[HN Gopher] Shinzo Abe's Assassination
___________________________________________________________________
Shinzo Abe's Assassination
Author : simonebrunozzi
Score : 126 points
Date : 2023-11-04 13:07 UTC (9 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.theatlantic.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.theatlantic.com)
| bragr wrote:
| https://archive.ph/I3UcQ
| nijave wrote:
| Not sure if it's just me but I routinely get stuck in a captcha
| redirect loop with archive.today (like captcha button, get
| redirected back to same captcha page)
| haraldooo wrote:
| It's the same for me
| lionsdan wrote:
| The same thing happened to me on a different article
| yesterday using Firefox. It worked using Edge.
| garciansmith wrote:
| There's a longstanding issue with using Cloudflare DNS. If
| you change Firefox's secure DNS provider settings to
| NextDNS the page loads without any captcha.
| WarOnPrivacy wrote:
| This is not the longstanding Cloudflare issue. That made
| Archive sties totally unreachable.
|
| This Captcha issue occurs with non-cloudflare resolvers
| as well, although with great inconsistency. It depends on
| the resolver and the user's location when they query.
| Results can change hours later.
| bombcar wrote:
| Change DNS to not use Cloudflare.
| jyunwai wrote:
| This worked for me. I found that I changed my DNS server to
| Cloudflare with the AdGuard software installed on MacOS a
| while back (AdGuard > Preferences > DNS), and changing this
| to a different server fixed it.
|
| I also used the command `sudo dscacheutil -flushcache; sudo
| killall -HUP mDNSResponder` on Terminal (double-check this
| command before using) to flush the DNS cache, so the change
| would immediately take effect with the archive websites.
| WarOnPrivacy wrote:
| This is a separate issue from the previous Cloudflare issue
| and it manifests differently.
|
| Getting Captcha'd happens with non-cloudflare resolvers as
| well, tho not universally nor consistently.
|
| I forced all of Archive domains to query against Quad9 and
| started getting unskipable Captchas months ago - when I was
| local(US).
|
| When I placeshifted to overseas, Quad9 resolved to
| different IPs and those were usable.
| latchkey wrote:
| Same with me for a few weeks now. Turned on my vpn and things
| worked. So the other suggestion to not use cloudflare dns is
| probably what is happening under the covers. Archive doesn't
| like CF at all.
| linusg789 wrote:
| https://ghostarchive.org/archive/szzB2
| philistine wrote:
| It's crazy how the assassination and the public acceptance of the
| assassin's goals sound like something out of Persona 5.
| udkl wrote:
| Your comment reminded me of the excellent score in P5, and now
| it's going to be stuck in my head for the next some days !
| dclowd9901 wrote:
| I was reading the article and it honestly sounded like the
| description of a movie or something. What a crazy development
| in that story.
| ls612 wrote:
| Japan is a strange place.
| capableweb wrote:
| Why is that so crazy? Happens all the time that people get
| assassinated and the public sides with the assassin. If the US
| was successful with any of their plots to assassinate Castro
| I'm sure the US public would mostly side with their government
| about it, as a relatively famous example.
|
| Another more contemporary example would be the assassination of
| Yitzhak Rabin (prime minister of Israel) in 95, which had a lot
| of local public support.
| carlosdp wrote:
| The Castro example doesn't really fit here. That would be an
| assassination of a foreign national, not a domestic
| assassination like in Rabin's or Abe's.
| graphe wrote:
| I agree. If Trump or Obama had been assassinated during
| their presidency, there would have been some support among
| the public, wide condemnation by the elites worried about
| their status and a news blackout on why the assassin may
| have been justified.
| wddkcs wrote:
| An Obama assassination might have led to a more immediate
| George Floyd style disruption of major cities. The murder
| of the first black president is a chilling possibility to
| think about. Trumps assassination might have been equally
| toxic, given the rhetoric of the time. Especially if it
| were not denounced by the media, it might have been
| similarly corrosive. Arguably Trump is being politically
| assassinated presently, by his own hand as much as anyone
| else's.
| graphe wrote:
| It's all speculative but there will be support for
| either, during their presidency or after from people. The
| US's media is way more controlled, I generally think
| assassinations are popular among the public.
| capableweb wrote:
| I never played Persona 5, is that relevant to "public
| support of a assassination"? Otherwise I don't see how it's
| relevant.
| NobodyNada wrote:
| One of the central themes of P5 is that "public support"
| tends to be based on spectacle and emotion rather than
| justice -- kinda like the idea of news as entertainment
| rather than truth. The assassination of a foreign leader
| would be news, but it wouldn't really be a _spectacle_ in
| the same way as a local politician, and wouldn't create
| the kind of emotional reaction within the public that the
| parent comment is referencing.
| shadowgovt wrote:
| This is a very powerful notion in general. In an
| extremely real way, justice is just "codified vibes." The
| primary purpose of a functioning judicial system is
| really to allow the public to sleep soundly in their beds
| at night.
| capableweb wrote:
| > The primary purpose of a functioning judicial system is
| really to allow the public to sleep soundly in their beds
| at night
|
| *In some countries.
|
| In others, the primary purpose is rehabilitation so
| people can eventually re-join society as "better people".
| depereo wrote:
| That's the same thing, just with different publicly
| accepted definitions of 'safe'.
| pjc50 wrote:
| > the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin (prime minister of
| Israel) in 95, which had a lot of local public support.
|
| Kept the war going until the present day, too.
| mola wrote:
| Bombing busses in cities by Hamas also helped....
| mongol wrote:
| From the article > Tetsuya Yamagami can console himself
| that he may be among the most successful assassins in
| history.
|
| I actually think the assasin of Rabin was the most
| successful, in terms or changing history in his desired
| direction
| mola wrote:
| There was not a lot of public support for the assassination
| of Rabin. That's a lie.
| capableweb wrote:
| Ultra-national movement in Israel was strong then and is
| still strong, a movement which publicly were happy about
| the assassination as they thought that Rabin would lead
| down the road of loosing ground to Palestine.
| selimthegrim wrote:
| You might want to ask Netanyahu about that.
| earthboundkid wrote:
| https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2022/11/05/meet-
| itama...
| jacooper wrote:
| In light of current events, doesn't seem weird at all.
| shadowgovt wrote:
| Correct, but causality is reversed.
|
| When you are an artist in Japan, there are certain things you
| will pull a massive amount of criticism down upon yourself for
| directly critiquing or commenting on via your art. You can't
| make a video game about "Hey maybe it's weird and a little not
| okay that it's an open secret that formal power in Japan is
| very closely tied to the informal power structure of what is
| basically a specific religious cult." Making that game will
| pull all kinds of formal and informal pressure down on a
| person's head.
|
| ... But making a game where young people look at the existing
| power structure and band together to defeat it, fighting all
| the way up to divinity itself? Not only is there a reason
| Persona 5 is what it is, there's a reason we keep seeing that
| theme in JRPGs.
|
| https://youtu.be/IEUqLL8J4gI?si=vzc7RK538-J28G-z
| graphe wrote:
| I enjoyed this video. Thanks for showing it.
| mcpackieh wrote:
| > _" Eating raw tuna was still an exotic pursuit to Americans
| when Moon--the self-declared "king of the ocean"--began investing
| in shipyards in the late 1970s and sending his followers to sell
| door-to-door from refrigerated vans. True World Foods, a seafood
| company founded at Moon's direction, controls a large share of
| the sushi trade, selling raw fish to thousands of restaurants
| across the United States and Canada."_
|
| Huh
| RunSet wrote:
| > _" Yamagami's trial will offer Japan a chance to relive the
| entire drama. No date has been set as of this writing. Japanese
| prosecutors take their time, and for a man who has admitted to
| killing a former head of state, there may be pressure to apply
| the death penalty. If so, Yamagami will face an excruciating
| fate. Death-row prisoners in Japan are not told the date of
| their execution in advance. They wake up every morning not
| knowing if this day will be their last."_
|
| Huh
| AndrewKemendo wrote:
| Meta comment on cultural awareness: "Japan wants you to say its
| leader's name correctly: Abe Shinzo [1]"
|
| Why authors are still messing this up almost 5 years later is
| bewildering
|
| [1]https://www.cnn.com/2019/05/21/asia/japan-name-abe-shinzo-
| in...
| jasode wrote:
| _> Why authors are still messing this up almost 5 years later
| is bewildering_
|
| I don't have an opinion on it but Westerners unfamiliar with
| Asian naming conventions can get conflicting signals.
|
| Some famous Japanese names that are well-known to Western
| audiences are written "FirstName FamilyName" instead of
| "FamilyName FirstName":
|
| baseball star: Shohei Ohtani not Ohtani Shohei
|
| actor: Ken Watanabe not Watanabe Ken
|
| Maybe those 2 constantly try to correct every journalist but
| I'm assuming they don't.
| BonoboIO wrote:
| Somebody should ask them. Would be interesting to hear if
| that's an issue or nobody cares.
| spondylosaurus wrote:
| Quite a few Japanese game developers style their names as
| <GivenName FamilyName> on social media when they're writing
| in English. Some examples that come to mind, going off of
| their Twitter accounts:
|
| * Masahiro Ito
|
| * Hideki Kamiya
|
| * Keita Takahashi
| stickfigure wrote:
| The article you linked explains exactly why the issue is
| complex/unsettled and "messing up" isn't really an appropriate
| term.
| nihonthrowaway wrote:
| As someone who speaks Japanese to be polite, and will dutifully
| follow all honorifics while in Japan:
|
| Japan doesn't get to change English naming conventions in
| English speaking cultures and civilizations.
| mrob wrote:
| But why do China and Korea get to change English naming
| conventions? What makes Japan an exception?
| nihonthrowaway wrote:
| They don't get to either. The English speaking world can't
| handle almost every Vietnamese person being Nguyen.
| jasode wrote:
| _> But why do China and Korea get to change English naming
| conventions?_
|
| Americans are exposed to Chinese names in both orderings of
| "Familyname Firstname" and "Firstname Familyname":
|
| - "Familyname Firstname" ordering : actor Chow Yun-fat, and
| basketball player Yao Ming
|
| - "Firstname Familyname" ordering: actor Simu Liu, pianist
| Yuja Wang, and Alibaba co-founder Jack Ma.
| saltcured wrote:
| Not only that, we might be exposed to them for years
| without really knowing which is the family name and which
| is the given name!
|
| In a vacuum, I might have guess "Chow Yun-fat" as
| starting with the family name because I know that the
| hyphenated, two-part names are usually given. But a name
| like "Yao Ming" I might not have had any idea, since I
| don't have the cultural exposure to know which single
| syllable words look more like family names versus given
| names.
|
| Imagine expecting a Chinese person to figure out "Larry
| David" with no other context.
| r2vcap wrote:
| I believe that's a historical (19th-century) reason. Japan
| tried to live up to Western standards. They underwent
| radical changes and adopted Western culture, driven by the
| significant influence of the 'Tuo Ya Ru Ou ' (Leave Asia,
| Join the West) theory during the Meiji era. That's why they
| adopted a Western-style naming convention for English names
| (Personal name + Family name).
|
| However, China and Korea didn't modernize as fast as Japan.
| They didn't have radical changes in the 19th century. (The
| result is that foreign concession in China, unequal
| treaties, colonization of Korea, etc.) So they didn't have
| to change their naming convention.
|
| The reason why Japan is trying to change the English naming
| convention when they write in Japanese is similar to the
| reason mentioned above. The 21st century is Asia's century.
| Japan feels that they don't have to conform to Western
| standards anymore. They are trying to be more Asian. That's
| why they are attempting to change the convention to
| synchronize as if they were writing in Japanese.
|
| I hope this helps.
| makeitdouble wrote:
| The language/country norm is kinda irrelevant. In Japan John
| Lennon is not referred to as "Lennon John", nor is Miyamoto
| Musashi referred as "Musashi Miyamoto" in English.
|
| For famous names, outside of official dpcuments people will
| use whatever names feels right to them and I personally think
| that should be fine as long as the name is recognized.
| wrp wrote:
| Every Japanese and Korean person I work with presents their
| names with the family name last when operating in an English
| speaking context. Conversely, my (American) name is often
| written family name first (and in katakana) when I'm in Japan.
|
| Real cultural sensitivity is accepting the social conventions
| of the society you are operating in.
| vitus wrote:
| Eh.
|
| I've never seen any articles referring "Jinping Xi", "Jong-Un
| Kim", "Jae-in Moon", "Zedong Mao", Yat-sen Sun".
|
| Non-heads of state get similar treatment: Lee Sedol, Bong
| Joon-Ho, Yao Ming vs. Hayao Miyazaki, Akira Kurosawa.
|
| This seems to have originated in the Meiji era (in the 19th
| century), when the Japanese assimilated many aspects of
| Western culture and traditions.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_name#In_English_and_o.
| ..
| resolutebat wrote:
| Yup, that's the problem, the practice is inconsistent even
| in Japan and we _do_ say Oda Nobunaga, Tokugawa Ieyasu etc
| for sufficiently historical figures. The Wikipedia
| guideline for this is quite the mess of exceptions:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style/Jap
| a...
| sneed_chucker wrote:
| Cool, now anyone reading the name needs to be familiar with
| East Asian naming conventions to know which is the given and
| which is the family name.
|
| Should we just print it in katakana too, so that we're not
| "culturally unaware"?
| charcircuit wrote:
| It should be written as An Bei Jin San .
| jksk61 wrote:
| well it could be useful in literature where there are way too
| many zhang...
| darkerside wrote:
| We also expect people to know the basics of geography etc.
| Seems fine not to always cater to the ignorant, although
| there are specific magazines where you might expect that.
| pretendscholar wrote:
| One of the most annoying things about speaking the dominant
| world language (obviously it is also great in many respects) is
| that there is some pressure to change your language rather than
| just adjusting the sounds and spelling to the pre-existing
| phonetics. Erdogan is pronounced closer to erdoyan and Turkiye
| insisting on the umlaut. Nguyen and Pho rather than wynn and
| pha. Gyro instead of hyro. Blonde vs blond (WHY would we just
| have adjective modification for that word and none other) and
| colonel. You have to know a lot about so many different culture
| when a language should be self contained. I don't tell the
| Chinese what name to use for my country (I think they call USA
| something like Beautiful Land) in their language or the Spanish
| or another group for any word.
| pretendscholar wrote:
| I should say a lot of this is internal as a form of social
| signaling about worldliness. Also not against loan words its
| just that you should adjust loan words and concepts to fit
| the phonetics and grammar of the language.
| scyzoryk_xyz wrote:
| Dang, never thought about that. Must be really hard.
|
| That joke out of the way, as a dual-citizen and polyglot my
| observation is that it is usually Americans giving other
| Americans shit about pronunciation. It's perhaps (like you
| say) a form of jostling around how virtuous you are. Perhaps
| layered on top of some insecurity around how much of the
| world you got to see.
| BobaFloutist wrote:
| I mean part of it is we don't really have a central language
| authority so when immigrants try to transliterate a word from
| their language, they go with their best guess based on what
| letters they understand to be equivalent, and sometimes they
| get it a little wrong, but by the time anyone realizes a
| convention has been set and it's incredibly hard to shift
| conventions.
|
| It also feels very silly to change the spelling of a word or
| name when two languages share an alphabet, even if it makes
| it a little less phonetic.
| namdnay wrote:
| Pho is funny because it's Vietnamese trying to say "feu" as
| in "pot au feu".
| jltsiren wrote:
| It's the same in every language. When you take words and
| particularly names from another language, you have to make
| choices. Do you borrow the spelling or the pronunciation? Do
| you use a local version of the name? Or do you translate it?
|
| Suppose an American guy named John comes to Finland. Should
| he still continue spelling his name as "John"? Or should he
| take the pronunciation as given and start spelling his name
| as "Dzon"? Or should he adopt an equivalent local name, such
| as Juha, Janne, or Jani? Or should he go with a traditional
| version, such as Johannes or Juhana? And what happens if he
| changes the spelling but his American passport still uses
| "John"?
| nyolfen wrote:
| i will be happy to accommodate this when speaking in japanese
| justinclift wrote:
| Looks like another real life example of "When Justice fails,
| there's always Force". ;)
| WorkerBee28474 wrote:
| The older I get, the more I believe Starship Troopers:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JyhfHQ_7Skg
| abecode wrote:
| I went to a conference in Nara last year and at one of the
| receptions I told a Japanese attendee that I was sorry to hear
| about the assassination. I joked that my name is pronounced Abe
| like Abe Lincoln, not like Shinzo Abe. He kind of shrugged and
| said it would be kind of like if it had happened to Trump in the
| US, in that there were a lot of of people that didn't like him.
|
| The article makes it seem like people discovered about the cult
| connections after the fact. I wish I had known more about it to
| ask more questions. If anyone has more insight about it, I'd be
| glad to learn more.
|
| Ironically I was reading 1Q84 at the time, which is about a cult
| in Japan.
| tjpnz wrote:
| The cult connections weren't widely known by the public prior.
| His assassin opened up a giant can of worms with the
| Reunification Church still discussed on the nightly news to
| this day. Last I heard the government is getting ready to ban
| them like they did Aum Shinrikyo. The whole thing has tarnished
| Abe's legacy, that and his expensive state funeral which pissed
| off a good chunk of the public.
| wahnfrieden wrote:
| It is an ongoing issue and point of discussion/conflict with
| the public, with lots and lots of message management and
| incremental "progress". There is some policy reform and push
| for more to be done. Doesn't seem like much power has
| actually been purged of its accomplices tho kishida public
| support is very low I wouldn't be surprised if it recovers
| whenever he's replaced within his party
|
| politics is a losing game when the public buys into its
| machinations and scheming against their interests
| dieselgate wrote:
| Not getting into politics at all but I imagine it'd be utter
| chaos if anything similar were to happen to Trump, that's an
| interesting perspective to hear though.
| dmonitor wrote:
| If Trump died, and in the aftermath it was revealed he had
| ties to a Chinese cult, his only remaining supporters would
| probably be the cult-like reality deniers.
| macintux wrote:
| > ...his only remaining supporters would probably be the
| cult-like reality deniers.
|
| He built a huge base largely on people who prefer to
| believe him over reality.
| GartzenDeHaes wrote:
| "These people (the Trump voters) are sick and tired of
| being lied to by fake politicians and they just want to
| burn the whole system down -- Trump is their fire bomb."
| -- Michael Moore, prior to the 2016 election.
| Aloha wrote:
| That's not wrong, we have an issue with politicians
| promising things that are impossible or at a minimum
| highly implausible - because the structure of our
| political system means they won't be thrown out on their
| ear for making promises they can't keep.
| darkerside wrote:
| I actually think it's that politicians have been
| unwilling to promise things that they feel are
| politically infeasible, and arguably make no sense, like
| building a wall to Mexico
| Aloha wrote:
| Once Trump and his ilk came in, Those people lost
| elections.
| Gud wrote:
| It's not that they promise things that they can't
| deliver. It's that they pretend to be fighters for good,
| while instead using the system for cynical self gain.
| Aloha wrote:
| But they do promise lots of things they can't deliver as
| well.
| kergonath wrote:
| It kind of makes sense on an intellectual level, but I
| don't think it is very plausible. Trump promised a lot of
| things when he was elected, most of which are practically
| impossible. I think he just promised the _right_ things
| for his audience, whereas most politicians are so far up
| their arses that they don't know what actual people want
| or care about.
| Aloha wrote:
| How is that different than anyone else?
|
| Republicans and Democrats alike say whatever they need to
| win a primary and general election, democrats do that in
| smaller quantities - but it's still the same bullshit.
|
| And before anyone says I'm "both sidesing" the green new
| deal (which was little more than a messaging bill with
| lots of words and little substance) was no more passable
| than building a southern border wall was, or repealing
| Obamacare (though this got close) for that matter.
| eastbound wrote:
| Isn't Michael Moore a Democrat?
| midasuni wrote:
| The ones that almost triggered an insurrection and civil
| war a couple of years ago?
| SilasX wrote:
| Wouldn't a better analogy be a Mexican cult, to better
| approximate a country with the same relationship as China
| to Japan?
| graphe wrote:
| The sushi trade is unable to be separated from the moonies.
| https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/11/05/magazine/sush...
| that will be Moon's legacy
|
| I know from personal experience that many Koreans who own sushi
| restaurants are part of this cult, they knew each other at church
| all donated a lot and the only reason I know is that my friend
| dated a girl whose parents were part of it.
| AniseAbyss wrote:
| The CIA involvement in spreading Christianity through Asia is
| not something that is talked about enough. It reminded me of
| the Bene Gesserit.
| wahnfrieden wrote:
| How are moonie member owners to their workers?
| graphe wrote:
| I think the ones I saw recently were all members of the cult.
| They're overly religious and their family and children are
| often working there, children hate it and the cult. They try
| to keep costs low, donations from their work high, and it
| seems to function efficiently with a religious fevor. I've
| never seen much excess use of money from sushi restaurants.
| Haven't been to a chick fil a in a while but maybe like that
| culture but less friendly, all family and they're thinking of
| more efficient ways to donate. Many sell merchandise and try
| to sell lots of high profit goods. I'm sorry if this isn't a
| good answer.
|
| Edit: I forgot about a sandwich shop (the yellow deli) I've
| heard that is always open that is a cult. I never been but it
| sounds a lot closer to this cult except they seen to recruit
| more and focus on cute receptionists girls working at the
| counters.
| wahnfrieden wrote:
| North Koreans in Japan sometimes have businesses that
| operate to send money back home. Seems like a lot of
| coercion involved in both cases
| graphe wrote:
| It happens a lot with dictator run governments. I heard
| that's how foreign Eritreans are treated, or their family
| dies. A man living in Australia told me he had to send
| money back to his government quite often.
| dieselgate wrote:
| Thanks for the article link, pretty insightful and interesting
| to read
| potatopatch wrote:
| Are there things that would tend to identify an establishments
| connections to the moonies? I.e. some kind of symbolism in
| decorations?
| treme wrote:
| It's fascinating to me that moonies managed to have Abe & Trump
| speak at their event for millions. Probably one of most
| fascinating political cults of modern times.
| throwaway128128 wrote:
| The Moonies have woven themselves into the American right wing
| for decades. Reagan said the Washington Times, which is an
| organ of the Unification Church, was his favorite newspaper.
|
| You can see Falun Gong attempting the same in the United
| States. The Epoch Times is Falun Gong's "media outlet" and it
| sponsors and shapes a lot of content online. It's all
| bankrolled by Shen Yun performances too. These rabbit holes go
| to strange places!
| api wrote:
| Lately I've seen tons and tons of anti trans content that
| actually says sponsored by the Epoch Times. I've see it on
| Facebook and Xitter.
|
| I don't get why that issue is so important to them. Maybe
| scaring people about trans people is just broadly working.
|
| Gotta fear monger or people might notice that most of our
| candidates are incompetent. Republicans are unelectable
| without scaring people about LGBT people and immigrants,
| while Democrats are unelectable without scaring people about
| Republicans. That seems to be the dynamic right now.
| throwaway128128 wrote:
| Simple: grifting. Influence is what's important to them.
| They tap into wellsprings of conservative grievance to
| increase media outreach. They became antivax when antivax
| sentiment went up, they're here for the trans freakout, and
| they'll surely work to be in place for the next hot button
| issue, too.
| graphe wrote:
| What content are you seeing? I've never seen those.
| api wrote:
| Some kind of video was one. Didn't click on it.
|
| Of course I never use Facebook and my feed is full of ads
| for insane crap like these weird fake archaeology sites,
| so maybe that's why.
| paganel wrote:
| > which is an organ of the Unification Church
|
| Big TIL for me this one, and I thought I was smart enough for
| knowing about the connection between Falun Gong and the Epoch
| Times (I also know about the direct connection between
| Gulen's movement and one of the best private schools here in
| Romania).
| Aloha wrote:
| Falun Gong at least makes no effort to hide its attachment
| to certain media outlets.
| user982 wrote:
| "The exact financial and structural connections between
| Falun Gong, Shen Yun and The Epoch Times remains
| unclear...Financial documents paint a complicated picture
| of more than a dozen technically separate organizations
| that appear to share missions, money and executives." (ht
| tps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falun_Gong#The_Epoch_Times_an
| d...)
| earthboundkid wrote:
| Another one to watch is the MEK. Any US politician who
| speaks up for the MEK is a shill who will do anything for
| money. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/People's_Mojahedin_Org
| anizatio...
| akira2501 wrote:
| > The Moonies have woven themselves into the American right
| wing
|
| Our First Amendment specifically allows for freedom of
| association and religion. This used to be seen as an
| attribute, now it apparently has become cause for open
| prejudice.
|
| > The Epoch Times is Falun Gong's "media outlet" and it
| sponsors and shapes a lot of content online. It's all
| bankrolled by Shen Yun performances too.
|
| This is an intentionally misleading representation of the
| organization and it's structure, which combined with the
| above, seems designed to besmirch the papers reputation and
| reporting without actually addressing either in any
| meaningful way.
|
| If the sword cuts both ways then your assessment is
| suggestively identical to the CCP position on the
| organization and on the religious views of it's founders.
| throwaway128128 wrote:
| The First Amendment says that religion and government
| should remain separate. I have the right to freely observe
| that some religions are aggressively testing that boundary
| more than others.
|
| But, "intentionally misleading"? Can you please explain the
| ways I've mislead people? Here are some essays which go
| into the claims in more detail.
|
| https://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/stepping-
| into...
| https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/24/technology/epoch-times-
| in...
|
| As for The Epoch Times' reputation, its slant is
| immediately obvious upon reading the paper or seeing
| YouTube ads for it.
| rufus_foreman wrote:
| >> The First Amendment says that religion and government
| should remain separate
|
| That's not what it says.
|
| The US can't officially be Catholic. Nor can it
| officially be Protestant. That's what the first amendment
| says.
| hutzlibu wrote:
| Well, I am not a american, but as far as I understand it,
| it does say it.
|
| "The First Amendment (Amendment I) to the United States
| Constitution prevents the government from making laws
| that: regulate an establishment of religion; prohibit the
| free exercise of religion;"
|
| Any incorporation of religious organisations into the
| state fabric, would be an "establishment of religion". So
| of course open religious people can be part of the
| government. But the government may have no favourite
| religion it subsidizes, teaches in schools etc. or
| prefers in any way.
| Aloha wrote:
| How is it intentionally misleading?
|
| It's a newspaper given away for free in paper form,
| frequently.
|
| I don't believe the Epoch Times to be a credible news
| source, in the same way that RT is not one. That doesn't
| mean its not a news source worth looking at on occasion.
|
| I'm also skeptical of Falun Gong, first as a generally non-
| religious person, and then because they dont seem to like
| LGBTQ people very much - and I'm very much a member of that
| community.
|
| I feel everyone ought to have a right to practice their
| religion in peace, however when the practicing of your
| religion potentially impacts the secular word, I get
| concerned - I generally believe in a strong separation of
| church and state, and anyone who starts to encroach on
| that, puts my hackles up.
| hutzlibu wrote:
| "however when the practicing of your religion potentially
| impacts the secular word, I get concerned - I generally
| believe in a strong separation of church and state, and
| anyone who starts to encroach on that, puts my hackles
| up."
|
| But you cannot really separate personal believe from
| political stance. So religious believe will always
| influence the secular world. Meaning religious people
| will vote and lobby for people and organisations sharing
| their point of view.
| kergonath wrote:
| > But you cannot really separate personal believe from
| political stance. So religious believe will always
| influence the secular world. Meaning religious people
| will vote and lobby for people and organisations sharing
| their point of view.
|
| Sure. It's not exactly what's discussed here, though.
| We're talking about Reagan and Bush (and Abe and others)
| coldly using propaganda machines backed by extremist
| cults for influence campaigns. It's far beyond the same
| pushing the agenda for which they were explicitly
| elected, which happens to be backwards on a lot of levels
| but is at least genuine and open.
|
| These organisations also cause concerns of foreign
| interference, considering their links with political
| parties and powerful politicians abroad.
|
| There have been similar issues in Europe with extremist
| parties bankrolled by Russia to destabilise local
| political systems, which does not have any religious
| aspect. The problem is not the religion, it's the
| structures, their objectives, and how they work and
| corrupt.
| timmytokyo wrote:
| Newsweek is basically owned and operated by the Moonies now,
| too [1].
|
| [1] https://www.motherjones.com/media/2014/03/newsweek-ibt-
| olive...
| throwaway128128 wrote:
| Oh, TIL. I've noticed Newsweek's decline. Lots of flame-
| fanning.
| philwelch wrote:
| Newsweek infamously relaunched itself in 2014 with a
| dramatic story falsely accusing a Japanese man living in
| California of being Satoshi Nakamoto. So it's not exactly
| a credible outlet.
|
| FWIW, the owner of Newsweek at the time wasn't the
| Moonies, but rather David Jang, who is an evangelical
| Presbyterian. Things have apparently gotten complicated
| since then, with a change in ownership and then Newsweek
| itself reporting a year ago that they were suing Jang:
| https://www.newsweek.com/newsweek-sues-david-jang-leader-
| sec...
| marcusverus wrote:
| > The Moonies have woven themselves into the American right
| wing for decades. Reagan said the Washington Times, which is
| an organ of the Unification Church, was his favorite
| newspaper.
|
| This is perhaps the flimsiest syllogism I have ever
| encountered.
| throwaway128128 wrote:
| If you want more context[0], here's more:
|
| But if you don't want to follow a link, here's a quote:
| Over the years, Moon's hidden money has helped many
| Republicans through hard times. In the 1980s, the American
| Freedom Council defended North against Iran-Contra charges
| and distributed 30 million pieces of political literature
| to help elect George Bush in 1988. It was later revealed
| that the AFC was backed by $5 million to $6 million from
| business interests associated with Moon.
|
| Moon's organization also kept the right's direct-mail guru
| Richard Viguerie afloat in the 1980s. At one stage,
| Viguerie profited from a big contract with the Washington
| Times for subscription solicitations, then, while facing a
| financial crisis that threatened his company's future,
| Viguerie sold a building to a top Moon aide, Bo Hi Pak, for
| $10 million.
|
| Yet, even as Moon has gained influence in GOP circles, the
| sources of his money have always been suspect. In the late
| 1970s, a congressional investigation tied Moon's
| Unification Church to the "Koreagate" influence-buying
| scheme directed by South Korea's intelligence service, the
| KCIA, against U.S. institutions. In 1983, the moderate
| Republican Ripon Society raised warning flags, too. Rep.
| Jim Leach (R-Iowa), then Ripon chairman, charged that
| Moon's church had "infiltrated the new right and the party
| it [the new right] wants to control, the Republican Party,
| and infiltrated the media as well."
|
| But President Ronald Reagan embraced the Washington Times
| as his "favorite" newspaper and Moon's newspaper returned
| the favor by defending the Reagan-Bush administrations at
| nearly every turn. In 1991, President Bush invited the
| paper's new editor-in-chief, Wesley Pruden, to lunch "just
| to tell you how valuable the Times has become in
| Washington, where we read it every day."
|
| [0] https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-
| xpm-1997-nov-16-op-54375...
| phatfish wrote:
| Ha, that's what Shen Yun is about. Their ticket sales convoy
| pops up in an innocuous town in the UK a couple of times a
| year, looking rather out of place.
| BlueTemplar wrote:
| > A third son, Hyung Jin "Sean" Moon, founded a separate, gun-
| centered church in Pennsylvania known as Rod of Iron Ministries,
| where followers do target practice with AR-15s and bring guns to
| church to be blessed. Hyung Jin wears a golden crown made of
| rifle shells, and delivers hate-filled sermons against the
| Democratic Party. He also expects to become the king of America.
| He reviles his mother--who runs the international church in South
| Korea--as the "whore of Babylon."
|
| Please wake me up, I must have fallen asleep in front of a South
| Park episode...
| iamcreasy wrote:
| Nowadays I find Onion more coherent and pacifying news source
| than the traditional ones.
| 7thaccount wrote:
| There's an American Gods episode like that where Vulcan hangs
| out.
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