The “Fortunes of War,” Part 2
In FTR #905, among other broadcasts, we have detailed the profound corporate links between American oligarchs and their counterparts in Japan. As the Seagraves noted in an excerpt of “The Yamato Dynasty” summarizing the aftermath of World War II in Asia: “. . . . America’s oligarchs had rescued Japan’s oligarchs. . . .” In our last post, we noted that “. . . . U.S. bombing policy [in Japan]. . . had tended to reaffirm existing hierarchies of fortune. . .” While still a private citizen, John Foster Dulles of Sullivan & Cromwell negotiated a peace treaty between Japan and the Allies, predicated on the twin myths that Japan hadn’t stolen wealth from its occupied territories during the war and that the nation was bankrupt. Neither assertion was based in fact. Article 14 of the treaty stated: ” . . . . ‘the Allied Powers waive all reparations claims of the Allied Powers and their nationals arising out of any actions taken by Japan’. By signing the treaty, Allied countries concurred that Japan’s plunder had vanished down a rabbit hole, and all Japan’s victims were out of luck. . . .” It should also be noted that: ” . . . . As we now know, Japan was not bankrupted by the war. By 1951, six years after the war, Japan’s economy was stronger than it had been during the best business years before the war. . . .” This highlights the apparently strategically selective nature of American bombing during the war, as well as the fact that Japan was allowed to keep the Golden Lily plunder that had been brought back to the home islands.
Requiem for Victory at Sea, Part 3 (The “Fortunes” of War?)
In FTR #905, among other broadcasts, we have detailed the profound corporate links between American oligarchs and their counterparts in Japan. As the Seagraves noted in an excerpt of “The Yamato Dynasty” summarizing the aftermath of World War II in Asia: “. . . . America’s oligarchs had rescued Japan’s oligarchs. . . .” Watching the films of World War II, the heroism of Allied and U.S. combatants was deeply impressed on my personality and perceptions. Footage of U.S. airmen in combat with German and Japanese planes resonates differently now, underscoring the tragedy of the events and the cynicism that appears to have dictated strategy devised by key officers and politicians. The American air war against Japan may well have been selectively conducted, with devastating firebombing raids decimating the residential neighborhoods of much of Japan, while sparing the infrastructure vital to the Zaibatsus (giant conglomerates that dominated–and continue to dominate–the Japanese economy) and the country’s war-making capacity. The possibly that this apparently deliberate strategy was designed to decimate that element of the Japanese population that might have sought a more egalitarian political and social structure, while sparing the elite is one to be seriously contemplated. “. . . . Despite propaganda to the contrary, American and Europeans who toured Japan immediately after the surrender were surprised that infrastructure, factories, utilities, and railways were largely intact, thanks to selective American bombing. Firebombing had destroyed tens of thousands of the tinderbox homes of ordinary Japanese, giving Tokyo the look of a devastated city, but great estates, factories and vital infrastructure seemed magically to have been spared. . . . ‘U.S bombing policy . . . had tended to reaffirm existing hierarchies of fortune. . .’ ”
Requiem for “Victory at Sea,” Part 2
In numerous programs, we have discussed Kodama Yoshio, one of Japan’s premier organized crime bosses, who was head of the Kodama Agency, charged with procuring materials for Japan’s Imperial Naval Air Force. Kodama was aided in his efforts by General Tai Li, Chiang Kai-shek’s chief of intelligence, who swapped key raw materials for narcotics to back the Kuomintang narco-dictatorship. ” . . . . Officially, Kodama was in Shanghai as a buyer for the Imperial Navy Air Force, under the rubric of the Kodama Kikan, or Kodama Agency. (Special Service Units were named after the officer in charge and then called an agency.) On paper, his mission was to locate and acquire supplies of copper, cobalt, nickel and mica. In most cases, he bought these directly from KMT secret police chief General Tai Li, who was paid in heroin. . . . Because the Strike South would involve Japan’s navy, and the navy would administer the Malay Archipelago through which [Golden Lily] treasure ships must pass, Kodama was transferred overnight from the army to the navy, and given the rank of rear admiral. This was like making Al Capone a U.S. Navy admiral. . . . Kodama returned to Shanghai just in time for Pearl Harbor. . . .”
Requiem for “Victory at Sea”
Having been born in 1949, I grew up with World War II as a critical element of my political, civic and cognitive upbringing. I vividly remember watching the documentary “Victory at Sea” on television as a child. As I have grown older, more knowledgeable and wiser, learning the truth about World War II has been very sad and painful. In FTR #1095, we noted the historical background to the ongoing conflict with China–the brutal Japanese onslaught and the collaboration of Chiang Kai-shek’s Kuomintang narco-dictatorship with Japan’s attack and occupation. As a boy, I was awed and moved by the heroism of American and Allied service personnel who braved the dangers of flying over the Hump to bring U.S. supplies to Chiang Kai-shek’s forces. Although officially allied with the U.S., Chiang Kai-shek’s forces were actually working “both sides of the street.” We have encountered nothing more grotesquely tragic and disillusioning than the awareness that American military supplies flown over the Hump and/or sent along the Burma Road found their way into the hands of the Japanese, courtesy of KMT general Ku Chu-tung and his organized crime brother. Collaborating with Kodama Yoshio, the Japanese crime boss and Admiral of the Imperial Japanese Navy, the brothers swapped U.S. lend lease supplies for drugs.
FTR #1095 The Destabilization of China, Part 6: Asian Deep Politics
In this program we present some of the deep political Asian history that bears on Chinese history and politics. In particular, the harm done to China by Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek’s drug-dealing Kuomintang government, its collaboration with the brutal Japanese occupiers of Manchuria, as well as the United States is important in understanding the Chinese political and historical outlook.
In turn, the deep economic, political and military relationship between the Japanese fascists and the U.S. is to be factored in to any understanding of how the Chinese view this country and the West.
In that context, we do NOT think China’s present government will go down easily in the face of an obvious destabilization effort by the U.S. and the West.
In addition to the European colonization of China and Britain’s violent imposition of the opium drug trade through the Opium Wars, China’s political and historical memory is vividly animated by the drug-financed fascist dictatorship of Nationalist Chinese Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek. Dubbed “the Peanut” by General Joseph Stilwell during World War II, Chiang was compared by Stilwell (the chief American military adviser and liaison to the Kuomintang forces during World War II) to Mussolini.
Chiang’s entire government and brutal national security apparatus rested on the foundation of the narcotics traffic, as was well known by the US Commissioner Bureau of Narcotics, Harry Anslinger.
Key points of discussion and analysis of this relationship include: The decisive role of the Green Gang of Shanghai crime lord Du (sometimes ‘Tu”) Yue-sheng in both financing Chiang’s forces and supplying muscle and intelligence to Tai Li, Chiang’s intelligence chief and interior minister, nicknamed “The Himmler of China;” the important role of Chiang’s drug traffic in supplying American t’ongs who, in turned, supplied the Mafia with their narcotics; the role of Chiang’s finance minister as Du Yue-sheng’s protector; the collaboration of Du and Chaing Kai-shek’s Kuomintang apparatus with the Japanese occupation government of Manchuria in the narcotics traffic; the role of Chaing’s head of Narcotics Control in supplying Chinese officials with drugs; the role of the Superintendent of Maritime Customs in Shanghai in supervising the trafficking of drugs to the U.S.; Du Yueh-sheng’s flight to Hong Kong after the Japanese occupation of Shanghai; Du’s collaboration with Hong Kong-based British financiers in selling drugs to the Chinese population; the deliberate deception on the part of Anslinger and kingpins in the US China Lobby, who knowingly misled the American public by blaming the U.S. drug traffic on the Communist Chinese; the narcotics kickbacks to U.S. China Lobby figures by Chiang’s dope trafficking infrastructure; the overlap of the Kuomintang dope trade with arms sales by China Lobby luminaries; the support of the CIA for Chiang’s narcotics traffic; the destruction of the career of Foreign Service officer John Service, who noted that “the Nationalists were totally dependent on opium and ‘incapable of solving China’s problems;’ ” the central role of Tai Li’s agents in the U.S. in framing John Service.
Supplemental information about these topics is contained in AFA #11 and AFA #24.
It is impossible to understand World War II and the global and economic political landscape that emerged from it without digesting the vitally important book Gold Warriors by Sterling and Peggy Seagrave.
Covering the Japanese equivalent of the Bormann flight capital network, the volume is a heroic, masterful analysis and penetration of the Asian wing of the cartel system that spawned fascism, as well as the realities of the post-World War II economic landscape. (FTR #‘s 427, 428, 446, 451, 501, 509, 688, 689 deal with the subject of the Golden Lily program successfully implemented by the Japanese to loot Asia.)
An incisive, eloquent review and encapsulation of the book is provided by Doug Valentine, providing further insight into the political and historical memory of the Chinese government and resulting stance toward any pressure to be mounted against that nation by the U.S. and the West.
Of particular note is the detailed analysis of the Japanese development of occupied Manchuria as an epicenter of the opium traffic with which to enrich their operations and to help subjugate the Chinese. Chinese sensitivity to the Japanese, Kuomintang, American and British roles in using drugs to enslave the Chinese people is very much in the forefront of Japanese political consciousness.
” . . . . .They [the Japanese] build roads and create industries and, more importantly, they work with corrupt warlords and Chinese gangsters associated with Chiang Kai-shek’s Kuomintang Party to transform Manchuria into a vast poppy field. By 1937 the Japanese and their gangster and Kuomintang associates are responsible for 90% of the world’s illicit narcotics. They turn Manchu emperor Pu Yi into an addict, and open thousands of opium dens as a way of suppressing the Chinese. . . .”
Far from being a peripheral political and economic consideration; the Golden Lily plunder is fundamental to postwar Western reality.
” . . . . The Seagraves conclude their exciting and excellent book by taking us down the Money Trail, and explaining, in layman’s terms, how the Gold Warriors have been able to cover their tracks. Emperor Hirohito, for example, worked directly with Pope Pius XII to launder money through the Vatican bank. In another instance, Japan’s Ministry of Finance produced gold certificates that were slightly different than ordinary Japanese bonds. The Seagraves interview persons defrauded in this scam, and other scams involving the Union Bank of Switzerland and Citibank. . . . ”
” . . . . the banks that maintain the US government’s stolen gold are above the law, and if they stonewall long enough, anyone trying to sue them will eventually fade away. The Seagraves asked the Treasury Department, Defense Department, and the CIA for records on Yamashita’s gold in 1987, but were told the records were exempt from release. During the 1990s, the records mysteriously went missing. Other records were destroyed in what the Seagraves caustically call ‘history laundering.’ . . . . .”
Key Points of Analysis and Discussion Include: Discussion of the war crimes committed by the Japanese against the Chinese; the roles of the Japanese army, the Japanese royal family and yakuza gangster Kodama Yoshio (later the CIA’s top contact in Japan and a key official with the Unification Church) in extracting the liquid wealth of China; the restoration of the Japanese fascists in the “new,” postwar Japanese government by Douglas MacArthur’s occupation forces; the fusion of the Golden Lily loot with Nazi World War II plunder to form the Black Eagle Trust; the use of the Golden Lily plunder to finance funds to reinforce the renascent fascists in Japan, to finance U.S. covert operations in the postwar period and to suppress political dissidence in Japan; the use of the M‑Fund to finance the Japanese Liberal Democratic Party and Richard Nixon’s transfer of control of that fund to the Japanese government in exchange for clandestine financial help in his 1960 election campaign; the use of Golden Lily loot by the U.S. to purchase the support of Pacific ally nations for the Vietnam War; the use of Golden Lily treasure by Philippine dictator Ferdinand Marcos; the suppression and criminal prosecution of individuals attempting to penetrate the elite, selective use of Golden Lily gold by the world’s large banks.
We conclude by highlighting Fred J. Cook’s analytical account of the McCarthy period, The Nightmare Decade. One of the focal points of Cook’s book is McCarthy’s theme that State Department [Communist] treachery had “lost” China to Mao and his forces.
Exploiting the meme that “pinko” State Department officials were responsible for Mao’s ascendance, McCarthy and his team successfully purged the State Department of officials whose outlook on Chiang Kai-shek was realistic.
The fate of John Service–described in the excerpt of The CIA as Organized Crime–illustrates this kind of activity.
In FTR #s 932 and 933 (among other programs), we noted the pivotal influence of Joe McCarthy’s right-hand man Roy Cohn on the professional development of Donald Trump. We wonder what influence Cohn and the McCarthy legacy may have had on Trump’s policy toward China.
Aside from the airy presumption that China was “ours” to “lose,” McCarthy’s thesis ignored the effects of U.S. policy in that country before, during and after, World War II. (This transgression is, of course, supplemental to Tailgunner Joe’s fabrication of evidence against those he targeted.)
In addition to support for Chiang Kai-Shek, whom General Joseph Stilwell compared to Mussolini, U.S. policy of using scores of thousands of Japanese soldiers as anti-Communist combatants was loathsome to the Chinese population, who had felt the full measure of Japanese atrocity during years of warfare.
Leafing through Nightmare Decade for the first time in years, we came across a passage read into the record in AFA #11.
More than 16 months after V‑J Day (the official conclusion of the hostilities of World War II in Asia) the U.S. was countenancing the use of 80,000 Japanese troops (roughly eight divisions) as anti-Communist combatants in eastern and northwestern Manchuria alone!
Having been raised on Victory at Sea and similar fare, this passage is yet another reminder that–70 + years or so after V‑J Day–“we’re not in Kansas any more, Toto.”
In retrospect, we never were.
For more on the subject of the Japanese fascism, see–among other programs–FTR #‘s 905, 969, 970.
Program Highlights Include: Brief discussion and overview of an article read in our previous program concerning HSBC and the bank’s historical links to laundering narcotics money and jihadist financing; the use of the racist term “shina” by the Hong Kong protesters–a term that had its genesis in the Sino-Japanese war.
Update on “Partying Like It’s 1932” (FTR #‘s 969 & 970)
In FTR #‘s 969 and 970, we examined the resurgence of fascism in Japan. A central element in that analysis is the role of schools used by the patriotic and ultranationalist societies as bases for political subversion and ultra nationalism: “. . . . In 1939, his [Kosaburo Tachibana’s] admirers enabled him to establish a school. He called it the Native-Land-Loving School (Aikyojuku). Everybody in Japan with a message to deliver or an axe to grind opens a school. . . . Those schools in the hands of the patriotic societies are at once a method of training young men for strong-arm work and a plausible excuse for extorting contributions from the rich and timid. . . .“The Native-Land-Loving School is similar to the Moritomo Gakuen, that was assisted by Akie Abe, the wife of the ultranationalist Japanese Prime Minister: ” . . . . But last month, the Finance Ministry said an internal investigation found that bureaucrats had tampered with official documents related to the sale of public land to an ultraconservative education group, known as Moritomo Gakuen, at a steeply discounted price. Mr. Abe’s wife, Akie, served as a onetime honorary principal of a planned elementary principal of a planned elementary school that Moritomo wanted to build on the disputed land. In one of the most damaging findings, the ministry said that officials had scrubbed Mrs. Abe’s name and alleged remarks encouraging the deal from the documents when they were first submitted to Parliament, known in Japan as the Diet. Then this month, the Finance Ministry told Parliament that a bureaucrat had urged a lawyer for Moritomo to lie about how much it would cost to remove garbage from the public land in order to justify the sale at a discounted price. . . .”
FTR #970 Partying Like It’s 1932, Part 2: The Japanese Deep State
Recapitulating key thematic elements of the previous program–an ominous resonance between Japanese revisionist schools Tsukamoto, Moritomo Gakuen and the Native-Land-Loving School, some of whose alumni assassinated Japanese prime minister Inukai on May 15, 1932. The “May 15th Incident,” as it is known, was a key element in the rise of fascism in Japan.
A passage from Hugh Byas’s 1942 text encompasses the dynamic:
“. . . . In 1939, his [Kosaburo Tachibana’s] admirers enabled him to establish a school. He called it the Native-Land-Loving School (Aikyojuku). Everybody in Japan with a message to deliver or an axe to grind opens a school. . . . Those schools in the hands of the patriotic societies are at once a method of training young men for strong-arm work and a plausible excuse for extorting contributions from the rich and timid. . . .”
Progressing downward from the upper tiers of the political structure, Japanese fascism stems from the Nippon Kagai (“Japan Conference”), whose members exert profound influence in the administration of Shinzo Abe, as well as the Japanese parliament.
Fundamental to an understanding of the dynamics underlying the Japanese deep state is awareness of the relationship between the powerful Japanese corporations, the zaibatsu, U.S.-based transnational corporations and the international cartel system. FTR #905 examines this relationship at considerable length.
Another important element in this dynamic is Golden Lily–the systematic looting of Asia by Japan in World War II and the use of the billions in recovered gold to fund the re-institution of fascist infrastructure in Japan, U.S. covert operations and the clandestine buttressing of financial and governmental institutions around the world. (FTR #‘s 427, 428, 446, 451, 501, 509, 688, 689 deal with the subject of the Golden Lily program.)
With much of the world’s attention focused on the blustering between Kim Jong-Un and Kim Jong-Trump, the fact that Japan has had a clandestine nuclear weapons program since the 1960s has gone unreported:
” . . . . 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. . . . 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 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. . . .”
Key players on the Japanese landscape, such as Yoshio Kodama and Ryoichi Sasakawa (the self-proclaimed “world’s richest fascist”) embody the Japanese deep state, operating from the 1930’s onward in conjunction with the Japanese patriotic and ultra-nationalist societies, the zaibatsu, Golden Lily and the clandestine fascist political infrastructure that is increasingly visible.
Sasasakawa launched and funded Sasasakawa Peace Foundation USA, which might be viewed in the same light as “The Adolf Hitler Foundation for the Study of Peace and Social Justice.” One of its scholars (now with the RAND Corporation) is Jeffrey Hornung, a frequent “go-to guy” for the media.
After reviewing Sasakawa and Kodama, especially their links to the Unification Church, the program notes that Abe’s grandfather, Nobosuke Kishi was Kodama’s cellmate in Sugamo prison. Kishi also signed Japan’s declaration of war against the U.S. ” . . . . During World War II, he was vice minister of munitions and minister of commerce and industry, actively involved in slave labor. Along the way, he made a personal fortune in side-deals with the zaibatsu. . . .In 1948, when his release from prison was purchased by Kodama, Kishi began organizing the financial base of the LDP, using Kodama’s black gold and injections of M‑Fund cash. . . .”
The program concludes with review of the profound connections of the Japanese zaibatsu, the deep state associated with that, and American diplomats who rebuffed a suit by Allied POW’s to get compensation for having been used as Japanese slaves.
Program Highlights Include:
1.-Japanese Air Force chief-of-staff Toshio Tamagami’s view that Franklin Delano Roosevelt bears responsibility for World War II.
2.-Tamagami’s view that Japan should acquire nuclear weapons.
3.-Tamagami’s assessment that Japanese aggression in World War II benefited the occupied countries.
4.-Tamagami’s support from many prominent Japanese politicians and military figures.
5.-Japanese Finance Minister, Deputy Prime Minister and former Prime Minister Taro Aso’s admission that his family’s coal mining company used slave labor.
6.-Discussion of the possibility that the Aso Coal Mining company may have been involved in storing some of the Golden Lily booty.
7.-Discussion of the fact that Aso, as Finance Minister, would have been involved with the M‑Fund and its financing of Japanese politics.
FTR #969 Partying Like It’s 1932: Update on the Re-Emergence of Japanese Fascism
In the summer of 2017, journalistic focus in Asia has been on Korea and its nuclear capability. The growth of Japanese fascism, in contrast, has largely passed beneath the intellectual radar. Further developing coverage in previous broadcasts, this program updates the re-emergence of the political forces that drove the conquests of Imperial Japan, as well as attempts to institute an Orwellian re-write of the past.
Key thematic elements of the broadcast include an ominous resonance between Japanese revisionist schools Tsukamoto, Moritomo Gakuen and the Native-Land-Loving School, some of whose alumni assassinated Japanese prime minister Inukai on May 15, 1932. The “May 15th Incident,” as it is known, was a key element in the rise of fascism in Japan.
“. . . . In 1939, his [Kosaburo Tachibana’s] admirers enabled him to establish a school. He called it the Native-Land-Loving School (Aikyojuku). Everybody in Japan with a message to deliver or an axe to grind opens a school. . . . Those schools in the hands of the patriotic societies are at once a method of training young men for strong-arm work and a plausible excuse for extorting contributions from the rich and timid. . . .”
Progressing downward from the upper tiers of the political structure, Japanese fascism stems from the Nippon Kaigi (“Japan Conference”), whose members exert profound influence in the administration of Shinzo Abe, as well as the Japanese parliament.
In addition to openly sanctioning anti-Korean racism and networking with organizations that promote that doctrine, several members of Abe’s government network with Japanese neo-Nazis. Some of those Nazi acolytes advocate using the Nazi method for seizing power in Japan. Is Abe’s government doing just that?
In addition to finance minister (and deputy prime-minister) Taro Aso, former defense minister Tomi Inada and interior minister Sanae Takaichi are apparent exponents of Nazi political methodology. ” . . . . 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 [and Finance Minister–D.E.],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. . . . it is a little worrisome that [Interior Minister] Sanae Takaichi . . . is the other female minister who was photographed with a neo-Nazi leader and is a fan of Hitler. . .”
Abe appears to be using a superficial pseudo-feminism to “sneak constitutional change past the public.” All five of his female cabinet appointees are members of Nippon Kaigi (two resigned shortly after being appointed.) The actual views of these women toward women’s rights belie their feminist credentials. ” . . . . The newly appointed Interior Minister, Sanae Takaichi, while serving on the LDP’s Policy Research council, suggested that the Japanese government rescind the Kono Statement in 2015, on Japan’s 70th anniversary of its surrender from World War II. [11] The Kono Statement was a landmark 1993 apology issued by the former Chief Cabinet Secretary that apologized for the ‘comfort women:’ 200,000 primarily Korean women forced into sexual slavery by the Japanese military. Another minister, Eriko Yamantani, has previously made comments that denied the existence of ‘comfort women.’ . . . .”
Much of the program focuses on Shinzo (and wife Akie) Abe’s support for the Moritomo Gakuen.
1.-Akie Abe was the honorary principal of the Moritomo Gakuen (still being constructed) and contributed a million yen toward its construction.
2.-Abe himself apparently donated money to the construction of Moritomo Gakuen.
3.-Tomomi Inada supported Moritomo Gakuen, having represented the school as a lawyer. She later claimed she could not remember having done so.
4.-Moritomo Gakuen chief Yasunori Kagoike is a member of Nippon Kaigi.
5.-Moritomo Gakuen apparently benefited from favors from Taro Aso’s finance ministry.
Highlighting the historical resonance between Tsukamoro and Moritomo Gakuen and the Native Land-Loving School, the program recounts the May 15th Incident.
Program Highlights Include:
1.-The virulent, pro-fascist revisionism of billionaire Japanese hotelier Toshio Motoya, whose writings portray Japan as a heroic liberator in World War II and deny the Rape of Nanking.
2.-Motoya’s affiliation with Nippon Kaigi.
3.-Motoya’s sponsorship of Toshio Tamagami, the former head of the Japanese Air Self Defense Force, who has blamed World War II on Franklin D. Roosevelt and “communists” in his administration.
4.-Taro Aso’s view that elderly Japanese should “hurry up and die.”
5.-A curious mass murder of elderly, disabled Japanese that suggests the killer may have enjoyed protection or sponsorship.
RIP, Jerry Meldon
Researcher, author and Tufts University professor Jerry Meldon has drowned in a North Carolina lake at the age of 69. The translator for Henrik Kruger’s landmark text The Great Heroin Coup: Drugs Intelligence and International Fascism, Meldon has authored important articles covering much of the same material we have presented over the decades. (The Kruger text has been a mainstay of these programs and posts since its publication in 1980.) Some of the articles he penned for Consortium News include: stories about the CIA-drug connections; the Iran-Contra scandal; the Golden Lily operation and its significance for contemporary America and Japan; the Dulles/Nazi/CIA relationship; the ongoing influence of Nazis in post-war Germany.
FTR #952 Be Afraid, Be VERY Afraid: Update on Technocratic Fascism
One of the illusions harbored by many–in particular, young people who have grown up with the internet, social networks and mobile technology–sees digital activity as private. Nothing could be further from the truth. Even before the cyber-libertarian policies advocated by individuals like John Perry Barlow, Eddie Snowden, Julian Assange and others became manifest in the Trump administration’s were implemented by the Trump administration and the GOP-controlled congress, digital affairs were subject to an extraordinary degree of manipulation by a multitude of interests.
We begin our examination of technocratic fascism with a look at the corporate foundation of Pokemon Go. Information about the background of Pokemon Go’s developer (Niantic) and the development of the firm is detailed in an article from Network World. In addition to the formidable nature of the intelligence agencies involved with generating the corporate foundation of Pokemon Go (Keyhole, Inc.; Niantic), note the unnerving nature of the information that can be gleaned from the Android phone of anyone who downloads the “app.”
Pokemon Go was seen as enhancing the “Cool Japan Strategy” of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. The “Cool Japan Promotion Fund” was implemented by Abe (the grandson of Nobosuke Kishi, a Japanese war criminal who signed Japan’s declaration of war against the U.S. and became the country’s first postwar Prime Minister) to “raise the international profile of the country’s mass culture.”
The Finance Minister of Japan is Taro Aso, one of the enthusiasts of Nazi political strategy highlighted below. The “Cool Japan promotion Fund” would have been under his administration, with Tomomi Inada functioning as his administrator for the program. Now serving as Japan’s Defense Minister, Inada is another advocate of Nazi political strategy.
Next, we turn to another manifestation of Pokemon Go. The “Alt-Right” (read “Nazi”) movement is using Pokemon Go to recruit kids to the Nazi cause. Consider this against the background of Niantic, the Cool Japan strategy and the pro-Nazi figures involved with it. Consider this also, in conjunction with the Nazified AI developed and deployed by Robert and Rebekah Mercer, Steve Bannon, Cambridge Analytica and the “Alt-Right” milieu with which they associate.
A recent “New Yorker” article by Jane Mayer concerning Robert Mercer keys some interesting thoughts about Mercer, Bannon, the Alt-Right WikiLeaks and the Nazified AI we spoke of in FTR #‘s 948 and 949. In FTR #946, we noted this concatenation’s central place in the Facebook constellation, a position that has positioned them to act decisively on the political landscape.
We note several things about the Mayer piece:
She writes of Mercer’s support for the Alt-Right–Mercer helps fund Bannon’s Breitbart: “. . . . In February, David Magerman, a senior employee at Renaissance, spoke out about what he regards as Mercer’s worrisome influence. Magerman, a Democrat who is a strong supporter of Jewish causes, took particular issue with Mercer’s empowerment of the alt-right, which has included anti-Semitic and white-supremacist voices. . . .”
Mercer is racist, feeling that racism only exists in contemporary black culture: “. . . . Mercer, for his part, has argued that the Civil Rights Act, in 1964, was a major mistake. According to the onetime Renaissance employee, Mercer has asserted repeatedly that African-Americans were better off economically before the civil-rights movement. (Few scholars agree.) He has also said that the problem of racism in America is exaggerated. The source said that, not long ago, he heard Mercer proclaim that there are no white racists in America today, only black racists. . . .”
His work at IBM was funded in part by DARPA, strongly implying that the DOD has applied some of the Mercer technology: “. . . . Yet, when I.B.M. failed to offer adequate support for Mercer and Brown’s translation project, they secured additional funding from DARPA, the secretive Pentagon program. Despite Mercer’s disdain for ‘big government,’ this funding was essential to his early success. . . .”
In a 2012 anti-Obama propaganda film funded by Citizens United, Steve Bannon borrowed from “The Triumph of the Will: “. . . . Many of these [disillusioned Obama] voters became the central figures of ‘The Hope & the Change,’ an anti-Obama film that Bannon and Citizens United released during the 2012 Democratic National Convention. After Caddell saw the film, he pointed out to Bannon that its opening imitated that of ‘Triumph of the Will,’ the 1935 ode to Hitler, made by the Nazi filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl. Bannon laughed and said, ‘You’re the only one that caught it!’ In both films, a plane flies over a blighted land, as ominous music swells; then clouds in the sky part, auguring a new era. . . .”
Next, we return to the subject of Bitcoin and cyber-libertarian policy. We have explored Bitcoin in a number of programs–FTR #‘s 760, 764, 770 and 785.
An important new book by David Golumbia sets forth the technocratic fascist politics underlying Bitcoin. Known to veteran listeners/readers as the author of an oft-quoted article dealing with technocratic fascism, Golumbia has published a short, important book about the right-wing extremism underlying Bitcoin. (Programs on technocratic fascism include: FTR #‘s 851, 859, 866, 867.)
In an excerpt from the book, we see disturbing elements of resonance with the views of Stephen Bannon and some of the philosophical influences on him. Julius Evola, “Mencius Moldbug” and Bannon himself see our civilization as in decline, at a critical “turning point,” and in need of being “blown up” (as Evola put it) or needing a “shock to the system.”
Note that the Cypherpunk’s Manifesto (published by the Electronic Frontier Foundation) and the 1996 “Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace” written by the libertarian activist, Grateful Dead lyricist, Electronic Frontier Foundation founder John Perry Barlow decry governmental regulation of the digital system. (EFF is a leading “digital rights” and technology industry advocacy organization.)
The libertarian/fascist ethic of the digital world was articulated by Barlow.
Note how the “freedom” advocated by Barlow et al has played out: the Trump administration (implementing the desires of corporate America) has “deregulated” the internet. All this in the name of “freedom.”
In FTR #854, we noted the curious professional resume of Barlow, containing such disparate elements as–lyricist for the Grateful Dead (“Far Out!”); Dick Cheney’s campaign manager (not so “Far Out!”); a voter for white supremacist/segregationist George Wallace in the 1968 Presidential campaign (very “Un-Far Out!”).
For our purposes, his most noteworthy professional undertaking is his founding of the EFF–The Electronic Frontier Foundation. A leading ostensible advocate for internet freedom, the EFF has endorsed technology and embraced personnel inextricably linked with a CIA-derived milieu embodied in Radio Free Asia’s Open Technology Fund. (For those who are, understandably, surprised and/or skeptical, we discussed this at length and in detail in FTR #‘s 891 and 895.)
Next, we present an article that brings to the fore some interesting questions about Barlow, the CIA and the very genesis of social media.
We offer Ms. Sunderson’s observations, stressing that Barlow’s foreshadowing of the communication functions inherent in social media and his presence at CIA headquarters (by invitation!) suggest that Barlow not only has strong ties to CIA but may have been involved in the conceptual genesis that spawned CIA-connected entities such as Facebook.
In FTR #951, we observed that Richard B. Spencer, one of Trump’s Nazi backers, has begun a website with Swedish Alt-Righter Daniel Friberg, part of the Swedish fascist milieu to which Carl Lundstrom belongs. In FTR #732 (among other programs), we noted that it was Lundstrom who financed the Pirate Bay website, on which WikiLeaks held forth for quite some time. In FTR #745, we documented that top Assange aide and Holocaust-denier Joran Jermas (aka “Israel Shamir”) arranged the Lundstrom/WikiLeaks liaison. (Jermas handles WikiLeaks Russian operations, a point of interest in the wake of the 2016 campaign.)
It is a good bet that Lundstrom/Pirate Bay/WikiLeaks et al were data mining the many people who visited the WikiLeaks site.
Might Lundstrom/Jermas/Assange et al have shared the voluminous data they may well have mined with Mercer/Cambridge Analytica/Bannon’s Nazified AI?
We conclude with recap of Microsoft researcher Kate Crawford’s observations at the SXSW event. Crawford gave a speech about her work titled “Dark Days: AI and the Rise of Fascism,” the presentation highlighted the social impact of machine learning and large-scale data systems. The take home message? By delegating powers to Bid Data-driven AIs, those AIs could become fascist’s dream: Incredible power over the lives of others with minimal accountability: ” . . . .‘This is a fascist’s dream,’ she said. ‘Power without accountability.’ . . . .”
We reiterate, in closing, that ” . . . . Palantir is building an intelligence system to assist Donald Trump in deporting immigrants. . . .”
In FTR #757 we noted that Palantir is a firm dominated by Peter Thiel, a main backer of Donald Trump.
Program Highlights Include: WikiLeaks’ continued propagation of Alt-Right style Anti-Semitic propaganda: ” . . . . Now it is the darling of the alt-right, revealing hacked emails seemingly to influence a presidential contest, claiming the US election is ‘rigged.’ and descending into conspiracy. Just this week on Twitter, it described the deaths by natural causes of two of its supporters as a ‘bloody year for WikiLeaks.’ and warned of media outlets ‘controlled by’ members of the Rothschild family – a common anti-Semitic trope. . . .”; assessing all of the data-mining potential (certainty) of WikiLeaks, Pokemon Go and the (perhaps) Barlow-inspired Social Media world against the background of the Mercer/Bannon/Cambridge analytica Nazified AI.
FROM THE LECTURE SERIES
The Future: Technology, Theocracy and the Thousand Year Reich The shape of things to come. Read more »- Spitfire List is licensed under Creative Commons.
Recent Comments