#they were alive in the Philippines during Japanese and American occupation

[buckyclevens]

just learned that one of my great uncles was a survivor of the Bataan Death March

[mybeingthere]

Paul Jacoulet (1896–1960) was a French, Japan-based woodblock print artist known for a style that mixed the traditional ukiyo-e style and techniques developed by the artist himself.

Jacoulet was born in Paris in 1896 and lived in Japan for most of his life. During World War II, he moved to Karuizawa, where he survived in the countryside by growing vegetables and raising poultry. During the occupation, at the request of General Douglas MacArthur, he was recruited by Commandant Charles McDowell to work at the Tokyo Army College. MacArthur would join Greta Garbo, Pope Pius XII and Queen Elizabeth II, as a prominent collector of Jacoulet's work.

Many prints are very rare because all Jacoulet’s pre-World War II work that had not already been taken out of the country by collectors was destroyed by fire. Jacoulet was a true renaissance man –French but born and raised in Japan, expert in Kabuki, proficient on traditional Japanese musical instruments, a good calligrapher, conversant in several languages, and a recognized butterfly collector. Growing up in Tokyo he was the next door neighbor of ukiyo-e authority Yone Noguchi; he was taught English by Noguchi's American wife, Leonie Gilmour, and befriended their son, the young Isamu Noguchi. Jacoulet’s father was an ambassador so Paul was widely traveled and was doted upon by his mother. She supported his artistic endeavors all her life. She believed that if French Polynesia was good for Paul Gauguin, then Jacoulet must go there too. She sent him away many winters from Japan to various islands in Micronesia, Indonesia, and the Philippines. Although his most valued works are from this part of the world, he also has a substantial number of prints with subjects from China, Korea, all areas of Japan, and Mongolia. Just one print depicts an American.

Jacoulet's works are also interesting to anthropologists. First because his subject matter was indigenous people in their traditional dress. In 1939 traditional people were the norm in his travels. Today his work is often used as a basis for reconstructing, for example, what Ainu traditional dress looked like by the Ainu themselves in their quest to reconnect with their cultural roots. Second, some of the subjects who posed for Jacoulet are still alive and they are currently being interviewed by a professor in Guam (Donald Rubinstein) to learn more about his artistic process.

https://www.advocate.com/.../artist-spotlight-paul-jacoulet

[pagefontanillasy]

Emilia Fontanilla - Sy / Heath

Age: 38

Occupation: Lieutenant / OIC of Manila Narcotics Division. OIC of Joint Task Force Padrino

Citizenship/Nationality: Filipino

Ethnicity: Hispanic-Malay

Status: Alive

Relationships:

Edward Heath (Husband 1993 onwards)

Anthony Xiao Sy (Deceased Husband)

Chisana Sy (Daughter, 11)

Ji-Xin Sy (Daughter, 11)

Anton Sy (Son, 7)

Affiliation: Philippine National Police (Pambansang Kapulisan ng Pilipinas)

Armed Forces of the Philippines

(Hukbong Militar)

Background

Rain Fontanilla-Sy is the Lieutenant and OIC of Narcotics Division, hailed as the most powerful woman in the Police Force. She heads the Task Force Padrino which is a joint force between DEA and the Philippine Police. It is an effort to capture multinational drug crime syndicate that has main operations in the Philippines. They are mixed of Latin Americans, Northern Americans, and Asians.

Personality

Her leadership skills is lauded. Soft spoken with her children but tough in the workplace. Although considers herself lawful, she engages unethical tactics like giving deals, and manipulation when needed. She is also appreciated for her beauty and seemingly eternal youth, looking like 20 something. She uses this and her charm to sway her bosses.

She does not think twice about using violence when needed.

Skills

She is multilingual as requirement in standard education in the Philippines. She can speak English, Tagalog, Chinese, Spanish and some local languages. Also in additional, German,Japanese, and French. She is a black belter in Aikido, and a really good boxer. Skilled also in swordsmanship especially Katana. She relies mostly in close combat than guns.

She uses a stun gun but later used real guns.

Relationship

She's a widow, her husband, a Fil-Chinese Economics professor, died of 35 at the Plaza Miranda bombing during a student protest in 1980. She is at that time 6 months pregnant with their last child and son, Anton.

7 years later, after being teemed up with the DEA, she meets Edward Heath whom she resented at first due to his misogynistic remarks. They keep on arguing until when Arstrom Sanchez, Rain's predecessor at Violent Crimes died together with another DEA agent, Rockwell, Rain approached Ed. She offered that they work together surreptitiously to remove biases and corruption hindering their anti drug operation success. Ed agreed to trade Intel with her and be her eyes and ears inside the embassy.

When confronted about Ed and Rain's unusal unofficial meetings, Ed lied about having an affair with Rain. In which at that time, he is going through a divorce with his wife, Sara.

Rain was asked too but gave vague answers but still confirming Ed's lie.

Ed finds himself attracted to Rain and he tells it to her while drubk as he attempted to kiss her but Rain refuses saying she can't handle having a relationship.

Ed goes back to the states for the extradition of Zhang Wen Xi, and Rain comes along as a supporting witness.

While in America, Rain and Ed has gotten closer.

Eventually, Rain and Ed became sexually involved as they do not want to commit in serious relationships first.

The task force Padrino was abolished when Zhang, Licauco and Valores were captured. The DEA left except for Ed who still oversees the anti drug operations in Asia.

Ed is divorced and has sought chances for romance with Rain.

Rain, being ready, agreed. Ed has become closer with Rain's kids, too, especially finding himself fond of Anton. During a beach vacation with Rain's family, he proposes marriage. Rain accepts.

They got married eventually. Ed stayed in the Philippines permanently and became a permanent official for the Americans but won't give up his American citizenship. Eventually being transferred to the Anti-Terrorism when Islamic terrorism was on the rise.

They didn't produce any children.

Original story

Rain Fontanilla-Sy or Rain Fontanilla Heath is a real person but her real name is Irianne and her nickname is Rain. She was one of the most influential woman in Philippine history, having the highest position in the Department of Defense as a Secretary appointed by President Luno in 2005.

She is in the late 1980s and early 90s criticized and sibject d to senate trial avout her unethical methods such as extrajudicial killing and human rights violations. Though she admitted on the stand, she was not suspended nor punished as she was very effective in the war of drugs. So removing her will be a death blow.

She is also criticized of her marriage to an American citizen and official. Edward Heath never surrendered his American citizenship to remain a government official. Many believe it could be a conflict of interest especially in her appointment in the Defense Department.

Her second husband, Ed Heath, who was 10 years older than her died in 2016 after 22 years of marriage.

Her twin daughters, Ji-Xin and Chisana, are Sepak Takraw champion player and Women's football professional player, respectively. Her son, Anton, is a nuclear engineer. In the series, it is shown that they didn't have children but Rain actually gave birth in 1992, to a boy, Ritter Heath who is currently living privately.

[micaramel]

Artist: Justin Caguiat

Venue: Modern Art, London

Exhibition Title: Permutation City 1999

Date: June 25 – August 8, 2020

Click here to view slideshow

Full gallery of images, press release and link available after the jump.

Images:

Images courtesy of Modern Art, London

Press Release:

Modern Art is pleased to announce an exhibition of new paintings by Justin Caguiat titled Permutation City 1999. This is his first solo exhibition with the gallery.

In Caguiat’s large-scale paintings on unstretched canvas or linen displayed in wooden frames, layers of oil and sometimes gouache, pastel and acrylic synthesise into highly detailed patterns which fill and spill out beyond imperfect edges. Now and then, swathes of monochrome washes emanate like filters or planes of light across the surface. From this, landscapes and otherworldly scenes materialise, drifting in and out of legibility, or consciousness.

These are liminal paintings, both corporeal and cryptic. They resist an instantaneous reading, demanding time to decipher, and to search for compositional footholds within their archaic atmosphere.

Caguiat’s idiosyncratic style is informed by varied fields including science fiction literature, the baroque-folk hybrid aesthetic of early Filipino Catholic Santos, 60s psychedelia, les Nabis, Ukiyo-E, urban graphic art and the historical legacy of Manga. In scale and format they can be read like murals and landscapes, and while not narrative, have a reverential or devotional purpose akin to a fresco.

Though suggestive of Romanticism, the paintings are not illusionistic, demonstrating and not concealing their evolution through layers. The transposition of paint – ideas, information, figures and ornament – is fragmented, like the dissolution of memory.

A text of the same title written by the artist accompanies the exhibition.

Justin Caguiat was born in 1989 in Tokyo, Japan. He lives and works in New York City. In 2018 he had a solo exhibition at 15 Orient, New York and his work has been included in group shows at galleries and project spaces throughout North America, in Italy and Switzerland. He has curated exhibitions with themanilainstitute.org and other collectives and is a published poet having participated in readings and performances including in 2017 at the Kunsthalle Zürich, Switzerland.

    Permutation City 1999

After the outbreak he escaped to the Bay Area with his family. They had left New York and ended up crashing at a former youth hostel in downtown Berkeley an art collector had bought. It was under renovation prior to the shut down and was in the process of being turned into

He traded the collector a painting titled My meat is to do the will of him in exchange for room and board. In one of the rooms, by the side of the bed hidden between the bed frame and the wall he found a journal filled with observations written in fragmented prose, punctuated by drawings. He was so struck by the book that it ended up forming the basis of his work for the next three years, using the drawings as sketches, overlapping composites to layer and erase with paint, building up the surface over time.

He compiled some excerpts from the found journal. Each entry in the book was titled, borrowing each title for each painting.

“Thousand Year Old Laughter” He was a young lad. Discovered a video store carrying a large collection of American and Euro films with religious themes. Other half of the store was SFX Horror. Lurking around the store… the instructions have unfolded a spell Entranced by images of suffering grotesque eroticism Fell into images forbidden the name is not what it appears

This way was truly nothing already it disappeared as smoking trails left by the things made seemingly in desires shape

solitary in fluid sunlight reflecting off store window eyes that unsubstantiated the hollow form revealed another presence. generating heat but not light and melting snow it turned into water, we lived for 16 years in Tokyo.

“Extraction and Compassion” When Grandmother came to visit us from Manila she couldn’t be around the Japanese people. Only once she recounted to my mother the horror of the Japanese occupation of the Philippines

During the massacre of innocents their favorite method of killing was the bayonet The hotels in downtown Manila were turned into rape camps they would take women and girls there after they were forced to bury their children, siblings, and neighbors in mass graves Hospitals were set afire after patients were strapped to their beds Pregnant women were raped and their stomachs were ripped open with bayonets Their unborn children drowning in sunlight streaming in from the broken walls and shattered windows “O you dig and I dig, and I dig towards you, on our finger the ring awakes”

In our apartment in Tokyo she made a room for herself in the closet. She was a devout Catholic, she could speak to spirits

She was the matriarch of my grandfathers second and illegitimate bastard family. Grandfather died when mother was one years old, he played piano for the silent films and was a photographer Mother was the youngest and 13th child. when grandfather died, suddenly they were were poor; he had left them nothing

They lived in a tiny garage and slept on the floor in rows they moved dwellings frequently my Mother often didn’t have enough food to eat. Her first job was cleaning public toilets

In Tokyo people always asked me if my mother was a maid the echo of the occupation evolved with the diaspora after the colonization and military campaigns of the Spanish, Japanese, and Americans The Filipina maids of Tokyo are kind and hard working people

When my grandmother died she left my mother her golden crucifix. My mother later gave the crucifix to me,

and after a year my father kicked my grandmother out and sent her back to Manila

They had a broken television in the room and the picture was in black and white. We would watch TV and my Grandmother was happy and said it reminded her of the past.

“Branches Flower Windows” walking down quiet streets of my Tokyo I love the moss covered cinder block walls and overgrown gardens of ferns, parks and Shinto temples and under the shade of trees everywhere, ponds and streams reflecting viridian glow, small waterfalls and stone pathways. Moss grows everywhere Sleepy stray cats and small fields of dirt and wild grass. The hollows of bushes littered with the skeletons of cicadas at the end of summertime and in every apple lays a fetus curled asleep There is no land more beautiful fields of rice paddies from the train window on the outskirts of the city the wind shakes and branches flower windows personalities whistle out of these sectors of apples that are made to be regenerated

Ever-present crows calling from the trees, pockets of nature surrounded by hyper-evolved architecture and a totalized homogeneity. Animism and fascism are alive and vital here, but now the Japanese are pacifists.

“The Approach of Beauty its Body was Fungible” Starting when I was 13 years old I used to sneak out of my house at night. My older sister was secretly taking LSD everyday and going to school, an exercise in appearing to be normal while her mind pushed against the boundaries of reason I would leave at around 1 in the morning after everyone was asleep. Wandering around, sometimes walking as far as Shibuya or Harajuku or to an unfamiliar neighborhood I would break into apartment buildings and go to the rooftops and sleep there. I sleep in parking lots and in nooks in between buildings, hidden places underneath stairwells and behind ventilators and generators whole lifetimes of how we love the escape Forgotten atoms cradled in sweet music and the laughter of our memory of the buildings dropping seeds

Radiant spheres contain their hidden appearance to take the form of different species in the future Growing variegated subjects decay into a lonely view that the preachers of passion have seen through their vector making melody

meted out in pleasure the lyrics recorder quickly to their passing pain

“Anal Staircase of the Eye Reflected in the Fingernail” They began to sleep walk and hallucinate. Floating above their body: walking around the apartment at night, talking uncontrollably

Its psychotic dream state remember waking up on the floor of the bedroom, The walls and ceiling slowly began to shrink, Shrinking to the point of a needle, the point was a pupil, They were trapped inside the pupil, the pupil was the coffin.

Splash water on their face to wake them up, the knock on the head sent us reeling, I’m relieved to find him sleeping. Its safe to be here while I was dreaming I kept forgetting I am living as todays reflection.

I was watching everything, I was watching my body moving dislocated from its host, I was moving from room to room like a fly on the wall, I was walking and talking like a living doll.

“The Saint is Never Busy” I cry because hes dying, now hes dust an older shade of green across my eyes turns to red dust of the heart. now how to keep out of hell are the wheels that are turning, he used to be so violent but now so enfeebled yet His eye still holds violence, his other eye is blind and He has to wear a diaper

The wheels of the sun its done but dont forget about its shadowy child, For its picture you hate to keep even though it always lives developed the horror of an idea that wears you unrendered, Its been 14 years its paralyzed brilliant doors are locked forever, out of waves of memories life times locked.

He looks old He walks so slowly, he shuffles from room to room compulsively the dementia atrophied brain

He doesn’t remember anything about me. He knows I am his son but nothing else, no memories I am a shadow in the periphery of his mind. My mother hid the kitchen knives just in case

He thinks its the year 1999, a maddening coincidence to the primal year of my reveries.

I came to London and went to see him, who had returned to where he grew up in Wales

Mother sleeps with the house keys under her pillow and a change of clothes and money in case he becomes violent and she needs to escape He threatens her when he doesnt recognize her and she has to hide Crushed by her burden I see it in her face

Of course it wasnt supposed to end like this He refers to himself in the plural. pointing to his head Trapped in the year 1999, wandering amongst the reveries of whose youth?

“The Synthetic Memory Forming” –

  We are in California now. Its peaceful here. New York seems so far away. Here in the Bay Area there are lots of crows, whom I love. They remind me of Tokyo. Our son dances in the sun and in the water an ant to the outsider sea.

We have cut a silly figure against the walls crumbling cake with all our bags A cigarette in my mouth my hat is lost against the orbing sun

the light is confusion. This is my last song you yell across laughing after the pale band where you removed your golden ring. The sun is chasing your tanned skin your fingers fan across the buildings in the sand optical trails waving against their warped angles

“Ive got nothing but reason left behind” Events are tiny earthquakes constantly reorienting the same set of histories but for now every one here is perfect standing dreamlike and frozen under the blue sun

A huge mob of crows, in the early hours of the morning on the way back home, that sent me weighing sleep against a walk around the block I turned away and fled as they knocked over the trash cans, The contents strewn like intestines on the street, nourished by the abundance, crying in unison

When the wandering fire Strikes the heart of stone Will you follow? Will you leave your home? Will you leave your life? Will you take the Longest Road?

Link: Justin Caguiat at Modern Art

from Contemporary Art Daily https://bit.ly/2ZS1Wj9

[phgq]

WWII Japanese captain: Friend not foe for Leyte townsfolk

#PHnews: WWII Japanese captain: Friend not foe for Leyte townsfolk

TACLOBAN CITY -- For most Filipinos, the Japanese soldiers during World War II were enemies but for the locals of Dulag town in Leyte, the foreign invaders led by a young captain were regarded as good friends and still are after 75 years of the country’s liberation.

Called “Little Tokyo” during the Japanese occupation in the Philippines from 1942 to 1945, Dulag’s economy was alive during the war, historian Jovito Bautista, 89, recalled in an interview on Wednesday.

Bautista, just 13 when hundreds of Imperial Japanese Army members invaded their town, described the head Capt. Isao Yamazoe as “a good leader, a smiling captain and a friend to everyone.”

       Local historian Jovito Bautisa, 89, recalls how the Japanese soldiers under the leadership of Capt. Isao Yamazoe nicely treated locals during World War II. He was just 13 when the Japanese soldiers invaded Dulag, Leyte. (PNA photo by Sarwell Meniano) 

 “Those years, the Japanese were one of my best childhood memories. Capt. Yamazoe initiated morning calisthenics, athletics, and cultural shows, dances and movie screenings for the entertainment of residents. Civilians and Japanese officers enjoyed the occasion. Guerrilla officers would sometimes slip secretly to enjoy these activities,” Bautista reminisced.

The local historian said Yamazoe and his men showed genuine concern for the locals as they encouraged families to plant root crops and vegetables on their own backyards so no one would go hungry. The children, on the other hand, continued their education inside Japanese-run schools.

Bautista, a retired school principal, said the Japanese army leader learned of the guerrillas’ plan to raid their garrison. Aware that such an attack would kill innocent civilians, Yamazoe decided to bring the battle away from the residents and asked the guerrilla forces to meet him and his men outside the town proper.

On his way to the battleground, Filipino guerrillas led by Lt. Jose Naxareno attacked Yamazoe and his men in Curva village (now named as M. H. Del Pilar) where the army officer died at the age of 32.

 When they received the news of his death, the locals mourned. The church bell tolled from morning to night, according to Bautista.

Although there was no record of how many men died with Yamazoe but the accounts of his deeds are printed in two unpublished books, one of which is written by Bautista.

The municipal government has the sole possession of these books being read every Leyte Gulf Landing anniversary thus local government employees are aware of Yamazoe's story.

Accounts of American veterans in their blogs as told by locals here also contribute to the late Japanese Army captain's lingering memories.

A group of local professionals built a shrine in M. H. Del Pilar village to honor Yamazoe in 1985. Japanese tourists including the fallen captain’s descendants have been regularly visiting the shrine to do rituals.

  The shrine in M. H. Del Pilar village in Dulag, Leyte built in honor of Japanese army leader Capt. Isao Yamazoe. This is the same spot where Yamazoe was killed by guerilla fighters. (PNA photo by Sarwell Meniano)

 “We have Capt. Yamazoe who treated us fairly. All their efforts made Dulag a center of commerce in Leyte during the World War,” said Mayor Mildred Que.

 The status of Dulag prompted American soldiers to land in the town and fight the Japanese army in 1944. The bombing took a heavy toll on the townspeople.

 The church, public buildings as well as residences were razed to the ground. The streets that used to be concrete and asphalt crumbled to rubble after the American shelling, according to Que.

 Aerial view of the Japanese airfield in Dulag, Leyte in 1944 after it was shelled by the US Navy light cruiser. (Photo from US Navy site) 

 One of the town’s historical sites is Hill 120 in San Rafael village where soldiers hoisted the American flag in Philippine soil for the first time after it was lowered in Bataan in 1942.

On Oct. 20, Leyte province will commemorate the Leyte Gulf Landings, the largest naval battle in the Pacific, and the largest naval battle in recorded history.

 It was on Oct. 20, 1944, when Gen. Douglas MacArthur, together with Pres. Sergio Osmena and Gen. Carlos P. Romulo, set foot on Philippine soil, their first after they left Corregidor in 1942.

 Their arrival started a battle that spanned 100,000 square miles of sea; and was fought for three days, from Oct. 23 to 25, 1944, during the invasion of Leyte by the Allied forces.

 The battle signaled the fulfillment of Gen. Douglas MacArthur's famous words, “I shall return,” after going to Australia to muster support from the Allied forces in the quest to liberate the Philippines from Japanese forces’ occupation. (PNA)

       ***

References:

* Philippine News Agency. "WWII Japanese captain: Friend not foe for Leyte townsfolk." Philippine News Agency. https://www.pna.gov.ph/articles/1082049 (accessed October 03, 2019 at 09:05PM UTC+14).

* Philippine News Agency. "WWII Japanese captain: Friend not foe for Leyte townsfolk." Archive Today. https://archive.ph/?run=1&url=https://www.pna.gov.ph/articles/1082049 (archived).

[clubofinfo]

Expert: In Gold Warriors, by Sterling and Peggy Seagrave, the authors reveal one of the most shocking secrets of the 20th century. It is the story of the vast treasure Japan managed to loot across Asia, today worth billions or even trillions of dollars, the concealment of it in hundreds of sites, and the secret recovery of much of it by what would become America’s Central intelligence Agency. America helped Japan cover up this vast fortune, fooling the world into believing Japan was bankrupt after the war and was unable to pay reparations for their mass murder and material damage. Most of Japan’s vast stolen fortune would remain in the hands of imperialist war criminals, and would for decades be used to prop up Japan’s corrupt one party democracy ruled by the Liberal Democratic Party, with the CIA and the Yakuza pulling the strings behind the scenes. It would be controlled by men like Allen Dulles and John J. McCloy through their Black Eagle Trust, which managed both Japanese and Nazi War loot. The Gold would be deposited in the Federal Reserve, the Bank of England, Union Banque Suisse (UBS) in Switzerland, Citibank, HSBC and other major banks who often stole it for themselves.  The gold was also used to manipulate the global economy, finance assassinations and covert ops, bribe politicians, and finance right wing political movements like the John Birch Society domestically. Gold Warriors tells a compelling tale of secrecy, greed, treachery, murder and lies. The book offers a window into the vast and mysterious world of offshore banking and the Gold Cartel. The authors estimate that today, the ultra-rich are hoarding over 23 trillion dollars, mostly in offshore bank accounts. Meanwhile around the world, health and education are being cut, poverty and homelessness are on the rise, and the rest of us are constantly told to tighten our belts. The Seagraves destroy the myth that America reformed Japan after the war, revealing the shocking story of the MacArthur occupation and its alliance with fascists along with Japan’s ruthless imperial family and their huge corporate backers like Mitsui, Mitsubishi, Kawasaki and Sumitomo. They used this loot to finance Japan’s postwar recovery and meteoric rise. Companies that have since become household names made their fortunes through looting Asia and employing slave labor, including that of American POWS. When the survivors tried to sue for reparations, State Department officials like Tom Foley with corrupt ties to these Japanese corporations compared these victims to terrorists. The Seagraves begin their book with the brutal assassination of the Korean Queen Min on October 7 1895 by the imperialist Japanese. In Japan, like in America, big business, organized crime, and intelligence were strongly interrelated. The Japanese Empire, like all empires, were cynical liars and claimed that Queen Min had been murdered by Koreans. With the strong-willed Queen Min out of the way, her weak husband King Kojong quickly became a Japanese puppet and soon Korea was a Japanese colony, while China suffered a humiliating defeat at Japan’s hands when it tried to intervene. Japan seized Taiwan and parts of Manchuria from China. Korea became Japanese property, and they began to loot the accumulated wealth of centuries, including gold silver and prized celadon porcelains. Japan employed an army of antiquarians to seize and catalog hundreds of ancient Korean manuscripts, sending them to Japan or burning them to destroy Korea’s cultural heritage.  The Japanese even resorted to grave robbery on a massive scale, targeting Korean Imperial tombs. Japan targeted Taiwan, colonizing the island and setting up massive heroin laboratories. Taiwan would for decades become a center of the global drug trade. Japan launched a sneak attack on the Russian Empire in 1904 and Russia was forced to sign a humiliating peace deal giving Japan control of its possessions in Manchuria like the South Manchurian Railway it had built. To turn a quick profit, Japan set up a massive opium growing operation. They bribed warlords and began buying up Chinese industries and land. Manchuria became what the authors call the center of “carpetbaggers, spies, secret policemen, financial conspirators, fanatical gangsters, drug dealers and eccentric army officers.” The Mitsui and Mitsubishi Corporations ran everything, making a fortune from their cut of the illegal drug trade. Through a series of provocations involving the patriotic societies and Japanese intelligence, Japan was whipped into a war frenzy and more Chinese land was stolen. Japan unleashed an army of experts to steal as much art and priceless manuscripts as they could. Around the same time Japan had been conquering Korea, America had conquered the Philippines while claiming they wanted to liberate it from Spain. With its usual cynical hypocrisy, once Spain surrendered, America crushed the Filipino independence movement with the brutal tactics it would later employ in Greece, Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq and a long list of other countries. Of course, it had been America itself which had forced Japan to end its long isolation setting into motion the chain of events that had led to Japan’s rapid modernization and imperialist adventures in the first place. When the Second World War began to go very badly by 1943, Japan was no longer able to ship its loot back to Japan, and so began to hide it all over the Philippines and Indonesia. Prisoners of war and the local Filipinos were forced to dig massive tunnels. These slave laborers were often massacred or buried alive to keep the tunnels secret. The Japanese often buried their loot near historical landmarks and hospitals because they were less likely to be bombed. They smuggled gold into the Philippines on phony hospital ships, since they would be less likely to be sunk by American submarines. They hid some of the gold by loading ships full of treasure and sinking them for later recovery, and huge underground chambers were filled with thousands of tons of gold. The Americans managed to discover gold was being hidden during the war, thanks to one of their spies. There were at least 176 treasure sites in the Philippines. By the time the war ended, the Americans had found so much gold that if it became publicly known it would have destroyed the Bretton woods system which relied on gold being valued at 35 dollars an ounce. The Bretton Woods system was itself backed with the huge sums in Nazi gold the US had managed to seize and hide, the authors of Gold Warriors suggest. Back in Washington, there was already a group dedicated to stealing and hiding Nazi gold: the Black Eagle Trust. With their massive off-the-books money, they would bribe politicians and finance coups, covert operations and psychological warfare. Soon, the Golden Lily loot was being managed by the same people. It was being moved across the world, being used to prop up banks around the world. UBS in Switzerland, HSBC in Hong Kong, the Bank of England, Chase Manhattan. Hidden in 42 countries between 1945-47, the gold was used to make huge loans to Britain, Egypt, and the Kuomintang in China. Politicians around the world were bribed with gold certificates. The intersection between Wall Street and intelligence involved vast sums completely unknown to the public. The notion that the CIA could ever be held in check once it had control of this vast fortune was a joke, and it perhaps led to events like the Kennedy assassination. A nearly 60-year cover-up after that event would not be surprising when one remembers that the entire mainstream American media was controlled by former Office of Strategic Services men, as discussed in Science of Coercion by Christopher Simpson. The CIA and Office of Policy Coordination controlled much of the media worldwide as part of Frank Wisner’s infamous Operation Mockingbird, putting out nonstop Cold War propaganda. In Japan, criminal Yoshio Kodama made a deal to turn over $100 million to the CIA for his immunity (worth 1 billion dollars today). During the war, Kodama had managed to save 13 billion in gold, platinum, diamonds and other loot. America had not bombed Japanese industries, instead targeting workers’ homes. This was likely because American corporations were heavily invested in Japan, just as they were in Nazi Germany, where American-owned factories supplying the German war machine were spared during the war. In occupied West Germany, Denazification was a scam, and so too was the removal of imperialism in Japan. Trials targeting Japanese war criminals were fixed to prevent the Emperor’s role being known. The US set up a special fund to bribe witnesses. Kodama was put on the CIA payroll, and behind the scenes he created the misnamed Liberal Democratic Party headed by corrupt politicians. The Yatsuya fund was used to  control the Japanese underworld. The Keenan fund named after Joseph Keenan, the chief war crimes prosecutor, was used to bribe witnesses to protect the Emperor and his cronies. The M-Fund was named after General William Frederic Marquat, who was in charge of restructuring the Japanese economy. Marquat was also entrusted to disband Japan’s infamous Unit 731 that ran bio-warfare research using prisoners as guinea pigs during the war, but instead of disbanding, they were recruited by the Pentagon and used to develop germ warfare against China and North Korea. The M-Fund was used to bribe politicians, and evolved into one of the most scandalous financial scams in history. Soon, it would corrupt American politicians as well. Nixon turned the M-Fund, which had been run by MacArthur’s cronies like General Marquat along with the CIA and the corrupt Liberal Democratic Party, over to the full control of Japan in exchange for illegal kickbacks funneled into the 1960 presidential Campaign he lost to Kennedy. Part of the deal was for Nixon to return Okinawa to Japan, which he later did once he finally got elected. Golden Lily loot was funneled back to far right movements in the US, and would help finance Joseph McCarthy’s witch hunts. Another source of such wealth was the global drug trade, as the CIA would manage it in cooperation with the Chinese Kuomintang and Japanese and Korean organized crime. Together, these sources of wealth would be used to fund the World Anti-Communist League or WACL the global network of fascist drug dealers and terrorists loved by Ronald Reagan. In the final chapter of their book, the authors provide a brilliant summary of the politics of heroin, relying heavily on Doug Valentine’s classic The Strength of the Wolf. In Japan, McCarthyism took a much bloodier course with a massive assassination program combined with a COINTELPRO-style war on anyone who dared to dissent. Even American and British officials could be targeted for assassination if they threatened to expose MacArthur’s alliance with war criminals and gangsters. For assassinations that were even more sensitive, KOTOH was employed – an acronym formed from the names of five Japanese army officers who performed assassinations. Much of Gold Warriors describes the hunt for treasure in the Philippines. The Japanese were the masters of this, quietly returning for decades to recover their loot. Future Philippines president Ferdinand Marcos learned of the gold by befriending Santa Romana and making deals with the Japanese to recover gold, becoming one of the richest men in the world through his discoveries. It was Marcos gold that paved the way for Nixon’s visit to China, with Marcos agreeing to deposit 72 billion in Gold in China’s Bank accounts. Marcos had long been used by the CIA to bribe Asian governments into supporting American policy, and in return they allowed him to get rich by selling his gold to Saudi princes or trading it for drugs from Asian or Latin American cartels. The golden Lily loot that led to his rise also led to his downfall, when he bargained too forcefully with the Reagan White House and the CIA who wanted him to use his fortune to back Reagan’s scheme to create Rainbow dollars. Marcos then became one of the first victims of a CIA color revolution. As CIA-backed NGOs flooded the streets with angry protestors, his American sponsors kidnapped him and airlifted his fortune out of the country. Gold Warriors reveals that from the underworld to the military and intelligence agencies, to the corrupt politicians to the titans of finance we are ruled at every level by gangsters. After reading it, one may even wonder how much of the CIA’s gold is involved today in financing charlatans like Alex Jones and the rest of the US “patriot” movement, since their radio stations are heavily involved in selling gold and silver. It is a fantastic book that anyone with an interest in the CIA, drugs, or fascism should read, because it offers a window into the shadowy world of offshore banking, where around a trillion dollars is transferred around the world every day. It names some of the most powerful families in the world: the Krupps, the Rothschilds, the Oppenheimers, the Warburgs and the Rockefellers. All are tied to banking and the gold cartel, where fortunes are incalculable. In fact, the gold and diamond cartels are still looting the world today with the same greed and brutality as imperial Japan. In the Democratic Republic of the Congo alone, ten million people have been killed in a brutal war to loot the country of gold, diamonds, uranium, and rare earth elements. Furthermore, most of the world’s gold is hoarded today in the Swiss Alps, in secret bunkers and underground tunnels designed to survive a nuclear war. The hunt for the gold stolen by imperial Japan even resumed as recently as 2001, when George W. Bush sent navy seals on a secret mission to recover it. http://clubof.info/