It Could Happen Here - The Assassination of Shinzo Abe: The Reckoning

Episode Date: October 4, 2023

Mia chats with Alisa Mahjoub, an ex-member of the Unification Church and part of Deprogramming Imperialism about the Japanese government's reaction to the public outcry over their connection to the Unification Church and how the various factions of the cult have responded. Follow Deprogramming Imperialism HERE (@no_more_cults on X)See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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It's time to get rewarded for it. Submit your podcast today at iHeart.com slash podcast awards. That's iHeart.com slash podcast awards. It's it could happen here the thing that's happening is that shinzo abe is still dead one year on that man has not come back from the dead he is still absolutely the most assassinated man of 2023 2020 2022 that well you know honestly given how assassinated he is we're giving him the credit for being the most assassinated man of 2023. And what's interesting about this assassination, and we talked about I talked about this really briefly in my sort of intro thing to the last episode that we ran about the Abe assassination. But this has been maybe the most successful political assassination not done by the CIA in the last like 70 years.

Like absolutely stunningly, incredibly successful political assassination because specifically of the political impact that the assassination has had on the Unification Church, probably better known as the Moonies, and how it's been forcing the sort of Unification Church aligned ruling liberal Democratic Party ofapan to like have a series of embarrassing scandals where they reveal their like incredible intertwinement with the church apparatus and all of the cult shit they've been doing and with me to talk about this is elisa majub who's an ex-unification church member who got out and who works with deprogramming imperialism which is a group that tells the sort of still untold story of how the Unification Church has worked with the CIA and the Korean CIA and enormous parts of the apparatus of the American Imperial War Machine to cause untold suffering on the world. Lisa, welcome to the show. Welcome back.

Thank you. I appreciate it. i'm glad to be back yeah i'm excited to talk with you about this because we didn't really there's been a lot of very very interesting stuff happening in the last like couple of months in japan but in order to do that i think we need to we need to sort of talk about what this assassination was actually about. So the shooter Tetsuya Yamagami killed Abe because he couldn't get to a he was trying to kill a high ranking unification church guy and he like couldn't get to him. And the reason he was trying to do this is that his mom had given like 70,000 yen to the church. I'm getting the number right. And had basically like, you know, like this is I. Yeah, I wanted to talk to you a bit about this before we go into more of the stuff about how the church's financial abuse works.

And how, you know, like how, how, how, how, how this person's mom was compelled to sort of like. Literally give away all of their money to this cult. Right. Well, um, I would say it's sort of multi-pronged approach that they use. Uh, they'll basically, oh gosh. Okay. So one of the main things that they'll do is they will charge people for ancestor liberation basically is that they'll say that uh your ancestors are going to go to heaven if you pay us this amount of money uh and they'll have people do that for like generations and generations back um in order to have their ancestors go to heaven um uh they do other spiritual sales like the book there was this one book from years ago that they they they charge people exorbitant fees on um just because it was like some sort of like

providential book of some sort so spiritual sales are are definitely like a main a main focal point of this another thing that'll happen is that like they'll they'll labor traffic people just straight up. A lot of the time they would do fundraising teams where they would have people go out, sell little trinkets and things on the street or flowers, and come back and then give all that money to the coffers of the church. Another thing that they do is tithes. You're expected to give a certain amount of your income basically to the church. And if you don't, it's like, they're not going to be like, they're there. It's like,

so you know, like, you need to do better because you're not you're not doing enough for God kind of shit. So they have like a myriad ways that they really push people into spending money on them and their organizations, as well as having a ton of very successful businesses and capital ventures and whatnot. They make guns, you name it. And so it all sort of comes together to this very large wheelhouse of capital yeah and and japan's so so i i i think i should probably i'm realizing i'm probably assuming that everyone who's listening to this has listened to the previous stuff we've done on the unification church and i don't know i don't know how true that is so i guess we should talk a little bit we should back up a little bit and talk about just what the unification church is and i guess also the importance of japan to it because yeah from everything that

i've understood japan's like you know like they have a bunch of sort of businesses that they run in korea but japan's kind of like their chief financial nexus like the last thing i saw i think it was like like they attracted like a hundred million dollars out of japan in the last few years yeah they they get they get so much that's their main it's their main financial powerhouse um within the church um and and part of that is because the church claims uh that because of the occupation of korea that uh japanese members have to pay more indemnity monetarily so uh everything with like you know all of the spiritual sales and stuff are just like exorbitantly higher for those members

and that is just an easy way for them to make a lot more money yeah which which is always a part of this thing i thought is really interesting because you know the church and we've talked about this sort of at length in other places but but they are hardcore right-wing anti-communists. Yes. And have backed a lot of death squads all over the world. They wound up backing Pol Pot because doing a ran contra twice wasn't enough for them. They gotta do it a bunch yeah yeah it's like once you once you once you once you've once you've done a ran contra

multiple times like you've gotta there are very few places you can go other than like into pulpot but i i think i think there's there's an interesting kind of game they're playing here because you know on the one hand so the the party they're allied with in Japan, I mean there's like several parties they work with, but their biggest backer in the government is the Liberal Democratic Party. And if you want to hear me talk about the Liberal Democratic Party for a long, long time, go listen to my Kishi episodes on Behind the Bastards because that guy did one – so Numasuke Kishi is the founder of the liberal democratic party he is a just horrific war criminal i did like mass enslavement stuff like that like truly truly awful guy he's like he's also the guy who just was in charge of like running the japanese war machine during uh world war ii and his grandson is is uh shinzo abe but there's just i think it's this interesting dynamic where you have on the one hand the moonies are allying with these right-wing guys who are either just straight up like a lot

like a lot of these people they're allying with are straight up like non-jing denialists right they're like you know they're they're they're people whose lines on japanese colonization are either that it was good or we didn't do any crimes right yeah yeah so it comes off pretty pretty you know bold-faced and ironic and just very obvious that this is a money ploy yeah yeah but but i think it's interesting kind of politically too because you know like if you if you on the one hand push denialism but then on the other hand you turn around and you're the only the one hand push denialism but then on the other hand you turn around and you're the only people going like hey look at all these crimes your government did like don't you owe like korea so much i feel like that's like it's a really like terrible and

like it's just unbelievably cynical way of exploiting like the exploiting just the horrors of japanese imperialism to get money out of people. Yeah, it's very underhanded, especially given that I feel like there is some evidence that, I mean, at least early church members and those around them may have been collaborators at the time as well. So it's very disingenuine and a completely twisted way to go about anything

but people people buy into it and heavily so yeah one of the ways they've they sort of done this is allying with with the liberal democratic party um so nobody should take kishi who again is abe's grandfather like is the guy who brought the unification church into the party. And this was kind of a controversial thing because, okay, it was, it was kind of a controversial thing, not because the unification church is a cult,

but because the unification church is Korean, which is like a dynamic that's at play here in this whole thing, which is you have this weird. Okay. So there's like, there's like two kinds of people who are anti-unification church in japan it's you have like the leftists who are anti-unification church because they're a cult and because they're you know like a sort of cat's paw of american imperialism and then you have like

these ultra right-wingers who are like these people are koreans and so we hate them which is like a i don't know truly terrifying japan dynamic but kishi kishi is able to sort of overcome this and he okay so this is the part that i don't know if you know more about this than i do so every the stuff that i've seen about this talks about the unification church and the yakuza kind of hammering out a deal to allow the Unification Church to do those specific kinds of scams. And I've always assumed that Kishi brokered this, because Nobushige Kishi also is very, very well connected with the Yakuza. He's been connected with the Yakuza since the 20s and 30s.

So I always assumed that he brokered this deal, but I'm not entirely sure. I don't know if you've run into anything about it. So I know that some of it has to do with asami kuboki uh i believe but i i wouldn't be surprised if initial links do come through kishi um i wouldn't i would not be surprised about that uh i i don't know where exactly like you know initially that would make sense that would make sense honestly um because like going back to the sort of uh end of the korean war and world war ii uh basically how all these you know prisoners that were class a war criminals got you know they got let off the books because they decided to work for america now um and and and basically these guys were the first guys who started like funding and financing and

like supporting the church uh with like the help of like macarthur and stuff and then macarthur of course is the one who got Moon out of prison. So, yeah, I mean, there's a lot of sort of there's a lot of very, very the LDP as a party is sort of directly like directly it is formed by the Dulles brothers intervening with the sort of Japanese right and telling them, like, you guys all have to like you guys all have to put aside your differences and form this party so as to stop like even like a vaguely center-left government from coming to power right yeah and the connections here are really deep like uh kishi kishi literally sells unification church their first building in

japan and that building is like his residence so they're they are in deep and in it for the long haul yeah and so multi-generation yeah yeah and this has been you know sort of going on for a very long time even after like kishi's like specific kind of like fascist corruption faction kind of eventually falls out of favor in like the 80s because they they they cut a series of deals with the americans that are like too corrupt for the u.s that ends with like i it ends with a fascist porn star i like dry attempting to do a kamikaze run and a yakuza boss by flying a plane into his house which is which is a whole thing but you know so this kind of gets us to many generations of ldp which is the liberal democratic party which has been the ruling party of japan for most of its sort of modern history many generations of this go by and you know there's

there's i think a really incredible symbiosis here where the LDP has consistently gotten them out of trouble. There's a famous example where Moon shouldn't have been able to enter Japan because he had been convicted of a felony in the US. And there's also been a series of investigations into the church that have just gotten squashed because the LDP was like, no. Yeah, they're too powerful. They're in with the guys who are running things. They don't have people to know. And I think this kind of brings us to the immediate Abe

stuff, which I think is really interesting, which is that Abe... Okay, so long ago in a galaxy far, far away, during Kishi's generation, theia was like literally running ldp elections like this the cia would go in with individual candidates and they would go in to sort of manipulate the vote they would go in and they would have like cia assets doing canvassing for them and what i think is really interesting is that like from what i what i've

seen it seems like abe basically replaced the cia with the moonies in the 2000s where he was having the church do exactly the same thing the cia did of like like hey if you ally with us we will like you know we will like go district by district and campaign for you and like use our influence networks it's funny how that keeps happening yeah yeah it's really the sort of long arc of and but it's funny too because it's like like quite frankly like at this point like from the cia's point of view like i it's utterly unclear to me if it matters at all whether the ldp or like their absolutely identical opposition party like comes into power but there's still just this kind of like like the ghost of the cia from like when they actually had to stop the communists in like the 50s 60s and 70s i guess a

bit through the 80s it's just sort of still there and still doing like all of the same things that um yeah same things and more yep yep you know who else uh actually i don't think they've ever advertised on this show but uh you know who probably wouldn't be that out of place given the reagan coin people i don't know it's it's ads it's we're doing them i hope they don't suck Hey guys, I'm Kate Max. You might know me from my popular online series, The Running Interview Show, where I run with celebrities, athletes, entrepreneurs, and more. After those runs, the conversations keep going. That's what my podcast, Post Run High, is all about. It's a chance to sit down with my guests and dive even deeper into their stories, their journeys, and the thoughts that arise once we've hit the pavement together. You know that rush of endorphins you feel after a great workout?

Well, that's when the real magic happens. So if you love hearing real, inspiring stories from the people you know, follow, and admire, join me every week for Post Run High. It's where we take the conversation beyond the run and get into the heart of it all. It's lighthearted, pretty crazy, and very fun. Listen to Post Run High on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome. I'm Danny Trejo. Won't you join me at the fire and dare enter Nocturnum, Tales from the Shadows, presented by iHeart and Sonora.

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Submit your podcast for nomination now at iHeart.com slash podcast awards. But hurry, submissions close on December 8th. Hey, you've been doing all that talking. It's time to get rewarded for it. Submit your podcast today at iHeart.com slash podcast awards. That's iHeart.com slash podcast awards. And we're back. Okay, so this is something I wanted to ask you.

And we're back. Okay, so this is something I wanted to ask you. So in the last few months, there's been a lot of developments in terms of the reaction to the church in Japan and how the church has been reacting to the sort of swings in public sentiment that have been happening. So yeah, I guess I wanted to ask you, what's been happening inside the Japanese government since all of this stuff has sort of been coming out? So it seems to be that there has been quite a kerfuffle because quite a few members of both the LDP and other parties have ties to the Unification Church. So I've got some stats here and forgive me if these are not the most current i tried my best to find uh the most current the most current numbers out

here about this but uh i was having a little bit of trouble due to translations um so uh let's see i've got at least 334 uh prefectural assembly members members in Japan have had dealings with the Unification Church or its affiliates, with over 80% of them belonging to the ruling LDP, according to Kyoto News. So Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said that the government was in the final stage of considering whether to seek a court order to disband the Unification Church. But also, you know, his new cabinet, well, they've got some ties, okay? At least for lawmakers who admitted having ties to the church. The number of LDP lawmakers with ties to the church is around 180. And the Secretary General has said that 179 of the 379 parliamentarians reported with links to the church and related organizations.

And these relationships have ranged from attending church events to accepting donations and receiving election support. And then at least 334 prefectural councils had contact with the UC and related orgs. prefectural councils had contact with the UC and related orgs. So there's a lot going on that basically is, there's a lot that has come out about who is involved. However, the UC is still pretty much just denying everything. The pretrial proceedings for Yamagami began on October 13th. It's going to be closed door.

So it'll probably be a while, a little bit until the information trickles out about that hopefully they'll have some like i i don't know if like what closed door means in that specific situation if they'll have journalists in there or not hopefully yeah but yeah a lot has been coming out and people have been calling for a lot of change it seems but how much is actually going to happen especially when they're saying now it's going to be like maybe one to three years uh for the deliberation on the case um for dissolving the church which means that the church will have ample time to move all of its funds and set up new new lines of money funneling basically yeah which i think yeah i don't know like i i i have i have very little faith that even even this sort of like outswing of public pressure is going to

like actually seriously cause the liberal democratic party to like really go after the church because like i mean like abe like part of the reason abe got assassinated was that like i think like in 2022 he he he get he like he was like he like sent a video of of like of a speech like to a like to a main unification church event i think it was the same one that it might have been the same one that trump sent it to maybe it was it was a different event but like yeah like that i don't know i i have a difficult time i don't know kind of like believing that they're that like this like even if this crackdown does come that's going to be effective i don't know what are your thoughts on that i'm excited that there is some movement in that direction however i do worry that it won't really make as much of a dent into the functioning of the movement as some people think it could, given that there seems to be a lot of

time for them to recuperate funds. And they've been doing a lot of things that seems to make up for funds, as well as the fact that they already just have so much money and so many funds in the first place. It's hard to say how much they even have and how much this would make a dent into it were it to happen. So it's hard to say. And I also do worry that that'll just sort of incentivize them to sort of further radicalize people in a very dangerous far right direction. And sort of going into that, there have been some sort of recent developments within the church since all of this has come out, basically, and people are calling for some sort of justice and some sort of, you know, understanding of what's going on, which, you know, the church continues to deny but um recently

uh hak jahan who is now the leader of the mainline church uh has been meeting with the youth in multiple countries uh and recently at japan she sat down and told them that they are a kamikaze group basically to save japan and the world so i I can't imagine it's ever really, it never has ended well when somebody says that, when a cult leader says that to their constituents, it never goes well. And acts of violence against oneself, like self-immolation or other things,

murder have not been out of the realm of things that people in the unification of church have done in the past. So it does kind of worry me. And she's actually, Hatchahan is actually going to be meeting, I believe it's the weekend of the 7th in Vegas with the Youth of America. So I wonder if she's going to be saying similar things at that event. Yeah. I mean, that wouldn't surprise me. It would seem, I have a feeling it seems to be since she's been going around and meeting,

because she's also met with the youth of Europe and the Middle East that there's like a concerted effort here to sort of get youth engagement up, which leads me into a couple of other things here um i know that for a couple of years now the global peace foundation which is under preston moon has been uh involved with like different like music festivals and things uh with k-pop artists and stuff uh but recently there was actually a an event this year supposed to happen called 2023 Korean Dream Festa for Korean United. And then the original poster, it was said that it was Global Peace Foundation that was one of the groups that was leading this. A lot of fans have spoken up and I know at least one of the groups has pulled out so clearly at least within that within that prong

of the uc that there's there's there's some very active like trying to outreach to the youth um which i think i think i would be able to say is pretty across the board at this point i think they're all trying some new strategies because they see that people are leaving and especially with the number of people that have been speaking up lately they really want to keep those numbers and engage new people as well um part of this also makes me think that might be why sean moon is doing the sort of like a mega rapper thing i don't know yeah you know he could just be weird like that like it's possible but yeah but it does strike me as something that's like hmm maybe this is a way to get kids

into the movement you know like i i don't really know um part of me has also wondered why if if that is part of why caleb maupin has showed up at mooney things now um like yeah just yeah uh that guy fuck that guy but yeah, it just makes me wonder about like different onboarding ramps that might be being tapped because there's potentially, you know, like a little bit of a lull here and there's going

to be a financial dip in this specific chain. I don't really know. I can't claim to. I have suspicions. Yeah, I mean, I think as a theory, it makes sense. The Unification Church has always tried to sort of stick itself into different cultural trends. And I think, from what I've understood, I don't think the last time they really tried the youth strategy worked very well, like in the late 2000s, early 2010s. Right, yeah. No, it didn't work particularly well uh i wonder however you know times are changing if they happen to get one or two good strategists on board that could change everything honestly

but i i also don't necessarily know that this is going to go well for them seeing as that they are deeply uncool it's a real big issue like that's the main issue for like trying to get youth engagement up i feel like you know i don't know uh there's only so cool you can make it sound which is nothing like no yeah and i mean it is interesting that they're kind of like the mop and thing specifically is really interesting because it's it's it seems like i don't know it seems like they're trying to tap into this like just like whatever weird currents of like new right like stuff they can get their hands on yeah it seems like that honestly to me too um and it's also specifically ironic

considering that caleb used to hit me up for information on the Moonies a lot before I figured that he was a creep. Yeah. Yeah. And before I figured out he was a creep and like not somebody I wanted to be talking to. So he knows all this shit about them and continues and like willfully. Yeah. Is engaging with them, which to me is just like. Yeah.

It's like if you're going you're gonna sell out like at least at least sell out into a podcast don't sell out to a fucking cult like jesus christ come on it's just ridiculous stuff i don't know yeah it's really terrible i don't know like yeah it's the mashup we didn't need and this i i think this this has been something else i wanted to ask about so other than the sort of like youth strategy stuff has there been a reaction from like the rotavire ministry or like the the other sort of like uh splinter factions of the church to the to the stuff that's been happening in japan like have and also i that's the other thing like as best like everything that i've seen seems to

suggest that the if they were gonna like if they were gonna disband the church it would only be the main branch has there been like has the state been going after the other branches too or so in that respect i am actually still kind of unclear and have some research questions i need to resolve on that matter as far as I've been aware, the other branches have been reasonably quiet about it. It doesn't mean that they're not internally doing things. I know that they both have large populations in Japan as well of membership. So it would make sense that they would be trying to figure something out. However, I don't actually know if legally they are going to be gone after

the same way as the mainline church. And that's something I just need to clear up myself. But honestly, they haven't been speaking as much about it as I thought they might. That doesn't mean that they're not. It also just might mean that they're not publishing it. But part of me also wants to know if the reason that you know hakta han is coming to america that certain weekend is because that's exact same weekend that the rod of iron freedom festival is happening and she just doesn't want to get beheaded by her sons who want to behead her so yeah because it's like oh she knows they're doing that weekend i mean i don't know like that's it's just maybe silly speculation but at the same time they have literally said that they want to behead her so yeah i i wouldn't be

i'd be staying far away from them if i were her yeah so that that that that that entire fight is really uh like like no matter what it's it's either uh like the eat popcorn, let them fight or the no matter who wins, we lose kind of thing. Right. It's just quite a mess. Like I can say that I have a lot of family drama, but nothing compared to this. Yeah. Just wild. Yeah.

Hey, guys, I'm Kate Max. Yeah. the conversations keep going. That's what my podcast, Post Run High, is all about. It's a chance to sit down with my guests and dive even deeper into their stories, their journeys, and the thoughts that arise once we've hit the pavement together. You know that rush of endorphins you feel after a great workout? Well, that's when the real magic happens. So if you love hearing real, inspiring stories

from the people you know, follow and admire, join me every week for post run high. It's where we take the conversation beyond the run and get into the heart of it all. It's lighthearted, pretty crazy and very fun. Listen to post run high on the I heart radio Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome. I'm Danny Trejo. Won't you join me at the fire and dare enter? Nocturno, Tales from the Shadows, presented by iHeart and Sonora. An anthology of modern day horror stories inspired by the legends of Latin America. From ghastly encounters with shapeshifters to bone-chilling brushes with supernatural creatures.

Take a trip and experience the horrors that have haunted Latin America since the beginning of time. Listen to Nocturnal Tales from the Shadows as part of My Cultura podcast network, available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The 2025 iHeart Podcast Awards are coming. This is the chance to nominate your podcast for the industry's biggest award. Submit your podcast for nomination now at iHeart.com slash podcast awards. But hurry, submissions close on December 8th. Hey, you've been doing all that talking. It's time to get rewarded for it. Submit your podcast today at iHeart.com slash podcast awards. That's iHeart.com slash podcast awards. so there was a show that was originally going to be called the devil's whispers that was to be aired in japan but of course the uc complained a little bit and they said that the program

included a dramatization they said that basically they they claimed that this dramatized program which was showing past attempts of the group to recruit believers, including, uh, hiding the group's name and door to door sales tactics, desires disguised as charitable. First of all, NHK, the channel that was going to air it, first of all,

change the name to dangerous whispers instead of the devil's whispers. But the church also tried to try to make them cancel like the show from happening and airing. Um, I, as far as I'm aware, I think it actually did air a couple of nights ago though glad glad glad they got it through but like the fact that you're able to get the name change like really yeah i'm like still it's pretty ridiculous like maybe they changed it but i think what they had said it was like sometimes in post-production will change the name for whatever reason or something like that but it's like are you sure

it's not because the church complained like yeah yeah so i don't really know well and i i i guess i guess i guess no one more thing i wanted to talk a bit about which is that and this is something we've been seeing already is people talking about oh, you shouldn't disband the church on religious freedom grounds. And that's something that the UC has been really, really successful at sort of hiding behind when anyone tries to go after them. They did this in the 70s and 80s when there were campaigns to prosecute them for just the crimes they were doing.

Was it a bunch of sort of like, not just right-wing groups, but sort of like civil libertarian groups like like we're like oh you can't do this because if you if if they go after the yufkaish church they're going to be able to go after like any religious groups and that's just like not true like it's just not true these people are not like whatever you're you know in terms of sort of whatever like the crimes of like a normal religious group group are like the church is not a normal religious group they have been funding death squads for like longer than most of the people listening to this show have been alive and yeah i don't know i i i just want to sort of like like just make people aware of it.

They're going to try this shit again. And it was, it was bullshit last time they did it. And it's bullshit now. Yeah. A hundred percent. And that's, that's the thing that keeps annoying me. Well,

it's not the thing. There are many things about this that annoy me and make me very enraged. But one of them is that the playbook doesn't change. Yeah, no, it me very enraged. But one of them is that the playbook doesn't change. Yeah, no. It's very, very straightforward. This is how it's going to work. I'm kind of wondering also if the cult is going to sort of like roll out new providential edicts that will like potentially be like, oh, no, this is going to be our new country that we get the most money out of.

Or this maybe or something like you know just something that they're going to say that god has made it this way so that like yeah you could change those money money funneling tunnels yeah i i don't know i the only prediction that i can make that i'm absolutely sure of is that it's going to be wild and it's going to suck yeah yeah i'm not looking forward to how this is gonna play out honestly especially given all of the like kamikaze squad comments and stuff uh makes me it makes it makes me scared it makes me not feel confident about the way that this is going to turn out yeah i'm kind of of two minds of this because like i'm i'm hoping this will go well and this will actually work and that like even if the church tries to lash out it's like doesn't work very well

um i i do think also the way that this assassination has like been turning just random people like regular people in japan who don't really know anything about the church against them has been really really interesting and powerful in a way that like was i mean not not the i don't know so there's a i've been saying it's like the top of the show kind of as a joke but like this really has been a very successful like political assassination in that it hasn't like it hasn't back it hasn't yet backfired in a way that helps the church and it seems to have really i don't know it seemed it seemed to have very powerfully achieved this objective of getting people to go wait hold on who is this cult that is like not i don't know running is maybe too strong of a word but has like

completely embedded itself in in the in japan's ruling class right yeah yeah people are asking questions now yeah which i think is good and i don't know i hope i the other thing i'm hoping is that this like people start doing this in like the u.s and in korea and in like all of the other places that they've been doing shit like this because this isn't just yeah because it's been global and there have been so many people that have been victims of this group that i know a lot of us uh in america have also started speaking out about it and the the media here has not been quite as interested in picking up, uh, what we have to say to a degree they have been,

but it's usually, you know, sensationalized and made a little weird and just, yeah. Yeah. And missing the main point. Oh, sorry.

Yeah. Go on. Yeah. Like there's a, there's a really, and this is something like I've read a lot of sort of American coverage of this alongside the Japanese coverage. And I mean,

like I expect this of the Japanese. well, okay, I guess I expect this of both, like, parts of the coverage, but there is, there has been very, very little, if any, willingness to, like, talk about the church's connection to the CIA, and they're, you know, people will talk about them, like like as an anti-communist group but right like yeah like they don't take that extra step yeah yeah like you have like they're not just in it like there there are lots of anti-communist groups i mean there are no anti-communist groups that are good right but like there are lots of anti-communist groups that never funded death squads in like not what was what was the actual number like 16 i had i had i had a count

at one point of the number of countries they funded death squads in but like most most most most people haven't like like funded coups in bolivia and like you know kept like allowed iran contra to happen by keeping the contras in the war or like sent weapons of the mujahideen like you know like they they really they really they've i don't know like and i i i mean i like i guess like uh you know in terms of the sort of like this is the bourgeois press stuff it like it like it makes sense ideologically why people don't want to talk about their connections to the cia and like the operations they pulled in the US and all of the just imperialism they've been

doing but it's really depressing because yeah I don't know it feels demoralizing sometimes because people only want to tell part of the story when it's like not too crazy and out there sounding for them it's like no I tell you

what the actual story behind this group is crazier and more out there than you could ever imagine. Like, yeah. Yeah. And I think, I think that's, that that's been an important, I mean, that's, I think why the work you're doing is really important because like, you have to actually make like you're, you're one of the few people like actually making these connections and yeah, I really, I really appreciate it. Thank you. I appreciate that. You appreciate it thank you i appreciate that you appreciate it because it's uh sometimes it's it's weird work to do like i i just

read a lot about of horrible things and yeah you know i mean like i was saying that can take a toll on you to a degree and sometimes i'll have to take breaks from it but at the end of the day i'm always going to go back to it because like i think it's worth doing because this stuff needs to be talked about. Yeah, so I guess, do you have anything else that you wanted to say before? I'll just plug deprogramming, imperialism, those two words. I think there's an underscore on our Instagram. Let me just double check if there's an underscore. We will put links to this in the description. Appreciate it. Yeah, thank you so much for coming on the show and

yeah, fuck these people. Yeah, for real. They've done some really bad stuff. So hopefully, hopefully this is finally after like so many generations of terrible crimes they've been doing that this is finally the one that's going to fucking crush them. We can you know yeah you can very much hope so and the more people

are talking about it the better the more people understand like the history behind the movement the better so thanks for having me yeah and yeah this is this has been it can happen here uh you can find us assuming twitter still exists when this goes up on Twitter and Instagram at HappenHerePod. Yeah, you can find sources at CoolZone Media. Yeah, go into the world, destroy

imperialism, and crush the remains of these dogshit-ass cults. Yes! It Could Happen Here is a production of Cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from Cool Zone Media, visit our website, coolzonemedia.com, or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can find sources for It Could Happen Here updated monthly at coolzonemedia.com slash sources.

Thanks for listening. Hey, guys. I'm Kate Max. happen here, updated monthly at coolzonem that arise once we've hit the pavement together. Listen to Post Run High on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. You should probably keep your lights on for Nocturnal Tales from the Shadowbrass. Join me, Danny Trejo, and step into the flames of right. An anthology podcast of modern day horror stories inspired by the most terrifying legends and lore of Latin America. Listen to Nocturno on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to Gracias Come Again, a podcast by Honey German,

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