Something smells fishy

February 5, 2007 4:44 PM

Sushi is funding the Moonies? I Was browsing a political blog last evening when my food and political worlds collided head on. "Federal prosecutors scored a coup last week when Reverend Kevin Thompson, Bay Area leader for the Unification Church — aka the Moonies — was sentenced to one year behind bars for running the world's largest baby-leopard-shark poaching ring. But previously undisclosed evidence suggests that the conservative newspaper publisher and church supreme leader Reverend Sun Myung Moon both knew of and encouraged Thompson's illegal operation." [more inside]
posted by coolgeek (25 comments total)

Given Moon's history, this seemed to be rather small fry. But then a couple of paragrqaphs later was this:

"From the get-go, however, Special Agent Roy Torres of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration uncovered evidence that the shark ring extended beyond Thompson. Among his more telling discoveries was the close tie between the pastor and True World Foods, the nation's largest supplier of sushi-grade fish. Moon's followers launched True World in the 1980s after the church leader issued a series of lectures, extolling the virtues of fishing. While Moon's followers call him "True Father," he calls himself "King of the Ocean.""

Say what?

So I fired up the Google and looked into True World Foods

Here's the first line from their site:

"Each day, beginning in the early hours of the morning, we deliver sushi quality seafood to more than 6,000 restaurants across the United States."

Now the controversial nature of the Reverend Sun Myung Moon has been discussed often on MeFi. But given that sushi tends to be more of an urban phenomenon, and given that urban populations tend to skew heavily liberal, how many liberals are unwittingly funding the Unification Church?

More importantly, given that the Washington Times has lost hundreds of billions of dollars over the years, how many liberals are unwittingly funding the Washington Times?
posted by coolgeek at 4:47 PM on February 5, 2007

NOAA has Special Agents?
posted by jfuller at 4:53 PM on February 5, 2007

Liberals ignore the Wash. Post--that is a conservative paper. Moon has zillions in all sorts of places and fish inudstry one of the big ones. Jewelry and manicure shops nationwide also big income makers.
posted by Postroad at 4:55 PM on February 5, 2007

Hundreds of billions?
posted by beagle at 4:55 PM on February 5, 2007

Did your google-upfiring lead you to answers to any of these questions? I'd heard of the moonies-sushi connection before, your post doesn't really flesh out the situation any.
posted by boo_radley at 4:56 PM on February 5, 2007

Postroad, the theory seems to be: liberals eat sushi (conservatives won't touch the stuff); ergo, liberals are funding the "hundreds of billions" the WaTimes has lost, allegedly.
posted by beagle at 4:57 PM on February 5, 2007

i don't know whether i need to smoke more or less crack to understand this one.
posted by quarter waters and a bag of chips at 4:58 PM on February 5, 2007

If they delivered a copy of every issue ever published to every house in the country for free with no advertising, they still wouldn't have lost hundreds of billions.
posted by winston at 4:58 PM on February 5, 2007

How much crack are you usually smoking, quarter waters?
posted by Slarty Bartfast at 5:02 PM on February 5, 2007

Hundreds of billions?

That was actually a bit of Southern American Dialect/Politically-Correct creole (SAD/PC, to linguists) being transcribed rather badly to normative American English—a better gloss would be "Many hundreds of dollars", transliterated thus:

"Hundreds-of-bill, y'uns".

LOL MOONIES
posted by cortex at 5:05 PM on February 5, 2007

Good thing I don't like fish -- I'd hate to think I was funding those terrorist Mooninites.
posted by uosuaq at 5:08 PM on February 5, 2007 [1 favorite]

...which is funding the Republican Washington Times
posted by Kirklander at 5:09 PM on February 5, 2007

jfuller: NOAA has Special Agents?

Yep. The NOAA Fisheries Office for Law Enforcement is a federal law enforcement agency with 6 divisional offices and 59 field offices across the U.S. and overseas. They issued a press release on this investigation, "Pastor Sentenced to One Year in Prison for Role in Scheme to Poach and Smuggle Leopard Sharks."
posted by RichardP at 5:12 PM on February 5, 2007

> conservatives won't touch the stuff

Ah just love me some inarizushi with a side of sliced liberal.
posted by jfuller at 5:13 PM on February 5, 2007

Liberals ignore the Wash. Post--that is a conservative paper.

Washington Post != Washington Times
posted by The White Hat at 5:17 PM on February 5, 2007

Bender: [pointing to Claire's lunch] What's that?
Claire: Sushi.
Bender: Sushi??
Claire: Rice, raw fish, and seaweed.
Bender: You won't accept a guy's tongue in your mouth, and you're going to eat that?
Claire: Can I eat?
Bender: I don't know. Give it a try.
posted by mr_crash_davis at 5:19 PM on February 5, 2007

sorry... that was supposed to be millions
posted by coolgeek at 5:20 PM on February 5, 2007

LOLMOONINITES
posted by loquacious at 5:47 PM on February 5, 2007

And here's long-time Times reporter George Archibald on the Times financial situation:

"The TWT business side has been a disaster for years, moribund advertising, circulation well under 100,000 daily – constantly less than the first day of publication almost 25 years ago – and a yearly money-loser despite more than $3-billion of cash infused by founder Sun Myung Moon"
posted by coolgeek at 5:48 PM on February 5, 2007

From Wikipedia: "Another Unification Church related seafood company is the largest private employer and taxpayer in Kodiak, Alaska"

From Steve Hassan's cult discussion forum: "Moon proudly declared in his “Way of Tuna” speech that “Gloucester is almost a Moonie town now!” […] Sometimes working surreptitiously, Moon affiliates and followers bought large chunks of the key fishing towns–in each case initially sparking anger and suspicion from longtime residents. […] And it is again in an expansionist mood. True World recently opened up shop in England and established offices in Japan and Korea, setting its sights on the world’s biggest market for sushi."
posted by nickyskye at 6:04 PM on February 5, 2007

This has been noted here previously.
posted by Zetetics at 6:10 PM on February 5, 2007

Sushi may control the Moonies, but Health Food Stores control KGB, which controls both IRS and DHS.
posted by Anything at 6:13 PM on February 5, 2007

Well, that's the problem when you publish all kinds of crazy bullshit.
posted by delmoi at 6:17 PM on February 5, 2007

crap. I did a search before posting, but didn't come up with anything
posted by coolgeek at 6:18 PM on February 5, 2007

Sushi may control the Moonies, but Health Food Stores control KGB, which controls both IRS and DHS.

*plays The Big Prawn*
posted by cortex at 6:20 PM on February 5, 2007