very obvious trauma and like,
Speaker 1: you know, yeah, I don't know, it's and I really
Speaker 1: hope that that that that really does actually translated to
Speaker 1: resources for mental health resources, because I do too. I
Speaker 1: feel like as well as mental health resources, I help,
Speaker 1: they're like, you know, financial resources and you know, like
Speaker 1: all sorts of other resources as well, because like dealing
Speaker 1: with the fallout of, you know, having been in a
Speaker 1: like ac cult is incredibly difficult and requires a lot
Speaker 1: of space and time and a lot of people are,
Speaker 1: you know, left with like PTSD after that and it'll
Speaker 1: last for your whole life and that makes you, know,
Speaker 1: for a lot of people, that makes you, know, having
Speaker 1: getting money and doing job things extremely hard, especially, you know,
Speaker 1: if you're like getting like emotionally like thrown back into
Speaker 1: that all of the time. Um. So I hope there
Speaker 1: are like more, you know, like material resources that are
Speaker 1: also available in addition to uh, sort of like mental
Speaker 1: health care and therapy things. Is. That's something that I
Speaker 1: feel like it's all too often just not there for
Speaker 1: people who have been through abuse. Yeah, and I think
Speaker 1: also there's there's this way in which like like a
Speaker 1: lot of this, like insofar as there's any kind of
Speaker 1: like support network like in the US, and this is
Speaker 1: also true of Japan. Two maybe, I don't know, the
Speaker 1: Japanese offer stay is not great. But yeah, like there's
Speaker 1: an extent which like the sort of like last safety
Speaker 1: net you have is your family, and you know, like
Speaker 1: this is this is a kind of thing that can
Speaker 1: very easily cut you off from your family and that
Speaker 1: that has, you know, I mean that has emotional consequences,
Speaker 1: but like, yeah, that has enormous financial consequences. That really
Speaker 1: don't like. I don't know when when, when I was
Speaker 1: originally doing research on this. Like I I read a
Speaker 1: lot of sort of like people arguing about like deprogramming stuff,
Speaker 1: and it like they just didn't talk about like that
Speaker 1: kind of stuff and it was always just sort of like,
Speaker 1: I don't know, structors really weird and it's sort of
Speaker 1: like grotesque and detached way to think about it instead
Speaker 1: of like yeah, so, yeah, it depends on what type
Speaker 1: of careacters too, because, honestly, deprogramming is another cult. It
Speaker 1: is another cult. It's like an anti cult cult and, Um,
Speaker 1: it just, you know, it re traumatizes those who are
Speaker 1: already traumatized and honestly, like people who have been deprogrammed
Speaker 1: sometimes leave, but a lot of the time it just
Speaker 1: increases their fervor for being part of whatever movement they're
Speaker 1: part of already, UM, because they're like Oh, if this is,
Speaker 1: you know, like what everybody is going to do to
Speaker 1: be if I leave, like of course I gotta stick
Speaker 1: with this because, you know, then like it's like every
Speaker 1: what they've been saying the whole time about, you know,
Speaker 1: being persecuted and like hurt and stuff then becomes true. Right. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I guess that's the thing I would say about like
Speaker 1: that's my disclaimer about de programming. Uh, and, though the
Speaker 1: collective we are a part of is called deprogramming imperialism,
Speaker 1: that is because the only thing that needs to be
Speaker 1: deprogrammed really is imperialism and not people, because that's not
Speaker 1: how that works. The radicalization requires a lot of trust,
Speaker 1: a lot of time, a lot of space, a lot
Speaker 1: of reflection. It's not something that, you know, you can
Speaker 1: just like go and like lock somebody in a basement
Speaker 1: for two weeks and then like try to make them
Speaker 1: leave whatever movement they're part, like that's that's just an abuse. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think, like, I don't know, I think it's it's
Speaker 1: as an industry. It's not as sort of like powerful
Speaker 1: as it used to be, but I think, like, I
Speaker 1: don't know it there's there's there's there's a sense in
Speaker 1: which it's sort of like, you know, it almost it
Speaker 1: almost has like civil war logic, where it's like both
Speaker 1: both both sides need the other side as sort of
Speaker 1: they're like reason to exist and, you know, so like
Speaker 1: and both, you know on both both, both sides are
Speaker 1: traumatizing people on both sides indeed, like like they're they're,
Speaker 1: they're they're they're syfically fighting over the same group of
Speaker 1: people and each of them can sort of like offer
Speaker 1: the other side as like, oh, Hey, this is why
Speaker 1: we need to exist thing. But then it's like, you know,
Speaker 1: and like like, as with like most civil wars, it's
Speaker 1: like the actual people caught in it don't it's like no,
Speaker 1: you don't actually need, you don't want either side of
Speaker 1: the civil war. You want out. Yeah, yeah, no, it's
Speaker 1: definitely it's definitely one of those like Oh, you're stuck
Speaker 1: between a rock and a hard place kind of things.
Speaker 1: It's like both options suck. Like yeah, like the two
Speaker 1: party system. Yeah, God, Stalin, Stalin said two good things
Speaker 1: and his entire two things that were like funny in
Speaker 1: his entire life. One of them was the pope, how
Speaker 1: many division does he have? And the second one was
Speaker 1: they're both worse. And there I mean immediately he was
Speaker 1: wrong about they're both worse, but like, yeah, that's a
Speaker 1: that's a that's a real thing. That is the basis
Speaker 1: of all modern politics. Honestly. That is honestly, we hate
Speaker 1: to see. I hate to see it. Yeah, yeah, on
Speaker 1: the on the other hand, though, I don't know, like
Speaker 1: I I am kind of hopeful about this, like I
Speaker 1: am too. It Gen winely seems to have like changed,
Speaker 1: like at the very least it's changed the way that
Speaker 1: the Japanese public, like season understands this whole thing. And
Speaker 1: like this is the first time, I think, ever either.
Speaker 1: I mean like, you know, like the Communist Party and
Speaker 1: stuff have been trying for like years to get people
Speaker 1: to care about this. Just no one has really cared since, like,
Speaker 1: I don't know, like they basically since the Japanese left
Speaker 1: collapse in like the seventies, like nobody's really cared about
Speaker 1: this and I don't know, it really seems like something
Speaker 1: like it really seems like this assassination has actually changed
Speaker 1: something about just sort of like the like just the
Speaker 1: way that the Japanese politics is being structured right now.
Speaker 1: And I don't know, I'm modern really hopeful. I would
Speaker 1: say I'm too. I mean, like the more light that
Speaker 1: is shed on this, I think, the better, and that
Speaker 1: like unfortunately, weird things happened, but I feel like if
Speaker 1: there's any chance some sort of Um, some sort of
Speaker 1: you know across the board or even in certain areas
Speaker 1: just specifically, any sort of like justice, that the amount
Speaker 1: of public attention on this now is, you know, potentially
Speaker 1: something that could help bring something like that about. So
Speaker 1: I don't it's been it's been like sort of a
Speaker 1: weird ride for for us x members Um, with all
Speaker 1: of that just sort of like re traumatizing to see
Speaker 1: everything happened. Um, but at the end of the day,
Speaker 1: I think a lot of us are hopeful that things
Speaker 1: can change now that people know about it, because you
Speaker 1: know before that it wasn't something that was ever really
Speaker 1: talked about. Groups like the thrive on this sort of
Speaker 1: weird combination of like operating in the shadows and also
Speaker 1: when they show up, it's through their own pr stuff,
Speaker 1: and you know, sometimes the best way to break that, apparently,
Speaker 1: is you shoot someone who was like you shoot a
Speaker 1: guy who they who was working for them. And Yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't know. I mean, yeah, I feel like, Yeahmagami
Speaker 1: sort of managed to at least, you know, he he
Speaker 1: did what he he did a thing and it has
Speaker 1: had sort of, I probably, some of the impacts that
Speaker 1: he imagined it would. So I don't know. Yeah, like honestly,
Speaker 1: like from from what I've read of his stuff, like
Speaker 1: I think this went better than he expected it, like
Speaker 1: it could have possibly have gone like he he seemed
Speaker 1: like really really sort of just like had abandoned all hope. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I don't know, I mean, like I guess the
Speaker 1: the other thing that I really hope out of this,
Speaker 1: comes out of this, is that like you don't have
Speaker 1: to have people like destroying their lives a second time
Speaker 1: in sort of like just out of the incredible desperation
Speaker 1: of what they've been through, right. Yeah, preventing any of
Speaker 1: that would be optimal. Yeah, yeah, because the you know,
Speaker 1: the more that, the longer the Unification Church operates, the
Speaker 1: more people will be abused and the more violence will
Speaker 1: come out of it. Like maybe this is the most
Speaker 1: high profile like a recent bit of violence that's come
Speaker 1: out of the movement, but it's not unprecedented in any way. So,
Speaker 1: you know, it's like that's what happens when people are abused. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I and it's I think it's also worth just
Speaker 1: sort of like reminding people that one of the sort
Speaker 1: of so the church has sort of splintered into various actions. Yeah,
Speaker 1: a lot of the people, well, okay, a trump trump
Speaker 1: gave a speech at like the at an event of
Speaker 1: the mainline church. A bunch of like so one of
Speaker 1: the other guys, like what one are the other splinter fractions.
Speaker 1: Had A bunch of people at January six rot of
Speaker 1: iron ministries or sanctuary church, and those are those are
Speaker 1: the guys who had the the A R fifteen gun
Speaker 1: blessing ceremony a few years ago that made the rounds
Speaker 1: where they wore bullet crowns in their robes and they
Speaker 1: had the guns. And they've also got land in in
Speaker 1: Pennsylvania and Tennessee and also in Waco, Texas, where they're
Speaker 1: basically preparing people for war with what Sean Moon has
Speaker 1: described as something akin to the globalist deep state in Marxists.
Speaker 1: I don't know if those were his exact words, but
Speaker 1: it was something like that. UH, so they're, you know,
Speaker 1: like they're they have an act of militia. They're preparing
Speaker 1: for war. That is what the Rod of iron is
Speaker 1: for them. That is the gun. Um. Yeah, and and
Speaker 1: these are these are the if remember my my stuff
Speaker 1: on this, right, this is the fashion that owns car arms, right, yes,
Speaker 1: they do. Yeah, yeah, so they have a gun manufacturer. Now, okay, like,
Speaker 1: if Robert We're here, Robert will probably start equipping with
Speaker 1: me about how good like the equivalent with me about
Speaker 1: the actual quality the weapons they produced. But like, okay,
Speaker 1: they have, they have, they they they have a weapons
Speaker 1: manufacturing peace which is terrifying. Yeah, and they make the
Speaker 1: trump gun because of course they're all super pro trump,
Speaker 1: very like patriot. A lot of q and on overlap there.
Speaker 1: And Actually Rod of Iron Ministries UH in in Japan
Speaker 1: has been helping organize q and on events. Um. And Yeah,
Speaker 1: so like there was also a so basically the relationship
Speaker 1: between Rod of iron and the mainline, you see, is supertense.
Speaker 1: Sean Moon and a couple of his other there's basically
Speaker 1: want their mother dead. And who is? She's the you know,
Speaker 1: the head of the mainline church right now. Um, and
Speaker 1: not just dead but like specifically beheaded. Um. So there
Speaker 1: was an event recently over the summer, I think it
Speaker 1: was like the end of June, where Uh Sean was, Gosh,
Speaker 1: I forget. I forget where he was in Japan. Um,
Speaker 1: but basically he was sort of like railing at the
Speaker 1: audience for supporting his mother, Hawk Jo Han uh, and
Speaker 1: then when people spoke up in defense of her, they
Speaker 1: were literally like physically thrown out of the room. Um,
Speaker 1: it was super intense. Yeah, there's yeah, it's it's a
Speaker 1: really fucking intense moment um and he's like they're saying
Speaker 1: she had like sex with a demon or something like
Speaker 1: that and has fallen and all of this, you know,
Speaker 1: got like, I don't know, sometimes I watch a bit
Speaker 1: of the guy's speeches just because I'm like, I want
Speaker 1: to know what the funk they're up to Um. And
Speaker 1: first of all it seems like he might do a
Speaker 1: lot of cocaine, which would not be on precedent had
Speaker 1: given the moonies and all of their drugs smuggling and ship. Well,
Speaker 1: I mean we we have like, what was his name?
Speaker 1: Oh God, I'm blaking on the name of what? What? What?
Speaker 1: What of his other sons was like it was like
Speaker 1: literally spending like a shell corporations, like net income amount
Speaker 1: like per month on cocaine at one point. Like was
Speaker 1: that h o Jen possibly? I think I think it was. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I think. Yeah. And he's also enormous abusive piece of ship. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: it sucks. Yeah, people are all well, okay, that's not true.
Speaker 1: The people who were still actively involved in the church
Speaker 1: and who didn't break themselves out in flee like the
Speaker 1: first opportunity they got are like enormous pieces of ship. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean because, like, even at the end of the day,
Speaker 1: if they're not specifically doing anything that directly harm somebody,
Speaker 1: they're giving money to these institutions that do into people
Speaker 1: who do and giving them support and, you know, reinforcing
Speaker 1: all of that ship. And then, you know, I mean
Speaker 1: most of them are just shitty in general too. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I also like specifically awesome about like, yeah, there there
Speaker 1: were a couple of people who like got forciably married
Speaker 1: into the family. Yeah, like left and I don't I
Speaker 1: do not want people to get to get the impression
Speaker 1: that I think they're bad, because they're not. Like they got, yeah,
Speaker 1: really horrible stuff happened to them. They're able to escaine. ME.
Speaker 1: That's good, but also, Jesus Christ, like yeah, and that's
Speaker 1: the thing that it's like sometimes hard to talk to like,
Speaker 1: you know, childhood friends or my family who's still involved, Um,
Speaker 1: because I feel like it's like, you know, if you're
Speaker 1: supporting this group, you're implicit least supporting fascism and murder
Speaker 1: and death squads and rape and all of these awful things. Um,
Speaker 1: and you know, a lot of members don't know that
Speaker 1: those bits of history about the church. Um, but if
Speaker 1: anyone who is listening is in the U C. I
Speaker 1: would definitely say to look those things up because they
Speaker 1: are all over the place. Yeah, okay, so this was
Speaker 1: specifically yet I read inside the League by Scott and
Speaker 1: Lee Anderson. Okay, I I will say this. Yeah, there.
Speaker 1: It is kind of hard to read because these people
Speaker 1: are journalists. They're not normally book authors, and the idea
Speaker 1: of starting at the beginning of a story and then
Speaker 1: moving through to the end of it is like an
Speaker 1: entirely foreign concept to them. So it is constantly jumping
Speaker 1: around between sixteen million things. But yeah, there is a
Speaker 1: lot of there's a lot of very good stuff in there. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's an incredible resource. I would also suggest reading, uh,
Speaker 1: the there's like a a bunch of articles that Robert
Speaker 1: Parry did from his consortium news about Duc and like
Speaker 1: stuff back in the day on it. Um. I would
Speaker 1: also say check out how well do you know your moon? Uh.
Speaker 1: That's another great resource. Has a lot of you know,
Speaker 1: like links and direct citations of a bunch of documents
Speaker 1: and ship uh, all good stuff. Also, I would plug
Speaker 1: John Gorenfeld's book. Um, oh, it's called it's bad, bad
Speaker 1: moon rising. Bad Moon Rising yes, yeah, John is crazy. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's another really good book on that. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: think there's a new edition came out like very recently. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so I think he has it actually a pdf of
Speaker 1: it or something for free on his website. Um, yeah, uh.
Speaker 1: And then another book I would suggest is gifts of deceit,
Speaker 1: about the Thomson Park Scandal and care a gate, another
Speaker 1: good one. God. Yeah, the thing about the mood is
Speaker 1: like there's just like entire like there's entire genres of
Speaker 1: like crime that they do that like doesn't even like
Speaker 1: make most accounts of them because they're doing too much
Speaker 1: other crime. Yeah, literally, there's just so much crime too
Speaker 1: for there's I've just done so much that it's hard
Speaker 1: to keep track of everything. They literally have a million
Speaker 1: shell corporations and they literally do things are different names
Speaker 1: and in different places and then different types of atrocities
Speaker 1: that it's like how are you supposed to keep up
Speaker 1: with all this? That's why they do it that way,
Speaker 1: because you're not supposed to. But yeah, I mean it
Speaker 1: is I don't know, like I figuring out how intelligence
Speaker 1: operations work is like easier than like trying to entangle
Speaker 1: this ship. Yeah, honestly like that that that stuff was,
Speaker 1: you know, a little more on the nose. It's like,
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, clearly this is like a joint psychological operation
Speaker 1: and other like, you know, back channels for money and
Speaker 1: trafficking things and people and stuff. But then it's like,
Speaker 1: Oh God, What Company owns what? And how much do
Speaker 1: they make and like where do they move their money around?
Speaker 1: It's just like, I don't know. That's that side is like,
Speaker 1: how do I navigate this? So I am extremely fortunate
Speaker 1: to be a part of a group of people who's
Speaker 1: working on this stuff. Now, Um, you know, we're gonna
Speaker 1: what we're going to try to do is sort of
Speaker 1: make like a Unification Church wikipedia kind of thing so
Speaker 1: that we have like all of it in one place
Speaker 1: and then, you know, potentially down the line maybe do
Speaker 1: like a people's history of the Unification Church or something
Speaker 1: like that. But in the meantime we're just compiling a
Speaker 1: bunch of information. Are Are there ways people can support
Speaker 1: you and it also can support deprogramming imperialism in this
Speaker 1: the work you all have been doing. Yeah, so I
Speaker 1: have a patreon. It's Alisa Majub a L I S
Speaker 1: A M A H J o U B. Uh. You
Speaker 1: can follow me on twitter at Alisa Underscore Majub, same spelling. Uh.
Speaker 1: De Programming imperialism has a twitter. Uh It is, since
Speaker 1: the programming imperialism was not was too long to put
Speaker 1: in as a user name. The one we are using
Speaker 1: is no more cults, which is no underscore, more underscore cults. Um.
Speaker 1: And then we have a instagram as well, under deprogramming imperialism,
Speaker 1: I believe. Let me double check, HM, and we will.
Speaker 1: We will put links to all this stuff in the
Speaker 1: show notes. Yeah, awesome, cool, cool, cool. Yeah, it's do.
Speaker 1: Programming imperialism just together together words. Sorry, it's just not.
Speaker 1: The words are smashed together. There's no space. That's that's
Speaker 1: there we go. I did it. Yeah, well, I I think.
Speaker 1: I think. I think that's going to be all for
Speaker 1: us today. Um, thank you so so much for joining us.
Speaker 1: Thank you for having me. I really appreciate this and hopefully,
Speaker 1: you know, this will just have help more people to
Speaker 1: sort of like understand what's going on there and sort
Speaker 1: of the history of the U C and uh, as
Speaker 1: well as, you know, maybe shine some light on the
Speaker 1: obbey assassination and UH. You know, the more people who
Speaker 1: know about this, the better, I think. Um, so I
Speaker 1: really appreciate being on here, because you guys have a
Speaker 1: pretty big platform, so that means a lot to me. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I'm I'm I'm really, I'm really, really glad that
Speaker 1: that you came on for this because, I don't know,
Speaker 1: like it's it's really like it's really easy to like
Speaker 1: cover stuff like this and just never actually sort of
Speaker 1: like get to the human, like the actual human impact
Speaker 1: of it. Yeah, and so, yeah, I'm really glad I
Speaker 1: was able to talk to you. Thank you. Yeah, I'm
Speaker 1: glad I was able to talk to because that it
Speaker 1: was fun. It was fun, it was informative and getting
Speaker 1: the word out. We're doing it, we're doing the thing. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: it feels good. It could happen here as a production
Speaker 1: of cool zone media and more podcasts from cool zone media.
Speaker 1: visit our website, cool zone media DOT COM, or check
Speaker 1: us out on the I heart radio APP, apple podcasts
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can find sources
Speaker 1: for it could happen here, updated monthly at cool zone
Speaker 1: media DOT COM. Slash sources. Thanks for listening.