Half of Japan's ruling LDP lawmakers had ties with Unification Church

The LDP had been previously reluctant to carry out such a survey, 

Which one is that? Any plan for nominate members that really have no tie?

The other half were too unimportant for the Church to have any interest on them.

Oh the irony that a cult from South Korea was influencing so many members of Nippon Kaigi. Just goes to show how even rabid nationalists bow to money. It’s almost always money, money, money.

Most egregious in my mind is how this cult was able to get politicians in high places to protect them from the police and the ministry of justice. This went on for decades and there was never anything done about it. Absolutely shameful behavior.

Watched the proceedings yesterday, Kishida conveniently left out what they would do if any LDP members broke their internal rule and were found to have relationships with "mother moon." Also, Kishida tried to weasel out of any investigation of Abe's ties by saying he was already gone so it couldn't be pursued. Izumi of CDP pressed him and said that they could always check the records of his itineraries etc. LDP is hell bent on glorifying Abe, they don't want to add Moonies to his already tainted legacy of Kake, Moritomo, Sakura, Abenomask, Abenomics etc.

The title should read « Half of Japan's ruling LDP lawmakers recognize they had ties with Unification Church » 

This is the result of a survey, and as in the joke about women being asked if they know who is Rocco Siffredi half of them said yes, the other half smiled.

Nobody really cares. And this is only news because Abe got shot. And the Japanese electorate don’t care cause they keep voting in the same party for the past goodness knows how long.

bow, say sorry, change the leader. Rinse and repeat

Half of Japan's ruling LDP lawmakers had ties with Unification Church

And the rest.

The number keeps on rising, and this is just among those in the Diet, how many more, in prefectural assemblies, city councils, town councils, and village councils, who are members of the LDP have ties to this cult?

Let's add in all the government bureaucrats, and other card-carrying LDP members, and I bet any money the number skyrockets into the thousands, if not even more!

The LDP made public the names of 121 lawmakers among the 179

What about the other 58 that they didn't make public??? They must have been too influential....

Japan being controlled by Korea it doesn't get anymore ironic than that!

Half of Japan's ruling LDP lawmakers had ties with Unification Church

So what's Kishida going to do now? Get rid of half the LDP?

AWA

This is false information

Much more than around half of the LDP are connected to the Unification church .

Try 85% or probably more.

Nobody i know is happy about the planned funeral for Abe.

Infact everyone is furiously unhappy about it.

The Japanese government is supposed to represent what the Japanese people want and not override the Japanese people's choice.

The LDP is a corrupt dictatorship and needs to be abolished

Hear! Hear! Spot on! Hit the nail on the head.

Nobody really cares. And this is only news because Abe got shot. And the Japanese electorate don’t care cause they keep voting in the same party for the past goodness knows how long.

bow, say sorry, change the leader. Rinse and repeat

Unfortunately this is very true. Like the lemmings committing mass suicide- which is exactly what they are doing when they vote the LDP in time and time again.

Nobody really cares. And this is only news because Abe got shot. And the Japanese electorate don’t care cause they keep voting in the same party for the past goodness knows how long.

Actually, if there are connections made between the LDP members and the cult, that involve anything with campaign funding, A LOT of people will care.

If there is one thing that ticks people off is when the politicians break the public trust with campaigns and money. No elected official is safe from the wrath, IF it becomes public and proven.

Abe's assassination just brought this to light, and if there is ANY silver cloud in it, this is it!

It’s bizarre That a party so obviously corrupt and incompetent, with no concern about the population has been voted in for over 70 years. Are the voters so bereft of reality?

CrickyToday  08:17 am JST

It’s bizarre That a party so obviously corrupt and incompetent, with no concern about the population has been voted in for over 70 years.

The LDP are incredibly good at gaming the system to keep themselves in power but useless for anything else.

Take the official figures and double it... oh...

It’s bizarre That a party so obviously corrupt and incompetent, with no concern about the population has been voted in for over 70 years. Are the voters so bereft of reality?

It's got more to do with the organization as a whole, straight down to the local level. It's the local areas/districts, that vote them in, that keeps them in power. The electorate never really looks at the whole picture, and focus on their local candidate.

If the PM position, became a national election, I'd be willing to bet that there would be some major changes!

Hogwash

The headline is misleading. It should read "HAS ties" not "had." There's no evidence whatsoever that any of them have severed the ties.

This cult has deeply worked it's way into the halls of power in this country.

The fact that the LDP's symbols and the Unification Church's symbols are quite similar is frightening to begin with. I'm not a conspiracy theorist, but I wonder if I'm overthinking this.

https://i.imgur.com/nwutNHL.jpg

the LDP will urge its members to ensure that they will never have relations with the group.

Oh, that's all right then. When the LDP "urges" or "makes sincere efforts to do" something, it always happens, doesn't it?

That's why Abenomics was such a rip-roaring success, and we all got the pay rises Dear Leader "urged" Keidanren to provide to stimulate the economy, which one can only assume is in a tremendous state at the moment.

Let's have a new Election and let the people decide.

And by the way, the 50,000JPY hand out wont change the public view of the LDP. Just wont do it.

By the time the funeral is over, it will be more than 85% have ties, known or unknown, with 15% holding their breath...

Motegi said nearly 90 percent of them did not recognize that they had links to the group.

Huh? How does that work?

Why?

Those LDP members were “too drunk” to remember their UC connections?

Were there too ignorant to know what kind of people they were dealing with?

Or are they just straight lying?

either way, it doesn’t make them “look like better people” claiming they had no idea about their connections.

Stupid statement from a stupid person.

LDP: We can't evaluate Abe's UC connections, because he's dead.

LDP: In our evaluation, Abe deserves a state funeral.

Only half? I bet it's as good as all of them. They just haven't been exposed yet!

This pretty much validates the conspiracy theory of "Koreans control Japan" from the Netto uyoku.

LDP Secretary General Toshimitsu Motegi who repeats falsehood about opposition parties at TV debate program.

And, this LDP's internal survey had excluded influential politicians including plural former PM.

Here's an idea: let the Unification Church show penance by footing the bill for Abe's funeral. They can easily afford it.

Presidents are elected by the voters but prime ministers are elected by their parties. The prime minister is also the leader of their party.

Japan needs to burn down the house and start over. These fools have been leading the country in a downward spiral for decades.

Allowing the LDP to do an ‘internal’ survey is about as valid as the UFO sightings.

Does it even matter?

Whether the number is at 50%, 69% or 100%?

Is anyone even being punished for having connections?

Has anyone been fired?

What's the point of finding out "who' connected and "who isn't?"

Nothing is changing or being done.

Kishida is still in power, running his mouth.

NO DOUBT he's deep in with the UC.

It’s truly bizarre and quite suspicious that at least half the LDP is connected to this church and this church comprises of less than .4% of the population.

It’s truly bizarre and quite suspicious that at least half the LDP is connected to this church and this church comprises of less than .4% of the population.

Exactly, this is the point, not whether its 50% or 90% having ties. Until the murder of Abe, I'd never heard anything about it, and was unaware of the Moonies having any activities in Japan. And how did they go about getting this influence? And what did they do with it? I don't think that the LDP was about to declare it the state religion and decree that all weddings be held in stadiums.

I would hardly have been surprised if I'd heard that nationalist groups had links to LDP politicians. But the Moonies?

But we need to be very careful about religious cults getting too close to politics - the evangelical takeover of the Republican Party in the USA is an excellent example of the dangers.

The Unification Church has been well known for many many decades. A South Korean anti-communist group pumping billions into South Korea.

Hiroshi Yamaguchi, a member of the National Network of Lawyers Against Spiritual Sales, which pursues compensation cases against the church, estimates that the church still raises around 10 billion yen (US$69 million) a year in Japan, although that is down from 50 billion yen a year during the 1980s economic boom.

I would much rather see the huge sum of public money wasted on Kishida's Abe memorial extravaganza spent on investigating the politicians mired in the deep corruption of Moonie money. Abe was just the tip of the iceberg of sleaze, but this alone makes him undeserving of the taxpayers' hard-earned yen to erect a myth glorifying LDP rule.

Half of Japan's ruling LDP lawmakers had ties with Unification Church If the post is true, then it means believe only half of what you read!

How many members of both houses of the US Congress have ties to evangelical churches? And they leverage their professed "faith" ( excuse me while I swallow my vomit as I consider their insincerity ) to get their coreligionists to vote for them even though the US Constitution says there shall be no religious tests for public offices. In a free society that honors the right to worship as one chooses you cannot tell your elected representatives that they cannot belong to a particular faith because some proportion of the public finds that faith to be objectionable. Too bad. They have every right to be moonies if that is their choice. In a mature democracy the religions of one's elected officials should never be a consideration. It is their private business.

I did not real all comments. Sorry.

In my country, police arrest gurus who take advantage psychologically of the weak.

Rather long prison and fine. Such people are thieves. Psychological may be harsher than physical pain.

And LDP is trying to wash without washing their stables.

Why are Japanese still voting for that party I wonder ? Is it psychological brainwashing ?

Who owns whom ?

This is a Global question - not just for Japan.

For example, the W.H.O. - are they really under the influence of China's CCP or Big Pharmaceuticals ?

The list goes on.

The glass half full (of poop) party!