Dave Emory’s entire lifetime of work is available on a flash drive that can be obtained here. The new drive is a 32-gigabyte drive that is current as of the programs and articles posted by mid-October of 2014. The new drive (available for a tax-deductble contribution of $65.00 or more) contains FTR #815. The last program recorded before Mr. Emory’s illness was FTR #748.
You can subscribe to e‑mail alerts from Spitfirelist.com HERE.
You can subscribe to RSS feed from Spitfirelist.com HERE.
You can subscribe to the comments made on programs and posts–an excellent source of information in, and of, itself HERE.
Listen: MP3
Introduction: In his second stint as Prime Minister of Japan, Shinzo Abe is rebooting the right-wing political agenda he pursued during his first term in the last decade.
The grandson of prominent Japanese war criminal Nobosuke Kishi, Abe is implementing revisionist politics designed to obfuscate Japan’s actions during World War II. (Kishi–Abe’s grandfather–implemented Japan’s declaration of war against the U.S. during the Second World War.)
For background material to this discussion, see the Introduction to the anti-fascist books, in addition to the author interviews and text excerpts of the Gold Warriors book by Sterling and Peggy Seagrave.
In past programs, we have noted that–as was the case in Germany–Japanese fascists were put back in power after the war, in order to pursue an anti-communist agenda.
Program Highlights Include: Some of the postwar chickens are coming home to roost in what may prove to be more than a rhetorical fashion.
- School textbooks are being edited to reflect a revisionist perspective, more sympathetic to the ideology and goals of Imperial Japan.
- A new secrecy law has been passed, stifling open political discourse in Japan about the war.
- Abe has visited the Yasukuni Shrine, a controversial step that aggravated Japan’s Asian neighbors and rivals.
- The NHK television network is being brought under the thumb of Abe’s administration, compromising the integrity of Japan’s largest and (arguably) most prestigious news outlet.
- Controversial comments are straining relations with the United States. Assertions by Abe allies include assertions that U.S. war crimes tribunals after the conflict were intended to obfuscate American war crimes and the remarkable claim that U.S. troops used slave prostitutes similar to the Japanese “comfort women.”
- Abe associates praising the World War II Kamikaze pilots.
- The Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations’ illegal shipping of 70 tons of plutonium to Japan to bolster a secret nuclear weapons program that had been underway since the 1960’s.
- Japanese government officials are openly sanctioning anti-Korean racism and networking with organizations that promote that doctrine. Several members of Abe’s government network with Japanese neo-Nazis. Echoing the political ideology of economically moribund European countries, Abe’s government and the Japanese right are scapegoating “Koreans” for Japan’s economic problems. One sees similar scapegoating of “immigrants” in the U.S. Will the answer to the decades-long economic problems of Japan be “let them eat fascism?”
- Vice-Prime Minister Taro Aso is a longtime admirer of Nazi political strategy and advocates using the Nazi method for seizing power to sneak constitutional change past the Japanese public. Is Abe’s government doing just that?
- The State Department’s evident misgivings about Japanese chauvinism haven’t stopped U.S. strategic planners from supporting Japan’s move toward an offensive military capability, eyeing North Korea and [possibly] China.
1. School textbooks are being edited to reflect a revisionist perspective, more sympathetic to the ideology and goals of Imperial Japan. A new secrecy law has been passed, stifling open political discourse in Japan about the war.
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s conservative government has begun to pursue a more openly nationalist agenda on an issue that critics fear will push the country farther from its postwar pacifism: adding a more patriotic tone to Japan’s school textbooks. . . .
. . . . Mr. Abe and the nationalists have long argued that changes in the education system are crucial to restoring the country’s sense of self, eroded over decades when children were taught what they call an overly negative view of Japan’s wartime behavior.
The latest efforts for change started slowly, but have picked up speed in recent weeks.
In October, Mr. Abe’s education minister ordered the school board here in Taketomi to use a conservative textbook it had rejected, the first time the national government has issued such a demand. In November, the Education Ministry proposed new textbook screening standards, considered likely to be adopted, that would require the inclusion of nationalist views of World War II-era history.
This month, a government-appointed committee suggested a change that would bring politics more directly into education: putting mayors in charge of their local school districts, a move that opponents say would increase political interference in textbook screening. And just days ago, an advisory committee to the Education Ministry suggested hardening the proposed new standards by requiring that textbooks that do not nurture patriotism be rejected. . . .
2a. Abe has visited the Yasukuni Shrine, a controversial step that aggravated Japan’s Asian neighbors and rivals.
Shinzo Abe’s past year as prime minister has concentrated chiefly on reviving Japan’s long-ailing economy. Yet in Mr. Abe’s mind, the country’s newfound economic prowess is a means to an end: to build a more powerful, assertive Japan, complete with a full-fledged military, as well as pride in its World War II-era past.
That larger agenda, which helped cut short Mr. Abe’s first stint in office in 2006–7, has again come to the forefront in recent weeks, culminating in his year-end visit Thursday to the Yasukuni Shrine, which honors the nation’s war dead, including several war criminals who were executed after Japan’s defeat. . . .
. . . . Last month, he ignored blistering criticism from political opponents as well as the news media and steamrollered through Parliament a law that would tighten government control over state secrets. The law was presented by the government as a mechanism to aid in the sharing of military intelligence with allies, and create an American-style National Security Council.
Mr. Abe has also increased military spending for the first time in a decade, and loosened self-imposed restrictions on exporting weapons. A new defense plan calls for the acquisition of drones and amphibious assault vehicles to prepare for the prospect of a prolonged rivalry with China.
And experts say that next year, Mr. Abe could start taking concrete steps to reinterpret, and ultimately revise, Japan’s 1947 pacifist Constitution, something he has described as a life goal. Proposed changes could allow the country to officially maintain a standing army for the first time since the war, and take on a larger global security role. . . .
. . . . Nor do Mr. Abe’s deeply revisionist views of history — which he inherited from his grandfather Nobusuke Kishi, who was jailed for war crimes before eventually becoming prime minister — inspire confidence that Tokyo can play a bigger security role in Asia. . . .
2b. The U.S. appears to sanction the burgeoning Japanese militarism, despite State Department and U.N. concerns about growing Japanese racism.
“Exclusive: Japan, U.S. Discussing Offensive Military Capability for Tokyo — Japan Officials” by Nobuhiro Kubo; Reuters; 9/10/2013.
Japan and the United States are exploring the possibility of Tokyo acquiring offensive weapons that would allow Japan to project power far beyond its borders, Japanese officials said, a move that would likely infuriate China.
While Japan’s intensifying rivalry with China dominates the headlines, Tokyo’s focus would be the ability to take out North Korean missile bases, said three Japanese officials involved in the process.
They said Tokyo was holding the informal, previously undisclosed talks with Washington about capabilities that would mark an enhancement of military might for a country that has not fired a shot in anger since its defeat in World War Two.
The talks on what Japan regards as a “strike capability” are preliminary and do not cover specific hardware at this stage, the Japanese officials told Reuters.
Defense experts say an offensive capability would require a change in Japan’s purely defensive military doctrine, which could open the door to billions of dollars worth of offensive missile systems and other hardware. These could take various forms, such as submarine-fired cruise missiles similar to the U.S. Tomahawk.
U.S. officials said there were no formal discussions on the matter but did not rule out the possibility that informal contacts on the issue had taken place. One U.S. official said Japan had approached American officials informally last year about the matter.
Japan’s military is already robust but is constrained by a pacifist Constitution. The Self Defense Forces have dozens of naval surface ships, 16 submarines and three helicopter carriers, with more vessels under construction. Japan is also buying 42 advanced F‑35 stealth fighter jets.
Reshaping the military into a more assertive force is a core policy of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. He has reversed a decade of military spending cuts, ended a ban on Japanese troops fighting abroad and eased curbs on arms exports.
RILING CHINA
Tokyo had dropped a request to discuss offensive capabilities during high-profile talks on revising guidelines for the U.S.-Japan security alliance which are expected to be finished by year-end, the Japanese officials said. Instead, the sensitive issue was “being discussed on a separate track”, said one official with direct knowledge of the matter.
But any deal with Washington is years away and the obstacles are significant – from the costs to the heavily indebted Japanese government to concerns about ties with Asian neighbors such as China and sensitivities within the alliance itself.
The Japanese officials said their U.S. counterparts were cautious to the idea, partly because it could outrage China, which accuses Abe of reviving wartime militarism.
The officials declined to be identified because they were not authorized to discuss the closed-door deliberations. A Japanese Defense Ministry spokesman said he could not comment on negotiations with Washington.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said Asian countries had a right to be concerned about any moves to strengthen Japan’s military considering the country’s past and recent “mistaken” words and actions about its history.
“We again urge Japan to earnestly reflect on and learn the lessons of history, respect the security concerns of countries in the region and go down the path of peaceful development,” Hua told a daily news briefing in Beijing.
Japan would need U.S. backing for any shift in military doctrine because it would change the framework of the alliance, often described as America supplying the “sword” of forward-based troops and nuclear deterrence while Japan holds the defensive “shield”.
Washington did not have a position on upgrading Japan’s offensive capabilities, “in part because the Japanese have not developed a specific concept or come to us with a specific request”, said another U.S. official.
“We’re not there yet — and they’re not there yet,” the official said. “We’re prepared to have that conversation when they’re ready.”
NORTH KOREAN MISSILES
North Korea lies less than 600 km (370 miles) from Japan at the closest point.
Pyongyang, which regularly fires short-range rockets into the sea separating the Koreas from Japan, has improved its ballistic missile capabilities and conducted three nuclear weapons tests, its most recent in February 2013.
In April, North Korea said that in the event of war on the Korean Peninsula, Japan would be “consumed in nuclear flames”.
Part of Japan’s motivation for upgrading its capabilities is a nagging suspicion that the United States, with some 28,000 troops in South Korea as well as 38,000 in Japan, might hesitate to attack the North in a crisis, Japanese experts said.
U.S. forces might hold off in some situations, such as if South Korea wanted to prevent an escalation, said Narushige Michishita, a national security adviser to the Japanese government from 2004–2006.
“We might want to maintain some kind of limited strike capability in order to be able to initiate a strike, so that we can tell the Americans, ‘unless you do the job for us, we will have to do it on our own,’” said Michishita, a security expert at the National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies in Tokyo.
Reflecting Japan’s concerns, Abe told parliament in May 2013 that it was vital “not to give the mistaken impression that the American sword would not be used” in an emergency.
“At this moment is it really acceptable for Japan to have to plead with the U.S. to attack a missile threatening to attack Japan?” Abe said.
Under current security guidelines, in the event of a ballistic missile attack, “U.S. forces will provide Japan with necessary intelligence and consider, as necessary, the use of forces providing additional strike power”.
SHROUDED IN EUPHEMISM
The informal discussions on offensive capabilities cover all options, from Japan continuing to rely completely on Washington to getting the full panoply of weaponry itself.
Japan would like to reach a conclusion in about five years, and then start acquiring hardware, one Japanese official said.
Tokyo had wanted the discussions included in the review of the Japan‑U.S. Defense Cooperation Guidelines that are expected to cover areas such as logistical support and cybersecurity. Those talks, which formally kicked off last October, are the first in 17 years.
...
3. The NHK television network is being brought under the thumb of Abe’s administration, compromising the integrity of Japan’s largest and (arguably) most prestigious news outlet.
“News Giant in Japan Seen Compromised” by Martin Fackler; The New York Times; 2/3/2014.
First, there was the abrupt resignation of the public broadcasting chief accused by governing party politicians of allowing an overly liberal tone to news coverage. Then, his successor drew public ire when he suggested the network would loyally toe the government line.
Days later, on Thursday, a longtime commentator for the network angrily announced that he had resigned after being ordered not to criticize nuclear power ahead of a crucial election, unleashing new criticism.
These are hard times for the broadcaster, NHK, which is widely considered the country’s most authoritative television and radio news source and like its British equivalent, the BBC, has been troubled by scandal. . .
. . . . The prime minister is already pressing for more patriotic textbooks and has pushed through a secrecy law that will allow Japan’s notoriously opaque government to hide more of what it does. The actions come as Japan is mired in an emotional tug of war with China and South Korea over their fraught wartime history and recent, potentially explosive, territory disputes.
“What I am worried about is that NHK will become loyalist media, become the public relations department of the government,” an opposition lawmaker, Kazuhiro Haraguchi, said in unusually harsh criticism in Parliament on Friday. NHK is “part of the infrastructure that forms the basis of our democracy.”
The lawmaker made the statements as a parliamentary committee summoned Katsuto Momii, the new president of the broadcaster, to explain remarks at a recent news conference, including his declaration that overseas broadcasts would present the government’s views on foreign policy without criticism.
“We cannot say left when the government says right,” he said when asked whether NHK would present Japan’s position on territorial and other disputes. He explained that it was “only natural” for the network to follow the Japanese government position.
He also said it should refrain from criticizing the secrecy law as well as Mr. Abe’s visit in December to a Tokyo war shrine, which angered China and South Korea.
The comments seemed to run counter to the stated mission of the broadcaster, which is funded by fees collected from everyone who owns a television set, to report the news “without distortion or partisanship.”
While it is nominally independent, the broadcaster’s 12-member governing board is appointed by Parliament, which also approves its budget. The board, which includes four Abe appointees, chooses the president of the network.
The bluntness of the questioning in Parliament reflected the deep suspicion shared by many in the opposition that Mr. Abe’s governing Liberal Democratic Party is stocking the governing board with people ready to stifle criticism of his conservative government’s agenda, including playing down Japan’s wartime atrocities. . . .
. . . .The latest accusations of political interference have also become a headache for the Abe government, which has already seen its high approval ratings slide after passage in December of the secrecy law. Many Japanese journalists saw the law as a way of intimidating would-be government whistle-blowers from speaking with reporters, further hampering the independence of Japanese news media already criticized for being overly cozy with authority.
“This is gross political interference,” said Yasushi Kawasaki, a former NHK political reporter who teaches journalism at Sugiyama Jogakuen University near Nagoya. “The Abe government has stocked NHK’s board of governors with friendly faces in order to neuter its coverage.”
The top government spokesman, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, has denied that the appointments were politically motivated, but said the prime minister chose people whom he knows and trusts. . . .
4a. Controversial comments are straining relations with the United States. Assertions by Abe allies include assertions that U.S. war crimes tribunals after the conflict were intended to obfuscate American war crimes and the remarkable claim that U.S. troops used slave prostitutes similar to the Japanese “comfort women.”
A series of defiantly nationalistic comments, including remarks critical of the United States, by close political associates of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has led analysts to warn of a growing chill between his right-wing government and the Obama administration, which views Japan as a linchpin of its strategic pivot to Asia.
Rebuttals from the American Embassy in Japan have added to concerns of a falling-out between Japan and the United States, which has so far welcomed Mr. Abe’s efforts to strengthen Japan’s economy and military outreach in the region to serve as a counterbalance to China. The comments, which express revisionist views of Japan’s World War II history, have also led to renewed claims from Japan’s neighbors, particularly China and South Korea, that Mr. Abe is leading his nation to the right, trying to stir up patriotism and gloss over the country’s wartime history. . . .
. . . . One of the most provocative comments from Abe allies came this month, when an ultraconservative novelist, Naoki Hyakuta, who was appointed by the prime minister himself to the governing board of public broadcaster NHK, said in a speech that the Tokyo war tribunal after World War II was a means to cover up the “genocide” of American air raids on Tokyo and the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The United States Embassy called the comments “preposterous.”
. . . . Mr. Hyakuta’s comments came days after the new president of NHK, who was chosen last month by a governing board including Abe appointees, raised eyebrows in Washington by saying that Japan should not be singled out for forcing women to provide sex to Japanese soldiers during the war, saying the United States military did the same. Most historians say the Japanese system of creating special brothels for the troops, then forcing tens of thousands of women from other countries to work there, was different from the practice by other countries’ troops in occupied areas who frequented local brothels. . . .
Masahisa Sato stood in a ballroom under a giant Japanese flag, reading to the after-work crowd from a letter a World War II kamikaze pilot sent his young daughter.
“Don’t see yourself as a fatherless child. I will always be looking out for your safety,” Mr. Sato quoted the pilot as writing before he flew his plane into a U.S. ship off the Philippines in 1944, with his daughter’s favorite doll in the cockpit.
As the audience fell silent, Mr. Sato declared, his voice hoarse: “We have people we want to protect. We must have the resolve to hand this nation to the next generation.”
Mr. Sato is no fringe militaristic crank. He is a top defense adviser to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and a member of Japan’s parliament running for re-election on Sunday. . . .
The United States deliberately allowed Japan access to the United States’ most secret nuclear weapons facilities while it transferred tens of billions of dollars worth of American tax paid research that has allowed Japan to amass 70 tons of weapons grade plutonium since the 1980s, a National Security News Service investigation reveals. These activities repeatedly violated U.S. laws regarding controls of sensitive nuclear materials that could be diverted to weapons programs in Japan. The NSNS investigation found that the United States has known about a secret nuclear weapons program in Japan since the 1960s, according to CIA reports.
The diversion of U.S. classified technology began during the Reagan administration after it allowed a $10 billion reactor sale to China. Japan protested that sensitive technology was being sold to a potential nuclear adversary. The Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations permitted sensitive technology and nuclear materials to be transferred to Japan despite laws and treaties preventing such transfers. Highly sensitive technology on plutonium separation from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site and Hanford nuclear weapons complex, as well as tens of billions of dollars worth of breeder reactor research was turned over to Japan with almost no safeguards against proliferation. Japanese scientist and technicians were given access to both Hanford and Savannah River as part of the transfer process.
While Japan has refrained from deploying nuclear weapons and remains under an umbrella of U.S. nuclear protection, NSNS has learned that the country has used its electrical utility companies as a cover to allow the country to amass enough nuclear weapons materials to build a nuclear arsenal larger than China, India and Pakistan combined. . . .
. . . That secret effort was hidden in a nuclear power program that by March 11, 2011– the day the earthquake and tsunami overwhelmed the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Plant – had amassed 70 metric tons of plutonium. Like its use of civilian nuclear power to hide a secret bomb program, Japan used peaceful space exploration as a cover for developing sophisticated nuclear weapons delivery systems.
Political leaders in Japan understood that the only way the Japanese people could be convinced to allow nuclear power into their lives was if a long line of governments and industry hid any military application. For that reason, a succession of Japanese governments colluded on a bomb program disguised as innocent energy and civil space programs. . . .
“For Top Pols In Japan Crime Doesn’t Pay, But Hate Crime Does” by Jake Adelstein and
Angela Erika Kubo; The Daily Beast; 9/26/2014.
As Japan’s prime minister addresses the United Nations on Friday his reputation at home is tainted by links to avowed racists.
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe will be speaking to the United Nations this Friday, but he may not be very welcome. In late July, the United Nations’ Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination urged Japan to crack down on the growing cases of “hate speech” targeting foreign residents. The U.N. committee urged Prime Minister Abe’s administration to “firmly address manifestations of hate and racism as well as incitement to racist violence and hatred during rallies,” and create laws to rectify the situation.
Recent events make it appear that the prime minister and his cabinet are not paying attention; several members of the cabinet not only appear oblivious to racism and hate speech issues, they associate with those who promote them.
Last week photographs of Japan’s newly appointed National Public Safety Commissioner socializing with members of the country’s most virulent racist group, Zaitokukai, were brought to light in an expose by Japan’s leading weekly magazine, Shukan Bunshun. In U.S. terms, it would be the equivalent of the attorney general getting caught chumming around with a Grand Dragon of the Ku Klux Klan. This week it was reported that another cabinet member received donations from them, and that Prime Minister Shinzo Abe himself may have ties to the staunchly anti-Korean organization.
All of this isn’t good for Japan and Korea relations, since much of the racism is directed at people of Korean descent, nor is it good for U.S.-Japan relations. In February, the U.S. State Department in its annual report on human rights, criticized the hate speech towards Korean residents in Japan, specifically naming the Zaitokukai. The group is well known for its anti-social actions, but The Daily Beast has learned that it also has had ties to Japan’s mafia—including the Sumiyoshi-kai, which is blacklisted by the United States.
The latest news of links between the Japanese ruling coalition and unsavory characters comes just after another scandal involving neo-nazi links to two other cabinet members made headlines worldwide.
The standard line of defense offered by the cabinet members embroiled in controversy over their connections to racist groups, “We just happened to get photographed with these people. We don’t know who they are,” is getting harder to swallow. And it has raised some disturbing issues.
The U.N. and the U.S. State Department can certainly urge Japan to deal with the problem but as long as hate crime pays politically and to some extent monetarily and the administration seems to condone ultra-nationalist racist groups this is unlikely to happen. The scolding that the U.N. gave Japan seems more and more prescient as links between the cabinet and bigoted ultra-nationalist organizations keep coming to light.
...
The Zaitokukai, founded in 2006, has a name best translated as “Citizens Against the Special Privileges of Ethnic Koreans.” They are an ultra-nationalist, right-wing group that argues for the elimination of privileges extended to foreigners who had been granted Special Foreign Resident status—mostly Korean-Japanese.
The Zaitokukai also collect a lot of money in donations from like-minded citizens.
The group, which is led by Makoto Sakurai, whose real name is Makoto Takada, claims that ethnic Koreans abuse the social and welfare system in Japan. Zaitokukai claims to have over 14,000 members. It organizes protests and demonstrations across Japan, even in front of Korean elementary schools, yelling such slogans as “Go back to Korea,” “You’re the children of spies”—making numerous veiled and overt threats. The group asserts that all foreigners are criminals who should be chased out of Japan, especially the Koreans.
In a recent book, Sakurai states, “The Japanese understand what the Koreans are up to. If you think about it, there’s no way we can get along with these people. Even though Japanese people don’t do anything, Koreans just cause one incident (crime) after another. Every time a Korean commits another crime, our support goes up.”
And when support goes up, so do the earnings of the Zaitokukai—earnings that are poorly accounted for and go untaxed. It’s a great racket and it’s completely legal.
However, the group does have associations with the Japanese mafia, aka the yakuza, and those may not be legal. They are very closely tied to the political arm of the Sumiyoshikai, known as Nihonseinsha..
Eriko Yamatani, as chairman of the National Public Safety Commission, oversees Japan’s police forces. It makes her association with Zaitokukai and their criminally inclined members highly problematic. One picture that dates back to 2009 shows Yamatani standing next to Yasuhiko Aramaki, who was arrested a year later for terrorizing a Korean elementary school in Kyoto, found guilty and then later arrested again in 2012 on charges of intimidation..
Another of the people photographed with Yamatani is Shigeo Masuki, a former Zaitokukai leader. Masuki was arrested at least three times after the photograph was shot, once for threatening an elementary school principal and later for insurance fraud. Yamatani initially denied that she knew of the Zaitokukai affiliation of the people in the pictures. This is slightly strange since she has reportedly been friends with Masuki and his wife for over a decade. When replying to questions from TBS radio about the recent scandal, she explained the Zaitokukai exactly in the terminology of a true believer, inadvertently using the words “Zainichi Tokken (Special rights of the Korean Residents In Japan)” herself. At a press conference held today (September 25th), she was questioned about her use of the term and stated uncomfortably, “In my reply (to TBS) I might have just copy and pasted from the Zaitokukai homepage.” She refused to criticize the group by name or clarify whether she believed that ethnic Koreans had special privileges.
Yamatani, in her current position, oversees the National Police Agency—the very same agency that noted in its 2013 white paper that the Zaitokukai were committing hate speech, promoting racism, and posed a threat to the social order. If hate-speech becomes a crime, she may be in charge of overseeing the police that enforce the law.
She isn’t the only one close to the Zaitokukai in the current cabinet. According to the magazine Sunday Mainichi, Ms. Tomomi Inada, Minister Of The “Cool Japan” Strategy, also received donations from Masaki and other Zaitokukai associates.
Apparently, racism is cool in Japan.
Inada made news earlier this month after photos circulated of her and another female in the new cabinet posing with a neo-Nazi party leader. Both denied knowing the neo-Nazi well but later were revealed to have contributed blurbs for an advertisement praising the out-of-print book Hitler’s Election Strategy. Coincidentally, Vice-Prime Minister,Taro Aso, is also a long-time admirer of Nazi political strategy, and has suggested Japan follow the Nazi Party template to sneak constitutional change past the public.
Even Japan’s Prime Minister Abe has been photographed with members of Zaitokukai. Masuki, who snapped a photo with Abe on August 17h 2009, while he was still a member of the group, bragged that Abe kindly remembered him.”
As of publication date, the administration hasn’t explained the relationship between the two and a home page featuring a photo of Abe and Masuki has been taken down.
...
Since September 3, it seems that every day yields new information linking an Abe cabinet member with a racist or neo-nazi group. While the ties to racist groups and the cabinet members seem problematic, there are signs of hope…sort of.
In August, Japan’s ruling party, which put Abe into power organized a working group to discuss laws that would restrict hate-crime, although the new laws will probably also be used to clamp down on anti-nuclear protests outside the Diet building.
Of course, it is a little worrisome that Sanae Takaichi, who was supposed to oversee the project, is the other female minister who was photographed with a neo-Nazi leader and is a fan of Hitler.
Maybe the Abe administration is sincere about dealing with hate crimes and just unlucky to have so many cabinet members being photographed and getting donations from the wrong people.
Sadly, Japan is in the middle of a huge racist boom. Anti-Korean books, magazines, and comic books are selling like wildfire. The anti-Korean diatribe Bokanron (The Impudent Korea Argument), a book released on December 5 last year, became the top selling book on Amazon within a week and sold 270,000 copies by the end of March. An assistant editor at a weekly magazine told The Daily Beast, “If you have an article ridiculing Korea or Koreans on the cover, the issue sells. That’s the climate we’re in.”
However, Japan is definitely in a precarious time. What was once taboo has become socially acceptable and the prime minister remains silent, hoping to avoid alienating his political base and let the fires of political nationalism continue to smolder.
6. More about Finance Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Taro Abe’s Nazi views:
“Japanese Deputy Prime Minister’s Nazi Remarks Cause Furor” by Jethro Mullen; CNN; 8/2/2013.
Japan’s deputy prime minister stirred controversy this week by appearing to suggest that the government could learn from the way that Nazi Germany changed its constitution.
The remarks by Taro Aso, who is also the Japanese finance minister, provoked criticism from Japan’s neighbors and a Jewish organization in the United States.
Aso, a former prime minister who has slipped up with verbal gaffes in the past, retracted the comments later in the week but refused to apologize for them or resign, saying they had been taken out of context.
Amid persistent talk in Japan about revising the country’s pacifist post-war constitution, Aso set off the controversy at a seminar Monday, in which he said that discussions over constitutional changes should be carried out calmly.
“Germany’s Weimar Constitution was changed into the Nazi Constitution before anyone knew,” he said in comments widely reported by the Japanese media. “It was changed before anyone else noticed. Why don’t we learn from that method?” . . . .
. . . . Aso’s apparent reference to those changes drew expressions of concern from the governments of China and South Korea, two countries that suffered heavily under Japanese imperial aggression during World War II, a conflict in which Japan was allied with Nazi Germany. . . .
7. Abe cabinet ministers Tomomi Inada and Sanae Takaichi wrote promotional blurbs for a book written by a Liberal Democratic Party politician that formally articulates the strategy endorsed by Taro Aso.
An official of the Liberal Democratic Party urges in a new book that his party try to regain power by adopting a new role model: Hitler.
The book, “Hitler Election Strategy: A Bible for Certain Victory in Modern Elections,” says the Nazi leader’s process for “unifying public opinion in a short period of time and snatching power” provides “very important teachings.”
The author, Yoshio Ogai, is a public relations official in the Tokyo chapter of the Liberal Democratic Party, Japan’s largest, which controlled the Government for nearly four decades until being ousted last summer. Just Personal Advice
In an interview today, Mr. Ogai said the book did not state an official party position, merely his personal advice to candidates in these “chaotic” times that they could learn some tactics from Hitler. He said, however, that he had cleared the book beforehand with the secretary general of the Tokyo branch.
The US/Japanese defense partnership is going global:
Following his blow out win, Shinzo Abe is once again pledging to rewrite Japan’s constitution. WWII history is also slated for a rewrite:
“Abe is expected to reappoint a broadly similar Cabinet after he is formally named prime minister again by the Lower House on Dec. 24.” Ummm...
Is ISIS’s hostage-taking going to be the final catalyst for Japan’s shedding of its pacifist constitution? It’s possible:
While it’s nice that Japan will probaby be more Godzilla-proof should it end up expanding its military spending spree, the larger context of this historic shift for Japan, a nation with a fairly recent historic of extreme military aggression, is still quite disturbing. Yes, the ISIS threats are disturbing because, well, pretty much everything ISIS does is disturbing. But that’s not the only disturbing context in this situation.
One of Shinzo Abe’s advisers has a suggestion for how Japan can stabilize its falling population without requiring its people to mingle with all these icky foreigners: Bring in the foreigners and separate them by race:
There’s never really a good time promote the whitewashing of war crimes. But leave it up to Japan’s neo-Nazi cabinet ministers to find the worst time:
A deranged man attacked a residence for people disabilities in Japan last week, stabbing 19 people to death. A number of questions are being asked about how this could happen and whether enough was being done to prevent the attack. These are understandably a lot of questions, especially given that the man previously worked for the facility and was committed to a mental hospital back in February after writing a letter to a politician calling for the euthanasia of disable people and pledging to kill hundreds and released without followup and police visited his home hours before the attack when no one was home. So, yes, there are quite a few questions about how this happened:
“Although the authorities appear to have responded promptly to earlier instances of ominous behavior by Mr. Uematsu, legal specialists, advocates for disabled people and members of the news media are questioning whether those authorities did enough to monitor and treat an apparently troubled man who had advertised his willingness to kill.”
Let’s hope Japan doesn’t turn this into a collective freakout over mental illness because it sounds like there are a number of improvements required in this area and that’s always ominous for when mental illness and violence become intertwined. Let’s also hope Uematsu’s marijuana usage doesn’t trigger a damaging Reefer Madness crackdown, especially given the nebulous nature of the relationships between marijuana and mental illnesses like schizophrenia. Although, given the draconian laws already on the books, more Reefer Madness isn’t really an option. Still, given that the first lady, Akie Abe, recently come out in support of hemp cultivation and medical marijuana, it would be a harmful shame if this attack derailed that reform movement.
So while it’s unclear what Japan will do to update its mental health system and safeguards, it’s worth noting that there is one very simple thing that could be done to reduce the odds of another attack of this nature on the disabled. Unfortunately, the odds of actually carrying out this simple task is pretty low, since it would entail getting Japan’s deputy prime minister, Taro Aso, to renounce his advocacy of of the elderly renouncing medical care so they can die quickly to cut down on healthcare costs:
“Heaven forbid if you are forced to live on when you want to die. I would wake up feeling increasingly bad knowing that [treatment] was all being paid for by the government...The problem won’t be solved unless you let them hurry up and die.”
Yes, according to Japan’s deputy prime minister, he doesn’t want to euthanize the elderly. He just wants them to feel really guilty about how much their healthcare is costing the state and then choose to euthanize themselves so people like Aso, one of Japan’s wealthiest politicians, can pay less in taxes.
So as we can see, Japan’s politicians have quite a few mental health challenges to deal with in coming days in the wake of this attack. As we can also see, politicians like Taro Aso have some extra mental health challenges to deal with.
With Pokemon Go taking the world by storm, some in Japan are asking if super popular app is the first big success of Abe’s “Cool Japan” national strategy for exporting Japanese culture around the world. We’ll have to wait and see. But for Tomomi Inada, Japan’s Minister of the “Cool Japan” Strategy (that’s a real cabinet post), she’s not going to have much time to promote more Japanese cultural coolness. Why? Because she just became Japan’s new Defense Minister:
“She also regularly visits Tokyo’s Yasukuni Shrine for war dead, which China and South Korea see as a symbol of Japan’s past militarism. Japan’s ties with China and South Korea have been frayed by the legacy of its military aggression before and during World War Two.”
Not surprisingly, Inada shares Shinzo Abe’s goal of stripping out Japan’s pacifism from the constitution. So will she become the first Defense Minister of a remilitarized Japan? We’ll see, but it’s worth recalling that Inada is also one of Abe’s cabinet members who embraces neo-Nazi anti-Korean hate groups and who has promoted an a book on Hiter’s Election Strategies. So, at a minimum, Inada probably pretty familiar with strategies for overhauling a constitution:
“Inada made news earlier this month after photos circulated of her and another female in the new cabinet posing with a neo-Nazi party leader. Both denied knowing the neo-Nazi well but later were revealed to have contributed blurbs for an advertisement praising the out-of-print book Hitler’s Election Strategy. Coincidentally, Vice-Prime Minister,Taro As, is also a long-time admirer of Nazi political strategy, and has suggested Japan follow the Nazi Party template to sneak constitutional change past the public.”
That’s right, Japan’s new Defense Minister contributed blurbs for an advertisement praising a book on Hitler’s election strategy. And the vice-Prime Minister, Taro Aso, an advocate for letting the elderly die to reduce his taxes, has suggested Japan follow the Nazi Party template to sneak constitutional changes past the public.
So, yeah, don’t be surprised if Tomomi Inada ends up becoming the first Japanese Defense Minister with the constitutional powers to declare war. Also don’t be surprised if that power is horribly abused since, you know, she’s part of a neo-Nazi-sympathizing government. That’s not very cool.
Here’s an interesting potential roadblock for Shinzo Abe’s ambitions to overhaul Japan’s pacifist constitution. Emperor Akihito, who recently raised idea of abdicating his throne due to health issues, something that hasn’t happened in over 200 years and may not actually be allowed in the constitution. But as he prepares Japan’s public for this constitutionally questionable abdication, he appears to have one particular message that he would like to convey before he steps down: Don’t change the pacifist nature of the constitution. And the incoming Crown Prince Naruhito appears to share those views. So if Abe is going to succeed in changing the constitution to allow for the remilitarization of Japan, he’s going to have to do over the opposition of the current and future emperors:
“Monday’s speech left little doubt his desire and intent is to step down, if such a thing can be arranged, but more importantly it marks the prelude to what may be an epic battle between the emperor’s successor, Crown Prince Naruhito, and the man some critics call the Clown Prince—Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, leader of Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party.”
Crown Prince vs the Clown Prince! That does sound like an epic battle in the making, especially since the outcome will directly impact the likelihood of epic (and horrific) real military battles in the future. But keep in mind that the even if Crown Prince Naruhito succeeds in blocking the constitutional remilitarization of Japan, that remilitarization is happening already anyway (get ready for Japan’s drone army) and Abe will still have a path to that constitutional change. All he needs to do is declare an emergency:
That’s right, if pacifist constitution isn’t overturned, Abe’s party, which is set to have a super-majority in parliament after the recent elections, will pass an emergency powers act that just lets Abe rewrite the laws anyway.
What might the emergency be that the government uses to justify an emergency powers act? That’s an unpleasant area of speculation but it presumably involves some sort of conflict that could justify a military response. Although, if you think about, the fact that the current government, which is populated with neo-Nazis (including the new defense minister) and led by the grandson of a WWII war criminal with a propensity for historical revisionism, is planning on declaring an emergency powers act in order to push through its desired remilitarization of Japan does sort of qualify as an emergency. A national and international emergency. So look out world, Japan has an emergency emergency and its your emergency too.
Former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is assassinated at a campaign rally
Police say Tetsuya Yamagami, 41, fired two shots at Abe as he was making a political speech in the city of Nara. The first shot missed, but the second hit Abe’s chest and neck, and despite attempts to revive him he died several hours later.
Yamagami was unemployed and a former member of Japan’s Maritime Self-Defense Force for three years, police say, and attacked Abe because he believed he was associated with a group Yamagami hated. Multiple handmade guns were later found at Yamagami’s home.
https://www.npr.org/2022/07/08/1110440504/former-japan-prime-minister-shinzo-abe-killed
We have a motive. At least that appears to be the case now that we’ve learned the apparent reason for the assassination of former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe last week by Tetsuya Yamagami, a 41 year old former member of the Japanese military. Yamagami was apparently quite angry at Abe for personal reason, albeit personal reasons that appear to only be tangentially related to Abe and his long-ruling conservative LPD party: the LDP’s and Abe’s longstanding working relationship with the Unification Church. It turns out Yamagami’s mother was a long-time member of the church who had drifted away from the organization before returning this year, something that presumably enraged her son. And as the following article notes, not only does the LDP’s ties to the Unification Church go back to Abe’s grandfather, Nobusuke Kishi, but Abe has been maintaining those ties in recent years. So it looks like Yamagami was effectively getting revenge on LDP for its long-standing support of the cult that recapture his mom earlier this year. And Abe, being the LDP’s senior figure and an open supporter of the church, presented a prime revenge opportunity:
“At a news conference on Monday, church officials detailed the organization’s ties to Mr. Yamagami’s mother, describing her as a longtime member. She had joined the church in 1998 but lost touch with the group for a long period before returning earlier this year, Tomihiro Tanaka, the head of the church’s Japan branch, said.”
Well, that certainly helps solve the mystery of the shooter’s motive: his mom was sucked into the Unification Church cult, got out for a while, and was lured back in earlier this year, presumably sucking whatever is left of her savings dry in the process. Tetsuya Yamagami had a major grudge against the Unification Church. The apparent source of his anger is pretty clear. And yet his chosen method for resolving the grudge was to assassinate Shinzo Abe. That’s part of what makes this story so remarkable: it points towards deep ties between Abe and the Unification Church. Ties that both the church and the LDP are now scrambling to play down. And yet as the article notes, these ties are multi-generational in Abe’s family going back to his grandfather Nobusuke Kishi.
But also multi-generational for the LDP. The two entities are old longstanding allies with a share authoritarian right-wing ideology. Also recall how Nobusuke Kishi effecively took over the LDP in the 1950s with the help of the CIA and his former cellmate, Japanese organized crime boss Yoshio Kodama. That all part of the larger context of the motive behind this assassination. It wasn’t necessarily just a grudge against the Unification Church. It also appears to be a grudge the LDP’s longstanding underworld ties to the church. Ties that form the basis of much of contemporary Japan’s deep political power structure, where the overworld and underworld converge. Abe’s deep family ties to both the LDP and Unification Church kind of made him the perfect target for someone with Yamagami’s animus:
Also note how these LDP ties to the Unification Church appeared to endure even following the passing of Reverend Moon and the resulting schism within the church. Abe even sent a messenger to express his support for a church-affiliated group earlier this year. The ties between the Unification Church and Abe’s LDP don’t appear to be fraying as the church enters its post-Moon era. Quite the opposite. These ties appear to be enduring despite the public criticism Abe and the LDP receive over it:
The whole situation raises kind of the question: what’s going to happen to the quasi-scandalous relationship between the LDP and the Unification Church now? Should we expect this event to rattle that long-standing relationship? Or deepen it? The ties between the LDP and Unification Church were made into a major story with Abe’s assassination. But it’s not like this hasn’t been an open relationship for decades. An open relationship that obviously hasn’t posed any real threat to the LDP’s decades of near-permanent rule.
And that more or less tells us our answer: it’s hard to imagine the LDP’s ties to the Unification Church withering as a result of this event unless it somehow generates enough of a public response to threaten the LDP’s iron grip on power. Which doesn’t look likely to happen. The LDP’s ties to the Unification Church is a known thing and Japan’s electorate appears to have accepted it a long time ago. We’ll see what the political fallout ultimately ends up being as a result of this. But with the LDP already securing another sweeping electoral sweep in the days following Abe’s assassination, it’s already clear that the LDP’s ongoing ties to the Unification Church isn’t really seen as a deal breaker with the Japanese electorate.
It’s also worth keeping in mind that severing its ties to the Unification Church and its various offshoots could present its own security risks for the LDP. Dealing with the aggrieved relatives of scammed church members might be the safer option.
Here’s a pair of articles related to the assassination of Shinzo Abe over his long-standing ties to the Unification Church. As we’re going to see, Abe’s slaying appears to be the catalytic event for what was the long-standing goal of his grandfather Nobusuke Kishi: remilitarizing Japan with a constitutional amendment.
It’s an especially ironic turn given that the Unification Church built its Tokyo headquarters on land previously own by Kishi. As the following Shingetsu News Agency article describes, it was a mutual desire to rearm Japan and oppose Chinese communism that initially forged the bonds between Kishi and Reverend Moon back in the 1960s. Under Kishi, the LDP’s ties to the Unification Church grew so deep that LDP politicians had to pledge to travel to the church headquarters and, in return, got free church staff for their campaigns.
Another part of this long-standing LDP-Unification Church arrangement was that for many years the Church enjoyed protection from prosecution by Japanese authorities for their sales and recruitment tactics. Tactics that were aggressive and often fraudulent. Recall how the assassin, Tetsuya Yamagami, cited the church’s fleecing of his mother as the motive for the attack.
As we’re also going to Shingetsu News Agency report, Abe himself openly continued this family tradition of supporting the church and was even condemned back in September 2021 in an open letter by the National Network of Lawyers Against Spiritual Sales over a September 12 video Abe made congratulating the church that was played at a church event.
So Abe’s long-standing family history in the LDP’s decades-long alliance with the Unification Church was clearly a major factor in this story. But there’s also the ramifications of the assassination. Ramifications that include the likely remilitarization of Japan as a consequence of the LDP’s electoral sweep. And electoral sweep fueld by sympathy over Abe’s assassination just days before the election. As we’re going to see in the AP article excerpt below, the LDP and its allies should now have enough seats in parliament to pass a constitutional reform bill that sends it to the Japanese public for a majority referendum. A referendum that, if held soon enough, will still presumably benefit from sympathy over Abe’s slaying. It’s all rather remarkable, historically speaking, but it’s hard to ignore the reality that the slaying of Shinzo Abe is now poised to be the catalyzing event that brings his grandfather’s goal of remilitarizing Japan to fruition:
“Why the Japanese media has refused to identify the “religious group” that formed the motive for the killing must remain as speculation at this juncture, though it reflects very poorly on Japan’s status as a democratic nation.”
Why the pause in the Japanese media’s coverage of this event on acknowledging the Unification Church motive of the attacker? It’s the kind of observation that hints at some very powerful toes being potentially stepped on in the coverage of this story. Because as the article points out, Shinzo Abe’s political pedigree doesn’t just involve coming from a family that has played a long-standing leadership role in the LDP. Abe’s war criminal grandfather, Nobusuke Kishi, created a relationship between the LDP and the Unification Church that effectively fused the two. LDP politicians had to visit the Unification Church headquarters for indoctrination, and in return receive free campaign staffers from the church membership.
And, crucially for this story, the Unification Church was effectively given free reign to engage in highly fraudulent and aggressive recruitment tactics. The kind of tactics that reportedly suckered in Tetsuya Yamagami’s mother. Don’t forget that the LDP has had a nearly uninterrupted LPD rule during the post-War period. So the Unification Church has effectively been able to operate in an above-the-law manner for the past 50 years. And Shinzo Abe’s family dynasty was at the heart of that arrangement:
Also note how the Tetsuya Yamagami was far from alone in his grievances against Abe’s ongoing catering to the Unification Church: The National Network of Lawyers Against Spiritual Sales issued an open letter protesting the congratulatory video message Abe recorded for a September 12, 2021 Unification Church event. That’s part of the context of this assassination:
Abe’s perceived ties to the Unification Church in the eyes of the Japanese public were apparently so deep that Yamagami initially planned to kill a church leader but decided to target Abe after he determined a church leader would be too difficult to kill. It’s a reflection of the relative lack of security around Abe:
And that decision to target Abe, instead of a church leader, points to one of the grand ironies in this whole story: the assassination of Abe triggered an LDP electoral sweep and as a consequence eased the passage of change to Japan’s pacific constitution. A change in the constitution that was one of causes that initially unified Nobusuke Kishi with Reverend Moon back in the 1960s and formed a core tenet of the LDP/Unification Church’s alliance. The assassination of Shinzo Abe really does look like it’s going to be the catalytic event for realizing his grandfather’s dream of remilitarizing Japan:
So how close is the passage of that constitutional remilitarization amendment? Well, thanks to the LDP’s sympathy sweep at the polls, the LDP and its coalition partners should have enough support to push the amendment through the parliament and up for a vote a in a public referendum:
“Kishida said the response to the COVID-19 pandemic, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and rising prices would be his priorities. But he also vowed to push for reinforcing Japan’s national security and amending the constitution, which only allows the country’s military to act in self-defense.”
An LDP sweep and vows to complete Abe’s mission of remilitarizing Japan. That’s the immediately fallout from this assassination. Thanks to this attack, the LDP and its allies in parliament have the votes needed to move the constitutional reform through parliament and into the next phase of a public referendum. A public referendum that will presumably be impacted significantly by the sympathy in relation to Abe’s slaying:
And note how the Japanese public didn’t appear to be prioritizing Abe’s remilitarization agenda before his death. That public sentiment is presumably very different today:
The whole event is turning out to be quite a shock to Japan’s political system. The kind of shock that is jolting things into place just way Abe’s fellow far right travelers have long wanted to see happen. And when an unexpected shock with a highly predictable outcome in line with the most powerful and militant forces in society takes place, it’s probably worth asking about what kinds of other unexpected shocks with predictable outcomes we should be expecting. In other words, should the passage of the remilitarization constitutional amendment appear to be at risk of losing when it’s brought up for a public referendum, LDP figures with strong national followings might want to avoid public events before the vote. Or at least be ready to make the same kind of sacrifice for its passage that Abe just made.