Part Three: The Slavery Loving Fascist who Built Modern Japan

Mia Wong is joined again by Robert Evans for part three of our episodes on Nobusuke Kishi.

 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
What. Well, you know, the important thing about growing older
and getting wiser is learning when you shouldn't make a
what's xing my wise joke about a series of profoundly
horrific crimes against humanity, and I I've grown as a person.

(00:24):
So we're just gonna go into the episode and not
think at all about what it is I was going
to say before I stopped myself and narrowly avoided cancelation.
This is Behind the Bastards podcast about the worst people
in all of history, of whom I would have been
one had I completed the sentence that this introduction was
meant to be initially as it was originally planned. But

(00:46):
I didn't, So you motherfucker's can't cancel me. That's right,
I'm gonna go. Fortunately, unfortunately, this also means that you
will never be installed as as as as a leader
of a country by the CIA. I don't don't say never.
Don't say never, you never like what do what do you?
What do you? What do you? What do you? What
do you? I mean? Anybody, look, a man can dream, Christopher,

(01:08):
we're talking more about man Chariot today. We just went
through a lot of war crimes. Uh, where are where
we where we were? What do you? What do you?
What do you? What do you? What do you wear?
What do you wear? Where? What? Where? What is it time? Where?
What is it? Time for the reckoning? As you titled
fu yeah, spicy, let's go. Yeah. So we we are

(01:33):
back in Japan. We are back in and we are
back in well, I guess we're back in. We are
back in the U. S. Occupation And okay, no, I
think up a pretty natural reaction to to seeing the
the words a U. S. Military occupation is to assume
as going to go badly, and it is. But it

(01:53):
actually didn't start out that way. And it didn't start
out that way because the first phase of the octave
sort of happens. Occupation by the US is run by
a bunch of new dealers, and these guys look to
Japan and we're like, okay, so what if instead of fascism,
we did a new deal? And so they do a
bunch of stuff that's like really leftist, like example to

(02:14):
the big one that you could never do in the US.
They do this huge land reform package where they they
force all the landlords to own a certain amount of
land to like sell it to their tenants, and you
know it's there, there, there there, there's like there's like
two years seven where you know the US like is
actually kind of trying to make Japan like better and
more democratic and less ship But all of that comes

(02:37):
to an end in nine seven basically a result of
the Cold War. And this this is called the reverse
course and and signifies basically on American business interests like
take control of of of Japan. And you know, like
in nineteen fifty they do this thing called the Red
Purge where they like they just do they use mass

(02:57):
firing of like suspected communists and just yeah, and anyone
who's sort of like vague associate with the left sides
get fired from their jobs, both in the government and
private sector. This is this coordinated and if I'm not mistaken,
this is kind of around the time when there's also
a lot of protests against the American occupiers because a
bunch of g I. S A Are raping ladies. Yeah,
that's just like another major thing that's that that drives

(03:20):
a lot of like the the early protests um post
war in Japan. Yeah, they're also just like shooting people
and we'll we'll get more into soldiers just randomly murdering people.
But you know, I guess actually speaking of soldiers randomly
murdering people. So one of the reasons why fascism is
never really sort of like crushed in Japan is that

(03:43):
the head of G two, which the army's intelligence session,
is also a fascist. And you know this, Yeah, And
I said, like, this is not me calling Charles a
will or be a fascist, Like this guy is going
to go on to become like Franco's promoter in Europe,
like MacArthur calls him a fascist. Wow, the guy who

(04:05):
suggested new king cities in China to win the Korean War.
If that dude calls you a fascist, yeah, probably pretty
fucking fashy, you know. And and this is a big
issue because Willerby's job, like the actual job he is
there to do, is to like just completely obliterate the
rest of the Japanese fascist organizations in Japanese fascist societies.

(04:26):
And what he does instead is he used the G
twos kind of intelligence core to do union busting and
staging false flag attacks and blaming them on the Socialist Party.
And he does he does one other thing that's both
incredibly important to this story and important the Japanese history.
He decides he wants to start negotiating with the Yakuza
in order to sort of like he used him as
weapon against the left and in order to this Yeah

(04:47):
it's great, it's great. You can you can see where
this is going. He goes in version of this happened
in Italy with them off too right, and I think, yeah,
I I you know, the Italian Office is interesting because
every once in a while they like will back a
leftist like that's like how the sort of weird Red
Brigade stuff happened. But like the Yakuza, they're just fascist,
like there's no yeah, yeah, it's it's it's great and

(05:10):
yeah and so so Willoughby goes to Sukamo Prison, which
is like this is this is the giant war criminal
prison where the US is holding all the war criminals,
and he meets with Kishi's selm Mate. Now kishi selm
Mate is a guy named uh Kodama Yoshio, who is
he's like a giant yakas At boss. He's involved the
drug trade. He was also arrested for his plot his

(05:32):
part in the incredibly named League of Blood incident in
Nino which is his giant like fascist plots just assassinated
a bunch of business owners, little politicians, and you know,
so he gets arrested for this is nine two and
gets arrested and then he gets released and then you know,
because again the Japanese Empire just a giant cartel with
like a state attached to it. He spends the entire
war is Japan's like procurement guy, which means that he's

(05:55):
running around like basically trading heroin for like tungsten radium
guns and like other stuff to fight the war. And
so will it Be meets with this guy because he also,
you know, he sold amongst US connections and he has
like a hundred and seventy five million dollars that he'd
made from the war just like on him. And so
will it Be cuts a deal with Kodama that's like, okay,
I'll get you out of war crimes jail if you
become an American intelligence asset. And Kodama is like, this

(06:16):
is just all winds, and so he Kodama like immediately
like basically reforms this like I don't even I guess
you'd called like the United fronts of like crime and fascism.
It's like it's it's this group. It's this association of
like four hundred right wing like fascist and criminal organizations
that Kodama just like runs. And you know she's going
to spend the next thirty years basically just running Japanese

(06:40):
politics from the from the shadows and being basically like
the ocusive politics guy. Now she she how key she
escaped the news in n subject subdebate, Like so the
US doesn't charge him with the sex slavery crimes or
like the forced labor crimes. What he's charged with is
violent crimes against the peace, which is like starting an

(07:02):
offensive war. But like even that, even if you just
stick to that, like he is the guiltiest man in
human history, like he signed the declaration of war against
the US, Like he is conviction ever, Like yeah, that
really also ought to like just as a rule, if
you're like someone else who lives in that country and
a guy is like, hey, I wanna continue being influential.

(07:24):
You know me, I'm the guy who helped declare war
in the US, you would think that like everyone will
be like, well, we shouldn't be listening to anything you say. Yeah,
that didn't go very well you would think, and you
know that I've seen some stories that talk about like
some sort of like group of American business may interceded

(07:45):
on his behalf. I don't know how reliable that is.
The other explanation, and this, this is true regardless of
exactly what happened to Kishi, is that like the Tokyo
War Crimes Tribunal just kind of gave up like trying
to actually prosecute people because it was too much work
and it was like the Cold War was happening and
they just didn't care anymore. And so they do just
like a bunch of absolutely half ass proceedings, and you know,

(08:05):
they rushed like Tojo to the gallows and few people
all the people that wanted to kill, and then everyone
else just goes free. And so on Christmas Eve nineteen
forty eight, No Buska Kishi, the man who enslave Manchuria
and ran the fascist war machine, walked out of prison.
And because his grother, because his brother Fusher Prime Minister
Edoisaku Stok is the cabinet chief secretary, Kishi is immediately

(08:27):
driven to the Prime Minister's house. Yeah yeah, yeah, He's
immediately driven in from Minister's house where he trained his
trace his prison oranges for a business suit and utters
the immortal words quote, well, I guess we're all democrats now,
oh god, yeahs not good. Bad. And thus and thus

(08:52):
Nobuska Kishi, arch fascist bureaucrat, entered the new world of
electoral politics. God to see it. Yeah, it's like if
Werner von Brown had run for Congress. Yeah, yeah, as
opposed to just running NASA. Yeah, and you know, okay,
So initially he starts put putting together basically like the
old fascist base. So like, he gets some business owners,

(09:14):
he gets some like old school nineteen already one like
fascist terrorists he gets. He gets his friends at Nissan
are like, yeah, we loved this man. Sure he is
ship like when we're giving him all of her money
and the other you know, one of the other like
very disturbing things about what happened after the war. Is that?
So you know, I talked to the last episode she

(09:34):
Kishi found this thing called the Ministry Munitions, which is
just like the super super like ministry. It's all does
all this planning stuff and basically all of his old
like fascist or form bureaucrat buddies who in the Ministry
munitions keep their jobs and the whole the ministry just
turned into the Ministry of International Trade and Industry. And
you know, and Middy is that's called middy. Middy is
the core of Japanese post war development. And it's you know,

(09:55):
it's all the old fascist ship that that Kishi was
doing before, except the different is that it's it's now
being used to sort of like it is being used
to to to feel the American war machine and Korean
Vietnam instead of feeling Japanese war machine also in Korean Vietnam.
So yeah, this is purging the fascist is going well.
And when I say going well, I meet an entitive

(10:17):
to two. The US just like gave up any semblance
of trying to get rid of fascism and just unperfect
everyone they've purged, We pardoned a lot of them, We
gave the other's jobs. Yeah yeah, And and you know
the interesting with Kishi. So so the Prime Minister at
the time, Yoshida shi Guru, who was like this is
not a good guy, like he was also a fascist
for the war. But she tells the Americans do not

(10:39):
unpurge this guy, like, do not on perched Kishi and
it's extremely funny because you know I mentioned last episode,
like yo, she is like is related to Kishi, Like
you remember that uncle that Keshi really liked, who like
raised him for a little bit before. Yeah, so that
guy's daughter like is Yoshia's wife, Like they know each other,
Like she knows this guy's family. And she's still just like,

(10:59):
do not do this, do not let this guy come
back into politics. And the US is just like, no,
fuck it, Well he's back. She's back. Yeah, and you know,
so he of us. We're the United States. We don't
think things through Nope. Well I mean you know I
would say this, this works out great for the US,
um yeah, yeah, yeah, And you know, and so she

(11:23):
runs this this electoral federation thing in two and it
just gets like destroyed, like because two everyone's like, we
don't like this guy, and I mean he has like
he has a lot of money. He's like hundreds of
millions of YenS. So they get like whacked. And so
she starts like wheeling around the political scene going okay,
like what can I latch onto? And like he he
almost joins the right wing at the Socialist Party, which

(11:45):
would have been the single weirdest pit of it I've
ever seen in my life. But his brother convinced him
to join this the ruling sort of center right Liberal
party instead, and you know, like this is Yoshida's party,
and she like doesn't like Kishi, but the Liberal Party
is also falling apart, so he's like, okay, we need
keis she support? And so in three, Keishi joins the
part part joint joins the party and wins a seat

(12:08):
in the diet. Now, Yeshida, she is getting help from
a lot of places in that election because three is
the first post war election after American occupation. And if
you know anything about elections that happened in fascist countries
immediately after uh at the end of World War two,
you know that Yoshida is being backed by the CIA,
like yeah, yeah, And if you know anything that happened

(12:29):
about elections that happened in these countries after World War two,
you know that they didn't Yeah, well, you know, yeah,
this is interesting because it's like I think this story
is weirder than than like the Italian stories, like you know,
and and you know, so, so the way this is
funded is that at the beginning of the Korean War,
like the US needed a bunch of tungsten, and American

(12:50):
intelligence basically was like, we need to keep the Socialist
Party from literally ever taking power, like at all costs.
And so they talked to Kodamo's that yakuza guy from
before the or who will erb had broken out of
jail and if they get him to smuggle a bunch
of tungsten that have been left over from Japan's worldhere
two stockpiles to the US and then they like, they
pay him ten million dollars, and the CIA throws and
two point eight million dollars of their own, and that

(13:11):
money is like that that that money is how liberal
the Liberal Party like wins elections. It's great, it's great.
I mean it's gonna get fine. I bet we did
good stuff with all that tungsten. Yeah, we absolutely bombed
the ship didn't get bought fired into multiple countries worth
of civilian It's great. Okay, anyway, you know yeah now yeah,

(13:36):
So so you know, she gets selected as part of
the Liberal Party. But you know, Kishi is a back
stamiccent of a bitch, and he immediately turns on Yoshida
and like starts announcing him, and she kicks him out
of the party, but she's able to get this like
breakaway factions that join him, and he forms something called
the Democratic Party, and through a lot of incredibly complicated
electoral bullshit, like they're able to ouse Yoshida as Prime Minister.

(13:58):
And then she she has this giant plan to like
reunify the two wings of the like basically reunified the
two wings of the of the right. There's like his
wing as Democratic Party, and there's a Liberal Party, and
he has to reunify them. And the reason he wants
to do this because he wants to control it. But
the other reason that the reason it actually happens is
that the Socialist Party had split in like ninety eight

(14:19):
or something, and at five they come back together and
that just like freaks all the Conservatives out and they're
like okay, okay, fine, like will well you know, we'll
we'll we'll, we'll join this new party. And the new
party they form is called the Liberal Democratic Party. Now
this is important. The reason I spent so much time
talking about this is that the LDP is the single
most important party in Japanese politics, and in the sixties

(14:39):
six years since they were founded, the LDP has been
out of power for six they were in power for
the other chess Christ, Yeah, this is the Japan Japan
Is party state. Yeah, yeah, it's it's unbelievable. And you know,
and this is this is Kishi's party, like he is
the guy who single handedly built this party. This party
would not exist if Kishi had not gone into the
Liberal part Party like tore them apart and then forced

(15:02):
them to joint his breakaway faction. And you know, like
he's the reason why it exists. And this this party,
like this is the party that's the basis of the
entire modern Japanese political system. And yeah, it's great. He
she you know, he makes himself the general secretary of
of of the of the party and wins, you know,
and in his first election, he wins an absolute majority

(15:23):
in the Diet for the l d P. But you know,
instead instead of becoming prime minister himself, he spends his
time sort of biting, like building up American support for him. Now,
you know, we talked about that the CDP, I mean,
the CIA had been having involved with Liberal Party and
they've they've been heavily involved with Liberal Democratic Party like
from the start. Um, I mean this this is from
a New York Times article. We financed them, said Alfred c.

(15:45):
Lermer Jr. Who ran the CIA's Far East operations from
fifty eight. We depended on the LDP for information. He
said the CIA had used the payments both to support
the party and recruit informants from it from its earliest days.
And so the CIA, like there were king with the
LDP on like a candidate by candidate basis like this.
They like, the CIA has their own electoral guys, and

(16:07):
the electoral guys will like go to a candidate and go,
we need you to win this seat, and they'll like
hand like personally hand the money. And so you know
this is this is this is where you get the
first of the Doulas brothers entering entering the sort of
political arena. Yeah. And then and then it's like, actually,
I SI to let you before you also get the
second Doulas brother, Secretary of State John Foster Dulas, who

(16:29):
like basically straight up yeah, like he just like like
straight up is like the Liberal like he like tells
the Japanese like the Liberal Party will unify with the
Democratic Party and like if you don't like vague threat
insert here, and so John Foster Dulas directly responsible in
many ways. Both of the dolls Plars are responsible for

(16:52):
Kishi like forming the most important political party in the
history of Japan. And all of this ends with Kishi
becoming primary started and he he just immediately starts doing crime.
So yeah, yeah, I mean, you know, like this she's
she's like she's an incredible money launderer um from from

(17:14):
his time at Materia, like you know, and and she
he devises a scheme to like make some money off
of the reparations payments that Japan had to pay to
the countries that invaded after the war. And so he
basically what he does is he negotiates to have these
reparations payments like paid in Japanese goes in services, and
so he buys those Japanese goes in services with state
money from his own political allies. And then yeah, he turns, yeah,

(17:36):
it's great, it's great. He's he's using the reparations payment
to like pay off his like fascist buddies. And then
he does the exact same thing to like the Japanese
uh for an aid like projects. It's also all just key.
She's like buddies paying themselves and you know ke she
he also like he develops the system of like so
she like constantly rotaste to cabinets in the time that

(17:58):
he's prevued like constantly. And and the reason he's doing
this is because it's basically a way to buy off
his political allies. So like, you know, you give an
ally a cabinet minister, and then they get alluded a
bunch of money, and then once they've taken enough money,
you put in the next person, to put in the
next person, to put in the next person. And you know,
he's also just like he's not only doing this with
with like sort of politicians and like businessman, he's doing

(18:21):
this with the yakuza. So what if the the you know,
he he makes like a sworn yak is a guy
like his Ministry of Agriculture. And then there's the wonderfully
named Bumbouko oh No, who like, yeah, it's amazing and
he he she makes this guy the secretary generals Liberal

(18:41):
Democratic Party and he's and he stays in that position
until oh No dies in. And oh No is wonderful
because he he gives a speech to two thousand Yakuza
members in the sixties where like she just straight up
says like, yeah, I'm yakuza, but I do it by
being a politician instead of being a criminal. It's like
it rules and so, and you know, the other thing

(19:03):
is happening is that she's she's still you know, she
she's connected to sort of Kodama and Kodamas like whole
like Yakuza American intelligence network. And so when when Lacked
Martin is trying to get the Japanese Defense Force to
buy they're like F one O four star Fighter over
north Gremmen's h F eleven. F uh. Their guy in Japan,
who just happens to be an old G two intelligence

(19:25):
guy is like, I know a guy. And the guy
that he knows his Kodama, who he pays like millions
of dollars in bribes too, is like they give him
like a six hundred thousand dollar commission on every plane
they sell to get this sold to the Japanese government.
And so Kodama goes to his Yakasa connections in the government,
which is you know, because Yaka is a buddy and
newly mentioned LDP Secretary of General Obamako on No and
his good friend Nobusuka Kishi, and she she buys the Starfighter,

(19:49):
and Locky just like keeps Kodama on retainer for like
the next third the years. And you know, I want
to give people's sense of like how embedded this like
intelligence fascist yakuza network is in the LDP, because it's
not like this is the thing that's only Keishi and
it goes away, Like like in the nineteen seventies, Kodama
gets hired again by Lackey to do exactly the same thing,

(20:11):
and he pays out like several million dollars in bribes,
Like he bribes the Prime Minister again, and this time
he gets caught and you know, he and he took
so much money from like the Americans bribesling people that
like he managed to piss off both the far right
and the far left, and so you know, they start
protesting his house and on on. On May twenty, nineteen

(20:33):
seventy six, a fascist porn star named Miss Sua Maneo,
who had been a huge Kodama fanboy. Oh yeah, yeah,
it's great, it's great, It's gonna be a better yes.
So he rents a plane he like circles Kodama's house
like shouting pro imperial slogan into a microphone and then
like he screams Bonzai and flies the plane into his
house like this is this is in nineteen seventies, six Kodamas.

(20:59):
He's kind of to be honest, that's that's you know what,
you gotta give it up sometimes that critical support very cool,
undeniably rad moved. Dama lives through this. Yeah, but Karma
cops in nineteen seventies, like a fascist porn star kamakas

(21:21):
his house and he lived through it. It's just yeah,
I mean that is basically the end of him in politics.
But it's like it's it's great, it's great. Yeah, that's yeah,
it's it's a this is yeah, this is a this
is a profoundly fascist party, profoundly fascist people in it.
And yeah. So yeah, so so back at back in seven,

(21:45):
she's dealing with like his first real political scandal, which
is that a on jenuinely three fifty seven, a U. S.
Soldier named Girard like basically just for fun, shot an
empty grenade cartridge out of a grenade launch her at
a Japanese woman who was like collecting shell casings and
military based self for scrap and she dies. Yeah, and

(22:07):
you know, and this this pisces off everyone in Japan,
and you know, especially it's like she's she's revealed later
she's a mother of six, and everyone just loses their mind.
And eisen you know, and and this is shouge fight
over it, and Eisenhower wants to try him an American court.
And Eisenhower like is forces is like literally forced to

(22:27):
like try him in a Japanese court because like if
if you try to do in an American court, like
people would have literally like brick by brick dismantled every
milk and like American military based on the in the islands.
And so she she's made concern here is that this
is gonna like funk up his political stuff. And so
he he develops his plan and where where he He's

(22:47):
gonna go to to Eisenhower and make a bunch of
bands about this US Japan Security treaty and this thing.
This is like one of the other things that's been
causing protests is that this treaty is like SNA one originally,
and it's it's really weird, like it lets the US
like send troops into Japan to put down quote internal
riots or disturbances. Preaches. Yeah, there's and the earth like

(23:11):
in terms of like a peace treaty, and the other
thing is the lesson lesson and less the US involved
itself in civil wars, and like you know, in a
bunch of Japanese commentary pen like there's like no precedent
for this, Like there's never been a peace treaty that
like between two free nations that allows this. So you know,
when you get these massive protests, like people people people

(23:31):
like build giant wooden fortresses and manned them for like
forty years in the middle of American artillery ranges like that,
there's all of this stuff, and you know, Eisenhower used
with Kishi and is like and Kishi just goes, look
like you have to revise this treaty in Eisenhower's like okay,
And so she she like steaks basically his entire political

(23:52):
career on on on revising this this US Japan security treaty,
which it comes down as on po and you know,
like it really looks like he's going to like pull
this off. He's gonna get treated revisions, He's gonna be
incredibly popular and tell she she just like she just
she's got like that extra bit too fascist. And the

(24:14):
extra bit too fascist. Was she tried to pass something
called the Police Duties Execution Law, which is like, yeah,
that's that just already seems like we're on a bad start. Yeah, yeah,
like like this this is a police law so fascist
that like his other fascist hardliner buddies like in the
LDP are like, we won't let you pass this because
you'll get you'll get eaten alive. Yeah. Basically, like what

(24:37):
it does is it it lets it lets the Japanese.
It would have let the Japanese police do warrtletz warrtless
searchers and seizures and you know, and everyone's like, okay,
so this is just like this is this, this is
this is pre war fascist him again, so you know,
and you know, you know, and I think I think
he thinks I can't get away with this because he's
on a bunch of other like fascist culture ward sort
of stuff. Like he he does this thing where he

(25:00):
makes everyone take these like moral lessons and like all
these students take like moral lessons and has these like
evaluations of teachers because he thinks there's like they're too
communists and once fascist propaganda like taught instead. And you know,
I want to make it clear there is no parallel
between this and anything that is happening in the US.
Right now, go back to sleep. There's nothing here. Everything

(25:20):
is gonna be fine. It's like yeah, no, no, No
one in the US is raging a bunch of political
campaigns about what teachers are teaching in school because I
think it's too leftist. No, that has not happened. But
you know what does happen in the US. That's right,
that's that's God willing the only thing that will ever
happen in this country in the future going forward, because

(25:42):
when you get right down to it, what else do
we need but products, services, and of course the blissful, gooey, moist,
sticky what come drenched? Products of products and services? What? Okay, well,
let's just go to ads. Ah, we're back, okay, Chris,

(26:12):
please continue, Yes, Chris, please continue. Sophie's angry at me
because she doesn't like it when I say come drenched
while leading into an ad. Not at all. I don't
think anybody enjoyed that. And if you did, please tell us.
I think our sponsors enjoy it. So oh no, I
mean it could be anissan. We we could On this episode, yeah,

(26:36):
absolutely inappropriate. So keh Yeah, so she's gotten a bit
too fascist. And he also he does this thing where
so so the way that like the norms of the
Japanese political system worked was that like you're supposed to
be before you pass a bill, you're supposed to talk
to the opposition about it, and then they're supposed to
be a debate, and she's just like yeah, funk that,
Like he just like Snap introduces it without like he

(26:57):
basically he takes a snap vote to extend the diet
and just like Snap forces everyone to try to vote
on it. And this is like maximally bad politics by Kishi.
Like you know, it's like the norms of democracy are
like actually important to Japan, and they're important because this
is this is a country that was a decade and
a half ago literally fascist, and Kissi is trying to
pass this bill that is bring fascism back, and so

(27:19):
you know, everyone gets Piste off, Like three of his
cadet ministers resigned, and this also pulls the whole left
together and they formed something called the People's Council and
they start they start a general stripe shop the bill
and Keishi and then and they win and Keishi forced
to pull the bill and it you know, and it
makes it way weaker politically. And when when he tries
to get his security like up on POS the Security

(27:41):
Treaty ratified by by the Diet, those same groups form
this even larger group called the People's Counsel for Preventing
Revision to Security Treaty. And this thing is massive's got
a it's a hundred and thirty four different organizations in it. Um.
You know, the biggest of them of the Japanese Socialist Party,
the General Council of Trade Unions in Japan or very
powerful trade union UH federation uh. And then there's Zeno Kadran,

(28:04):
which is the Japanese radical student movement to we will
we will talk more about in a little bit. Um. Yeah,
that Commonist Party is also sort of involved in this,
but like they don't want to let them join for
political reasons initially. But you know, the everything about this,
like it's not just like leftist orgs like Japan's Professional
Association Association for like Thespians is in this coalition. Like yeah,

(28:26):
there's you know, there's a lot of people who are
like there's a lot of groups that are like not
inherently political groups that are in this and yeah, yeah,
and it's you know, this is basically this is the
product of like all the stuff that Left has been
doing for the past basically since the war ended. And
so you know, and these guys point out that, you know,
so she is able to get the clause out about

(28:46):
the US interfering to surpressed rioties civil wars, but there's
still a clause that says the US allowed to send
troops to deal with quote all threats to Japan's peace
and security, which you know, yeah, threats to peace and
security like people doing politics we don't agree with. Yep, yep, yeah, okay, yeah,

(29:08):
it's yeah. So, so so People's Council starts staging these like
enormous protests and you know, they go on for a
few months, it doesn't really do anything until Zokan, who's
the radical student organization, goes rogue. And the important than
is that like so ay, they're not directly tied to
any of the parties and be they are like way
more willing to fight the cops than anyone else here.
And so the People's Council is planning is like massive

(29:29):
series of protests. But so Gokaran looks at like, you know,
this is like their eighth Giant protests, and Karan goes, okay,
well those did nothing, so this one was don't at
you anything either. So they form a plan to storm
the Japanese Parliament building, and you know, the People's Council
like finds out about this plan, and they're like trying
to stop to go Arend from doing it, but the
Arend like negotiates with like the Tokyo's like trade unions,

(29:50):
and they're able to just do it anyways. So you know,
five hundred thousand people across Japan, like eighty thousand people
in Tokyo show up to this protests and like in
the middle of the march, so go Caron just like
charge origins the police barricades, beats back the police and
like forces their way into the diet and takes control
of it, and you know, and then they hold it
for like a day and they leave and people people

(30:10):
do not like this, like the you know, like the
even like the Socialist and Japanese part Communist Party like
condemned them for it, and you know, public opinion turns
against them, and there's this whole like disaster and you know,
and sing Karran gets like a lot of ship for
this because you know, like they stormed that, they stormed
the diet building. But you know it's worth remembering that

(30:30):
like everyone else, like everything else, and where modern factually
was doing just like didn't work. And What's Karan did
here was drew an enormous amount of attention to the movement.
And this is and you know that that's actually that's
a vital part of like what happens next. And what
happens next is that the Socialist Party, the Socialist Party
does like I think, like the funniest set of political
tricks I've ever seen in my life, where you know,

(30:52):
like they have they have this whole thing they want
to do where they're trying to just like they're trying
to delay the vote because I think if they delay
the vote fast enough, like long enough, Kishi will just
like get like kick out of the premiership ship by
his own party. And you know, and this they're able
to drag this on until like uh nineteen sixty and
she she like you know, like she she's own party
won't let him do a floor vote on the bill

(31:13):
because like they're mad at him, and so on an
equal fourth nineteen seventy, he creates the on Post Special
Redific Special Measures Committee from loyal DP members, which was
called the nickname the on Po Kama Kaze Squad, which is,
you know that this is his attempt to try to
figure out like how to like get through all of
like get this like treaty through before his support collapse
and like the diet session ends, and like literally the

(31:35):
day the session is gonna end and he's gonna lose
his opportunity to force his vote through. H he he
starts doing his plan. And that's the Socialist Party like, no,
something's bad is going to happen. So that they hire
a bunch of like quote unquote secretaries who they they
they hire them and they bring them in the building
and they barricade the office of the Speaker of the
Lower House to keep him from leaving his office. Where

(31:57):
something that like I wish like our politicians were like
it's like man and our pol our politics just like
our parliament's so boring. Like nobody nobody's barricading the Speaker
of the House like in their office. It's very sad,
you know, and and this and the speaker like tells
them to move and they don't, and so he calls
the police to remove the socialist diever Is by force.

(32:18):
And this is a huge deal, um, like this is
this is the second time ever that the police have
ever entered the Diet chamber and it's the only time
before sense they've ever like physically removed Diet members. And
so you know, this whole thing is being being being
like broadcasting l TV. And there's there's the police just
like dragging these like parliament members out of this building,
like kicking and screaming and like you know, and and

(32:38):
they catch like the speaker like fighting his way to
the rostroom and he calls a vote to extend the
diet session like two minutes before it's supposed to end,
and like he wins the vote, and there's the camera.
The camera is like it shows, it pans, it shows
all the LDP like ministers clapping, and then it pans
and it pans to the other half the diet and
they half to the the Diet. Every single person in the

(32:59):
opposition is gone. There's none of them are there. And
because the opposition is completely gone, Keis, she makes this
like unexpected snap vote to force the treaty through with
no debate, and you know, because of some like legal bullshit,
she's able to figure out a way that like the
treaty will still go into effect even without the Upper
House approving it as long as they just stay in session.
And the Japanese public like just they're unbelievably piste off.

(33:21):
Like even the pro treaty people look at like the
ex fascist guy like removing the opposition party by force
and holding a previously unknown Yeah, like like like they
watched like all of this. It's just on TV and
it's like like it sets off three general strikes, and

(33:42):
you know at this point that the protests basically become
an anti quishing movements, and like everyone in the country
like including that the conservative newspapers are calling for him
to resignedly because the business leaders turn on him to
the point where like they start fundings and Gokuduren like
they start funding the communist student movement through like weird
organized crime people because they're like Santo Karen's mainstream faction
is anti is anti Kishi, like yeah, and that's how

(34:07):
like wild this and you know, and like the other
thing is like like ordinary people just like start showing
at the protests and so like like thirty million people,
which is like a third of the total population shows
up to like an anti Kishi protest between sixty Jesus Christ. Yeah,
it's like it piste off and this is this is
like this is the defining events of like the sort

(34:28):
of like the media postwar generation, like this is the
thing they remember. Um. Like so we'll get to this
in a little bit. But Shinzo Abe, who was the
longest serving Japanese prime minister, he he came out office
like last year. So he's Kishi's grandson and he talks
about like, yeah, he learned politics like like while he
was on Kishi's knee and Kishi was telling him about
what was happening in the streets. Yeah, it's yeah, that's

(34:53):
not great. And you know, you know this part though,
is extremely like that there's there there's a great story
about just like is kindergartener like on the street who
asked the famous political sciences? Is she Takashi? Why doesn't
Kishi just resign already like he's lost the kinder gardeners. Yeah,
and you know the other thing. The other thing is
happening with this is that so Eisenhower's supposed to show

(35:15):
up in Japan um on the nineteenth so he can
be there for for the twenty one, which is supposed
to he's goming to this giant visit that is supposed
to be like the hundredth anniversary of diplomatic relations between
the US and Japan. And this is also the treaty
goes into effect. And so you know, you on June fourth,
there's the largest general strike in Japanese history, and then
on the fifteenth there's another general strike at a six

(35:36):
point four million people in it. And at this strike,
you know, a bunch of like street performers, artists and
writers like go to like give a petition to the
to the parliament, and they all get attacked by this
like giant fascist mob like wooden poles with nails in them,
and the moms is changing because he will kill you
and beat and we and beat them dead. Yeah. Like

(35:58):
eight people are in and again like these are like
these are like like theater actresses, fashions and stuff. It's like, ah, yes,
we will, we will beat these theater actresses and poets
and this this this, this, this will make us strong. Yeah,
eleven people are injured and eleven and eight people are
injured and leven people get hospitalized, and meanwhile Cokaran is like,

(36:22):
we're going to storm the diet again, and you know, yeah,
well but one of these this time it does work.
And it works because so they fight the cops for
a long time and it's kind of a stalemate and
the compstitute is kind of attacked. But in this kind
of attack, they trample a Tokyo University undergrad name Comba
Minchiko to death, and that, yeah, that causes the crowd

(36:42):
to just like go wild because you know, the police
just trampled a child to death. And so four thousand
students storm the diet and they hold it into one
am in these like running street battles with the police,
and this is where like like everyone turns on Kishi,
like the company sation of the cops like murdered a
girl and they beat up a bunch of theater actresses.

(37:05):
It's just too much. And at this point it becomes
clear that, you know, if Eisenhower comes to Japan, they
won't be able to keep him safe because they can't
hold the Yeah, that that could be a little bit
of a faux pas for Japan, you know, and and
you know Kishi. Kishi like really wants us to happen,

(37:25):
because like Eisenhower visit in the treaty, like this is
this is like all this is like this is this
is everything he's been working for since he became Prime minister.
And so he has this plan to like mobilize the
self defense forces, which is what the Japanese armies called
because euphemisms. Yeah, but she so he tries to like
he has his plan to like mobilize an entire division

(37:47):
of like the army and march them through the streets
to clear the streets and get Eisenhower in, and even
like his like his his defense chief and the head
of the National Police is like, you can't do this,
like there will literally be an uprising. And so she's
like she she undeterred, is like okay, so I'm gonna
I'm gonna go to my Yakusa contacts. So he goes
to Kodama and he has he has his plan to
get eighteen thousand like Yack is a hardliners, like ten

(38:09):
thousand guys who worked for Yaka is like street vendors
and ten thousand like veterans, right we cult members to
clear the streets and like he's gonna give them, like
the government's going to give them like trucks and like
food and first aid teams and like command post and
two point three million dollars and like airplanes and helicopters
that couldn't end badly sure, yeah, well, and even his
cabinet is like, Kishi, you can't do this, like you're

(38:33):
gonna start a civil war again, and a lot of
fascists being like, boy, seems like that's too much fascism. Yeah, yeah, Kishi,
Kishi is like Kishi is the fascist that other fascists
are like, whoa hey, now, like this's just too much fascism.
But you know what's not too much fascism, Chris, Unless
it's a black rifle coffee then it's another black rifle

(38:56):
coffee head or an ex On mobile ad or um
one of those weird Christian cult ads we've been kind
of getting. There was a literal ad for the California
Highway Patrol. Yeah, definitely an ad for chips. That's fascism.
So I don't know, I've lost I've I've lost the

(39:17):
point that I was trying to make fascist ads. But
it's time for ads and we're sorry if it's something
random we didn't select and it's horrifying. We do apologize. Uh,
we live in an engine of pain. Here's some ads,
Uh good stuff. Well we had some ads. All right.

(39:42):
I want to hear how this all gets resolved. Now
that this guy has been like, what if we? What
if we? What if we? What do we? Twist that
fascism dial up to eleven? And all of his friends
were like, that kind of seems a little bit high
because it seems like we've pissed everybody off with all
of the violence we've been doing. Yeah, yeah, you know
it ends. I'm not gonna say well, but you know,

(40:06):
eventually backs down and it's just like okay, Eisenhower like,
if you come, we can't protect you. And so Eisenhower
Kansas visit and on the day of the trees is
supposed to be ratified, three hundred thousand people show up
around the diet in Tokyo. But you know, they can't
actually stop the tree from being ratified, and so, you know,
because the tree is being ratified automatically, there's something they
can do, and so they sort of they stand there

(40:27):
and you know, it's a very sort of grim scene.
Everyone's wearing black arm bands, like black bandanas to celebrate,
you know what sort of mourn like the death of
the protester. But you know, there's nothing they can really do.
Like the next day there's a general strike and there's
like some more protests the day after. But she she,
she she has the final document he needs to sign,
like smuggle to him in a candy box so it

(40:47):
couldn't be stolen by protesters. Yeah, and so he signs it,
and you know, like the next month on on July fifteen,
Kish is forced to resign and the movement just collapses.
So you know, it's it's it's a mixed bag. Like
on the one hand, they got Kishi. This is this
is only consequence that Keishi's ever going to face his

(41:08):
entire Like that's not quite true. It's one of exactly
two consequences ever going to face in his entire life,
and he survives both of them. And but you know,
on the other hand, like this treaty still went through,
and you know, the sort of left that had built
out to stop this becomes a chord of a demoralized
and they spritan, they splinter and fragments and yeah, and
she you know, because this is the end of Kishi's

(41:31):
like mainstream political career. Um. But you know, he he
doesn't go away. He still he sort of stays around
behind the scenes as this like it's kind of like
this fixer and you know, and he he does, he
does a few more things at the end of the war.
The end of the sounds like he's kind of nixoned

(41:53):
a little bit where he's he's got some he's got
some soft influence, but also nobody wants to really be
seen in public with the guy. Yeah, well, okay, I
will say that there are a few people who do
want to be be seen in public with this guy,
and the biggest of those is called the Unification Church,
which is just like shit, yeah, yeah, fanatically anti communist

(42:15):
religious pates. Yeah that that allegedly kidnaps and brainwashes children
allegedly allegedly. Yeah, and Keish like so ke she she
is the guy responsible for bringing these people like into
the LDPS base, like like the head of the head
of this guy the party's got named Moon and he
like she gets evicted convicted of tax fraud in the

(42:36):
nineties or in the eighties and nineties. But you know,
there's a thing in Japan. By the end, the guys
convicted in the U S and there's a thing in
Japanese law where like, if you've been convicted of a crime,
you can't enter the country now. So this should have
stopped moon from coming too Japan. But like the Vice president,
you know, even like even even in the nineties, like
the Moonies are still like so firmly embedded in the

(42:57):
LDP that even in the nineties, like like the vice
the Vice President of Japan personally intercedes and allows him
to enter the country illegally, and it's yeah, it's great,
this is this, this is what kes she's doing, and
it sort of like last days. Yeah, and you know,
one other thing, one very weird thing happens at the

(43:17):
very end of this, which is that the day before
he resigns, she's at this like dinner gala, and this
dude stabs him like six times, and then he gives
this extremely weird quote that was like like it's something
it's something like, yeah, I stabbed him six times, but
if I was trying to kill him, he would be dead.

(43:38):
And there's there's all this and nobody actually knows why
he tried to assassinate Kishi or didn't try to assassinate
him and said just stabbed him six times. Um, there's
a lot of theories, like the guy was like an
old fascist from like the thirties. He's like sixty at
this point, and you know, his stated response was that
he talked to the family of like the the girl

(44:00):
that had died. But it doesn't make any sense because
like this guy is a fascist. And there's another theory
that like this is a yak is a hit because
um Bambaka oh no, like was piste off that Kishi
wouldn't help them be prime ministers. So he was just like, Okay,
I'll send the guy to stab you. I don't know that. Yeah,
it's it's a lot of very weird theories about this,

(44:21):
but you know, it's sort of unclear what happens, and
you know, Kishi Kishi survives this. And you know, even
even though the LDP like is now Kishi lists quote unquote,
the structures and political organizations that he put in place
are you know, they're they're still here to this day.
And that brings us to Kishi's grandson, Shinzo Abe, the

(44:42):
longest surfing prime minister in Japanese history. Who uh finally
left office last year because of an ulcer and his rectum,
which you know, critical support did. No, it's not good
when I laugh in unison with Robert. Sometimes good things

(45:06):
happen to good people. Yeah, Now is a member of
a group called Nippon Kagai, which is a fascist group that,
according to a US Congressional report, believes that quote, Japan
should be applauded for liberating much of East Asia from
western colonial powers, that the nineteen forty six and nineteen
forty eight Tokyo War crimes tribunals were illegitimate, and that

(45:27):
the killings by Japanese troops in the nineteen thirties seven
n Jing massacre were exaggerated or fabricated. And they also
openly call for a restoration of the monarchy and institution
of Shinto is a state religion. And and Abbe himself
has like repeatedly stated that Japanese military sex slaves. You
use the term comfort woman because you know, the euphemisms
helping to de nihilism. But he, you know, he like

(45:51):
has said on multiple occasions that these sex slaves were
never forced to be raped. Yeah, yeah, yeah, you know,
And he's also he's also a big champion. He's like
the the champion of like so one of the she's
like other signature issue when he was a politician was
rearming Japan because he was piste off that like Japan
couldn't still be a like and when I said to

(46:13):
help me in defense works like he wants like he
wants Japan. He wants Japan again to have an effective
military that can invade ship. Yeah yeah, yeah, it wasn't
one that he wants to be an empire again. And
Obbe is also like a giant rearmamant person. Yeah. And
he also he visits something called a shrine called the

(46:33):
Yasukune Shrine, which is the shrine just like soldiers who
died serving the Japanese emperor. And you know this, the
shrine has this this thing called the Book of Souls,
which like has the name of like everyone who died
like serving for the emperor or whatever is like Chilian
people in it. Now in this book are a thousand
and sixty eight people who were convicted of war crimes

(46:54):
and also the fourteen Class A war criminals who died
were executed who are also considered murders. And this includes
to Joe, It's it's yeah. And you know, now, for
very obvious reasons, China and Korea, and both the Koreas,
this is like the one of the few things both
Korea's like really completely agree on is that they get
absolutely piste off about prime minisioners visiting their shrine, visiting

(47:17):
you know, a shrine to the people who enslaved, rape
and murdered tens of billions of their people. But you know,
I'll did it anyways, because modern Japan is Kishi's Japan.
Despite the protests, despite the strikes, despite a third of
the country taking to the streets, but he won. The
only thing he didn't get was the armament, and so
you know, the mass rapes and Korean Vietnam will be
left to the Americans and not the Japanese. But we
all now live in the world that Kishi created. Yeah, right,

(47:41):
a happy story. Yeah, you know, I promised at the
at the beginning of this episode, at the end of
the episodes, I would ask you, is this the worst
rehabilitation of a fascist war criminal in terms of like
the actual amount of power he got? Probably? Yeah, I
think I think probably, um, Because yeah, you've got like

(48:03):
guys like von Braun, but like von Braun was bad
and it's fucked up that he get rehabilitated. But the
thing he went on to do wasn't bad. It was
putting helping to put a man on the moon, which
is like fine, um, and you've got I don't know.
There's that Nazi general who the CIA used to set
up Aspy Ring and he did some fucked up stuff,
but I think had certainly had less geopolitical influence than

(48:27):
this guy. Yeah, I think this. This is definitely I'm
racking my brain, but I'm not coming up with with
one to top it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Should have started
this episode with what's rehabilitating my fascists? That would have
been better. And it turns out the what is my government?

(48:49):
You love to see it? You love to see it? Well, Chris,
that is that the entire thing? What do you what
do you? What do you Chris about that? To be honest,
what do you good? What do you? What do you?
What do you? What do you think Nicholas Cage's hair
smells like Nicholas Cage's hair? Yeah? What do you think
his hair smells like? I've been looking at a picture

(49:11):
of him for the last three hours that explains so much. Chris,
you have, I have, I have a I don't. I don't.
I don't think it smells very good because, like you know,
isn't Nicolas, because isn't he constantly like doing bad movies
because he needs money for just like like an elephant happening.
He's like some weird No, he's addicted to buying dinosaurs. Cope,

(49:34):
that's what it is. Yeah, yeah, okay. I think his
hair smells like nail polished remover with a hint of pop. See.
I was gonna say fake apples, but like the specific
fake apple smell that they put in like agricultural products,
like medicine for horses, Like i'ver mectin fake apples. That's fair,

(49:57):
hint of poop. I don't know. We'll see if you've
smelled Nicolas Cage. Hit us up on social media, let
us know, tell us who's right. One of us has
to be. You might be right, though. I think it
might smell like that really bad apple flavored like alcohol. Also, yeah,
a little bit of that, a little bit of that.
All right, Well, we'll see. We'll see someone out there

(50:19):
has smelled Nicolas Cage's hair, and they'll let us know
who's right, Let us know that's really really that way.
We're not just we're not just staring at a photo
of Nicholas that because it was. It's been a long day, Sophie.
Everybody needs something to, you know, perk them up. Halfway point.

(50:40):
Look at the midway point of the day. Some people
have another cup of coffee. Some people stare wordlessly at
a photograph of Nicolas Cage while their friend talks about
war crimes for three hours. Chris, where can people follow you? Uh? Yeah,
you can follow me being extremely depressed about this at
me see h R three on Twitter. Um if you

(51:03):
want to read a slightly less depressing thing that I wrote, Um,
I wrote a piece for laus On that's like about Tieneman,
which I swear is less depressing than this, if only
sort of marginally. Um yeah yeah. I also, I I work.
I work for cool Zone now, so I'm on a

(51:23):
lot of a lot of other things. Yeah. You can't
get rid of me now, nope. So have a good
day and remember tell us what Nicholas Cage's hair smells like. Yeah,