FTR#581—Update on Japanese
Fascism--(One
30-minute segment) (Sources are noted in parentheses.) (Recorded on 1/15/2007.)
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NEW!! A number of
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Martin Bormann: Nazi in
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be downloaded with a modem Internet connection. They are available at: Spitfirelist.com/Books. In addition, we have added Cairo to Damascus by John Roy Carlson [1951], Germany Plots with the Kremlin by T.H. Tetens [1953], and Armies of Spies by Joseph Golomb [1939].
Yet another recent addition is Germany’s
Master Plan by Joseph Borkin and Charles Welsh. (Borkin is the author of
the 1979 classic The Crime and Punishment
of I.G. Farben.) Another anti-fascist classic about I.G. Farben supplements
the Borkin and Welsh text—Treason’s Peace
by Howard Watson Ambruster. Two more recently-posted gems are The Thousand-Year Conspiracy by Paul
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both published in 1943. The Winkler text documents the evolution of militant
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Summary of FTR#581—(Note: The massive
volume of ‘For The Record’ programs about 9/11 and related topics is summarized
and analyzed in the periodically-updated description for FTR#391.
FTR#’s 454,
455, 456 are compilations of
much of the key documentation culled from Mr. Emory’s investigation into 9/11.
Along with FTR#391, they should give
listeners/readers a substantive grasp of this momentous event. It is
recommended that listeners use this description and e-mail it to others.) Highlighting recent trends toward reviving
the ultra-nationalism and historical revisionism of Japan’s fascist past, this
program sets forth the political agenda being pushed by Shinzo Abe, the newly
elected Prime Minister. The grandson of Japanese War Criminal Nobosuke Kishi, Abe
has succeeded his grandfather as head of the LDP—itself a vehicle for the
perpetuation of Japan’s World War II political and economic power structure.
With the Japanese people experiencing heightened stress and alienation because
of economic pressures, the possibility of that social unrest expressing itself
as militaristic nationalism and fascism is one possible result of the
right-wing agenda being implemented by Abe. In addition to authorizing a
military buildup and moving to ease restrictions on the Japanese military, Abe
has implemented a school curriculum that institutionalizes right-wing
(“patriotic”) propaganda as a mandatory element of Japanese public education.
It may well be that the recent North Korean atomic test will aid Abe’s agenda
and push for rearmament.
Program Highlights Include: The view of the Japanese right-wing that American President Franklin
Delano Roosevelt was responsible for World War II; Nobosuke Kishi’s activities
in wartime Japan, including his signing of Japan’s declaration of war against
the United States; the Unification Church of Sun Myung Moon’s financial aid to
North Korea; review of the Unification Church’s role as an extension of the
Japanese patriotic societies that brought fascism to Japan in the 1930’s; the
possibility that Moon’s aid to North Korea may have been intended to aid that
country’s nuclear buildup, thus providing an excuse for Japanese rearmament. For more about
the subject of Japanese fascism, see: FTR#’s 290, 291, 296, 426, 427, 428, 445, 451, 509, 551.
1.
Beginning with an op-ed column about the re-emergence of the Japanese
far right, the program sets forth the severe social strain affecting the
Japanese people. Should those pressures continue to mount without Japanese
society developing an outlet for them, the temptation to resort to the
mechanisms of that country’s fascist past might prove too strong to overcome. “Beneath the sheen of high-tech tranquility that
characterizes modern, conformist Japan stirs an angry, alienated and deeply
pessimistic populace teetering on the edge of a nervous breakdown. So the
ascendance of a hawkish new leader, Shinzo Abe, as the hand-picked successor to
Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi on Tuesday raises fears that the nation’s long-repressed
well of virulent nationalism, buried just beneath the surface, could again rise
up, emboldened by a Bush administration seeking a surrogate partner to contain
China’s ambitions in Asia.” (“Will the rising Sun Rise Again?” by
Michael Zielenziger; The Los Angeles Times; 9/25/2006; p. B11.)
2.
“Japan is rapidly aging because its young women refuse to
marry and bear children. They say raising kids in modern Japan is far too
expensive and offers too little reward. Besides, compared to their mothers, the
aspirations of educated women extend beyond child-rearing, even though most
Japanese men still insist that their wives stay home. The nation’s middle-class
army of sarariman (white-collar) workers, uniformed in their blue suits
and white shirts, is committing suicide in record numbers—three times as many
as die in car accidents—because the system of lifetime employment in which they
started their careers is crumbling. More troubling still are the more than 1
million Japanese twentysomethings who cannot find work and are not involved in
any educational or training programs. A high number of these adults, primarily
men, are social isolates, or hikikomori. They hide in their rooms for
months or years at a time rather than try to fit into a society that demands
mass conformity and uses quietly powerful repression to forge it.” (Idem.)
3.
Adding to the severity of the mounting pressures on the Japanese people
is the fact that the initially glowing reports about the upturn of the Japanese
economy are premature. Note the predominance of the Liberal Democratic Party in
Japanese politics. As we have seen in—among other broadcasts—FTR#’s 428, 445, 451, the LDP became a
repository for unreconstructed Japanese fascists and war criminals, who
perpetuated the predominance of the economic elements that launched (and
benefited from) Japan’s war of aggression. The
LDP made good use of the billions of dollars in war booty stolen by Japan
during World War II. “This Japan has yet to design
the social architecture necessary to embrace the individualism and
self-expression we in the West associate with the post-industrial era. Neither
schizophrenic nor suffering from any other mental illness, the only refuge
these hikikomori find from a society they cannot trust is the bedrooms
in their parents’ apartments. They are the nails that stick up and refuse to be
hammered down. Into this unhappy stew of unacknowledged social unrest enters
Abe, 52, who replaces the maverick Koizumi after his more than 5 ½ years at the
helm of Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party, which has essentially run the
nation since 1955. Recent headlines proclaiming Japan’s robust return to
economic vibrancy are premature; the economy grew only 0.2% in the last quarter
(compared with nearly 3% in the U.S.); the national fiscal debt is 170% of
gross domestic product, and the nation is rapidly depopulating. Last year,
there were 15,000 more deaths than births in Japan, a nation that does not
welcome immigrants. Demographers predict that by 2020, one in nine Japanese
will be over the age of 80.” (Idem.)
4.
Abe’s ascension to the pinnacle of Japanese political power perpetuates
a continuum of corruption stretching from World War II to the present. Abe is
the grandson of Nobosuke Kishi, a Japanese war criminal who played a decisive
role in the perpetuation of the economic and political status quo from the
Second World War. “Hobbled by the mountains of
debt they accumulated after the collapse of the infamous ‘bubble economy’ in
1989, Japanese corporations restored profits by laying off thousands of older
workers and by not hiring younger ones. Little wonder that youth unemployment
is at record highs, that more than 20% of working people in their 20s now earn
less than 1.5 million yen a year (just under $13,000) or that nearly 32% of
young workers are ‘non-permanent’—without job guarantees, annual raises or
other benefits. Fifteen years ago, the comparable figure was 10%. Abe, a
well-known hawk, wants to rewrite the country’s postwar constitution in order
to empower Japan’s military. He promises to visit Yasukuni Shrine, which
venerates World War II criminals, a move that riles leaders in Beijing and
Seoul because it remains the spiritual pillar of the nation’s wartime past. Abe
is the grandson of former Prime Minister Nobosuke Kishi, who ratified the
U.S.-Japan Security Treaty that even today keeps American Marines on Okinawa.
[Italics are Mr. Emory’s.] He wants to deepen the already-strong defense bonds
that link Tokyo and Washington. He envisions Japan as a ‘country that can be
proud of its history and culture,’ a nod to the virulent strains of nationalism
still frighteningly potent within Japanese society.” (Idem.)
5.
Supplementing and encouraging the Japanese far right’s move toward
heightened militarism is the Bush administration, which encourages Japan’s
rising military profile around the world. As noted in the excerpt that follows,
Abe’s push for a more right-wing and nationalist Japan is supplemented by
extreme right politicians, who have eluded the limelight for the most part. “The Bush administration naturally sees Japan and Abe as
Washington’s closest ally in the Pacific, even though Tokyo’s relations with
its most important neighbors, China and South Korea, have never been more on
edge. A. U.S. that once worried about containing Japanese militarism now
insists that Japan’s Self-Defense Forces participate in the rehabilitation of
Iraq, ‘putting boots on the ground,’ as U.S. officials put it, even though
these acts violate the constitution our occupation forces dictated to the
Japanese. The White House and Pentagon would welcome a Japan that beefs up its
defenses against a potential threat from North Korea and the surging power of
China. Yet this narrow focus on projecting military obscures some potentially
more disturbing truths. Only a few steps outside the spotlight being trained on
Abe are powerful political leaders such as Shintaro Ishihara, the governor of
metropolitan Tokyo. He wrote the book The Japan that Can Say ‘No’, which
controversially advocated that Japan strongly reassert its own national and
militarily independence. Former Japanese Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone has
recently advocated that his nation needs to study the option of ‘going
nuclear,’ and no one doubts that Tokyo has lots of plutonium from its nuclear
power plants and the technology to build bombs.” (Idem.)
6.
“At times of economic and social strain, when millions of
young men wonder how they will find work and what their nation will became,
virulent forms of nationalism have a way of binding up deeper wounds—witness
the protests against Japan in China. Many Japanese recognize that their nation,
so suffocatingly embraced by Washington since the end of World War II, has yet
to determine its identity and national interests. Is it so far-fetched to
imagine a day when a re-armed, angry and nuclear-potent Japan cuts its ties
with Washington in order to reassert a more independent foreign policy? Would
that make Pacific Asia a more tranquil or a more dangerous place?” (Idem.)
7.
“Japan needs to decouple its future from the United States,
resolve the challenges of its history and move vigorously to create a new and
more integrated relationship with its long-term economic partners in Asia,
especially China. The leaders of Japan’s multinational businesses already well
understand this, and they may yet help transform the practical vision of their
new prime minister. If they do not succeed, however, Abe’s ascension may
ultimately trigger the kind of arms race and brinksmanship that would
destabilize all of Asia. In that sense, he could be the wrong man at the wrong
time.” (Idem.)
8.
Next, the program
sets forth the political resume of Nobosuke Kishi, Abe’s grandfather and an
author of the political legacy to which his grandson is heir. Note that war
criminal Kishi’s cell mate at Sugamo prison was Yoshio Kodama. As discussed in FTR#445, Kodama was the
godfather of the Japanese underworld, a major Japanese war criminal in his own
right, and the CIA’s man in Japan. As discussed in FTR#’s 84, 291, 446, 551, Kodama was a major,
early figure in the Unification Church. “In 1956,
for example, the Eisenhower Administration labored long and hard to install
Kishi as head of the newly-merged Liberal-Democratic Party and as Japan’s new
prime minister. This was the same Kishi who had been a member of the hard-core
ruling clique in Manchuria with General Tojo Hideki and Hoshino Naoki, head of
the narcotics monopoly. Kishi had also signed Japan’s Declaration of War
against America in December 1941. During World War II, he was vice minister of
munitions and minister of commerce and industry, actively involved in slave
labor. Along the way, he made a personal fortune in side-deals with the zaibatsu.
Following Japan’s surrender, he was one of the most prominent indicted war
criminals at Sugamo, where he was a cellmate of Kodama. In 1948, when his
release from prison was purchased by Kodama, Kishi began organizing the
financial base of the LDP, using Kodama’s black gold and injections of M-Fund
cash. For ten years, Kishi was groomed as America’s Boy by Harry Kern, Eugene
Dooman, Compton Packenham and other members of Averell Harriman’s group at the
America Council for Japan (ACJ). They worked tirelessly to improve Kishi’s
mousy image, tutored him in English, and taught him to like Scotch. To them,
Kishi was America’s ‘only bet left in Japan.’ All this was done covertly, for
if the Japanese public learned that Washington was using the M-Fund to replace
one prime minister with another, the democracy fiction would collapse.” (Gold Warriors; Sterling and Peggy Seagraves; Copyright 2003 by
Sterling and Peggy Seagrave; Verso Books [HC]; ISBN 1-85984-542-8; pp. 121-122.)
9.
As part of his political agenda, Abe has launched a patriotic school
curriculum to be taught to Japanese children. Paragraph 10 highlights
the type of fascist propaganda that is marketed by the Japanese far right. Will
Japanese children be learning this type of thing in school?! “Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's government on Friday
successfully pushed through landmark laws requiring Japanese schools to
encourage patriotism in the classroom and elevating the Defense Agency to the
status of a full ministry for the first time since World War II. Both measures
are considered cornerstones of Abe's conservative agenda to bolster Japan's military status and rebuild national
pride in a country that had long associated patriotism with its imperialist
past. The legislation cleared the upper house of parliament on Friday after
winning approval in the lower house last month and will come into effect early
next year. Abe, Japan's first prime minister born after World War II, had made
education reform a key issue during his campaign to succeed Junichiro Koizumi
in September. His bid to restore patriotism in schools has drawn harsh
criticism from Japanese pacifists, who have argued that such a law echoes the
state-sponsored indoctrination of children practiced by Japan's past military
leaders. But Abe and other proponents have countered that a renewed embrace of
patriotism is an essential step forward for Japan as it gradually emerges from
a decades-long sense of guilt over World War II. In recent years, for instance,
local municipalities have begun enforcing laws requiring the national anthem to
be sung and the Japanese flag flown at certain school ceremonies, despite
objections from teachers unions, which remain one of the last bastions of
pacifism in Japan. The education reform law is likely to dramatically increase
the number of schools using revisionist textbooks that have been heralded by conservatives
here but decried by Japan's wartime victims -- particularly China and South Korea -- as
whitewashing its past aggression. Such books, for instance, omit reference to
‘comfort women,’ a euphemism for the thousands of Asian women forced into
sexual bondage by the Japanese military during the 1930s and 1940s.” (“Japan
Passes Landmark Patriotism Laws” by Anthony Faiola; The Washington Post; Friday,
December 15, 2006; accessed at: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/12/15/AR2006121501109.html?referrer=emailarticle.)
10.
Indicative of the extremism of the Japanese right-wing historical
revisionists is the fact that a museum adjacent to the controversial Yasukuni
shrine features an exhibit that blames World War II on President Franklin
Delano Roosevelt and the United States! Implementing similar revisionism is
the official house historian for the Bertelsmann firm, which dominates
English-language publishing. The official publishing house for the SS in World
War II, Bertelsmann was run for many years by Heinrich Mohn, himself a member
of the SS. Bertelsmann’s house historian Dirk Bavendamm has advanced the view
that Roosevelt, the United States and—you guessed it—the Jews were responsible
for World War II. One can only wonder if Japanese school children will be
taught similar propaganda. (For more about Bavendamm and Bertelsmann, see—among
other programs—FTR#298.
Perhaps Bertelsmann will see to it that American children are taught
similar revisionism!) “Yasukuni shrine officials
have agreed to delete a controversial exhibit and discuss further changes to
the shrine’s military museum, criticized by many for glossing over Japan’s wartime
history. Officials from the shrine will meet a leading conservative historian
today to discuss the alternations. These are likely to focus on exhibits that
accuse the US of deliberately forcing Japan into the Second World War, but are
unlikely to address more contentious displays relating to the Japanese invasion
of China and Southeast Asia. However, agreement to make changes would show that
Yasukuni, which has become a flashpoint in Japan’s relations with Asia, is
sensitive to outside pressure even though it is a private religious
organization. The museum, which was renovated in 2002 to reflect what many
consider a revisionist view of Japanese history, is adjacent to the shrine,
which honors Japan’s war dead, including a handful of convicted war criminals.
Hisahiko Okazaki, a right-wing political commentator, said museum staff and an
advisory historian from Japan’s self-defense force had agreed to meet him to
discuss potential changes. The meeting follows a column in yesterday’s
Sankei newspaper, in which Mr. Okazaki called for the removal of an exhibit
accusing Franklin D. Roosevelt, the former US president, of engineering a war
with Japan to strengthen the US economy. The exhibit says the plan to force
Japan into war followed the failure of Roosevelt’s New Deal. Mr. Okazaki said
the shrine had agreed yesterday to delete that reference . . . . [Italics
are Mr. Emory’s.]” (“Japan to Remove Exhibit from War Museum” by
David Pilling; Financial Times; 8/25/2006; p. 2.)
11.
The recent atomic arms test by North Korea may well reinforce what Abe
intends to do. In light of the information in paragraph 12, it is
interesting to speculate about the possibility that assistance to North Korea
by the Unification Church may have furthered that country’s nuclear weapons
program, thus providing support to the right-wing agenda that Abe is trying to
launch. “The last time North Korea tested a
powerful new weapon, in 1998 when it fired a ballistic missile over the largest
Japanese island, Japan reacted by upgrading its military and swinging
politically to the right. North Korea’s claim that it tested a nuclear weapon
on Monday appears likely to push Japan even further down the same nationalist
path. Many political analysts say the test, which has yet to be confirmed,
could weaken public support for the pacifism Japan adopted after World War II
and prompt it to seek a growing regional security role. . . . The most likely
result of North Korea’s actions, analysts say, would be to rally public opinion
around Japan’s new prime minister, Shinzo Abe, and his calls for taking Japan
in a more assertive direction. The crisis may also increase Mr. Abe’s chances
of revising the Constitution to allow Japan to possess full-fledged armed
forces. . . .” (“Japan Now Seems Likely to Rally Behind New Prime
Minister’s Call for a Stronger Military” by Martin Fackler; The New York
Times; 8/10/2006; p. A8.)
12.
In FTR#291,
we examined the probability that the Unification Church of Rev. Sun Myung Moon
is actually an extension of the patriotic societies that brought fascism to
Japan, and that have functioned as a covert enforcement arm for the zaibatsu.
In light of that analysis, it is interesting to note that North Korea’s atomic
arms development program appears to have been reinforced by contributions to
that country by the Unification Church. Might those contributions have been
made (in part at least) to bring about conditions that justify a more
militaristic and nationalistic stance by Japan? (For more about the patriotic
societies, see—among other programs—FTR#’s 296, 428.) “The Rev. Sun Myung Moon's business empire, which includes
the right-wing Washington Times, paid millions of dollars to North
Korea's communist leaders in the early 1990s when the hard-line government
needed foreign currency to finance its weapons programs, according to U.S.
Defense Intelligence Agency documents. The payments included a $3 million
‘birthday present’ to current communist leader Kim Jong Il and offshore
payments amounting to ‘several tens of million dollars’ to the previous
communist dictator, Kim Il Sung, the documents said. Moon apparently was
seeking a business foothold in North Korea, but the transactions also raised
potential legal questions for Moon, who appears to have defied U.S. embargos on
trade and financial relations with the Pyongyang government. [Italics are
Mr. Emory’s.] Those legal questions were never pursued, however, apparently
because of Moon's powerful political connections within the Republican power
structure of Washington, including financial and political ties to the Bush
family. Besides making alleged payments to North Korea’s communist leaders, the
86-year-old founder of the South Korean-based Unification Church has funneled
large sums of money, possibly millions of dollars, to former President George
H.W. Bush. . . .” (“Moon, North Korea and the Bushes” by Robert
Parry; Consortium News; 10/11/2006; accessed at: http://www.consortiumnews.com/2006/101006a.html.)