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

Mia talks with Alisa Mahjoub, a former member of the Unification Church, about the Moonies and the man who killed Shinzo Abe.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Prime Minister Abe was a champion of democracy and a
firm believer that no economy, society or country can achieve
its full potential if women are left behind. I am
shocked and devastated by his assassination, a loss for Japan
and our world. J K. This is assassination week. WHO's

(00:26):
assassinating my ex x former prime minister of Japan? It's
it's assassination week. It is, it is. I I would
kind of I would somewhat ving gloriously argue the capstone
of assassination week. It is the episode about the assassination
that started at all Um, and by by that I
mean we are, we are, we're here talking about the

(00:47):
assassination of Juan Shinzo Abe Um. This is this is
going to be a slightly different episode, both to the
rest of assassination week episodes and to the other episod
we did on the asassinationations in Abbe Um, partly because,
basically the day after, with within about two days of

(01:10):
the our episode, original episode about the Abbe assassination dropping Um,
there was confirmation that the reason abbe was killed was
because of his connection to an organization called the Unification Church,
which is I think better locially known as the Mooneyes Um.
People might have listened to the very, very long episode

(01:30):
I did about it, but yeah, there is. There is
an enormous amount going on there and this is something
that fortunately, we have experts for. And Yeah, so, so
joining us to talk about this assassination and the moonies
and sort of, I don't know, the sort of weirdness

(01:54):
and the horror around everything that's been happening around this
assassination is anti fascist researcher Elisa, as you yeah, Alisa's
a anti fascist researcher specializing in cults WHO's working with
deprogramming imperialism, which is a collective of x Moonies who've
been documenting just sort of all of the ship the
moonies have been getting up to and trying to get

(02:16):
more awareness of really just incredible array of awful stuff
that they've been doing. Yeah, so a Lisa, welcome to
the show. Hi, thanks for having me. I really appreciate it. Yeah,
and thank you. Thank you so much for joining us
for this. I don't know why I'm saying us, as
if if there's someone other than this episode and you,
but you know, old old habits die hard. I guess.

(02:37):
I guess I've inherited the royal we which is not great.
Oh well, so someone will have to assassinate me soon.
That's fine, sometimes it happens. I hope it doesn't happen
to you, though. Yeah, that would not be the best
assassination target, honestly. Yeah, so, okay, I guess the place

(03:01):
I think we should start is talking about what we've
found out about this assassin in the last sort of
a few months since this happened, which is that when
when the initial police reports came out, there was a
bunch of very, very murky stuff about basically the police
were like this wasn't a political killing, it was about

(03:23):
some organization, and I think me and you and every
single other person who was like even tangentially where of
Japanese politics saw them say like an organization and was like,
Oh no, there's like a one in three chances of
the booties. Yeah, that's yeah. I saw like when they
said something about like organization or religious organization, I was
like yeah, it was probably is. Yeah, yeah, and it

(03:50):
turns out that okay, so the assassin is a man
named Tsuya Yamagami, who was a navy veteran Um. Yeah,
made a a series of unbelievably based and incredibly wild
fire arms with which she assassinated the foreign per minister Japan. What,
what we've learned since then is that the reason he

(04:12):
did this was that his basically, like his family and
his life were completely destroyed by his mom falling into
the colts, and by her I mean she, she, she,
she gave this Colt set like something like seven hundred
thousand dollars. Yeah, like roughly seven U S dollars. Yeah,

(04:36):
like literal, like like multiple fortunes, like she, she, she
gave them all of her money and then she sold
the company that like she had been running to give
them more money. And, yeah, what what? What, basically, as
best we can tell, has happened was that he was
he was looking at a way to like get back

(04:58):
at the booty's Um. And basically the problem was he okay, so,
he didn't want to kill civilians, which I think is admirable,
and he couldn't figure out a way to like get
at any of the like individual church leaders, and so
he's the thing he decided to do was go after
Shinzo Abe because, as we're gonna get to in a
in a bit Enzo Abbey lots of connections with the

(05:20):
Unification Church, a thing that all of the people like
writing glowing obituaries about him just like incredibly don't want
to mention. Yeah, it's been left out of a lot
of ship yeah, and okay, so I guess to back
up a little bit, Um, can for for for people

(05:44):
who sort of don't know what this is or for
people who like, may have heard of Abdy to refresher,
can you talk a bit about what? What? What? What
the Unification Church actually is? And Yeah, we can, we
can sort of go from there. Yeah, definitely. Okay. So
the Unification Church, or the Moonys, uh, they are a
quote unquote, new religious movement or pretty much a cult

(06:08):
you know, they're very culty and they're a cult Um,
and they were started by some young moon who was
originally from what is now North Korea. Uh. And so basically,
this guy, he claims he's the Messiah, has this originally
it started out as like a sex cult um under

(06:29):
a practice called, I think, Picarum, which is basically, uh,
he was supposed to quote unquote, clans a woman's like
relationship to God by having sex with her so he
assaulted a number of people doing this stuff. Um. And
the church over the years has sort of like developed

(06:50):
into more of a multinational corporation, uh, and political movement. Uh.
And it has a lot of tools, I mean a
lot of ties and connections to various governments around the world,
including Japan. Um. And it's basically, at the end of
the day, a tool of United States imperialism. Um, there's

(07:11):
some pretty pretty direct ties to like the Korean CIA. Yeah, yeah,
as well as the U S C I. A. Um. So, yeah,
it's like this big umbrella of like groups, different NGOs,
different like businesses, a bunch. It's just a whole conglomeration
of things, right. Um, but very extremely virulently anti Communist. Uh. And,

(07:37):
you know, involved in some of some of the greatest
hits of the last century, like Iran Contra. Uh. Yeah,
for us. And when? When? When? When we say involved
in a rand contract? Like, okay, there's lots of people
who are like sort of involved in the ran contract.
The movies like there. There is a dec there you

(07:58):
can do. You can make the arguments that if the
Mooney's had not been doing what they were doing in
Nicaragua around contras wouldn't have been able to happen because
the civil war would have ended like they like when, when,
when I say like, when we say like, like they
were involved in the around contract, like they are like
on the ground giving people guns and money and keeping
like literally literally keeping guerrilla organizations and like terrorist groups

(08:19):
like in the war who wouldn't have been able to otherwise. Yeah,
and then, and then also, and that's that's the thing,
like they did to around contrast, right, because they did.
They did the second around contract with like with, you know,
when the CIA actually got money, but they were also
doing the same thing like before that, when they in
the sort of stop gap period with the CIA wasn't
able to fund the contrast. So, yeah, these guys are

(08:40):
route for that money. And Yeah, so it's yeah, they're very,
very heavily involved. Like basically anywhere there is an anti
communists squad, like in the world, you can find the
moonies funding in though. Okay, I wasn't. Weirdly, the only
one I the only one I haven't directly been able
to find is I haven't been able to directly find

(09:03):
any evidence that they were like that. Like specifically, they
were helping Pinot like helping pl okay, they were involved
in Operation Condor and they were like doing ship with that.
I haven't found evidence they like directly had any conversations
with Pinochet, but that's he's like the the only person
you can say that about. And they probably did at
some point, like but, you know, like a frail straws yeah,

(09:24):
like they probably did. Like, I mean again, like they
were they were there with a frail strawsner. They were
there with, Um, what, what's that guy's name? UH, Claus Barbie,
the cocaine. Yeah, yeah, I can't, I can't. I can't
remember that, the name of the guy. Yeah, there was.
There was a guy and believe you, who got installed
for like a year that he got could now. Um, yeah, no,
I I know who you're talking about, but I'm also

(09:44):
forgetting his name at the moment. Yeah, it's funny because
he's like he's one of these guys where it's like,
you know, I had a professor I took I took
a Syrian history class in college, right and Um, there,
I think it's I really should if I was saying
it's that really should know the year. But there, there, there,
there's a year in like the fifties in Syria, where

(10:04):
there's like four cups in one year and there were
like two guys who were, technically speaking, like had controller. serially,
he was like, I'm just not even telling you these
guys names because they get overthrown him like two months
and like that's that's, that's this guy. Yeah, but yeah,
this is a very sort of very serious and deeply
scary like death squad funding machine. Yeah, and that, you know,

(10:31):
has continued to today pretty much. So, yeah, and okay,
I think like yeah, so, yeah, there's sort of the
dust squad side of it. Um, the other thing I
wanted to ask you about is about like what it's
like being in the church and what it's like sort

(10:53):
of I don't know, because I think, I think a
big part of what's happening with this story is to
a Yamagami like basically watching his family get sucked in
and not being able to do anything about it, and
I was wondering if you could talk a bit about yeah,

(11:14):
I mean sort of like what, what? What? What? What
it's like being in the church and then what it's
like just sort of watching it destroy people. Yeah, so, Um,
I was born and raised in the church. I left
when I was around seventeen. It was not it was
not nice. Um, pretty much everybody I talked to who

(11:37):
is also left feels the burden of this like perfect
abuse that we had to endure. Um, it was a
bleak time for me. Uh, you know, there's just so
much pressure put on members to follow leadership, to do

(11:59):
out outrageous amounts of fundraising. They have a bunch of
these fundraising teams, right, and they'll they'll go out and
they'll sell things and live in a van, occasionally stopping
at like different church centers. Um Too like, uh, you know,
sleep for the night or whatever. They don't eat well, UH,

(12:19):
they don't get enough sleep, you know, like you're constantly
around other people, basically like all all of the methods
of psychological torture you can do on a person, right, Um,
which was, you know, pretty standard throughout the whole movement. Um,
I was lucky enough not to go on any of
these fundraising teams because I left before Um, that could happen.

(12:42):
But Um, I still, you know, definitely feel like the psychological,
you know, fallout from that and it's something I'll be
healing with, healing from for the rest of my life. Um. Yeah. So,
like there's there's like no accountability for leadership. They can
do whatever they want, but everybody else in the church,
you know, Uh has to follow what moon and the

(13:05):
regional or national leadership says, or the the thirty six
blessed couples who are like some of the Moon's original followers. UH,
there's it's like extremely hierarchical. UH, there's a lot of
racism within the group, a huge amount of sexism that
is like, you know, directly tied into their Um, their

(13:25):
belief system, because the fall of man, according to the Moonies,
was eve having sex with Saton and then having sex
with Um Adam and spreading that thin Um. So just
like very inherently misogynistic, extremely homophobic and transphobic movement. Just
all around like so much sexual repression, like you're not

(13:47):
supposed to hold hands, kiss, do anything before marriage, right,
and then it's only that person. Well, of course moon,
you know, didn't didn't like this. Didn't apply to him
at all. He could sleep with anybody's wife pretty much. Um.
So yeah, it was just altogether a very intense environment,
just so much indoctrination going into the heads of the

(14:11):
people who are part of it. Um. Yeah, just altogether
shitty group. Um. Yeah. So for me, I I went
away to school in another state when I was fourteen. Um,
it got me like, you know, the physical distance as
well as like the space and time to actually think
and reflect on what was going on. And then I

(14:31):
started doing some research online because I was like, well,
maybe what people are saying about it is true, maybe
it is a cult Um. And I came across this
the tragedy of the six Mary's, which was, you know,
Moon assaulting a bunch of women, uh, and that sort
of like made me just, you know, it sort of
brought it to a head because I had like, you know,

(14:52):
seen for the longest time how leadership was treated versus
how regular members had to live in like poverty. Um,
but they got like big mansion ends and like Nice Things,
Nice cars, expensive watches, but everybody else had to like
give all their money to the church and you know,
was were like terrorized, Um. And Uh, then eventually I

(15:14):
was like, I think I have to go. I like
I had been through the process of like meeting the
mystical or the the evil other which, you know, like
people outside of the church or you know, they're fallen.
They're like, you know, basically they have original sins, so
they're kind of evil, right. Um. And Gotten to know
more people, UM, queer people, who were just like a

(15:37):
hugely demonized group of people within the UC. Um, and
here I am today. I'm Super Queer, Um, but like that,
like hell, yeah, but like getting to know people and
actually seeing, you know, like, Oh my God, what they're saying.
These people are not evil, they're normal, they're human, they
are just different from straight people. I don't know. That

(16:00):
to me also made like a huge difference. Um. And
then when I was seventeen, I went to another school
and I was like, I want to get laid. I've
had a lot, so I went out and did that
and that felt like, you know, once I finally lost
my virginity, it felt like sealing the deal. I'm like,
if I have to go to hell now, okay, and
it was cool because God didn't like immediately smite me

(16:21):
where I where I was in bed at that point,
like I lived and I'm here to tell the tale.
So so, yeah, that's how I left. That rules. This

(16:44):
is much more gay of the story. When I was expecting,
which is all, which is a good thing. Yeah, a
lot of like the stories of sort of like people
leaving like the really right wing like evangelical was grade,
like a lot of reminds me a quiverful but like, yeah,
more intense, I think. Well, it's like I think like
like the level of I don't know, I guess the

(17:06):
level of separation. Yeah, they seem to be at least
sort of like integrated into like other communities and stuff,
whereas the Moonies, I don't know, like there's definitely like
people have friends outside of it, but like generally, like
people kind of keep to the moonies because, you know,

(17:26):
they're supposed to be like God's chosen people or whatever.
So they and they like look down on everyone else
because they're not moonies. So yeah, it is. It's it's
also interesting to me that like literally, like literally the
term is just the evil other, which is so I
don't think that's a literal term, but like that's how

(17:47):
I sort of phrase it or whatever. But yeah, or
just like fallen people would be or the fallen world,
the outsiders, is what they would say. So just this
very you know, like very like stigmatizing language that they
use for people. Lots of people are just called evil
in the church to they just call people evil like

(18:08):
Willy Nilly. It's like, Oh, you're satanic, like no, that's
not it's not that I don't know how to go
to a good tradition into this. Yeah, we're going to adds. Yeah,

(18:32):
so I wanted to just also talk about specifically one
of one of the things that the church does and
one of the things like the sort of one of
the specific things that to Yamagami, Yamagami seems to have
been suffering from, and particularly it is mom but his
sort of full family, is the financial abuse. And Yeah,

(18:57):
I wanted to ask you a bit about what that
looks like. And also there's some several of the Japanese
context that I think is slightly different thin so the
American of the Korean context. I want to ask you
a bit about that. Yeah, definitely. So, across the board, uh,
Unification Church members are expected to bring in a lot

(19:18):
of money through fundraising, through tithing, uh providing free labor or,
you know, low paid labor through church businesses and stuff. Um.
So the cases, though, that in Japan, because of the
rhetoric of the church, which is, you know, basically born
out of, you know, the environment, um in Korea. So

(19:46):
there's basically this thought in the church that they say, Um,
that Korea is the atom nation, uh because that's where, uh,
you know, the Messiah came back, uh, South Korea, and Um,
and that Japan is the eve nations supposed to submit
to the Adam Nation Um and also sort of pay indemnity,

(20:07):
which is a big word in the church, and uh
for the atrocities committed during the Japanese occupation of Korea. Um.
And so this means that Japanese members have to pay
significantly more for pretty much everything. Um. So there's it's
like just uh you know, like instead of like a

(20:30):
type of reparations where it's like, you know, we'll give
you money, it's like they make them suffer for uh
that fact. and Uh so, like, you know, fundraising goals
are very high. Um, let me see, I think I
had a figure here somewhere. Um. Uh. Yeah, so Japanese

(20:55):
membership they bring in roughly like the church's income. Uh
so a large out for you know, like proportionally. Not
You know, there are a lot of members in Japan. However,
throughout the world, that is like proportionately. You know, where
most of it comes from Um. And then as of
several years ago, uh, the Japanese church fundraising goal was

(21:17):
thirty billion yen, or around two million for that year,
I believe. So just, you know, and so they go
out selling uh. Ancestor Liberation is one thing. Uh. You're
supposed to pay exorbitant fees for your ancestors to go
to heaven. Um. There was a book called the Chanson

(21:41):
young and that book was extremely expensive and, of course,
much more expensive for members in Japan. Um, I think
I read a figure where, I think I don't remember
what year it was and it was not very recent.
I think it might have been like or something, or
two thousand two or something. I'm not sure, but it
costs like roughly like two thousand American dollars to go

(22:05):
to the marriage ceremony, the one of the mass weddings
that the moonies do, where that everybody has arranged marriage,
arranged married, Um. And so yeah, just like these huge
amounts of money, uh, directly flowing from the pockets of
the membership uh and anyone they happen to you know,

(22:29):
have give them money uh into the coffers of the
Church and, you know, directly on up to like the
Moon family, who are billionaires. Um. Another thing I'd say
here is that they often, uh, so, for people who
that they're trying to fundraise from. UH, they often will
target like elderly widows and people who are, you know,

(22:53):
in sort of precarious places and come to them and say,
your family member who has passed away wants you to
give this donate into the church. Uh. They also like
at one point made up like a fake Buddhist sect
in order to like specifically target people. So it goes deep.
There's a there's a lot to that. Yeah, like one
of the things I remember reading those like that. Yeah,

(23:13):
they had like this whole network of like fake mediums
you would like like specifically to target people. Yeah, so
we target the widows, which is like I don't know.
So so much of the stuff that they do is
just so incredibly leak like, I think. Yeah, I mean
the thing that always that got me was the sort
of like like the way in which they're sort of

(23:38):
weaponizing like like Japan's sort of war crimes in in
South Korea and North Korea as well. And it's like
it's like a on the one hand, like yeah, like
a all this body is just going to like a
bunch of like too rich fascists and then be like,
I think this is something else we can sort of

(23:59):
get into. Is like, okay, so the church's main political
allies in Japan are the people who did all that
ship Yep, no, it's just a constant deflection, pretty much. Yeah,
and I mean it's interesting too because, like you, you
get this, like some of the newspapers they fund will

(24:21):
like openly say that, like, Japan should rearm again and
like Japan should like start retaking Korea and then, like
you have did, the other art with their business being
like hey, pay US money for all the people you
guys killed, and this less. I don't know, it's yeah,
it's pretty fuck. It's the worst. It's honestly. Yeah, yeah,

(24:42):
and I guess, I guess. Yeah, I think I think
this is as good a place as I need to
go into. Like okay, so the moodies like could not
do the things that they do in Japan without an
incredibly large degree of institutional support. Um. Part of this
sort is what the yakkers because, like you can't run,

(25:02):
like you can't do organized crime stuff, like like running
an entire network of people to de Fraud Widows like
in Japan, without the acquisite like you having some kind
of deal with them. YEA, and, yeah, and and and that.
That also bizarrely ties in with sort of how how

(25:24):
the innification Church got integrated with the sort of mainstream. Wow, yeah,
you know, I'm just gonna call the mainstream like, fuck it. People, people, people, people, people.
Will Quibble about the different factions of the LDP. I
frankly don't care, for reasons that will get to but yeah, how. How?
How they got, like and, yeah, which I guess you're

(25:45):
talking about, like the origins of how they got ingrained
with Japan's like perpetual ruling party, live, with Democratic Party. Yeah, Um, sorry,
were you? Are you? Yeah, yeah, yeah, okay, yeah, sorry,
I wasn't sure that was a question. No, it's okay. Um. So, yeah,

(26:09):
it goes all the way back to uh, like so
it goes. It goes back pretty far. So Novasuka Kishi
obvious maternal grandfather. So he initially became sort of embroiled
with the UC kind of stuff, unification church stuff, in
the early days of when the movement Um was in Japan. Uh,

(26:31):
he collaborated on stuff like the foundation for victory over communism.
Spoke at their the founding of the organization at a
UC church which was I think, next to Kishi's a
state or something like that. Yeah, and I think, I think,
I think he sold them their first building in Japan.
I think, if I remembering something that I read at

(26:53):
one point. Right, yeah, so, Um, so, yeah. And then, uh,
in sixty two, the UC was able to convert fifty
leaders of the alternationalist Nietzchechin Buddhist Uh sect, called sect called,
Oh Gosh, I don't know how to pronounce this, Rio
Show Cost Kai. Uh, and they had a lot of

(27:16):
strong use of Yakaza connections. Um. And then Sami Kabuki
was the first U S president in Japan. Uh, he
was the Yakaza Lieutenant and second in command of that
group that I had just mentioned. And and the other
thing we should mention about this about the sort of
how the opposite ties. Yeah, is that so? Okay? So,

(27:37):
Nobska Kishi is the guy who founds liberal democratic the
Liberal Democratic Party, right like He. The Liberal Democratic Party
is his creation. It is like what that party is
is all of Japan's conservatives basically like, basically seating to
his authority and being like okay, fine, we're going to
follow your lead. Um, and his his party is like

(27:58):
his base and his fund is basically a combination of
what he like. Kishi himself is a like artual words
of war criminal. Um, his base is basically in the
old Japanese fascists. He is funded by, like, well, partially funded,
like funded directly by the CIA. Um, he's also funded
by but the the CIA in particular here is working

(28:20):
through the Yakuza, because one of that's that's one of
the sort of the will like, will it be in
this sort of like we will. Will it be sentip?
Not Cia, but yeah, that by basically American intelligence in
the American army starts working through the Yakas as like
an anti communist Uma Force, and he he gets bankrolled
by this, these two guys named Kodama and Um. Right,

(28:40):
you reached yeah, Sasakawa, who were like Kodamas is like
like the like milk, basically like the guy who was
in charge of the Yakaza. He's also a fascist. UMSAKAWA
is the self, like literally called himself the world's richest fascist,
and both of these guys are like huge bank rollers
of of Kishi. They are also and you know, and when, when,

(29:03):
when Kishi is like bringing in the church like this.
This is how this is. This is how all these
people have got have yakisa connections. Because, yeah, it's it's this.
The whole sort of Japanese right wing like political machine
is like one like happy family that is doing doing

(29:23):
the worst stuff altogether, at the same time funded by
the CIA. Yep, and like, and also, I need to
say this, I said this is my episode book, like
like the level of CIA involvement here. Like there there
are individual CIA agents assigned to individual Liberal Democratic Party
candidates in the fifties to make sure they won their elections.

(29:45):
I did not know that, but that is it's not wild.
So specific. Wow, yeah, yes, yeah, concerning things, concerning things,
Oh God, Um, but yeah, so, like, yeah, to this
day a lot of LDP candidates and politicians still have

(30:07):
ties to do, you see, get donations from it. UH,
used like membership as like free labor. uh, even like
having secretaries from who are members of the UC and uh, like,
you know, sometimes they would you know see like some
sort of like classified or you know, information and stuff

(30:28):
like that. So there's, yeah, there's like apart from like
that like just so interconnected. Yeah, do you do you
remember the story about the L DPS, like number two
guy like getting getting mooned to be able to visit Japan? Ah, sorry,
I don't. Oh God, okay, so that my memory of

(30:52):
this story was okay. So, like Japan has a series
of really weird laws about like, okay, Japan is a
series of very weird laws about many, many things. One
of them has to do with it. It's something like
if you've been convicted of a felony in another country,
you can't enter Japan. And I don't know if it's
I don't know if it's a felony. I don't I

(31:13):
don't know what the I forget. I'm forgetting what the
legal bar is for what you have to be like
convicted of in or to not be able to enter
the country. But I like moon is a I like
he like he was like convicted by the US governments
of like perjury and a bunch of other ships because
of the crimes that he did, and so he like

(31:35):
technically legally could not enter Japan and then, like the
vice presidents of Um an office present, my God, came
for his title. But maybe basically, like what like basically,
like the like, the like, the second most powerful man
in Japanese politics and the nineties, like very specifically did

(31:57):
a whole bunch of visa bullshit so that specifically could
go to Japan legally. Not Surprising, not surprising, but wow, yeah,
it's like, Um, the lengths people will go to to
collaborate with other fascists. Yeah, I think that's that's I

(32:17):
don't know, that's to me. What makes this assassination really
interesting is that, like, okay, so if you ask like
and even like in Japan, if you had asked the
average person what the connection between like Shinzo Abe and
Edification Church was, like most people have no idea. Like
before this assassination, those people have no idea what that was. Yeah, yeah,

(32:40):
after the assassination this, the whole landscape has changed. Um, yeah,
it's it's been really interesting to watch like this. This
really seems like an incredibly sort of politically effective assassination because, yeah, okay, so,
you know, you you you had, there was, there was,
you know, you had the very the initial right wing backlash,

(33:01):
but the righting backlash kind of it got kind of
muted when it when it became clear that it wasn't
a left wing radical, which I think would have actually
been an enormous disaster. Yeah, but the guy was Yamagami,
was pretty right wing himself. Yeah, it's like he's a
right wing guy and but also like his story is
really sympathetic. Yeah, I mean I feel for the guy.

(33:25):
Like he had so much trauba in his life, honestly,
and like it's obvious, like, and I think you know
a lot of uh former members, you know, sort of
understand how that feels. UH, most of us have been
assassinated a prime minister, but so far, so far. But yeah, like,

(33:50):
I mean we understand that pain of where he is
coming from and like, you know why, upon learning that
Abbe had these ties, he's of like felt like compelled
to do something. Yeah, and I think the I mean
there's also this element at work here that's kind of weird,
which is like it's very, very hard normally to get

(34:13):
like right wing Japanese people to turn on their own party. Uh,
the one way that you can do it is by
going hey, look at these Koreans. So there's like weird
dynamics going on here. Like there were some there were
some like even further right parties who were like, you know,
using this thing as a campaign thing of like Ah,
this party is like a fake right wing party, like
they're all being run by like Koreans, and it's like okay,

(34:35):
that's like not, like the thing that is bad about
the moonies is not that they're Korean, it's that it's
all of the other ship that they do. Yeah, and
I think that's complicated. But also, yeah, like the political
impact this has had has been like enormous. Yeah, like, yeah,

(34:58):
do you want to talk about that a bit? Yeah, so, Um, so, okay.
Obviously it has shined a lot of light on sort
of the connections that a lot of members of the
government there have, from the L D P um, as
well as other parties, have with the you see, getting donations, etcetera. Um,

(35:22):
people are pissed about it, you know, as they should be. Um.
So I guess that, uh, Prime Minister Kashida has said
that they want to cut ties with the Unification Church
at this point. Uh, you know, it sort of remains
to be seen whether that actually happens or not, because
it can usually just be like lip service kind of ship. Um,

(35:44):
but the politicians, UH, and I'm not sure if this
is specifically for the LDP or sort of across the board. Um,
there's like a thing where they're supposed to self report
any ties or donations to the U S, which is just,
you know, like I don't know, like I don't think
every buddy is gonna come forward with that sort of thing.
If you're supposed to do it yourself, that's like not
how that should work. But Um so, I mean like

(36:08):
it remains to be seen, you know, if those ties
are actually gonna be cut. Um. So also, like there
has been sort of like, uh a, a a lot
of support from uh, like lawyer groups, like the National
Network of lawyers against spiritual sales Um, who has, you know,
worked with, you know, cult members and like specifically a

(36:31):
lot of Unification Church members or former members or whatever
who have uh, you know, lost money through spiritual sales Um.
And they've also just recently called for the dissolution of
the UC in Japan, which is pretty cool and I
hope that happens. How realistic it is, given like all
of the strong ties to the government, but that would

(36:53):
be cool. Um. And then also I saw a thing
a couple of days ago that Japanese consulates and embassies
have a program that is offering advice or assistance, uh,
to UC members who are Japanese nationals and their children, Um,
and that ends on September thirty, I think. So if
anybody needs that, getting fast. Um. But I think that

(37:13):
also applies in America. So if, like, you're a Japanese
national and like a victim of the U S or
if your parents are uh a, those that open. And
I don't know exactly what the levels of support resources
they're offering are, uh, but it's worth looking into for sure. Um.

(37:34):
But yeah, like, so there's been like sort of this
outpouring of support from various groups and there's, you know,
like it's really shining a light on the issue of
like especially what it's like to be a second generation
member of occult and the trauma that people like us
have gone through. Um, you know, there are definitely a

(37:57):
lot of calls for like support and a mental health
care as well as like, you know, ways to sort
of get people out of situations like that in the
first place. Um. Yeah, yeah, I don't know, I, I. I.
I hope this translates into actual resources. And Yeah, just

(38:20):
sort of like the LDPs through ratings tanking, which like
is good and like it is very funny that Kishia
just had to act like half his cabinet. Yeah, I
don't know, I think it it remains, although he remains
in power and he do you see too interesting. So

(38:42):
it's like, you know, clearly there's not a lot, like
even if people are like having a little bit of
like the smallest level of transparency about this stuff, like,
I don't necessarily know how far it will actually go
into like, you know, making amends or like protecting people
from further ab you or, you know, getting people their
money back. I don't know, I think there's a there's

(39:06):
something I think that's that's really sort of, I don't know,
like really grim about the way that this worked out,
which the Japanese police knew what was going on and
why this sesssination had happened, like immediately, like they found
his hard drive and he'd written out the whole thing

(39:27):
about why he did it. Yeah, and then they intentionally
held the information and basically made were able to maintain
a press embargo until after the election happened. Yeah, you know,
now everyone fucking hates the LDB, like the perminsionals approve
of ratings like thirties present. Like it's really bad. I
mean it went from like fifty, went from like fifty
two to like thirties six and like a couple of weeks.

(39:49):
But because the people who are people who are connected
to the church are the people in charge, they were
able to like suppress this information long enough to like
shape how the election was going to go. Oh, make
sure that it was sort of like the right wing
shock from Oh my God, that's assassinated prime minister and
not the weight. The assassinated prime minister for a reason
that's like incredibly justified and relatable to like this is

(40:13):
as relatable with a motive of assassination as like I've
ever seen. Yeah, I mean it's like, as far as
reasons for assassinating people go, this is a pretty like
solid reason, like there's there's stuff there. Yeah, and like
and I think it's just like like it's it's interesting.
That's like it's it's rare assassination where the assassin is

(40:35):
a very empathetic figure too. Like I think a lot
of the time when you get people doing stuff like this,
like it's there. There's a sort of like one to
one correlation with like, okay, like how how how how
do you feel about sort of like like how how
do you feel about assassination in general? is going to

(40:56):
like determine your dictaate like determined your sort of response
to the act. Will Action? Yeah, whereas I think here
it's different because you know like that, yeah, this, this,
this is someone who, yeah, I mean I keep saying
that he's sort of like immedutely relatable, but it's like, yeah,
this is this is someone who, I don't know, has

(41:17):
been through just an incredible amount of trauma in a
way that's like very easily sort of digestible to like
regular people. Yeah, it's like, yeah, very obvious trauma and like,
you know, yeah, I don't know, it's and I really
hope that that that that really does actually translated to

(41:38):
resources for mental health resources, because I do too. I
feel like as well as mental health resources, I help,
they're like, you know, financial resources and you know, like
all sorts of other resources as well, because like dealing
with the fallout of, you know, having been in a
like ac cult is incredibly difficult and requires a lot
of space and time and a lot of people are,

(42:00):
you know, left with like PTSD after that and it'll
last for your whole life and that makes you, know,
for a lot of people, that makes you, know, having
getting money and doing job things extremely hard, especially, you know,
if you're like getting like emotionally like thrown back into
that all of the time. Um. So I hope there

(42:22):
are like more, you know, like material resources that are
also available in addition to uh, sort of like mental
health care and therapy things. Is. That's something that I
feel like it's all too often just not there for
people who have been through abuse. Yeah, and I think
also there's there's this way in which like like a

(42:45):
lot of this, like insofar as there's any kind of
like support network like in the US, and this is
also true of Japan. Two maybe, I don't know, the
Japanese offer stay is not great. But yeah, like there's
an extent which like the sort of like last safety
net you have is your family, and you know, like

(43:07):
this is this is a kind of thing that can
very easily cut you off from your family and that
that has, you know, I mean that has emotional consequences,
but like, yeah, that has enormous financial consequences. That really
don't like. I don't know when when, when I was
originally doing research on this. Like I I read a
lot of sort of like people arguing about like deprogramming stuff,

(43:32):
and it like they just didn't talk about like that
kind of stuff and it was always just sort of like,
I don't know, structors really weird and it's sort of
like grotesque and detached way to think about it instead
of like yeah, so, yeah, it depends on what type
of careacters too, because, honestly, deprogramming is another cult. It

(43:54):
is another cult. It's like an anti cult cult and, Um,
it just, you know, it re traumatizes those who are
already traumatized and honestly, like people who have been deprogrammed
sometimes leave, but a lot of the time it just
increases their fervor for being part of whatever movement they're
part of already, UM, because they're like Oh, if this is,

(44:14):
you know, like what everybody is going to do to
be if I leave, like of course I gotta stick
with this because, you know, then like it's like every
what they've been saying the whole time about, you know,
being persecuted and like hurt and stuff then becomes true. Right. Yeah,
I guess that's the thing I would say about like
that's my disclaimer about de programming. Uh, and, though the
collective we are a part of is called deprogramming imperialism,

(44:36):
that is because the only thing that needs to be
deprogrammed really is imperialism and not people, because that's not
how that works. The radicalization requires a lot of trust,
a lot of time, a lot of space, a lot
of reflection. It's not something that, you know, you can
just like go and like lock somebody in a basement
for two weeks and then like try to make them

(44:56):
leave whatever movement they're part, like that's that's just an abuse. Yeah,
I think, like, I don't know, I think it's it's
as an industry. It's not as sort of like powerful
as it used to be, but I think, like, I
don't know it there's there's there's there's a sense in
which it's sort of like, you know, it almost it

(45:19):
almost has like civil war logic, where it's like both
both both sides need the other side as sort of
they're like reason to exist and, you know, so like
and both, you know on both both, both sides are
traumatizing people on both sides indeed, like like they're they're,
they're they're they're syfically fighting over the same group of

(45:39):
people and each of them can sort of like offer
the other side as like, oh, Hey, this is why
we need to exist thing. But then it's like, you know,
and like like, as with like most civil wars, it's
like the actual people caught in it don't it's like no,
you don't actually need, you don't want either side of
the civil war. You want out. Yeah, yeah, no, it's

(46:01):
definitely it's definitely one of those like Oh, you're stuck
between a rock and a hard place kind of things.
It's like both options suck. Like yeah, like the two
party system. Yeah, God, Stalin, Stalin said two good things
and his entire two things that were like funny in
his entire life. One of them was the pope, how

(46:22):
many division does he have? And the second one was
they're both worse. And there I mean immediately he was
wrong about they're both worse, but like, yeah, that's a
that's a that's a real thing. That is the basis
of all modern politics. Honestly. That is honestly, we hate

(46:43):
to see. I hate to see it. Yeah, yeah, on
the on the other hand, though, I don't know, like
I I am kind of hopeful about this, like I
am too. It Gen winely seems to have like changed,

(47:03):
like at the very least it's changed the way that
the Japanese public, like season understands this whole thing. And
like this is the first time, I think, ever either.
I mean like, you know, like the Communist Party and
stuff have been trying for like years to get people
to care about this. Just no one has really cared since, like,
I don't know, like they basically since the Japanese left
collapse in like the seventies, like nobody's really cared about

(47:24):
this and I don't know, it really seems like something
like it really seems like this assassination has actually changed
something about just sort of like the like just the
way that the Japanese politics is being structured right now.
And I don't know, I'm modern really hopeful. I would

(47:47):
say I'm too. I mean, like the more light that
is shed on this, I think, the better, and that
like unfortunately, weird things happened, but I feel like if
there's any chance some sort of Um, some sort of
you know across the board or even in certain areas

(48:10):
just specifically, any sort of like justice, that the amount
of public attention on this now is, you know, potentially
something that could help bring something like that about. So
I don't it's been it's been like sort of a

(48:31):
weird ride for for us x members Um, with all
of that just sort of like re traumatizing to see
everything happened. Um, but at the end of the day,
I think a lot of us are hopeful that things
can change now that people know about it, because you
know before that it wasn't something that was ever really
talked about. Groups like the thrive on this sort of

(49:01):
weird combination of like operating in the shadows and also
when they show up, it's through their own pr stuff,
and you know, sometimes the best way to break that, apparently,
is you shoot someone who was like you shoot a
guy who they who was working for them. And Yeah,

(49:22):
I don't know. I mean, yeah, I feel like, Yeahmagami
sort of managed to at least, you know, he he
did what he he did a thing and it has
had sort of, I probably, some of the impacts that
he imagined it would. So I don't know. Yeah, like honestly,

(49:42):
like from from what I've read of his stuff, like
I think this went better than he expected it, like
it could have possibly have gone like he he seemed
like really really sort of just like had abandoned all hope. Yeah,
and I don't know, I mean, like I guess the
the other thing that I really hope out of this,

(50:05):
comes out of this, is that like you don't have
to have people like destroying their lives a second time
in sort of like just out of the incredible desperation
of what they've been through, right. Yeah, preventing any of
that would be optimal. Yeah, yeah, because the you know,
the more that, the longer the Unification Church operates, the

(50:29):
more people will be abused and the more violence will
come out of it. Like maybe this is the most
high profile like a recent bit of violence that's come
out of the movement, but it's not unprecedented in any way. So,
you know, it's like that's what happens when people are abused. Yeah,

(50:49):
and I and it's I think it's also worth just
sort of like reminding people that one of the sort
of so the church has sort of splintered into various actions. Yeah,
a lot of the people, well, okay, a trump trump
gave a speech at like the at an event of
the mainline church. A bunch of like so one of

(51:11):
the other guys, like what one are the other splinter fractions.
Had A bunch of people at January six rot of
iron ministries or sanctuary church, and those are those are
the guys who had the the A R fifteen gun
blessing ceremony a few years ago that made the rounds
where they wore bullet crowns in their robes and they
had the guns. And they've also got land in in

(51:36):
Pennsylvania and Tennessee and also in Waco, Texas, where they're
basically preparing people for war with what Sean Moon has
described as something akin to the globalist deep state in Marxists.
I don't know if those were his exact words, but
it was something like that. UH, so they're, you know,
like they're they have an act of militia. They're preparing

(51:58):
for war. That is what the Rod of iron is
for them. That is the gun. Um. Yeah, and and
these are these are the if remember my my stuff
on this, right, this is the fashion that owns car arms, right, yes,
they do. Yeah, yeah, so they have a gun manufacturer. Now, okay, like,
if Robert We're here, Robert will probably start equipping with
me about how good like the equivalent with me about

(52:20):
the actual quality the weapons they produced. But like, okay,
they have, they have, they they they have a weapons
manufacturing peace which is terrifying. Yeah, and they make the
trump gun because of course they're all super pro trump,
very like patriot. A lot of q and on overlap there.
And Actually Rod of Iron Ministries UH in in Japan

(52:44):
has been helping organize q and on events. Um. And Yeah,
so like there was also a so basically the relationship
between Rod of iron and the mainline, you see, is supertense.
Sean Moon and a couple of his other there's basically
want their mother dead. And who is? She's the you know,
the head of the mainline church right now. Um, and

(53:05):
not just dead but like specifically beheaded. Um. So there
was an event recently over the summer, I think it
was like the end of June, where Uh Sean was, Gosh,
I forget. I forget where he was in Japan. Um,
but basically he was sort of like railing at the

(53:26):
audience for supporting his mother, Hawk Jo Han uh, and
then when people spoke up in defense of her, they
were literally like physically thrown out of the room. Um,
it was super intense. Yeah, there's yeah, it's it's a
really fucking intense moment um and he's like they're saying

(53:47):
she had like sex with a demon or something like
that and has fallen and all of this, you know,
got like, I don't know, sometimes I watch a bit
of the guy's speeches just because I'm like, I want
to know what the funk they're up to Um. And
first of all it seems like he might do a
lot of cocaine, which would not be on precedent had
given the moonies and all of their drugs smuggling and ship. Well,

(54:11):
I mean we we have like, what was his name?
Oh God, I'm blaking on the name of what? What? What?
What of his other sons was like it was like
literally spending like a shell corporations, like net income amount
like per month on cocaine at one point. Like was
that h o Jen possibly? I think I think it was. Yeah, yeah,

(54:33):
I think. Yeah. And he's also enormous abusive piece of ship. Yeah, yeah,
it sucks. Yeah, people are all well, okay, that's not true.
The people who were still actively involved in the church
and who didn't break themselves out in flee like the
first opportunity they got are like enormous pieces of ship. Yeah,

(54:56):
I mean because, like, even at the end of the day,
if they're not specifically doing anything that directly harm somebody,
they're giving money to these institutions that do into people
who do and giving them support and, you know, reinforcing
all of that ship. And then, you know, I mean
most of them are just shitty in general too. Yeah,

(55:17):
I also like specifically awesome about like, yeah, there there
were a couple of people who like got forciably married
into the family. Yeah, like left and I don't I
do not want people to get to get the impression
that I think they're bad, because they're not. Like they got, yeah,

(55:38):
really horrible stuff happened to them. They're able to escaine. ME.
That's good, but also, Jesus Christ, like yeah, and that's
the thing that it's like sometimes hard to talk to like,
you know, childhood friends or my family who's still involved, Um,
because I feel like it's like, you know, if you're

(55:58):
supporting this group, you're implicit least supporting fascism and murder
and death squads and rape and all of these awful things. Um,
and you know, a lot of members don't know that
those bits of history about the church. Um, but if
anyone who is listening is in the U C. I
would definitely say to look those things up because they

(56:20):
are all over the place. Yeah, okay, so this was
specifically yet I read inside the League by Scott and
Lee Anderson. Okay, I I will say this. Yeah, there.
It is kind of hard to read because these people

(56:45):
are journalists. They're not normally book authors, and the idea
of starting at the beginning of a story and then
moving through to the end of it is like an
entirely foreign concept to them. So it is constantly jumping
around between sixteen million things. But yeah, there is a
lot of there's a lot of very good stuff in there. Yeah,
it's an incredible resource. I would also suggest reading, uh,

(57:09):
the there's like a a bunch of articles that Robert
Parry did from his consortium news about Duc and like
stuff back in the day on it. Um. I would
also say check out how well do you know your moon? Uh.
That's another great resource. Has a lot of you know,
like links and direct citations of a bunch of documents

(57:33):
and ship uh, all good stuff. Also, I would plug
John Gorenfeld's book. Um, oh, it's called it's bad, bad
moon rising. Bad Moon Rising yes, yeah, John is crazy. Yeah,
it's it's another really good book on that. Yeah, I
think there's a new edition came out like very recently. Yeah,

(57:54):
so I think he has it actually a pdf of
it or something for free on his website. Um, yeah, uh.
And then another book I would suggest is gifts of deceit,
about the Thomson Park Scandal and care a gate, another
good one. God. Yeah, the thing about the mood is
like there's just like entire like there's entire genres of

(58:19):
like crime that they do that like doesn't even like
make most accounts of them because they're doing too much
other crime. Yeah, literally, there's just so much crime too
for there's I've just done so much that it's hard
to keep track of everything. They literally have a million
shell corporations and they literally do things are different names

(58:40):
and in different places and then different types of atrocities
that it's like how are you supposed to keep up
with all this? That's why they do it that way,
because you're not supposed to. But yeah, I mean it
is I don't know, like I figuring out how intelligence
operations work is like easier than like trying to entangle

(59:00):
this ship. Yeah, honestly like that that that stuff was,
you know, a little more on the nose. It's like,
Oh yeah, clearly this is like a joint psychological operation
and other like, you know, back channels for money and
trafficking things and people and stuff. But then it's like,
Oh God, What Company owns what? And how much do

(59:21):
they make and like where do they move their money around?
It's just like, I don't know. That's that side is like,
how do I navigate this? So I am extremely fortunate
to be a part of a group of people who's
working on this stuff. Now, Um, you know, we're gonna

(59:41):
what we're going to try to do is sort of
make like a Unification Church wikipedia kind of thing so
that we have like all of it in one place
and then, you know, potentially down the line maybe do
like a people's history of the Unification Church or something
like that. But in the meantime we're just compiling a
bunch of information. Are Are there ways people can support
you and it also can support deprogramming imperialism in this

(01:00:05):
the work you all have been doing. Yeah, so I
have a patreon. It's Alisa Majub a L I S
A M A H J o U B. Uh. You
can follow me on twitter at Alisa Underscore Majub, same spelling. Uh.
De Programming imperialism has a twitter. Uh It is, since

(01:00:25):
the programming imperialism was not was too long to put
in as a user name. The one we are using
is no more cults, which is no underscore, more underscore cults. Um.
And then we have a instagram as well, under deprogramming imperialism,
I believe. Let me double check, HM, and we will.

(01:00:51):
We will put links to all this stuff in the
show notes. Yeah, awesome, cool, cool, cool. Yeah, it's do.
Programming imperialism just together together words. Sorry, it's just not.
The words are smashed together. There's no space. That's that's

(01:01:14):
there we go. I did it. Yeah, well, I I think.
I think. I think that's going to be all for
us today. Um, thank you so so much for joining us.
Thank you for having me. I really appreciate this and hopefully,
you know, this will just have help more people to
sort of like understand what's going on there and sort

(01:01:36):
of the history of the U C and uh, as
well as, you know, maybe shine some light on the
obbey assassination and UH. You know, the more people who
know about this, the better, I think. Um, so I
really appreciate being on here, because you guys have a
pretty big platform, so that means a lot to me. Yeah,
and I'm I'm I'm really, I'm really, really glad that
that you came on for this because, I don't know,

(01:01:59):
like it's it's really like it's really easy to like
cover stuff like this and just never actually sort of
like get to the human, like the actual human impact
of it. Yeah, and so, yeah, I'm really glad I
was able to talk to you. Thank you. Yeah, I'm
glad I was able to talk to because that it
was fun. It was fun, it was informative and getting

(01:02:22):
the word out. We're doing it, we're doing the thing. Yeah, yeah,
it feels good. It could happen here as a production
of cool zone media and more podcasts from cool zone media.
visit our website, cool zone media DOT COM, or check
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(01:02:44):
for it could happen here, updated monthly at cool zone
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