Today is the 40th anniversary of the Jonestown murder-suicides.
This horror will always be relevant because it’s such an extreme version of such a normal, acceptable thing — following a charismatic leader straight into hell.
It’s also relevant because of the role Jim Jones, a socialist and a power broker, played in changing San Francisco politics in the years just before the move to Guyana. Records have conveniently been “lost” that would fully reveal the corrupting role of Jones and The People’s Temple in making SF the left-wing factionalist place it became. But nobody can “lose” the words and pictures of the rising politicians who were proud to be seen in Jones’ company … until they weren’t.
There are good books out there about the tragedy. There are websites dedicated to the stories of Jonestown victims and survivors. You can even listen to a tape of the massacre on YouTube — which I won’t link to.
We can believe we’re too savvy to fall for what those deluded souls fell for. But even if our high opinions of our own smarts are true, we still have to watch our family members, friends, and neighbors being swept up in cults, religious, secular, and governmental.
To heaven knows what end.
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Anyhow, here are some good links for today.
Jackie Speier, now a congresswoman, came to Jonestown as an aide to her crusading boss, crusading California congressman Leo Ryan. She was shot five times by Jones loyalists.
And here’s the story of a handful who fled into the jungle to avoid drinking the Flavor-Aid.
Jim Jones’ surviving sons have struggled as much as anybody due to their strange status of blame and privilege.
And here’s a bit about how a man became a monster.
Do you have links that tell more of the story? Do you have personal recollections or warnings about Jonestown, or cults and cultish mentalities in general? Please share in comments.
Even though I was a news junkie as a kid back in the 60’s and 70’s, somehow I missed the whole Jim Jones thing, except for the fact that hundreds died from ‘drinking the Kool Aid’.
As a college student in 1975, I attended a ‘teach in’ conducted by the famous lefty lawyer, Mark Lane, who presented three cases of government lying: the assassination of JFK, the assassination of MLK, and the mass deaths at Jonestown. He was pretty convincing on the first two, but the third didn’t make much sense to me because I was so ill-informed. I actually don’t recall if he was saying the Jonestown deaths didn’t happen, or if the deaths were not suicide. I do recall that his great revelation that the drink was Flavor Aide, not Kool Aid. Other than that, i couldn’t fathom why he was focusing on this event.
I stayed up a bit too late last night reading the links to the above article. Oh my, what I missed. Oh my, the lessons in that terrible event 40 years ago. The dangers of suspending critical thinking. The scary cultism of the left. The relationship to the current crop of aging Progressive wise men (and women).
Got to go to work. I’ll read more at lunch today, maybe watch some of the videos.
I have never made finding out about Jonestown into a personal project, but given the reading I’ve done through the years, I’ve come across more than several reports and pieces of the story–not enough to have formed my own tentative picture as to what happened; just enough to be left with the impression that the U.S. national “security” apparatus was involved, and that the story we are left with is, as usual, untrue.
A good book (there are quite a few, but this one is excellent in telling how the tragedy evolved and covering Jones’ involvement in San Francisco politics) is The Road to Jonestown by Jeff Gunn:
https://www.amazon.com/Road-Jonestown-Jones-Peoples-Temple/dp/1476763828/?tag=livifree07-20
In 1975, before the mass deaths, Mark Lane may have been a sympathizer. By 1978, he was an attorney for The Peoples Temple and very vocal in their support. He was one of two lawyers, along with Charles Garry, who was actually present at Jonestown on the day of the slaughter. They escaped into the jungle with the help of a couple of Jones’ henchmen.
Despite one of the henchmen telling the pair that they were going to commit “revolutionary suicide,” and despite the fact that Jones recorded the whole horrendous event, Lane wove U.S. troops into the deaths.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Lane_(author)#Peoples_Temple
I remember admiring Lane’s work in the late 60s. But in Gunn’s book, he comes across as a self-serving loon who saw conspiracy everywhere mostly because it got him attention and money.
NYT article on Lane, written shortly after the massacre:
https://www.nytimes.com/1979/02/04/archives/mark-lane-and-peoples-temple-a-cause-to-back-then-condemn-mark-lane.html
Lane was actually sued for contributing to the deaths at Jonestown.
This new article has some problems, but it’s pretty good on defining how cults operate.
http://thefederalist.com/2018/11/19/recognize-cult-mindset-others/
Main point: It’s the method, not the particular belief, that defines a cult.
On how cults operate: the literature I have read, from Singer’s book to Huxley’s Brave New World Revisited, come right out and state that the reason critical thinking (needed to resist cults) is actually discouraged in our society is because that skill would also make people resistant to sales pitches, the promises of politicians, and other manipulative aspects of our society.
Apparently the people lost to cults are the acceptable collateral damage in the way the system “works.”