That is an atrocious sentence.I agree. (slaps own wrist)
Posted on 03/02/2005 1:38:37 PM PST by dr_pat
Following receipt of a letter from Tim Stoen, a former aide to Jim Jones, in which he apologizes for his behavior years ago when Jones' cult was based in Ukiah, Les Kinsolving, the San Francisco Chronicle reporter who was targeted by the group, offers forgiveness.
For Stoen, who publicly disassociated himself from the cult a year before Jonestown, the Kinsolving letter is his most public admission yet of wrongdoing on behalf of the Peoples Temple.Kinsolving was "deeply moved and very grateful that he wrote me," and characterized Stoen's apology as an act of courage.
"I have asked God to forgive me for my wrongdoing in being a part of Peoples Temple. He has mercifully given me a second chance," Stoen wrote.
Stoen concluded by writing, "I also pray you can forgive me."
Kinsolving said he has.
"Heavens, I'm a Christian. We have no choice but to forgive," he said.
(Excerpt) Read more at 1.pressdemocrat.com ...
That is an atrocious sentence.Dude, the show is over, the set is struck. Nobody cares. You're apologizing for an event that is only a macabre footnote in history. And whatever forgiveness you'll receive ain't gonna come from US.
I used to hear him when I lived in Westminster. It sure sounds like the same guy. And how many "Les Kinsolving"'s can there be?
IJack, the guy lost his wife and child in Jonestown. He's come far enough to ask forgiveness from a guy he persecuted 30 years ago, and admit the other man was right.If Tim Stoen is lurking & reads this, I want to pass on our deepest thanks & appreciation for your apology. Les is right, you are courageous in making it.
I wondered on first reading this article why the Santa Rosa paper was the only one that had this story.les kinsolving
he covers the white house in a red jacket and a bullprod for a microphone.
he'll be back on the air as soon as he's healthy enough.
he's one tough cookie.
WCBM am 680 Baltimore
wcbm.com
leskinsolving.com
It's a long story about the Examiner/Comicle, but it would be hard for them to own up to their part in this because it indicts them of their refusal to stand up to Jones. They did that from 1972 to 1978. Anytime the Temple didn't like a story or a headline, all it took was the threat of a lawsuit and they'd run a retraction. Even one Chronicle city editor was seen in the front pew at a Temple service. Not only that, it would indict too many people like former Mayor Willie Brown, the Burtons, the phony Rev. Cecil Williams plus George Moscone & Harvey Milk, (most of the San Francisco Left) who all supported & were supported by Peoples Temple. Willie Brown once called Jim Jones "a combination of Martin King, Angela Davis, Albert Einstein, and Chairman Mao." Cecil Williams gave him Glide Methodist Chruch's Martin Luther King Jr. Humanitarian Award in 1977.
So, in that respect, the Santa Rosa Press Democrat was the only newspaper that even tried telling the whole account of what happened. The only other person in Bay Area media who helped out was Michael Savage, who had Les on his show back in 1998.
You might want to ping some of the posters from yesterday.
This story also appeared today in John McCaslin's Inside The Beltway.
http://www.washtimes.com/national/inbeltway.htm
I had the same thought. Instead of English it's in newspaperese, where the writer thinks he has to include every piece of data in a single convoluted sentence.
In the late 60s and throughout the 70s, I witnessed the Bay Area and Marin become awash in cultish ideologies and activities and mysticisms. Whether through pop psychology or new ageism. I sought to understand what would lead good people to join these sects and cults. Modern Academia (colleges) weren't so modern even then -- the only place one might learn about these things was through "Abnormal/Alternative Psychology" -- but these didn't involve the study of cults and sects -- even though the area was AWASH in them. All psyche courses only served to heighten the fascination with cults and sects.
It's no different now -- where the colleges do not reflect current times, but rather promote the ideology of cults and sects. And I considered the humanities divisions of colleges as indoctrination programs and centers back then; and I still do.
They've not progressed, they've worsened, coalescing into a "political" identity.
A few snips from my mound of clippings:
SF Examiner, Tues., Nov. 21, 1978
"Jones told Congress of 'devotion' to death"
In a letter to members of Congress more than eight months ago, the Rev. Jim Jones warned that his flock living at the Peoples Temple mission in Guyana was committed to death.
The March 14, 1978 letter was addressed to "all U.S. Senators and members of congress." It complained of alleged bureacratic harassment and ended with this threat:
SF Examiner, Tues, Nov. 21, 1978, Page 3
"Guyana Survivor: 'It was mass murder'
"It wasn't mass suicide-- it was mass murder," said Jim Cobb, a survivor of the weekend atrocities in Guyana.
"Giving children poison is murder," he said on his arrival in San Francisco last night. ...
Cobb was one of the first group of concerned relatives to arrive in San Francisco last night following the events in Guyana.
The party, which flew in on a Delta Airlines' jet after stops in New Orleans and Los Angeles, included Cobb, Claire Bouquet, Nadyne Houstin, Walter Pietela, Bonnie Thielman, Tim Stoen, Mickie Touchetti and Grace Stoen, according to an FBI list.
Cobb and Grace Stoen spoke for the group following an hour and a half debriefing by FBI agents...
Jones hated blacks, said Cobb, who is black.
Cobb said he joined the Peoples Temple cult in 1967 but quit in 1973 "because I thought the place was crazy. Ever since I got out I've been trying to expose what would happen" to those who joined....
Grace Stoen, estranged wife of Tim Stoen, a former member of People's Temple and one time San Francisco deputy district attorney, went to Guyana in January.
A member of the cult for six years before her disenchantment with the group she said she wasn't surprised by the reported suicides in the compound.
Former head counselor for the cult in San Francisco, Redwood Valley and Los Angeles, she said Jones was a "brilliant man who never did anything drastic until the end."
SF Examiner & Chronicle, Nov. 19, 1978
Jim Jones and his Peoples Temple
The Peoples Temple and its founder, the Rev. Jim Jones, have been steeped in controversy since he founded the church in the 1960s in Indianapolis. Ind.
A sophisticated political manipulator wherever he went, Jones brought his temple to San Francisco in 1971 after first moving it to the Redwood Valley, near Ukiah, in the late '60s.
And in seemingly no time Jones became a potentent political power in The City, organizing his troops for a number of liberal political campaigns. He hobnobbed with such officials as Mayor Moscone, who appointed him chairman of the Housing Authority; former San Francisco Sheriff Richard Hongisto; Assemblyman Willie Brown; Oakland Mayor Lionel Wilson, and Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley.
Visitors to the Geary Street church included such prominent politicians as Lt. Govern. Mervyn Dymally, District Attorney Joseph Freitas and Gov. Brown.
...
Temple members also were required to confess in writing to crimes they hadn't committed. Former members who talked to The Examiner in 1977 said they signed confessions to crimes including molesting their own children, stealing large amounts of money, conspiring to kill the president or overthrowing the government.
In addition to beatings reportedly administered by the church hierarchy, former members said they were often forced to spend every waking moment on church activities -- massive letter writing campaigns to important politicians, church jobs, committee activities, care of children and the elderly...
One member said, "They offered to snuff out anyone who tried to cause trouble for the church." ...
Mayor Moscone, who received cash contributions and legions of campaign workers and precinct workers in his mayoral campaign in 1975, appointed Jones to the Housing Authority.
Moscone told The Examiner in July 1977, "I asked (Jones) to be on the Housing Authority because I thought it needed a person both sensitive and realistic. From everything I've seen, he's been a good chairman. He's kept peace and quiet over there and been responsible on important issues."
Assemblyman Willie Brown, for one, beleives Jones had tremendous clout.
"Numbers of people give him clout," he said in 1977. "He is virtually able to produce physically more people than anybody I know."
During his tenure on the Housing Authority, Jones' temple members would pack the meetings, as well as show up at such events as hearings on the expansion of Hastings College of the Law. During the huge demonstration in 1976 at the International Hotel, the temple provided 2,000 of the 5,000 people there.
***
Obviously, your father-in-law, Les Kinsolving provided a great deal of research data that was 'possibly' used to write the stories of the aftermath.
Remembering the Guyana tragedy, Nov 2003
I see via search engine, there's plenty of websites on the Internet concerning the Guyana Massacre.
I saw the lead-up to the massacre. The political gaming. It shocked me to my roots. I had to keep these clippings. At the time pre-Guyana, the leading mantra at colleges was "question authority". I kept these clippings and because one day I might be so blessed to have children. And I wanted them to never forget the perils of "group think" as opposed to rational team-work and unity. I wanted my children to question, at all times, life around them and to always think for themselves and to stand by their convictions. The horror of these beautiful souls dying as they did, was almost more than my young heart could bear, at the time.
Mayor Moscone was not too long later, murdered. The famous "twinkie" defense came into play -- and the full story of what happened and why never emerged in print. And these politicians who endorsed Jim Jones have had a curious hand in not having learned a damned thing from the deaths of over 900 people, former American citizens, in Guyana. Obviously, the voters hadn't either. I've wondered a million times, would the voters have voted differently if THEY had had full, unbiased, unpartisan coverage leading up to the Guyana Massacre. Or even afterwards.
Merv Dymally introduced UN language into the CA Constitution a couple years back. Willie Brown, as speaker of the House of CA for 25(?) years, continued to use crony-ism to satisfy his personal desires and demands. Mayor Bradley? Yah. Where do I begin.
The politicians involved with aiding and abetting this madman really received little to no press coverage. Not before nor after.
So when I hear the MSM and the Campaign Finance Reform dweebs screaming about "stifling" the internet, bloggers, email -- I remember Guyana. I'll wager your father-in-law, Les Kinsolving, does too.
You're absolutely right, none of these people (I'll name some names)--Willie Brown, Jesse Jackson, Cecil Williams, the late Herb Caen, not even Moscone or Milk (who both were elected thanks mostly to the Temple)--have ever been held to account for supporting and enabling Jones, which is why the San Francisco Comicle won't touch this recent story with a ten foot pole. It opens up a huge can of worms, not just for those politicians but for the paper was well. The denial still goes on today, not just from the Chronicle, but from others like the Moore family, who have a website "Alternative Considerations of Peoples Temple." Every anniversary of this event, they are always using whatever coverage they can get to pull the wool over people's eyes. To them: sure it was tragic losing their family members (while they slandered those who warned them about this madman), but they justify the idea the Temple preached (which was pure socialism) as being great.
It seems to me San Francisco gets the elected officials it deserves, especially when the local media (here also in Moron County) continously misleads the citizenry by regurgitating lie after lie from the far Left who run the city. Their ideas are never questioned & we are all supposed to digest it as gospel like good little sheeple. My wife told me of one writer who co-wrote a book after Jonestown & how people kept telling him "don't say anything negative about the Left." It seems the "Question Authority" mantra, just like the so-called "Free Speech Movement" of the sixties all was oxymoronic. Question them but don't dare question us is really more like it.
And yes, you are right -- none of these "DEM" supporters has ever been held to task for their using a death cult to further their own political campaigns and coffers. (And don't even get me going on Cecil Williams and Amos Brown...).
In re the SF Comicle/Exam? I saw the Marin IJ change too. I witnessed the change to PC and "multi-culti" "let's blow more of your money" gnus items.
It seems the "Question Authority" mantra, just like the so-called "Free Speech Movement" of the sixties all was oxymoronic. Question them but don't dare question us is really more like it.
Synanon, EST, Warner Erhart, I'm Okay, You're Okay, the "swinging marriage", hot tubs, peacock feathers, smoking dope with highschool teachers out on the football field, Martha Graham, lentil soup (Save the Planet); recycling, The Pill, backpacking, organic shrooms -- I've seen it all. The Before, and the After.
The Socialists descended upon Marin County like a nuclear cloud of locusts. The "moral relativity" mantra. The stupid, obnoxious "rap" dialogues taking place in schools and in private homes where "interactive dialoging" was a social activity.
The ghosts of truth, long buried alive, in San Francisco and Marin, yet walk the streets. Homeless people can be seen chatting with them.
I do hope Les is feeling better, is patient with his recovery. And that he knows I miss him, and I appreciate him.
Thanks again for your best wishes for Les. He's doing much better and is planning to be on the air sometime soon.
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