Cults: Jonestown, 33rd Anniversary. What's changed?

Sponge · **Posted:** Fri Nov 18, 2011 7:35 am

Many of us in discussions on the cult of scientology at some point may use or come across some variation of the idiom "Don't drink the Kool-Aid". Most of us know what it means and where it comes from but some of our younger lurkers passing through may not.

Today, 18th November 2011 marks the 33rd Anniversary of Jim Jones' People's Temple cult massacre and serves as one stark extreme example of why message boards like this exist and why we must continue to speak out against abusive and dangerous cults.

Here's just a few articles from this week on this topic, and some general comment....

Crime History: Jim Jones leads 913 in mass murder-suicide
By: Scott McCabe 17th Nov 2011
http://washingtonexaminer.com/local/cri ... er-suicide

Quote:

On this day, Nov. 18, in 1978, Peoples Temple cult leader Jim Jones led hundreds of followers in a mass murder-suicide in a remote South American jungle.
Jones, a charismatic Christian preacher who claimed he was the reincarnation of Jesus, Mahatma Gandhi, Buddha and Vladimir Lenin, moved his followers from San Francisco to a retreat in Guyana called Jonestown.

U.S. Rep. Leo J. Ryan visited the compound to investigate complaints that people were being held against their will. Jones' armed brigade killed the congressmen and four others as they tried to leave on a plane.

Jones then ordered a state of emergency in the compound and extolled the "beauty of dying." Cult members who refused to drink a cyanide-laced fruit-flavored concoction were shot.

The final death toll was 913 people, including 276 children.

-- Scott McCabe

An extract in the Huffington Post of Paul Krassner's dialogue with Andrew Breitbart...
Sex, Corruption and the Kool-Aid Massacre
Paul Krassner. Author and Satirist
Huffington Post. 17th Nov 2011
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/paul-kras ... 99767.html

Op-Ed
Daum: Don't 'drink the Kool-Aid'
It's time to ease up on a figure of speech arising from 1978's Jonestown massacre.
By Meghan Daum
LA Times November 17, 2011
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/com ... 333.column
followed by...
Don't 'go postal' over 'drinking the Kool-Aid' [Most commented]
http://opinion.latimes.com/opinionla/20 ... ented.html

Books, Literature, Events
A Wake for 1978: Remembering Harvey Milk, George Moscone, Jonestown
By Paul M. Davis
San Francisco Weekly. Nov. 17 2011
http://blogs.sfweekly.com/exhibitionist ... ing_ha.php
A Wake for 1978 starts at 7 p.m. Friday (Nov. 18) at Double Play, 2401 16th St. (at Bryant), S.F. Admission is free.

--------

The U.S government and their State Department, year after year, thinks that the rest of the world has got it wrong and that "competition" and mere counter-ideas are to be your only weapons against criminally harmful mafia-like cults and fraudulent organisations posing as religions, whilst at the same time allowing government officials to continue to give tacit or even explicit personal endorsement of their activities.
Voice of Russia: Struggle for Religion (26 September 2011)
viewtopic.php?f=11&t=42619
US State Dept July-Dec. 2010 International Report on Religious Freedom (released on Sept. 13, 2011)
viewtopic.php?f=11&t=38545
Inglewood: City Leaders Tout (scientology) group (Nov 2011)
viewtopic.php?p=414722#p414722
City and state officials just brimming with joy over new Church Of Scientology in St. Paul (Oct 2011)
viewtopic.php?p=411819#p411819

Free speech is just great but how does using competing ideas alone help when the game has been rigged?

Meanwhile, although not perfect, some the rest of the world moves on positively....
'Cults in Australia' - CIFS 2011 Conference - FULL VIDEOS (Nov 2011) *NEW*
viewtopic.php?f=11&t=42910
Australian Senate Inquiry Tax Laws Public Benefit Test. Hearings/Report (2010-2011)
viewtopic.php?f=11&t=32610
Call for agency watch on cults (Australia) (April 2011)
viewtopic.php?p=396750#p396750
Speech by Georges Fenech, President of MIVILUDES (France) (Nov 2011)
http://www.cifs.org.au/freedoms.php
Netherlands: Provisions for victims to report on cults (Sept 2011)
viewtopic.php?f=11&t=38335
Belgium adopts bill to make mental abuse by cults punishable (June 2011)
viewtopic.php?f=11&t=35856
France: Scientology convicted of fraud and operating an illegal pharmacy (2009)
viewtopic.php?f=11&t=31507
France: Scientology abandons defence and walks out on fraud trial appeal (Nov 2011)
viewtopic.php?p=415320#p415320
UK Government urges councils to stop giving tax breaks to CoS (Oct 2010)
viewtopic.php?f=11&t=32968
Germany: Ursula Caberta, Office of the Protection of the Constitution. Hamburg Conference.
Criticizing the US Goverment's direct interference in Germany's policy against the scientology cult. (Sept 2011)
viewtopic.php?p=407151#p407151

Feel free to talk about the subject of Jonestown or in the wake of such extremes, talk about the broader issues of government's changing/unchanging attitudes in dealing with cults, or any related wisdom.

Smurf · **Joined:** Tue Oct 19, 2010 4:10 am **Posts:** 2681

Sponge wrote:

Many of us in discussions on the cult of scientology at some point may use or come across some variation of the idiom "Don't drink the Kool-Aid". Most of us know what it means and where it comes from but some of our younger lurkers passing through may not.

Kraft Foods, that makes "Kool Aid" had a major hissy fit for years when that phrase was used in the media, because Kool Aid wasn't present in Jonestown... it was Flavor Aid. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drinking_the_Kool-Aid

Don Carlo · **Joined:** Mon Jul 25, 2005 6:20 am **Posts:** 8095

My Scientology relative called me a few days after Jonestown to ask me if I thought Scientology was a cult. When I said no, I got a little speech about how Scientology was totally different from Jonestown. The speech sounded like it was read off a piece of paper.

Smurf · **Joined:** Tue Oct 19, 2010 4:10 am **Posts:** 2681

Don Carlo wrote:

My Scientology relative called me a few days after Jonestown to ask me if I thought Scientology was a cult. When I said no, I got a little speech about how Scientology was totally different from Jonestown. The speech sounded like it was read off a piece of paper.

There are some major differences between Scientology and the Peoples Temple. And there are alot of cultic similarities.

Rebecca Moore heads the Jonestown Institute at San Diego State University where she is a professor. Rebecca lost 2 sisters & a nephew in Jonestown. Her website provides alot of insight into the history of the People Temple and lessons learned from Jonestown.

http://jonestown.sdsu.edu/

There is a blog on the subject run bu the son of a reporter who did much to expose the truth about Jim Jones before the Jonestown tragedy. He believes Rebecca & her husband are apologists of Jim Jones and his supporters. From reading his blog, he clearly does not like them. But, his blog also provides substantial insight to the People's Temple cult & what happened in Jonestown.

http://jonestownapologistsalert.blogspot.com/

You may have heard that Mark Bunker and several anons attended a recent forum where Rebecca Moore talked about Jonestown in what some considered to be an apologetic tone... leaving Mark & the others walking away disappointed..

http://forums.whyweprotest.net/threads/ ... st-1905101

Cults: Jonestown, 33rd Anniversary. What's changed?

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