FTR #905 Globalization, Transnational Corporations and Japanese Fascism

Over the decades, we have spo­ken at great length about the Sec­ond World War and fas­cism as out­growths of glob­al­iza­tion, a phe­nom­e­non gen­er­al­ly thought of as hav­ing begun in the post World War II peri­od. Most of the dis­cus­sion has cen­tered on the rela­tion­ships between Ger­man and Amer­i­can cor­po­ra­tions and oli­garchs. With both Don­ald Trump and Bernie Sanders tar­get­ing trade agree­ments and glob­al­iza­tion in their cam­paign rhetoric, we review the car­tel rela­tion­ships between the Japan­ese Zaibat­su (fam­i­ly trusts) and their Amer­i­can coun­ter­parts.

As well, we note the cen­tral role of Emper­or Hiro­hi­to in the wag­ing of Japan’s war of aggres­sion and the post-war his­tor­i­cal revi­sion­ism that has eclipsed his activ­i­ties.
After dis­cussing the re-invest­ment of the prof­its from the Amer­i­can indus­tri­al boom of the 1920’s in Ger­many and Japan, we ana­lyze the delib­er­ate frus­tra­tion of the attempt­ed polit­i­cal and eco­nom­ic reform of Japan. Intent on con­tin­u­ing the pro­found cor­po­rate rela­tion­ships that had boost­ed Japan into its posi­tion as a dom­i­nant indus­tri­al pow­er, Wall Street inter­ests and allied polit­i­cal, nation­al secu­ri­ty and media elites sub­vert­ed the attempts at reform­ing Japan­ese finance, indus­try and pol­i­tics.

A major part of the effort involved white­wash­ing Emper­or Hiro­hi­to’s cen­tral role in wag­ing World War II in the Pacif­ic and prof­it­ing from Japan­ese mil­i­tary con­quests.

Pro­gram High­lights Include: the sus­pi­cious deaths of Japan­ese offi­cers and mem­bers of the Impe­r­i­al fam­i­ly who were forth­com­ing about the truth con­cern­ing Emper­or Hiro­hi­to; the appar­ent mur­der of State Depart­ment offi­cer George Atch­e­son, who attempt­ed to blow the whis­tle con­cern­ing the sub­ver­sion of the reform of Japan; the role of Gen­er­al William Drap­er in frus­trat­ing the reform of Japan and review of his career as an invest­ment banker with Dil­lon, Read & Co.; the deci­sive role of the MacArthur group with­in the mil­i­tary in the frus­tra­tion of Japan­ese reform and the re-insti­tu­tion of the fas­cists, mil­i­tarists and zaibat­su in post­war Japan.

Reflections on “V‑J Day”

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! All of the con­tents of this web­site as of 12/19/2014–Dave Emory’s 35+ years of research and broadcasting–as well as hours of video­taped lec­tures are avail­able on a 32GB flash dri­ve. Dave offers his pro­grams and arti­cles for free–your sup­port is very much appre­ci­at­ed.

Dark Cloud on the Rising Sun

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, includ­ing edit­ing text­books to change writ­ten his­to­ry of the war, imple­ment­ing a new secre­cy law, bring the respect­ed NHK tele­vi­sion net­work under gov­ern­ment con­trol and negat­ing accounts of Japan­ese war crimes.

Whither Japan? Divine Wind, Take 2?

In numer­ous broad­casts, we have cov­ered the sad real­i­ty that in post World War II Japan, the pub­lic per­cep­tion that the forces of fas­cism were erad­i­cat­ed is a delib­er­ate­ly cul­ti­vat­ed polit­i­cal myth. Japan­ese prime min­is­ter Abe has embarked on a pro­gram of mil­i­tarism, with one of his top defense advis­ers high­light­ing a cam­paign appear­ance by read­ing from the diary of a Kamikaze pilot, who died crash­ing his plane into an Amer­i­can war­ship. UPDATED ON 8/9/2013.

Winds of War Blowing over Northern Pacific Islands?

There has been a sig­nif­i­cant uptick in real or alleged mil­i­tary con­fronta­tions over dis­put­ed islands in the North Pacif­ic. Con­ser­v­a­tive com­men­ta­tor Ambrose Evans-Pritchard has not­ed the pos­si­ble drift toward war between Japan and Chi­na over unin­hib­it­ed and dis­put­ed Islands. Japan has also accused Rus­sia of foment­ing con­fronta­tion over the dis­put­ed Kuriles.

Good Riddance to Bad Rubbish: Sun Myung Moon Exits Stage Far Right

A self-pro­claimed mes­si­ah who viewed the polit­i­cal sub­ju­ga­tion of the Unit­ed States as essen­tial, Sun Myung Moon head­ed the Uni­fi­ca­tion Church. With strong con­nec­tions to the Bush fam­i­ly and ele­ments of the Cen­tral Intel­li­gence Agency, the Uni­fi­ca­tion Church appears to be an exten­sion of the Japan­ese patri­ot­ic and ultra­na­tion­al­ist soci­eties that brought fas­cism to Japan. The group’s pri­ma­ry fund­ing may well come from Japan­ese heavy indus­try, the Mit­subishi Cor­po­ra­tion, in par­tic­u­lar. Moon has final­ly passed away at age 92.

L‑4 Fascism, Gun Control and the Intelligence Community

Refut­ing many argu­ments for gun con­trol, the pres­ence of firearms in soci­ety is not con­nect­ed to crime or homi­cide lev­els