Spitfire List Web site and blog of anti-fascist researcher and radio personality Dave Emory.
The tag 'Zen Buddhist-Fascist Connection' is associated with 5 posts.

FTR #843 Interview (#6) with Peter Levenda about “The Hitler Legacy”

Posted by Dave Emory ⋅ April 12, 2015 ⋅ One comment

This sixth in a pro­ject­ed series of nine inter­views with Peter Lev­en­da, con­tin­ues analy­sis of what Mr. Emory views as one of the most impor­tant books ever writ­ten. Resum­ing a point of dis­cus­sion from FTR #842, we fur­ther devel­op the nature of Tibetan Bud­dhism, cer­tain sim­i­lar­i­ties with Nazi phi­los­o­phy and occult beliefs, and how this played into the devel­op­ment of the Dalai Lama’s oper­a­tional links to some tru­ly “inter­est­ing” ele­ments. Advanc­ing analy­sis of the “weaponiza­tion of reli­gion” and ele­ments of Bud­dhism, in par­tic­u­lar, Peter high­lights the lit­tle-known but pro­found fas­cist influ­ence on, and sup­port from, the Zen Bud­dhist com­mu­ni­ty. Pur­suant to the dis­cus­sion of “weaponized reli­gion,” Peter sets forth his the­sis that Nazism was a form of cult or spir­i­tu­al belief. As we have seen, Nazi phi­los­o­phy res­onat­ed effec­tive­ly with some aspects of “glob­al jihadism,” Tibetan Bud­dhism and wartime prac­ti­cioners of Zen Bud­dhism. Lis­ten­ers should remem­ber that ele­ments of U.S. intel­li­gence co-opt­ed “weaponized reli­gion” dur­ing the Cold war, includ­ing glob­al jihadism and Tibetan Bud­dhism. Pro­gram high­lights include: the “jihadist” nature of Tibetan Bud­dhism; the role of Zen lumi­nar­ies D.T. Suzu­ki and Karl­fried Graf Dur­ck­heim in devel­op­ing the Zen-Bushi­do link; the roles of both men in pop­u­lar­iz­ing Zen Bud­dhism in the post-World War II peri­od.


FTR #838 Interview (#1) with Peter Levenda about “The Hitler Legacy”

Posted by Dave Emory ⋅ March 8, 2015 ⋅ 4 comments

The first of sev­er­al inter­views with Peter Lev­en­da about his impor­tant new book “The Hitler Lega­cy,” this pro­gram high­lights the evo­lu­tion of ele­ments which fig­ure into the devel­op­ment of the post-war Nazi under­ground. At the end of the First World War, the Bol­she­vik Rev­o­lu­tion in Rus­sia and abortive Marx­ist upris­ings in Ger­many and else­where in Europe infused the pow­er elite in the U.S. with a para­noid ide­o­log­i­cal ter­ror of a glob­al “Jew­ish-Marx­ist” con­spir­a­cy. Com­bined with fear of Catholic and Jew­ish immi­grants and their effect on Amer­i­can soci­ety, this ide­o­log­i­cal para­noia fused with a social Dar­win­ism that found its expres­sion in eugenics–a pseu­do-intel­lec­tu­al doc­trine that sought the pro­mo­tion of “desir­able” social and eth­nic types and the sup­pres­sion and/or elim­i­na­tion of “infe­ri­or” racial types. See­ing Ger­many as the point ele­ment in the strug­gle against world Marx­ism, indi­vid­u­als and polit­i­cal par­ties sought to ally with Ger­man fas­cists to bring fas­cism to the U.S. This fas­cist Fifth Col­umn includ­ed polit­i­cal groups rang­ing from the Ku Klux Klan to the Sil­ver Shirts of William Dud­ley Pel­ley, as well as the pro­to­typ­i­cal right-wing talk show host Father Charles Cough­lin, “the Radio Priest.” Cough­lin’s efforts were sub­si­dized by Third Reich intel­li­gence. Financed by financiers and indus­tri­al­ists who sup­port­ed fas­cism, this Fifth Col­umn attempt­ed to kill and/or over­throw FDR on sev­er­al occa­sions. In the Mid­dle East, the con­cept of glob­al jihad was devel­oped by Ger­man archael­o­gist Max von Oppen­heim dur­ing the First World War. Envi­sion­ing the world’s Mus­lims as proxy war­riors against the Entente Pow­ers of Britain, France and Rus­sia, von Oppen­heim cre­at­ed the tem­plate for con­tem­po­rary Islam­ic fas­cism and jihadism. Fol­low­ing the divi­sion of the for­mer Ottoman Empire by Britain and France after World War I, the “Arab Street” began man­i­fest­ing belief in an inter­na­tion­al glob­al con­spir­a­cy involv­ing Jews and the Euro­pean colo­nial pow­ers that res­onat­ed with the Amer­i­can pow­er elite’s ido­l­og­i­cal anx­i­eties.


FTR #813 Return of the Rising Sun, Part 3

Posted by Dave Emory ⋅ October 5, 2014 ⋅ 11 comments

Grand­son of the Japan­ese war crim­i­nal who signed that coun­try’s dec­la­ra­tion of war against the U.S., Shin­zo Abe is fol­low­ing in the foot­steps of Nobo­suke Kishi (his grand­fa­ther), as well as those of Kishi’s asso­ciates in Japan’s expan­sion­ist empire. Revis­ing school text­books about World War II, pass­ing a new secre­cy law, insti­tut­ing greater state con­trol of news media, dra­mat­i­cal­ly increas­ing defense spend­ing while mov­ing to alter the con­sti­tu­tion to per­mit a more mil­i­taris­tic agen­da, Abe is turn­ing back the Japan­ese his­tor­i­cal and polit­i­cal clock. 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. 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.


Zen at War

Posted by FTR ⋅ June 6, 2006 ⋅ Post a comment

by Bri­an Vic­to­ria; Pen­e­trat­ing look at the close rela­tion­ship that exist­ed between Zen Bud­dhism and Japan­ese mil­i­tarism pri­or to World War II.


Zen War Stories

Posted by FTR ⋅ May 18, 2006 ⋅ Post a comment

by Bri­an Vic­to­ria; Explores the inti­mate and sup­port­ive rela­tion­ship between Japan­ese insti­tu­tion­al Bud­dhism and mil­i­tarism dur­ing the Sec­ond World War.


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