Assassination Week #4: How a Moonie Victim Killed Shinzo Abe

of assassination week. It is the episode about the assassination that started at all Um, and by by that I mean we are, we are, we're here talking about the

assassination of Juan Shinzo Abe Um. This is this is going to be a slightly different episode, both to the rest of assassination week episodes and to the other episod we did on the asassinationations in Abbe Um, partly because, basically the day after, with within about two days of the our episode, original episode about the Abbe assassination dropping Um, there was confirmation that the reason abbe was killed was because of his connection to an organization called the Unification Church,

which is I think better locially known as the Mooneyes Um. People might have listened to the very, very long episode I did about it, but yeah, there is. There is an enormous amount going on there and this is something

that fortunately, we have experts for. And Yeah, so, so joining us to talk about this assassination and the moonies and sort of, I don't know, the sort of weirdness and the horror around everything that's been happening around this assassination is anti fascist researcher Elisa, as you yeah, Alisa's a anti fascist researcher specializing in cults WHO's working with deprogramming imperialism, which is a collective of x Moonies who've been documenting just sort of all of the ship the

moonies have been getting up to and trying to get more awareness of really just incredible array of awful stuff that they've been doing. Yeah, so a Lisa, welcome to the show. Hi, thanks for having me. I really appreciate it. Yeah, and thank you. Thank you so much for joining us for this. I don't know why I'm saying us, as if if there's someone other than this episode and you, but you know, old old habits die hard. I guess. I guess I've inherited the royal we which is not great.

Oh well, so someone will have to assassinate me soon. That's fine, sometimes it happens. I hope it doesn't happen to you, though. Yeah, that would not be the best

assassination target, honestly. Yeah, so, okay, I guess the place I think we should start is talking about what we've found out about this assassin in the last sort of a few months since this happened, which is that when when the initial police reports came out, there was a bunch of very, very murky stuff about basically the police were like this wasn't a political killing, it was about some organization, and I think me and you and every

single other person who was like even tangentially where of Japanese politics saw them say like an organization and was like, Oh no, there's like a one in three chances of the booties. Yeah, that's yeah. I saw like when they said something about like organization or religious organization, I was like yeah, it was probably is. Yeah, yeah, and it turns out that okay, so the assassin is a man

named Tsuya Yamagami, who was a navy veteran Um. Yeah, made a a series of unbelievably based and incredibly wild fire arms with which she assassinated the foreign per minister Japan. What, what we've learned since then is that the reason he did this was that his basically, like his family and his life were completely destroyed by his mom falling into the colts, and by her I mean she, she, she, she gave this Colt set like something like seven hundred

thousand dollars. Yeah, like roughly seven U S dollars. Yeah, like literal, like like multiple fortunes, like she, she, she gave them all of her money and then she sold the company that like she had been running to give them more money. And, yeah, what what? What, basically, as best we can tell, has happened was that he was he was looking at a way to like get back

at the booty's Um. And basically the problem was he okay, so, he didn't want to kill civilians, which I think is admirable, and he couldn't figure out a way to like get at any of the like individual church leaders, and so he's the thing he decided to do was go after Shinzo Abe because, as we're gonna get to in a in a bit Enzo Abbey lots of connections with the Unification Church, a thing that all of the people like writing glowing obituaries about him just like incredibly don't want

to mention. Yeah, it's been left out of a lot of ship yeah, and okay, so I guess to back up a little bit, Um, can for for for people who sort of don't know what this is or for people who like, may have heard of Abdy to refresher, can you talk a bit about what? What? What? What the Unification Church actually is? And Yeah, we can, we

can sort of go from there. Yeah, definitely. Okay. So the Unification Church, or the Moonys, uh, they are a quote unquote, new religious movement or pretty much a cult you know, they're very culty and they're a cult Um, and they were started by some young moon who was

originally from what is now North Korea. Uh. And so basically, this guy, he claims he's the Messiah, has this originally it started out as like a sex cult um under a practice called, I think, Picarum, which is basically, uh, he was supposed to quote unquote, clans a woman's like relationship to God by having sex with her so he assaulted a number of people doing this stuff. Um. And the church over the years has sort of like developed

into more of a multinational corporation, uh, and political movement. Uh. And it has a lot of tools, I mean a lot of ties and connections to various governments around the world, including Japan. Um. And it's basically, at the end of the day, a tool of United States imperialism. Um, there's some pretty pretty direct ties to like the Korean CIA. Yeah, yeah, as well as the U S C I. A. Um. So, yeah, it's like this big umbrella of like groups, different NGOs,

different like businesses, a bunch. It's just a whole conglomeration of things, right. Um, but very extremely virulently anti Communist. Uh. And, you know, involved in some of some of the greatest hits of the last century, like Iran Contra. Uh. Yeah, for us. And when? When? When? When we say involved in a rand contract? Like, okay, there's lots of people who are like sort of involved in the ran contract. The movies like there. There is a dec there you

can do. You can make the arguments that if the Mooney's had not been doing what they were doing in Nicaragua around contras wouldn't have been able to happen because the civil war would have ended like they like when, when, when I say like, when we say like, like they were involved in the around contract, like they are like on the ground giving people guns and money and keeping like literally literally keeping guerrilla organizations and like terrorist groups

like in the war who wouldn't have been able to otherwise. Yeah, and then, and then also, and that's that's the thing, like they did to around contrast, right, because they did. They did the second around contract with like with, you know, when the CIA actually got money, but they were also doing the same thing like before that, when they in the sort of stop gap period with the CIA wasn't able to fund the contrast. So, yeah, these guys are

route for that money. And Yeah, so it's yeah, they're very, very heavily involved. Like basically anywhere there is an anti communists squad, like in the world, you can find the moonies funding in though. Okay, I wasn't. Weirdly, the only one I the only one I haven't directly been able to find is I haven't been able to directly find

any evidence that they were like that. Like specifically, they were helping Pinot like helping pl okay, they were involved in Operation Condor and they were like doing ship with that. I haven't found evidence they like directly had any conversations with Pinochet, but that's he's like the the only person you can say that about. And they probably did at some point, like but, you know, like a frail straws yeah, like they probably did. Like, I mean again, like they

were they were there with a frail strawsner. They were there with, Um, what, what's that guy's name? UH, Claus Barbie, the cocaine. Yeah, yeah, I can't, I can't. I can't remember that, the name of the guy. Yeah, there was. There was a guy and believe you, who got installed for like a year that he got could now. Um, yeah, no, I I know who you're talking about, but I'm also

forgetting his name at the moment. Yeah, it's funny because he's like he's one of these guys where it's like, you know, I had a professor I took I took a Syrian history class in college, right and Um, there, I think it's I really should if I was saying it's that really should know the year. But there, there, there, there's a year in like the fifties in Syria, where there's like four cups in one year and there were

like two guys who were, technically speaking, like had controller. serially, he was like, I'm just not even telling you these guys names because they get overthrown him like two months and like that's that's, that's this guy. Yeah, but yeah, this is a very sort of very serious and deeply scary like death squad funding machine. Yeah, and that, you know, has continued to today pretty much. So, yeah, and okay, I think like yeah, so, yeah, there's sort of the

dust squad side of it. Um, the other thing I wanted to ask you about is about like what it's like being in the church and what it's like sort of I don't know, because I think, I think a big part of what's happening with this story is to a Yamagami like basically watching his family get sucked in and not being able to do anything about it, and I was wondering if you could talk a bit about yeah, I mean sort of like what, what? What? What? What it's like being in the church and then what it's

like just sort of watching it destroy people. Yeah, so, Um, I was born and raised in the church. I left when I was around seventeen. It was not it was not nice. Um, pretty much everybody I talked to who is also left feels the burden of this like perfect abuse that we had to endure. Um, it was a bleak time for me. Uh, you know, there's just so much pressure put on members to follow leadership, to do

out outrageous amounts of fundraising. They have a bunch of these fundraising teams, right, and they'll they'll go out and they'll sell things and live in a van, occasionally stopping at like different church centers. Um Too like, uh, you know, sleep for the night or whatever. They don't eat well, UH, they don't get enough sleep, you know, like you're constantly around other people, basically like all all of the methods of psychological torture you can do on a person, right, Um,

which was, you know, pretty standard throughout the whole movement. Um, I was lucky enough not to go on any of these fundraising teams because I left before Um, that could happen. But Um, I still, you know, definitely feel like the psychological, you know, fallout from that and it's something I'll be healing with, healing from for the rest of my life. Um. Yeah. So,

like there's there's like no accountability for leadership. They can do whatever they want, but everybody else in the church, you know, Uh has to follow what moon and the regional or national leadership says, or the the thirty six blessed couples who are like some of the Moon's original followers. UH,

there's it's like extremely hierarchical. UH, there's a lot of racism within the group, a huge amount of sexism that is like, you know, directly tied into their Um, their belief system, because the fall of man, according to the Moonies, was eve having sex with Saton and then having sex with Um Adam and spreading that thin Um. So just

like very inherently misogynistic, extremely homophobic and transphobic movement. Just all around like so much sexual repression, like you're not supposed to hold hands, kiss, do anything before marriage, right, and then it's only that person. Well, of course moon, you know, didn't didn't like this. Didn't apply to him at all. He could sleep with anybody's wife pretty much. Um. So yeah, it was just altogether a very intense environment, just so much indoctrination going into the heads of the

people who are part of it. Um. Yeah, just altogether shitty group. Um. Yeah. So for me, I I went away to school in another state when I was fourteen. Um, it got me like, you know, the physical distance as well as like the space and time to actually think and reflect on what was going on. And then I started doing some research online because I was like, well, maybe what people are saying about it is true, maybe

it is a cult Um. And I came across this the tragedy of the six Mary's, which was, you know, Moon assaulting a bunch of women, uh, and that sort of like made me just, you know, it sort of brought it to a head because I had like, you know, seen for the longest time how leadership was treated versus

how regular members had to live in like poverty. Um, but they got like big mansion ends and like Nice Things, Nice cars, expensive watches, but everybody else had to like give all their money to the church and you know, was were like terrorized, Um. And Uh, then eventually I was like, I think I have to go. I like I had been through the process of like meeting the mystical or the the evil other which, you know, like people outside of the church or you know, they're fallen.

They're like, you know, basically they have original sins, so they're kind of evil, right. Um. And Gotten to know more people, UM, queer people, who were just like a hugely demonized group of people within the UC. Um, and here I am today. I'm Super Queer, Um, but like that, like hell, yeah, but like getting to know people and actually seeing, you know, like, Oh my God, what they're saying. These people are not evil, they're normal, they're human, they

are just different from straight people. I don't know. That to me also made like a huge difference. Um. And then when I was seventeen, I went to another school and I was like, I want to get laid. I've had a lot, so I went out and did that and that felt like, you know, once I finally lost

my virginity, it felt like sealing the deal. I'm like, if I have to go to hell now, okay, and it was cool because God didn't like immediately smite me where I where I was in bed at that point, like I lived and I'm here to tell the tale. So so, yeah, that's how I left. That rules. This is much more gay of the story. When I was expecting,

which is all, which is a good thing. Yeah, a lot of like the stories of sort of like people leaving like the really right wing like evangelical was grade, like a lot of reminds me a quiverful but like, yeah, more intense, I think. Well, it's like I think like like the level of I don't know, I guess the

level of separation. Yeah, they seem to be at least sort of like integrated into like other communities and stuff, whereas the Moonies, I don't know, like there's definitely like people have friends outside of it, but like generally, like people kind of keep to the moonies because, you know, they're supposed to be like God's chosen people or whatever. So they and they like look down on everyone else

because they're not moonies. So yeah, it is. It's it's also interesting to me that like literally, like literally the term is just the evil other, which is so I don't think that's a literal term, but like that's how I sort of phrase it or whatever. But yeah, or just like fallen people would be or the fallen world, the outsiders, is what they would say. So just this very you know, like very like stigmatizing language that they

use for people. Lots of people are just called evil in the church to they just call people evil like Willy Nilly. It's like, Oh, you're satanic, like no, that's not it's not that I don't know how to go

to a good tradition into this. Yeah, we're going to adds. Yeah, so I wanted to just also talk about specifically one of one of the things that the church does and one of the things like the sort of one of the specific things that to Yamagami, Yamagami seems to have been suffering from, and particularly it is mom but his sort of full family, is the financial abuse. And Yeah, I wanted to ask you a bit about what that

looks like. And also there's some several of the Japanese context that I think is slightly different thin so the American of the Korean context. I want to ask you a bit about that. Yeah, definitely. So, across the board, uh, Unification Church members are expected to bring in a lot of money through fundraising, through tithing, uh providing free labor or,

you know, low paid labor through church businesses and stuff. Um. So the cases, though, that in Japan, because of the rhetoric of the church, which is, you know, basically born

out of, you know, the environment, um in Korea. So there's basically this thought in the church that they say, Um, that Korea is the atom nation, uh because that's where, uh, you know, the Messiah came back, uh, South Korea, and Um, and that Japan is the eve nations supposed to submit to the Adam Nation Um and also sort of pay indemnity, which is a big word in the church, and uh

for the atrocities committed during the Japanese occupation of Korea. Um. And so this means that Japanese members have to pay significantly more for pretty much everything. Um. So there's it's like just uh you know, like instead of like a type of reparations where it's like, you know, we'll give you money, it's like they make them suffer for uh that fact. and Uh so, like, you know, fundraising goals are very high. Um, let me see, I think I had a figure here somewhere. Um. Uh. Yeah, so Japanese

membership they bring in roughly like the church's income. Uh so a large out for you know, like proportionally. Not You know, there are a lot of members in Japan. However, throughout the world, that is like proportionately. You know, where most of it comes from Um. And then as of several years ago, uh, the Japanese church fundraising goal was thirty billion yen, or around two million for that year, I believe. So just, you know, and so they go

out selling uh. Ancestor Liberation is one thing. Uh. You're supposed to pay exorbitant fees for your ancestors to go to heaven. Um. There was a book called the Chanson young and that book was extremely expensive and, of course, much more expensive for members in Japan. Um, I think I read a figure where, I think I don't remember what year it was and it was not very recent. I think it might have been like or something, or

two thousand two or something. I'm not sure, but it costs like roughly like two thousand American dollars to go to the marriage ceremony, the one of the mass weddings that the moonies do, where that everybody has arranged marriage, arranged married, Um. And so yeah, just like these huge amounts of money, uh, directly flowing from the pockets of the membership uh and anyone they happen to you know, have give them money uh into the coffers of the Church and, you know, directly on up to like the

Moon family, who are billionaires. Um. Another thing I'd say here is that they often, uh, so, for people who that they're trying to fundraise from. UH, they often will target like elderly widows and people who are, you know, in sort of precarious places and come to them and say, your family member who has passed away wants you to give this donate into the church. Uh. They also like at one point made up like a fake Buddhist sect in order to like specifically target people. So it goes deep.

There's a there's a lot to that. Yeah, like one of the things I remember reading those like that. Yeah, they had like this whole network of like fake mediums you would like like specifically to target people. Yeah, so we target the widows, which is like I don't know. So so much of the stuff that they do is

just so incredibly leak like, I think. Yeah, I mean the thing that always that got me was the sort of like like the way in which they're sort of weaponizing like like Japan's sort of war crimes in in South Korea and North Korea as well. And it's like it's like a on the one hand, like yeah, like a all this body is just going to like a bunch of like too rich fascists and then be like, I think this is something else we can sort of

get into. Is like, okay, so the church's main political allies in Japan are the people who did all that ship Yep, no, it's just a constant deflection, pretty much. Yeah, and I mean it's interesting too because, like you, you get this, like some of the newspapers they fund will like openly say that, like, Japan should rearm again and like Japan should like start retaking Korea and then, like you have did, the other art with their business being like hey, pay US money for all the people you

guys killed, and this less. I don't know, it's yeah, it's pretty fuck. It's the worst. It's honestly. Yeah, yeah, and I guess, I guess. Yeah, I think I think this is as good a place as I need to go into. Like okay, so the moodies like could not do the things that they do in Japan without an

incredibly large degree of institutional support. Um. Part of this sort is what the yakkers because, like you can't run, like you can't do organized crime stuff, like like running an entire network of people to de Fraud Widows like in Japan, without the acquisite like you having some kind of deal with them. YEA, and, yeah, and and and that. That also bizarrely ties in with sort of how how the innification Church got integrated with the sort of mainstream. Wow, yeah,

you know, I'm just gonna call the mainstream like, fuck it. People, people, people, people, people. Will Quibble about the different factions of the LDP. I frankly don't care, for reasons that will get to but yeah, how. How? How they got, like and, yeah, which I guess you're talking about, like the origins of how they got ingrained with Japan's like perpetual ruling party, live, with Democratic Party. Yeah, Um, sorry, were you? Are you? Yeah, yeah, yeah, okay, yeah, sorry,

I wasn't sure that was a question. No, it's okay. Um. So, yeah, it goes all the way back to uh, like so it goes. It goes back pretty far. So Novasuka Kishi obvious maternal grandfather. So he initially became sort of embroiled with the UC kind of stuff, unification church stuff, in the early days of when the movement Um was in Japan. Uh, he collaborated on stuff like the foundation for victory over communism.

Spoke at their the founding of the organization at a UC church which was I think, next to Kishi's a state or something like that. Yeah, and I think, I think, I think he sold them their first building in Japan. I think, if I remembering something that I read at one point. Right, yeah, so, Um, so, yeah. And then, uh, in sixty two, the UC was able to convert fifty leaders of the alternationalist Nietzchechin Buddhist Uh sect, called sect called, Oh Gosh, I don't know how to pronounce this, Rio

Show Cost Kai. Uh, and they had a lot of strong use of Yakaza connections. Um. And then Sami Kabuki was the first U S president in Japan. Uh, he was the Yakaza Lieutenant and second in command of that group that I had just mentioned. And and the other thing we should mention about this about the sort of how the opposite ties. Yeah, is that so? Okay? So, Nobska Kishi is the guy who founds liberal democratic the Liberal Democratic Party, right like He. The Liberal Democratic Party

is his creation. It is like what that party is is all of Japan's conservatives basically like, basically seating to his authority and being like okay, fine, we're going to follow your lead. Um, and his his party is like his base and his fund is basically a combination of what he like. Kishi himself is a like artual words of war criminal. Um, his base is basically in the old Japanese fascists. He is funded by, like, well, partially funded,

like funded directly by the CIA. Um, he's also funded by but the the CIA in particular here is working through the Yakuza, because one of that's that's one of the sort of the will like, will it be in this sort of like we will. Will it be sentip? Not Cia, but yeah, that by basically American intelligence in the American army starts working through the Yakas as like an anti communist Uma Force, and he he gets bankrolled

by this, these two guys named Kodama and Um. Right, you reached yeah, Sasakawa, who were like Kodamas is like like the like milk, basically like the guy who was in charge of the Yakaza. He's also a fascist. UMSAKAWA is the self, like literally called himself the world's richest fascist, and both of these guys are like huge bank rollers of of Kishi. They are also and you know, and when, when, when Kishi is like bringing in the church like this. This is how this is. This is how all these

people have got have yakisa connections. Because, yeah, it's it's this. The whole sort of Japanese right wing like political machine is like one like happy family that is doing doing the worst stuff altogether, at the same time funded by the CIA. Yep, and like, and also, I need to say this, I said this is my episode book, like

like the level of CIA involvement here. Like there there are individual CIA agents assigned to individual Liberal Democratic Party candidates in the fifties to make sure they won their elections. I did not know that, but that is it's not wild. So specific. Wow, yeah, yes, yeah, concerning things, concerning things, Oh God, Um, but yeah, so, like, yeah, to this day a lot of LDP candidates and politicians still have ties to do, you see, get donations from it. UH,

used like membership as like free labor. uh, even like having secretaries from who are members of the UC and uh, like, you know, sometimes they would you know see like some sort of like classified or you know, information and stuff like that. So there's, yeah, there's like apart from like that like just so interconnected. Yeah, do you do you remember the story about the L DPS, like number two guy like getting getting mooned to be able to visit Japan? Ah, sorry,

I don't. Oh God, okay, so that my memory of this story was okay. So, like Japan has a series of really weird laws about like, okay, Japan is a series of very weird laws about many, many things. One of them has to do with it. It's something like if you've been convicted of a felony in another country, you can't enter Japan. And I don't know if it's I don't know if it's a felony. I don't I

don't know what the I forget. I'm forgetting what the legal bar is for what you have to be like convicted of in or to not be able to enter the country. But I like moon is a I like he like he was like convicted by the US governments of like perjury and a bunch of other ships because of the crimes that he did, and so he like technically legally could not enter Japan and then, like the vice presidents of Um an office present, my God, came

for his title. But maybe basically, like what like basically, like the like, the like, the second most powerful man in Japanese politics and the nineties, like very specifically did a whole bunch of visa bullshit so that specifically could go to Japan legally. Not Surprising, not surprising, but wow, yeah, it's like, Um, the lengths people will go to to collaborate with other fascists. Yeah, I think that's that's I

don't know, that's to me. What makes this assassination really interesting is that, like, okay, so if you ask like and even like in Japan, if you had asked the average person what the connection between like Shinzo Abe and Edification Church was, like most people have no idea. Like before this assassination, those people have no idea what that was. Yeah, yeah, after the assassination this, the whole landscape has changed. Um, yeah,

it's it's been really interesting to watch like this. This really seems like an incredibly sort of politically effective assassination because, yeah, okay, so, you know, you you you had, there was, there was, you know, you had the very the initial right wing backlash, but the righting backlash kind of it got kind of muted when it when it became clear that it wasn't a left wing radical, which I think would have actually been an enormous disaster. Yeah, but the guy was Yamagami,

was pretty right wing himself. Yeah, it's like he's a right wing guy and but also like his story is really sympathetic. Yeah, I mean I feel for the guy. Like he had so much trauba in his life, honestly, and like it's obvious, like, and I think you know a lot of uh former members, you know, sort of understand how that feels. UH, most of us have been

assassinated a prime minister, but so far, so far. But yeah, like, I mean we understand that pain of where he is coming from and like, you know why, upon learning that Abbe had these ties, he's of like felt like compelled to do something. Yeah, and I think the I mean there's also this element at work here that's kind of weird, which is like it's very, very hard normally to get like right wing Japanese people to turn on their own party. Uh, the one way that you can do it is by

going hey, look at these Koreans. So there's like weird dynamics going on here. Like there were some there were some like even further right parties who were like, you know, using this thing as a campaign thing of like Ah, this party is like a fake right wing party, like they're all being run by like Koreans, and it's like okay, that's like not, like the thing that is bad about the moonies is not that they're Korean, it's that it's all of the other ship that they do. Yeah, and

I think that's complicated. But also, yeah, like the political impact this has had has been like enormous. Yeah, like, yeah, do you want to talk about that a bit? Yeah, so, Um, so, okay. Obviously it has shined a lot of light on sort of the connections that a lot of members of the government there have, from the L D P um, as well as other parties, have with the you see, getting donations, etcetera. Um,

people are pissed about it, you know, as they should be. Um. So I guess that, uh, Prime Minister Kashida has said that they want to cut ties with the Unification Church at this point. Uh, you know, it sort of remains to be seen whether that actually happens or not, because it can usually just be like lip service kind of ship. Um, but the politicians, UH, and I'm not sure if this

is specifically for the LDP or sort of across the board. Um, there's like a thing where they're supposed to self report any ties or donations to the U S, which is just, you know, like I don't know, like I don't think every buddy is gonna come forward with that sort of thing. If you're supposed to do it yourself, that's like not how that should work. But Um so, I mean like it remains to be seen, you know, if those ties

are actually gonna be cut. Um. So also, like there has been sort of like, uh a, a a lot of support from uh, like lawyer groups, like the National Network of lawyers against spiritual sales Um, who has, you know, worked with, you know, cult members and like specifically a lot of Unification Church members or former members or whatever who have uh, you know, lost money through spiritual sales Um.

And they've also just recently called for the dissolution of the UC in Japan, which is pretty cool and I hope that happens. How realistic it is, given like all of the strong ties to the government, but that would be cool. Um. And then also I saw a thing a couple of days ago that Japanese consulates and embassies have a program that is offering advice or assistance, uh, to UC members who are Japanese nationals and their children, Um, and that ends on September thirty, I think. So if

anybody needs that, getting fast. Um. But I think that also applies in America. So if, like, you're a Japanese national and like a victim of the U S or if your parents are uh a, those that open. And I don't know exactly what the levels of support resources

they're offering are, uh, but it's worth looking into for sure. Um. But yeah, like, so there's been like sort of this outpouring of support from various groups and there's, you know, like it's really shining a light on the issue of like especially what it's like to be a second generation member of occult and the trauma that people like us

have gone through. Um, you know, there are definitely a lot of calls for like support and a mental health care as well as like, you know, ways to sort of get people out of situations like that in the first place. Um. Yeah, yeah, I don't know, I, I. I. I hope this translates into actual resources. And Yeah, just sort of like the LDPs through ratings tanking, which like is good and like it is very funny that Kishia

just had to act like half his cabinet. Yeah, I don't know, I think it it remains, although he remains in power and he do you see too interesting. So it's like, you know, clearly there's not a lot, like even if people are like having a little bit of like the smallest level of transparency about this stuff, like, I don't necessarily know how far it will actually go into like, you know, making amends or like protecting people from further ab you or, you know, getting people their

money back. I don't know, I think there's a there's something I think that's that's really sort of, I don't know, like really grim about the way that this worked out, which the Japanese police knew what was going on and why this sesssination had happened, like immediately, like they found his hard drive and he'd written out the whole thing about why he did it. Yeah, and then they intentionally held the information and basically made were able to maintain

a press embargo until after the election happened. Yeah, you know, now everyone fucking hates the LDB, like the perminsionals approve of ratings like thirties present. Like it's really bad. I mean it went from like fifty, went from like fifty two to like thirties six and like a couple of weeks. But because the people who are people who are connected to the church are the people in charge, they were able to like suppress this information long enough to like

shape how the election was going to go. Oh, make sure that it was sort of like the right wing shock from Oh my God, that's assassinated prime minister and not the weight. The assassinated prime minister for a reason that's like incredibly justified and relatable to like this is as relatable with a motive of assassination as like I've ever seen. Yeah, I mean it's like, as far as reasons for assassinating people go, this is a pretty like

solid reason, like there's there's stuff there. Yeah, and like and I think it's just like like it's it's interesting. That's like it's it's rare assassination where the assassin is a very empathetic figure too. Like I think a lot of the time when you get people doing stuff like this, like it's there. There's a sort of like one to one correlation with like, okay, like how how how how do you feel about sort of like like how how

do you feel about assassination in general? is going to like determine your dictaate like determined your sort of response

to the act. Will Action? Yeah, whereas I think here it's different because you know like that, yeah, this, this, this is someone who, yeah, I mean I keep saying that he's sort of like immedutely relatable, but it's like, yeah, this is this is someone who, I don't know, has been through just an incredible amount of trauma in a way that's like very easily sort of digestible to like

regular people. Yeah, it's like, yeah, very obvious trauma and like, you know, yeah, I don't know, it's and I really hope that that that that really does actually translated to

resources for mental health resources, because I do too. I feel like as well as mental health resources, I help, they're like, you know, financial resources and you know, like all sorts of other resources as well, because like dealing with the fallout of, you know, having been in a like ac cult is incredibly difficult and requires a lot of space and time and a lot of people are, you know, left with like PTSD after that and it'll last for your whole life and that makes you, know,

for a lot of people, that makes you, know, having getting money and doing job things extremely hard, especially, you know, if you're like getting like emotionally like thrown back into that all of the time. Um. So I hope there are like more, you know, like material resources that are also available in addition to uh, sort of like mental health care and therapy things. Is. That's something that I feel like it's all too often just not there for

people who have been through abuse. Yeah, and I think also there's there's this way in which like like a lot of this, like insofar as there's any kind of like support network like in the US, and this is also true of Japan. Two maybe, I don't know, the

Japanese offer stay is not great. But yeah, like there's an extent which like the sort of like last safety net you have is your family, and you know, like this is this is a kind of thing that can very easily cut you off from your family and that that has, you know, I mean that has emotional consequences, but like, yeah, that has enormous financial consequences. That really don't like. I don't know when when, when I was

originally doing research on this. Like I I read a lot of sort of like people arguing about like deprogramming stuff, and it like they just didn't talk about like that kind of stuff and it was always just sort of like, I don't know, structors really weird and it's sort of like grotesque and detached way to think about it instead of like yeah, so, yeah, it depends on what type of careacters too, because, honestly, deprogramming is another cult. It

is another cult. It's like an anti cult cult and, Um, it just, you know, it re traumatizes those who are already traumatized and honestly, like people who have been deprogrammed sometimes leave, but a lot of the time it just increases their fervor for being part of whatever movement they're part of already, UM, because they're like Oh, if this is, you know, like what everybody is going to do to be if I leave, like of course I gotta stick with this because, you know, then like it's like every

what they've been saying the whole time about, you know, being persecuted and like hurt and stuff then becomes true. Right. Yeah, I guess that's the thing I would say about like that's my disclaimer about de programming. Uh, and, though the collective we are a part of is called deprogramming imperialism, that is because the only thing that needs to be deprogrammed really is imperialism and not people, because that's not

how that works. The radicalization requires a lot of trust, a lot of time, a lot of space, a lot of reflection. It's not something that, you know, you can just like go and like lock somebody in a basement for two weeks and then like try to make them leave whatever movement they're part, like that's that's just an abuse. Yeah, I think, like, I don't know, I think it's it's

as an industry. It's not as sort of like powerful as it used to be, but I think, like, I don't know it there's there's there's there's a sense in which it's sort of like, you know, it almost it almost has like civil war logic, where it's like both both both sides need the other side as sort of they're like reason to exist and, you know, so like and both, you know on both both, both sides are traumatizing people on both sides indeed, like like they're they're,

they're they're they're syfically fighting over the same group of people and each of them can sort of like offer the other side as like, oh, Hey, this is why we need to exist thing. But then it's like, you know, and like like, as with like most civil wars, it's like the actual people caught in it don't it's like no, you don't actually need, you don't want either side of

the civil war. You want out. Yeah, yeah, no, it's definitely it's definitely one of those like Oh, you're stuck between a rock and a hard place kind of things. It's like both options suck. Like yeah, like the two party system. Yeah, God, Stalin, Stalin said two good things and his entire two things that were like funny in his entire life. One of them was the pope, how many division does he have? And the second one was

they're both worse. And there I mean immediately he was wrong about they're both worse, but like, yeah, that's a that's a that's a real thing. That is the basis of all modern politics. Honestly. That is honestly, we hate to see. I hate to see it. Yeah, yeah, on the on the other hand, though, I don't know, like I I am kind of hopeful about this, like I am too. It Gen winely seems to have like changed, like at the very least it's changed the way that

the Japanese public, like season understands this whole thing. And like this is the first time, I think, ever either. I mean like, you know, like the Communist Party and stuff have been trying for like years to get people

to care about this. Just no one has really cared since, like, I don't know, like they basically since the Japanese left collapse in like the seventies, like nobody's really cared about this and I don't know, it really seems like something like it really seems like this assassination has actually changed something about just sort of like the like just the way that the Japanese politics is being structured right now. And I don't know, I'm modern really hopeful. I would

say I'm too. I mean, like the more light that is shed on this, I think, the better, and that like unfortunately, weird things happened, but I feel like if there's any chance some sort of Um, some sort of you know across the board or even in certain areas just specifically, any sort of like justice, that the amount of public attention on this now is, you know, potentially

something that could help bring something like that about. So I don't it's been it's been like sort of a weird ride for for us x members Um, with all of that just sort of like re traumatizing to see everything happened. Um, but at the end of the day, I think a lot of us are hopeful that things can change now that people know about it, because you know before that it wasn't something that was ever really

talked about. Groups like the thrive on this sort of weird combination of like operating in the shadows and also when they show up, it's through their own pr stuff, and you know, sometimes the best way to break that, apparently, is you shoot someone who was like you shoot a guy who they who was working for them. And Yeah,

I don't know. I mean, yeah, I feel like, Yeahmagami sort of managed to at least, you know, he he did what he he did a thing and it has had sort of, I probably, some of the impacts that he imagined it would. So I don't know. Yeah, like honestly, like from from what I've read of his stuff, like I think this went better than he expected it, like it could have possibly have gone like he he seemed

like really really sort of just like had abandoned all hope. Yeah, and I don't know, I mean, like I guess the the other thing that I really hope out of this, comes out of this, is that like you don't have to have people like destroying their lives a second time in sort of like just out of the incredible desperation of what they've been through, right. Yeah, preventing any of

that would be optimal. Yeah, yeah, because the you know, the more that, the longer the Unification Church operates, the more people will be abused and the more violence will come out of it. Like maybe this is the most high profile like a recent bit of violence that's come out of the movement, but it's not unprecedented in any way. So,

you know, it's like that's what happens when people are abused. Yeah, and I and it's I think it's also worth just sort of like reminding people that one of the sort of so the church has sort of splintered into various actions. Yeah, a lot of the people, well, okay, a trump trump gave a speech at like the at an event of the mainline church. A bunch of like so one of the other guys, like what one are the other splinter fractions.

Had A bunch of people at January six rot of iron ministries or sanctuary church, and those are those are the guys who had the the A R fifteen gun blessing ceremony a few years ago that made the rounds where they wore bullet crowns in their robes and they had the guns. And they've also got land in in Pennsylvania and Tennessee and also in Waco, Texas, where they're basically preparing people for war with what Sean Moon has described as something akin to the globalist deep state in Marxists.

I don't know if those were his exact words, but it was something like that. UH, so they're, you know, like they're they have an act of militia. They're preparing for war. That is what the Rod of iron is for them. That is the gun. Um. Yeah, and and these are these are the if remember my my stuff on this, right, this is the fashion that owns car arms, right, yes,

they do. Yeah, yeah, so they have a gun manufacturer. Now, okay, like, if Robert We're here, Robert will probably start equipping with me about how good like the equivalent with me about the actual quality the weapons they produced. But like, okay, they have, they have, they they they have a weapons manufacturing peace which is terrifying. Yeah, and they make the trump gun because of course they're all super pro trump, very like patriot. A lot of q and on overlap there.

And Actually Rod of Iron Ministries UH in in Japan has been helping organize q and on events. Um. And Yeah, so like there was also a so basically the relationship between Rod of iron and the mainline, you see, is supertense. Sean Moon and a couple of his other there's basically want their mother dead. And who is? She's the you know, the head of the mainline church right now. Um, and

not just dead but like specifically beheaded. Um. So there was an event recently over the summer, I think it was like the end of June, where Uh Sean was, Gosh, I forget. I forget where he was in Japan. Um, but basically he was sort of like railing at the audience for supporting his mother, Hawk Jo Han uh, and then when people spoke up in defense of her, they were literally like physically thrown out of the room. Um,

it was super intense. Yeah, there's yeah, it's it's a really fucking intense moment um and he's like they're saying she had like sex with a demon or something like that and has fallen and all of this, you know, got like, I don't know, sometimes I watch a bit of the guy's speeches just because I'm like, I want to know what the funk they're up to Um. And first of all it seems like he might do a lot of cocaine, which would not be on precedent had

given the moonies and all of their drugs smuggling and ship. Well, I mean we we have like, what was his name? Oh God, I'm blaking on the name of what? What? What? What of his other sons was like it was like literally spending like a shell corporations, like net income amount like per month on cocaine at one point. Like was that h o Jen possibly? I think I think it was. Yeah, yeah, I think. Yeah. And he's also enormous abusive piece of ship. Yeah, yeah,

it sucks. Yeah, people are all well, okay, that's not true. The people who were still actively involved in the church and who didn't break themselves out in flee like the first opportunity they got are like enormous pieces of ship. Yeah, I mean because, like, even at the end of the day, if they're not specifically doing anything that directly harm somebody, they're giving money to these institutions that do into people who do and giving them support and, you know, reinforcing

all of that ship. And then, you know, I mean most of them are just shitty in general too. Yeah, I also like specifically awesome about like, yeah, there there were a couple of people who like got forciably married into the family. Yeah, like left and I don't I do not want people to get to get the impression that I think they're bad, because they're not. Like they got, yeah,

really horrible stuff happened to them. They're able to escaine. ME. That's good, but also, Jesus Christ, like yeah, and that's the thing that it's like sometimes hard to talk to like, you know, childhood friends or my family who's still involved, Um, because I feel like it's like, you know, if you're supporting this group, you're implicit least supporting fascism and murder and death squads and rape and all of these awful things. Um, and you know, a lot of members don't know that

those bits of history about the church. Um, but if anyone who is listening is in the U C. I would definitely say to look those things up because they are all over the place. Yeah, okay, so this was specifically yet I read inside the League by Scott and Lee Anderson. Okay, I I will say this. Yeah, there. It is kind of hard to read because these people

are journalists. They're not normally book authors, and the idea of starting at the beginning of a story and then moving through to the end of it is like an entirely foreign concept to them. So it is constantly jumping around between sixteen million things. But yeah, there is a lot of there's a lot of very good stuff in there. Yeah,

it's an incredible resource. I would also suggest reading, uh, the there's like a a bunch of articles that Robert Parry did from his consortium news about Duc and like stuff back in the day on it. Um. I would also say check out how well do you know your moon? Uh. That's another great resource. Has a lot of you know, like links and direct citations of a bunch of documents and ship uh, all good stuff. Also, I would plug John Gorenfeld's book. Um, oh, it's called it's bad, bad

moon rising. Bad Moon Rising yes, yeah, John is crazy. Yeah, it's it's another really good book on that. Yeah, I think there's a new edition came out like very recently. Yeah, so I think he has it actually a pdf of it or something for free on his website. Um, yeah, uh. And then another book I would suggest is gifts of deceit, about the Thomson Park Scandal and care a gate, another

good one. God. Yeah, the thing about the mood is like there's just like entire like there's entire genres of like crime that they do that like doesn't even like make most accounts of them because they're doing too much other crime. Yeah, literally, there's just so much crime too for there's I've just done so much that it's hard

to keep track of everything. They literally have a million shell corporations and they literally do things are different names and in different places and then different types of atrocities that it's like how are you supposed to keep up with all this? That's why they do it that way, because you're not supposed to. But yeah, I mean it is I don't know, like I figuring out how intelligence operations work is like easier than like trying to entangle

this ship. Yeah, honestly like that that that stuff was, you know, a little more on the nose. It's like, Oh yeah, clearly this is like a joint psychological operation and other like, you know, back channels for money and trafficking things and people and stuff. But then it's like, Oh God, What Company owns what? And how much do they make and like where do they move their money around? It's just like, I don't know. That's that side is like,

how do I navigate this? So I am extremely fortunate to be a part of a group of people who's working on this stuff. Now, Um, you know, we're gonna what we're going to try to do is sort of make like a Unification Church wikipedia kind of thing so that we have like all of it in one place and then, you know, potentially down the line maybe do like a people's history of the Unification Church or something like that. But in the meantime we're just compiling a

bunch of information. Are Are there ways people can support you and it also can support deprogramming imperialism in this the work you all have been doing. Yeah, so I have a patreon. It's Alisa Majub a L I S A M A H J o U B. Uh. You can follow me on twitter at Alisa Underscore Majub, same spelling. Uh. De Programming imperialism has a twitter. Uh It is, since the programming imperialism was not was too long to put in as a user name. The one we are using

is no more cults, which is no underscore, more underscore cults. Um. And then we have a instagram as well, under deprogramming imperialism, I believe. Let me double check, HM, and we will. We will put links to all this stuff in the show notes. Yeah, awesome, cool, cool, cool. Yeah, it's do. Programming imperialism just together together words. Sorry, it's just not. The words are smashed together. There's no space. That's that's there we go. I did it. Yeah, well, I I think.

I think. I think that's going to be all for us today. Um, thank you so so much for joining us. Thank you for having me. I really appreciate this and hopefully, you know, this will just have help more people to sort of like understand what's going on there and sort of the history of the U C and uh, as well as, you know, maybe shine some light on the obbey assassination and UH. You know, the more people who

know about this, the better, I think. Um, so I really appreciate being on here, because you guys have a pretty big platform, so that means a lot to me. Yeah, and I'm I'm I'm really, I'm really, really glad that that you came on for this because, I don't know, like it's it's really like it's really easy to like cover stuff like this and just never actually sort of like get to the human, like the actual human impact of it. Yeah, and so, yeah, I'm really glad I

was able to talk to you. Thank you. Yeah, I'm glad I was able to talk to because that it was fun. It was fun, it was informative and getting the word out. We're doing it, we're doing the thing. Yeah, yeah, it feels good. It could happen here as a production of cool zone media and more podcasts from cool zone media. visit our website, cool zone media DOT COM, or check us out on the I heart radio APP, apple podcasts

or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can find sources for it could happen here, updated monthly at cool zone media DOT COM. Slash sources. Thanks for listening.