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Gun violence is normal in South African ghettos. I guess the news will start reporting it more now
Former Japanese PM Shinzo Abe assassinated while giving speech
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Gun violence is normal in South African ghettos. I guess the news will start reporting it more now
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There’s a difference between someone getting robbed at gun point and a mass shooting
oh shyt 
Bank Shot: Abe Assassin's Wild Success - SNA Japan
by in Politics
SNA (Tokyo) — Unemployed loner Tetsuya Yamagami hoped to use his homemade shotgun on Shinzo Abe not mainly to kill Japan’s longest-serving prime minister, but to take his revenge on the Unification Church, which he blamed for destroying his life and that of his family. Improbably, the assassination has become a wild political success. Yamagami’s “bank shot” strategy achieved more than he could possibly have hoped.
These are the facts, even if it is ethically uncomfortable. There is undoubtedly a great deal of moral hazard in this story. Few people want to encourage other desperate young men to fire guns at senior political leaders. The anticipation of the futility of such acts is one of the main deterrents against them. Would-be assassins often give up in the knowledge that, even should they kill their target, the results that flow from it will not be what they desired.
But because of the particular set of circumstances surrounding this case, it was different this time.
We can start with the fact that Shinzo Abe was not really loved in Japan. After a long career in hard right politics, multiple corruption scandals, and his more recent career trying to control the Kishida government from backstage, most Japanese had long had enough of him. There were many who respected him and others who feared him, but very few to whom he was a figure of genuine endearment. The Japanese people would never have wanted to see Abe die in the manner that he did, but most were long ago ready to see him retire from politics.
Next came the fact that Yamagami’s motives in killing Abe did not fit into any preexisting narratives. Had Yamagami been a leftwing activist, for example, the assassination would have been met with universal rage from conservatives and a great deal of disquiet from ordinary Japanese. Indeed, many commentators in the first weeks after Abe’s assassination anticipated that there would be a political crackdown, and that authoritarian strains in Japan’s body politic would become more pronounced.
But when people began to learn that the killer’s motive related to the Unification Church–a more-or-less unknown entity within Japanese political debates–there was at first a sense of confusion. People didn’t know what to make of it. Was the assassin just some kind of lunatic, or was there more to the story?
At first, the Japanese media refused to even name the Unification Church. Hesitantly at first, the mainstream media eventually began to investigate and unravel the story. It took them weeks to gain the confidence to report the story more fully, but with a figure of the significance of Shinzo Abe at the center of it, they couldn’t really avoid doing their jobs on this occasion.
And then something odd started to happen: As the Japanese people learned more about Tetsuya Yamagami and what he had experienced in his life, their overwhelming reaction was not a feeling of anger about the loss of the unloved Abe, but sympathy towards his assassin. They felt pity for his troubled life and for the ways in which he had been a long-term victim of the Unification Church. While few wanted to say out loud (due to the moral hazard factor) that killing Shinzo Abe may have been his only practical recourse, the fact is that more people came to sympathize with Yamagami than with Abe.
This was also because of the light being thrown–not only on the pitiable circumstances of the assassin–but also on what Abe’s previously unknown connection with the Unification Church was all about.
Drip by drip, the public learned for the first time that the ruling Liberal Democratic Party had maintained an informal political alliance with the Unification Church, and that Yamagami had correctly identified Shinzo Abe as standing at the pinnacle of the relationship as far as Japan’s government was concerned (something which generations of mainstream journalists had failed to report). In return for election support to some LDP politicians, the authorities turned a blind eye to the fleecing of tens of thousands of Japanese families through “spiritual sales,” preying mainly on Japanese women who were isolated or in grief, as was the case with Yamagami’s mother.
The political right (which many analysts at first believed would be the main political beneficiaries of Abe’s assassination) found itself on the defensive. Some of Abe’s closest aides, such as incumbent LDP policy chief Koichi Hagiuda, were found to have maintained close links with the church, as did dozens of other prominent politicians.
On what basis could they defend their alliance with a religious cult that preyed upon ordinary people?
Even more damning, at least in the eyes of Japanese nationalists, the cult in question was based in South Korea, led by South Koreans, and has teachings about Japan that are guaranteed to elicit outrage.
In short, the exposure of the LDP-Unification Church link has knocked Japan’s political right completely off balance. They don’t have a leg to stand on, even by the standards of their own ideology. The confusion in their ranks is made even worse by the fact that Abe had no successor to the rightwing cause who is able to step into the leadership role which he had carved out.
According to the conventions of establishment thinking, assassins are supposed to be deranged madmen. They are not supposed to be correct. They are notsupposed to be brilliant strategists able to predict that by killing a single, secretly compromised leader, a political “bank shot” could be performed which not only knocks out the leading accomplice, but also drops their true enemy (the Unification Church) into the side pocket.
But news media should speak the truth, even at the risk of creating a moral hazard. Let’s acknowledge what many people might whisper to their friends around the water cooler, but hesitate to say openly.
The assassination of Shinzo Abe was an improbable but wild success for the long-tortured Tetsuya Yamagami.
For breaking news, follow on Twitter @ShingetsuNews
Bank Shot: Abe Assassin's Wild Success - SNA Japan
Bank Shot: Abe Assassin’s Wild Success
Michael PennAug 23, 2022by in Politics
SNA (Tokyo) — Unemployed loner Tetsuya Yamagami hoped to use his homemade shotgun on Shinzo Abe not mainly to kill Japan’s longest-serving prime minister, but to take his revenge on the Unification Church, which he blamed for destroying his life and that of his family. Improbably, the assassination has become a wild political success. Yamagami’s “bank shot” strategy achieved more than he could possibly have hoped.
These are the facts, even if it is ethically uncomfortable. There is undoubtedly a great deal of moral hazard in this story. Few people want to encourage other desperate young men to fire guns at senior political leaders. The anticipation of the futility of such acts is one of the main deterrents against them. Would-be assassins often give up in the knowledge that, even should they kill their target, the results that flow from it will not be what they desired.
But because of the particular set of circumstances surrounding this case, it was different this time.
We can start with the fact that Shinzo Abe was not really loved in Japan. After a long career in hard right politics, multiple corruption scandals, and his more recent career trying to control the Kishida government from backstage, most Japanese had long had enough of him. There were many who respected him and others who feared him, but very few to whom he was a figure of genuine endearment. The Japanese people would never have wanted to see Abe die in the manner that he did, but most were long ago ready to see him retire from politics.
Next came the fact that Yamagami’s motives in killing Abe did not fit into any preexisting narratives. Had Yamagami been a leftwing activist, for example, the assassination would have been met with universal rage from conservatives and a great deal of disquiet from ordinary Japanese. Indeed, many commentators in the first weeks after Abe’s assassination anticipated that there would be a political crackdown, and that authoritarian strains in Japan’s body politic would become more pronounced.
But when people began to learn that the killer’s motive related to the Unification Church–a more-or-less unknown entity within Japanese political debates–there was at first a sense of confusion. People didn’t know what to make of it. Was the assassin just some kind of lunatic, or was there more to the story?
At first, the Japanese media refused to even name the Unification Church. Hesitantly at first, the mainstream media eventually began to investigate and unravel the story. It took them weeks to gain the confidence to report the story more fully, but with a figure of the significance of Shinzo Abe at the center of it, they couldn’t really avoid doing their jobs on this occasion.
And then something odd started to happen: As the Japanese people learned more about Tetsuya Yamagami and what he had experienced in his life, their overwhelming reaction was not a feeling of anger about the loss of the unloved Abe, but sympathy towards his assassin. They felt pity for his troubled life and for the ways in which he had been a long-term victim of the Unification Church. While few wanted to say out loud (due to the moral hazard factor) that killing Shinzo Abe may have been his only practical recourse, the fact is that more people came to sympathize with Yamagami than with Abe.
This was also because of the light being thrown–not only on the pitiable circumstances of the assassin–but also on what Abe’s previously unknown connection with the Unification Church was all about.
Drip by drip, the public learned for the first time that the ruling Liberal Democratic Party had maintained an informal political alliance with the Unification Church, and that Yamagami had correctly identified Shinzo Abe as standing at the pinnacle of the relationship as far as Japan’s government was concerned (something which generations of mainstream journalists had failed to report). In return for election support to some LDP politicians, the authorities turned a blind eye to the fleecing of tens of thousands of Japanese families through “spiritual sales,” preying mainly on Japanese women who were isolated or in grief, as was the case with Yamagami’s mother.
The political right (which many analysts at first believed would be the main political beneficiaries of Abe’s assassination) found itself on the defensive. Some of Abe’s closest aides, such as incumbent LDP policy chief Koichi Hagiuda, were found to have maintained close links with the church, as did dozens of other prominent politicians.
On what basis could they defend their alliance with a religious cult that preyed upon ordinary people?
Even more damning, at least in the eyes of Japanese nationalists, the cult in question was based in South Korea, led by South Koreans, and has teachings about Japan that are guaranteed to elicit outrage.
In short, the exposure of the LDP-Unification Church link has knocked Japan’s political right completely off balance. They don’t have a leg to stand on, even by the standards of their own ideology. The confusion in their ranks is made even worse by the fact that Abe had no successor to the rightwing cause who is able to step into the leadership role which he had carved out.
According to the conventions of establishment thinking, assassins are supposed to be deranged madmen. They are not supposed to be correct. They are notsupposed to be brilliant strategists able to predict that by killing a single, secretly compromised leader, a political “bank shot” could be performed which not only knocks out the leading accomplice, but also drops their true enemy (the Unification Church) into the side pocket.
But news media should speak the truth, even at the risk of creating a moral hazard. Let’s acknowledge what many people might whisper to their friends around the water cooler, but hesitate to say openly.
The assassination of Shinzo Abe was an improbable but wild success for the long-tortured Tetsuya Yamagami.
For breaking news, follow on Twitter @ShingetsuNews
oh shyt
Bank Shot: Abe Assassin's Wild Success - SNA Japan
Bank Shot: Abe Assassin’s Wild Success
Michael PennAug 23, 2022
by in Politics
SNA (Tokyo) — Unemployed loner Tetsuya Yamagami hoped to use his homemade shotgun on Shinzo Abe not mainly to kill Japan’s longest-serving prime minister, but to take his revenge on the Unification Church, which he blamed for destroying his life and that of his family. Improbably, the assassination has become a wild political success. Yamagami’s “bank shot” strategy achieved more than he could possibly have hoped.
These are the facts, even if it is ethically uncomfortable. There is undoubtedly a great deal of moral hazard in this story. Few people want to encourage other desperate young men to fire guns at senior political leaders. The anticipation of the futility of such acts is one of the main deterrents against them. Would-be assassins often give up in the knowledge that, even should they kill their target, the results that flow from it will not be what they desired.
But because of the particular set of circumstances surrounding this case, it was different this time.
We can start with the fact that Shinzo Abe was not really loved in Japan. After a long career in hard right politics, multiple corruption scandals, and his more recent career trying to control the Kishida government from backstage, most Japanese had long had enough of him. There were many who respected him and others who feared him, but very few to whom he was a figure of genuine endearment. The Japanese people would never have wanted to see Abe die in the manner that he did, but most were long ago ready to see him retire from politics.
Next came the fact that Yamagami’s motives in killing Abe did not fit into any preexisting narratives. Had Yamagami been a leftwing activist, for example, the assassination would have been met with universal rage from conservatives and a great deal of disquiet from ordinary Japanese. Indeed, many commentators in the first weeks after Abe’s assassination anticipated that there would be a political crackdown, and that authoritarian strains in Japan’s body politic would become more pronounced.
But when people began to learn that the killer’s motive related to the Unification Church–a more-or-less unknown entity within Japanese political debates–there was at first a sense of confusion. People didn’t know what to make of it. Was the assassin just some kind of lunatic, or was there more to the story?
At first, the Japanese media refused to even name the Unification Church. Hesitantly at first, the mainstream media eventually began to investigate and unravel the story. It took them weeks to gain the confidence to report the story more fully, but with a figure of the significance of Shinzo Abe at the center of it, they couldn’t really avoid doing their jobs on this occasion.
And then something odd started to happen: As the Japanese people learned more about Tetsuya Yamagami and what he had experienced in his life, their overwhelming reaction was not a feeling of anger about the loss of the unloved Abe, but sympathy towards his assassin. They felt pity for his troubled life and for the ways in which he had been a long-term victim of the Unification Church. While few wanted to say out loud (due to the moral hazard factor) that killing Shinzo Abe may have been his only practical recourse, the fact is that more people came to sympathize with Yamagami than with Abe.
This was also because of the light being thrown–not only on the pitiable circumstances of the assassin–but also on what Abe’s previously unknown connection with the Unification Church was all about.
Drip by drip, the public learned for the first time that the ruling Liberal Democratic Party had maintained an informal political alliance with the Unification Church, and that Yamagami had correctly identified Shinzo Abe as standing at the pinnacle of the relationship as far as Japan’s government was concerned (something which generations of mainstream journalists had failed to report). In return for election support to some LDP politicians, the authorities turned a blind eye to the fleecing of tens of thousands of Japanese families through “spiritual sales,” preying mainly on Japanese women who were isolated or in grief, as was the case with Yamagami’s mother.
The political right (which many analysts at first believed would be the main political beneficiaries of Abe’s assassination) found itself on the defensive. Some of Abe’s closest aides, such as incumbent LDP policy chief Koichi Hagiuda, were found to have maintained close links with the church, as did dozens of other prominent politicians.
On what basis could they defend their alliance with a religious cult that preyed upon ordinary people?
Even more damning, at least in the eyes of Japanese nationalists, the cult in question was based in South Korea, led by South Koreans, and has teachings about Japan that are guaranteed to elicit outrage.
In short, the exposure of the LDP-Unification Church link has knocked Japan’s political right completely off balance. They don’t have a leg to stand on, even by the standards of their own ideology. The confusion in their ranks is made even worse by the fact that Abe had no successor to the rightwing cause who is able to step into the leadership role which he had carved out.
According to the conventions of establishment thinking, assassins are supposed to be deranged madmen. They are not supposed to be correct. They are notsupposed to be brilliant strategists able to predict that by killing a single, secretly compromised leader, a political “bank shot” could be performed which not only knocks out the leading accomplice, but also drops their true enemy (the Unification Church) into the side pocket.
But news media should speak the truth, even at the risk of creating a moral hazard. Let’s acknowledge what many people might whisper to their friends around the water cooler, but hesitate to say openly.
The assassination of Shinzo Abe was an improbable but wild success for the long-tortured Tetsuya Yamagami.
For breaking news, follow on Twitter @ShingetsuNews
love it.
Shinzo Abe’s Assassin Succeeds in Turning Japan Against ‘Cult’
The shooting of ex-PM Shinzo Abe has blown open secret ties between Japan’s ruling party and the mass-marrying Moonies.
Shinzo Abe’s Assassin Tetsuya Yamagami Succeeds in Plot to Expose Japan’s Deep Ties with Unification Church
NARA, Japan—The shooting of ex-Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has had unexpected political blowback. The killer attacked Abe not for his political beliefs, but because he wanted to take revenge upon the South Korea-based Unification Church—sometimes labeled a ‘cult’—which he blamed for ruining his family and his life.Instead of rallying behind Abe, the Japanese people have followed the killer’s wishes and turned their attention to long-standing but little discussed links between the ruling party and the Moonies.
Tetsuya Yamagami told police that he had originally planned to assassinate Hak Ja Han Moon, the head of the church, which is known for holding mass weddings and backing right-wing politicians worldwide, but then decided to target Abe.
Before shooting Abe, he wrote a letter to a freelance journalist—obtained by The Daily Beast—explaining that he murdered Abe in order to expose the deep links between Japan’s ruling party, the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), and the Unification Church.
If that was his twisted aim, he has succeeded beyond his wildest dreams. The phrase, “After all, the Unification Church and the LDP are one and the same” is now trending in Japan. The Mainichi newspaper ran an editorial on July 27, “The LDP must clean up its ties to the Unification Church.”
The paper wrote, “Why did the Japanese government allow the Unification Church to change its name?… It is only natural that the Diet and the press should try to clarify the actual situation. Above all, the LDP should investigate its long history [with the group] explain it to the public, and liquidate the relationship.”
Not just in print and on the internet but in daily conversations, the Church and the LDP ties keep coming up.
Manabu Yanagi, a retired police detective in Nikko City in Tochigi Prefecture, told The Daily Beast, “The news is shocking. The ties between an anti-social group of fraudsters and the ruling party of Japan are disturbing. It needs to be made clear what exactly those ties were.”
While the Japanese media at first refused to print the name of the cult, they are now going all out—detailing the links between the religious group, Abe, and his party in lurid detail.
The backlash is so strong that many are now openly calling for the cancellation of the State Funeral for Abe that is planned this Autumn. “I oppose the state funeral for Shinzo Abe” was trending on Twitter for a week. A petition opposing taxpayer money being spent on a lavish national funeral for Abe has already gained 67,000 signatures. It points out his connections to the cult as one reason disqualifying him for being honored.
Meet the Unification Church
The Unification Church, which now formally calls itself the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification, has a long history of problematic and “anti-social” activities.A Korean religious leader going under the name Reverend Sun Myung Moonfounded the Unification Church in 1954. According to Moon, Jesus sent him to save families and achieve world peace and fight godless communism. His followers were commonly referred to as “Moonies.” They became known for massive group weddings and various schemes for extorting large financial donations from their members. They were also accused of using brainwashing techniques to recruit and keep adherents.
In Japan, they tapped into ancestor worship traditions and convinced adherents to spend large sums saving their loved ones from hell by buying expensive “spiritual” objects.
They strove to change their image in the late ’80s and ’90s, setting up front companies, think tanks, and related organizations. They have also been media-savvy. Moon founded the conservative Washington Times in May of 1982, and the newspaper is still allegedly tied to the organization, even though Moon died in 2012.
“The heinous act was committed in an attempt to take his revenge on the Church.”
— Professor Koichi Nakano
The Unification Church under various names and guises has not only cultivated strong ties with Japanese politicians, especially the Liberal Democratic Party, but has also managed to forge tight connections to the Republican Party in the U.S., links intensified under President Donald Trump.
One of the sons of Reverend Moon, Hyung Jin “Sean” Moon, created a splinter group, Rod of Iron Ministries, that worships with AR-15s and virulently supports Trump. Sean Moon and congregation members were not only allegedly present at the Jan. 6 insurrection but are seemingly connected to some MAGA megastars. Steve Bannon called into the group’s Freedom Festival last October.
Writing for The Daily Beast, cult expert and former unification church memberSteve Hassan explained the religion as follows: “In the Moonies, we were told that we were heavenly soldiers engaged in a great struggle to take the world back from the forces of Satan, which included godless Communism and human-centered Western democracy. Our ultimate goal was to replace these godless human-centered forms of government with a god-centered theocracy, under Moon’s leadership.”
Made In Korea, Sold In Japan
The Unification Church has been wildly successful in Japan and 70 percent or more of its revenue is said to have been derived from Japanese nationals. Billions of yen have been wired from Japan to the church over the last decade, according to an Upper House parliamentarian.A watchdog group, the National Network of Lawyers Against Spiritual Sales, has been monitoring the Unification Church since the late 1980s. It supports victims of the church and cults. They claimed in a July 12 press conference that the confirmed financial suffering associated with the group up to 2021 exceeded 123.7 billion yen ($899 million). The number represents only a fraction of the whole, they say. The Network representatives also noted that between 2005 and 2010, the Japanese police handled 13 criminal cases of selling goods in connection with the solicitation of donations, involving the church, and that more than 30 Unification Church members were arrested and detained. Numerous lawsuits against the church resulted in damages being paid to victims of predatory practices.
Couples from around the world participate in a mass wedding ceremony at the CheongShim Peace World Center in Gapyeong, South Korea.
NurPhoto via Getty Images
The Unification Church of Japan has publicly stated that Yamagami’s mother was a member but insists the days of soliciting donations in problematic ways are over. The Unification Church has made a point of distancing itself from the various entities under its control in Japan by changing its name under the Abe administration and setting up a number of seemingly unrelated think-tanks and nonprofit organizations that critics call “dummy companies.”
As the Network points out, the Unification Church’s expansion has been driven in part by its ties to politicians.
The grandfather of Shinzo Abe, Nobusuke Kishi, forged sharp alliances with the group. Kishi was arrested as a war criminal in 1945, but later released and put on the CIA payroll. He and notorious political fixer and yakuza associate Yoshio Kodama created the Liberal Democratic Party which has ruled Japan almost uninterrupted since the 1950s. Kishi later became prime minister. He was instrumental in the formation of the church’s political arm, the International Federation for Victory Over Communism, in the 1960s. Kishi and Moon became so close that when Moon was jailed for tax evasion in the United States, Kishi wrote to President Ronald Reagan asking for him to be released early.
Japanese Prime Minister Nobusuke Kishi,left, and Richard Nixon In Washington, Jan. 20, 1960.
Keystone-France/Gamma-Keystone via Getty Images
Kishi’s son and Abe’s father, Shintaro Abe, maintained ties to the organization, and Shinzo Abe continued the practice—ignoring warnings that the group was causing huge social problems in Japan.
The National Network said they had repeatedly warned Abe to break ties with the church, pointing out that he had given credence to their “predatory and fraudulent activities.”
The ties between Abe and the group were not superficial. In 2005 and 2006, while a lawmaker, Abe sent congratulatory messages to events co-hosted by the Universal Peace Federation which has strong ties to the Unification Church.
According to materials from the National Network and public documents, in 2010 and 2012, Abe attended meetings of the Institute for Global Strategy, another allegedly church-affiliated organization. In 2011, he and other conservatives put out a one page opinion ad in the Washington Times denying Japanese war crimes. In 2013, under Abe, despite opposition within the Ministry of Cultural Affairs, the organization was allowed to change its name—thus obscuring its problematic past. In 2016, Abe invited the chairman of the Japan branch of the Unification Church to the prime minister’s residence. In September of 2021, Abe sent a video message to an event organized by the Universal Peace Federation. He praised the church's leaders and its “family values.” But Abe wasn’t alone, Donald Trump, Abe’s golf buddy and ideological pal, also sent a video praising the church's leaders.
Reverend And Mrs. Sun Myung Moon Officiate The Family Federation For World Peace And Unification’s Blessing 98 Marriage Re-Dedication Ceremony And Wedding. Over 2,000 Couples Were Wedded At Madison Square Garden
Jeff Christensen/Getty Images
After Abe’s video message last September, the National Network again sent him a letter asking him to cease and desist supporting the church and its affiliated organizations. It was apparently ignored just as the 2006 letter was ignored. The gunman, however, did see the video.
Abe is not the only LDP member with friendly relations with the Unification Church. According to the evening newspaper Nikkan Gendai, the church long provided free labor and secretaries to members of the LDP, handling office work, policy, and day-to-day duties while ingratiating themselves with the party. In its July 23 edition, Gendai published a list of 35 members of Abe’s political faction with connections to the church. Other political parties have also cultivated strong ties with the church.
At the press conference on July 12, Lawyer Hiroshi Watanabe said, “To the victims of the Unification Church, it seems that the police didn’t properly investigate the group (on criminal charges of fraud and extortion) because they were well-connected to politicians. We feel the same way.”
Yoshifu Arita, a journalist and Japanese parliamentarian, said on a television broadcast aired July 18 that he was told by a senior police official, “The reason we didn’t crack down on this group [when we should have a decade ago] was the intervention of politicians.”
Part 2:
Yamagami sent a letter days before attacking Abe, to a blog writer who had often written exposés of the Unification Church. It explains his state of mind.
I [once] wrote to you that I “want a gun so bad that a hand might as well come out of my throat to reach for one.” Since then and now, I have devoted myself to procuring a gun. My devotion resembled that of the Unification Church followers who discard all but their entire life in the name of a false God…
My fateful encounter with the Unification Church goes back about 30 years. My mother, since having entered the religion, wasted over a hundred million yen, our family’s collapse, bankruptcy... As such things went by, my teenage years were over. It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that this experience continued to distort the rest of my entire life.
While I did loathe Abe, he is not the primary enemy. He is no more than one sympathizer of the Unification Church, one who has great influence in the real world.
Yamagami told the Nara police that he was ready to die in his assassination attempt and that the entire purpose of the attack was to bring attention to the misdeeds of the church.
Professor Koichi Nakano at Sophia University, an authority on Japanese politics, notes that the LDP has gotten into bed with many other extremist religious groups since the 1990s.
He notes: “About the Yamagami letter, I also think that it shows that he fully knows what he is doing. He did not kill Abe for his politics, but because he identified Abe as one of [the Unification Church’s] most powerful patrons. So the heinous act was committed in an attempt to take his revenge on the church. He targeted Abe, if anything, in spite of his politics.”
For some, the unholy alliance between the LDP and a ‘cult’ that sucks its members dry doesn’t make sense. But there are historical and practical reasons for the marriage.
Nakano explains,”In the early postwar era, it was anti-communism that brought together such religions as the Unification Church with the Japanese right-wing politicians. On the side of the new religions, the appearance of powerful conservative politicians in their events and publications provided a source of authority and credibility, and with deeper ties, even access to favorable government dispensations. The LDP politicians, in turn, gained not only organized votes but also campaign staff and secretaries, which were particularly appreciated by faction bosses who were looking to increase their inexperienced and under-resourced underlings fast.”
Abe’s regime was very close to the religious cult Nippon Kaigi.
It has a long history. In 1995 a variety of ultraconservative religions, including the Association of Shinto Shrines, which has always longed to reclaim its special status in prewar State Shintoism, formed the notorious Nippon Kaigi together with right-wing business and media leaders. It promoted reactionary nationalism that espoused reverence for the emperor, changing the constitution, remilitarization, historical revisionism, and traditional gender roles and family values. The world view of the Christianity-based Unification Church and Nippon Kaigi are not far apart.
For many years, the increasingly well-known alliance between the LDP and Nippon Kaigi, as well as its hidden alliance with the Unification Church, have served it well, but the assassination of Abe has had unexpected blowback. The echoes of those two gunshots will be heard in Japan for many years to come. For current Prime Minister Fumio Kishida (LDP) the growing voices of dissent and calls for an investigation into ties between his party and the Unification Church—as well as other extremist religious groups—are a present-day headache.
Last week, the journalist and television announcer Masaki Kusakabe delivered a harsh message for Japan’s politicians toward the end of a special feature examining the history of the Unification Church.
Speaking with a video image of Abe addressing a Unification Church-related gathering behind him, he said: “The Unification Church is a money-sucking group that can’t stand without donations from Japan. It is ill-advised for a politician to consort with them. Even more, they should bear in mind that sending messages and greetings may endorse the ideals and activities of the organization.”
Much of Japan heard that sermon and said, “Amen.”
The Letter
In an interview published with Weekly Bunshun, the uncle of Yamagami describes in great detail how the involvement of the family with the church drove the family into poverty. Yamagami’s mother sold off the land and property her husband left her when he died, and donated a million dollars to the church. She was so involved in their activities, she was rarely home. Young Tetsuya would sometimes call, asking his uncle for food. The uncle would bring Tetsuya and his brother food and snacks, sometimes sushi. The mother donated all the money marked for his college education to the church. He joined the Self-Defense Forces to pay for school and became increasingly depressed. Yamagami took out a life insurance policy leaving his uncle and brother as the beneficiaries and tried to kill himself while still in the service.Yamagami sent a letter days before attacking Abe, to a blog writer who had often written exposés of the Unification Church. It explains his state of mind.
I [once] wrote to you that I “want a gun so bad that a hand might as well come out of my throat to reach for one.” Since then and now, I have devoted myself to procuring a gun. My devotion resembled that of the Unification Church followers who discard all but their entire life in the name of a false God…
My fateful encounter with the Unification Church goes back about 30 years. My mother, since having entered the religion, wasted over a hundred million yen, our family’s collapse, bankruptcy... As such things went by, my teenage years were over. It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that this experience continued to distort the rest of my entire life.
While I did loathe Abe, he is not the primary enemy. He is no more than one sympathizer of the Unification Church, one who has great influence in the real world.
Yamagami told the Nara police that he was ready to die in his assassination attempt and that the entire purpose of the attack was to bring attention to the misdeeds of the church.
Unholy Alliances
That has certainly happened. The Japanese public and the media are taking a hard look at the relationships between the Liberal Democratic Party and fringe religions. Already bookstores are packed with books about the Unification Church and magazines are running cover stories. On television news programs, the links to Abe, the LDP, and the church are being examined.Professor Koichi Nakano at Sophia University, an authority on Japanese politics, notes that the LDP has gotten into bed with many other extremist religious groups since the 1990s.
He notes: “About the Yamagami letter, I also think that it shows that he fully knows what he is doing. He did not kill Abe for his politics, but because he identified Abe as one of [the Unification Church’s] most powerful patrons. So the heinous act was committed in an attempt to take his revenge on the church. He targeted Abe, if anything, in spite of his politics.”
For some, the unholy alliance between the LDP and a ‘cult’ that sucks its members dry doesn’t make sense. But there are historical and practical reasons for the marriage.
Nakano explains,”In the early postwar era, it was anti-communism that brought together such religions as the Unification Church with the Japanese right-wing politicians. On the side of the new religions, the appearance of powerful conservative politicians in their events and publications provided a source of authority and credibility, and with deeper ties, even access to favorable government dispensations. The LDP politicians, in turn, gained not only organized votes but also campaign staff and secretaries, which were particularly appreciated by faction bosses who were looking to increase their inexperienced and under-resourced underlings fast.”
Abe’s regime was very close to the religious cult Nippon Kaigi.
It has a long history. In 1995 a variety of ultraconservative religions, including the Association of Shinto Shrines, which has always longed to reclaim its special status in prewar State Shintoism, formed the notorious Nippon Kaigi together with right-wing business and media leaders. It promoted reactionary nationalism that espoused reverence for the emperor, changing the constitution, remilitarization, historical revisionism, and traditional gender roles and family values. The world view of the Christianity-based Unification Church and Nippon Kaigi are not far apart.
For many years, the increasingly well-known alliance between the LDP and Nippon Kaigi, as well as its hidden alliance with the Unification Church, have served it well, but the assassination of Abe has had unexpected blowback. The echoes of those two gunshots will be heard in Japan for many years to come. For current Prime Minister Fumio Kishida (LDP) the growing voices of dissent and calls for an investigation into ties between his party and the Unification Church—as well as other extremist religious groups—are a present-day headache.
Last week, the journalist and television announcer Masaki Kusakabe delivered a harsh message for Japan’s politicians toward the end of a special feature examining the history of the Unification Church.
Speaking with a video image of Abe addressing a Unification Church-related gathering behind him, he said: “The Unification Church is a money-sucking group that can’t stand without donations from Japan. It is ill-advised for a politician to consort with them. Even more, they should bear in mind that sending messages and greetings may endorse the ideals and activities of the organization.”
Much of Japan heard that sermon and said, “Amen.”
Mister Terrific
It’s in the name
My guy was a hero after all 
Unification Church - Wikipedia
A lot of strange connections, including Donald Trump, Elijah Cummings, Ban Ki-moon, Farrakhan and GHW Bush...
Red Shield
Global Domination
Yeah folk been speculating that, that church shyt and the connection's Abe's party got to it.. are the reasons dude's death got swept under the rug so fast
that shinzo pack was really on some other shyt
Im saying… it’s bizarre how the whole thing just came and went.
Just caught up after The Economist touched on it in a podcast.
Reading the story, he might have one of the most successful assassinations I've heard of north of a dictatorship.
It's a very scandalous story... it's like if the crazy cult vibes of Q had the slimy bribes of Scientology
Reading the story, he might have one of the most successful assassinations I've heard of north of a dictatorship.
It's a very scandalous story... it's like if the crazy cult vibes of Q had the slimy bribes of Scientology
Can't wait until Falun Gong got exposed too, but then @℃ertifed might be sad because he love to cape for those fukkers when he could attack China with it.
But but but muh organ harvesting stories are realwhat?Can't wait until Falun Gong got exposed too, but then @℃ertifed might be sad because he love to cape for those fukkers when he could attack China with it.