The Crime That Killed Shinzo Abe | Hacker News Reader

The Crime That Killed Shinzo Abe

shingetsunewsagency.com

495 pointshunglee2454 comments

The linked article ends with this:

“Why the Japanese media has refused to identify the ‘religious group’ that formed the motive for the killing must remain as speculation at this juncture, though it reflects very poorly on Japan’s status as a democratic nation.”

It’s important to note that the Japanese media is not monolithic.

It’s true that the major newspapers (Asahi, Yomiuri, Mainichi, Nikkei, etc.) and the broadcaster NHK do not, as of this moment, seem to have named the religious group yet; nor do they seem to have explained why they are not naming it.

However, the group is named in online news stories by some of the weekly magazines [1, 2, 3] and will presumably be in their print editions within a few days. It’s all over Twitter etc., too.

[1] https://web.archive.org/web/20220710064519/https://www.daily...

[2] https://web.archive.org/web/20220710061754/https://gendai.is...

[3] https://web.archive.org/web/20220710062542/https://news.yaho...

Why aren't the major Japanese media outlets covering this angle before the polls close in Japan's upper house elections (today)?

Isn’t it controversial whether or not he did have a connection? There is a value of free speech in Japan but it’s not exactly like America’s, and I think the Japanese media would mostly avoid stirring the pot immediately prior to an election, and especially for a claim that may be unfounded.

I won’t argue whether their approach is the right one or not and this is just my opinion, but that seems like that would be why the major papers wouldn’t want to cover this angle to me.

Controversial in the sense that he’s on video as a presenter in one of their events.

It’s as controversial as the My Pillow guy having a connection to a political party. We don’t know whether he literally believes in what he’s saying, but we do know he’s being paid to speak for them.

But whether this is the cult he was killed for is yet to be confirmed. He also had heavy involvement with Soka Gakkai through his alignment with the Komeito party. They also drain people of their cash.

Strange. I don't see how it could be more controversial than his well known links to Nippon Kaigi.

I mean, the cult connection is only important for the fact that someone killed him for it. And I am going to guess that it tells you something about the deranged mind of the killer, and probably not much interesting about Abe.

Edit: I mean, come on, "newsflash: prominent politician involved in dubious business or accounting practices", you could probably have safely assumed it :)

It could be controversial because it's a Korean sect and Abe was a nationalist hardliner whose image was that he would make Japan "proud" again by refreezing relations with China and Korea.

So if he had connections to a Korean sect, and knowing what sects do, the next logical step would be to assume that he was controlled by or at least open to Korean interests, which is the opposite of what people elected him for, and would be a major, major scandal for him and his party.

Haha, yes, and that would be pretty deranged given that the Korean ultra-right/fascist movement is very supportive of Japanese fascism, no matter how loudly it denies, downplays, or asks to be thanked for atrocities committed against Koreans. And that includes the vast majority of nutty religious sects.

Edit: or to translate, the scandal would be "concern that fascist politician, might not be fascist enough" with an emphasis on "might" since it would be pure speculation

Very rare to meet someone who has a realistic view on modern Japan and calls these people what they really are. Nice to meet you!

Have you by any chance ever heard of Ryōichi Sasakawa? The man who created the „Nippon Foundation“ which runs a lot of „cultural exchange“ Institutes like Language schools etc. in Europe and maybe elsewhere.

His Wikipedia says he was a self-declared fascist. Can’t make it up.

> Isn’t it controversial whether or not he did have a connection?

Controversial like linking the Kashoggi's death to the Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman[1], but then participating to the G20 summit in Riyadh or selling them billions worth of weapons (including combat aircrafts), like nothing happened?

[1] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-56213528

They mean controversial in the sense of totally nonsensical distraction in which the stakes are basically zero.

Not controversial as in, "of any real consequence"

It’s absolutely insane to me that people are criticizing the Japanese media over this. Why should we be amplifying a murder’s message? Don’t reward a man for shooting someone in the back.

After every mass shooting in the US I see widespread criticism of the media for sensationalism and turning mass murders into stars. Yet when another country follows this very advice, they’re criticized for a lack of free speech?

Knowledge and transparency is oxygen to a democracy. Without an informed populace you can not have an effective democracy.

I agree with the theme of your message, but people won't be educated unless they seek it out themselves beyond just what the media spouts. That is all too sadly very rare.

> Knowledge and transparency is oxygen to a democracy

Democracy can wait a week or two when a man is murdered that way

Freedom means also that you have to earn it, if people can't wait to speculate online about things that are still being investigated, they probably don't deserve it.

---

What if they waited a bit more before putting Lee Harvey Oswald on the front page of every newspaper? Maybe he would still be alive and we knew a lot more about what really happened.

What if Kennedy assassination happened today, with social media and the "pornography of violence"?

Think about it.

>Freedom means also that you have to earn it

Freedom isn't earned, authority is. Freedom is the default nature of man. Those in power who seek to limit freedom, must earn that right. And it can be quickly withdrawn.

> Freedom is the default nature of man

There's nothing natural in modern society.

The only natural freedom is the freedom to survive.

The lion cared not for our "freedom to survive", indeed I doubt the lions cared about property rights or the 2nd amendment either.

Freedoms, even when they are freedoms FROM a state entity, only exist because society came together, usually in the form of a state entity, to set norms and expectations and promises.

This sounds like an argument that could be used to justify slavery.

> Freedom is the default nature of man

In actual Nature, there is absolutely no default state of freedom. The default is to eat or get eaten. "Freedom" is a social construct.

Just _maybe_ there is some biological underpinning in the form of tit-for-tat based sets of defensive-oriented instincts. (If you don't hurt me, I'll not hurt you.)

The motives of a crazy person are far less important than a long list of important policy nuances though. Why give this one precedence in air time.

I would never criticize the media for indicating who did the killing, the weapon and how it was obtained, or the "mind set" (to the degree that is possible) of the killer. All of these things inform the populace. (And besides, does anyone think you could successfully suppress those?)

But of course I am not the "widespread criticism" you refer to.

It would be useful to point to the actual hypocrisy of a specific source/person — where this source/person was critical of the U.S. media amplifying a murderer's message but critical of Japan's refusal to do so.

This. Usually calm people in Japan rage now about that news is slow. People should be calm even in this situation.

It’s linked to too many hot button issues, and would have way more impact than just anger against a single cult.

If it was in the US context I would compare it to an alternative muslim cult founded in China and supporting the Palestinian regime. If someone shooting a US politician was found vaguely linked to that cult, it would be wiser to wait for a strong connection with the crime instead of just throwing around the information and have everyone go wild with the implications they want.

Only if it was supporting a muslims/chinese/palestinians who are known for their vociferous support of the republican party?

I mean, these groups tend to be ultra-right wing and the Korean ultra-right are very supportive of the japanese ultra-right wing, like Abe, who is grandson of Nobusuke Kishi, "the devil of manchuria" and thinks grandpa was a lovely guy.

Edit: Nobusuke, not Nobuo, Nobuo is the other grandson who is defence minister. My bad.

The issue would be to bring all that cult and culturally heavy discussion in the spotlight when there's still a chance it's completely irrelevant to the incident.

The same way we wouldn't be digging deep on where the guy ate at lunch if there wasn't enough link (I know some newspaper do, but imo they shouldn't)

My point is that there are much more interesting discussions to be had, like how Abe's grandfather was a class A war criminal who the US sprung from prison and spared the death penalty cos they thought he would be a good pro-US element in Japanese politics. How he then founded the party Abe is a member of. Or any of what Abe's politics are. But there is zero mention of any of it in any western press... ever... Even when very relevant events are happening. Even, for example, when China and South Korea are united in condemnation. Which is strange, because aren't South Korea and Japan supposed to be allies with the US, and all about containing China?

So I'm wondering why the "suppression" of that news is so much less interesting than the "suppression" of whatever gobbledygook Crazy McShootyFace believes?? :)

It's also quite chauvinist to suggest that the major newspapers cannot arrive at the same conclusion about disclosure independently, and pretty ignorant to imply that suppressing information is inconsistent with democracy.

> pretty ignorant to imply that suppressing information is inconsistent with democracy

It sort of is inconsistent with democracy. People should know for whom and for what they vote.

Is it? In most democracies in the world there are things you cannot publish even if they are true - Britain for example still maintains an official state censor, and even in the US there are still some state secrets that you cannot publish regardless of how true they are. Britain and many other countries also maintain a right to privacy that protects non-public-figure individuals against salacious soap-opera tabloid shit - you can't just go telling the whole world that Joe Q Public cheated on his wife, even if it's absolutely true because it's not a good idea for the panopticon to be pointed at the powerless like that.

Again, as should be said every time the topic comes up here on HN - the idealization of absolute and unlimited free speech is kind of a uniquely American phenomenon and even then it is not quite absolute. The rest of the world views freedom of speech as a right that needs to be limited and balanced like every other right.

Everyone has frequently talked about how we shouldn't be having media broadcast the manifestos of these shooters and glorifying them, how the media should just suppress information about them and refuse to publish their pictures and only and talk about them in the abstract... isn't that exactly what is going on here? This guy killed the prime minister and you want to know exactly what his cause was in exacting detail...

Britain’s an interesting case, but I don’t think it makes the point you think it does. Yes, there’s a censor, but the real reason all the newspapers report the same thing at the same time is cultural a) newspaper ownership is concentrated amongst a very small group of people, most of whom are billionaires b) they employ people who they trust to do the right thing c) journalism in the U.K. operates a revolving door with the conservative party’s communications division d) partly as a result of that and partly as a result of falling revenues, most journalist's idea of what good journalism is consists of asking two people what they think and reporting what they say e) this makes them extremely dependent on the lobby system, which is pretty similar to press clubs e) Blair set a precedent for cutting funding to the BBC if it said things it didn’t like, and the current government hasn’t hesitated to threaten to do it again f) this culture is so ingrained it has spread even to those publications that theoretically shouldn’t be affected.

So the situation in Japan is pretty similar to that in the U.K. You just need to identify the levers.

> c) journalism in the U.K. operates a revolving door with the conservative party’s communications division

Actually the prime minister’s press office, and to be fair Labour perfected this process thanks to Alastair Campbell.

> and even in the US there are still some state secrets that you cannot publish regardless of how true they are

That is simply not true. There are many examples where USA newspapers published leaked secrets and the journalist were not convicted for it in any case.

The Pentagon Papers come to mind as the most famous example: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentagon_Papers

The claim was that there are some secrets, not all secrets which is the claim you countered.

Ok. There are no secrets “you cannot publish” in the USA. Prove it otherwise. Either by citing law, or even better by citing precedent.

Ever heard of Assange?

(Also https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Born_secret among others; there is a ton of those.)

Your link does not seem to contradict what i’m saying “ The constitutionality of declaring entire categories of information preemptively classified has not been definitively tested in the courts.”

You said:

>There are no secrets “you cannot publish” in the USA.

As evidenced above there sure are. The “constitutionality” doesn’t matter.

Looking at the DoJ's indictment of Assange -- they stated:

The indictment also charges Assange for his posting of a narrow subset of classified documents on WikiLeaks that allegedly identified the names of human sources—including local Afghans and Iraqis who were assisting U.S. forces in theater, and those of journalists, religious leaders, human rights advocates, and political dissidents living in repressive regimes. Assange thereby is alleged to have created grave and imminent risk to their lives and liberty.

(Source: https://www.justice.gov/opa/press-release/file/1165636/downl... )

That would appear to be a specific example of secrets that cannot be published?

"Born secret" and "born classified" are both terms which refer to a policy of information being classified from the moment of its inception, usually regardless of where it was created, and usually in reference to specific laws in the United States that are related to information that describes the operation of nuclear weapons.

"Again, as should be said every time the topic comes up here on HN - the idealization of absolute and unlimited free speech is kind of a uniquely American phenomenon and even then it is not quite absolute."

Yeah, I just got smacked down on here for suggesting that not sharing all the details, naming names, etc could be because they don't want to encourage copycats, and that the US could address some of it's violence via a law limiting the details they provide.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5296697/

>even in the US there are still some state secrets that you cannot publish regardless of how true they are.

Sunlight is the best disinfectant. The "powers that be" have gotten drunk on their ability to not only hide information from the public, but more often than not to muddy it by releasing floods of false information so that people don't know what is what.

These are the same people we owe things like Operation Northwoods and MK-Ultra to, so they can't be trusted.

Yes, there is information that should not be printed, including that which clearly harms national security, like the locations of all the nuclear missiles. In the US, this happens by voluntary cooperation by the press. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_of_Censorship

This specific story is not one of them. It is useful to society to understand that cults destroying individuals' financial security can make them desperate enough to assassinate.

Not necessarily backing the decision of the Japanese newspapers here, but US politics is basically a circus of unsubstantiated allegations which are front and center because they get more eyeballs. Sensationalism is hardly a pillar of democracy. It's a scourge and the country would be better off if Fox, MSNBC, Twitter's apocalypse algorithms etc. were a little more reserved.

It's not really any different than the US.

Lots of information tends to be "widely known" online to those who care to dig, but the mainstream outlets stick to some narrative that is best described as "half truth".

Yes indeed. And if you really want to go down a rabbit hole, test it out on the subjects that find the likes of CNN & FOX agreeing in lockstep. More often than not it's to hide the truth than to report it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D9rbHpA_6W4

I find a lot of that information is in the mainstream media… just that you have to pay attention.

Case in point, the death of Epstein.

I'm genuinely curious. What hidden but verifiable facts have been hidden from the public with respect to the Epstein death?

Not much was hidden, the issue is the pantomime that it was completely reasonable to expect that a suicide of such a figure when the cameras were off and the guards weren't aware the cameras were off is a complete coincidence, and playing coy with his connections to the elite. Those facts weren't hidden but they weren't mentioned far less than they should and eventually not at all. Beyond that the media failed in their duty to confront the authorities.

In the case of Epstein, journalists weren't allowed by their editors to do their jobs.

The death of Epstein was reported based on the observable facts. Realistically, he probably killed himself and he probably never had any incriminating evidence on anyone to warrant a hit. The conspiracy theories are all 99% speculation. The fact that notable people travelled with him isn't proof of anything. We have some actual evidence against Prince Andrew and it's all gotten in the press. We have no proof on anyone or anything else beyond what was charged in court against him and Maxwell. Reporting anything else would be unethical and unprofessional.

It's interesting that even in US papers, the sudden trend of Russian oligarchs to become suicidal or murder-suicidal overnight is largely reported at face value, at best giving the context about how suddenly and frequently it is occurring.

Most mainstream press won't report things they can't prove. When they report on a Russian journalist falling out a window, they will usually mention that lots of opposition journalists have fallen out of windows and let readers draw conclusions, but we still have absolutely no direct proof they're being assassinated. I think news consumers have started to change their expectations and just really, really want pat answers fed to them rather than reading about what we actually know.

There's lots of information out there that's widely known that is true. There's also lots of widely known information that is untrue.

It was explained to me when I lived in Japan, that while there are many Japanese media companies that exist independently in Japan, they all have to go to one central government body to renew their licenses to exist. They get some leeway but it's it's not much

all these news organizations in Japan are nothing but government mouthpieces. When Abe was in power the journalists could not stop singing his praises and how smart the whole "Abenomics" was supposed to be.

It's not about "licenses to exist", but access to the press clubs (kisha clubs). Basically, if the government doesn't like what you print/say, you get frozen out the clubs and hence out of all government news.

https://freespeechdebate.com/discuss/an-impregnable-fortress...

Kinda like how the threat of revoking the press's access to the White House keeps them toeing the establishment line

https://www.cjr.org/the_media_today/white-house-press-passes...

That worked well. /s

This is the same in every country, including the US where entire agencies will just stop talking to you if you piss them off (especially police departments.) It's one of the ways we get all this propaganda even though we have a nominally "free" press.

It's not "the same" at all. It's a matter of degrees, which make a huge difference.

It's no different at all. You'll be excluded from press clubs and conferences just the same. Identical situation.

You can piss people/agencies off anywhere, true. But, the bar for what is expected to be tolerable behavior/reporting is vastly different.

not really. Japan runs under a unitary government that has almost exclusively been controlled by a single party since the post-war era.

The US is a federalized country with quite big cultural differences between states, and at least alternates between two major parties, and frequently shifting administrations. You can at most get canceled by one side. Japan is centralized and monolithic to an extent that really has no parallel in any other democratic country.

> Japan is centralized and monolithic to an extent that really has no parallel in any other democratic country

Singapore?

The press doesn’t just toe the official line, they actively attack opposite viewpoints.

The previous poster did say "democratic". Despite the fig leaf of elections, Singapore has been ruled by the same party since independence, which straight up owns all licensed newspapers, TV and radio stations.

Bonus points: the TV/radio wing has the delightfully Orwellian name of MediaCorp, and MediaCorp Radio at one point had the amazing slogan "MediaCorp Radio: Your choice!".

so what makes Japan more democratic? (is there some power consolidation index that can distinguish between Singapore and Japan effectively?)

The Japanese ruling party has actually lost power and smoothly transitioned.

> The LDP has been in power almost continuously since its foundation in 1955—a period called the 1955 System—except between 1993 and 1994, and again from 2009 to 2012.

in theory there's no problem with this, after all if they represent the plurality ... just as in theory many political systems should work just fine.

and it's certainly possible that this is what the vast majority of people there wants, so it might score 100% on "democracy", even if there are certain very obvious problems (let's say their insane justice system, or the simple fact that their population is both shrinking and ageing)

Opposition candidates who might have a chance are not systematically made ineligible on bogus charge of tax evasion or contempt of court like in Singapore.

As an example, John Tan was disqualified for standing as a candidate to the parliament in 2019 because he posted a Facebook post in support of an activist who posted than Malaysian courts were more independent than Singapore ones in trials involving politicians.

That's not really relevant. The causes are the same (they don't like what you say) and the effects are the same (you don't get to say it.) However you get from A to be, you get from A to B.

With police departments, it might be worse. Imagine any local news outlet frozen out of police communications. The choice is to cease to exist, or to fire or demote the person that the cops want fired or demoted. If you live in the US, the reason you've seen 900 videos of cops dancing with children, opening fire hydrants, and handing out toys (on every network news show on the same day) is because they're press released by the cops, and there will be retaliation if the videos don't get on the air.

"This is the same in every country, including the US where entire agencies will just stop talking to you if you piss them off"

They only stop talking to you through official channels. There will always be leakers, disgruntled employees and others willing to talk to you anonymously or unofficially. Not to mention that you can talk to people and ask questions without announcing that you're a reporter. This used to be called investigative journalism.

Investigative journalism is at an all time low at the moment: it's simply too expensive. Rephrased press releases from corporations, government bodies and celebrities sell just as well and the PR firms take full advantage of that.

>Investigative journalism is at an all time low at the moment: it's simply too expensive.

I would just say it's not as profitable. Many independent journalists seem to do investigative journalism on the cheap. Wikileaks comes to mind. Saying it' too expensive, to me, denotes that they are unable to do it and be a sustainable enterprise, which is probably not accurate.

It is not that frequent and it is difficult/expensive to verify those stories. Plus, anonymous/unofficial source is not much. To large extend, it amounts to gossip and a lot of it is basically unuseable.

Beat reporting and investigative journalism are very different "genres" of journalism.

> They only stop talking to you through official channels. There will always be leakers, disgruntled employees and others willing to talk to you anonymously or unofficially.

You cannot sustain beat reporting by relying on leakers and disgruntled employees. Furthermore, anonymous sources are not credible (ie, the news-consuming public largely does not trust them).

Most of the time, simple facts need to be reported and the only way to do that is by talking to credible sources that have been developed over time. Not all journalism is investigative - what happens when you want to report on a new housing development but you've burned all your sources because you only talk to leakers and disgruntled employees? Or you're reporting on a crime and need to talk to some cops?

> Not to mention that you can talk to people and ask questions without announcing that you're a reporter.

City officials are pretty well trained to know when the person on the other end of the line is a reporter. Not to mention how incredibly unethical this is (won't even start on the legal issues here).

Even they often try to cross the line, all German public agencies including police are required (by law in the states, by constitution for the federal level) to answer journalists' questions.

Yes and no.

Trump actually had a reporter's white house press credentials revoked and a court reversed it.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-reporter/u-s-ap...

The court does recognize the government has a right to prevent unruly behavior. But once it creates a forum with rules on who attends; it simply can not target those who disagree with it's speech.

Yes, American agencies have stonewalled in the past but the 1st and 14th amendments do place restrictions and practices the governments must follow or their acts can be blocked and that American courts do uphold. As far as I know most countries do not have these practices.

I like the model of ths German Bundespressekonferenz where an organization made up of journalists invites the German goverment for press conferences instead of the other way around.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bundespressekonferenz#Organisa...

Can the journalist organization exclude its members if they break ranks, so to speak?

Tilo Jung[0] has bee annoying the government spokes persons with uncomfortable questions for years. I read that some other journalists are uncomfortable with his questions since they fear that the government might decide to just not show up anymore (everybody is aware that the Bundespressekonferenz is a quite unique arrangement) but they still let him show up and ask questions. He does really valuable work imo and publishes all Bundespressekonferenzen on his youtube channel[1].

[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tilo_Jung [1] https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCv1WDP5EiipMQ__C4Cg6aow

> I read that some other journalists are uncomfortable with his questions since they fear that the government might decide to just not show up anymore

The thing in his early days was that he asked and "demanded" a proper answer. But often times the politicians don't want to answer to the question stated. Now you can waste everybody's time and ask again and again, without getting an answer (which is useful if you stream the event) or accept that there won't be an answer and move to the next topic (which is good if you want to write an article)

But meanwhile Jung doesn't play that game that much anymore, but asks good and precise questions and more often then leaves it there.

I'd love to see more follow up questions of the sort "Excellent answer, if I had asked about X (e.g. who to blame for high taxes), but instead, my question was Y (what are your plans regarding tax policy?)".

It seems that Scottish interviewer Andrew Neil has a reputation for this kind of implacable questioning. Any others?

That can work in a 1:1 setting, where you are trying to pin down somebody.

In that described setting here, you have journalists who want to write an article about current topics. In the article they can write "they avoided answering XYZ" and given limited time it is more worthwhile to switch topics. Repeating a non-answer doesn't make the article longer.

In the 1:1 setting the way they try to weasel out and avoid answering can be educational to the audience and can narrow down the topic a bit.

Yeah I wonder how dumb journalists are sometimes for accepting evasive answers from politicians.

If they don't want to say something they should just say that. I totally agree with this guy tbh.

No.

https://www.bundespressekonferenz.de/verein/satzung

I'm going to contradict sibling and say "Yes".

It's just a Verein (untranslateable, but let's say 'private association/club') with members.

They can refuse to accept members for any reason, and they can kick out members for the reasons they themselves specify.

Currently this section (§14) reads they can kick out members "that are a danger to the purpose of the association or are harmful to its reputation or interests".

So (read cynically) pretty much any reason.

Note that in this case, a two-thirds majority in the general assembly of members have to confirm the kick-out, which is judging by my experience in other associations a really high bar to clear.

In any case, such a decision can be review by civil court as well whether it actually met the conditions laid out in their charter.

Surely that can only work at the will of the government - if I'm the German chancellor and decide I don't like it, I can just tweet that I'll be making a statement outside my front door; the first time all the blogger hacks will show up and get a great scoop; the second time everyone will?

So instead a foreign company gets all that power?

That’s the UK system. Almost all the press is owned by foreign billionaires.

Well for one Twitter was just an example, more that that is what I imagine they would probably use than anything else, not central to the point.

But also, I'm not saying it's better or whatever or making any sort of judgement? I'm just saying I don't think the media-led organisation has 'all that power' - they'll just go where all the news is, because it's their job, and the government (currently) lets that be where they want?

Twitter doesn't have any more power in that example, it's also just the avenue my hypothetical chancellor self chose to announce a press conference, he could have done it on Facebook, or Volksbook, or whatever, it's up to him, that was my point.

> It's not about "licenses to exist", but access to the press clubs (kisha clubs)

Its the same in the UK.

UK "political editors" working for the larger media outlets are granted lobby passes, which they guard like some precious gem stone.

Lobby passes grant the journalists free access to certain parts of the Parliament buildings, in particular the lobby (hence the name of the pass !). It also grants them access to the Downing Street media briefings, which due to some obscure tradition, are always held behind closed doors.

That's why many UK "political editors" ask such dumb limp questions of UK leaders. Its because they run scared of having their sacred lobby pass taken away from them.

> That's why many UK "political editors" ask such dumb limp questions of UK leaders

To be fair, politicians still feel the need to get on TV and face Paxman and Andrew Netflix and so on, who are happy to take them to pieces whatever their personal political leanings. That plus PMQs and constituency duties, and I think UK politicians get grilled sufficiently…

I lived in London a couple of years in the early 2000s and me and my roommates used to watch Jeremy Paxman interview politicians and we were more or less in chock that he actually pushed them when they tried their usual non-answers.

Now, we were quite young and didn’t really know that much about British politics to get that much out of it but it was so refreshing to see a interviewer that didn’t just back down like they do back in my home country.

> Jeremy Paxman interview politicians and we were more or less in chock that he actually pushed

Yes, Paxman was good at pushing politicians.

But he was not a lobby pass holder either, AFAIK. So he had nothing to loose.

Politicians with a grilling fetish came to see him on Newsnight knowing exactly what they would be facing.

But he equally represented a generation of political journalists that seems to have been lost with the newer generation. The new generation of political journalists seems to have lost that "dog with a bone" sprit, even those who are free of the self-imposed restrictions of the lobby pass.

The Johnson partygate, for example, came out of leaks rather than tough questioning of politicians. There are rumours around that some of the more high-profile lobby journalists were at said parties....

Which is why "Prime Minister's Questions" time is so valuable and entertaining.

"if the government doesn't like what you print/say, you get frozen out the clubs and hence out of all government news"

What happened to independent investigative reporting?

They don’t get invited and do their own investigation and reporting instead of paraphrasing government announcements.

I think it’s the same pattern in many countries, where there will be two different rythme: almost immediate news with official communication coming in near real-time, and a second wave of news from journalists who took more time to form an opinion/check what they want to publish. Both waves happen in big newspapers, independent ones only bet on the second wave.

are we pretending that access to govt info and its subsequent quid-pro-quo is not a MSM dynamic basically everywhere?

There is no licensing of the print or online media in Japan. However, there are a number of factors that effectively limit the freedom of many media outlets.

The kisha clubs [1], which control media access to government officials and the police, are restricted to reporters from major media organizations. The tabloid press frequently complains about those restrictions and use those restrictions as justification for their less savory reporting methods.

The libel and privacy laws are fairly strict [2, 3] and have been tightened in recent years, making publications more hesitant to report negative or personal information about individuals, including politicians. Some religious groups have used those laws to suppress negative reporting; as soon as I noticed on Friday afternoon that the mainstream media weren’t giving the name of the religious group, I wondered if fear of lawsuits was the reason. (I still don’t know.)

Extremist groups have targeted Japanese media, and have sometimes attacked [4] or killed [5] journalists, for reports that the groups didn’t like about the Imperial family or historical matters. This can make journalists hesitant to raise controversial topics.

The major newspapers are published by large conglomerates that have diverse business interests. The weekly magazines have, over the years, reported many examples of stories that were suppressed by their larger competitors because of conflicts of interest. An amusing one that I remember is when a magazine was not allowed to include the term shōgi daoshi—literally, “falling over like shogi pieces”—in their regular advertisement in a daily newspaper; they wanted to use it to describe an accident where people were crushed in and killed in a crowd, but that newspaper ran a major shogi tournament and wouldn’t allow the term shōgi to be used in a negative context. Some weekly magazines that frequently publish reports of salacious scandals about celebrities and politicians refrain from publishing similar reports about well-known writers, because their parent companies depend on work by those writers for other publications.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kisha_club

[2] https://kellywarnerlaw.com/japan-defamation-laws

[3] https://www.omm.com/resources/alerts-and-publications/alerts...

[4] https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/噂の眞相

[5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomohiro_Kojiri

> An amusing one that I remember is when a magazine was not allowed to include the term shōgi daoshi—literally, “falling over like shogi pieces”

An amusing one on multiple levels. Standard shogi pieces don't fall over! They're not miniature statues like in Western chess, but flat reversible tiles [0]. It's like it was written by a Western journalist who needed to translate his idiom into Japanese.

[0] https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/5c/Sh...

I don’t have any shogi pieces handy—I’m more of a lapsed go player myself—but can’t they be stood on their ends like dominos? Image searches for shōgi daoshi in Japanese yield a lot of pictures like this:

https://www.photo-ac.com/main/search?q=将棋倒し&srt=dlrank&qt=&p...

Western chess pieces don't fall over like dominoes either, since they're usually kind of rounded...

Western Chess, they got cowboy hats? Asking for a Persian friend...

Well, they do have horses!

I'm talking about the game codified in Europe in the late middle ages, and known as "chess" throughout the English-speaking world today.

It doesn't make sense to attribute its origins to Persia in the context of specifically distinguishing it from other shatranj/chaturanga derivatives, like shogi.

In the US all radio and TV stations also have to get and renew licenses from the government to be allowed to broadcast.

And online people have to effectively renew a license from Google to broadcast

Not really.

TV station: You operate without a license or outside of its bounds, you've committed a criminal act. The government can use their monopoly on force to compel you to give up your resources (fines) or your freedom (jail time).

Youtube: You break the terms of service and are no longer allowed to use their service.

There are other video platforms, there are ways to self host video. No one needs a "license" from Google to get their video content available to the world.

If you want to swim in Google's pool and get the benefits of hanging around the other millions of people in Google's pool, maybe it's a good idea not to take a ** in it.

Google markets YouTube as a platform for everyone. Anyone can open an account. There is no membership fee, or political party affiliation required. Their advertising rates and revenue depend on having the largest possible audience. They present themselves as a "public square" and thus should be obligated to allow free speech as one has at a public square.

A public square in what country?

There are checks and balances on a democracy that do not involve leaving the country. The government can not legally damage you without massive oversight.

There are no such checks and balances on google, and they can destroy your livelihood on a whim without even acknowledging you exist

Canada wants to implement this under the Trudeau liberal government. It's been a little disturbing to watch a Canadian liberal government take steps in the direction of totalitarian control since the beginning of the pandemic. When was the last time the political right has positioned themselves in opposition to the left in defense of free speech and individual rights and freedoms? Strange times.

It's not just Canada. "Free Speech" is no longer a part of modern left-of-center policy in general. Even the American ACLU no longer defines itself as a defender of free speech the way it used to. The argument (for what it's worth) is that the far-right is defending hate speech through the concept of free speech and so free speech is no longer worth defending as an ideal.

Would you mind linking to a source about the ACLUs changing relationship to free speech? I just looked at their website and it seems like they are still centering free speech as one of their major issues and a list of actions they have taken in recent years includes support of e.g. the NRA and an anti-muslim group.

You can tell by their twitter that their actions don't match their stated stance. They've become a woke social justice organization like many other institutions, repeating mantras such as: https://twitter.com/ACLU/status/1269413639464849409

While I can see why that tweet leads you to categorize them as "woke", I don't personally see how that has anything to do with their actions matching their stated stances, particularly as it relates to free speech.

In case other readers would like a quick summary of these articles:

- The ACLU faced internal divisions after defending a far-right protest that devolved into a riot of hate-speech that got someone killed.

- The ACLU also argued in court that teachers, when engaging with students in their professional capacity, should respect to gender identity of students.

It seems that a subset of the ACLU has taken the stance that defending free-speech as a cloak for hate would, on balance, reduce rather than increase the rights and liberties of the broader population.

This is the classic paradox of tolerance, it is not a new situation, nor should it be mysterious, controversial, or surprising. It is something that all of us must consider in our daily lives.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/06/us/aclu-free-speech.html is one such source.

Note that the shift has been quite recent (more or less since 2017) and not uniform; the ACLU does still take up free speech cases, while avoiding others, depending on various things.

Related, but not mentioned in the above articles, are tweets from prominent ACLU lawyers calling for banning certain books (see https://reclaimthenet.org/strangio-shrier-free-speech-suppre... for a reference, but this was quite widely reported). On the one hand, said lawyers have a right to their own opinions on their own personal twitter accounts. On the other hand, the ACLU never bothered to say that this opinion does not represent the ACLU organizational position....

Thank you - unfortunately I don't have access to the nytimes article (and am not willing to subscribe to get it). However, your comment did help me find other articles that seem relevant to this discussion.

In case it is of value to others, one such article is https://washingtonmonthly.com/2021/10/26/why-the-aclu-is-rig... - it definitely has a pro-ACLU slant, but I thought it did a reasonable job of explaining the dynamics of the recent discussion/shifts within the ACLU with respect to free speech

My apologies; I forgot that the nytimes is all paywalled now...

I should make a habit of loading things in a private browsing tab as a test.

You should be able to see the whole Times article at https://web.archive.org/web/20220616003939/https://www.nytim... if you are interested in a less-pro-ACLU take.

The right campaigned on cancelling Kaepernick and right-wing religious universities are notoriously against free expression.

  > modern left-of-center policy in general

serious question: were "liberals" really very much "left" in the first place? maybe culturally left i suppose, but economically and politically?

If you are interested in the media in Japan and how it chooses to report or not report news I recommend the book "Exposure: Inside the Olympus Scandal". It tells the story of loss hiding at Olympus. Especially interesting are the chapters about how difficult it was to get any news coverage of some extremely suspicious things.

That and for a more general take on why Japan isn't the heaven-on-earth that weeaboos hold it up to be, I recommend "Japan - a reinterpretation" by Patrick Smith. It has a lot about freedom of the press and the Japanese media landscape, especially the infamous "Kisha Clubs" (self-censoring).

And that name is?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unification_Church

But it’s also in the submission, literally the first sentence…

Thanks for linking to more information about it.

Yes, but the the poster did the same what the newspapers he mentioned did - he avoided mentioning the religious group by name.

translate.google to en:

[1] https://archive.is/4wu9v

[2] https://archive.is/xhOAW

It really reminds me somehow of the police press relationship described in '64' (Rokuyon) by Hideo Yokoyama

Maybe they don't want copycats.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5296697/

Maybe, or maybe it’s just becoming obvious Japan’s “democracy” isn’t functioning at the level we’d all hope for that scares us all a little bit?

I ran it through Google Translate because I was curious. It appears to be something called the Unification Church?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unification_Church

> The Family Federation for World Peace and Unification, widely known as the Unification Church or Unificationism, is a new religious movement whose members are called Unificationists and sometimes colloquially Moonies.[2] It was officially founded on 1 May 1954 under the name Holy Spirit Association for the Unification of World Christianity (HSA-UWC) in Seoul, South Korea by Sun Myung Moon (1920–2012), a Korean Messiah claimant also known for his business ventures and engagement in social and political causes.[3][4][5][6]

> The beliefs of the Unification Church are based on Moon's book Divine Principle, which differs from the teachings of Nicene Christianity in its view of Jesus[7] and in its introduction of the concept of "indemnity".[8] The movement is well known for its unique "Blessing" or mass wedding ceremonies.[9]

> The Unification Church has been controversial, with some early critics calling it a dangerous cult.[10][11] It also has been controversial for its involvement in politics, which include anti-communism and support for Korean reunification.

Moonies used to be a big deal at college campuses in California. When my husband and I went to Berkeley in the 1970s, the Moonies were everywhere. They did many questionable things before fading away.

My husband is 4 years older than me - so he was not as aware of their recruitment practices. He said he was invited to dinner by a very attractive young woman who kept flirting with him all through dinner. She then invited him to a weekend retreat. He said he became suspicious and did not go. It was a good thing he did not go. By the time I went to Berkeley - we all knew about the retreats.

Yep I remember the "Moonie" cult in the news from the 1970s. They seemed to fade out after a while, like most fads do. I had no idea they were still operating.

They still own and publish the Washington Times.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Washington_Times

They also owned the University of Bridgeport until a few years ago.

Abe gave a speech at a Unification Church event commemorating 9/11 in 2021. The keynote speaker was Donald Trump:

https://twitter.com/koryodynasty/status/1436866339113627648?...

Moonies were prevalent in Chile later on, during the late 90s. The press would refer to them as “la secta Moon” (the Moon cult).

What would happen at the retreat? Just indoctrination?

Very heavy pressure to join and indoctrination. The pressure tactics were very coercive. Essentially thought reform via a high control group/environment. Eventually people would think they made the choice to join themselves and had come to their own conclusions but in fact it was essentially are manipulation.

What happened at the retreats? Quick search gave no answers...

Pressure to join and indoctrination

  >  She then invited him to a weekend retreat. He said he became suspicious and did not go

great article about that (infiltrating the moonies in san diego)

https://www.sandiegoreader.com/news/1980/may/08/cover-revere...

For those curious, the first article linked says it’s the Unification Church (Moonies).

Seems to me to be good policy not to discuss anything about assassins' motives, names or show photos to avoid accidentally glorifying the act or encouraging others who want to get attention. Why is the silence assumed to be a cover up instead of proper media etiquette?

Unification Church of the World Peace [0]

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unification_Church

NHK as of tonight have named the organization and broadcasted part of Abe's speech on TV.

This is a lot of words for the basic conjecture that he was killed by/for being a moonie.

The problem with this reporting is that it takes the killer's supposed words at face value. This is a big risk, especially as at this stage we are not entirely certain that those words are accurate.

Now, this may eventually appear to be the case, but the level of certainty presented in this article is unfounded.

This article is within the more general context, but we have the words of the assassin, discussion by the police of not wanting to discuss the church specifically for the “obvious” reasons, the mother of the assassin being identified by the church as being a member… “it happened because of X” is maybe very strong but lots of the story does align and is being corroborated.

What were the words of the assassin?

> “My family joined that religion and our life became harder after donating money to the organization,” Tetsuya Yamagami, who is unemployed, was quoted by the sources as telling police. “I had wanted to target the top official of the organization, but it was difficult. So, I took aim at Abe since I believed that he was tied (to the organization). I wanted to kill him.”

https://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/14665352

Thank you! But, that seems to not say which religion it is?

The problem is also the title. It treats the killer as a non-agent with no free will, and is an implicit justification of political violence. "The crime that killed Abe" is known as "homicide", not "predecessor's political decisions".

> He adds that Shintaro Abe, Kishi’s son and Shinzo Abe’s father, “depended upon ‘Moonies’ in his election campaigns.”

They got the family situation wrong. Shintaro Abe is Nobusuke Kishi’s son-in-law not his son.

From Wikipedia:

> Shintaro Abe married Yoko Kishi [ja], daughter of Prime Minister Nobusuke Kishi, in 1951.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shintaro_Abe

Seems like the article has been fixed already. That was fast.

The Moonies, often represented in America by some unfortunate Korean boy or girl, beg for money at American universities in exchange for food and lodging. It's essentially human trafficking and indentured servitude because they're trapped in a foreign country.

So, if see someone who doesn't speak English who shoved a photo montage flip book clipboard of deprivation in front of you, think twice before giving them money because you'd be supporting the late George Bush Sr's 2nd-favorite cult.

They also own The Washington Times and United Press International (UPI).

And True World Foods, which runs a major portion of the sushi trade in the US.

Numerous other innocent-sounding organizations in many, many sports, interest groups, and industries.

Net worth around $2 billion.

Is it a requirement for every Asian cult to own a few American newspapers? I know of two others

no requirement, just smart business

Last I checked American newspapers were not profit centers, so business is likely not the motivation - other than perhaps the value of controlling media in terms of propaganda, i.e. narrative control, which may be of value to other businesses owned by the entity. (Jeff Bezos buying the Washington Post, for example, is only a 'good business decision' in the context of providing a platform that enhances the business interests of Amazon (which seeks to avoid unionization) and AWS (which seeks expanded government contracts)).

your second point was the main point in my admittedly overly cryptic comment.

Narrative control + amplification power + even brand awareness = revenue opportunity. For example, The Epoch Times, the media mouthpiece of Falun Gong, promotes Shen Yun, the Chinese Dance troupe showcasing the 'beauty of China before Communism'. Propaganda and Profit need each other

Don't you dare besmirch The Epoch Times.

Edit: People don't understand /s. Poe's law strikes again.

Also, The Christian Science Monitor does a terrible job monitoring Christian Science and Christianity, but they do alright on science. They're absolutely flying off the handle with their obvious slant towards uncontroversial, neutral, factual reporting. Those bastards.

I hope no one misses the implied /s regarding CSM.

The Christian Science Monitor is a model of great reporting in a time when few models exist.

I am saddened when someone downplays a CSM report as biased because the listener assumes some form of Christian fundamentalism.

So, I'm not alone in wondering if they should be treated like bible thumpers, or not.

Good to know. Also good to know they aren't bible thumpers, and just happen to be 'Christians' monitoring science, as per the name implies.

The name should be read as The Monitor, owned by Christian Scientists. Christian Scientist is a specific sect. Monitor here is like any other newspaper name, it could be The Christian Science Times, or Christian Science Observer

Like kevinmchugh pointed out, imagine parentheses to group "(Christian Science) Monitor". Christian Science is a set of beliefs that the "First Church of Christ, Scientist" adhere to.

Stuff like the belief that disease is a mental error rather than physical disorder, and that the sick should be treated not by medicine but by a form of prayer that seeks to correct the beliefs responsible for the illusion of ill health.

Sadly, this makes the appearance of the word "Science" even more confusing to the casual observer.

Fair enough. Though I do want to say anecdotally at least that mind over matter can be pretty powerful stuff...

Placebo's and Nocebo effects wouldn't exist without it.

FYI: whether the placebo effect even exists is somewhat controversial (in a different way from does god exist). https://www.google.co.nz/search?q=placebo+effect+myth There certainly is a lot of bad science and misinformation about the placebo effect.

I don't know... if it was 'somewhat controversial' you wouldn't be the first person trying to tell me about it...

And I am quite adept at finding controversial topics...

Annnnd my sources are usually from things like the NCBI... and Mayo Clinic...

But to be fair to you, I did find this study done by Wayne B Jonas posted to the NCBI: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6707261/

So I'll give it some consideration; but yeah... I usually ignore this kind of thing because of how misinformation is first seeded as being "They don't want you to know this" or "Unknown to others, but now you can learn the truth" etc, etc.

So no offense. Just me being my usual critical self.

Edit: I'd like to post this excerpt from the start of the article. It basically reiterates what I was ultimately getting at, while still pushing the authors original point and your point about placebo itself being a myth.

> The fact is people heal and that inherent healing capacity is both powerful and influenced by mental, social, and contextual factors that are embedded in every medical encounter since the idea of treatment began. In this chapter, I argue that our understanding of healing and ability to enhance it will be accelerated if we stop using the term “placebo response” and call it what it is—the meaning response, and its special application in medicine called the healing response.

This seems to be a search that contains one editorial-style article (it isn't labeled as opinion/editorial, and is published in what superficially seems to be a research journal, but it is neither a study or meta-analysis, simply a stream of conclusion opinions and just so statements) and lots of secondary reporting of that same article.

True. I'd still rather listen to what my oncologist has to say, though.

That's what Val Kilmer did, yep.

https://www.etonline.com/val-kilmer-explains-why-he-got-chem...

There are no religious nuts in cancer-holes.

Uh, no. Christian Science, like the Mormons or the Jehovah's Witnesses, are yet another American-made Christian sect founded in the 19th century by a charismatic leader:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_Science

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Baker_Eddy

Val Kilmer is even a member! They definitely have a quieter, less evangelical profile than those other sects, but they do appear in the background of American cultural life, with Christian Science Reading Rooms in many cities:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_Science_Reading_Room

That said, despite them being a new religious movement and having very suspect beliefs about medicine, this thread isn't the first time I've heard that their newspaper, the Christian Science Monitor does very good journalism, outside of the health news reporting.

CSM is fantastic (yes, outside health adjacent of faith healing) in terms of long-form investigative journalism.

They essentially don't have much to do with religion apart from including a page on religion and you wonder a bit about health topics.

That would be wrong too. I don't know who said it, but a well known quip about them is that they are neither Christian nor scientific. (It may actually have been Mark Twain for once, he had a brief disappointing interaction with them).

They believe Jesus (but mostly the founder, Mary Baker Eddy) came with secret knowledge of how you can heal by thinking the right thoughts. This is possible because, basically, objective reality is an illusion/all in your mind. On the heresy scale, if JW is a 3 and Mormonism is 4, i would say Christian Science is 10.

They regularly come up in the news when their kids die from rejecting medical treatment in favour of faith healing (or maybe correct-thinking healing is more accurate).

CSM lost almost all its connection to CS along with the decline of the cult's popularity.

How are you calibrating that scale and where would Seventh-Day Adventists be on it

Wow, CSM, that's a name I haven't thought of in a long time. Over a decade ago while I was still in college I worked for a local web dev shop and I worked on their website (csmonitor.com). I can barely remember what I was doing, minor UI stuff and I think maybe spinning up more sites in their "network". IIRC it was a WordPress multisite (if that's even the right name, back when the "multisite" was a plugin though I think there is some core support now? Not sure).

I knew absolutely nothing about them and more than once I took down parts of their live site by accident (back in the bad old days of FTP-ing files directly to the prod server, there was no "dev"/"qa"/etc). At some point along the way I read a little more about them and was pretty disgusted by it all. Thankfully that work didn't last for very long and I was moved to other projects.

Can you tell about the two others?

The Epoch Times is owned by Falun Gong. (They are apocalyptic/UFO/meditation cult, they have been banned in China and, if you believe their claims, organ harvested. I don’t know how much to believe those claims, but China does keep a lot of things with organs weirdly secret. FG are present at every anti-Chinese protest. They also do the Chinese ballet which name I forgot now…. ah yeah Shen Yun)

I don’t know any other.

Wow I did not know they did that Chinese ballet. I will be sure to never attend that now. I had checked the prices before and was amazed at how unexpectedly expensive it was.

Attended one of the shows in France, a few months ago. They politicized it right from the beginning, by having some bozos with English language fluency critize the Chinese government (not that they don't deserve it, but the way it was done sounded like far right American rhetoric). The show itself was vomit inducing, so I left after the first half an hour. As I was waiting outside for someone to exit, at the formal intermezzo mark, I couldn't help noticing lots of other people leaving the avenue. Doesn't surprise me to learn about the relationship with falun gong cult.

The tagline on their flyers used to be "5000 years of culture reborn"

And I guess they rethought the subtlety because now it's "China before communism"

In Toronto (probably also everywhere) FG tend to hijack parades by having 100s of marchers, regardless of what the parade itself is celebrating. I find it quite obnoxious, since it makes every parade except for Pride look like it's Falun Gong Day.

They must pay a lot into the parades in order to even be accepted in such large numbers.

They do 4th of July all over the US. It's quite impressive actually. Saw them recently in DC.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dqHvBqLZghI

Impressive because of the numbers. They don't care about July 4, just like they don't care about Canada day. They do care about taking up half the parade to make sure you notice them and are impressed by their numbers, though.

There is no other reason they constantly try to outdo and outnumber everyone in parades that have nothing to do with religions or cults. That's why I refer to it as hijacking. It's not about them, but they absolutely make sure they are the ones you remember.

>They are apocalyptic/UFO/meditation cult

I didn't see anything like you describe[1].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falun_Gong#Central_teachings

>through a process of moral cultivation, one can achieve Tao and obtain special powers and a level of divinity

If you read their books (e.g. https://falundafa.org/eng/eng/pdf/flg_en.pdf, just search for "David Copperfield"), they elaborate a bit more on the potential supernatural abilities that one can achieve through meditation.

Nothing they do is unique or substantially different than many of the Asiatic religions that have existed. People tend to fear what they don't understand.

I read what I think is the Zhuan Falun years ago when the cult was newer and they posted documents online[*]. One of their beliefs that jumped out at me was that they believe that David Copperfield is an actual magician who is only pretending to be a stage magician, and was actually doing magic during his stage shows.

edit: The Falun Gong have three OTA broadcast channels in Chicago, but Iranian official government news is too dangerous for me to be exposed to.

* Looks like they still do at https://en.falundafa.org/falun-dafa-books.html

You don't have to trust them, the organ harvesting is well documented and criticized by human rights organizations. Don't make the mistake of being agnostic about their victimization just because they are an usympathetic right wing person cult.

Most people that are criticizing FG here are either natural born Chinese who are taught to hate them or unknowing westerners that have been swayed by CCP propaganda (I am willing to bet there is some on this very thread). I don't see any valid attacks on here other than ad hominem.

I'm guessing the other one, besides Falun Gong and the Unification Church, is Olivet Church, a Korean messianic sect that bought Newsweek.

https://www.motherjones.com/media/2014/03/newsweek-ibt-olive...

They don't own the Canadian Globe and Mail which repeats some of the comments about the media in Japan and highlights some questions about the Abe/(Moonie aka Unification Church aka Family Federation) relationship.

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/world/article-tetsuya-yamaga...

The Spiegel didn't have much good to say about Abe either. The first article on their front page (when news of his death became known) was not a nice obituary. It might also reflect the huge gap between the way Germany responded to WWII and the way Japan did.

https://www.spiegel.de/ausland/shinz-abe-nachruf-der-japanis...

They aren't nearly as influential as you might think, especially in modern times. Maybe they were during the cold war or when they protested in support of Nixon. Their media reach is pretty limited, The Washington Times has a small number of readers.

Edit: to the comment about $2B: that's almost mostly belonging to the founder who takes his money from followers. $2B is 130k a person when we're talking about 15,000 followers.

They might not be as wealthy or powerful as other religious sects, but them being a cult is still of concern because by nature they are 1) secretive and non-transparent, 2) capable of fierce organizational discipline including taking advantage of members, 3) operate via proselytizing including underhanded means, 4) open to extremist and authoritarian beliefs. That's in the very nature of cults. Add that to their historically-potent political influence from the Cold War, and they're still worthy of investigation.

A big reason they aren't as influential anymore is because Reverend Moon died, and there is currently a battle royale going on between his widow and some of his batshit insane kids [1] over his fortune.

The True World Foods story is truly fascinating to me. Since slavery is illegal, better to get true believers to work long and hard nearly for free.

1. https://www.the-sun.com/news/us-news/2977349/inside-maga-sup...

This article [1] is a bit more informative on the history and soap-opera dynastic schism.

I don't have firsthand knowledge of it all, but I do know some ex-Moonies who've spoken of their efforts to safely detach their still-adherent relatives.

1. https://washingtoncitypaper.com/article/530522/lengthy-lawsu...

Their political strength is decreasing in the US, while Falun Gong's is on the rise. Both have similar political goals. Falun Gong is the cult that owns right wing rag The Epoch Times and puts on the Shen Yun show.

Replace "Moonie" with any mainstream religion and mention of race with the race such religion most widely applies to, and I hope the bigotry of this comment becomes far more clear.

This article is specifically about Moonies though. I've also heard first hand accounts of that exact situation happening in the town where I went to college many years ago.

I’m not saying anything about the content of the article, the article is fine. I am remarking on the commenters bigoted tone, and how people let it slide because it’s a religion they are unfamiliar with.

I think people feel more confident making generalizations about novel religious groups, even relatively large ones. And maybe especially novel religious groups with centralized control. Unification Church is basically the same age as Scientology.

I agree with you on "replace it with any religion" but I don't find it bigotry necessarily - I am averse to any and all religious influence on anything, and I'm happy to see it brought up to attention and awareness everywhere. As to the frequent Venn diagram overlap of locally predominant religion with corresponding country / nationality / ethnicity / etc, while that frequently the case, I agree we should focus on the underlying viral meme that's religion and not the confounding variable of nationality.

I mean, I've lived in Canada for 20 years before I've realized that friendly kids asking for donation for salvation army in super markets are in fact members of a massive church. Things some people find obvious aren't well known to others.

> think twice before giving them money because you'd be supporting the late George Bush Sr's 2nd-favorite cult.

> They also own The Washington Times and United Press International (UPI).

> And True World Foods, which runs a major portion of the sushi trade in the US.

> Numerous other innocent-sounding organizations in many, many sports, interest groups, and industries.

Like if someone wrote any of that about Jews, there would be no doubt in anyone's mind that they were an anti-semite.

Fair.

One of the tricky things about that is that "jew" is both a religion (presumed to be a "by choice affiliation") as well as ethnicity (less "by choice" affiliation), as well as culture and sometimes nationality.

If I say "people who believe in loch Ness are gullible", that's viewed as ok in most places. Saying "Germans are gullible" is less likely to be true or acceptable. Saying "Christians are gullible" will depend on location - even most freedom of speech democracies will have blasphemy laws and cultures where they protect belief in Jesus in ways they do not protect belief in Yeti (I clearly have an opinion on that :).

Saying "Jews are gullible" will probably be viewed as anti semitic due to history, pattern, likelihood, as well as the confluence of what the word itself means. "Jew" is such a massive Venn diagram.

FWIW Ultimately I believe (and I'm sometimes lonely in that) that intent rather than keywords are important. I chose to gave benefit of doubt to poster (perhaps mistakenly).

Of course. No one here is denying being an anti-Moonite.

Just like when people here are anti-Google or anti-Apple, they aren't bigots.

Moonies, Google, and Apple, and the Mormon Church and Catholic Church, and unlike Judaism, are specific business organizations with observable behaviors, not a personal belief and lifestyle.

I think one can be particularly legitimately concerned about religions that:

* directly accumulate controlling ownership interests in key businesses.

* use dubious fundraising and recruitment practices.

* form complex webs of not-obviously-related entities to use in influence operations.

* have acted as a pseudo-cult of personality of a figure in living memory.

* are possibly abusive to their members in various ways.

Doesn't that cover most organized religions?

Not really.

> > * directly accumulate controlling ownership interests in key businesses.

OK, there's things like Catholic healthcare and schools or the Adventists' various interests. They're mostly pretty clearly branded as being Catholic or Adventist affiliated. For the most part, this is not something religions do, though certainly there are areas of concern, like faith-affiliated substance abuse programs used to recruit the vulnerable.

> > * use dubious fundraising and recruitment practices.

OK, perhaps religious fundraising isn't perfect, but most religions do not engage in employing missionaries as quasi-slave-labor to panhandle funds from the public at scale. Of course, you can find an exception or two, like the Salvation Army.

> > * form complex webs of not-obviously-related entities to use in influence operations.

Doing this on anywhere near the scale of the Unification Church is basically unheard of.

> > * have acted as a pseudo-cult of personality of a figure in living memory.

Basically here you've mostly got the Unification Church, Scientology, and various kinds of "prosperity" churches.

> > * are possibly abusive to their members in various ways.

OK, you've got me here: a lot of religions dabble in abusing their members.

Obviously not. And conversely, it does cover some political cults.

And if they wrote it about scientology it would be entirely uncontroversial

Most synagogues aren't cult-like. Quite the opposite, really. However, there definitely are some forms of Judaism which deserve the label. Even my Israeli friends think the Haredi are batshit crazy. You would not accuse the people who made this film of being anti-semites:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_of_Us_(2017_film)

It's fair to call out the wackiest religious cults, and Christendom offers many to choose from.

Jews are not comparable to the Moonies. They are not a single organization but rather a loosely related set of varying ethnic groups and religious practices.

A better analogy would be to imagine people writing similar things about, say, the Satmar Hasidim. In which case it wouldn’t sound anti-Semitic at all (although I’m sure the Satmar might try to claim it was).

I'm prepared to say it about any tightly centrally controlled cult that uses front groups. Including Jewish ones, should I find any. (Though, Judaism has enough diversity that even if such one existed, it would not reflect on other religious Jews, let alone people who are Jews only in the culture/ethnicity sense).

It's not only about religion either. There are also political cults that employ large number of front groups, like the Danish Tvind.

Eh..not really. Moonie is a specific religious sect (and a horrible, vile, dim-witted one without sugar-coating). If you ask me, they should be singled out and massively shamed for their atrocities.

Mainstream religions like Christianity and Islam have billions of adherents between them and aren't a single group. They're many sub-sets within them, many of whom aren't fond of each other, so you can't generalize with that case.

Call it "bigotry"...but what else can we say about a "church" whose adherents bless their AR-15 and wear a crown of bullets [1]. It's not bigotry to be scared of such loons and the kind of havoc they can potentially cause.

Religious freedom does not give people the authority to be nuisances within their community.

1- https://www.vox.com/2018/3/1/17067894/church-bullet-crowns-a...

I found this list of companies affiliated with the Moonies (many defunct).

https://culteducation.com/unif121.html

Here is an interesting quote by someone who ran two of these businesses in the SF bay area.

"'With no labor costs and people willing to work 14 to 15 hours a day, you can undercut anybody' he said. Scales said that when he ran the Aladdin restaurants, employees signed over their pay-checks to the personal slush fund of West Coast church leader"

The article was from 1977 - and the Moonies tried to reform themselves later, but at that time they were slave labor businesses. Moon was able to shield his practices using his tax exempt status as a religious organisation.

NYT did a great article on True World Foods: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/11/05/magazine/sush...

Archive version: https://archive.ph/ZAy6D

Pod version: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-sunday-read-the-un...

YouTube version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5EqHuAJYdr8

Nobusuke Kishi (Abe's grandfather) has an extremely interesting backstory:

> As a self-described "playboy of the Eastern world", Kishi was known during his four years in Manchukuo for his lavish spending amid much drinking, gambling, and womanizing.[34] Kishi spent almost all of his time in Manchukuo's capital, Hsinking (modern Changchun, China) with the exception of monthly trips to Dalian on the world famous Asia Express railroad line, where he indulged in his passion for women in alcohol- and sex-drenched weekends.[29] When not visiting the brothels of Manchuria, Kishi was demanding sex from the waitresses who served him at the expensive restaurants he patronized. When he was locked up in Sugamo prison in 1946 awaiting trial, he reminisced about his Manchukuo years: “I came so much, it was hard to clean it all up”.[29] According to Driscoll, "photographs and written descriptions of Kishi during this period never fail to depict a giddy exuberance: laughing and joking while doling out money during the day and looking forward to drinking and fornicating at night."[35] Kishi was able to afford his hedonistic, free-spending lifestyle as he had control over millions of yen with virtually no oversight, alongside being deeply involved in and profiting from the opium trade.[30] Before returning to Japan in October 1939, Kishi is reported to have advised his colleagues in the Manchukuo government about corruption: "Political funds should be accepted only after they have passed through a 'filter' and been 'cleansed'. If a problem arises, the 'filter' itself will then become the center of the affair, while the politician, who has consumed the 'clean water', will not be implicated. Political funds become the basis of corruption scandals only when they have not been sufficiently 'filtered.'"[4]

> At the same time, Kishi repeatedly expressed a disdain for Chinese people as impure and unclean.[32] One of Kishi's closest friends and business partners, the yakuza gangster Yoshio Kodama, summed up his boss's thinking about the Chinese as follows: "We Japanese are like pure water in a bucket; different from the Chinese who are like the filthy Yangtze river. But be careful. If even the smallest amount of shit gets into our bucket, we become totally polluted. Since all the toilets in China empty into the Yangtze, the Chinese are soiled forever. We, however, must maintain our purity".[33]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobusuke_Kishi

There's definitely a culture of brothels that still exists thats pretty foreign to the West. You won't really hear about it because Japanese people don't just offer there stories up to foreigners... but I've had sources inform me of places where people can go for orgies (in a way Americans may casually visit a strip club which is a toned down version of this) and I believe in some cases can even be expensed to the business as entertainment.

Watching “Midnight Diner” on Netflix I was struck by a much more casual acceptance of stripping and prostitution than I would have expected.

I'm not sure how much that reflects general attitudes. That show is also set in Shinjuku which I believe houses a lot of strip clubs and other similar activites.

interesting. any books or websites to find out more about this culture?

I hadn't realized but it's sometimes even mentioned in some of Haruki Murakami's stories.

Yeah the orgy places are one of the worst kept secrets here. Everyone knows they exists, but it's not really spoken of. I had a friend (Japanese) that was invited and he just explained it as being weird. The place he went to just had glass rooms full of naked folks doing things naked people tend to do together. It was a combination of an orgy and a voyeur event.

Underground life in Japan can get pretty extreme. Typically foreigners aren't privy or allowed in such environments. Not saying it doesn't happen, though.

Today I've learned about Asia Express, which had air conditioned cars in the 30s and ran on what looks like a branch of Russian-built China Eastern Raiway.

"extremely interesting backstory" is definitely one way to describe Nobusuke Kishi's time as the army officer who was in charge of Manchukuo. "Vile history" is the phrase I'd personally use.

Even vile doesn't quite cover the scale of the horror, especially Unit 731

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_crimes_in_Manchukuo

I read the Unit 731 Wikipedia page recently and almost wished I hadn’t. Im surprised I’d never heard about it and neither had any of my friends. Not that it’s a competition, but some of the atrocities I read about on that page were worse than any other World War atrocity I know and it seems like it’s just been swept under the rug.

It's swept under the rug because the US pardoned many of the the perpetrators (such as Shiro Ishii) in exchange for data about their experiments, which were then continued under the US biological weapons program, and projects like MKULTRA.

I was aware of the crimes of Unit 731 and how the U.S. granted immunity to the worst perpetrators in exchange for data, but never read about the details. I did that just now; what a horrifying rabbit hole that was. One disgusting bit:

> Although the Soviet authorities wished the prosecutions to take place, the United States objected after the reports of the investigating US microbiologists. Among these was Edwin Hill, the Chief of Fort Detrick, whose report stated that the information was "absolutely invaluable;" it "could never have been obtained in the United States because of scruples attached to experiments on humans" and "the information was obtained fairly cheaply."[7] On May 6, 1947, Douglas MacArthur wrote to Washington, D.C., that "additional data, possibly some statements from Ishii probably can be obtained by informing Japanese involved that information will be retained in intelligence channels and will not be employed as 'War Crimes' evidence."[10]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shirō_Ishii#War_crime_immunity

Basically, everywhere you look you can find these absolute monsters at the helm who drool at “cheaply obtained” and “absolutely invaluable” data from gruesome live human experimentation. Some were just given the opportunity to carry out more of it.

Its almost like when conditions are right, even people we consider normally on the moral side, end up flushing down down the toilet any bit of humanity, because of some 'benefits'. Justification can be as weak as general threat, terrorism, preparing for future 'if something happens'.

Pretty gruesome reading.

I had never heard of this either:

> During the final months of World War II, codenamed Cherry Blossoms at Night, the plan of Unit 731 was to use kamikaze pilots to infest San Diego, California, with the plague. The plan was scheduled to launch on 22 September 1945, but Japan surrendered five weeks earlier.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unit_731#Biological_warfare

There's a horror movie about Unit 731 called "Men Behind the Sun"[1]... It's not high art or anything, but it is super disturbing... one of the most horrific things I've ever seen.

[1] - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Men_Behind_the_Sun

It’s pretty well known that the Japanese Empire did some of the worst atrocities of the Second World War. Their number of victims is roughly in line with that of the Nazi. I will hasard that the USA doesn’t like to talk about Unit 731 because they gave immunity to the researchers in exchange for the results of their research on chemical weapons in an operation mirroring Paper Clip for rockets.

> Kishi's time as the army officer

He wasn't an army officer. He was a lawyer/bureaucrat in charge of the forced industrialization of Manchukuo after studying the economic systems of places like Wiemar Germany, and was given total authority by the army to run this vertical as he saw fit.

Thank you for the correction, mea culpa

China is a source of, a threat of and competitor of china. It has tried to invade japan (and japan to Korea plus the whole china). This geo-political game will be played out in the coming decades, with Taiwan, Korea and USA all in.

Individual… some of the grands of his as prime minister important.

Sex part not that much. The founder of modern china has a few Japanese women and even had a daughter there. Not to mention his well known name is actually adopted from his Japanese name.

The article ends implying the Japanese media is wrong by downplaying and leaving out the name of the church, but when I was reading more on wikipedia about the Unification Church they referenced this article from the media, which I will need to translate but would seem to refute this:

https://gendai.ismedia.jp/articles/-/97322

For those who are in Japan is that a good take by the author of the submitted article? Is (edit: it fair to say) the media hiding the connection?

Gendai is regarded in Japan as a "tabloid" (think National Enquirer). So the mainstream media in Japan can be accused of hiding the connection.

More explanation here: https://twitter.com/wdavidmarx/status/1545956836310159360

Thank you, I am sure there is a lot of context I don’t understand as an outsider.

I am in Japan, have been watching the news, and this is the first time I’d seen the Unification Church named as the motive. My impression has also been that the domestic media is downplaying the connection.

Naming a cult on media is a taboo in Japan, for fear of retaliations and verbal abuses than as common courtesy.

There even used to be a P2P app called Perfect Dark, known in a... different... name early on, so as to make it 'immune to police prosecution'. Eventually the name changed to what it is, and stories of police working on it did start appearing. That was 2010s.

What was the previous name of Perfect Dark?

it was called "Share" and before that there was WinNy, a fork of the WinMX p2p client.

It was a four letter name that I’m not comfortable posting here…

Sorry, I don't understand. Why is it uncomfortable to name a piece of software?

Oh no. I failed to include that part in the original comment. The logic was that the name(think “LordVoldemort.exe”) cannot be aired or published, so authorities cannot communicate arrests to the public, which makes it moot to do so, thereby shielding the users.

So would something bad happen if you posted the name..?

Perfect dark still exists.

Japanese people I know are adamant that Abe had no ties or did ever voice support for the Moon sect, ever. I am now wondering if Abe had kept it secret and the shooter somehow found out.

I read he gave a speech there once. Maybe the killer heard about it and, combined with whatever mental illness he has, interpreted it as something more than it was.

In the US, Mike Pompeo (ex Secretary of State), Mike Pence (ex Vice President), and Trump (ex-President) have also given speeches to an offshoot of the Moonies...wild.

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2021/05/pence-pompeo-he...

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politic...

If the cult ruined his life and he took it out on the first politician he could somehow link to them, the problem is not whether such politician really had such relationship, but the fact that such idea was credible in the first place. Are cults in Japan tolerated a bit too much, leaving them free to ruin's people lives? Are politicians just sitting by, or even enabling such cults? Those should be the questions people have to ask, if the aim is to avoid a repeat. This is particularly true when you look at the fact that such cults were directly responsible for past terrorist activity in Japan.

Probably cults freedoms are tolerated for votes

>Are cults in Japan tolerated a bit too much

This one is still around, albeit at the fringes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aum_Shinrikyo

" Shoko Asahara, the leader of the Aum Shinrikyo doomsday cult, was hanged after being sentenced to death in 2004"

For real cult tolerance look no further than S.Korea. Any innocent social gathering has >50% chance of being cult recruitment gathering.

Also the „Happy Science“ cult which has racial segregation and Japan ruling the Earth as its ulterior motives.

I know loads who know about this. The guy was in a publicly published video last year, it’s not a massive secret.

Ah, interesting. I suspected that I got a "save face" answer from them because they always err on the side of "Japan and Japanese people can't be criticised by Western people".

Abe-unification relation is well written by some media so it can be easily found, but maybe not well known for who only watch TV and newspaper.

In the very link this post is about, there's a Youtube video of Abe giving a speech for the church in 2021.

For the sake of objectivity, Shinzo Abe was killed by Tetsuya Yamagami and there is no excuse or justification for this murder.

As an incidental remark:

I find it remarkable that on the surface I now know of three G7 countries / liberal democracies where the PM/President is the (grand)son of a PM/President himself.

Bush Sr - Bush Jr

Pierre Trudeau - Justin Trudeau

Nobusuke Kishi - (Shintaro Abe; FM) - Shinzo Abe

[Honorary mention: France with "Le Pen" both father & daughter made it to the second round in the presidential elections (2002; 2017 and 2022)]

You get automatic name recognition by being the child of a former leader, and that applies even if the former leader was unpopular. The hardest thing in national politics is probably becoming, essentially, known in the first place, so they start with a colossal advantage.

This, and I’d imagine politics is like anything else: you would really benefit from having people who’ve been there before to help you navigate. It’s the same reason why a lot of children of pro athletes become pro athletes.

I imagine that genetics is probably the biggest reason for athletes.

It’s an important reason, but being connected enough to get noticed and getting the right instruction to succeed are also major pieces of the puzzle.

https://www.theplayerstribune.com/articles/left-out

It's a disturbing trend and indicative of failing health / vibrancy of political systems. Same with running Hilary Clinton.

Half of the entire point of the democratic turn in western states after the enlightenment and the French revolution was to attempt take power away from powerful families and abolish heritable power.

I found it very alarming when Trudeau Jr was plucked out of relative obscurity and turned into a political figure here, and I found it quite absurd that he won with hardly any experience or qualification beyond his family name.

Especially when the other centre-left opposition candidate at the time (Mulcair&the NDP) was very strong, an extremely competent opposition leader with strong support in Quebec, a long political history and a strong base, and the NDP were polling in majority territory prior to (and in the early part) the election. Honestly, I'm still bitter about that election and its results. I think it's actually turned out disastrous for Canada.

You can add Trump to that list as well, though it isn't a genetic inheritance. Chomsky's Requiem for the American Dream lays out in detail how intertwined the Trump family has been in conservative national politics for ages

Politicians don't really need to be good at policy. They have people to do that. They just need to be charismatic - able to capture the imagination of a constituency, and able to persuade other politicians to support their platform.

Of course it'd be nice if our politicians were well-educated in the details of the policies they are championing, and if they could independently reason about the pros and cons, but realistically that's not what they're there for. They're like the sales guys at work - they might have some personal interest in techy details, but it's not what they're hired to do or what they excel at. They're hired to make the sales, not the product.

I think the party strategists who picked a pretty face and a familiar name to represent the party did a decent job. Trudeau continues to have the confidence of most of his party, which is why he's still in the leadership position. He's clearly inoffensive enough that he can maintain support inside the party while also not igniting enough of a backlash amongst the voting public to indisputably defeat his party in 2021. He might be a milquetoast character representing an ideologically unadventurous party, but perhaps that's all he's meant to be?

Politicians need to pick skilled policymakers. This can be done either by being good at policy themselves so that they can identify this skill in others, or by having above average people skills so they can identify it that way.

Trudeau's policy picks were to check boxes on unwritten gender and race quotas. They are unlikely to have been the best people for the positions, because that wasn't the criteria being applied. Some people might take umbrage at me calling it out like that, but it sure looks like that's what actually happened. It was affirmative action to score political points.

I don't like or agree with affirmative action as a policy. It's slapping a bandaid on the problem without addressing root causes. It's demeaning to the people selected, and it's discrimination on constitutionally protected grounds of gender, race, sexual identity, etc.

Frankly most of Trudeau's initial cabinet picks were just Chretien era loyalists.

People tend to value skills they themselves possess. If you have a leader with good technical skills then he will probably pick people with good technical skills. So socially competent leaders look for socially competent underlings, leaders who got there via nepotism probably applies nepotism as well when choosing etc.

Honestly right now it feels like the Liberal Party is completely asleep at the wheel and there's a total absence of leadership at the moment and lots of ministerial files seem completely unmanaged or poorly managed.

They were able to ride out the pandemic with some overall reasonable policies, and most of the stuff that annoyed people fell on the provinces.

But they're clearly having a hard time transitioning now, and the Singh giving them a blank check has made them extra complacent. The stuff at the airports on its own is inexcusable. ArriveCAN needs to go. They need to respond boldly to this Rogers fiasco from Friday. They feel entirely flat footed to me.

The expiration date is all over Trudeau and he needs to do the right thing and GTFO. And he needs to do it in a way that doesn't stiff Freeland and leave her in a Kim Campbell or Kathleen Wynne or Paul Martin type position.

He needs to announce his resignation ASAP and call a leadership convention even if it's a coronation for Freeland.

Singh I think has cost the NDP pretty much almost all their seats in the next election by propping Trudeau up right now. I have always voted NDP but I don't know what I'll do next time around.

I say this as a left wing voter who doesn't want to see the Conservatives in charge. But every day they hold on they're just giving the Conservatives more momentum, even without a leader.

I think when strategists look back they'll see Trudeau as a mistake. It got them power, but he was no Chretien or Trudeau Sr. He has been weak on policy and on leadership. And it will cost them in the long run. They blew their 3 gov'ts by basically getting almost nothing actually done on all their files they were so boldly proclaiming. It reminds me a lot of McGuinty's term: at the end most of the problems created by Mike Harris still hadn't been reversed. I feel the same way about this gov't and the Harper years.

CO2 Emissions? Up. A lot. Indigenous reconciliation? Nope. Clean water to all reserves? Nope. And what they have accomplished (small carbon taxes, subsidized daycare) seems very vulnerable to immediate reversal on day one of a conservative gov't.

I can tell you're very passionate about these issues. I think you're falling into a trap, however, that has basically consumed the U.S. and all but ensured its fall from grace. I live in the U.S., but spend a large amount of time in Canada (3 months of the year). Canada is a great country compared to the U.S. Income inequality is much lower than in the U.S., you have decent health care, a sizable "blue collar" industry, the social fabric is strong, the people are nice, the country is stable, the nature is beautiful, etc. etc. etc.

While Canada certainly has problems, I think it's important to remember that while things can certainly be better, that doesn't mean things are bad. The Rogers incident, for instance. It would be better if the incident didn't happen, but is really not worth being angry over. In the U.S., people seem to have forgotten this and began to get angry over why things weren't "better" even though things were really good. This divided the country, allowed a large percentage of the population to be controlled by outrage, and the aftermath is playing out right before our eyes. Before getting angry, try to identify all the things you have to be grateful for.

I don't want Canada to be mediocre; but it is. It has amazing potential as the multicultural, less dysfunctional, more socially compassionate alternative North American state.

But we have -- since before our confederation -- been dominated by insular and mediocre monopoly interests. From the Northwest and Hudson's Bay Company to Rogers and Bell. From the Family Compact to the insular board rooms of Calgary's oil sector or Bay Street. A set of local self-connected classes that circle around the same elite private schools and family parties.

Yes, our health care system has advantages over the US. But it's a system heavily rationed and under crisis because of waves of abuse and a lack of will to reform. I've been waiting since February for an MRI for a knee injury I got skiing, and I only haven't ducked south to Buffalo to get it done in the US because I didn't have money coming in until recently.

That's a minor inconvenience though compared to the state of our emergency rooms right now.

I'm passionate about these issues because I think Canada can be way better, especially if the point of comparison is not the US as a whole; but individual states or various western European countries (esp Scandinavia)

The issue is that things are getting worse and politics are decaying. Eventually this will lead to the same thing as what happened in the US. Being a milquetoast centrist and forcing yourself not to care won't help prevent that when things are actually getting worse either in actuality or in perception.

I don’t think jumping onto the outrage bandwagons will prevent it either — and in fact only deepens the problem by making yourself more susceptible to manipulation.

I think most people would be better served to recognize that their sphere of influence is a lot more local than their social media voices would lead them to believe. Being a positive influence for your family, friends and coworkers has far more consequential effects than some cheap tweet that somehow went viral 3 years ago and only added well-stated validation to an issue supported by people who already made up their minds.

Politics might become ground into the dirt, but it’s always been strong relationships that hold together the social fabric and prevent radicalization.

I disagree regarding Hillary Clinton, I think it's a disservice to her academic and professional accomplishments. She has an impressive academic record at Yale while getting her JD, was a very popular senator in NY, and was widely respected SoS. She is far more qualified than most presidential candidates and probably more qualified than her husband. I know she is divisive and I'm going to be downvoted, but all those accomplishments are factual and I left things out. I wish people would pause and reflect about why they dislike her.

I also disagree with you about Trudeau, almost to the point I would characterize your description of him as false. He started in the HoC 15 years ago, took that to a leadership position in a failing Liberal party and revitalized them. I think it's more problematic that Harper led a lobbying group for several years.. I am curious what you think has been disastrous? (never mind, I see your sibling comment) I think he is actually impressively aware of the political coordination with the American and Canadian right-wings.

If I'm understanding you right, it's more of a problem with machine politics, and I'd agree with you. The solution has always been restrictions on donations, advertising, and otherwise limiting the influence of money on politics but that fight has mostly failed.

I agree Clinton actually has a fairly impressive record. But so did plenty of other people.

My point remains regardless: it is corrosive to democracy to let power consolidate in family power centres. Many kings and emperors of antiquity were very competent. And successful powerful families cultivated competency at ruling through elite education and patronage etc. But it was still a terrible form of government. Not the least because it becomes self-serving over time, but also because of its injustice: all the very competent people passed over because they did not have the right name or connections.

Having a healthy democracy (literally: "people's rule") requires us to explicitly counteract concentration of power in lineage systems, party bureaucracies, and corporate dominance. Of these family lineage is one of the easiest to spot.

Yes, we've always had this. No, it's not a good thing. And we need to actively counteract it, even if it means passing up very competent individuals.

I liked Herbert's books, I don't want to live in the Dune universe :-)

I agree with you on just about everything you said :)

I would probably have a slightly different nuance to my interpretation of the nature of power centers. I think that term limits counteract this pretty well for individual families and politicians. I'm more concerned about influence organizations and the individuals and families that fund them, like Heritage. They have enormous influence, don't disclose funding, and are completely unelected.

Re: term limits. if we're permitting family name marketing and dominance, that's irrelevant. Interests will simply rule through the next person in line in the family.

Also, in the last two centuries of the western Roman Empire there was a new emperor every decade or less. Short terms did nothing to stop the authoritarian and tyrannical (and dysfunctional) nature of that rule.

Sufficiently powerful individuals will make term limits disappear anyways. (See Putin, etc.)

> It's a disturbing trend and indicative of failing health / vibrancy of political systems.

If this is an indicator, how long has the U.S. political system been failing? John Adams was the second President starting in 1797. His son became the sixth President in 1825.

It surely goes in cycles in the US.

Also arguably the US's republican model has had some of the weakest "democratic" aspects. Its popular veneration of the President as a martial pseudo-king "Command in Chief" (very weird to watch from up here in Canada, BTW, esp during the Bush post-9/11 years), its blatant blurring of church & state, its obsession with its military, its overt and obsequious patriotism and national chauvinism, its expanding federal powers, its imperial ambitions (both internal to the Americas and then even further abroad after WWII), its history with slavery and racial discrimination, etc.

It's a contradictory country. On one hand having some of the most radical and egalitarian motive forces, and being earlier to the democratic impulse than most of the west. On the other hand having ossified authoritarian impulses built deep into its system.

I think you'll find more healthy democracies in western Europe and Canada, though they don't have the same radical liberal (small, classical l) ideological underpinnings.

> It surely goes in cycles in the US.

Adams, Harrison, Roosevelt, Kennedy, Bush, Clinton. That spans the entire history of the country, and doesn't leave much room for cycles. I can't think of any period when inherited wealth and connections weren't extremely helpful in a political career.

I'd say that "ossified authoritarian impulses built deep into [the] system" is a global issue, not a uniquely American one.

A better answer is that contemporaneous class systems elsewhere in the world were so rigid, early in American history, that merely not having formal orders of nobility seemed shockingly egalitarian. Two and a half centuries later we're less eager to pat ourselves on the back for somewhat-better-but-only-somewhat levels of equality. But failure to make enough progress is not the same as regression.

Naming six presidents to "span the entire history of the country" is oversimplifying to say the least.

But to stay on topic, I believe it was Churchill that said democracy was the absolute worst form of government. Except for all the others.

People calling attention to inherited power aren't opposed to democracy, they want to try it for a change.

Mulcair was anything but strong. Everyone knew going into the 2015 election that the Orange Wave would recede. Mulcair's whole mission was to salvage enough of the wreck to make it not look downright embarassing. To do this he started softcore pandering to Quebec sovereignism, culminating in an utterly humiliating moment in the debates when he arrogantly grilled Trudeau about the threshold definition for Quebec sovereignty to happen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zwtU4KGGYVU

Wanna know how the NDP blew the majority polls early in that election? Yep, it was Mulcair, who was anything but strong.

Politics in its modern form is often a full-time job. To climb the ladder often means one must start early, yet this job is anything but stable. Most regular families can't really afford the risk or downsides. Political dynasties have the advantage of existing connections, as well as inter-generational resources that aren't available in other families. In this video https://youtu.be/XqjQ6gqgi0w?t=41 you can see Trudeau Jr.'s behaviour was clearly groomed for attending public functions. This was a headstart that many others don't have when they go into politics well into adulthood. The same phenomenon is present in Japan, just at a much larger extent. Social connections is an asset without form, and naturally it can get passed down generations like other assets. Why abandon them when they can be used advance your career. Unless we adopt ancient Athenian procedures of ostracism, political dynasties will exist. And ostracism will not happen because it was idiotic and backfired badly.

Justin Trudeau had been a MP for 5 years when he became the Liberal leader. Their party was in crisis mode after a decade of consecutive seat losses. Trudeau was the button behind their "break in case of emergency" glass, and it worked for them because the same effect resonated with the voter base.

Modern politicians in developed elective democratic countries aren't benevolent despots, and no single person's brain has the capacity to process or react to everything going on in the world at this day and age. This means they have lots of advisors to handle most of that processing and decision suggestions. The relief of this burden means a good modern politican doesn't have to be good at policy - they become another type of influencer whose first and foremost focus is charisma. Zelensky is another example.

In Japan, feudalism never really ended, at least not in the hearts and minds of people. They love their „upper caste“ regardless how much it hurts their lives.

It's important to keep in mind that this might be less sinister than it first appears (or more...there's that interpretation too). The "Great families" idea reaches beyond politics into science and art as well: https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/secrets-of-the-great-f....

Thought provoking. I would love to see that article extended to include artists - e.g. musicians like Johann Sebastian Bach, whose father Johann Ambrosius Bach was a violinist employed in Erfurt (who was twin brother to Johann Christoph Bach another great Baroque musician). These brothers were the sons of Christoph Bach, court musician in Germany. On the descendent side, Johann's fifth child and second surviving son Karl Philipp Emmanuel Bach (C. P. E. Bach) - the "Hamburg Bach" - was a musician and influential composer. His brother, Johann Christian Bach, or the "London Bach" (the 18th child of Johann Sebastian!), was music master to the Queen of Great Britain. There's more [1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bach_family

I see that P.D.Q. Bach is still being ignored and treated as some kind of joke. The Wikipedia article doesn’t even mention him.

Wikipedia does have an article on P.D.Q. Bach [1]. Do you have any sources to contradict the article’s claim that he’s a fictional character?

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P._D._Q._Bach

Nope. Notice that I didn’t call his status unwarranted. My intent wasn’t to trick anyone; I just couldn’t pass up replying to a post that plays so perfectly into the character’s creation myth.

But if you’re one of the exceedingly rare HNers who might enjoy “orchestral musical comedy” now that you know it exists, he’s worth a listen. This piece is more like sketch comedy than his others, so is more generally enjoyable even if you’re not an orchestral music nerd. https://youtu.be/MzXoVo16pTg

Agreed, the Bach clan has to be one of the top families to have left off! Maybe the other Bachs are only well known to classical music lovers though.

It's especially crazy considering who Nobusuke Kishi was, and the things he did.

Known for his exploitative rule of the Japanese puppet state of Manchukuo in Northeast China in the 1930s, Kishi was nicknamed the "Monster of the Shōwa era" (昭和の妖怪; Shōwa no yōkai).[1] Kishi later served in the wartime cabinet of Prime Minister Hideki Tōjō as Minister of Commerce and Vice Minister of Munitions,[2] and co-signed the declaration of war against the United States on December 7, 1941.

After World War II, Kishi was imprisoned for three years as a suspected Class A war criminal. However, the U.S. government did not charge, try, or convict him, and eventually released him as they considered Kishi to be the best man to lead a post-war Japan in a pro-American direction. With U.S. support, he went on to consolidate the Japanese conservative camp against perceived threats from the Japan Socialist Party in the 1950s. Kishi was instrumental in the formation of the powerful Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) through a merger of smaller conservative parties in 1955, and thus is credited with being a key player in the initiation of the "1955 System", the extended period during which the LDP was the overwhelmingly dominant political party in Japan.[3][4]

As prime minister, Kishi's mishandling of the 1960 revision of the U.S.-Japan Security Treaty led to the massive 1960 Anpo protests, which were the largest protests in Japan's modern history and which forced him to resign in disgrace.

[0] - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobusuke_Kishi

Not a G7, but India notably is the most populous democracy in the world: Rajiv Gandhi, 6th Prime Minister of India, son of Indira Gandhi who was 3rd Prime Minister of India, who herself was daughter of Jawaharlal Nehru, the 1st prime minister of India.

basically a glorified monarchy, then, since rich families have access to better ads/PR around their candidacies

Rajiv Gandhi’s wife Sonia and son Rahul are also major political figures in India.

This happens all over the world. The new president of Philippines is the son of a former president. In Pakistan two members of the Bhutto family have been PM and another was president. In Chile there was the Allende family, in America there is the Kennedys and the Clintons and dozens more examples below the presidency.

I don't think it should be surprising that politicians can have family members who also make a career in politics. The same thing happens with public figures like actors, musicians and sports people. But it also happens with doctors and lawyers and soldiers and police and bakers and plumbers and hair stylists.

Although there are plenty of people who grow up to do something different from their parents, there is definitely motivation to "follow in the footsteps". If nothing else, you can probably leverage a built-in support network.

The question that's important for democracy is if it's possible for someone to break in to a political system if they are not a member of a pre-existing dynasty. So far I think in most countries that is still the case. Certainly it's better than feudal times.

> In Chile there was the Allende family

A much better example would be the Frei family, with both Eduardo Frei Montalva and his son, Eduardo Frei Ruiz-Tagle, having served as presidents and several other members having different political positions. Frei Montalva, by the way, preceded Salvador Allende.

I don't think it's that weird. You wouldn't think much of a famous cook being the son of another famous cook, or likewise for a famous athlete, chess player, religious leader, etc. A child is influenced by their parents through both nature (genetics) and nurture (childrearing).

Of course stuff like connections, name recognition, favors and backroom deals are a thing as well which are various levels of bad and preventable.

There's different ways to think about it but it's pretty rare for both a patent and child to be great athletes, at least in the same sport. It happens, there's exceptions.

Michael Jordan's sons didn't play professional basketball. For elite sports, having an elite athlete parent has low predictive power.

Pro athletes beget pro athletes All. The. Time.

Cherry picking some of the NBAs MVPs, you might not remember Dell Curry[0], but you probably know one or both(!) of his sons who play in the NBA. Or there's Joe Bryant[1] whose son eclipsed his career in the NBA.

Or, here's a fun sport switching family. Sometimes the athletic gene is so strong, four of the great-grandsons go pro.[2]

[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dell_Curry [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Bryant [2]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ignatius_Gronkowski

A politician isn't like a cook, or an athlete, or a flute player, or a pilot.

That claim was why the Athenians - rightly - called Socrates an idiot. One who didn't understand the point of protecting his interest through participating in politics.

A politician isn't supposed to administrate, he's supposed to represent people's interests - those who elected him in our system. He doesn't pilot the ship, he says where the ship should go in the first place. To the degree mere competence is required, he can hire someone to help him.

When family dynasties happen in politics, it's doubly a bad sign. First, there's no reason to think the son of a representative is accurately representative just because the father was. There's always the risk that he could be advancing private interests at the expense of the public he represents. And second: that the son is even there, is itself evidence that the father may have done just that, advancing his family interest over the public's.

Not on G7 of course but you should check Greece.

The U.S. had John and John Quincy Adams and William Henry and Benjamin Harrison. Al Gore was the son of a Senator, and John F Kennedy's family had numerous high-profile politicians, including his father being US Ambassador to the UK. This is not a new development. Not saying it's good, just that it's not new.

Not just G7, it's so common in many democratic nations. Wonder if anyone did a study of democracy and nepotism.

Speaking of family cronyism, cults and assassinations lets not forget SKorea Park Geun-hye and her father Park Chung-hee.

Singapore is even more interesting with Lee Kuan Yew and Lee Hsien Long.

Singapore is a flawed democracy at best.

This situation is incredibly well covered by the book that I just finished called The Aristocracy of Talent - How Meritocracy Made the Modern World By Adrian Wooldridge. It is a riveting read covering the history of how power was passed through (father->son) for a long time, how it changed with meritocracy in last 200 years and how it is currently going back, with a twist. Great review https://www.city-journal.org/review-of-the-aristocracy-of-ta.... A worthy and very relevant read for current troubled times

It's ridiculous. I'd never vote for a president's relative as the next president. It's a matter of hygiene. There must be other equally (more) suitable candidates.

Voting for relatives gives us presidents like Bush Jr.

Having a familiar name should become a negative instead of a positive for a politician. Voters should assume they're just riding their famous relative's coattails unless clearly proven otherwise.

One might reach the conclusion that this sort of thing is human nature. Not all natural inclinations are good...

In Japan, anything but political dynasties would be seen as „not normal“ by the voters. Politician is a family business like an Udon restaurant - the eldest son of a politician is expected to become a politician, too. And many of these dynasties go back to feudal times or earlier. In Japan, I heard more that once about some scandal-addled politician that „he comes from a samurai family“. That means he’s above law in the Western sense. What ever bad thing such a person does - a showy apology and a deep bow will heal all wounds with the majority of voters.

Am I naive to believe that an article with such title would at least looked into assassins claims to begin with? Like how much was donated for starters, history of mental illnesses, gambling, and so on. Instead we start with Nixon and Kissinger

I would like to wait more for more information. This speculation seems incomplete and premature, and in the end, likely, inaccurate.

Political assassinations rarely stem from one particular situation or event, but accumulation of beliefs and world view over a long period of time. He may stated his disdain for Abe to be his connection with the religious organization, but that can easily be just one of many reasons that he believes have re-enforced him to commit assassination.

The assassin went through a lot of trouble and difficulty building his own gun and ammos. I think it's probably more likely that there's more political and ideological motivation behind his action than just Abe's roundabout connection to the church that ruined his mother. It's just too speculative and unlikely for now until there's more evidence.

This is a great point, the 'motivation' seems incredibly shallow and one dimensional.

The assassin stated that he killed Abe due to his association with a "certain group", so this theory lines up nicely. Of course it's all speculation until we hear from the suspect themselves.

Update: the suspect has now confirmed. https://japantoday.com/category/crime/update2-abe-shooter-sa...

"Why the Japanese media has refused to identify the 'religious group' that formed the motive for the killing must remain as speculation at this juncture, though it reflects very poorly on Japan’s status as a democratic nation."

I'm struggling to understand the author's bias here (there clearly is one), are they claiming that the poor reflection on Japan as a democracy is:

- that the media has not reported an unsubstantiated 'speculation'? (sounds like good journalism?)

- that that politicians have religious beliefs? (separation of religion and state shouldn't forbid religious people holding office, just from mandating it)

- that the murderer was anti-religiously motivated? (sign of a hate crime)

The 3rd I believe. The point of the article is to show Abe's connection to the church through political alliances developed since his grandfather and the Japanese media is at some level seeking to downplay the prevalence of anti-religious extremism.

This is a strange article with an odd angle.

They guy initially wanted to avenge the family’s misfortune by targeting someone high up in the church which he blamed for unscrupulously taking their money, when they proved too difficult (inaccessible) he turned his attention to mr Abe who was associated with the church and was out campaigning making for an easy target.

The article starts with an arc where a friendship two generations ago directly lead to a grandsons death. It’s a tool and trope for prose, but not apt for journalism.

It’d be like an article about mr Pelosi’s accident starting off with the Porsche company’s founding and how that eventually resulted in drunken driving accident by mr Pelosi.

There is lots to unpack and discover regarding the assassination of mr Abe but I feel this journalist is grinding some axe on the way there.

This is repeatedly reported news, not one journalist.

According to Japanese police, the shooter claimed Abe's religious group association was the motive. At least two other papers have linked that group to the Family Federation (formerly Unification Church) and the Family Federation issued a PR newswire about the shooting yesterday after refusing to comment.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jul/09/shinzo-abe-bod...

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/world/article-tetsuya-yamaga...

https://www.stripes.com/theaters/asia_pacific/2022-07-10/mot...

Here is the Church's statement:

https://www.djournal.com/unification-church-statement-on-the...

it's one thing to say we have a motive for the shooter, another thing to say that his actions were a rational line of causality as the OP appears to do

I don’t quite agree with amplifying the political or personal message of a murderer, as it seems like rewarding the act with publicity, encouraging more of it.

TL;DR

Shinzo Abe was associated with a religious group 'Church of Unification'... that motivated Tetsuya Yamagami to target and kill Shinzo Abe.

Yamagami told investigators that he blamed a “religious group” (i.e. the Unification Church) for inducing his mother to donate so much money that it bankrupted the family. He initially prepared to kill a church leader, but gave up after deciding it was too difficult. Yamagami then turned his focus on Abe, whom he was aware promoted the church at some level.

Isn’t this nearly identical to the real life events journaled by a reporter in Tokyo from the 90s? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tokyo_Vice

besides being about crime in Japan, I can't see any similarities in the article

Abe was not supposed to be here, his speech was planned to happen in another city but instead it was decided to go to Nara the evening before. The killer couldn't have planned to kill Abe.

The killer could have gone anywhere Abe was?

Not without outside help, and there is no evidence of that so this is quite speculative. I don't think it is possible for an individual to track a high ranking former official like that without being noticed so personally I see this as coincidence rather than anything else. And that may well explain the reluctance to go further in their statements by the media, they are likely just waiting for the results of the investigation.

He probably took a train.

> Not without outside help

Why not? Wasn’t it public knowledge that Abe would be speaking there? At least with a few hours of notice?

> I don't think it is possible for an individual to track a high ranking former official like that without being noticed so personally

In this case Shinzo Abe was doing some campaigning for his party, so obviously his destination must be communicated beforehand on the news so that people know to show up.

According to NHK TV News, shooter went to Okayama the day before where Abe made campaign speech. But as the speech was at a auditorium and Abe didn’t mingle with crowd after speech and left right away, shooter didn’t have the chance. Shooter found out online that evening about Abe’s visit to Nara.

The change in plan was supposedly announced using speaker car in Nara that same evening, and was also posted by various people on social media.

Isn’t it a little early to be so sure exactly why this happened?

What is this Shingetsu News Agency? They don't have an English Wikipedia page and searching for them turns up only their own content.

Are they affiliated with communism? North Korea? American progressive movements? None of the above?

Do we know that this isn't two cults bickering?

In any case, the article was very light on citations for the many accusations thrown.

The main source seems to be "Kishi and Corruption: An Anatomy of the 1955 System", Samuels 2001: https://www.gwern.net/docs/japanese/2001-12-samuels-kishiand... "Kuromaku and the Underworld" section.

(Aside from the lack of proper citation, tracking down a copy proved fairly challenging, so I have to wonder if OP has actually read it.)

Site is getting hugged.

https://archive.ph/2S6PD

oh man. Nobusuke Kishi's wikipedia page is a must read: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobusuke_Kishi

Does the Unification Church have more influence than Soka Gakkai in Japanese politics?

Officially and publicly, no.

Behind the scenes - who knows (not meant to be suggestive).

That’s some top level conspiracy theory.

First, Who shoots someone just because of “connections”? Why not go after the church itself?

Further; this person got two shots off over a 4-5 second period. Just walked up to one of the most powerful politicians in Japan. I personally feel there’s something more to this — gross negligence or a conspiracy idk.

The communist opposition was actively calling for his overthrow by any means and calling him hitler (reminds me of the USA frankly). China has been celebrating his death.

Even if we assume this person believed this (highly speculative), then it was likely amplified by Chinese propaganda. China, USA, Russia, etc is known to support opposition parties and amplify conspiracy theories to support their aims.

> Why not go after the church itself?

Allegedly, the shooter's original target was an official of the church.

> I personally feel there’s something more to this — gross negligence or a conspiracy idk.

This is an official who has been out of power for a while now, and is known to be in declining health, at a local event, in a country where political violence has been low in recent years, and a country with exceptionally low crime rates. You could totally imagine security being lax and complacent given the circumstances.

> China has been celebrating his death.

You mean some people on Weibo? Lol.

It's also not surprising that some people would view him unfavorably when he denied Japanese war crimes in the past.

Articles like this are why I come to HN.

"Why the Japanese media has refused to identify the “religious group” that formed the motive for the killing must remain as speculation at this juncture, though it reflects very poorly on Japan’s status as a democratic nation."

Because they aren't stupid. When you name names and provide ample details you have given the killer things that encourage others - infamy, a platform to spread their message, etc.

In the US, we know that providing these details, such as the killer's name, and even the media's hyper focus on the event contribute to copy cats.

Why don't we create a law to prevent the media from naming names of mass killers or assassins and giving them a platform? After all, we know that this will save lives.

Edit: why disagree without reply? No right is absolute. There are already restrictions on speech, and that same reasoning is what allows gun control.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5296697/

My guess as to why you're not getting replies because the content of your comment is highly polarizing, contains assertions as absolutes rather than points of debate, and would likely result in camp vs. camp which will play out ad infinitum.

I can see that the topic is generally polarizing and that my first sentence is assuming and could be better. I do ask a question of why we don't have a law (or really just have people sue over the coverage contributing to the act). The part about knowing that sensationalized and detailed reports contributes is a pretty solid fact (theory, analysis, and anecdotal admissions from copycats).

Pen the statue for us, what would one look like that would stop this type of release of names?

If you read the study, there is a link to the FBI guidelines. Essentially, don't name the shooter. It would also be beneficial not to linger on one negative event for a week or more, but that's not as easy to limit. Ideally we would want journalists and networks to practice responsibility and leave out the name voluntarily, but it seems the drive for profit makes it necessary to step in with a legal solution.

https://www.dontnamethem.org/

I agree that the media should not glamorize these bad actors.

> Why don't we create a law

I was asking which statue would prevent this. How would that statue read? What would be "easy to limit?"

I'm not sure what you expect. I'm not writing some law that won't actually be used. The idea should be easy to grasp - journalists publishing/broadcasting the picture/name of a murderer who is not at large will be fined. The fine could be set a number of ways, but should be substantial and graded based on the income of the individual and organization.

I think you're taking that "easy" quote out of context.

Your ideology to deter crime is quite easy to grasp - implementation via abridging the freedom of speech is problematic.

Why?

There are numerous restrictions already on freedom of speech for this very reason.

Especially on a global scale. No law in the US or other non-Japanese country regarding the press is going to have bearing on Japanese laws regarding Japan's media outlets.

Throwing out a possible issue with this idea: it lets political parties assassinate rival politicians without losing popularity (in the case where the link isn't strong enough for a conviction but IS strong enough to say the killing was done by that party).

Maybe. But if you have a lone individual assassinating someone, then you've given them a platform to spread their message. It seems this was a case of an individual. If there was any evidence that this was organized by a party, then it could be appropriate to name the party but still withold the individual's name to prevent notoriety.

>After all, we know that this will save lives.

There are lots of things that we know will save lives. Banning driving of all non-emergency vehicles. Banning vices and handing out 50 year prison sentences for any violation. Banning skydiving. Banning soda. We can make a very long list of things we can do to save lives. But there is a price to pay, and that price isn't worth it.

Banning free speech and the free flow of information is not a price worth paying.

Do we in fact know that if a few big news orgs dont mention the shooters names that it will motivate them to not do it? I doubt you could ever control such a thing even if you tried (Wikipedia will have to have so it's just one more step to google it).

Plus the shooters often care about change via harming their targets (creating fear in a particular group is what makes something a hate crime or terroism) which happens regardless if their actual name is published.

There's evidence in the linked study as well as in anecdotal admissions by some perpetrators (eg Columbine murders expected mass coverage and hoped that it would inspire others). Is there any evidence to refute this?

I was talking specifically about naming the perpetrator, not that news coverage might create copycats:

> the [FBI] developed the “Don’t Name Them” campaign. The campaign aims to curb media-induced imitational mass shootings and suggests minimizing naming and describing the individuals involved in mass shootings, limiting sensationalism, and refusing to broadcast shooter statements or videos.

This sort of thing comes up every time there's a mass shooting, commenters attack the media for naming the person.

My point is that even if the media on non-specific about the names/motives those details will come out somewhere and people will find it if they want to. Trying to control specific information is a fools game.

The one actual study they reference is how imitation suicides increased with coverage (ie subway jumpers -> more suicides via subway jumpers).

https://sci-hub.st/https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.10...

I do believe reducing the volume of coverage could certainly have an effect. Wall-to-wall coverage makes these acts notorious and puts the ideas into peoples minds.

If there is going to be reporting on it avoiding biographic details on the perp won't make much difference. Plus I really doubt the main motivation of most of these shooters is to be personally named, rather they want maximum impact for their crimes. They know the specific details will spread via other channels regardless, all it needs is the original seed in the media about the general crime.

I believe part of it is the volume providing ideas. But it still seems that a lot of it is about infamy, as referenced in the FBI link as well as these attacks. I think that while the volume provides the idea, the infamy is the "benefit" that the killer sees in that idea. It's possible that without that benefit, they might kill themselves instead of others. Not an ideal outcome, but certainly a better one.

'The Sandy Hook murderer kept a spreadsheet of previous mass murderers and their number of kills. The WDBJ murderer killed his victims while they were on the air! And then faxed his 23-page manifesto to ABC News. The Orlando Pulse nightclub murderer called a local news station during his attack! And then stopped to check Facebook to see if he'd gone viral. The Parkland murderer recorded and posted a video, stating, "When you see me on the news, you'll know who I am." The Aurora theater murderer told a psychiatrist that he recognized he couldn't make an impact on the world in science, but he could become famous by blowing people up. And most telling, the Umpqua Community College murderer wrote on his blog about a previous mass murderer, saying, "I've noticed that people like him are all alone and unknown. But when they spill a little blood, the whole world knows who they are."' TED Talk by Tom Teves.

I agree that there are many things that we could do, and that there are costs associated with them.

"Banning free speech and the free flow of information is not a price worth paying."

I generally agree with this, but what harm is done by banning the media from using the name of a criminal likely to be notorious (mass murder, assassination, etc)?

Well, for starters, it would mean that members of the public who had interacted with the murderer, and had important information about their motives, means of obtaining weapons, accomplices, etc. would not realize that they had important information, and therefore would not make this information available to investigators.

Next, it would mean that powerful interests who had responsibility for the crime, by instigation or negligence, might be able to avoid accountability for their actions/omissions, since people would not be able to connect them to the murderer.

Then there's the inability of the public to see what aspects of current culture might have lead to the crime, or what deficiencies in mental health care contributed, etc.

Democracy is based on the belief that ordinary people can be trusted to know the truth, and use it in governing themselves. Perhaps you don't believe that, and are just against democracy?

"and therefore would not make this information available to investigators."

I find it unlikely that investigators would not be able to find those connections themselves, especially in the digital age.

"Next, it would mean that powerful interests who had responsibility for the crime, by instigation or negligence, might be able to avoid accountability for their actions/omissions, since people would not be able to connect them to the murderer."

How so? The media could still report on groups instigating the crime without naming the person committing it.

"Democracy is based on the belief that ordinary people can be trusted to know the truth, and use it in governing themselves. Perhaps you don't believe that, and are just against democracy?"

Don't troll, it's against the rules. Our democracy has had restriction on speech throughout its history, and has added others. Withholding the name has no impact on how ordinary people will make decisions since it's not pertinent to the underlying issued which could be described through impersonal means (talk about the actual mental illness you mentioned and not the specific person).

>I find it unlikely that investigators would not be able to find those connections themselves, especially in the digital age.

Less than half of all murders in the US are solved in this "digital age", and the majority of the ones that are, are because of witnesses and informants telling what they know.

But we aren't talking about unsolved murders. You already can't release a name for those because they're unsolved. Witnesses and informants already have knowledge that a crime was committed. They can come forward on their own. Otherwise, investigators have to track them down anyways. The fact that we know who has perpetrated the crime makes it much easier to find any links because the investigators have access to the digital trail.

It refutes your point that digital evidence is enough. It's clearly not. So the original point was correct.

Where did I say that? I remember saying in the digital age those connections are easier to make. Once they know the individual, they have vast digital resources to make the connections. Digital evidence can lead to physical or bystander evidence. I don't see any refutation. Even if my point was somehow invalid, that doesn't make your point correct. That would be a fallacy.

"There are already restrictions on speech..."

There are particular categories of speech that aren't considered to be "protected speech". And those categories can't be expanded just because some politicians and judges think it's a good idea.

"that same reasoning is what allows gun control."

A lot of what we consider "gun control" is under active constitutional debate.

Why go to all this trouble? I agree with the general idea that we shouldn't glorify mass shooters. But all we have to do is stop clicking and start to develop a cultural idea that it's wrong to report is a way that makes killers (in)famous. Mainstream outlets will stop doing it and the fringe is not very important.

"And those categories can't be expanded just because some politicians and judges think it's a good idea."

Why not? Isn't that how the current ones came to be?

"But all we have to do is stop clicking and start to develop a cultural idea that it's wrong to report is a way that makes killers (in)famous."

That would be great, but what would that look like? I don't see a mechanism for incentizing them via culture. The only thing I can see is if people start sueing the media like they have gun makers for improper marketing.

"A lot of what we consider "gun control" is under active constitutional debate."

Is it really a lot? It seems the majority of gun control regulations still stand under the new one prong standard.

"Why not? Isn't that how the current ones came to be?"

There's an interesting history of rights prior to the Constitution. But now that we have a constitution, there's a defined process for amending it.

Of course, there is still room for interpretation. But if you allow politicians and judges to wildly change the constitution on a whim, you might as well not have one.

What you are suggesting qualifies as such a wild change to the notion of a free press, and should not be permitted without an amendment. And if such an amendment were proposed, I think it would get very little support.

"There's an interesting history of rights prior to the Constitution. But now that we have a constitution, there's a defined process for amending it."

Yet the courts and legislature have added restrictions without following that process.

"But if you allow politicians and judges to wildly change the constitution on a whim, you might as well not have one."

I generally agree. However, it's not a radical change to include killers names under the "fighting words" standard since it is "inherently likely to produce a violent response" as evidenced in research and through anecdote/commonsense.

"And if such an amendment were proposed, I think it would get very little support."

Why is that? The right should support it since it's a solution that doesn't involve further firearm restrictions. The left should support it since they want to take action on the issue and make meaningful changes, which this is. And there doesn't appear to be any issue with restricting the killer's name as it doesn't interfere with the message or ideas the journalist would be reporting.

"Yet the courts and legislature have added restrictions without following that process."

I don't mean to suggest that it's perfect or followed perfectly. As I said, there's room for interpretation.

"However, it's not a radical change to include killers names under the 'fighting words'"

I disagree and I doubt you'd find many people who understand our legal system that agree with you.

"Why [would it not get much support]?"

Hypothetically, let's say I'm wrong. Wouldn't all those people who support it be able to pressure mainstream outlets to suppress information that glorifies killers? Sounds like a much easier alternative that would produce the desired result.

Personally, I already avoid reading news articles about mass killers. I usually wait a while, and then read wikipedia or something if I'm interested to know.

"I disagree and I doubt you'd find many people who understand our legal system that agree with you."

Care to elaborate? Protections under the Constitution are actually more likely to have the interpretations change over time. I also don't appreciate the insinuated insult.

"Wouldn't all those people who support it be able to pressure mainstream outlets to suppress information that glorifies killers?"

It's much more effective via law. You have many people who are indifferent, so you only need more support than the detractors (like how an NPS works). Not only that, but you could still have a minority who support a network that still releases the name, undermining the others who don't.

Why the Japanese media has refused to identify the ‘religious group’ that formed the motive for the killing must remain as speculation at this juncture, though it reflects very poorly on Japan’s status as a democratic nation.

It is quite striking in the UK and US how mainstream media will be remarkably coy about identifying the cultural background of some criminals while straight off the bat into condemnatory opinion pieces with others who will resonate more as bogeymen with their readers.

That’s because the ethnicity of a criminal is usually not a relevant detail. It is not similar to the Japanese media hiding the motive of the assassination.

> That’s because the ethnicity of a criminal is usually not a relevant detail.

That’s a big assumption rooted in a moral framework rather than in objective science.

In a news report about an individual crime?

Lets say a hate crime was committed against Jews. Do you assume it was a Nazi, or an Islamist? This pops up all the time in Europe, usually it is Islamists but sometimes it is Nazis, and that makes a huge difference when interpreting what the crime means.

Or for this case, lets say the perpetrator was of Chinese origin instead of Japanese. Do you think that wouldn't be relevant at all?

If the person was Chinese yes that would be an important consideration wrt the motive

> That’s because the ethnicity of a criminal is usually not a relevant detail.

Come on, don't be coy. There are many things which aren't relevant like where the criminal is from or how old he is.

The reason they hide the ethnicity is because it helps racists to profile.

The problem is that they go too far the other way, like labeling Kyle Rittenhouse, not just white, but a white supremacist without any evidence.

Age and location are necessary to avoid confusion based on name, and are much more effective at doing so than race which has the added problem of fueling racism.

"Eschew flamebait. Avoid unrelated controversies and generic tangents."

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

It's directly relevant to the point (by a Western journalist) about Japan's "status as a democratic nation" which can presumably be turned right back on us.

Nobusuke Kishi was a class A war criminal hmmm

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobusuke_Kishi

> After World War II, Kishi was imprisoned for three years as a suspected Class A war criminal. However, the U.S. government did not charge, try, or convict him, and eventually released him as they considered Kishi to be the best man to lead a post-war Japan in a pro-American direction.

Do not quite get the last line. All democratic countries have church played a part and individual tried to … let us say Catholic Church and scandals of … no politicians involved totally ?

The downplay is odd. But that might be cautious. We will see.

Democracy … not see what reflect ….

I don't completely buy the "religious group" reason given by the assassin.

It might just be a convenient cover story for any "State Actors" behind the assassination. Shinzo Abe had been a real thorn in the side of China and North Korea by pushing a hard-line approach towards them. He had tremendous worldwide political/economic clout and was instrumental in establishing the "Pacific Quad" as a real challenge to China and North Korea. Even after stepping down he had been active in drumming up support for his assertive stance against them which obviously wasn't to their liking.

It will be interesting to see what the investigators uncover over time.

Abe was hardly the most anti-China or anti-North Korea MP, and he was no longer prime minister for years anyway.

Not only would China or North Korea not get anything out of assassinating him, if they were discovered to have done so this would make Japan even more anti-China and anti-North Korea.

So this theory doesn't really seem that likely.

How would China or North Korea convince a Japanese soldier to openly kill his leader and face death penalty? There is very little social exchange between these countries, extremely few foreigners speaks Japanese, I just don't see how they could indoctrinate him to such a degree that he would give up his own life for that cause.

Extremely few people give up their life for a cause even when they grew up in that society, so I really don't think that this is plausible at all.

Well, this is my fear of TikTok. We've seen how Facebook and Twitter (and certsin news media) polarized/brainwashed Americans in convincing Obama is Muslim and not born in the US through crude algorithms to increase clicks.

Imagine TikTok, who isn't just driven by ad revenue but the need to keep the Chinese government happy.

I think birtherism spread mostly in places other than Facebook and Twitter. Its heyday was before those groups were on social media. Facebook's audience in 2010 was much younger than its audience in 2016, and Twitter adoption at that point was pretty minor.

I agree with your view. The fact that the killer went through the stress of making homemade guns, which likely involved lots of hiccups, shows he had a very deep grudge for his target, and I see being (allegedly, can't confirm yet) raised in a religious cult that bankrupted your mum as an ideal catalyst for such a grudge.

And if recent years have taught me a lesson, it's that real life is often stranger than friction. What you think can only be achieved by state-level, mafia-like collaboration ends up being the work of random individuals (e.g., that Bitfinex hack where two funny characters were caught with $4.5bn of stolen bitcoin).

This is Spycraft 101;

Lots of Japanese have been abducted by North Korea to train their spies, build cover stories to live as Japanese (i.e. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleeper_agent) across generations etc. Since NK is a proxy for China, one can expect a flow through. See - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Korean_abductions_of_Jap...

In popular Movie/TV parlance (eg. Russian spies in the USA) these Sleeper Agents are called "The Illegals".

Anyone who knows even a little history will realize that the aftermath of an assassination of a public figure results in an immediate increase in the popularity of the affiliated political party (the 'martyr effect'). The claims that the assassination of JFK in the United States in 1963 changed official US government policy are nonsense, incidentally - JFK was an ardent Cold Warrior who would have followed the same policy Johnson did, if faced with the imminent collapse of the South Vietnamese government. If anything the assassination strengthened the Democratic Party's political position at the time, and the same kind of effect seems to be taking place in Japan, with Abe's party expected to win a major victory.

The story of an individual with personal grievances (possibly acting alone, possibly not) related to a parent who went bankrupt by donating all their money to a religious organization affilated with the victim makes much more sense in terms of a plausible motivation. The other part of the puzzle is why security for such a well-known public figure was so poor, but Japan's history of low gun violence might explain that.

> claims that the assassination of JFK in the United States in 1963 changed official US government policy are nonsense

Seriously? The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 was passed entirely on JFK's death. I'd say that's…pretty major.

If there was state level involvement couldn't they have smuggled a proper gun instead of having him make an abomination that could very well have completely failed (and missed in the first shot)? And why go after an ex soldier in that case? It doesn't seem to check out at all.

State sponsored assassinations are almost always immediately identifiable which means it's not going to work in their favour. Abe also retired at the end of 2020 and the amount of influence he can still exert is to prop up his own intra-party faction, not direct international policy. Sino-Japanese trade was also consistently growing in latter half of his term.

Real life isn't a fiction or video game. This type of whacky beer talk is neither interesting or amusing. Please familiarize yourself with some basic context of the subject before making grotesque insinuations about it.

>State sponsored assassinations are almost always immediately identifiable

This is clueless and childish naivete; do you believe everything you see and hear? In Geopolitics one should never ever accept the superficial and face-value explanation but should always try to look behind the curtain.

There is a reason China is celebrating his assassination. Abe was single-handedly responsible for establishing, driving and bankrolling the Quad (Quadrilateral Security Dialogue between USA, Japan, India and Australia) which is a direct and serious threat to China. And no he didn't disappear after retirement as you seem to think; men of his stature and influence always have the ear of policy makers until the end.

We will see what the investigators uncover but nobody should buy assassin confessed simplistic explanations until we have more information. It is but one plausible explanation among a set which needs to be "proven". Until then we need to explore all possibilities.

>There is a reason China is celebrating his assassination

By edgy Internet users. The state had already sent condolences through official diplomatic channels. Do you believe trending Twitter hashtags as official statements from entire countries as well?

>Abe was single-handedly responsible for establishing, driving and bankrolling the Quad (Quadrilateral Security Dialogue between USA, Japan, India and Australia) which is a direct and serious threat to China.

You think one person did it single-handedly? Let me repeat your own question: do you believe everything you see and hear? Are you aware there is a major player in Asia-Pacific that isn't geographically located there?

>And no he didn't disappear after retirement as you seem to think; men of his stature and influence always have the ear of policy makers until the end.

Where did I say he disappeared? Read my comments again. He's not the first senior party member in the LDP. Previous ones don't directly meddle with current government policy or it would be a constitutional crisis.

The only ones who need to explore all possibilities are the investigators indeed, not some random person boasting flimsy conspiracy theories on an Internet forum that usually doesn't even have anything to do with this sort of topic anyways. There's a special sort of irony in the mentions of "clueless and childish naïveté", and you seem to lack the awareness for that.

You are just reinforcing my "clueless and naivete" comment about your posts;

>By edgy Internet users. The state had already sent condolences through official diplomatic channels. Do you believe trending Twitter hashtags as official statements from entire countries as well?

No, the state-owned media were more nuanced in their attack. See the commentary from the state-owned "Global Times" - https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202207/1270082.shtml. Also keep in mind that Internet media is officially "The Fifth Estate" and is used by Govts. the world over to influence public policy. It would be foolish to dismiss them all.

>You think one person did it single-handedly?

Again, you have no idea what you are talking about. Abe was instrumental in getting India into the Quad which is no mean achievement given that India wanted no part of it in the beginning. He also shared military intelligence with India which has never been done before and was willing to bankroll the entire thing. See - https://www.sundayguardianlive.com/news/shinzo-abe-controver...

>He's not the first senior party member in the LDP. Previous ones don't directly meddle with current government policy or it would be a constitutional crisis.

Abe was very very different from previous Japanese politicians in that he was more assertive w.r.t. military matters, was willing to put money where his mouth was and in a word was a "doer".

I urge a study of Geopolitics for personal edification.

It's rather painful to see the fantasy rabbithole you got yourself sucked into. Reality isn't spy fiction. Get a grip. Your utter lack of self-awareness and taking pride in ignorance is plain laughable. Have fun with your cooked up conspiracy theory. The Internet has way too many of them already so good luck at getting recognition as an unseen genius.

Reality is often stranger than Fiction.

I put forth some plausible scenarios with sources whereas you have no data nor information to backup your simplistic viewpoint (except of course the assassin's say so). There is no nuance in any of your posts which is quite sad actually. As the saying goes; "It is the mark of an Educated Mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it". Perhaps you lack the needed Education. Here is a link to start with : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Realism_(international_relatio...

The first step to adopting realism is to stop believing spy fictions and TV shows have relevance to reality. You are a caricature.

Reminds me of a Mark Twain quote: It is better to keep your mouth closed and let people think you are a fool than to open it and remove all doubt.

Said the person unironically citing a TV Show as justification for the plausibility of their hilariously out of touch fake theory.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com